How to be a successful smith?

[Geus]

I tried to be a smith and sell my weapons in my little cozy shop in town but nobody buy my stuff. I decided to sell weapons to the local shops but cost of resources is HIGHER than money they give me. What the hell with this economy? Is it even possible to earn money by lone smith?

[Geus]

Example:

Horse Chopper Catun No. 1 - shop's price is 787.
Recources to produce - appr. 810.

I'm actually loosing money here.

[yippeekiay]

Keep at it, once you have researched better weapon grades & your smith is a higher level the shops won't have enough cats to buy your stuff. The higher the grade substantially increases the value. Catun 1 is garbage so worth diddly but you need to go through making this crap to level up to better stuff.

For an easier way to make money earlier on, go the armour smith route first then pick up the weaponsmith once cats aren't so much of an issue for you. The higher your skill level the better the gear in armour WITHOUT having to specifically research grades then list the better grade in the job list as needed for weapons. Plus there is numerous jobs to boost the skill without having to actually make armour if you have the research done, like chainmail sheets, plate beating etc

I was playing last night and I'm throwing specialist gear & Edge type Falling Suns etc into the furnace while waiting for better stuff to equip my guys as the shops simply can't cope with so much as they are worth a small fortune and I can't be bothered running there to sell as I simply have nothing left to spend my cats on ;o)

[rompier02]

Hi. For me to start weapons/armour selling business first need resources iron to turn into steel bars/armour plate. Leather can farm from animals. Then need hemp/cotton for fabric. If buying from shops then it is not profitable. The skills for weapon/armour crafting must be 80 + for Specialist Grade/ Edge ( Weapons much lower for Edge if not mistaken.) Also must research Edge from Tech tree. These will allow player to sell at higher price.

[Teralitha]

I read somewhere that no one buys weapons at your shop counter, just basic resources and food, which is lame,.

[Pyrrhus]

I have scorchlanders working as weapon, armor, and crossbow smiths cuz scorchlander race has 20% exp bonus for making weapon, armor, and crossbow which can save you 20% of time and resources against other races.

[Humble]

Only way there kind of pure profit is your own outpost, but buy house within town is safer but costy to run with limited resource what trader had. You can' make profit if right weapon, not all weapon. Just look at how much weapon had high vaule of sell and cost resource to make. You shouldn't make Horse Chopper for profit, you had to find other weapon like katana that had high value, You only make hrse chooper for your team, but not good for profit.

I guess whole world of kenshi want Katana more than horse chooper because Katana is rarer than horse chopper, horse chopper is common.

[Germania516]

Originally posted by Geus:

Example:

Horse Chopper Catun No. 1 - shop's price is 787.
Recources to produce - appr. 810.

I'm actually loosing money here.

Why the bloody hel are you even buying resources mate ? Get a bloody mine,get a processor for ore,a loom,and some workers,and mine away. Everything is free if you look for nature

You want to research stone to be able to make building materials,and the rest is all yours to do what you want,and make what you want.

So get your smith,make a bunch of weapin cabinets,and make weapons to level 90 than you are rich,one weapon out of thousands in those cabinets go from 700s to 1000s. Right now my smith is only 89 level,and I have 10 weapon cabinets full of weapons that I don't even know how I am going to sell all them lol Alot of trips to the shop.

What is exciting is I have a massive amount of weapons that I feel overwhelmed with but what is great is I am sitting on a gold mine.

Just farm your own resources,and make them.......you won't spend one cat. Gain than lose

[Humble]

I think he set up in the town where is more safe than outpost, not outpost, but you can't use land at all while in the town so you had to buy goods to make products to sell it, yes less profit but safely than outpost in early of games.

[Tempest]

You can build in a town.You cant by default ,but you can change it so you can.

heres what mongrel looks like with my base inside it.

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197987051950/screenshot/954101320513873358

and heres how to do so.

"It has an even better use though.Want to keep mongrels entire population,and all its buildings functioning for the mongrel faction,BUT be able to build anywhere in mongrel you want ?
Just go into shift+f12 , move mongrels marker ,and put down one of your own.

Its that simple."

[RandomDude]

It's true that you can't just be a "Smith" right away and buy resources/sell for a profit. It's a shame because it would of been a different ay to play initially.

[Humble]

You can make profit, but you had to pick right weapon to make profit, not all kind of weapon can make profit, I think armors and clothing might be worse.

[Thundercracker]

Originally posted by Humble:

You can make profit, but you had to pick right weapon to make profit, not all kind of weapon can make profit, I think armors and clothing might be worse.

not the cloth/leather armors. metal armors might be costly to make, but leather and cloth items that have quality grades very quickly are worth far mor than the materials needed to make them, plus, unlike weapons, your quality isnt restricted by tech.

[Humble]

Reason is cloth/leather are not part because hard to get resource, rare I am lucky to find 7 item of leather in waystation or town nearly by, Iron I can work with, can get easy even in same town even hub and nearby. You can't product goods if you do not had a raw resource, often you keep check shop to shop, next town might had few to none, then waystation far away, half of day, might had penty more but not much. I just wish we can buy and build even farm in town or nearly by, that's would be fun to roleplaying, I don't even mind if there is tax for using town's land (not house) (not like outpost, it's town's tax very smaller than outpost's tax) or something like that. I think leather is hardest to get, if you can't find enemies animial (not friendly one) to get one.

[harberst]

If you're in the Hub just take a single (male) greenlander with high athletics and a large backpack and run him to Stack, plentiful fabric (and often leather).

I agree it'd be nice if there were some (early game) opportunties to farm in town, maybe if buying a house included a small patch of the adjacent land? Just enough for a garden, an even smaller small farm. It always felt a little weird and kinda off that farming is one of the first things you can research but building a base (the only way to utilize that research) is not an early game endeavor.

[Thundercracker]

Originally posted by harberst:

If you're in the Hub just take a single (male) greenlander with high athletics and a large backpack and run him to Stack, plentiful fabric (and often leather).

I agree it'd be nice if there were some (early game) opportunties to farm in town, maybe if buying a house included a small patch of the adjacent land? Just enough for a garden, an even smaller small farm. It always felt a little weird and kinda off that farming is one of the first things you can research but building a base (the only way to utilize that research) is not an early game endeavor.

i started as an empire citizen, in sho-battai. they generally stocked enough cloth and leather to keep my armorsmith crafting fulltime. so much that i was also able to spend fabric on first aid kits without too much of a shortage.