I think a spreadsheet is essential. I use it mostly for record keeping records on purchases and sales, for calculating what my buy/sell limits should be on an item, as a crafting calculator for gem crafting profit, and for keeping track of my progress within a day.

I made my first 100Mg (and the next several 100M) crafting gem upgrades. Before I convince you of the merits, let me acknowledge the objections just so you know that you don't have to explain them to me.

• This is a tricky business and is often a losing proposition - don't do it without spreadsheet analysis or you will likely lose money. (I use a spreadsheet and always make a profit - every time.)

• It takes a lot of time to make the gems and you could be playing instead. (I craft in batches on one computer while I do real work on the other, so I can craft all day without play time cost - I wouldn't be playing anyway during the day. I work from home - many people cannot do this - many can.)

• Profits are rarely large - there are few chances for a big payoff like farming. (I farmed for hundreds of hours and never came close to the profit per hour of gem crafting.)

• You need some serious cash to float the costs of batch crafting. Example - as of yesterday morning (my last data set), crafting 2187 flawless square emeralds into radiant squares will temporarily put you in the hole by 47M. After you sell them, the profit is 5M. (Once I had 100M, this was never an issue. It sure was when I had less than 20M.)

• If you get in a competition with other gem crafters, or worse, gem flippers, pricing can drop out from under you leaving you without a profit margin. You may have to hold on to the gems for a day or two and your cash is tied up. (Again - not a problem when you already have 100M+.)

But now the good news:

• At any given moment, there are some upgrades that make a profit. One of these is better than the others. It could be to radiant star, but that isn't usually the best profit per hour. It's often radiant square, star, flawless star, or perfect star. Profit per hour is typically 6 to 10 Million.

• When you're in the gem business, you have a lot of them and you get them cheaper than anybody else. It's easy to grab a few for yourself here and there and you don't feel like you spent any money on them. Essentially all my gems that I use on my toon were "free". They really weren't free, but they sure were purchased "wholesale".

• With the recent 1.08 patch and one-click batch crafting, this really isn't a lot of work anymore. It still takes clock time, but during most of that you're not actually even looking at the screen.

You might ask why I'm willing to tell any of this. It's because I have pretty much moved on from gem crafting as I approach 1Billion gold. It makes total sense to do it when you have less then 300M, and less and less as you go up from there. So I don't care if you guys compete with me as crafters. I will still do it when the spreadsheet says its hot, but mostly I'm relying on flipping now.

More to come...

 

 

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)