A craft makes money only if the output sells for more than the ingredients cost. That is simple to say, but plenty of crafts that look good on paper lose money once you buy the ingredients on the flea instead of using loot you already had.
The hideout is full of crafts, and the list grows as you upgrade modules. Most of them exist to give you useful items, not to make you rich. A few make steady money, a few lose money every time you run them, and which ones are which changes over the course of a wipe. This guide is about telling them apart.
How hideout crafting works
Each hideout module, such as the workbench, the medstation, the lavatory or the nutrition unit, has its own list of crafts. A craft takes a set of ingredients, runs for a fixed time, and then holds the finished item until you collect it. Each module runs one craft at a time, so a module with a finished item waiting is a module doing nothing.
Crafts only make progress while the generator has fuel and is switched on. That is why fuel matters so much: every module shares the same generator, so the fuel you burn is a cost spread across everything you craft.
Some recipes also need tools, such as a screwdriver or pliers. Tools are not used up; you get them back when the craft finishes. Ingredients, on the other hand, are gone the moment you press start, so the cost is locked in before you know what the output will sell for.
Do the math for each craft
Add up the flea price of every ingredient. Compare that with the flea price of the output, minus the listing fee if you plan to sell it there. Divide the profit by the craft time to get profit per hour, which is the number to compare crafts by.
Count the fuel too. Modules only run while the generator has power, so fuel is a cost shared by everything you craft.
Profit per hour matters more than profit per craft because each module can only run one thing at a time. A craft that earns a lot but takes most of a day may earn less per hour than a smaller craft you can run several times in the same span, as long as you are around to restart it.
When you look up prices, use what items are selling for right now, not an average from last week. The flea shows current offers for every item, and those are the prices you will pay and get.
A worked example
Here is an example with made-up round numbers, just to show the method. Say a craft needs two ingredients. The first costs 15,000 roubles on the flea and the second costs 25,000, so the inputs cost 40,000 together.
Say the output sells for 70,000 on the flea, and listing it at that price costs a fee of 5,000. You take home 65,000, so the craft clears 25,000 before fuel. If the craft takes five hours, that is 5,000 an hour.
Now say a second craft on the same module clears only 12,000 but finishes in two hours. That is 6,000 an hour, which beats the first one if you can restart it on time. If you will be away for the whole evening, the longer craft may be the better pick, because the short one would sit finished and idle.
Finally, say the price of the first ingredient jumps to 30,000 next week. The first craft now clears 10,000 before fuel, or 2,000 an hour. Same recipe, much worse craft. That is why the math is worth redoing.
Prices move
Ingredient and output prices change through a wipe. A craft that pays well in the first week can lose money a month later once everyone is making the same thing. Check the numbers again every so often.
The pattern is common. A craft gets known as profitable, many players start running it, demand for its ingredients goes up and the flea fills with its output. The margin shrinks from both sides at once. By the time a craft is famous, a lot of its profit may already be gone.
Prices also move with quests and hideout upgrades. When many players need an item for the same quest or module, its price climbs. If that item is one of your ingredients, your craft gets worse; if it is your output, your craft gets better for a while.
Looted ingredients
If you looted the ingredients, a craft can still be worth running even when buying them would not be, as long as the output is worth more than the ingredients would sell for. The question is always the same: is the output worth more than what went in, at today's prices?
It is easy to treat looted items as free. They are not. Every item in your stash could be sold, so using it in a craft costs you what you would have got for it. Price looted ingredients the same way you price bought ones.
There is one real advantage to crafting, though. Crafted items count as found in raid, which means the game marks them as if you had picked them up during a raid. Many items can only be sold on the flea, or handed in for certain quests, when they carry that mark, and items bought from traders or the flea do not. Check the item in game if you are planning around this.
Set a price limit
When you buy ingredients, decide the most you will pay for each one. If the flea price climbs above it, skip that craft until the price drops back.
A good way to set the limit is to work backward from the output. Take what the output sells for, subtract the listing fee, your share of fuel and the profit you want, and what is left is the most the ingredients can cost together. Split that across the ingredients and you have a limit for each.
Sticking to the limit is the hard part. When a module is idle it feels wasteful, and paying a little extra seems fine. But an idle module costs nothing, while a craft started at a loss costs real money. Waiting is often the profitable choice.
Common mistakes
Forgetting the listing fee is the most common one. The flea charges a fee when you post an offer, and it grows when you price an item above its usual value. On a high value output, the fee can take a noticeable bite out of the margin.
Leaving finished crafts uncollected is the second. A module holding a finished item cannot start the next one, so every hour it waits is an hour of lost production. Third is trusting an old list of the best crafts. Those lists go out of date as prices move, and nobody updates them for you.
Last, do not forget that you need the output to actually sell. A craft with a great margin on paper is no use if few players buy the output and your offer sits on the flea for days.
Early wipe versus late wipe
Early in a wipe your modules are low level, so the craft list is short and many good recipes are locked. Fuel is also expensive relative to what you earn. At this stage, crafts that use cheap, common items and turn out things players need for early quests or upgrades tend to work best.
Later on, your modules are upgraded and more crafts open up. Players have more money, so high value outputs sell more easily, but more people are also running the same crafts. Late in a wipe, it pays to check margins more often and to drop crafts that have stopped earning.
Your character's Crafting skill also grows as you craft, and it shortens craft times as it levels. You can see its current effect on the skills screen in your character menu.
Quick checklist
For each craft you run, know the current price of every ingredient and of the output. Subtract the listing fee and your share of fuel. Divide by the craft time to get profit per hour. Set a price limit for each ingredient and skip the craft when prices go above it. Collect finished items quickly so modules never sit idle. Redo the math every few days, and more often when a craft gets popular.
Quick questions
Are crafts always profitable if I use my own loot? No. Your loot could have been sold, so the craft only makes money if the output is worth more than the ingredients would have fetched.
Should I run every craft I can? No. Run the ones with the best profit per hour at today's prices, and leave the rest. Fuel and your attention are both limited.
How often should I check prices? Every few days is a good habit, and before you start any expensive craft. A popular craft can go from profit to loss within a week.
What if I cannot be around to restart crafts? Favor longer crafts when you will be away, so the module is not idle for long. When you are at the PC but not raiding, Tarkbot's craft mode can collect finished items, buy missing ingredients under your price limit and start the next craft for you.