Credits...you can never have enough of them can you? They are also quite hard to get and keep at lower levels or when you are new to the game. That in mind some of the posters in our forum put together the following guide with some advice on how to buff your bank balance on Rubi-Ka. The guide is in three main parts. Firstly Jetsirus goes through some of the ways he makes credits, then Revelat0r takes us through his thoughts on blitzing and finally Fenster explains the ins and outs of taking up a trade in AO, before I add my own pearls of wisdom about using the in game market channels

Contents

1. -JetSirus-'s Guide to the Rubi-Ka Credit
2. Blitzing by Revelat0r
3. Going into business - Tradeskills by Fenster
4. Trading 101 by Silirrion

-JetSirus-'s Guide to the Rubi-Ka Credit

First off getting credits is work no matter what anyone tells you. Some methods require luck while others just require time. What I'm going to attempt is to list all of them that I know well.

Now a word about Shadowlands and how this affects your ability to make money. Some will suggest that there is a lot of money to be had in Shadowlands and they are mostly correct. The difference is that a lot of the items that pay really well are restricted to higher levels. They also are on a very slow drop rate. What this does is lower your income by quite a bit.

The other great thing about Shadowlands is that it has lowered the amount of people on Rubi-Ka by a large number as well. More and more I find that people go straight to Shadowlands and level like mad. Often with little or no regard to getting a lot of essential buffing items. This creates a gap for us (the poor) to step in and provide a service that pays extremely well for both parties. They get their item and we get some credits. Works well don’t you think?

QL 1-5 Second-Hand Old English Trading Co: Level: 2-10 Income: 100k-350k Time: 15-30 Min
At second through tenth level you can make a fortune by blitzing missions for these pistols. These little pistols sell for around 100k-350k for a pair depending on who you sell them to and what server you are on. Another good thing about these pistols is that they come up in missions as the reward frequently! Edit: You can also get these pistols in shops from time to time. Thanks Vengful_Assassin!

QL10 Concrete Cushions: Level: 5-15 Income: 250k-550k Time: 45 – 120 Min
You can blitz QL10 Concrete Cushions for good money. Only go for QL10 ones because they are all people really want. You will have to sell them in pairs. The bad thing with them is they can take forever to come up as a mission reward. If you can hack it though they are generally worth around 250k-550k depending on whom you sell them two.

OT-Windchaser M06 Quartz: Level: All Income: 250k-600k Time: Varies
These little beauties are a great source of income. There are a few good ways to get them. You can blitz for them from 20th level till about 30th level. This can be time consuming but it works. The other option is to just buy them from Omni-Tek shops! Just make sure to get QL25 ones. If you get lucky and have some cash on hand when you find them in the store you can make a fortune!

Omni-Med Suit: Level: Any Income: 50k-100k Time: 10-25 Min
Med suits rock! You need two characters or an Omni friend to do this though. Basically just go to any OT basic store and buy these suits from the clothing stores. They will cost around 7k each and you can sell them pretty quick in general. Sell them to Clanners because they can’t buy them any other way.

QL 50 Full Suits of Armor: Level: 45+ Income: 500k-2mill Time: 2-3 Hours
Lots of great armor starts showing up as mission rewards around QL 50. So lots of people that want to twink or just look fashionable will want a full set of armor. Take advantage of this by either gathering full sets of it up by blitzing. Or you can do it on demand. I don’t like doing that because you can blitz it for selling at a later date anytime you want. When you take orders for it you have to stop everything you are doing and blitz until you get it.

Tank Armor: Level: 45+ Income: 1k per QL Time: 15-25 Min
People love their tank armor. It looks great and provides nice protections. It starts at QL 50 and goes up from there. Your best bet would be to over-tune it before selling it. You can go to Anarchy Arcanum for info on how to over-tune this. And Omni people like the OT armor much better because it doesn’t have as many bad effects as the plain. Also it sells decent to the shop terminals.

