materials, traders, etc

Ok, so I was getting ready to make my 1.5k armor.

I had been salvaging everything I got in order to save up materials so it was quite a surprise when it looked like it cost WAY MORE to make rare materials then to craft them from common materials.

for example : Steel ingots
you can take 10 wood planks and make charcoal (200g + 10 planks)
then take 10 iron ingots + 1 charcoal + 200g to make a steel ingot
Total cost (400g + 10 planks + 10 ingots)

OR....just buy an ingot for 240 gold?

Am i missing something here? It seems that salvaging is just a huge waste of money. I should just sell everything and just buy the rare mats needed for my armor, right?

In some cases it doesn't make sense, in others it does, you just have to do the math on what you want and make the decision based on what the market will bear.

AFAIKR making steel ingots was never a money maker. Salvaging them them is

or you can use those wood planks and a small sum to make parchment which can turn a tidy profit.

some things it pays to make, some to simply buy.

just as some drops will almost always give steel and others almost always give iron.

save your raw materials until chapter 3 comes out and everybody wants them for new armor

Crafting materials is not very profitable. Your best bet is to salvage it and then go to towns and sell the stacks of your supplies or trade for what you need. Alot of people sell a stack (250) of wood for 2K then buy 2K of steel at crafter/player. take a reg salvage kit and have fun with all that white garbage.
Or instead of salvaging id all your white stuff and it will make the value on your white items go up. Sell those and bank the gold and then get your materials with that money.

Best bet would be to find out what materials you needed for your armor and start salvaging the drops that will give you your materials. Drops that don't salvage into what you need, id and sell to merchant or salvage and sell in town.

List of drops and what they salvage into.

There are very few things that turn profit by crafting them at the materials guy, you are right on that.

Parchment used to be the big one (giving you a ~20gp profit off making them) but I'm sure demand for that has went down.