Weaponsmith Archive
Thread: State of the Business
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dsurfman
Tue Nov 23, 2004 2:30 pm
#1
This thread is related to the money making aspect of Weaponsmith only. As well love the profession or we wouldnt still be doing it, let us try and not do the "I love WS no matter the money."
Considering recent publishes *since pub 8*, expansions, and general period of gameplay I have seen a huge decline in the profit I can make as a weaponsmith. With the rising cost of quality materials, ie. krayt tissue, exceptional yellow cubes, DE-10 barrels, and given the fact I have a huge store of berserker parts waiting to be made it is becoming difficult to make a considerable living doing what I do.
I would like to know if this is true on your system as well. On Tarquinas the average price of krayt, and i mean BASE krayt, is around 4 million for 7 of the samer serial. I regard this as true for the majority of high end crafting loot. I have my main toon as a MWS and my alt. as a master Artisan. As weaponsmith we are experiencing a problem with this because everyone with quality materials thinks they can charge an astronomical price for them, not realizing as a weaponsmith we find it difficult to sell a weapon made with base stats "power" loot. This problem came to fruitation for me last month when i purchased 6 krayt tissues that were 49/67 -.6 for 5 million. They turned out some pretty awsome ABPHs. with my max damage near 100. Well I used 3 for a Laser Carbine for myself. Figured I would drop the other two into a DE-10 and be able to make at least 60% of my money back....WRONG. Spent 5 mil got 800k back. I bought myself a Krayt Laser Carbine that I crafted for 4.2 million. Talk about egg on my face. But I love the carbine so that is okay. It seems that even in the auctions you can only sell weapons if they are of the "exceptional power loot". Luckily for me, as for most MWS I am sure, I have a bargain with my guildmates. Whatever they loot I make whatever they want with it for a portion of hte loot. Works well. For example had a buddy loot 9 acklay bones that were 60/95 and -.2 for speed. I made him seven weapons I took two of the bones to use at my discretion (SP). Made 1.6 mil off of an acklay stun, and an acklay Ph with out spending a dime. Same goes for schematics in my guild. They get one weapon for one schematic. ONE TIME USE NOT INCLUDED.
Another component to examine. The price of CAs...
At one time you could get Wpn Exp. for 1 mil per point. I could handle that. it was high, but I am okay with that. Now yo uare looking at 5 and 6 mil for a +2 Wpn Exp. tape...That I can no longer stand for. I am sure that prices are similar on other servers. Dont need to say much more on this point.
So in order to make a considerable profit we either need to...well havent quite figured that out. Camping a store on the outer rim of Coronet seems wasteful now there are too many shops there as it is. i like to keep the business in my city. Also as server population start to recede we see a recessetion in our economy...
The turn around...It is time for us to band together and boycott purchasing loot, and wpn exp tapes. If all of us do not do this then prices will remain high, and we will continue to see the short end of the stick...We need to do this before the combat upgrade, we need to remind our servers we are the makers of war, not the power PvPers. Let them burn out their pre-nerf weapons...Let them burn out their power weapons past repair. Let them realize the days of CDEF power battles can return. Stand up, be counted. Do not participate in creating our own weapon recession. United we will bring prosperity and money back into the pockets of weaponsmiths everywhere...
I am Celehorn and I sponsered this message...
Scorpy_LF
Tue Nov 23, 2004 2:37 pm
#2
My response to the price of loot... I don't buy it unless it is reasonable. The only time I make weapons from loot, for sale on my vendors that is, is Geo Loot my guildmates drop off for me. Other than that, I only use what the customer provides to have in their custom made weapons. As for the cost of SEA's, I've been a weaponsmith since March of last spring and I am still a 10-point Weaponsmith. Sure the extra two points of experimentation would be nice, but is not completely required. I have weapons that compare to any 12-point smith on my server (Corbantis), and sell them for prices that most any one can afford.
ShugFlurry
Tue Nov 23, 2004 2:41 pm
#3
ATM I can't find anything to enhance weapons with cept cheap stuff off the bazaar. I was offered 57 tissues -0.7 speed for 1 mil each
I bought 3 tissues, 60 damage for 600k when I was a pistoleer for a de-10. I ended up making the de-10 myself sold it for 6mil. ATM the steady sellers have been enhanced VKs, using +20 motors or so. Krayt stuff has blown everything out of proportion, it use to be 100k/base tissue now its about 300k
Only thing I can say is buy from the bazaar, they have some awesome stuff there for 6k. Imp Form Fitted stocks etc. Lately though I have found that the money I have is earned via selling resources. Not a bad thing but only selling what I have spare so I am probs making a loss on WS. 
