Learn your schematics from your trainer and start to send your companions on missions. Hilts and enhancements are the basic sellables you can craft. Try to crit your missions to get the purple ingredients so that you can craft purple items that make more money. Set your companions affections to max which is 10k. This will increase the chance of critting.

After 2.0 artifice lost a lot of love imo.

Not very helpful but none the less true answer: dump artifice and train up a more useful skill.

Slightly more helpful answer: make and sell MK-9 augment kits, run 55 ops and hope for a rare drop you can reverse engineer.

While not totally useless Artifice is probably the worst off crew skill right now.

Not very helpful but none the less true answer: dump artifice and train up a more useful skill.

 

Slightly more helpful answer: make and sell MK-9 augment kits, run 55 ops and hope for a rare drop you can reverse engineer.

 

While not totally useless Artifice is probably the worst off crew skill right now.

Not helpful, and not true at all.

To the OP; Artificers craft hilts and enhancements, as was mentioned above. Your gathering skill should be archaeology, and your mission skill should be treasure hunting. Get your companions out doing missions to farm mats. Purchase the green schematics for the more desirable hilts and enhancements, craft and RE the greens to get the blue schematic, then craft and RE the blues to get the purple schematic. Craft and sell the purples. Do some GTN research to see what is selling well. Artificers are also one of the best crafting skills for generating MK-9 slot components. Craft and RE the level 54 green offhands, and either sell the slot components, or craft the MK-9 kit yourself on an alt.

Not very helpful but none the less true answer: dump artifice and train up a more useful skill.

 

Slightly more helpful answer: make and sell MK-9 augment kits, run 55 ops and hope for a rare drop you can reverse engineer.

 

While not totally useless Artifice is probably the worst off crew skill right now.

This is silly. Artifice can craft low-endurance grade 28 enhancements, which are frequently better than the endurance-heavy grade 30 enhancements found in Black Market gear.

Example:

Black Market Gloves with an Efficient Enhancement 30

+29 Power, +72 Surge

Yet artifice can craft the Adept Enhancement 28

+43 Power, +66 Surge

Lose 6 points of surge for 14 more points of power? Yes please.

Even the Verpine gear, with the endo-heavy Efficient Enhancement 31 isn't that great.

+32 Power, +79 Surge

Until you start getting Arkanian / Underworld drops from actual raids, the crafted grade 28 enhancements can be super useful for optimizing your gear.

This is silly. Artifice can craft low-endurance grade 28 enhancements, which are frequently better than the endurance-heavy grade 30 enhancements found in Black Market gear.

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On my server it certainly is true. The purple 28 enchantments sell for 40-45k each. They require 2 Mytag Crystals which sell for 28k each. So you can sell the mats directly and make 56k or turn them into an enchantment and earn 45k if you are lucky. The value added from artifice is negative 13,000 to 18,000 credits.

Even if you want them for yourself it is far smarter to sell the mats and buy them form other people off the GTN.

... The value added from artifice is negative 13,000 to 18,000 credits. ...

Dit dit dot dot dot dot dot ... Breaking News!

Raw materials sell for more money than the final product! This is a new fact that only applies to Artifice and has never been seen in this game before today!

Dit dit dot dot dot dot dot ... Breaking News!

 

Raw materials sell for more money than the final product! This is a new fact that only applies to Artifice and has never been seen in this game before today!

 

Then why would you advice someone make and sell enhancements and hilts when they will make more money selling the mats directly? Why would you possibly think that losing money counts as a useful feature of artifice?

As I said in my first post augments kits and reverse engineered drops from ops are, for now, the only way to make money with artifice (this may change with the dye system in 2.1). If for some reason you want to take $10 worth of mats artifice them up and sell the final product for $8 that is fine but don't pretend it is a good business strategy.

Then why would you advice someone make and sell enhancements and hilts when they will make more money selling the mats directly? Why would you possibly think that losing money counts as a useful feature of artifice?

 

As I said in my first post augments kits and reverse engineered drops from ops are, for now, the only way to make money with artifice (this may change with the dye system in 2.1). If for some reason you want to take $10 worth of mats artifice them up and sell the final product for $8 that is fine but don't pretend it is a good business strategy.

You stated "Artifice is the worst off crew skill right now"

That's what I was calling silly.

a) The grade 28 market is bad for ALL crew skills.

b) The grade 30 market is better for artifice than the other skills.

Armstech only makes 30 barrels. Cybertech armoring without set bonus and unlettered mods can be easily gotten from cheap belts/bracers (80 comms pfft). Synthweaving and Armormech don't have anything in the grade 30 market. Bio can't RE implants yet (bugged maybe?)

Artifice can learn both hilts AND low-endurance grade 30 enhancements that outclass the crappy high endurance ones you can buy with Underworld comms.

Armstech, Synthweaving and Armormech all make augments. Which for my Sythweaver and my friends Armstech have been profitable, as in selling more then the mats alone would.

Biochem makes reusable items which if you are running endgame stuff save a lot of credits over time. Also there is always a market for Stims and Medpacs which last time I looked was profitable.

Cybertech may be in the same situation as Artifice, I don't have that crew skill at a high enough level to know.

Armstech, Synthweaving and Armormech all make augments. Which for my Sythweaver and my friends Armstech have been profitable, as in selling more then the mats alone would.

I'm logged into the game right now, and I see:

4xThermal Regulator - 175k

2xMythra - 5k

2xTuradium - 5k

2xTricopper FLux - 1.2k

Total Cost - 186.2k

Advanced Overkill Augment 28 - 188k (armstech)

Advanced Skill Augment 28 - 189k (armormech)

Advanced Resolve Augment 28 - 192k (synthweaving)

So, 2000-6000 credits profit per augment. While this matches your claim that it is more than the mats alone, it is hardly a compelling reason to drop a skill trained to 450 just to train another skill just to give you a measly 2% profit margin.

