Is there something I missed or is crafting just rubbish. With the creds I get by gathering and doing missions I get the value of a scingle crafted item from the GTN. And I do not have to craft 20 green, 20 blue and 1 purple one to get the right result combination. So. I get the item I want + creds for the not-wasted mats + creds for the not-leveled skill + the creds for the missions I did while other crafted stuff. I could even get Consumables frmo the market if I wanted to!

 

Is there anything, except the "for the lulz" I have missed? (Don't get me wrong, almost all my character have a crafting profession. I only realized this on my attempt of a Jedi, who soon was richer than my 55. Due to selling rather worthless mats on then GTN. And NOT using them.

Depends.

 

Crafting can return crits, which depending on the type of item (mods vs wearable) provides either an extra mat free copy or an augment slot.

 

Craft a bunch of 31 armorings that use mats worth hundreds of thousands of credits and get a few crits, and you can end up with a substantial profit. It can also be a way to gear yourself, alts and companions for free by trading crafted for mats and / or selling crafted items at mat cost while keeping the crits.

 

That said, I find for many markets it isn't worth crafting over just selling mats, especially when the only profit is in crits (the items sell for less than the mats and don't move fast or in significant volumes).

Is there something I missed or is crafting just rubbish. With the creds I get by gathering and doing missions I get the value of a scingle crafted item from the GTN. And I do not have to craft 20 green, 20 blue and 1 purple one to get the right result combination. So. I get the item I want + creds for the not-wasted mats + creds for the not-leveled skill + the creds for the missions I did while other crafted stuff. I could even get Consumables frmo the market if I wanted to!

 

Is there anything, except the "for the lulz" I have missed? (Don't get me wrong, almost all my character have a crafting profession. I only realized this on my attempt of a Jedi, who soon was richer than my 55. Due to selling rather worthless mats on then GTN. And NOT using them.

 

Crafting is an investment. If you want quick returns then you are correct that gathering and missions are a good source of income. But if you look more long term, crafting is the better source of income.

 

ALL of what I craft is significantly profitable without crits (I make sure by periodically checking materials' values on the GTN). And without trying very hard, I generate several million credits a week selling stuff from all the crafting skills.

 

There is also a self-sufficiency factor. Because I have all the crew skills (maxed out), I can create whatever I want for less than what it would cost to buy off the GTN. All it takes is time, and I plan ahead often enough that time is not a factor (I usually have whatever I want waiting for me when I can use it).

 

Lastly, especially while leveling, one does not need the best of the best. This correlates two factors:

1. One does not need purple quality while leveling; blue quality is often more than enough
   
2. One does not need "optimal" stats; Sure you want the Overkill (Power) blue, but if you get the Critical blue that's good enough for leveling.
   

 

edit: Something else that just dawned on me: who do you think buys all those materials? Crafters. Without crafters you have no market to sell your materials to. So obviously, crafting is not a complete waste of time and credits otherwise no one would do it.

Edited March 21, 2014 by psandak

I played the market like that for a while. I often think it might be better to return to it, too.

 

Crafting takes time. The additional time it takes me over and above selling the raw materials has to be worth it. These days, I don't know that it is.

 

Most things that I make might get me ~10% over materials sale value. Is it really worth it to spend time crafting, organizing, posting, re-posting an augment at a time? Breaking stacks of augmentation kits or stims or whatever to post?

 

I dunno. Strongly considering stopping making stuff. I might make a bit less money, but I'll have more time. Then again, if I just spin stacks of raw materials into GTN more often because I'm not using them to craft, I might make more money.

Crafting has its uses.

 

If you have crafters, you can gear new toons on the cheap as well as sell mods on the GTN for other leveling toons who do not craft.

 

Good money can be made on end-game hilts/barrels and certain gear like Relics even if you are buying the end game mats like EEE's and MMG's.

 

Consumables are easier and cheaper to come buy if you craft them yourself.

 

But once you have crafters, gathering becomes king. I have hit over 5 million credits at level 51 by selling mats and unneeded loot and using planetary comms and loot/reward pieces to gear while leveling.

 

Like any business, the key is finding an under supplied niche and moving on when it is over supplied.

my last 3 alts only have gathering,some combo of slicing,salvage,bio,archology.

 

on some planets the fields are full of items,Belsavis for example has a area that you can loop until you get tired and get lots of mats,on Oricon the beast from the dark energy crystal I have seen 3-4 bodies laying around for gathering.

for salvage drummond Kass the droid tunnels are great too.I use these alt to fuel my main crafters. saves me credits

Personally, I always like crafting because I'm way too damn OCD to depend on the GTN. There are times when I absolutely MUST have all purple gear for my lvl 19 trooper alt.

