How Hard Are Tradeskills?

[__________Edgerunner]

I've been thinking about creating an Engineer with the sole purpose of taking up tradeskills. Just how hard is it to get into it? Will it be a long time before I start to see any real profits by either offering my services to players or selling to shops? Also, I'd appreciate any advice you could give to a new tradesman. I'm very knowledgable on AO(been playing off and on since release), but I've never touched tradeskills, so I'm really clueless.

Thanks.

[____________Intrepid]

Most likely you won't see any profits from tradeskills til you are atleast level 150+. You might get some at lower levels but putting much IP in tradeskills then would seriously gimp your character preventing farther developement.

[__________Honeypearl]

I started making chemical mausser at lvl 30ish and crafts gems.. i sacrificed some points to dodges and evades but gives me a lot of credits in exchange.. buying low ql receptacles and making chem maussers was kinda hard job because u gonna jump from shop to shop looking for the right ql. but at lvl 50 i bought my own yalm and still got enough money for my imps. at lvl 100 i afford to buy a pppe shape hard armor (i borrowed some money to the guild thou). Im a trader btw i made 3 gimp chars already so i do some reasearch which proffesion is good on tradeskills.. since trader got buffs on most of the trade skills.. also thier wrangles are indemand

[____________Slyfeind]

Then there's the other end of the spectrum. At level 25, I made 50,000 credits just for putting some guy's gun together. It was an easy job, and only took a weaponsmithing of 120. Another job was assembling an implant for only 1,000. Making money without dealing with other players is a different story; jewelry and pharmacy is about all you can do.

If you enjoy working with other players and spamming "LOWBIE TRADESKILLS FOR HIRE PLZ SEND TELL!" or something like that, it's definately worth it. Just don't type in all caps like that.

(My sig lies...I'm level 47 and just haven't changed it yet)

[Tentumbs]

I did made one just for that purpose. (Engi)
I used a 4 mill on it to get it up to lvl ~40 after that it was was producing more money than I used (Single mission).

When I hit the lvl 100 title cap i started serius to use IP on trade item skills. Not wery good, but ok. When i hit the 150 cap I could max them (I did not use IP on anything else than Pet realated and self containing (runskill))

I do not earn much on the trade skill but thet is manly due to I dont have one of the PPPE (Earn more in missions than doing trade skills at the same game time)

But I must agree with the other here. Trader is superb on tradeitem skill except that they must use IP on other things to be able to level.

[__________Honeypearl]

I didnt spend a lot of money for my trader from lvl 1-100, most of my stuffs and nano are blitzed by me since trader got calm.. although it takes time and a lot of nanoc init at 1st (im an opifex btw so speed is not too much of a problem) i loaned a 500k in guild to get my ql 70ish implants at lvl 40ish and then start working on sealed receptacles and chem maussers.. also some jewelry crafting, with that i bought myself a new set of imps and a yalm. At lvl 100 i bought myself a pppe hard.. i borrowed some money in a guild though, but i payed it back after a week. right now im generating 5-10mill a day just by doing wrangles and tradeskill stuff.

I am thinking of buying a GA armor and start a fixer because of that anima of abomination nano crystal is worth 500k in trader store plus the mission reward of 100k+ all in all is 600k per crystal and fixer can blitz it in a matter of minutes (all in BS home). my friend fixer filled a bag with that crystal in less than 3 hrs it worth around 9mill in the trader shop.

Im still not sure why many people say engis are better than trader on tradeskills.

[Tentumbs]

Engies ain't better at them. Trader is superior due to the nanoes. (I play a Engi)
The only advance the Engi got is that he don't have to use any IP on anything else than Attributes, Trade Skills and nano (Ofcource running, Body dev, Nano pool, Map Navig i.e., but thats for everyone)

No IP on any weapon skills, No IP on evades, No IP on speed (expept running) and so on. Therefor a Engi has a lot of IP to use on tradeskills. Except from that it got all the traditem skill green or light green so it can have the same skills that a trader on same level.

[__________Honeypearl]

Yeah but in the end.. when u all capped all your tradeskills.. u will end up swapping implants to get any higher while traders can also swap implants and buff themselves with thier maestros and enormous comp litt buffs.