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Slicing Profitability & You!


pdxmarcos

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Despite seeing extensive nerfs in a recent patch, slicing is still a profitable crew mission skill. The greatest benefit you gain from slicing is that here is that it is immediately profitable from the first credit box mission to the last. You realize profits as soon as you open up the credit box while other professions have to wait much longer using traditional sales methods to sell their final product (IE GTN or trade channels).

 

While the immediate profitability offers a strong incentive to picking up slicing, you're stuck with an absolute maximum you can make off the credit boxes exclusively. Although, critical mission successes will sometimes grant you cybertech schematics which may offer additional sources of income.

 

That's all well and good, but you write a lot. Get to the point!!!!! What do I need to do to generate credits?

 

Here's your answer: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0ArCSGLnwZLADdGxYdlhEejBFclBjR3l1N29OaW1kYUE&gid=5

 

My guild members, some people from these forums, and my other friends have spent some time collecting data about how much you can make from slicing. All the data on the 'Average Credit Worksheet' and 'TLDR' represent exclusively post-nerf data. You can compare it to the 'Pre-Nerf glory days' sheet to see what make slicing awesome for the first two weeks of release, but it's meaning will continue to decline.

 

 

What missions will give me the best return on my time and credit investment?

  • The majority of the data collected is from empire missions. If you do not see that mission available or have never seen it, then you are probably Republic and have a comparable one. The results will be similar between missions of the same yield. For example, The Automated Saboteur will offer the same yield as 'Arranged Accidents'. There is not sufficient information to accurately reflect the credit gain on the Republic side missions
  • These missions will give you the "best" credit return on your time investment: Missing Probes, For Better or Worse, The Automated Saboteur, Take the Money and Run, Be Careful what you read, and Delivery Failure.
  • It is extremely important to understand that these numbers are not perfect. You may not see immediate returns, but over time these missions have shown to be consistently profitable.
  • The level 41-49 Rich missions will generally reward additional rewards that are not necessarily quantifiable in terms of this spreadsheet. Critical mission success on these missions will reward high level patterns and better credit boxes, which improve the profitability. The missions listed in green will generally only give you credit returns and have a very low probability of providing you anything other than giving you the basic credit box.
  • Companions – Companions do receive time discounts on all missions. The break points were determined by measuring various data points as leveling companion affection. The listed time to complete a mission is static on each mission and does not change, but when you send out your companion the time until they return fluctuates based upon their affection level. We measured the time required to send them out on missions compared to what the listed time and Malthrin was able to determine the formula for the break points in time discounts.
  • Mission failure – Including mission failures was something I initially considered, but decided to exclude them in the end. My justification for doing so is because they are avoidable once you level past their failure level. The UI is not very effective at the moment at conveying that you may see a mission failure if you send your companion out on a Orange, but the mission will not fail if it is listed in yellow (not 100% sure here), green, or grey.

 

Most importantly keep in mind that in the end, slicing is a gathering profession. You may actually find that running around Ilum or Voss will give you a better return on your time to get credits by finding boxes. If you found mining or herbing enjoyable in World of Warcraft, then this may be how you want to slicing.

 

Credit to my good friends in <Revenge of the Jerks> on Veela, the very intelligent Malthrin for the work on determining the formula for companion affection, and the Elitist Jerks benefactors and many more for contributing to the data on my spreadsheet.

 

Revision 3:18 PST - 2011/12/23: Changed URL to final google doc final output. Original URL will no longer be maintained.

Revision 3:01 PST - 2011/12/24: Added notes regarding thread discussion.

Revision 9:36 PST - 2012/01/06: Re-wrote OP to include a post-nerf guide.

Edited by pdxmarcos
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Man, thank you very very much for this !

 

I also did a doc recording all my earnings during my slicing leveling, but it's by far less organised than yours, not to say i miss a lot of information too !

 

i'm working on improving my doc in order to post it on a blog : can i please re-use the way you display your informations ?

 

Anyway, congratulations for this incredible work you did (and to all who helped you ^^)

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If we were to make a similar chart for all other crafting skills BUT slicing, it would only show negative numbers

 

BioWare, remove slicing

 

Hush you.

 

It's the crafting skill for those who don't like the crafting system.

