Smithing is SOOOO profitable (Ty requesting design consult here)

[woolfoma]

I can smith 2400 silver into a 28800 silver value sword with my lvl 19 crafting guy, after selling the sword it comes out to over 10k profit per day (he makes about a sword a day). can't wait to get my hands on 2400 gold *drools*

[tommonius]

ah interesting, I just mined out a nice chunk of gold and sold it for silver, was contemplating on what to do with it but you have a great idea their. Quick problem though who do you sell it to? I have found most vendors do not carry that much money. How much silver does your vendors tend to have?

[Cyclops]

He probably sold it to an exotic goods trader and bought everything they had on board.

Also, amazingly enough, I've seen poor golden art pieces go for 80k silver. Now, only if I could mine enough gold to make one...



... and not sell it because there aren't any traders that actually carry enough silver to buy it.

#secondyearcolonyproblems

[keylocke]

ah interesting, I just mined out a nice chunk of gold and sold it for silver, was contemplating on what to do with it but you have a great idea their. Quick problem though who do you sell it to? I have found most vendors do not carry that much money. How much silver does your vendors tend to have?

yea, this tends to be the limit when selling a single item with a very hefty price tag.

it's so much easier and more flexible to sell large quantities of cheap stuff you got from killing people (more enjoyable too) than crafting a single expensive item.. coz of the amount of silver and items for trade a trader brings you could potentially end up at a loss instead of a profit. (if they didn't bring enough silver or good items to trade)

you can do both of course. sell cheap stuff and expensive crafted stuff. (killing people and taking their stuff just seemed more enjoyable) 

[woolfoma]

note that swords can only be sold to weapon dealers, which means about 2-3k silver and some weapons and tools, what I usually do is sell my sword, take all their money and anything else necessary to get the trade done, then sell that other stuff to other traders. I've started to move to artwork, as it can be sold to exotic goods traders, making it possible to sell silver artwork of high quality and buy tonnes of gold, which everyone loves buying from you with their precious silver (MY PRECIOUS, DON'T TAKES MY PRESIOUS FROM ME!!!)

[Spoonikle]

I can smith 2400 silver into a 28800 silver value sword with my lvl 19 crafting guy, after selling the sword it comes out to over 10k profit per day (he makes about a sword a day). can't wait to get my hands on 2400 gold *drools*

gold items are not as profitable as silver, stick with that.

Wooden swords are also a great value, 120 wood = well over 600 silver with only level 10 crafting. Great way to level up smithing too.

[Col_Jessep]

I think we need a better way to assign certain workbenches or bills to their own colonist. I want to train up one crafter on stone blocks or wooden swords while my best crafter gets to make the statues and silver stuff.

I know, you can micro it already but that will become tiresome soon. If you could assign a bill to a colonist, that would be awesome!

[Teovald]

Hmmm, very interesting. A pop idol wandered in my colony and (social 15, art 15) and I have been able to buy a crafting neurotrainer in order to transform another colonist into a lvl 15 crafter. 
So far, I have been making them create steel sword, woodeen spears and random art, but it might be wiser to put that gold and silver to good use.

I think we need a better way to assign certain workbenches or bills to their own colonist. I want to train up one crafter on stone blocks or wooden swords while my best crafter gets to make the statues and silver stuff. 

I know, you can micro it already but that will become tiresome soon. If you could assign a bill to a colonist, that would be awesome!

I feel the same way. Actually, I fear that some of the game systems are starting to stop scaling with the game complexity ( crafting and hauling in particular) and that it might be time to go back to the drawing board and redesign some of these systems from the grounds up.

[tommonius]

Hmmm, very interesting. A pop idol wandered in my colony and (social 15, art 15) and I have been able to buy a crafting neurotrainer in order to transform another colonist into a lvl 15 crafter. 
So far, I have been making them create steel sword, woodeen spears and random art, but it might be wiser to put that gold and silver to good use.

I think we need a better way to assign certain workbenches or bills to their own colonist. I want to train up one crafter on stone blocks or wooden swords while my best crafter gets to make the statues and silver stuff. 

I know, you can micro it already but that will become tiresome soon. If you could assign a bill to a colonist, that would be awesome!

