The SFE Story

SFE consists of four Aussie blokes who are mates in real life. After spending many hours hunting together and trying all the different armours available we became obsessed with finding out which armours worked the best against various mobs. We were, like everybody else, after an economical hunt!

The Idea

The initial stages of the society, that would eventually become SFE, began to take shape, when, after trying to acquire certain sets of armour, we realised that the availability of crafted armour was sporadic at best and that many of the armours in EU were much harder to get than they should be. There wasn't a singular person or place you could go to get everything you needed in one visit. It became apparent that we either had to spend copious amounts of Ped or hours of running around in order to get what we wanted.

This was a problem that needed a solution.

After many long hours of discussion, we concluded that a professional society, that offered a consistently reliable source of armours for all levels and invaluable advice on armour selection was desperately needed.

Gradually, a solution began to take shape...

The Logo

We had an idea, now we needed something to symbolise that idea.

A lot of thought went into the development of our logo. We felt it important to illustrate our origins and intentions to the community with something interesting and memorable.

The general shape of Australia was chosen for obvious reasons, along with the iron-clad look and feel representing the armour industry and protection for both the individual and the community. The brass cogs within were chosen to symbolise the intricacies of the operation of our society, all cogs working together to create a solution.

The Name

We had an idea, we had a logo. Now we needed a name to tie it all together.

Many an email was sent back and forth in an effort to find something with the right feel, the right idea, the right look.

Many names were put forward: The Forge, Mang Dynasty, Order of the Red Hand and Chaos Shields were just some of the weird and wonderful names suggested.

After narrowing the list down and mixing two of the best, we finally settled on Southern Fortress Engineering.

Southern - Originally from the song Great Southern Land by Icehouse. To those not familiar with it, the song is about Australia (fit perfectly with the logo and happens to be a favourite song of several members)

Fortress - From the ideal that "a suit of armor is designed to protect a single person, whilst a fortress is designed to protect an entire community".

Engineering - One of the main cross discipline skills involved in the crafting professions.

Now, we had an idea, a logo and finally a name.

Our solution was here...

That solution is SFE

Our Business Mandate

After SFE was formed in mid-2006 and because we realised that the availability of a large range of crafted armours didn't exist, we began to realise that we had an opportunity. Only a select few (e.g Ghost and Rascal) were in common production. This made it very difficult and highly inconvenient for the greater Entropian community to find the others. It was this issue that we wanted to change with the creation of Southern Fortress Engineering.

We saw this as an opportunity for two reasons:

If we could create a sustainable business model, then we could afford to continue producing as many different crafted armours as possible. However, if we crafted them at our own expense, then obviously we would not be able to keep it going. At the very least, we needed a model that would "break-even".

So we spent a great deal of time researching the actual cost of creating the armours. We invested heavily in the appropriate skills and facilities to create and sell the armours. We created and altered our prices to reflect the cost of production. As our crafting skills increased and the market for materials changed, so did the prices we issued for each individual piece we sold.

This system has not changed since.

If you see a price that seems high, then that reflects a high cost of production (usually a rare and thus expensive ingredient). If you see a price that seems low, then that reflects a low cost of production.

Our business model is based on the fact that by keeping prices as close as possible to cost of production, we can pass the additionally lower costs onto our customers and enable ourselves to continue to operate.

Our philosophy is that if we combine this pricing model with really good service and reliability, then we will have happy customers who come back to us and bring their friends - we will sell more armour and in turn be able to fund and offer additional services in the future..

Hopefully, with a higher volume of sales, we will be able to continue our expansion, the production of more armours and be able to maintain our PE/EU participation in a very constructive way.

The more opportunities we have to continue crafting, the more opportunities we have to global/HoF - perhaps, therein, lies a potential profit, which we would consider a just reward.

To assist both us and the Entropian community as a whole, to achieve this ideal, we have designed and made available several facilities. We also maintain several ideals within our mandate:

So if you see us around Port Atlantis Mall, or anywhere for that matter, feel free to come and have a chat.

Alternatively, you could send us an email.