 

Mr crafting partner is making us new lightsabers and I'm funding the work with slicing profits. It's working great from where I'm sitting, we're not rich, but we can get the money for the things we want.

 

Bioware, leave slicing alone. It's balanced and lovely.

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Hush you.

 

It's the crafting skill for those who don't like the crafting system.

 

Mr crafting partner is making us new lightsabers and I'm funding the work with slicing profits. It's working great from where I'm sitting, we're not rich, but we can get the money for the things we want.

 

Bioware, leave slicing alone. It's balanced and lovely.

 

Nerf it, it's ruining the economy.... Fact is a fact.

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What people need to keep in mind is this - the current crew skills are balanced for the game once it is no longer new. The fact is that the game just came out a few days ago and the markets are just starting to get going. So if you're complaining that Slicing gives an unfair advantage over non-Slicers, then pick up Slicing. Truly the only people who can buy anything on the market are Slicers at the moment, and in order for the Market to get going it needs Slicers to spend money. If no one had money to spend, no one would buy anything, markets would stagnate and everyone is left wealthless.

 

So let us think. Who buys your extra materials? Slicers. Who buys your blue and purple crafted gear? Slicers. They are necessary for the game and market to progress, but right now because we are at the very beginning we see a huge income disparity between Slicers and non-Slicers. This will even out over time, but yes it is true for the next month or two Slicers will have an advantage for cash flow over non-Slicers.

 

My advice: if you want "fast cash", drop your UT, Diplo, Investigation, whatever, and pick up Slicing. Keep your main crafting skill and the associated gathering skill. It is easy to level up your crafting although - YOU WILL NEVER MAKE BLUE/PURPLE ITEMS - unless you buy the materials from the GTN or have very generous friends/guildies. Once your main crafting skill is maxed, drop Slicing and pick up your related mission skill and power level it with your crew.

 

This coming from a person who was originally going to stick to principle and not pick up Slicing, but now that I'm sitting with 120k+ at level 21 I am in no way looking back. I've already spent 30k upgrading equipment, and I usually upgrade again every few levels. I don't NEED to, since everyone can get by on quested/dropped gear, but I enjoy buying other peoples' goods and spreading the wealth, as I'm sure many other Slicers do as well.

Edited by Epocha
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Nerf it, it's ruining the economy.... Fact is a fact.

 

I'm pretty sure the only thing ruining the economy right now is the horrible GTN interface.. lord almighty, I excitedly gathered archaeology materials to sell on that thing but after 2-3 days of posting auctions and searching auctions I concluded that I was not the only one who decided it might be best to avoid that place like the plague until it's changed.

 

ATM I love slicing basically because I don't have to touch that interface to receive credits o_0

Edited by cobrenna
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What people need to keep in mind is this - the current crew skills are balanced for the game once it is no longer new. The fact is that the game just came out a few days ago and the markets are just starting to get going. So if you're complaining that Slicing gives an unfair advantage over non-Slicers, then pick up Slicing. Truly the only people who can buy anything on the market are Slicers at the moment, and in order for the Market to get going it needs Slicers to spend money. If no one had money to spend, no one would buy anything, markets would stagnate and everyone is left wealthless.

 

So let us think. Who buys your extra materials? Slicers. Who buys your blue and purple crafted gear? Slicers. They are necessary for the game and market to progress, but right now because we are at the very beginning we see a huge income disparity between Slicers and non-Slicers. This will even out over time, but yes it is true for the next month or two Slicers will have an advantage for cash flow over non-Slicers.

 

My advice: if you want "fast cash", drop your UT, Diplo, Investigation, whatever, and pick up Slicing. Keep your main crafting skill and the associated gathering skill. It is easy to level up your crafting although - YOU WILL NEVER MAKE BLUE/PURPLE ITEMS - unless you buy the materials from the GTN or have very generous friends/guildies. Once your main crafting skill is maxed, drop Slicing and pick up your related mission skill and power level it with your crew.

 

This coming from a person who was originally going to stick to principle and not pick up Slicing, but now that I'm sitting with 120k+ at level 21 I am in no way looking back. I've already spent 30k upgrading equipment, and I usually upgrade again every few levels. I don't NEED to, since everyone can get by on quested/dropped gear, but I enjoy buying other peoples' goods and spreading the wealth, as I'm sure many other Slicers do as well.