 

What makes it even funnier is that I rarely craft all the mods ahead of time, but will stop leveling the specific alt in question for a night while I grind out all the purple mods, then finally gear him up the next day. I'll also spend tens of thousands of credits (or more) buying the specific purple crafting materials I need because I don't happen to have them on hand.

 

So... in the end, I find I've wasted a ton of time and credits on mods that provide a negligible bonus over the ones I easily could have gotten from the modification vendors with the planetary comms that I end up maxing out anyways. Plus, given the time I spend doing all that, if I'd just gotten the mods with planetary comms, I would likely have been 2-3 levels further ahead anyway.

 

But... having said all that, I'm kinda starting to lose interest in SWTOR, so I find my interest in silly things like creating mods now.

As long as ur online ur should try to keep the max nr of companions u have available run missions(note i would not bother with constant relogging on alts i simply mean the companions of the char ur currently on) for mats u have to spend money on the "now" to send them to work but it pays off later

"U gotta spend money to make money"

It's all about crafting.

 

Gatherers always talk about how easy it is to farm mats from planets and what areas to get the most nodes.

 

Really? You expect me to spend all my game time wandering old planets hacking nodes? I've got better things to do with my time.

 

I can buy the gear you spent hours gathering in 30 seconds from the GTN. Set my companions to craft and logoff to get some sleep. In the morning I'll sell that gear for 5-10 times what I paid you in materials, my time spent is maybe 30mins tops. And I neverhad to leave my ship to do it, I just ran warzones and flashpoints making additional money while credits rolled in.

 

People brag they made 4 million gathering but never tell you how many mind numbing hours they wandered old planets to get that. If I put in 30 mins a night, 5 days a week; I can make about a million a week on average. And I don't have to "invest millions RE'ing schematics". I'm selling blue mid level gear that cost 350 for the schematic, and about 4 green items reverse engineered for the blue schematic.

 

My main play is PvP. The millions I make a month is a 10-30min a day side job that runs while I do fun things.

I am trying both. Some of my characters will craft and outfit everyone more junior, and some will supply and/or sell. I buy materials on GTN when they are less expensive than from the missions. I dunno, I like doing both, and since I do not play PvP, I could never manage to accumulate enough planetary commendations to keep all the blasted adaptable gear armored, modded, barreled, hilted and all that when you go over 6 pieces each char and companion. On one of my characters I am planning to just buy blue items every 2 to 4 levels + pass down from the unused drop offs (since I am forever overlevelled and can't use the items I pick are several levels behind). But either way is exhausting. I am to the point of dreading each level up. Edited March 28, 2014 by DomiSotto

It's all about crafting.

 

Gatherers always talk about how easy it is to farm mats from planets and what areas to get the most nodes.

 

Really? You expect me to spend all my game time wandering old planets hacking nodes? I've got better things to do with my time.

 

I can buy the gear you spent hours gathering in 30 seconds from the GTN. Set my companions to craft and logoff to get some sleep. In the morning I'll sell that gear for 5-10 times what I paid you in materials, my time spent is maybe 30mins tops. And I neverhad to leave my ship to do it, I just ran warzones and flashpoints making additional money while credits rolled in.

 

People brag they made 4 million gathering but never tell you how many mind numbing hours they wandered old planets to get that. If I put in 30 mins a night, 5 days a week; I can make about a million a week on average. And I don't have to "invest millions RE'ing schematics". I'm selling blue mid level gear that cost 350 for the schematic, and about 4 green items reverse engineered for the blue schematic.

 

My main play is PvP. The millions I make a month is a 10-30min a day side job that runs while I do fun things.

 

You're doing it wrong.

 

There are much, much better ways to gather materials than "wandering for hours". And while you make your million a week crafting I can make that plus many more millions gathering materials for GTN sales AND crafting items.

 

What it boils down to is willingness. Money isn't going to just rain down on you without effort and the more effort you are willing to put in the more you will earn.

 

Since your main play is PvP you don't have much of a need for credits unless you want to buy CM items from the GTN to customize your toon as the more important gear is obtained through ranked comms.

 

The key, as usual, is doing research. You have to know where to farm materials, which materials are worth farming...without that knowledge you are gambling that your time is being well spent.

I am trying both. Some of my characters will craft and outfit everyone more junior, and some will supply and/or sell. I buy materials on GTN when they are less expensive than from the missions. I dunno, I like doing both, and since I do not play PvP, I could never manage to accumulate enough planetary commendations to keep all the blasted adaptable gear armored, modded, barreled, hilted and all that when you go over 6 pieces each char and companion. On one of my characters I am planning to just buy blue items every 2 to 4 levels + pass down from the unused drop offs (since I am forever overlevelled and can't use the items I pick are several levels behind). But either way is exhausting. I am to the point of dreading each level up.

