I have an Imperial character on Lord Adraas and decided to go Cybertech/Slicing/Underworld Trading. The problem I am coming up against is the absurd expense for Scavenging materials. Desh is worth next to nothing, but Laminoid and Aluminium are selling for stacks of 10 at 17,000 credits per. This makes it completely pointless to take anything but Scavenging as a gathering skill because you cannot afford to buy the mats to level up.

 

Has anyone else experienced this?

Well if your profession uses scavenging materials. You should be selecting scavenging as a crew skill.

People will sell things at stupid prices on the GTN.

 

You will find many materials on the GTN much cheaper than that. You have to check frequently, as items only last 48hours. People will post materials at reasonable prices. The second tier of any particular resource grade does seem to be generally inflated though. Laminoid and Aluminium, Plasteel and Chanlon, etc etc. They are harder to obtain and crafting usually uses them for longer, making them higher in demand and harder to find.

Welcome to crafting in SWTOR, and in particular scavenging. Main reason is that the most efficient way to get these supplies is to go out an harvest them from nodes as the Scavenging missions treat the Laminoid and Aluminum as 'rare' gathers for their tier of missions. (and I don't mean you have to crit or anything, it is just more likely you get the other material type for this tier then these two). And while I do like to go out and hit the nodes, the couple hours I spend a night, I prefer to do my dailies or hang out with guildies.

 

Actually the first three levels of scavenging materials are like that, I think. A low end and a high end material material type for a material class range. Chanlon and Plasteel are kinda like this. Plus the items you make are asking between 2-8 pieces per and you aren't getting that back when REing it. Plus lots of demand for oranges with augments or perceived demand anyways.

Your skills selection was just wrong, I did make the same error with an armourmech alt thinking I would rely on my main who has scavenging but it was just too much hassle. You'll burn the most materials on the reverse engineering of green and blues.

 

I've come to the conclusion that to do serious crafting with a profit you need at least two characters one of whom is a slicer.

So you recommend that one character go full gathering, with slicing, and the other full crafting with the required gathering skills?

 

It seems like everyone is saying that Slicing is this awkward skill that doesn't really fit anywhere.

So first I made a chart from here to determine based on the materials in the recipe what would I need to sell them for to make 'x' profit per material.

 

Then I started doing all the derivative analysis with formulas that helps make all these decisions for you.

 

One primary question is: what is my profit/ UT metal and UT (crit) metal?

Only if your profit on this gear is significantly more than just selling the metals outright, then the only time you should spend these metals is in making schematics.

 

I have been investigating the entire line of armormech goods, so I can't answer for cybertech stuff, but generally I have found Base and Tier 1 generic armor (green schematics) to be the most profitable. However, right now, this is only because the market isn't very competitive and there is not an abundance of underworld metals anywhere. If there where then generic Tier 2 (artifact) gear would be the most competitive sale.

 

Don't forget, that if your goal is to RE goods, and the base materials for those goods are being spiked on the GTN, one option that you have is just to buy the blue and green gear straight off the GTN shelves for RE purposes. They are very likely marked below what the composite materials are being sold for. In this way, you are 'getting the mats of GTN' in assembled form already.

So you recommend that one character go full gathering, with slicing, and the other full crafting with the required gathering skills?

 

It seems like everyone is saying that Slicing is this awkward skill that doesn't really fit anywhere.

 

Slicing will get you augment materials which will probably continue to grow more valuable as time goes on. They also get discovery missions and some schematics which can be pretty valuable.

Edited May 4, 2012 by Drewhat

I would recommend making another character, get it to level 10, take scavenging, send your companions out for your mats and mail them to yourself. The market is evil when it comes to scavenged metals. It's feast or famine on my server, the stuff that I need is either way over priced or non-existent.

My opinion is that every character that crafts should also have the matching gathering skill. However IME you only really need ONE of each mission skill. So among your cybertech, armormech or synthweaver, only 1 should have UT. The rest should probably take up slicing.

 

Now, prior to 1.2 I would have said the synthweaver or armormech was the better fit for the UT'er, but now with slicing being used for augment parts, it's probably best on the cybertech.

 

IMO, slicing is only for somebody who either has multiple crafters or none.

The problem with a lot of materials comes from decisions by BioWare.

 

For instance, Electrum. They made it much more rare than the other grade 5 metal, but SO many more schematics need it. It's crazy, and I don't understand why they did this. I send my guys out to get grade 5 metals, and I'm lucky if I get 2 Electrum in return. Meanwhile, I've got multiple stacks of the other building up in my inventory. The same with the grade 5 compound, and with other grade resources.

 

This is why I think crafting was done piecemeal by different teams with little communication, or it was done by people who either know or care little about crafting. What are these other materials even FOR? It's frustrating.

slicing doesnt really go with anything and most certainly not cybertech. also it isnt the credit maker that it once was either.

 

if you must have it then take scavenging instead of underworld trading. you can then have ut on a alt which might be a better solution since leveling ut is via missions only. you could do slicing on a alt too instead but you will miss some credits from harvesting nodes while you level.

 

as you have learned you never want to rely on the gtn for tradeskill mats to level as you are at thier mercy for prices and availability.

 

i leveled my cybertech with ut and scavenging. had to farm droids at certain levels since some metals and compounds were too rare to get. each droid i killed was worth 500 too 2k credits to me if i had to buy mats from the gtn. no slicing node at that level was even close to those credits. found many more droids than slicing nodes too.

 

what you do is up to you..

Harvesting droids, bah... Come to my GTN and you will find I sell the cheapest Scavenging Mats around... That's my bread and butter...

So you recommend that one character go full gathering, with slicing, and the other full crafting with the required gathering skills?

 

It seems like everyone is saying that Slicing is this awkward skill that doesn't really fit anywhere.

 

Its good on an alt w biochem/bioanalysis. You really only need one main biochem/analysis/diplomacy character to hand out the re-usables.

 

The other problem w scavenging is that its just over-used, same w the UT metals. Too many trade skills depend on scavenged metals, compounds and UT metals, while silk cloth is nearly worthless in comparison. They should have re-worked it where synth recipes only use cloth/crystals, to ease up on the metal consumption.

Edited May 4, 2012 by NermalDetonator