Weaponsmith Archive
Thread: worth it to start a WS career in an old server ?
and another question: how fun is that profession ?
I'm also master smuggler, planning to keep it
personally i would say no.
several of the resources need to make the weapons that really sell hasn't spawned for over or more months, ofcourse you can buy some if you are extremely lucky and and very wealthy, i've been offered Alantium Carbonite Ore once, at a rate of 2k per unit.
about how fun it is, hmm good question, i think i've sold 25 weapons in the last 3 weeks, 20 of my vendors, 5 special orders.
finding costumers is very hard, even if you advertise, most people still recommend the old WSs to their friends if they need a weapon.
but it is very enjoyable when a costumer sends you a tell or mail about how much they love your work, but that generally never happens.
Can you compete? That depends on your perspective. Are you happy just covering your costs? I bet you can compete. Can you go toe-to-toe? No, not immidiately. Can you go toe-to-toe in seven months? Likely. The masters got where they are in seven months. You can, too. The spawns will come. Until then, you have the challenge of finding a niche in the market and making money off of it. The big masters will rarely go for the niches, as they don't offer enough reward for the investment. From there, you build.
From my reading of the boards, weaponsmithing is more than resources. It's
- gated resourses
- knowing how resources assemble
- skill tapes
- customer base
- resource resupply stream
- a good name
- cost management
The good news is that five of those seven things aren't exclusive! You can do them right now. Also, those items apply to all crafting professions, and not just smiths. As a Doc, I have to juggle the same things.
build your weapon shop near starting towns.there are always new people coming to the server.they do a search,see your close to them and fairly cheap.then you will get a customer loyalty base from their start.
i offer free starting weapons to most new people that come and talk to me nicely,sure ill pop out a DL20 for ya or a DL44.that kind of kindness gets people to return to you.
dont be afraid to run around to other smiths on your planet and write down their prices.it helps you guage how much to charge when your new.
try to make friends with an established weaponsmith,their wisdom on the matter is invaluable.i cant express how much a weaponsmith(he knows who he is)helped me out.and take critisism from them seriously,they know what they're talking about.dont take any advice personal.
i just rescently made master on Ahazi,its a fairly old server and quite a few established smiths.but im doing Ok and people know me for my wild clothes i wear.do things that make you stand out in a crowd (not spamming).talk to people at shuttle ports and make friends.
i hope this helps.it helped me alot.
YamadaMan wrote:
hi, I'm wondering if It could be viable to start a WS career on eclipse, there are a few "high end" WS there already so I'm wondering if I ever could compete with those (12 exp points, krayt suppliers etc...).
and another question: how fun is that profession ?
I'm also master smuggler, planning to keep it
Depends on whether youre looking to get rich quick or are wanting to make a career or weaponsmithing. 
I opened my shop on Sunrunner about 4 or 5 months after the game was released so was behind those who started in the beginning. Now, after being in business about 6 months Im developing better and better weapons that are starting to compete with the older weaponsmiths, but its still a struggle tearing customers away from the old timers and educating them that weaponsmithing is not voodoo and magic (as many of the old timers like them to believe) but that it is a skill dependent on resources and knowledge of weaopns.
If you want to be a succesful weaponsmith competing with the best on your server, you have to educate yourself not just on one type of weapon like if you were in a combat class, but in ALL types of weapons, or at least the types you are specializing in. Because the sad fact is, your customers for the most part will be totally and utterly IGNORANT about what makes a good weapon.
So if you have the patience to educate yourself and the patience to be able to educate your customers, you can break into the business. Just dont expect it to happen over night.
You can. But its going to come down to what your goal is. If you want to go head to head with the establihed 12 point smiths, its going to take awhile. But, there is typically a market that they don't do alot with.
I've actually started making some decent money with my WS on Tempest by selling weapons on the bazaar. FWG5s, stun batons, gaffi sticks, and power hammers(2 types.) But, I also charge much below the normal cost of the weapons on a WS vendor. I put my name and shop location in the description and also a note letting them know that I do custom orders.
Here's how you do it.
Decide whether you are going to "solo" it, or get a guild to back you. If you are going to solo it, get the names of all the specific resource types weaponsmith needs (Actually, at the very least, do it in this order : Advanced Power Handlers, Advanced Sword Cores, Advanced Reinforcement Cores, and then specifics for weapons you want to make). You're going to need a fair sized harvester fleet. Just harvest resources for a few months, and when you feel you have enough, spring out!
If you get a good guild backing you, you won't have to think twice about resources. Just let a "I need _____" loose in guild-chat, and in less than a week you'll have some offered to your vendor. 'Course, you've got to make plenty of free weapons for your guild, but that's half the fun, you know?
I was wondering, is it a good idea to level the skill tree without grinding ? I mean will I learn things if I actually "play" the profession while leveling (like for bio engineer for example), or should I "grind" it to master then start to learn ?
cause I enjoy leveling by playing, and I definately don't like to grind, but is it an advantage to level the tree slowly or no ?
Here's what I recommend doing, if you want to "learn as you go" : Get up to Firearms 1 or 2. Build whatever guns you can, just to see what components go into what kinda weapons.
After you are comfortable with the way things work (IE: What things are optional, what the pros and cons of optional equipment are, what things use power handlers and blaster barrels over projectile feed mechanisms and projectile barrels, etc)
YamadaMan wrote:
okay, it helps
I was wondering, is it a good idea to level the skill tree without grinding ? I mean will I learn things if I actually "play" the profession while leveling (like for bio engineer for example), or should I "grind" it to master then start to learn ?
cause I enjoy leveling by playing, and I definately don't like to grind, but is it an advantage to level the tree slowly or no ?
My 2 cents: you'll want to get firearms 1 (maybe 2), then grind up a couple levels of techniques too before you try playing around much. It's very, very discouraging trying to make anything without any techniques boxes...no experimentation points to speak of and you fail on every attempt...not very fun...
Also, I would say that if it tickles your fancy, go for it. People always hold the resources thing over your head when you look to get into something, but on Ahazi there has been this recent mass spawning of really good advanced component and weapon resources (and some junk, but patients is a friend) that really just springboarded me to making pretty wild stuff. It does happen sometimes, and when it does the people that don't know what stuff is worth and just dump it at 3CpU on bazaar are your best friends.
Another thing that gives you a possible in is that established master WS often get a little...greedy, shall we say... I'm not saying all (so take a breath guys), but I'm sure everyone knows what I mean. This makes it possible to sell things at a significantly cheaper price, and still keep a workable profit margin. This may just be an Ahazi thing though, since prices make it seem like the 90210 of the servers...