I feel the same way. Actually, I fear that some of the game systems are starting to stop scaling with the game complexity ( crafting and hauling in particular) and that it might be time to go back to the drawing board and redesign some of these systems from the grounds up.

Yea I get what you mean, a former raider took a wound to the head and is slow and somewhat braindamaged but decent at crafting but he always seems to teeter on mental breakdowns probably because it takes so long for him to walk to food or his bed.

But every time I try to start burning bodies he goes to operate the Crematorium he abandons making those Parkas I need crafting for winter and I have to micromanage the ever loving crap out of him to avoid him going insane.

on the gold and silver topic I had no idea silver was worth more than gold, I think I need to get a few people crafting some melee weapons and then abuse selling high quality items and buy out all the traders stock then flog it back to another seller if I need to.

[Tynan]

These valuations are actually in 'it's a bug' territory, so don't expect them to last to the next alpha :p

[Tynan]

I'm curious as to how you guys would suggest fixing this. I sense two separate issues:

1. Art and crafts can become too valuable. The base value of a gold sculpture 40,000. The quality modifier can add insane amounts of value, because it multiplies the entire base value of the item, while not really costing anything to obtain if you have a good crafter.

How to solve?
-Make quality modifier an offset instead of a multiplier. So instead of being x2 it's more like +1000. But how does that work for low-value items like shivs?
-Reduce multipliers a lot. Problem: now it�s quite affordable to buy legendary weapons etc.
-Do a post-pass on prices traders will buy at; if an item is really expensive, we aggressively curve the price down. So player can never make a giant amount of money selling a single mega-item (though buying them will still cost insane amounts).

2. Wood swords are worth too much, just because they take a long time to craft (since crafting time adds value all by itself), even though they�re kind of useless.

How to solve?
-???


Anyone have any thoughts on either of these?

[Ink.]

I'm curious as to how you guys would suggest fixing this. I sense two separate issues:

1. Art and crafts can become too valuable. The base value of a gold sculpture 40,000. The quality modifier can add insane amounts of value, because it multiplies the entire base value of the item, while not really costing anything to obtain if you have a good crafter.

How to solve?
-Make quality modifier an offset.
-Reduce multipliers a lot. Problem: now it�s quite affordable to buy legendary weapons etc.
-Do a post-pass on prices traders will buy at; if an item is really expensive, we aggressively curve the price down. So player can never make a giant amount of money selling a single mega-item (though buying them will still cost insane amounts).

Anyone have any thoughts on either of these?

I can attest to this issue. I have a gold sculpture literally worth $180K sitting in my base. It's considered masterwork with a beauty of 3540. As much as I'd love to sell it and make bank, $180K is absolutely ridiculous. This was a lvl 20 crafter's first attempt at gold and he made an item worth so much. If I /could/ sell it, I would be able to afford a few years worth. In regards to your points.

1. Would def need to see the pros and cons of this option.

2. This could work. Tbh, I think we need to see an expansion in terms of production and return. It should not be easy to take high quality ingredients and make decent weapons/stuff so easily. It should honestly be a grind so that it can be profitable in the future. And, if you aren't using guns, it could also mean deciding whether you sell the good for profit or use it to better arm your own. But balancing would definitely be necessary.

3. This might be a little troubling. A good way to scale it would be that certain items (whether it be weapons, art etc) would be easier to mass produce, but even at the highest quality, still only somewhat profitable. But more higher end stuff, stuff that requires more higher quality/rarer resources, should take more time but have much more noticeable profits from it. Quality should still affect the payout, but only by a reasonable amount. That gives the sort of balance where a player might decide "Do I mass produce steel swords and sell them to try to earn a decent return on the next trader or do I try to put as much as I can into a good few gold swords and sell them for a larger profit at the cost of a rarer resource and more time commitment?". I think with this way we might see more "trader based" colonies by players, people trying to make colonists into good crafters and artists to sell off produced goods to pay for other important goods.

Idk, just my .02

[Aethelric]

Melee weapons, of any material, just shouldn't be worth as much as they are, masterwork or otherwise. That masterwork gold/silver weapons would be fairly easy to obtain should be offset by relative uselessness as actual weapons. The fact that firearms aren't all that expensive anyway, and that weapons of decent quality can be made by shipwrecked survivors without much effort, should mean that the profitability of manufacturing melee weapons for sale should always remain pretty low.

