There are several reocurring threads in the crew skills section...

1) crafting skills are broken because....

2) crafting skills are useless because...

3) ______ skill is the only skill to have because....

These threads may have merit, that decision up to you.

What I have noticed is that there is little discussion about the development of the ingame economy. As a business person in RL, I have enjoyed watching the growth of the in game economy. And I've learned from reading these forums that there are things about it that do not seem to be well understood by many players.

#1 All the crew skills DO have value.

Some things to understand about the GTN that will help you make profits:

- Materials -

1) Right now mats are selling at irrational prices, bouyed up by the huge number of people who impatiently power leveled to 50 before grinding their crew skills. DO NOT PAY TOO MUCH for mats - gather them and use your mission skills. ONLY BUY MATS at a rational price, based on the results of your mission skills. Individuals are attempting to "game" the GTN by commodities trading in mats. Gaming the GTN might make them some profit in the short term, but in the long term it will never be more profitable than making & selling crafted items.

- What to Make -

1)You can barely get your materials cost out of many green crafted items... Not really worth listing greens unless it's loot.

2) Blue crafted gear IS worth more than it's mats to lowbies ! Because it lets them overgear for their level. The GTN is always short of crafted blues for all crew skills and character levels on my server. Blue drops are not actually very common. This is THE market for all crafts.

3) MOST purple crafted gear isn't worth it's mats on the GTN to any lowbie, because they will outgrow it too quickly to justify the cost. The mats are too expensive for sellers to make profits. This class of gear is best reserved for gifting to people - alts of friends, equiping yourself, RP, and what not. REing to these paterns is unecessary for the purpose of making money selling crafted goods on the GTN. Purple mats are probably worth more on the GTN as mats to a lowbie crafter making their own gear, than they are to you as part of a crafted product. There are exceptions - such as techblades for example.

5) Commendation venders undercut crafters.... FALSE ! The gear that they sell is actually just about on level for someone who is about half done with a planet. By the time they leave said planet- most of those mods are lower grade than the mods they can actually use. The crafted blues for their level are better than what the comm venders are selling, and these characters have the credits to buy the best blue mods they can use. I'm an 389 artificer, and I havn't used a comm to buy an enhancement mod since I left Taris. And the other mods are often wrong for my spec. Cybertechs probably have the same experience with their mods. Crafted blue item mods sell well on the GTN.

- Setting Prices -

Many people are putting irrationally high prices on crafted items and then complain on the forums that they won't sell because better gear is available. Why would someone pay for a piece of gear, when in a few more levels the greens have the same stats? If the price is too high- they will not. If you price an item at a price that YOU would pay for that item- you will make sales. Learn what your items are worth, look at the stats and price them accordingly.

DO NOT trust the GTN to suggest a good price. It often overvalues certain items while grossly undervaluing others. The suggested price system in place DOES NOT WORK.

Ask a rational price- and an item will sell. Look at the prices of items with similar stats.. that is exactly what your buyer is going to do. Price crafted items according to the price of the gear that has the same stats and charge for the luxury of overgearing.

~OR~

Start off pricing items at a price that is double or triple your materials cost, and if an item sells within minutes of being listed on the GTN- raise your prices when you list another. Base your materials cost on what your crew skill cost is ~ NOT what the mats sell for on the GTN. If an item fails to sell within 48hrs the price was obviously too high.

Yes questing and PvP are more profitable than selling crafted items- but making profit from items that you can craft WHILE questing, LFGing, chatting, and shopping, and then list later before logging off- is just FREE credits.

I feel that the GTN is working well, and in the next few months will begin to stabilize. Right now I see 3 crops of players/customers in fleet ~on my server. The economy will stabilize as the variety in level of characters and skill level of players on a server at any given time becomes as diverse as it can. The spread between characters needs to be larger, and it will get larger over time. The variety of sellers and crafted goods on the GTN is pretty poor at this time.

The biggest problems I have with crafting and the GTN at this time are...

1) Poor presence of GTN kiosks. We have mail boxes everywhere- but The GTN terminals are too few and too far between. I don't think every planet needs to have a GTN, but I've only found 3 points of sale thus far, and the only convenient 1 is on fleet. Why isn't there 1 on every orbital station?

