Crafting experiment

Discussion
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Since I had a bunch of badges lying around, and thanks to the Foxy’s scam minibattlepass the price of Trombones has skyrocketed, I decided to do a little experiment on how profitable crafting is. I had 1116 coins, and the goal was to use workpieces to craft two trombones, going 900-950 per pop, and see if by the end of it I had made any profit in coins, minus the loss of any coins I could have made with the badges.

Of course Trombones require Therms to craft, which are already very expensive, can’t really be crafted and just add to the overall scummy behavior from the baboons in charge of this game, and there ar 15 coin crafting cost per Trombone which I think workpieces should not even have, and the newer workpieces requiring more parts than the old ones.

After some time I managed to craft them and sell them, and in the end I now have a total of 1203 coins. So that’s a total profit of 87 coins, and a loss of around 800 badges

I could have used the badges for a crate or resources that would sell for around 300 coins, + a possible 100-300 coins in just selling resources I grinded for the parts. So that’s a 87 coins from crafting and selling 2 items that are going for 950 coins VS let’s say a 450, possible 600 coins from not crafting the Trombones and just selling resources.

Yeah, crafting just is not worth it in general in this game. I did have to buy the Therms sadly which put a huge dent in the profits, but even then 87 coins is very laughable. I hope that this experience sheds some light into the worthlessness of part crafting in general that this game suffers from, and the blotation of prices that will eventually make the game reach an unplayable point for any players.

I could have probably crafted everything from the ground up and used a bit less coins in making the trombones, but at that point I could probably sell the resources for anywhere around 600-1000 coins, which still is just much more profitable than crafting anything, as you would need to grind for a long time, and that just means more resources to sell

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Many of us have been echoing this for years on the forum, but people that do “Crafting Math” always find a way to bend the numbers to make them think they are making a profit (like saying resources are free)

Every once in awhile I will find an item to make a little profit. Very, very little profit. The time it takes to work out the math is not even worth it.

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This one isn’t a great example though. Needing to purchase Therms is what made it unprofitable, and that situation is relatively rare.
I’m not sure about the XBOX market, but resource prices are so low on PS4 right now that there are more opportunities to profit from crafting than normal. You just need to carefully analyze prices, and avoid “crafter math”.

To be clear, you are very correct that many crafters lie to themselves to justify it. You absolutely need to compare potential profits from selling resources, and not think of them as “free”. Same with badges, tax, workbench rental, etc.
That’s a lot of stuff to add up, and most people don’t.

Myself, I am too lazy to do the proper math, but I also don’t care that much about profit margins. Crafting is often just an arbitrary challenge/goal that I set for myself.

Having said that, I’ve done the full math enough times that I can spot profit opportunities. Often it’s just a matter of noticing which craftable items are priced higher than normal, and which crafting ingredients are currently cheap.
But even then, the profit is rarely significant. I might make a few hundred coins profit on an epic item if all the conditions are perfect, and that’s relatively rare.

Lately I’ve been crafting rare items to sell, as the ones at the top of the price list are generally profitable. But I’m definitely not getting rich from that. I might make 20 coins per item, which is barely anything.

TLDR: it’s possible to profit from crafting, but you have to be very picky about what you craft.

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I’ve found that the most profitable crafting comes from blueprints that old players have that new players do not. Last winter, I made an absolute killing on Omni wheels. They cost about 1200 to make and I sold them for 1700. That’s a good 350 coin profit and they we selling like hot cakes.

Mostly, the money made crafting is from buying cheap teal pack items and then either reselling them directly or crafting purple items on the cheap later on. On Xbox, you are competing to buy and sell against people who watch the market very carefully so it is important to update and micromanage your bids to make some bucks. I generally can’t beat micromanagers to make a sale.

My best play to make a lot of money in Crossout is to play events and sell what is hot at the time. This can either be resources or events depending on what is hot. I’ve made a fortune on batteries in the past as well.

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Yeah, it’s really important to get a sense of what “normal” resource prices are, so that you can spot a price surge or drop and take advantage of it.
Unfortunately, the “normal” has shifted over the last six months, possibly a result of raids no longer being daily challenges.
Scrap is cheap now, copper is expensive.

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Crossout database is your friend.
It also puts the truth to the lies.
It’s what convinced me crafting is usually silly (especially if you’re patient and wait for a price drop).
I still craft low level stuff though. I’m silly.

The sniper tool on the website is great.

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The only significant profit I make crafting is essentially equivalent to the value of the crafting coupons. Without those coupons, the profit margin is extremely narrow on PC if there is one at all. Getting ahead by even 5 coins is difficult often, but that’s what I’m aiming for usually. I want to make a few coins, while also recovering the value of my resources, and I can usually only manage that using a crafting coupon.

I made some good coin flipping Howls a while back. I kept one, and used the change to get an Icebox on the down-low, which today I flipped for a Catalina, and had a couple hundred coins to spare. I had to sit on those Howls for a long-ass time, though, and I got the Icebox when it was pretty low. I think it worked out alright. I didn’t make a profit on the sale of the Icebox, but it got me into that Catalina, and a little bling.

I’m rolling F2P with this account, and so far I’ve got some cool shizz by just playing, but it’s a mix of selling resources, flipping pop shizz on the market, and crafting according to coupons.

F2P is a pretty meager living, and you have to be awful thrifty, but I like what I’ve ground out of the wasteland so far.

It feels pretty satisfying at the moment.

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