With the geo nerf/fix I have been unable to find any cubes whatsoever
So I can't make scythes atm. Promised a guy a nice scythe in return for a jetpack base (long story). So this is gonna take a hit on me but it's worth it. Everything is going up in price with the solo group nerf I think, people still want the same money so are increasing prices for loot. 
Bad things happening IMO.
With the geo nerf/fix I have been unable to find any cubes whatsoever
Bad things happening IMO.
stanleycat
Tue Nov 23, 2004 2:54 pm
#4
My view from Ahazi....
1. Your server prices seem way out of line with ours I am afraid - base krayt tissues are 100k and arent moving generally - they go for more on auction (but doesnt everything). Nicer tissues are of course higher, the real nice ones (in sets of 3, surprise surprise) go for significant amounts - say 5mill for 90's. Base Acklay is 50-150k a pop. Ws tapes are still about 1mill per point, but are higher for +3 and above, say 1.5 mill. Assembly go for 200 - 500k a point (very roughly). De10 barrels white are 1mill and yellow 2mill (hilarious for an extra -0.1 speed maybe)
2. Yes the market has seen a big turndown as everyone is in space - but good stuff. reasonably priced still sells. I have really noticed less orders from my guildies as a true sign of this. And the powergamers are splitting their time between swg and h2 and Eq2 - so much less gameplay = much less orders.
3. Big pickup in people asking me for 'real nice ryyk blades' or a good e11 carbine - so the new influx of players has started. It will be a while until they are knowledgable customers
4. Grenades - i have so many orders, i have sold my next two factory runs - i cant be arsed to increase output of these as its A) Boring, B) brainless, C) I have more interesting things to do
5. Boycotting - it just wont work - supply and demand and the free marketjust mean that people will spend their cash on those CA's - lets face it - we all wanted to get that extra point or two of exp (i now have 11 which suits me fine - extra condition is all i now need).
I hope this information is useful in formulating your plan for your (way overpriced) server. I dont have any real conclusions for you, other than ride it out, wait for the combat revamp which will either make our jobs even more interesting, or make us all give up...... i am not convinced either way (and I dont think Logix was either)
Good luck.....
smork
Tue Nov 23, 2004 3:29 pm
#5
Wow tissue on your server is really expensive! On WH it was around 100k-150k for base, lately its crept up some because of some oddball buyouts by other WS. Whats really disgusting is the price of Acklay bones on WH. Mediocre bones are going well into the 3+ million range (stuff I used to pay less than 500k for).
Ybagi
Tue Nov 23, 2004 3:50 pm
#6
Scorpy_LF wrote:
My response to the price of loot... I don't buy it unless it is reasonable.
Exactly, if you bid in an auction offer a fair price and be done with it, don't get in a bidding war, it will only drive the price up for this and future auctions.
Stemman-Intrepid
Fri Nov 26, 2004 9:32 pm
#7
well... this is what i do...
i have one account... and every server that one account can have, i have, and i have acess to all of their lots except 2 of them... so i make them all inter-server lot trades... i got some 35 or 45 harvestors... i have a deal with a local recources seller, i sell him ANY recource i mine, 2CPU, and in turn he turns around and sells it for above 2CPU... i rake in about 2-5 million a week, while only spending about 700-1.1 million on maintainting them...
personally, i LOVE dealing with loot, and making nice weapons and the such, personally, weaponsmith is a hobbie for me, i dont make any money on it... my resource sales are what i make money on to balance everything else out
after i went out and bought nice resources, a +10 WS exp tape, loot, etc... you really break even, or barely make profit... and a lot of times you lose money in a lot of your transactions...
if you want to make profit... you are in the wrong profession, in my humble opinion... if you are looking for more money, as in more sales, make every weapon you can make, write the stats down on a paper, and make a post on your server's galaxy trade, with the WP of your shop, and all of your wares, on regular weapons, us weaponsmiths make plenty enough money...
there is really not much you can do to lower the price of inflated loot prices, except dont buy them... and one or two or a dozen Weaponsmiths not buying loot wont change anything... and i would like to tell you... your server's loot is definately over priced, intrepid 50-125k per base tissue...
i however agree 100% with you, loot is horrible highly priced!!
Stemman INC Weapons also has your endorsement!
-Stemman
Stemman-Intrepid
Fri Nov 26, 2004 9:40 pm
#8
just FWI, i did the calucations, using heavy harvestors, and assuming that i buy/collect power at about 2cpu...
at 50% my break even sale is 0.63CPU... And 85% of the time i can get a spawn of 50% or higher with my harvestors...
so at selling at 2cpu... thats 1.35ishCPU PURE profit... it always helps balance out the dumb loot prices!
-Stemman
Trean
Fri Nov 26, 2004 9:52 pm
#9
If you want to see a screwed economy, visit Starsider
. It is one of the best server community, but the economy is a mess.
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