2) No "commerce" commendations/achievements or unlockable items/titles? Why not reward people for having X number of "made by [their name]" items floating around the server? ~shameless self promotion~

3) Extremely poor access to the cross faction HTN on Nar Shadaa. I feel like a terminal should be in each faction's space port. Too many hoops for players to jump through if the HTN is ever going to stand up by itself.

4)The crew mission result pop up needs to default to minimized.

If anyone is helped by this, please +1

I dislike this post only because it publicly discusses things I wish the OP was selfish enough to keep quite about and continue to make money.

*waves hand in front of thread reader*

This isn't the post you're looking for. You don't need to read his well reasoned comments.

Also for good measure...

Pay no attention to the man behind the economics curtain.

Seriously people, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. You are all right, and he is wrong. There is no way to make money with crafting and selling. Please go back to your regularly scheduled qq fest. Crafting is broken. The market is useless. Nothing sells. I'll just be over here, not making low level blues or mid level purples.

@#$% did I type that bit about mid level purps out loud?

Nothing to see here! Move along people! Go about your business. Clear off! Clear off!

I tend to agree. There's definitely a market for mid-level blue items. I bet there are enough casual MMO players because it's star wars that the market will still be there in 6 months, a year...

Biggest gripe is that the GTN kiosks and especially the HTN are a pain to get to. Having a GTN in every main planet spaceport doesn't seem far fetched to me.

I actually don't like the HTN even though from a story standpoint it's neat. I'd rather have all items listed on the GTN with a 10% commission markup on cross-faction listed items.

*waves hand in front of thread reader*

 

This isn't the post you're looking for......

This cracked me up !

The best reason to understand economics is to prevent economics from being done to you...

I like the Idea of a "Hutt Cut". But I also like that there are three distinct markets on each server. I could imagine that it may eventually be okay for there to be a shady little grease ball vender in some remote corner of Carrick Station that served as access to the HTN. With the number of darkside exclussive items that crowd the GTN on the Republic side, we really need easier access to the cross faction market, to cash those out. And I'm sure the Empire market is flooded with lightside only equipment that they would love to unload as well. But right now the Devs can't really change it until it's had some chance to stabilize.

Great post...now please delete it, I like having no competition and raking in credits!!!

Due to crafting and working the GTN both of my level 30ish characters have their inventory maxed, cargo hold size maxed for their level, wearing top gear/mods for their level, have an untold number of purple level 340 crafting missions banked I need to use, have a supply of mats for all of my professions that will last me quite some time even if I never bought another mat or ran another crafting mission, and have a few million credits just sitting there waiting until I level up to buy higher speeder training and another cargo hold space.

It's really turned into an addiction. This need to control certain parts of the market while stockpiling every mat I see at a reasonable price. lol It's a fun little mini-game to play when I don't feel like questing or have limited time to play.

I see post after post about people saying crafting is useless and no one buys anything because commendations...blah blah blah. I disagree.

It's easy to pick out the good bits about any profession, but I can't help but dislike the idea that because there are good parts, no one should say a word about the problems. And there ARE problems, like it or not.

First of all, most of the threads that complain about crafting are complaining about the unique value of that skill, what makes it worthwhile as opposed to OTHER crew skills. Inevitably, however, about half the replies will be "IT'S GOOD BECAUSE I MAKE A PROFIT". Well, yeah. My cat could get rich in this game. Anything can make money.

Also, because you make and sell blue gear to low level characters, a market that will likely shrink as we get further from launch, by the way, does not mean that the people who want to craft level 50 gear do not have a right to complain about the impact daily quest rewards have on this game. They absolutely have just as much right to be annoyed with that as you would if BioWare started replacing low level commendation blues with purples. Just because something does not affect YOU does not mean that it is invalid. That's a selfish mind-set.

As to the OP's assertion that you can't depend on commendation gear, loot drops, and quest rewards while you level, that's not even close to being true. This is an easy game, and you can level perfectly fine without ever using a crafted product. If you feel the need to keep your gear up to date, that's awesome, more power to you, but it probably won't have much of an impact outside of a few builds. I had level 400 Cybertech before I was level 30, and once I realized I didn't need to update my gear often, I stopped making mods and armoring for myself. I did make the occasional Earpiece, but nothing I couldn't have bought off the GTN.