Making Carbonum Armor: Level: 25+ Income: Varies Wildly Time: 5 Min
If you are an engineer I would recommend you make carbonum armor for people. It’s very popular for low level twinks. It will take about 200k to get all the tools to do it with though. Just advertise you are making it and people will come to you looking for it.

Grid Armor: Level: 60+ Income: 10 MillTime: 1-10 Hours
Good old grid armor. It may not sell as quick as it used to but it still sells. If you can find the right place to go for it you can get it fairly quickly. A tip is to find monsters as close to level 60 as possible and ones that drop instruction disk a lot. I don’t recommend missions for it. There are places it can be readily found. Most are kept hush though.

Sell to Trader Shop: Level: 25+ Income: Varies Time: Varies
Trader shops offer the best cash for just about all items. If you are a trader or you know one have him sell your loot in the trader specific shops.

Sell all your loot to omni shops: Level: Any Income: Varies Time: Varies
No matter what side you are if you can't sell to a trader shop sell your loot in omni shops. You get more for it. You can sell to map terminals.

Blitzing by Revelat0r

Blitzing is a somewhat undervalued skill and source of money these days, especially since so many have so much money, but so little patience for getting stuff.

A note about blitzing: Fixers are by far the best blitzers in the game, always have been, always will be, but ALL profs can blitz. Get the mish, get some buffs (GSF n HoT from fixers, they are imo suckers for people who use the words 'Please' and 'Thank you!' when asking for buffs, when it comes to buff begging I find politeness and good manners gets you very far indeed ), go to mish, go full def and RUN! RUN! RUN!

I thought I'd add some more things to look for when using Clicksaver, especially as you level up. I can't make clickable links, but a search on Itemsnet or Jaydes should not be too hard.

I specialize in grafts and buff guns mostly when I play on RK1 (not too often, but sometimes).

GRAFTS:

Most grafts are junk, but there are some real pearls among the swine there, and can be well worth your while. First a little note about the difference between symbio-grafts and boosted-grafts: All grafts lock a skill or stat for a set amount of time, based on the base recharge time and the ql of the graft. For symbio-grafts, the recharge is 1 (one) hour minus ql*5, for boosted-grafts the recharge is 30 minutes minus ql*5. What does this mean? Boosted-grafts recharge much much faster than symbio-grafts, and this can be a crucial factor in the pricing. A ql 200 symbio root graft will recharge in 2600 seconds, while a ql 1 boosted root graft will recharge in 1795 seconds. See the difference? Good!

The grafts you are looking for:

Feet of Stone
Lesser Detain Suspect
Lesser Paralyze With Indecision

These are root grafts, very handy for non-rooting classes, and they should always be boosted-grafts, as recharge time is a crucial selling point here. Detain and Paralyze both lock the same skill, so you can only use ONE of these at the same time, Feet of Stone locks a different skill, so basically you can use TWO root grafts at the same time. Price: Varies a lot, call it 100k for low ql, at least 500k-1m for ql 200.

Enhanced Sense - This is a buff graft, gives you +15 sense, here recharge is not very important at all, since the buff lasts for about 30 minutes anyway's. Price: 250k-500k

Playful Cub
Sparrow Flight

These are advie morphs, Cub adds 100 RS and some dmg, Sparrow adds +190 RS and Swimming, plus some evades. These buffs last 1 hour, so once again the recharge is not terribly important. Price: 100k-500k.

Advanced Shielding Barrier

This is an AC buff, adds 343 to all ACs, handy for profs who IP MC but don't get an AC buff. Lasts one hour, so recharge not that important. Price: 100k-500k

BUFF PISTOLS

Some pistols add a lot to stats or skills, and as such can be highly sought after, even be non-pistoleros. With high levels come high symbiants with high reqs, and putting a pistol in your hands that adds +20 Int can be the difference between getting your uber new symbiant in or staying gimp untill you level a bit more. Important with buff pistols (as with cushions and the Old English pistols) is that you want the highest possible mod with the lowest possible skill. Consequently a ql 1 Old English pistol is worth more that a ql 50, because the mod is the same, but a ql 50 is much harder to get on.