Do a post-pass on prices traders will buy at; if an item is really expensive, we aggressively curve the price down. So player can never make a giant amount of money selling a single mega-item (though buying them will still cost insane amounts)

This makes sense, from an economic perspective: the colony only has a handful of potential traders to sell to, and the traders themselves could only have so many buyers for such crazy items in the first place—I mean, what trade destination is in the market for "masterwork gold abstract sculpture made by shipwrecked colonists", anyway? Since the colony has little other recourse but to sell at the mercy of these wandering space traders, they have to sell for what the traders are willing to take.

[keylocke]

hmm.. kinda tough topic, here's my take on it :

-for craftable melee weapons : i think the top tier weapons people can acquire are powerclaw, m24, minigun, or doomsday rocket.. therefore, a sword's price shouldn't exceed the price of those weapons (even if it's a masterwork longsword made in gold) since there's this clear division between a weapon and a work of art in rimworld (iirc, melee weapons don't have beauty, hence they shouldn't be treated as a "work of art") hence, they are treated solely based upon their effectiveness as a weapon.. i assume that gold weapons aren't very effective as a weapon, so plasteel, steel, uranium, or even wood. should probably have higher value than a gold weapon.. (despite gold being a valuable material, it's useless as a weapon)

-same thing with craftable clothes : hyperweave or devilwear stuff probably shouldn't exceed the price of a power armor. (regardless of quality) since the purpose of apparel is mostly for protection and defense from harsh climate. in that regards, power armor is the best. therefore, no other armor/clothes should exceed the price of a power armor.

-as for craftable art : it's value is based on beauty. for this, i don't really mind if it reaches tremendous heights. since there doesn't seem to be other items to compare it on when it comes to effectiveness. a masterwork golden statue is valuable simply coz there's practically nothing else that can beat it based on it's beauty..

price is affected by demand. demand is powered by the ability to purchase. (ie : a priceless item cannot be bought, simply coz there's no one who can afford to buy it). hence the price of an item is subjectively based upon the buyer's ability to purchase and the seller's willingness to sell..

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

anyways, the gist is : an item's price should be based upon the "effectiveness" of the item based upon it's item category.

ie :

-is it effective as a weapon? how more effective is it compared to an m24, a minigun, a doomsday rocket, or a powerclaw? then that should be the criteria for it's price.

-is it effective as an armor? how effective is it compared to a power armor? then that should be the criteria for it's price.

-is it effective as an artwork? what's the max a trader can actually buy it for? then that should be the criteria for it's price.

and so on and so forth..

[Veneke]

-Do a post-pass on prices traders will buy at; if an item is really expensive, we aggressively curve the price down. So player can never make a giant amount of money selling a single mega-item (though buying them will still cost insane amounts).

This sounds like it will effectively cap the amount a trader is willing to pay for any particular item. That sounds pretty reasonable.

2. Wood swords are worth too much, just because they take a long time to craft (since crafting time adds value all by itself), even though they�re kind of useless.

I think it might be an idea to disassociate crafting time with the sale price. Wood swords should go pretty cheaply, no matter how long it takes to craft them (although really it shouldn't take that long).


Honestly the entire economic set-up is a bit strange. Crafting has now become a basis for a curious trading based colony when really Aethelric has it quite right - we're crafters on some backwater rimworld; nobody 'out there' should want our crappy stuff. There might be the odd piece of abstract art that would find its way into the halls of some glitterworld dandy as a curiousity piece, but creating a successful industrial base on the production and sale of steel swords to interplanetary traders is a little strange.

It would make more sense to barter (not sell) to other factions on the world map. I could certainly see tribespeople having a use for swords, or art for outlander colonies, and that kind of thing. I've honestly found that traders speed up the game unnecessarily. It's altogether too easy to get power armour, bionic gear, etc by selling off dozens of parkas or the aforementioned useless swords. Switching to a barter-based trading system with other factions, limiting the types of goods which can be sold to traders, and capping the price they're willing to pay for those things would go a long way towards rebalancing the economic system and extending the mid-game out with trading/crafting.

My tuppence, for what it's worth.