PSA.

You don't need master 2 trading to make money via

processing.
So it seems like every day I see new players who want to get into AFK processing for money
and immediately jump to trying to level up trading to make crates thinking that what they need
to do and despite no real appreciation for how trading actually works.

This post is just to inform people that they don't actually need master 2 trading to start making
money off their materials, and in fact if you are doing trading inefficiently you will make less
money per hour than someone who just sells processed materials (value pack required).

The basics

To see why this is the case you have to know how the math works. As you probably know the
higher your processing level the more materials you get per success (until you hit the cap). On
average once you hit professional 5 it will take you 2 ore to make 1 melted shard, and 4 melted
shards (two of each type) to make 1 ingot (you also get ingots while making melted shard). The
same math is true for timber once you reach artisan, however the plywood from the random t1
procs is useful and the math works out to 7.8 timber per plywood. With a +4 processing outfit
and a sharp alchemy stone + cous cous I can make ~1600 planks per hour. However the
average player should expect to make a bit less.

What to make

In order to make money you want to make things that people actually need. In general the
main customer for processed materials are upgraders of alchemy stones (who use ingots to
upgrade destruction stones), and very high level traders who buy materials and make them into
crates (By high level I generally mean master 10+ where you can make a profit thanks to the
scaling of the bargain bonus).

To target these customers you want to focus on materials they actually need, which in the case
for traders is steel, brass, and bronze ingots as well as ash, maple, pine, fir, cedar, white
cedar, and acacia plywood.

How to sell materials

Often you will see these materials sitting in very high quantities on the market, this is generally
because traders will only pay a certain price for the materials otherwise they will just end up
losing money. Exactly what price each trader will pay depends on their trade level and how
much effort they want to spend finding high % trade NPCS in valencia. In the future the trade
%s will be fixed at 100 so you can expect traders will likely only be willing to spend roughly the
market minimum. The market minimums are the following:

Steel, 6297

Bronze, 8996
Brass, 9596

Plywoods:

Ash, 8820

Maple, 9450

Pine, 11340

Birch, 10080

Cedar, 11970

Fir, 10710

White cedar, 12600

Acacia 13230

Before making any of the above materials I encourage you to check your local market and see
if there are processed materials at these prices. If there are not know that you should be able
to move your product quite easily.

just to clarify since there seems to be some confusion. You don't actually need to sell your
materials at these prices, but it's useful to know them so you can check the market and see if
materials are moving. In other words if you look at the market and see 50,000 steel at 6297
you might want to consider making something else instead. However if you look at the market
and see 50,000 steel at 7K each you know that you can still make and sell steel you just need
to sell it for less than 7k

Making these materials you should be able to bring in 1-1.5M for materials purchased off the
market place and more if you are using materials gathered by your workers (because you can
ignore the market place tax).

It works
Just to give you some additional proof in case the math doesn't convince you here is a picture
of my fiancee's warehouse. She is a master 20 processor and actively plays the game less
than 1 hour per day (her highest character is 56). Almost all her money is purely from
processing materials and min listing them on the marketplace.
Conclusion

So in conclusion as long as you have the value pack you should be able to make 1-2M per
hour processing materials even if you don't have master 2 trading. Every player in the game
should be using their AFK time to do something productive and processing is one of the best
forms of AFK income as long as you can manage to check on your computer every 2-3 hours.
Finally I'm happy to answer any questions and clear up any confusion, just ask.

edit:
Since this kind of blew up I just want to make sure it's clear that this post is purely about
making money from AFK processing. There is a whole other meta game from the side of
traders who buy these materials and use them to make crates, and this is currently the one of
the best ways to make money in the game, however it requires a lot of active management and
a large setup time. Furthermore since it has already been largely removed in korea with the
change to the way the supply bonus for crafted crates works it's of limited use to those who
aren't already doing it.

Trading and Crate Workshop FAQ.

