Friday, April 12, 2013

Engineering and TSM_Crafting guide

Over the past couple of weeks I have been listening to podcasts, watching livestreams, and just immersing myself in the gold making community. When I first started making gold I only had 2 maxed professions, Alchemy and Engineering. Now I'm sure most of you out there are saying to yourselves, 'eww engineering, drop that shit and get JC'. However I have and still do really enjoy this profession, and in all honesty it has proven to be a very good earner for me over the past months. According to my records, Engineering alone is responsible for 30% of my total gold earned, since I started seriously trying to make gold. So without further ado, here is my guide on how to utilize TSM_Crafting to get the absolute most out of Engineering.

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Warning this is not a beginner's guide to TSM_Crafting, other's have done much better than I ever could at explaining in much more detail.
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First thing's first:
The first thing I must start of saying is that, even though I'm sure most reading this already do, you need Tradeskillmaster and it's module TSM_Crafting, at the very least though I highly suggest getting all of the modules. Also, you will need the TheUndermineJournal GE Addon.

Now on the the guide:
Now that TSM is installed, we are going to go in and start setting things up.



First we are going to select the Auctioning Groups/Options tab, the one that looks like a giant gold coin on the left side of the TSM cogwheel. Now we are going to setup a couple categories for us to use. To do this, select the 'Categories/Groups' option in the sidebar on the left side of the window. Then we are going to select the 'Create Category/Group' tab, this is where we name our categories. Under 'Add Category', in the 'Category name' dialog box we are going to type the name of the category we wish to create, for the purposes of this guide I am just going to call it "engineering - craftables", then hit enter to create it.



Now that we have the category setup let's go ahead and setup some of the options in the category, this way when we add the items that we wish to craft/auction we won't have to go in and set each one up individually.
Select the category you just created, and select the "Category Overrides" tab. Now, I'm not going to go over all of the setting just the ones that are important for this guide.

First, we need to select how long we want to post these items for, since I am able to get on at least once a day I like to post items for 24hrs, this way I have a little wiggle room if I can't get on at night to do some reposting. Next is the post cap, I set this at 2, this way if 1 sells there is still one on the ah, and if both sell then I have a nice chunk of gold coming in to re-craft and post them back up. As for the per auction, we are going to set this at 1, so we post 2 stacks of 1 of each item we craft.



On to the fun stuff, pricing, for the threshold we are going to use the "% crafting cost" then set the price threshold at 120%. Next we are going to set the Fallback to 200% of 'TUJ GE - Market Average'. Finally, set the 'Reset Method' option to 'Post at Fallback', this allows you to do a 'soft' reset of the market without having to buy out everything that is cheaper than yours (Though this can be done, but I don't recommend it until you are more comfortable with the market).

Crafting:
Let's get to the part I know everyone came here for how to setup Crafting for engineering.



Select the Crafting module, it's the one that looks like a dragon's eye icon, and select the "Price / Inventory Settings" tab. Set the Mat prices as 'Market Value', and set the craft prices as "Minimum Buyout". Finally set the 'Profit Deduction' to 5% to account for the AH cut, or if planning on sending cross-faction set this to 20% to account for the 15% from the neutral AH then the 5% from the faction AH.



Now we are going to setup the Queue Settings, for these I set the method as a 'Percent of Cost', then set the 'Min Restock Quantity' to 1, the 'Max Restock Quantity' to 2, and the 'Minimum Profit (in %)' to 25%.



Choosing Stock:
Next we head into the profession tab for Engineering, it's at the bottom of the window and looks like a cogwheel(sprocket). Then we are going to go down through the lists of items that we can craft and click 'Disable All Crafts', don't worry we are going to go back through and select the items that we do wish to craft. Once that is done, let's start finding the items we want to craft.


  1. First up is the armor section, in here the only thing that is worth making is the 'Mist-Piercing Goggles'. In the Guns section we want to craft, 'Big Game Hunter' and 'Long-Range Trillium Sniper'.
  2. In the Scopes section we want to craft, 'Lord Blastington's Scope of Doom' and 'Steam Tonk Controller' (I know it's not a scope but its in that section and it sells for a pretty penny). We also are going to select 'Mirror Scope' not for selling but so TSM knows that I can craft it (when it's cheaper than buying it of ah). To do this we select it like normal then right click and select 'Don't queue this item.', which will keep tsm from queueing it unless it is needed to make another item (in this case 'Big Game Hunter').
  3. I skip the consumables and explosives sections.
  4. In the Companions section, select 'Enable All Crafts' to make sure they are all selected. These will be some of your top earners along with Lord Blastington's scope.
  5. In the Trinkets section we are going to select 'Ghost Iron Dragonling'.
  6. Finally, in the Misc Items section we are going to add a lot of stuff. Firstly, go through and select all of the 'Tinker's Gear's" there are 8 of them, Flashing, Fractured, Precise, Quick, Rigid, Smooth, Sparkling, and Subtle, one for each of the secondary stats.
  7. Now we are going to select some items that are going to be needed for crafting, or what I call craftable mats. The ones we need to select, besides the Mirror Scope, which we already setup, are:
    • Gyrochronatom
    • Fused Wiring
    • Gold Power Core
    • Truesilver Transformer
    • Ghost Iron Bolts
    • Thorium Widget
    • Handful of Obsidium Bolts
    • Electrified Ether.
Again to re-iterate how to add these properly, is to left-click to select them, then right-click to open a popup window and select the option 'Don't queue this item.'



The very last thing we need to do in this area of TSM_Crafting is set a price for Spirits of Harmony, to do this we are going into the 'Materials' section, then locate 'Spirit of Harmony' right-click on it to open a popup window that allows us to override the price of items. In this window we are goin to select 'Override Price Source', then select 'Multiple of Other Item Cost', in the 'Other Item' box enter 72238 (which is the item id for Golden Lotus) and in the price multiplier enter '2'.




Now for the easy part, open up your Engineering profession, and open the TSM_Crafting window by clicking the button above the profession window. Once open, click the 'Restock Queue' button to populate the crafting list. Now just start crafting, if you are missing and mats, go to the AH and use the crafting mats search (I'm not going to go over this here, will add it if there is enough requests for it). Once you have crafted the items, it's time to add them to the Auctioning Category we created at the beginning.



Go back to TSM, and select the 'Auctioning Groups/Options' tab again. Select the 'Categories/Groups' option, and go to the 'Quick Group Creation' tab. Find and select all of the items you crafted and hit the add button. In the 'Add Groups to Category:' drop-down select the category we created 'engineering - craftables', then click 'Create Groups'.

Congratulations, you are now ready to go post your items on the AH, just remember that when you craft a new item to be sure to add it to the category in it's own group like I showed you.

GoblinRaset

5 comments:

KromHammer said...

What an awesome post my friend! I've followed this already and currently working through Engineering. I'll let you know how I make out. Keep up the great work!

~Profitz

Unknown said...

Thanks, can't wait to hear how it fairs for you.

Poiekelsatin said...

Awesome guide ..... I just have one thing not showing up the same as you which you have called on to the fun stuff. Mine is showing minimum price not % I assume I need to be in advanced but, not sure how to do that.

Unknown said...

Yes, you need to be in advanced mode. To turn it on, go to the 'Auctioning Groups/Options' tab, then under the general options deselect 'Hide advanced options'

Poiekelsatin said...

Awesome and thanx again for a great How To Guide :)