insect paste

[blackmageman]

when synth. insect paste, does each set (1 crystal+x ingredients) make 1 stack of paste or 1 ball of insect paste? Do you make a good profit making insect paste? i heard they sell really fast...

[Basher]

you synthesize 1 stack of insect balls, not just one ball

not a lot of profit for the amount you pay for the ingrediants, but a hassle to keep getting the ingrediants if you aren't using them for yourself.

i would always buy 4 stacks of each ingrediant so i can make a total of 48.

to get 48 stacks of balls it costs around $4,000gil total to get each ingrediant from vendors, and the earth crystals from the AH.
4 stacks of each item: earth crystals, distilled water, little worm, milicorn.

don't buy the milicorn from the AH, cause they are normally $1000gil a stack, and the cooking guild is usually sold out of them and they go for $0.96gil each, which is over 1k per stack anyway. i'm not sure which region milicorn comes from , but i normally get it from the grocery vendor in SD when SD is #1. they are normally like 46-63gil each corn, which is super cheap and half the cost of the cooking guild. it adds up quickly.
so around $550gil-756gil per stack of milicorn from vendor, times 4 stacks is $2,200 gil-3024gil.

little worms are 3gil, which is only 36gil a stack, times 4 stacks is 144gil

distilled water is 10gil, 120gil per stack, times 4 stacks is 480gil

earth crystals are 300gil a stack at AH, times 4 stacks is 1,200gil


cost of 4 stacks:

milicorn: 2,200-3024
little worm: 144gil
distilled water: 480gil
earth crystals: 1,200
-----------------------------------
total: 4,024gil - 4,848gil for 48 stacks of balls


each stack of balls sells for 300gil at the AH.

so 300gil times 48 stacks is 14,400gil total


14,400gil income minus (cost of ingrediants for 48 balls) = 10,376gil - 9,552gil PROFIT

[Rusk]

i'm not sure which region milicorn comes from

Aragoneu.

[Vairu]

whoa nice guide mate


to get lu shangs you have to give 1 of those 2 guys at the port in SD 10k moat carps right?

[Zafron]

Best place to buy millioncorn is from the region specific sellers who sell the items when their nation controls the region. It sells for 45-49gil, and that is if you have zero fame(i do all my shopping with lv1 mules).

Bastok:

Oggodett - Galka - Bastok Markets - (I-9) - in booth

San d'Oria:

Antonian - Elvaan Male(white hair) - Northern San d'Oria - (J-8) - north end of fountain thingy thats in the middle

Windhurst:

Some mithra in Waters at south end.

Sorry about the lack of specifics, but Windhurst didn't control Aragoneu once while i was making paste so i never wrote it down.

[Basher]

Originally posted by Vairu
whoa nice guide mate


to get lu shangs you have to give 1 of those 2 guys at the port in SD 10k moat carps right?

yes

talk to either brother and start the quest with him. which ever brother you talk to is the one that you will always turn your fish into

it doesn't matter which one you choose

[Vairu]

thx i'll start asap sell half, trade the rest for quest

[Icemage]

Never, ever, ever make insect balls for money. The amount of time you'll spend between running around gathering ingredients, then sitting down and synthing, THEN trying to sell the finished product to other players is not worth the time invested.

Sure, the stacks sell fast on AH. But are you really going to run around for tracking down millioncorn, then distilled water, then synthing *48* stacks of paste (there's 20 minutes gone right there)?

By the time you're done doing all of this you're way over an hour spent even under the best of conditions, and you have a completely cluttered inventory until you manage to sell it all (yet more time, and AH slots that you can't use to sell something else).

The only time I make insect paste is when I feel like fishing for carp for myself, or for someone I know who is going fishing (as a courtesy). It saves a lot of inventory space, since every 4 stacks of ingredients expands out to 12 stacks of bait, and it makes my bait cost drop to almost nothing. More importantly, it saves me multiple trips to get more bait (again, time savings).