Personally, when someone asks me about how to make credits, I tell them to ignore crafting. Yes, as I've said, you can make money with crafting, but you can make more if you go with gathering/mission skills. You can buy everything you need and still be absolutely wealthy by the time you hit 50.

I'll be honest, here. I've sold low level gear. Sure, it sold pretty well, but at level 50, the profit from doing that is almost negligible, at least in my experience. If I'm not crafting high level purples, then I can't help but think that my companion's time would be better spent on Underworld Trading or Slicing missions.

The OP was not about the most effective way to gain money. As it stands in TOR, currently questing is that method.

There is a difference between detailing the differences between end game content and crafting demand and qq'ing about 'oh wo is me, the crafting system is broken.' You exemplify one that can actually put thoughts together and communicate in a non trollish manner. Most do not. I think combating those short bus riders was the intent of the OP...

The OP was not about the most effective way to gain money. As it stands in TOR, currently questing is that method.

 

There is a difference between detailing the differences between end game content and crafting demand and qq'ing about 'oh wo is me, the crafting system is broken.' You exemplify one that can actually put thoughts together and communicate in a non trollish manner. Most do not. I think combating those short bus riders was the intent of the OP...

A good portion of my previous post was aimed more at the "if you're not rich you're doing it wrong" crowd than at the OP. That's the sentiment that annoys me. People shouldn't HAVE to give up on the level 49+ market. The proliferation of daily quest reward mods on the GTN being sold at BELOW what they cost to craft is a problem people SHOULD be complaining about, and even those not affected should understand why others are bothered by it. I don't mind a thread intended to talk about the positives of crafting, not at all, but some posts are much too smug and dismissive of the problems others are having.

The crafting system could, and should, be a lot better than it is, and I'm pretty anxious to see the changes that have been mentioned.

What I have noticed is that there is little discussion about the development of the ingame economy. As a business person in RL, I have enjoyed watching the growth of the in game economy. And I've learned from reading these forums that there are things about it that do not seem to be well understood by many players.

I'm a business person also.

What you have witnessed is not a growing economy, but the rise of a mat farming industry....just as has occurred in every game where the attempt is made to create difficulty in tradeskilling by raising demand for raw materials to a point beyond the worth of the manufactured product.

When I stopped tradeskilling three days ago I had just over 300k and was slowing losing all my capitol just trying to outfit my main. Selling mats I now have him equipped in blues and am just about at 1 million credits in the bank.

Not necessarily true on there being no profit on the level 49 purple gear you can make and the like. I make a steady profit as an armormech with just 6 level 49 items I have REd to purple. Occasionally I add another to the list as materials allow.

There are two simple explanations for this, one newer 50's don't know that they can do better yet and hence look for the best they can find on the GTN which will inevitably be your stuff as they don't bother checking for alternatives.

The more common reason is companion gear which I have found to be a HUGE market. Most classes have 2 companions that wear their gear and will inevitably get equipped with extra or old pve/pvp gear. However, the other 3 are all different and finding gear can be a hassle. As a relatively cheap and simple solution they find my gear on the market and use it for their companion. Some because they actually use that companion and want to keep them somewhat up to date before they can find a better solution and some just for completionists sake. I make a steady profit and for every person there are at least 2-3 companions that will use armormech crafted stuff. So I get 2-3 npcs to outfit per person. Also from a fashion sense I have found that smugglers will pay a premium for hats if they manage to get to 50 without finding one for whatever reason.

Once easier REing comes out I shall be using my materials to create sets and mark it up a bit because of said set. In addition I only keep one of each purple I can make on the market at a time so if I suddenly have no demand for my product its not as if I lose much and it will probably eventually sell anyways.

On a last note, making the higher end stuff increases your reputation. I'm one of the few higher end armormechs on my server with only 1 real competitor. As such I get requests from people (mostly for companion gear or orange pieces) here and there which I can charge pretty high as I have to use plenty of materials to RE up to the order. I can only wait with anticipation for orange item criting.

Why buy blues when you can get a set of orange and just change out the mods as required.

You don't even need to buy anything on the GTN.

Take all the gathering skills on your main. Run missions and gather as you quest.