Hey All,

Biohack here. I recently made a video about AFK processing and in that video I discussed how
making trade crates is one way to improve the money you can make doing AFK processing. I
was originally planning on making a video and guide for it but I wasn't really happy with how it
came out. Instead I'm going to write a simple FAQ to answer the most popular questions. This
way I can update it easily when changes to the game occur and it should be more accessible
than a long video. Lets begin.
Should I get Master 2 trade

The first thing you should understand about trading is that by itself it is essentially worthless.
NPC->NPC trading is absolutely terrible in terms of money per hour, and it isnt until master 5
(but really master 10) when you unlock margoria trade items that trading alone is a viable form
of income. Instead trade is used to improve the value of other things. In particular those are
pirate grinding, active fishing, and of course AFK processing. If you arent doing any of these
three activities getting master 2 trade will be a major waste of time and money and you will be
able to get very little, if any, value out of it.

Im a new player. How do I know if its a good idea for me to level trading?

Obviously thats a personal decision based on how you like to play the game. However if you
are looking to be efficient and make money so that you can compete in end game PvP and
PvE I wouldnt suggest prioritizing trading until all your weapons and armor are at least TRI and
you have best in slot accessories to duo/pri (or the lower tier accessory equivalent). Its far
more important for you to improve your grind efficiency than it is for you to min/max with
trading. I would also highly encourage you prioritize getting up to the soft cap of ~255 CP and
investing in as many timber, ore, and grain nodes as you can get. These will bring you in a
good chunk of money every day for very little effort even if you just sell everything on the
market.
If you are intending to use trading for crate workshops I would also suggest you have enough
money that you can comfortably float 500M-1B in crates without gimping your character. This is
because moving trade crates efficiently requires that you operate in bulk and if you dont have
the resources to to do that you are probably better off selling your materials on the market
instead of spending a bunch of time moving crates around in small stacks.

My friend told me he makes 200M a week doing crate workshops. Is this true?

There are very few people in the world that can bring in something like 200M purely from trade.
What you friend is almost certainly doing is running a worker empire, processing materials,
turning them into trade crates, and then making the classic mistake of labeling this entire
system as trading. The reality is they probably make something like 50M a week from worker
empires, 130M a week from AFK processing, and 20M a week from trading. Dont feel like you
have to do all three. Its perfectly fine to stick to only worker empire, or processing. The only
benefit of doing all 3 is not having to pay the tax when you sell your goods to the NPC instead
listing them on the market. Treat them each independently. By the way the tax comes out to
15.5% with a value pack.

What is so important about master 2 trading?

The reason master 2 trading is so important is that at master 2, after completing this quest, and
its prerequisites, you will be able to talk to an NPC at the sharing node in valencia. For 100
energy this NPC will give you a buff that lasts 1 hour and provides a 1.5x multiplier for trade
items brought from outside the desert and sold in valencia city. However since the distance,
bargain, supply, and desert bonus stack multiplicatively this effect is actually much greater than
just the 50% bonus. To see how much items will sell for with and without this buff check
out fammes excellent calculator.
Can I make crates for money without master 2 trade?

Absolutely not. I realize there are so called guides that suggest you do this, however the meta
has shifted significantly since that guide was written. What was a bad guide 9 months utterly
terrible today. Just to give you an example you can sell the materials to make a calpheon crate
for ~190K silver on the market. After tax that is ~160.5K. If you make a calpheon crate in trent
and sell it in arehaza with professional 5 trade you will get ~130K for it after you take out the
BSP and beer. Meaning at the end of the day you have 30,000 less silver in your bank for
every crate you make instead of selling the plywood. Following the information in that guide
will lose you well over a billion silver before you hit master 2 trading.

So if I shouldnt sell valuable crates without master 2 how do I level trading?

There is no magic secret to leveling trade. It takes time. There are two good options for leveling
trading. Active trading and making junk crates and most people do some combination of both.

Active trading:
For active trading there are two options. The lazy way and the faster way. The lazy way is
simple. You buy a noble wagon and you just loop back and forth from the velia and heidel trade
NPCS selling your trade goods to one before filling your wagon again and going back to the
other. When the NPCS dont have any more items you hop channels and keep going.

