It costs about 8.75 million crowns to craft an item from 2 stars to 5

I got bored and did the maths. Of course, this assumes a few things, and carries an oversight, so I may be a little wrong.
-Only using mist energy for levels
-CE costs 6000 crowns
-Recipes were only bought from NPCs.
And the oversight of mine:
Not using mist for crafting.
So, give or take a few thousand crowns, and some for the ever changing CE prices and AH, It costs 8-9 million crowns to craft up 1 weapon. Yikes.

Are you sure?
87.5k crowns is more believable.
"It costs four hundred thousand dollars..."

Are you sure you didn't accidentally do 6000*(whatever number you use for the overall CE)? CE comes in packs of 100 from player trade, after all. Mat costs shouldn't matter, they're simple enough to get through tokens, so (assuming you use a full mist tank when crafting, also not factoring in heating up the items because too many factors)...
2*: I'm assuming that the cheapest way to get these now is to simply buy them off the AH, so... 2k
3*: 4k+1k+6k=11k
4*: 10k+2.5k+18k=30.5k
5*: 25k+5k+42k=72k
Ok, still over 100k crowns, but almost 3/4ths of that is in the last upgrade

-CE costs 6000 crowns
CE costs on the order of 6000 crowns per 100 CE, or about 60 crowns per CE. I suspect this is the reason your estimate is a couple of orders of magnitude too high, Ranick.

It's a total of 87000 on CE for all the crafts(depending on current prices), 7000 on crowns required, plus 38000 on recipes(depending if you bought them yourself or at AH)
All the mats/heat requisites come naturally from playing(unless you mass craft)
That's around 138K cr
Multiply that for every slot a knight can equip and it's like 1 million cr to make an all 5* knight.

I have 32 5* items (not including PvP trinkets), I refuse to believe i have accumulated anywhere close to 250 million crowns.

~CE costs on the order of 6000 crowns per 100 CE, or about 60 crowns per CE. I suspect this is the reason your estimate is a couple of orders of magnitude too high, Ranick.~
Well, that's what i get for doing math while half asleep. *<--- shameful attempt at saving face there*

lol you're sure you only were half asleep? I mean 8.75million is really quite far from the reality XD!!!!!!!!!!
(i thought your thread was a joke but at the end i saw it wasn't, which made it even funnier, thanks for making me feel lighter concerning CE price raises)

It's okay! I like to act like I'm competent in math, but I've done this exact same thing before. I just didn't post it to a public forum. ^ ^;

Just going to say that 8.75 mill is equivelant to what 145k CE? If you are using a 6k crown per 100 exchange rate. Thats like what $360? I have like 15 or so pieces of 5 star gear, OOO must be swimming in it :P

I believe he calculated it at 6000cr per 1CE. It should have been 60cr per CE, which would cut his number by two decimal points.

, but I've done this exact same thing before.
I've also done it, along with figuring 6000cr per 1000ce. *sigh* stupid decimal points. ;-)

Here we go again. I'm just going to rip this from an old post. And this is an increased cost if you aren't going down to pick up the recipes yourself.
Brandish on AH-
1400cr
Cost of recipes on AH in sequential order via buyout/adding cost of initial brandish at buyout-
1400+ 5290 + 12900+ 32000 = 51950 = 824ce
Cost of transmutation+recipe costs-
39000cr+1400ce = 2020 ce +824ce = 2844ce
Cost of purchasing all necessary materials through the AH via lowest buyout+previous costs-
Green Shards - 40 x 73 cr = 2920 cr
Beast Scale - 12 x 125 cr = 1500 cr
Monster bone - 8 x 150 cr = 1200 cr
Frost Gel - 1 x 24 cr = 24 cr
Rocket Sprocket - 4 x 12 cr = 48 cr
Iron Wood - 1 x 160 cr = 160 cr
Hailstone - 2 x 84 cr = 168 cr
Perfect Snowball - 2 x 113 cr = 226 cr
Everfrost - 1 x 1750 cr = 1750 cr
7996 CR = 127 ce
2844ce+127 ce = 2971 ce = 178,260 cr @exchange rate of 60 cr per ce.
These costs are lowered of course if you wait every day to use your mist energy for every transmutation. Cutting down the costs to 1100 ce for transmutations. effectively saving you 18kcr in energy costs.

Well, good thing most of us get all the materials throughout the dungeons or exchange them for tokens, right? Helps a tiny little bit. That, and the few mist tanks we get, provided we don't waste their content.

Absolute minimum gathering all the mats yourself and crafting with mist:
Exchange rate of 6k crowns = 100 ce.
Star CE Crowns Recipe Total
--2* -- ------ ------ 2k from AH
--3* 6k --1k-- --4k-- 11k
--4* 18k-2.5k- --10k- 30.5k
--5* 42k--5k-- --25k- 72k
Total = 115.5

Well, good thing most of us get all the materials throughout the dungeons or exchange them for tokens, right?
No, actually, it doesn't help at all. See opportunity cost.
Basically, the true savings from using your own materials while crafting has to be compared to what you can get by selling those same items. If you can sell a green shard for 100cr on the AH, then if you use them to craft, that is costing you the opportunity to sell it, and the true price of the item you crafted is 100cr per green shard. Time can also cost you opportunities. If you spend the time running the dungeon solely to get certain mats you use to sell, time you are spending on floors that you don't like, etc., then that is costing you. Similarly, time spent trying to sell something on the AH instead of playing a fun game of Lockdown has to be taken into account.
Repartee's calculations using the cost buying from the AH is going to be close to the true cost of crafting. If you think you can just ignore the price of materials, then go the whole way and claim that stuff cost you zero by ignoring all costs.

Oh! I understand.
... say, how could we calculate the heat needed to level up items (level 5 then 10) before they can be crafted further? That's another sort of cost that isn't taken in account here, though I can also understand why it's not mentioned. We can't buy unbound items that aren't heat-less, right?

Calculating the cost of heat to level an item has entirely too many variables. Like amount of runs required/player skill and team mate deaths. As for unbinding of equipment, when an item is unbound it loses all heat gained for that particular * level.

That's what I feared. Ah well, I'll keep in mind the cost is technically a bit more than calculated, thanks for doing the maths anyway. :)

"the cost is too damn high"
am i doing it right?

Only if we're talking about the rent, but let's face it. That drop pod was free you squatter! I'll have you evicted!

Repartee's calculations using the cost buying from the AH is going to be close to the true cost of crafting. If you think you can just ignore the price of materials, then go the whole way and claim that stuff cost you zero by ignoring all costs.
Which is true, if you never spend a dime on the game. Time is money, but we'll need a standard before I'll calculate it in.

You know what's more expensive than 8.75 million crowns?
8.75 billion crowns.

It costs $400,000 to play Spiral Knights, for 12 seconds.

That's the same economic planning I use for lego construction.
My calculations say that it only cots 168150cr to craft from 2* to 5*, and that includes a very generous estimate of the material costs and the cost of the time spent getting heat for the upgrades. In practice, it will almost always cost you significantly less out of pocket.
Star CE Crowns Recipe Mats Heat Prev Total
2* 3000 + 400 + 250 + 750 + 0 + 0 = 4400 ( 73CE)
3* 12000 + 1000 + 1000 + 1500 + 0 + 4400 = 19900 ( 331CE)
4* 24000 + 2500 + 2500 + 5000 + 10000 + 19900 = 63900 ( 1065CE)
5* 48000 + 5000 + 6250 + 20000 + 25000 + 63900 = 168150 ( 2802CE)
Total 87000 + 8900 + 10000 + 27250 + 35000