 

Pro-tip

 

This is exactly what I do. I buy gear from the GTN every few levels. But I do want to start my bio-chem back up again so I might have to either drop slicing or keep it and drop bio-analysis or diplomacy. I'm leaning towards keeping slicing and buying what mats I need from the GTN to get bio-chem going. Creds in and creds right back out with this setup.

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Where are the ones you failed? I've been losing money on lockbox missions...

 

Failure is based on your skill level vs mission skill level. I don't recall if I've failed at yellow. If you're already at slicing 400, failure is not a consideration for profitability.

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I cant seem to find any changes. Would BW make changes without any kind of information. Because, if slicing even stops failing make a bit of credits, whats the use of it.

 

But i really hope that they do something about the crew skills, they seemed really sweet, but turned out to be kinda weak at the moment.

 

Also, fix the darned GTN. I love the game-in-the-game with buy-sell things. And this is just bad at the moment. Kinda also the reason i picked slicing.

 

Are BW even reading the forums, I cant see any answers from employees anywhere.

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What people need to keep in mind is this - the current crew skills are balanced for the game once it is no longer new. The fact is that the game just came out a few days ago and the markets are just starting to get going. So if you're complaining that Slicing gives an unfair advantage over non-Slicers, then pick up Slicing. Truly the only people who can buy anything on the market are Slicers at the moment, and in order for the Market to get going it needs Slicers to spend money. If no one had money to spend, no one would buy anything, markets would stagnate and everyone is left wealthless.

 

So let us think. Who buys your extra materials? Slicers. Who buys your blue and purple crafted gear? Slicers. They are necessary for the game and market to progress, but right now because we are at the very beginning we see a huge income disparity between Slicers and non-Slicers. This will even out over time, but yes it is true for the next month or two Slicers will have an advantage for cash flow over non-Slicers.

 

My advice: if you want "fast cash", drop your UT, Diplo, Investigation, whatever, and pick up Slicing. Keep your main crafting skill and the associated gathering skill. It is easy to level up your crafting although - YOU WILL NEVER MAKE BLUE/PURPLE ITEMS - unless you buy the materials from the GTN or have very generous friends/guildies. Once your main crafting skill is maxed, drop Slicing and pick up your related mission skill and power level it with your crew.

 

This coming from a person who was originally going to stick to principle and not pick up Slicing, but now that I'm sitting with 120k+ at level 21 I am in no way looking back. I've already spent 30k upgrading equipment, and I usually upgrade again every few levels. I don't NEED to, since everyone can get by on quested/dropped gear, but I enjoy buying other peoples' goods and spreading the wealth, as I'm sure many other Slicers do as well.

 

THIS. seriously instead of just complaining about it pick it up for yourself. make the money that you're seeing everyone else make with this skill. once you hit 50 and you're maxed out in just about everything you'll have enough gold to power level whatever profession you want. it's not broken when people just choose not use it to their advantage.

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Keep your main crafting skill and the associated gathering skill. It is easy to level up your crafting although - YOU WILL NEVER MAKE BLUE/PURPLE ITEMS - unless you buy the materials from the GTN or have very generous friends/guildies.

 

Or just play three hours with an alt till he gets his first companion and level up your needed mission skill on him. There is no level requirement on them, so he can get it to 400 easily if you feed him money.

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I am just not seeing the profits--in fact since some missions failed, I lost money. Like others, I lose money sometimes on the lockboxes (or net just a few credits after considering the credits I spent on a mission). I switched back to diplomacy (to go with bio chem and bio analysis) and just kill extra mobs and I seem to be making about $3000-$5000 credits a night. Was I doing something wrong or was it just my level (I am only level 15 now).
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Was I doing something wrong or was it just my level (I am only level 15 now).

 

Likely you were doing it wrong. I'm not going to give the step-by-step guide on how to do it, but you should be able to figure it out from this hint: going after the newest missions is going to lose you money.

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Last night yes, I'm talking about today. I have been losing money all morning by doing mission...

 

This morning in about two hours I made about 20K more, give or take, plus a bunch of sellable crew missions that I haven't had a chance to put on the GTN yet. I'm upt to 170K now.

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