The faster way is to get an elephant with the skills quick run and joyride (sprint and instant
accel equivalents). If your elephant doesnt learn these skills you can use a horse skill reset
coupon to try and get them. The downside of this is that the elephant will move very slowly if
you just use auto path so if you are using this method you will have to actively move your
elephant. If you choose this option you can find a couple of good trade routes here.
Junk Crates:
The laziest way to get master 2 trading. Is by making so called junk or trash crates.
Basically these crates are any crate made from unprocessed material, i.e. ore, timber, fruit,
herbs, etc However leveling trading this way can be a bit expensive. Nobody knows exactly
how many junk crates you need at every level and the rates have changed since I did it,
however I have heard from reliable sources that if you are using most of the possible life xp
boosts you need ~50,000 from low apprentice, ~35,000 from professional 5, and ~22,000 from
artisan 2. For a full list of possible life xp buffs check out balzors fantastic site (click show trash
crate method).

Using this method is very expensive. The only way to get that much material is to purchase it
off the market, in addition you also have to consider the cost of the black stone powder and
beer. If you use lead, a popular junk crate item, youre looking at ~6,000 silver for lead ~3,000
silver for BSP and ~600 silver for beer. At professional 5 a crate made in trent and sold in
arehaza will sell for something like 4100 silver. Since you spent ~9600 silver to make each
crate you are looking at losing ~5500 silver per crate. This means if you start at apprentice you
are looking at spending 275M, at pro 5 ~192.5M and at art 2 ~121M. Obviously the higher you
get your trade level manually the less money you need to spend. But remember, time has
value and if you spend your time doing trading manually instead of making money you will
probably miss out on more money than making the junk crates. Its up to you to figure out
whats best for your own playstyle.

Where should I make my crates?

You should make your crates in trent. This is because trent offers the farthest possible distance
bonus from valencia/arehaza. However your crate workshop doesnt have to actually be
located in trent as the location of the crate is based on the origin of the worker not the
workshop.

Im going to suggest the following setup, all the lodging listed increases the number of slots in
trent even though the houses are in the surrounding areas not trent itself:
Trent:

No 5. Lodging - 2 slots

No 2. Wood workbench.

No 1. Required connection. Doesnt matter.

No 3. Mineral Workbench

LongLeaf Tree Forest:

First floor wood workbench.

Second floor lodging - 2 slots.

Behr:

No 1. Lodging - 1 slot

No 2. Wood workbench.

No 3. Require connection. Doesnt matter.

No. 4. Mineral Workbench.

This setup leaves you with 6 slots and 5 workbenches, 3 wood and 2 metal, if you put decent
workers on all these locations 99% of players will not be able to keep the work benches active,
even if they process 24/7. You just simply wont be able to get enough materials. In fact you
can probably get rid of the Behr nodes entirely and still be fine.

Which workers should I get?

The best worker is an artisan human with 112.5 workspeed and +3 crates, however this is very
difficult to get.

The second best worker is an artisan goblin with +3 crates.

If you are doing metal/ore crates the best worker, after a +3 giant, is called bravant and is the
equivalent of a professional goblin however he has the unique ability that gives him +2
metal/ore crates (doesnt stack with other crate skills). For more on bravant again refer
to balzors website.
What kind of crates should I make?

Whatever materials your workers can get you. All of the crates can be viable. If you want to min
max to figure out which one will bring you the most money per hour of processing youll have to
do the math. I will say that just because a crate sells for the most money doesnt mean its the
best crate. A crate that makes 3x more profit isnt any better than a crate whos materials you
can process 3x as fast.

How do I get blackstone powder?

Mostly crushing crystals. See balzor again.
Can I make my crates in epheria?
I strongly suggest you do NOT make your crates in epheria. The reason is that although the
distance is only 5% between trent and epheria the actual effect this has on your profit is much
larger. If you take the plywood for a calpheon crate and sell it on the market for ~190K that
means 160.5K silver you have after tax. If you make your crate in trent you will get ~195K at
master 2 after you take out the cost of BSP and beer. This means your profit per crate is
~30.5K. If you make that crate in epheria you will only be able to sell that crate for ~190K after
bsp and beer. This means every crate made in epheria loses you 5k silver vs what you would
have got in trent. In other words you are losing ~16% of your profit by doing epheria instead of
trent. Youre investing a good bit of CP, time, and effort into making crates, you shouldnt take
the hit for no reason. (If you dont have enough CP to connect to trent you probably shouldnt
be making crates anyway, go back to selling your plywood until you get your CP up to the soft
cap around 255).
How do I move my crates to valencia/arehaza?