Make enough alts and get them to fleet and take all the crafting skills.

Send creds and gathered mats to alts and set them to lvling their skills to 400.

Now you have all the crafting skills and can make what ever you need.

A good portion of my previous post was aimed more at the "if you're not rich you're doing it wrong" crowd than at the OP. That's the sentiment that annoys me. People shouldn't HAVE to give up on the level 49+ market. The proliferation of daily quest reward mods on the GTN being sold at BELOW what they cost to craft is a problem people SHOULD be complaining about, and even those not affected should understand why others are bothered by it. I don't mind a thread intended to talk about the positives of crafting, not at all, but some posts are much too smug and dismissive of the problems others are having.

 

The crafting system could, and should, be a lot better than it is, and I'm pretty anxious to see the changes that have been mentioned.

Agreed. The problem is the lack of the mmo aspect in the economy. Without the community aspect the high end combat toons will never really need the serious crafters, and tbh the crafters will not need them as they will cater to the levellers.

Thing is, is that really broken? The problem I think the greedy crafters have with it is that in one sale of a daily orange piece drop, you can make the same profit as say selling 6-8 prototype stimulants. The GTN offers a simple model for the casual crafter and limits players to being casual crafters. Anyone can stockmarket the GTN on resources but it is nearly impossible to completely corner a market due to the constraints on raw material acquisition. Which, tbh is one of the smarter things I have seen.

Do not get me wrong, I come from a sandboxey mmo where other players have been excited to show me their lab and give me a tour of their stuff based solely on my reputation as a crafter and member of that public community on the forums. That is something we will never see in TOR in its current form.

It's easy to pick out the good bits about any profession, but I can't help but dislike the idea that because there are good parts, no one should say a word about the problems. And there ARE problems, like it or not.

You are absolutely correct- there are problems with the crafting system. Duplicate & broken schematics are the most obvious problems. Requiring endgame PvE for biometric alloy mats- is a problem. Lack of mid level crafted orange paterns in some professions - is a problem. Some items not having crafted versions AT ALL is a problem ~thinking augments specifically~.

First of all, most of the threads that complain about crafting are complaining about the unique value of that skill, what makes it worthwhile as opposed to OTHER crew skills. Inevitably, however, about half the replies will be "IT'S GOOD BECAUSE I MAKE A PROFIT". Well, yeah. My cat could get rich in this game. Anything can make money.

QFT ! This game shouldn't cater to 1 style of play. There is a huge debate about which is the best crew skill. Ideally, they should all provide similar benefits, either by creating profits or reducing a player's expenses. Being focusses on the almighty credit in this game is silly- because at 50 you're going to accumulate credits no matter what you do. Many people seem to have dreams of becoming credit sellers, despite the fact that it violates the game's TOS, and pretty much sucks all the fun out of actually playing the game. My intent with my original post was to help players understand how to level crafting, WHILE leveling their character. There is no point to accumulating currency in an environment where currency isn't difficult to obtain.

Also, because you make and sell blue gear to low level characters, a market that will likely shrink as we get further from launch, by the way, does not mean that the people who want to craft level 50 gear do not have a right to complain about the impact daily quest rewards have on this game. They absolutely have just as much right to be annoyed with that as you would if BioWare started replacing low level commendation blues with purples. Just because something does not affect YOU does not mean that it is invalid. That's a selfish mind-set.

I have to flatly disagree with this, because as more people play- there will be more alts. As many as 7 per player/per server. 99% of this game is not endgame content- and there are literally thousands of posts complaining about the lack of endgame content. Yes crafters have a right to complain about endgame crafted gear being inferior to PvP or PvE endgame gear. And it absolutely does affect me, my main is a 50 too. But a lot of the endgame crafted paterns are probably not discovered yet. You can bet those paterns will require a skill level of 400. And many others will exist that are not even released into the live game YET. My point in talking about this was - is that too many people are absolutely TOO focused on then end of the game, rather than the experience in the middle. If someone rushed through the whole game, and are crafting because they percieve it's the only thing they have left to do- it's because they skipped large parts of the content. And they are bored- it is because they're too lazy to play the game. I'm not seeing that the distribrution of character level on my fleet is migrating toward 50. What I'm seeing is that it has become a more even distribution of characters of all levels, instead of the slug of people that it was at launch with hordes racing to hit 50. You're always going to see a fair number of 50's on fleet- because that is the cap.....for now. Ignore the 50's and you'll see that almost every level is now repressented on your fleet at peak times.