Biochem makes reusable items which if you are running endgame stuff save a lot of credits over time. Also there is always a market for Stims and Medpacs which last time I looked was profitable.

This is also true for Artifice for any player with alts. Crafting the grade 28 enhancements (7 slots x 5 alts) shortcut my gearing process considerably, as they were good enough to not get replaced until I started getting actual raid drops from Arkanian and Underworld gear, as the Black Market and Verpine stuff is so endurance-heavy.

I'll grant you, this is generally a one-time expense, although I'm currently taking advantage of it to test the difference between a high alacrity build and a high surge build on my Commando. Something that would not be feasible without having a pocket Artificer.

As far as Biochem profitiability:

8xMetabolic Enhancement Agent - 24k

4xBiological Compounding Chemical - .4k

6xArtificial Microbe - 15k

6xMedical Grade Injector - 24k

Prototype Nano-Infused Reflex Stim - 24k

Prototype Nano-Infused Might Stim - 27k

Prototype Nano-Infused Skill Stim - 29k

Yeahhh.... Not more profitable than raw mats. Now, the [Artifact] grade implants are profitable, mainly because the schematics cost 150 daily comms, so the crafters for these are more rare than Isotope-5. This may change as time goes on.

Cybertech may be in the same situation as Artifice, I don't have that crew skill at a high enough level to know.

Cybertech is in a similar boat as the others. The [Artifact] earpieces are a decent profit, but everything else is under the same general problem.

Those that cornered the market fast and early make lots of money. The more people that got involved, the less money to be made with the undercut wars. This is expected.

Now, when you move into the grade 30 market, that's where things change. Nobody wants the Cybertech 30s. Nobody. Mods and Armorings are wayyyyy to easy to obtain. But Enhancements, those are harder to obtain and do actually sell. As well as Hits.

Keep in mind, I'm not saying someone should pick Artifice over another crew skill at level 10. That's not my point.

But for someone that spend the time to grind it to 450, and you come along and tell them "It's the worst skill, drop it and pick another" -- that is, at the risk of repeating myself, silly.

I'm logged into the game right now, and I see:

 

4xThermal Regulator - 175k

2xMythra - 5k

2xTuradium - 5k

2xTricopper FLux - 1.2k

Total Cost - 186.2k

 

Advanced Overkill Augment 28 - 188k (armstech)

Advanced Skill Augment 28 - 189k (armormech)

Advanced Resolve Augment 28 - 192k (synthweaving)

 

So, 2000-6000 credits profit per augment. While this matches your claim that it is more than the mats alone, it is hardly a compelling reason to drop a skill trained to 450 just to train another skill just to give you a measly 2% profit margin.

 

silly.

The math is (generally) true, my server is even dropping under the crafting costs. It's all about getting a crit for any worthwhile profit. Usually is unless you have something rare.

My opinion on all suggestions for Artifice;

28 Enhancements

MK-9 Augmentation Components

Since 2.0 my artificer has gotten a lot more love, but she needs my other crewskills to be anywhere near useful. I mainly make MK-9 kits. Biochem is slightly cheaper, but still worthwhile to reverse the artifice offhands for the MK-9 components.

This changes though if:

you're a raider, get enhancement 30/Colour Crystal(black-colour/cyan/purple)/Hilt 30 schematics, craft for a fee (or free) sell the crits, the usual drill.

I have to laugh whenever people say you can make more money from selling the materials and so it's a waste of time to craft. Who, exactly, do you think will be purchasing those mats if everyone sells them instead of crafting?

Anyhow, I have no idea who is paying those kind of prices for Grade 9 materials. I craft a ton and haven't purchased a single unit of grade 9 resources, despite the fact that for lower-grade resources I often purchase 5k units + in one shopping session.

Personally I think Armormech & Synthweaver are the worst off - profit-wise they really only can make Augments & Aug kits. And they each have HALF of the augments. That's pretty terrible IMHO.

Cybertech & Artifice seem the most diverse to me, with several things that can be made & sold quite easily. But, then, that's if you don't obsess about just the end-game items which is what most people do. *shrug*

I have to laugh whenever people say you can make more money from selling the materials and so it's a waste of time to craft. Who, exactly, do you think will be purchasing those mats if everyone sells them instead of crafting?

 

...

My theory is that it is people who are either trying to a) Grind a crafting skill to 450 or b) someone trying to craft items for themselves. The more people that are in too much of a hurry to run / gather the missions themselves, the greater the demand for raw mats.

I fell pray to this on the first week that 2.0 dropped. I wanted to start crafting augments as soon as possible, had plenty of Mythra but not enough Turadium. I hadn't yet gotten the hang of the best Scavenging missions to run. So I bought a half-stack of Turadium, just so I could get to 450 and start reversing augments to purple.

I also ended up doing a similar thing with my Biochem. I never had enough Metabolic Enhancement Agents, and too many Medical Grade Injectors. So I'd sell the excess of one and buy the other.

----------------------

Prior to 2.0, people frequently talked about how profitable Exotech stims were, because so many people needed them. When I decided to make a Biochem and started getting the schematics, I ran into so much competition that my profit margin (if I ran the gathering missions myself) was about 5%.

Then I saw how much people were buying Radioactive Paste for. O.o

I started buying up the 340 Diplomacy missions, running them for the Paste, and then selling it stacks of 99. It wasn't quick money, but 200k worth of crew missions would end up with 1000k worth of paste, not to mention all the companion gifts I could sell.

The market fluxuates, but the only time I've seen any significant profit made on crafting (as opposed to raw mats) is when the schematics are rare (for example, the grade 27 stuff or the grade 30 mainhand hilts/barrels).