The absolute best way to move your crates is to over stack a horse and have the leader of your
guild summon you using the skill command to gather. You can stack up to 7157 of most crates
on a horse and if you are riding the horse when you accept the summon you will be able to
bring it with you (you cant use the summon with crates in your inventory).

If that isnt an option for you overstacking a horse up to 7157 crates and then using a fast alt
(preferably below 50 so it cant be pked) like a musa and whistling the horse behind you is a
good option. If you have the cash shop horse whistle you can run 500 meters away from your
horse and then use the whistle to teleport your horse to your location. You can also ride your
horse manually however this will be slower.

Alternatively you can over stack your horse and over stack your fishing boat and afk sail from
epheria to ancando. However as of 4.13.17 it is currently bugged and your boat will get stuck in
the sky on your way.

Can I use the transport function to move my crates?

No, I highly suggest you do NOT use the transport function for trade crates. This is because
each crate doesnt stack and will cost you over 4,000 silver to ship. Just as we saw when we
talked about doing crates in epheria this a massive cut into the profit of crates vs selling
plywood. Another way to look at it is moving 7157 crates would cost you over 28million silver. If
you are willing to run from trent->valencia/arehaza for 28 million silver you shouldnt use the
transport function.
I watched a streamer who had thousands and thousands of crates. How do they get the
materials for that?

They bought processed materials on the market

Should I buy processed materials on the market?

No. If you even have to ask that question you dont possess the knowledge and setup to pull it
off. It took me 9 months, billions of silver of silver, and hundreds if not thousands of hours to
get my trade empire to the state its in today. Im sure mickin and fix spent similar amounts of
time and effort on theirs. It may not have been true before the static crate change but as of
today I guarantee if you try and buy materials without knowing what youre doing youll just end
up broke and frustrated. Even for me, as a master 15 trader, there are far better ways I could
be making money than what Im doing now, I do it anyway because I want to be the first guru
trader.

Should I buy unprocessed materials off the market?

You should set up your worker empire to gather materials for you. Getting to the soft cap of
255 CP is relatively straight forward, prioritize that. For everything else you need to do the
math. All the information you need to know to figure it out you can find here. The long and short
of it is that you will always make money buying timber and ore as the market place literally will
not sell you materials at prices where this isnt true, however to know whats best youll have to
do the math.
Im a just looking for some easy passive income. Should I make trade crates?

Every player in the game should set up a worker empire to gather materials. Its fairly easy to
get up to ~255 CP and once you do it will be a good chunk of money that comes in every day
with very little effort. Every player should, if at all possible, try and do something to bring in
money while AFK, whether it be fishing or processing. Ultimately you can make a bit more
money by combining worker gathering, processing, and crate workshops, however the
difference is far smaller than most people think. Its perfectly fine to set up a worker empire, afk
fish and sell your materials, its also fine to take your materials, process them and sell the
products on the market, and as youve seen here you can also make those materials into trade
crates to squeeze out even more. However, at the end of the day the amount of time you
spend actively playing the game will matter far more than how much you min/max this setup for
passive income. I suggest you prioritize having fun. If all this trading feels like a chore to you,
dont do it, trust me there are plenty of super geared players who dont touch life skills at all,
and there are others like me who would be very happy to buy your materials. On the other
hand if this sort of things appeals to you, go for it! It can be a very nice supplement to your
daily income. Remember, its a game. Have fun. Do what you enjoy.

Where can I find you if i have more questions?

I stream at twitch.tv/biohacktv, I also hang out on reddit and am happy to answer questions
here. If it's a popular one I'll add it to the list.