As to the OP's assertion that you can't depend on commendation gear, loot drops, and quest rewards while you level, that's not even close to being true. This is an easy game, and you can level perfectly fine without ever using a crafted product. If you feel the need to keep your gear up to date, that's awesome, more power to you, but it probably won't have much of an impact outside of a few builds. I had level 400 Cybertech before I was level 30, and once I realized I didn't need to update my gear often, I stopped making mods and armoring for myself. I did make the occasional Earpiece, but nothing I couldn't have bought off the GTN.

You are correct- & my origianl statement was false. You CAN depend on commendation gear- you can also PvP your way to 50 without ever leaving fleet. You can completely ignore the crafting system & GTN, and still enjoy this game. And the game should be that way. I've played through several runs of 10 or more levels without making any changes to my gear. Gear is not as nearly as important as good strategy and/or teamwork in either PvE or PvP. And on the other sources of mods theme - an interesting thing is happening in this game- large quantities of orange modable gear is showing up on the GTN without mods. People are paying amazing sums of credits to remove mods from dropped gear, and it's not because they are selling the mods sepperately for more than it cost them to remove it. It's because they can't find the comms- or can't find the mod they want. I've bought a lot of resolve armoring mods with comms- because they're almost never available on my GTN at a rational price. But the enhancement mods in my gear, which I've made myself, have always been better than what was available from the comm venders of every planet I've been on ~ including Corelia. And they've been cheaper for all the mats involved in REing to purple & mission skills to get those those mats - than anything I could have bought from the GTN.

Personally, when someone asks me about how to make credits, I tell them to ignore crafting. Yes, as I've said, you can make money with crafting, but you can make more if you go with gathering/mission skills. You can buy everything you need and still be absolutely wealthy by the time you hit 50.

This is a viable strategy for a great game experience- IF you are not interested in crafting. Selling on the GTN- is a reasonable means of offseting the cost of crafting. And purple mats are worth more on the GTN than the crafted items you make from them. This game needs people to follow this strategy of selling mats and buying crafted gear from the GTN- just as much as it needs crafters and people to buy those mats in order for your strategy to work. Ideally there is a balance- rather than everyone taking X skill and playing the game exactly the same way. This is why they've had to make adjustments to both slicing and biochem. Slicing was devaluing the game currency, and causing massive inflation in prices for lowbie gear. While biochem was mandatory for a good post 50 PvP experience. As easy as credits are to come by in this game- I have to wonder why anyone is taking slicing. Unless they just enjoy farming lock boxxes. To each their own. But credits won't do you any good if there isn't gear available for purchase, that you'd actually like to have. Expect any profession to get nerfed anytime too many people go that route- and everyone to be buffed equally only when there are major updates and expansions.

I'll be honest, here. I've sold low level gear. Sure, it sold pretty well, but at level 50, the profit from doing that is almost negligible, at least in my experience. If I'm not crafting high level purples, then I can't help but think that my companion's time would be better spent on Underworld Trading or Slicing missions.

This is somewhat true- while you are logged in. But you can't qeue 25 missions & then log off. You CAN craft 25 items while logged off- even during server maintenance. Yes- that is correct- your crew skill missions and crafting continue even during server down times. The credit yield from 5 grade 6 missions that run an hour or more while I'm logged- pale compaired to the credit yield of 25 blue items made from grade 4 & 5 mats. I'm not going to talk about what 25 purple items made from grade 6 mats- because I don't personally feel that they are worth their weight in mats, given the stats on PvE & PvP gear. When they make the updates to crafting in March that they are talking about- this could change dramatically. You can also make 25 to 50 lowbie crafted blues with 5 companions running, in the time it takes to do a PvP WZ daily without fear of getting dinged by crew skill result reports.

Thank you for your post, it did a very good job of outlining most of the major issues with player perception of crafting that exist at the moment. It also did a very good job of outlining the alternatives available to those who do not wish to craft while leveling.