THE PISTOLS

ql 44 Galahad Inc T70 Beyer - +20 CL/QFT - Not sure what prices are on these as I haven't actually sold any yet, but I'd be surprised if I couldn't sell them for 1m a pair. +40 to CL means getting 64 ncu or Yuttos like 8-10 lvls sooner, which to most players means a LOT.

ql 100 Atlas Bern Sarcastic - +15 sense/psychic Price: I sell these for 5m a pair. Sometimes people say 'SOLD! GIMME!' and sometimes they say 'You gotta be joking! NO WAY JOSE!' What can I say? I'm pricy, and I am basically exploiting peoples lazyness here, after all they COULD blitz these themselves. Odds are you won't need these until about TL7, and for a TL7 5m just ain't that much. YOU however could easily undercut me, and sell them for 4m, 3m, 2m or whatever. Sell them for less than 1m a pair, and I think you are being kinda stupid, but that is really NONE of my business.

ql 100 O.E.T. CO Jess - +20 Int/Psy Price: 5m for a pair, see above.

ql 100 HSR Arms N.M. - +25 Sta - 5m a pair, see above. Note, these are still kinda unknown, and are pretty uber for equipping Azure or Bellum so much earlier.

Final note:

There are lots of other buff pistols, these are what I think are the hottest sellers. The price I have given is the one I would charge for THAT ql, you can get these in higher qls too, but then I would expect the price to be lowered, as they become harder to equip. The qls I have given are the LOWEST possible they can be blitzed at.

Also, there are probably lots of other niches to be filled, try to be creative. And happy blitzing!

Going into business - Tradeskills by Fenster

Tradeskills!

Firstly, a little background on myself. I work in an electrical retail store as a warehouse administrator (read: I carry boxes and sort paperwork for a living ). While a job that requires little to no contact with customers directly, it happens, woe is me. And as such I've had to sit through a great deal of training on sales that I thought was utter rubbish. Most of it is, but there are parts of it that I've applied quite successfully to tradeskilling in AO.

Now, to business. The obvious points:

1. Get the tools-identify what services you'll offer and get hold of the tools needed for those.

2. Get the skills needed for what you're offering-Be they through IP investment or through buffing items.

3. Spam, spam, spam! If people don't know about you, they won't deal with you.

The above is all covered exhaustively elsewhere. Now onto the points that I wish to digress on.

One customer=ten customers

Be polite. Be unfailingly polite and patience no matter how much of a idiot or not matter how incomprehensible the person you're dealing with is. I get a lot of people who tell me "hey, x and y told me about you. The same applies if you're rude to a person. They'll tell people you treated them like crap and that's ten potential customers gone.

The Russian guy who's English is incomprehensible that wants some QL 11 Carbonum made but can't afford a tip might have a friend who needs chosen armour glyphs made, four-gem arul saba assembled and a QL 200 beamer hacked and assembled and is tipping 70m for all your work (this happened).

Be available

If you're going to tradeskill, do it regularly. If you're out in Inferno or wherever shooting the locals set a time to meet whoever contacts you. Its sort of the same category as above. If people that you advetise a service and then act all aloof over when you'll be available, they'll go elsewhere.

I've found a lot of people who dabble in tradeskills get tired of being approached by people and simply stop doing it.

Love them or hate them...deal with them

There's only one single guild on RK1 with whom I will have absolutely no dealings (Midnight Reveries for the curious). I will tradeskill for absolutely anyone else. Put your dislikes aside when making stuff. That guy in that big omni/clan guild who you've heard are full of jerks? He's probably more important than someone on your side. On your side you can spam out the shopping channel's to your black little heart's content, but when dealing with the other side, the only way to get custom is through word of mouth.

Make them feel important

It sounded silly when this was drummed into me in sales training, but in practice its probably the single most important point. Treat them with respect. If you're the type who feels that you're doing a special favour for people who come to you, forget about tradeskilling. You're shooting yourself in the foot. People will pay more and come back to you more often if they feel you're treating them well.

