As it goes for me, crafting components for sale, never did end well… i had a higher rate of failed auctions on commonly crafted stuff, like the ones you’ve listed, than on stuff with N/A. That’s why the advice to the OP to find his own niche in the game.
Don’t take it personal, the market is simply dynamic. And the more people start crafting something, the harder it will be to sell it + lower MU. It is what it is.
Well, your experience will vary, ofc.
There are times you could do a 400 click run on Basic Sheet Metal only to realize once you tally your returns that you’ll have to sell them at a loss. That’s just the way the fluctuations in the game are designed and it sucks but it happens all the time. But hey, at least you are selling them and moving on. If you do things that have no volume, it might take a few weeks or months to offload, before you can get that ped back and move on to the next thing.
Axiom #1 still holds true here in this case, the only thing that has ever proven viable in the long-term is quantity crafting. And there is a reason I’ve worded it this way. You need to make a lot of something in order to get that mean avg result. Once you get that mean, you start to see the true cost for things and that’s when you actually start to rise above and are able to make stuff for a profit anytime you like, because now you know. All of the best crafters in the game are at that point, they know, it’s no longer a guessing game.
So the advice about volume has more to it than meets the eye at first. Volume will eventually result in experience and knowledge. That’s another reason why it’s so important.
I’ve always extrapolated what the true costs are going to be without having to actually run that super large amount of clicks. Worked out just fine. I very rarely had to play the guessing game.
Hmmm, well… there’s a lot of contradictions here, where to start…
You just stated above that component crafting did not work out for you. If you were able to predict the outcome, why didn’t it work out?
Some months ago, we had a chat in the game and you told me the same about Tech Gizmo crafting, you said it didn’t end well for you, implying that you had big losses. Why not? I mean if you could predict the outcome or returns, why didn’t it end well?
You also told me, last time we spoke in game, that you were flat broke. How could this be if you have ALWAYS been able to extrapolate the cost and had access to what things sold for via market history? It doesn’t make sense.
If you are (always) have been able to make money with crafting, why are you flat broke?
:scratch2:
the monria daily is the easiest way to create money and gain skills for basically free. i “lose” about 2-3 ped per day on the inventory value but gain 0.75 ped engineering skill which is worth an easy 1000% above ESI value resulting in a minimum of 4 ped profit per day. its only 120 ped per months but earning an easy 120 ped a months is probably more than 95% of the playerbase does… as they are losing money in general.
There’s not, you’re just mixing things which don’t belong together.
Fyi: the stuff that ended badly, was stuff i predicted to end badly, but where you, Darth Revan and Evey kept insisting it would be good, to my regret, i let myself get talked into bad stuff by you folks a few times.
back to original topic. Pricing and what you should make is dynamic but in general you want to make things that have a sell MU of at least 2x of the input MU, simply cause you get around 50% of the end product.
The thing is, repair skilling HAD it’s place, like you mentioned as well as others that you didn’t. But for someone starting out today, it is not sound advice to give. No one should start out their crafting career in armor/tools/enhancers/furniture, that’s for more experienced crafters so that you don’t break your wallet (just like other areas).
If you want to raise crafting skills in specific fields (like ones that don’t have tech gizmo’s), then sure it could help, but for a new crafter, they should not focus on these fields.
Your advice on the volume of craft’s is spot on for a new crafter. Sure there are some other things you will learn as you go, but starting out that is what should be taught. Go for the things that have a high volume, yes there will be more people selling those as well, but thats all part of the demand & supply.
But you will not have problems selling what you craft, unlike the ones that have slim to no sales volume.
I would add to this to regularly check the orders tab, sometimes you can find someone who is actually paying a decent price (Auktuma comes to mind) for components and not trying to just trying to rip you off.
I have made many profitable component runs with quick turn around on these. However do note that most of the orders are lower than what you can usually sell for so you have to have a little bit of luck with timing on this.
But it doesn’t hurt to check while doing a crafting run as looking doesn’t cost you anything when you are stuck at a terminal.
It doesn’t surprise me that you disagree, we don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things with crafting. That comes down to experience and what we were taught though.
Sure if you have a large bankroll from the get go, anything is possible. If you have a small bankroll, then hunting/mining is better to start out in. Besides from learning how the game works, understanding what people need and are looking for as they progress is one of the key areas.
You will understand what weapons people actually use as they level up, whether they use amps or not and why, what mobs they usually hunt and what armors/plates they are after. What are they looking for when they browse shops. The list goes on.
Sure you can learn this the hard way, but it is much easier and you learn more by going through these steps as well. Plus you do gain some skills for crafting (weapons as an example).
You don’t need to do this to level 100, but its experience you won’t get elsewhere so going through some levels helps.
Please just stop and don’t give any more details, we don’t need another person complaining about crafting on this forum.
@OP - if you go read through the forum for crafting threads, you will know what i am talking about here.
Yes it is a waste of time if you already have that unlocked. Start looking at what components to craft, look at MU’s of ingredients, where you can get them from that might be cheaper than AH. Look at orders and what is listed and what you could make a listing for yourself, as its a good way to get ingredients for your own runs while you are logged off.
Look at what sells well in terms of weapons/amp’s/armor’s and other crafted gear and look at the components used in those. Perhaps you can supply those components to other crafters who make those weapons/amps themselves, etc. Many don’t have time to craft the smaller components and will pay someone else for them.
Do your research, read lots, ask lots of questions to different people. Look through the trade channel in game to see what people are selling and buying. Take note of what increases/decreases around events. Look at the AH for other planets, perhaps you can find an area to capatilise on one of them.
Last piece of advice (before Alukat turns this thread into another one of his complaints), track your runs!!!
Track TT input and output and your MU for each, what did you buy and what did you source yourself, how many clicks did you do on that run, what your return is (record both TT return and with MU), what you sell things for, what BP’s you gained, what skills you gained, what globals you got, what your success rate was, what your failure rate was.
Track everything you do if you are serious about crafting. It will open your eyes as to what really goes on. You will have your own data where you can see what worked and what didn’t, your up’s and down’s…then learn from this.
Over time you will see things change as you progress, you will be able to experiment and see how that changes things. When a new change from MA happens, you will notice it.
Then hopefully you won’t become another victim to the crafting game and you will be able to share your own advice on this forum.
This is really great stuff! I wish I had been given this information back we hen I was seriously active in EU! I would have saved myself an awful lot of useless and wasted clicks, doing nothing but wasting my hard earned PEDs for no value!
Kudos for this work, mate!
i haven’t been taught anything, i learned everything and became a successful crafter all by myself 
i started my crafting career with a bankroll of 100-150 PED
Still pointing old and outdated stuff i see. MA has adressed the TT-return crafting bug already.
However, i still think it’s very silly game design to have high success rate volatility in a game with L BPs.
Really helpful thank you.
Jesus Christ that post needs to be stickied for everyone wanting to get into crafting.
Thanks again Legends!
nvm was just a test
Judging by the number of crying posts from you, not even you consider yourself successful, not just … basically the rest of the people reading this forum.
Great post by @Legends, no big secrets just basic common sense that everyone needs reminded once in a while, thank you.
Great advise @Legends. Will keep what you said in mind.