TL;DR

Original post = How to craft while leveling without being broke all the time

this post =

1) you shouldn't have to.....

a) Craft in order to PvE or PvP

b) PvP in order to Craft or PvE

c) PvE in order to PvP or Craft

2)Crafting lowbie gear does have economic value to a lvl 50 toon, because it's nearly effortless credits.

I'm a business person also.

 

What you have witnessed is not a growing economy, but the rise of a mat farming industry....just as has occurred in every game where the attempt is made to create difficulty in tradeskilling by raising demand for raw materials to a point beyond the worth of the manufactured product.

 

When I stopped tradeskilling three days ago I had just over 300k and was slowing losing all my capitol just trying to outfit my main. Selling mats I now have him equipped in blues and am just about at 1 million credits in the bank.

Yes- this is what it has gone to atm.. brought on by massive quantities of 50's power leveling their crafting skills that they ignored as they power leveled through the game. I believe this phenomenon is already starting to break. You could see the inflation in prices move through the various grades of mats, in sequencial order, on my server. I've seen mat prices falling consistently over the past few weeks. Purple mats are still overvalued, and I believe they will stay that way because of people gearing alts. A lot of people stopped "tradeskilling" and swithched to selling mats because of the insane inflation that was going on. That was the smart choice for profit. But this forced lowbies to gather and crew mission for mats if they wanted to craft. And now they're beginning to dump their accumulated and now uneeded low level mats. Expect a crash in lowbie mats soon. This has resulted in a larger quantity of crafted gear on my server. It's appears that it may ebb and flow cyclicaly, just like a real economy. I'm not sure if it will do this because of the high velocity of new mat generation & depreciation of old gear. Idealy, it will stabilize somewhere, I want to see if it does.

Not sure if this was covered but,

Don't put a hundred green items on the auction house. Start with blues. Reverse your green items to get the blue recipes.

As easy as credits are to come by in this game- I have to wonder why anyone is taking slicing. Unless they just enjoy farming lock boxxes. To each their own.

Actually, the best reason to take Slicing is because it's an incredible support skill for crafting. Slicing has the potential to return an unlocked mission item on a critical. Those unlocked mission items account for about 80% of the Mandalorian Iron I acquire, and a large percentage of my Promethium and Zal Alloy(grade 5 and 6 metals and compounds). An Underworld Trading unlocked mission item can return about 50k worth of materials, for instance. That's why I run Slicing missions non-stop when my companions aren't being used for other things. Even the ones I can't use can be sold on the GTN, from prices of 4k to 25k (level 340). The lockboxes are completely secondary, and only make up a small fraction of the profit Slicing generates for me.

That aside, I don't really disagree with anything else you've said. I don't think crafting is broken. I keep 5 or 6 pages of Earpieces on the GTN at all times. However, it does have a LOT of problems, and I often see others being quick to discount those problems because they've managed to avoid them.

I do understand that this thread isn't about that, though, which I can respect.

On the subject of high-level purples, I would like to say a little bit. You actually can make quite a bit of credits, but it requires a huge investment. You have to be willing to spend millions to procure purple schematics, and you have to be willing to make dozens of slow selling pieces in order to craft those much desired slotted pieces. I crafted ten Inquisitor Earpieces today, and two of them were slotted. Both of them sold within 10 minutes after advertising just once on fleet, for 150k each. Obviously that's not going to happen most of the time, but if you're willing to invest, the level 49+ market does still hold some areas of profitability.

......the best reason to take Slicing is because it's an incredible support skill for crafting. Slicing has the potential to return an unlocked mission item on a critical. Those unlocked mission items account for about 80% of the Mandalorian Iron I acquire, and a large percentage of my Promethium and Zal Alloy(grade 5 and 6 metals and compounds). An Underworld Trading unlocked mission item can return about 50k worth of materials, for instance. That's why I run Slicing missions non-stop when my companions aren't being used for other things. Even the ones I can't use can be sold on the GTN, from prices of 4k to 25k (level 340)....

There you have it! There is the reason to take up slicing. It is the most reliable source for those mission items. I completely forgot about that! So it's the gathering skill for unlockable crew missions.