 

Yeah, this is tough. I've found the best way to keep gear current is to do your FP daily every day and to go back and run old Heroics for the planetary commendations. Running all of the Heroics from Coruscant to Nar Shaddaa you can get 37 commendations and by the time you need these they should be gray to you so it's a quick run through for commendations. As you gray out a planets Heroics you can add them to your commendation runs. Otherwise, I used blue and green loot drops to keep current when comms were in short supply and checked the GTN for cheap mods.

 

Also, don't forget the mod vendors that sell green mods on each planet. Those mods are good enough for you to level with, especially if you are over leveling planets.

Well, from experience, just gathering materials to sell is not always viable, since most crafters tend to manipulate the GTN economy to benefit them, they make sure crafting materials are as cheap as possible, but their crafted items are as high priced as possible, even though the cost of crafting the item being sold is next to nothing compared to the price set.

 

Which is why i never bother to sell anything below purple quality, that is the only item they tend to be unable to manipulate the price of, cause of its rarity.

Well, from experience, just gathering materials to sell is not always viable, since most crafters tend to manipulate the GTN economy to benefit them, they make sure crafting materials are as cheap as possible, but their crafted items are as high priced as possible, even though the cost of crafting the item being sold is next to nothing compared to the price set.

 

Which is why i never bother to sell anything below purple quality, that is the only item they tend to be unable to manipulate the price of, cause of its rarity.

 

The key is to ride the market like a surfer catching a big wave, getting off before you crash into the beach.

 

Materials prices often rise and fall as people try to get into the market to earn a few credits and the inevitable under cutting begins. If you set the trend you will earn big credits and if you keep moving you will always be in front of the wave and not paddling to catch up.

 

For example, while looking for a particular widget you notice that there aren't very many of them available (or ideally, none available at all) and you decide to start making said widget and selling them on the GTN. Because you are currently the sole supplier, you start making mad bank.

 

Then the GTN vultures start to circle. They see you with that big fat kill and decide they want a piece. They start making the same widget. The smart ones sell at the price you've set, the dumb ones start the price dropping as they try to be the lowest price on the list.

 

You, being smart, stop making said widgets and instead start looking (or smarter, had already been looking) for your next score.

 

This strategy is simple and works for materials and crafted goods. It won't do you any good to post the 200th item of a particular type for sale, you've always got to be looking for the under served market.

The key is to ride the market like a surfer catching a big wave, getting off before you crash into the beach.

 

Materials prices often rise and fall as people try to get into the market to earn a few credits and the inevitable under cutting begins. If you set the trend you will earn big credits and if you keep moving you will always be in front of the wave and not paddling to catch up.

 

For example, while looking for a particular widget you notice that there aren't very many of them available (or ideally, none available at all) and you decide to start making said widget and selling them on the GTN. Because you are currently the sole supplier, you start making mad bank.

 

Then the GTN vultures start to circle. They see you with that big fat kill and decide they want a piece. They start making the same widget. The smart ones sell at the price you've set, the dumb ones start the price dropping as they try to be the lowest price on the list.

 

You, being smart, stop making said widgets and instead start looking (or smarter, had already been looking) for your next score.

 

This strategy is simple and works for materials and crafted goods. It won't do you any good to post the 200th item of a particular type for sale, you've always got to be looking for the under served market.

 

Or, as most economists would call this, "Supply and Demand." Economics 101.

 

Very well said, though. Of course, 99% of most sellers have no clue what this means.

Or, as most economists would call this, "Supply and Demand." Economics 101.

 

Very well said, though. Of course, 99% of most sellers have no clue what this means.

 

But it is amazing how few people really understand it.

 

Here is another trick:

 

Let's say you are selling your widget for 80k credits and some jackanapes decide to jump in and start pumping out the same widget and selling it for less and you find the widgets actually selling for less than the cost of materials used to make it.

 

Keep posting at your original price.

 

Auctions can last 48 hours. A lot of under cutters post their auctions for 24 hours. Unless they are very, very dedicated, they won't re-list their auctions right away and you can often find your 48 hour auctions the only game in town albeit for a brief period of time.

 

Alternately, others buy up the cheap stuff and re-list it at a higher price. If you have the bank available you can do it as well but you have to be careful because sometimes these jokers are still sitting on huge stacks.

 

And, in all honesty, if the demand is high enough for a particular item people might burn through the cheap stuff and be forced to pay your price any way.

 

Unless you need the cash or storage space, don't lower yourself to the level of an under cutter. Have some dignity and self-respect. It might take a little longer, but you'll make your sale.