Pricing?

The least important point. Be reasonable and flexible with it. If you usually charge 2m for something and they can only afford 1m, take the 1m and thank them for it. Again, as above, if they feel you're treating them with respect, they'll come back.

When I first started tradeskilling, I aimed to undercut absolutely everyone on everything. It paid off and once I got a good customer base I increased them somewhat to what was good for me. People were happy with my good treatment of them and were happy to pay my prices for it.

Hattori Hanzo moment:

I say without pride that I'm probably the best tradeskiller on RK1 right now. Yes there's others out there who charge less and who have far higher skills. But I've dealt with all of them at some stage and nearly one and all I've found them to be aloof and arrogant. "Okay, need that made? 10m, don't like it? Tough." I'm around when people need me and I'm respectful to them. It pays off well.

Trading 101 by Silirrion

As everyone else was talking about Trading and how difficult they sometimes find it to sell items I thought I'd post this little blurb about how I do it, you might disagree with some of it, but this is what works for me.

Rule One - Be Patient
Seems obvious but the way the market channels work in AO means that you can't always expect to make sales if you just post items once or twice whilst passing through a city.

Find a spot that players pass through, Athens is good for Clanners more so then Tir as more players pass through now due to the Jobe Whompa.

What I do is usually decide to spend an hour or so to do Trading and I will park myself at Athens Whompas and get ready to do some trades.

Don't spam your sales, but do post them every five to ten minutes. Spam too much and you'll quickly be on ignore lists, but you do have to repeat your offers as people are constantly coming and going through the cities so the more often you place your items onto the channel the more people will see it.

Sometimes I have had no replies for half an hour or more and then sold everything I wanted to in the space of a few mins.

Rule Two - Set a price
Probably more a personal thing but I always post a price with an item. If you are not sure on prices then check the market forums or lean on the side of caution.

I'll usually set these a little higher then I would be willing to accept, but nothing extreme that will put people off.

If you genuinely don't know a price, gauge the reaction of the replies. If you post an item and get a result with an immediate reply then it might just be worth more then you think. Don't be afraid to simply explain you are not totally sure and ask what the buyer is willing to pay.

Whilst some might say this could lead you to being ripped off I have very rarely encountered this and that's over probably hundreds if not thousands of trades.

Rule Three - be flexible
Don't be afraid of haggling, listen to offers and even trades for other items when people might not have the creds. The items they are offering might have resale value in any case.

If you have named a price slightly higher then you'll accept it makes this process easier and the buyer feels like they are getting a better deal.

Rule Four - watch the channel
Watch what other people are selling, keep an eye on their prices if quoted and don't be afraid to ask about prices if they don't quite them (you can sometimes pick up a bargain or two along the way). If you see people selling the same items as you try and find out how much they are charging espcialy if you weren't sure on the prices in the first place.

Rule five - Name and group sales
With the new chat you can post multiple items in a single post so if you have similar items post a description at the start that might get peoples attention, like 'WTS: DYNA NANOS <nanos here>'

Sometimes people don't pay all that much attention to the trade channel unless looking for something specific, placing a little text before it can help get peoples attention.

Rule Six - take opportunities
If you see a bargain that you *know* will resale for higher then its being offered for - buy it! Even if you weren't looking for it. Don't be afraid to buy items simply to sell on, sometimes people just want to get rid of things quickly.

Rule Seven - don't annoy people on the market forums
If you post an auction to the official forums don't sell the item in game. If you intend to try make sure you say so clearly in the market forum post. It will effect the way people bid.

Set a clear minimum bid and buyout as well as the duration of the auction. If you are interested in item trades say so.

You can get a bad reputation on the market forums very quickly if you are not careful.

That's the way I approach my Trading sessions, and I do go out regularly and stock up on saleable items as I enjoy the buying and selling. This will obviously change a lot when the next expansion launches and there are new player shopping options, but for now I hope the above might help a little!

So there you go, what are you waiting for? Get out there and shop!