Architect Archive
Thread: The Galactic Civil War: An Architect's Role!
The best future for Architects is to give us a role beyond simple crafting. I'd like to take the ideas of everyone here on how we could play a role in the GCW, giving us long term use & playability.
Why we need a role in the GCW:
There is no long term future for architecture. Period. Introducing decay instructures simply LOWERS their value. Houses become less useful, and more expensive to maintain. That simply forces people to move away from using houses, rather than using more.
The servers are new. Nobody started with any houses, factories, or harvesters. Logically, that means there was an initial HUGE demand for these structures, and many Architects were made to fill this need. As we approach the two month mark, much of the demand for housing has been filled.If you look around cities, you see miles of houses dropped together. I would say that the housing need has been filled already. The business that I'm seeing is a very high demand for heavy harvesters, and fusion generators. This will continue until 80% of the need has been met.
What happens then? We'll have a very large number of Architects, that are in place to fill the demand of supplying an ENTIRE server with all the structures they want in 1 month. When that need has trickled to 10% of the initial first month boom, what's going to happen? There are too many architects. When you have a housing boom in a city that grows tremendously fast, you have a huge upsurge in the construction industry. Booms don't laster forever, and it's unrealistic to expect our profession to have boom level demand forever.
Even introducing decay, or something similar, there is no way that SOE can create the same demand for deeds that existed in the first 1-2 months of a server, as deeds are mass produced to cover the server population's needs. SoE could introduce new structures that people want, but there's no way that the demand for those structures will equal the initial demand of a brand new server.
For Architecture to survive in the future without being cut down to 5% of the number of Architects, we must change from being a deed churning profession, to a different type.
Enter the GCW.
We have a dead branch in architecture called Construction. I propose that Experimentation be moved to Furniture, andConstruction be changed to Defences, and would be as follows:
Defences I: Structure Repair +5,Building Enhancer: Small Shield Generator,Building Enhancer: Small Laser Turret
Defences 2: Structure Repair +5, Deed for: Guard Tower, Building Enhancer: Light Structure Armor
Defences 3: Structure Repair +10, Building Enhancer: Medium Shield Generator, Building Enhancer: Medium Laser Turret, Building Enhancer: Medium Structure Armor, Deed for: Advanced Guard Tower
Defences 4: Structure Repair +15, Deed for: Assault Tower, Building Enhancer: Heavy Structure Armor, Building Enhancer: Heavy Laser Cannon
Master Architect: Structure Repair +20, Deed for: Building Enhancer: Heavy Shield Generator
Building enhancers are similar to power ups, but are applied to buildings. They are cumulative, and can stack up to a limit based on the size of the structure. Ie: A small house could have 2 shield generators added, and 2 turrets, where a PA would be able to handle up to 20. The use of a building enhancer will increase the maintenance cost of the building in question. Shield generators, and Laser Turrets/Cannonswill also require the use of power.
All factioned buildings within Player Cities that chose to be a part of the GCW will have hitpoint values, and will be damageable. As buildings are damaged, their maintenance rate will increase. Architects will be able to repair structures. Repairing will use metal & ore, the amount determined by the amount of damage on the building, and the repair skill of the architect. Building add on will be completely destroyable, while the structures themselves cannot be totally destroyed.
Guard towers are defensive structures that will be placeable on the perimiter of player cities. They will have the ability to have shields, defensive guns & armor added. Players belonging to the city of the tower will be able to enter the tower, and will have a bonus to ranged defence, and ato hit bonus.
Assault towers are 1 shot placeable deeds that can be used similar to guard towers, but do not have the city perimiter restriction. While expensive, they will be very effective in helping to assault an enemy city.
Construction of the items in the Defences line will require cooperation from Armorsmiths, Weaponsmiths, and particularly Droid Engineers. While the repair &finalconstruction will rest with Architects, components from the other artisan classes will be required, particularly Droid Engineers.
Defensive structures WILL BE EFFECTIVE. To counter the additional cost of making & maintaining them, the defensive structures will be VERY useful vs players in combat. It should take a large group of players in order to take down & destroy defensive structures. Certain classes, like Commando would be given special abilties that would make them much more effective than regular players vs static defences.
Defences should be balanced so that given 50 attacking players, 20-30 would be able to hold them off, depending on the number & quality of defences. While it would be possible to add a VERY large amount of defences, the increased maintenance costs would be prohibitive.
Overall, this would add a very interesting, and lasting dimension to Architecture. It adds a lot of options for all players in terms of things to do, and a strategy element to the GCW that didn't previously exist. Additionally, it creates a sink in the game, with additional maint fees, and destroyable defensive structures which makes the devs happier. Additionally, it gives those with lots of money something to do.
Hey Adune, don't remember if you were the one who originally posted a less detailed version of this in another thread, but I'll repeat my support of this idea. It provides an ongoing and renewable revenue for the architects without having to hope for new items (other than the newly introduced lines) or for structure decay which the more I read, the less I like.
Great post and great idea!
I'm all for this as well. I especially like the repair option... gives us the option to be a service profession as well as a product one 
Other crafting classes have skill & experimentation in the same line, moving it to furniture would mirror that.
Any additions to this or ideas from anyone? If this is planned well enough, maybe the devs will consider it. Inviting suggestions from everyone regardinging having us play a military role in the GCW.
Say we build the foundation, the weapomsmiths make type 1 gun to mount in it, and the armorers make a type b shield generator to protect it.
Then a few days go along, and the shield generator wears out, and there is now damage to the structure. We go repair it and the armorer gets to place a new shield generator. But now the structures condition is no longer at 100 % so eventually after a while it will get completely destroyed. Same for Weapons, after the turret wears out, then the weaponsmith can just come by and drop a new one into it.
Reason i want it ot be able to get destroyed is that if all we do is repair it, then there wont be a real big demand for them. WIth them getting destroyed, then we just go make another one. I think its just a little more useful than just going to repair it.