Icemage

[Borshel]

The only time I ever bought my millioncorn was when I was skilling up on insect paste. Now, I will always garden my corn, even if it is just for myself.

Easiest way to garden millioncorn is using grain seeds in a brass pot, fed with a wind crystal. In 3 real time days, you will have a stack of corn. Grain seeds are exceptionally easy to farm and wind crystals will run you about 125-150 per (I farm all my crystals except fire, ice, dark, and light from elementals). So, according to Basher's costs, you will be making a net income off of 4 stacks of insect paste ingredients of about 12,500 if you garden your own corn and farm your own earth crystals.

[Vairu]

^^ that sounds good

[Icemage]

12,500 gil sounds like a lot until you realize how much in-game time you used to earn it.

Putting up 7 stacks for auction takes around 2 minutes, no matter how fast you are, so just auctioning off 48 stacks takes a good 15 minutes of time, even if all stacks are sold when you check each time (possible but unlikely). Running to the auction house 7 times will cost you at least 5 minutes round trip each time from whatever you were doing beforehand. Generally speaking, I'd say the number of trips to sell all 48 stacks will be closer to 10 trips unless you wait an awfully long time between AH visits to be sure they've all sold. Total time spent doing nothing but trying to sell: 45 minutes+.

In 48 synths, you're likely to fail at least twice, so subtract 600 or so for lost materials and sale goods (remember, a HQ synth on insect paste does nothing - you still only get 12).

Putting a stack up for auction will cost you (I think?) 5 gil. So subtract 5x48 = 240 gil from your profits.

Figure actual costs:

Monetary investment: 4-5K gil
Monetary return: ~13K net
Net profit: 8-9K

Opportunity loss: No use of AH slots for the duration, plus many inventory/storage slots used until items sell.
Time spent acquiring materials: 10 minutes+
Time spent synthing/organizing inventory: 30 minutes
Time spent selling: 45 minutes+

Total time spent: 1.5 hours, and no other use of AH possible for an indefinite period of time.


Icemage

[blackmageman]

if insect paste isnt good for making money in the cooking guild, then what is?

Thanks

[Vairu]

i think it's worth the money if you can get fast buyers, which on my servers ppl are selling insect balls everywhere, there is at least like 200~ on sale at AH and about at least 2 crafters IN front of the AH alone crafting balls, not to mention every other place around windurst , if you have time i guess it's worth it, and you can get lu shang rod with them

[Zafron]

Originally posted by blackmageman
if insect paste isnt good for making money in the cooking guild, then what is?

Thanks

crayfish balls are probably as close as you can get to decent profit for time invested until you get high enough to consistantly synth HQ food(ie: boiled crab, chiefkabobs, apple pie+1s, etc). I still think plain old farming is slightly better though.

At 69 i get about 1 stack of chiefkabobs out of 12 synths, and even then chiefkabobs only sell for 1k more per synth than mithkabobs so it isn't even that great.

If you plan on using cooking to make money, plan on taking the skill to 80+, and that won't be easy. I think it is going to take more money and time for me to get from 69 to 80 than it did for me to get from 1 to 60.

[Borshel]

Originally posted by Icemage
12,500 gil sounds like a lot until you realize how much in-game time you used to earn it.

This is why I would never sell any fishing bait outside of Windurst. Windurst always sells bait faster than any other city. And this is also why I only have my mule in Windurst sell bait on AH.

FYI, if I put insect paste at 300 in Windurst, many times, by the time I got back to the mog house, they had already sold. If supply is low, I will put the paste up at 400. Will rarely take more than a day to sell at this price. This is the highest demand bait due to low and high level fishers alike needing it, so it moves extremely fast.

Although at my cooking level, I'd rather sell crayfish paste. But in reality, due to one synth needing 3 crayfish, it isn't as easy to do. I find making sliced cod and pickled herring a better money maker from my caught fish (and I can sell to the guilds instantly).