I'm new to underworld trading, so I'm not sure if this is a recent development or if it has always been this way.

UT has been great for getting companion gifts to max out affection, bu mats seem to be worthless. Even the mandalorian iron criticals only sell for 3k or so, and the ordinary metals an cloths aren't worth the cost of the mission. Has it always been this way? If so, I plan to unlearn it after I get all my affections maxed, but I wanted to make sure I'm not doing something wrong.

It's the same price or cheaper to just buy the underworld metals off the gun. Is that just an anomaly right now?

Blue quality materials are not the desired goal of most players with UT; they are looking for the purple materials, specifically the metals (fabrics are all but worthless as they only apply to synthweaving (mostly) static stat armor crafting). So, most simply dump the blue quality materials on the GTM to get something back. So, this is not an anomaly. The same situation applies to sliced parts from slicing.

But that only really applies to the top end. Lower end materials can be very lucrative because of their short supply.

Blue quality materials are not the desired goal of most players with UT; they are looking for the purple materials, specifically the metals (fabrics are all but worthless as they only apply to synthweaving (mostly) static stat armor crafting). So, most simply dump the blue quality materials on the GTM to get something back. So, this is not an anomaly. The same situation applies to sliced parts from slicing.

 

But that only really applies to the top end. Lower end materials can be very lucrative because of their short supply.

I am not sure that is absolutely true. I run my guys (before max) in blues only. I have cargo hold(s) full of the purples but they sit because blues will generate an overpowered character at level so who needs the purples. Especially true considering that mods are switched out every four levels.

LOL, you will not see me dumping xonolite or some other blues any time soon since even with a number of UTers, they are not easy to come by (17 million crap gift missions to one moderate metal) and go fast (9 mods and 8 armoring each for me and Treek eat the blues with a passion).

Mando Iron always went at a high price until Makeb and the cheap Makeb purple mods and armorings at 50 from the vendors. So the addition of five levels and vendor availability killed their value. I don't run the UT missions much any more; just enough to fill in around my Commendation purchases (i.e. armoring is seven commendatons and with a limit of 100 and no ability to buy over my level, I make my own armoring). So I still find UT useful to a small degree but like the rest of crafting BW has turned it somewhat into crap.

I am not sure that is absolutely true. I run my guys (before max) in blues only. I have cargo hold(s) full of the purples but they sit because blues will generate an overpowered character at level so who needs the purples. Especially true considering that mods are switched out every four levels.

 

LOL, you will not see me dumping xonolite or some other blues any time soon since even with a number of UTers, they are not easy to come by (17 million crap gift missions to one moderate metal) and go fast (9 mods and 8 armoring each for me and Treek eat the blues with a passion).

 

Mando Iron always went at a high price until Makeb and the cheap Makeb purple mods and armorings at 50 from the vendors. So the addition of five levels and vendor availability killed their value. I don't run the UT missions much any more; just enough to fill in around my Commendation purchases (i.e. armoring is seven commendatons and with a limit of 100 and no ability to buy over my level, I make my own armoring). So I still find UT useful to a small degree but like the rest of crafting BW has turned it somewhat into crap.

I believe you misunderstood or I did not convey what wanted to say properly.

It is only grade 9 (level cap) blue materials that are dumped for cheap on the GTM because many, if not most, of the crafters are looking for the purples not the blues. Otherwise you are correct that blue quality equipment is more than adequate while leveling.

But a dynamic arises: someone has a low level alt (or friend or guildmate) they want to craft something for. However, they are short on mission materials (UT metals, etc). They could run missions and hope they get what and how many they need, or they can go to the GTM and buy what they need right now (another example of time and money being interchangeable resources in MMOs). In that moment, for that one person, demand is high, but GTM supply of most lower level materials is low (for a wide range of reasons I will not get into here). The result is that if one chooses to sell lower level blue materials one can generate significant profits, because there is almost always that one person in that moment described above.

