Improving The Economic Viability Of Forging Metal Arrowheads

[Math321]

Right now, forging metal arrowheads and selling them to players is prohibitively expensive.

A batch of 5 steel nails sells for 170 riln if there is no market saturation. Even a novice smith can get very close to this figure, even if they're making crappy nails instead of superior-grade ones. So a batch of arrowheads - which is currently just 2 arrowheads - has to sell for at LEAST 170 riln to break even compared to nails, or perhaps a bit lower if one accounts for market saturation. Most people are (quite understandably) just not willing to pay 5k-ish riln to get a quiver-full of arrows - many people expect a price 1/3 of that. Even with market saturation involved, nail prices almost never get THAT low.

Unfortunately, this only leaves 3 fairly bad options:
A. The arrowhead-smith has to charge absurd prices that strain IC believability.
B. The arrowhead-smith has to accept much less money than a novice smith's paycheck, despite having a skill that is a bit rarer and more specialized than a beginner's meager smithing ability.
C. The BUYER has to forge all their own metal arrowheads, paying with their time, grinding, and ability-slots instead of their riln.

None of those are good options! To make it so people can actually sell arrowheads at prices that make sense, I propose a different option:

Change the arrowhead recipes so that you can make more arrowheads at once, while still keeping the materials-cost the same. Making 4 arrowheads with a 2-pound bar, for instance, or perhaps making 8 arrowheads with a 4-pound bar. This'd reduce the time-cost of forging arrowheads, to the point where smiths can actually afford to sell arrowheads to other characters at prices that are reasonable and even profitable compared to commodities.

[preiman]

Honestly, you’re going to have a Lot of situations like this. Actually making and selling things to players is never going to be quite as lucrative as just mining or making nails is. Really, the only reason to craft for people at all is to be part of the game and RP.

[Math321]

Honestly, you’re going to have a Lot of situations like this. Actually making and selling things to players is never going to be quite as lucrative as just mining or making nails is. Really, the only reason to craft for people at all is to be part of the game and RP.

In my experience, that doesn't hold true for forging. Bladed weapons, blunt weapons, and armor all sell for more per forging operation than batches of nails do, even if they're made of common materials. Have you ever heard of a superior-grade smithed weapon selling for 340 or less? It would be unusual to say the least, and would probably come with unique circumstances. While of course selling weapons and armor to players is less COMMON than selling nails to market, it is more profitable for the amount of time spent - sometimes VASTLY more profitable, especially if rare materials and/or masterful-grade quality is involved.

As for mining... I can't really comment on that. I haven't mined much in a player's mine, and Quintin's Mining skill is (at the time of writing) nothing impressive. I'll have to take your word for it. Out of curiosity, if a character has a lot of mining skill and access to a player-mine, how much profit per hour could be expected, if you went mining for X minutes and then refined/sold stuff for Y minutes? I know that a BEGINNER smith can probably expect a profit of 1,000 per hour from steel nails, after they get forging-energy costs down a bit, so that could be a good point of comparison.

[preiman]

I am not sure about an exact number, but I will say that it is very rare that you won’t make at least that much,