See, my issue is that "materials cost" is such a dicey value in this game owing to (a) often unpredictable returns from crew skill missions, (b) bizarre pricing on the GTN, sometimes crazy low, sometimes crazy high, and © insufficient market supply. Then of course there is the cost of reverse engineering (which is reliant upon a mechanic that may hold out on you until your 50th attempt), or purchasing schematics off of the GTN (the latter is typically effectively cheaper), and opportunity costs involved wherein you could possibly be doing something more productive with your crafting time, etc. And then at the end of the day, you probably make as much money simply selling the raw materials instead. For example, it may cost, say 900 credits to acquire 8 mullinine, but you can sell that mullinine on the market at a pretty brisk rate and more than triple your investment.

I don't think crafting is broken, really (in fact, I really like it and use it to gear up my own characters), but I'm just not sure it's the best way to make credits off of your crew skills.

See, my issue is that "materials cost" is such a dicey value in this game owing to

(a) often unpredictable returns from crew skill missions,

(b) bizarre pricing on the GTN, sometimes crazy low, sometimes crazy high, and

© insufficient market supply.

The value of mats has a price ceiling based on the cost and yield of your crew missions.

1)The best way to establish a value for a mat is to(for green & blue mats)

a) run 50 missions for a particular mat,

b) record which missions you took & their cost, so you can calculate the total cost later

c) establish the ratios of the resulting mats

d) apply that ratio to the total cost of the missions

e) divide that fraction by the quantity of the mat in question = AVG mat cost

2) for purple mats look at the GTN

~this will get you close, bear in mind that crew affection has an effect on mission yields~

2)If prices on the GTN are lower than your average mat cost- BUY THEM instead of using crew skills

3)If prices on the GTN are crazy high- Sell your mats instead of crafting with them.

~profit from crafting is always going to depend as much on the market as it does on your choice of what to craft - or- if you even choose to craft.~

Then of course there is the cost of reverse engineering (which is reliant upon a mechanic that may hold out on you until your 50th attempt), or purchasing schematics off of the GTN (the latter is typically effectively cheaper), and opportunity costs involved wherein you could possibly be doing something more productive with your crafting time, etc. And then at the end of the day, you probably make as much money simply selling the raw materials instead. For example, it may cost, say 900 credits to acquire 8 mullinine, but you can sell that mullinine on the market at a pretty brisk rate and more than triple your investment.

Sure you have to make an investment to make money crafting. You could also invest in your character's movement speed (speeder II & a faster speeder that is only actualy %5.26 faster than your first speeder), or you could invest in possibly uneeded class skills ~thinking saber strike for sages~. But it's nearly impossible to quantify how these investment in your character directly creates profit. How fast you burn down mobs? At times selling mats on the GTN will be more profitable than crafting. And purple mats of all grades will probably always be worth more on the GTN than the products crafted from them.

1) You have facilities construction costs in this game

a) gaining companion affection through gifts

2) product development costs

a) green schematics - of little value because they are so easily obtained

b) blue schematics from the GTN for items not available from your craft skill trainer.

c) REing to blues - not too terribly expensive

d) REing to purples grades 1-5 - very expensive & lowbie purples have a lower profit margin than blues

e) REing to purples grade 6 - insanely expensive to develop but potentially have the highest margin of any crafted products in the game.

I don't think crafting is broken, really (in fact, I really like it and use it to gear up my own characters), but I'm just not sure it's the best way to make credits off of your crew skills.

There are only 3 options for credits from crew skills

1) crafting gear & selling it

2) lockboxes of credits or items that you can sell

3) gathering and selling mats

At any given moment one of those options is going to make you more money than the other two. Which one it is, is beyond your control, because it depends on what everyone else on your server is trying to do, and how the devs adjust drop rates for items & mats. If you're a crafter when more people are farming mats- you'll make more money. If you're farming mats when more people are crafting- you'll make more money. Profits selling items from crew missions is subject to too many influences to make any rational predictions about how it will perform. But because you have little influence over which items you obtain this way, I'd have to say that in the long run it's not as profitable as some want to think. It's akin to gambling, because they're always thinking, "this mission might return X" I'm sure it always pays for the mission cost, but it probably only turns a nice profit when the mission crits. And if it continualy returns more money than crafting, and continually attracts a disproportionate number of players to use it, the devs will continualy nerf it.