Further, I completely disagree with your assessment that SWTOR crafting has turned to crap. I craft a lot of item modifications (Cybertech: armoring and mod, artifice: enhancement, dye, and hilt, armormech and synthweaving: augments and augment slot kits, and armstech barrels and augments) of different levels and have trouble keeping up with demand. I sell 30-70 a day.

i love uwt. its great for affection from the gifts and i sell a lot of metals on the GTN.

i sell tier 1, 3 and 4 metals, the tier 2/5/6 dont tend to sell well

Further, I completely disagree with your assessment that SWTOR crafting has turned to crap. I craft a lot of item modifications (Cybertech: armoring and mod, artifice: enhancement, dye, and hilt, armormech and synthweaving: augments and augment slot kits, and armstech barrels and augments) of different levels and have trouble keeping up with demand. I sell 30-70 a day.

LOL, I disagree with your disagreement.

Just kidding, I respect your opinion although am at odds with you on this one.

My synth has 417,258 patterns (an estimate, I did not actually count) and except for the augments and kits all are completely, absolutely, and magnificently worthless.

My Armormech has 402,999 patterns (also an estimate) and except for arguments and kits all are worthless. With adaptive armor available at level 1 (cheap on the GTN as people still buy the boxes), I don't even craft my own oranges.

My Armstech can make 273,453 weapons and stuff. I just make barrels when I am a little short of them for Treek. The rest is junk that no one wants and uses.

See a pattern there? And yes, I can sell some of the augments and barrels but that becomes meaningless at a certain point - how many credits do you really need and besides there are other faster ways to make credits.

Yup my bio is useful for leveling implants and I do like the reusables (stims). I can sell the implants which is good.

Artifice and CT, yup good to a degree. I can make mods and armor and enhancements and for a change in pace if I get bored armor, enhancements, and mods. Sometimes if really bored, I can take a shot at hilts. Yes, you can sell some of the stuff (find the commendation holes and plug them) and armoring and hilts (same for barrels above) go for seven commendations so if someone can't craft them they may want to buy them.

Gathering skills, I've know a few. Oh the thrill of jumping in and out of your ship until you can actually go for a non gift / garbage item. Oh the thrill of having many many missions fail or come back with absolute junk. The absolute wonder and valued lesson in math in seeing how 20% trials can fail fifteen or twenty, or if lucky more, times in a row.

So to me I see a rng based system of many different crafting pursuits that allows me to make some mods, armorings, barrels, etc. and roll roll roll the dice.

TL;DR = Crap is crap.

@asbalana,

My response is...so what? So 90%+ of crafting skills' schematics are worthless. This is par for the course in MMOs. Yes there are exceptions (here come to SWG references), but by and large MMO crafting systems consist of 90%+ of stuff one only uses to level up and/or craft for that very rare someone. It's the ~10% one needs to focus on.

As for money making strategies, I HATE, I repeat HATE, running daily quests. I only run them so long as there is a goal worth attaining (to me); for example, I ran the CZ dailies to build up enough reputation to get the dye module schematic.

For the sole purpose of making money in this game, I would rather spend the 15 minutes two or three times a day going through my six characters' crew skills and posting what I craft on the GTM than run dailies for even one hour. Can running dailies make half a million or more credits a day with 30-45 minutes' effort? Crew skills can do that. And sure, I do not NEED all those credits (all the time), which is why I do not obsess over crew skills either; my current liquid net worth is about 13 million credits (but I spent about 15 million recently on upgrades and a hypercrate).

I love when people bad mouth synthweaving, it keeps people from taking it up and competing with me.

Purple fabrics are so cheap you can craft purple items with less than 2000 in mats. Then sell them at 20-40k.

Most of my crafters deal in blue objects but my synthweaver is the only one dealing in purples.

Roughly 100k a day profit during weekdays, 200k+ on weekends. All for about 30mins of work a night.