Architect Archive

I’m posting this in the Architect forum because it certainly impacts us and being an architect may bias my views on this. But this is really an issue across the whole game.

First, some background on the situation. Whenever I interact with a software system at any length I think about the basic software architecture and data structures a bit, since I’ve been designing complex software systems for a long time.

So when I think about schematics, factory use, and things coming in crates, what I imagine is that the game has an internal database of draft schematics. Associated with each schematic are things like complexity, what kind of factory it takes to produce it, and the max crate size, as well as lots of other stuff. So when I use a draft schematic to make a manufacturing schematic some / all of that information is logically present in the manufacturing schematic so the factory knows what to do with it. The factory calculates the time per item based on the complexity, and obviously knows how many items to put into a crate.

At some point in time the designers / developers looked at each schematic in the game and chose a crate size for that item. So they decided that powerups would come in a crate of 10 and synthetic cloth would come in crates of 25. They made those choices based on a variety of factors, I’m sure. I suspect those factors included perceived convenience to the players, “realism”, limits on items, and perhaps database loading. Also remember that in the very beginning we didn’t have the option of “splitting” a crate, although I don’t know if that was in the original design or not. Remember also that in the beginning setting the max size for a run to 1000 was not the default and people worried about that capability going away.

So now the game has been live for quite a while, we can make schematics for 1000 items and we can split crates. We know that players are constantly screaming for more storage space, and that the developers are worried about the size of the database. In use some of the choices for crate size don’t match with the usage of the item. For example, Ore Mining Units have a max crate size of zero. Small structure storage modules are used extensively to make heavy harvesters in groups of 4-6, yet the crate size is 10. Vehicle deeds have a max crate size of 25, yet small harvester deeds have a max crate size of zero. I’m sure that there are other examples.

I’m sure that my simplistic view of the internal database doesn’t match the reality. If that were so they would have simply changed the max crate size of the Ore Mining Units from zero to ten (like all of the other mining components) long ago. However, the simple view can still be the basis for discussion.

I have a question – why could we not set the max crate size of *every* schematic to 1000? That is, if I make a factory run of 200 powerups, I get *ONE* crate with 200 in it. If I make a factory run of 1000 structural modules, I get *ONE* crate with 1000 in it.

I have to believe that the operational database is better off with one record for a crate with a quantity in it of X items rather than X records for the individual items themselves, so this proposal would reduce the size of the database. It would reduce the storage pressure on players. It would increase the convenience of the players a lot, particularly for crafting components like Ore Mining Units or Metal Fasteners.

The only place where this would cause more work would be for commodities that are sold “by the crate” today, like powerups or control units. Given the capability already in the game to “split”, it’s not clear to me that this would really add that much work. For example, if I made a run of 400 powerups and wanted to sell them in 10-packs on the Bazaar, I could take the one 400-item crate out of the factory and split off 10-packs as I put them up for sale.

I may be missing something at the game design level where those sizes were chosen for “balance”, but I think that this notion is worth considering.

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ZenDragonMLS wrote:
I’m posting this in the Architect forum because it certainly impacts us and being an architect may bias my views on this. But this is really an issue across the whole game.

First, some background on the situation. Whenever I interact with a software system at any length I think about the basic software architecture and data structures a bit, since I’ve been designing complex software systems for a long time.

So when I think about schematics, factory use, and things coming in crates, what I imagine is that the game has an internal database of draft schematics. Associated with each schematic are things like complexity, what kind of factory it takes to produce it, and the max crate size, as well as lots of other stuff. So when I use a draft schematic to make a manufacturing schematic some / all of that information is logically present in the manufacturing schematic so the factory knows what to do with it. The factory calculates the time per item based on the complexity, and obviously knows how many items to put into a crate.

At some point in time the designers / developers looked at each schematic in the game and chose a crate size for that item. So they decided that powerups would come in a crate of 10 and synthetic cloth would come in crates of 25. They made those choices based on a variety of factors, I’m sure. I suspect those factors included perceived convenience to the players, “realism”, limits on items, and perhaps database loading. Also remember that in the very beginning we didn’t have the option of “splitting” a crate, although I don’t know if that was in the original design or not. Remember also that in the beginning setting the max size for a run to 1000 was not the default and people worried about that capability going away.

So now the game has been live for quite a while, we can make schematics for 1000 items and we can split crates. We know that players are constantly screaming for more storage space, and that the developers are worried about the size of the database. In use some of the choices for crate size don’t match with the usage of the item. For example, Ore Mining Units have a max crate size of zero. Small structure storage modules are used extensively to make heavy harvesters in groups of 4-6, yet the crate size is 10. Vehicle deeds have a max crate size of 25, yet small harvester deeds have a max crate size of zero. I’m sure that there are other examples.

I’m sure that my simplistic view of the internal database doesn’t match the reality. If that were so they would have simply changed the max crate size of the Ore Mining Units from zero to ten (like all of the other mining components) long ago. However, the simple view can still be the basis for discussion.

I have a question – why could we not set the max crate size of *every* schematic to 1000? That is, if I make a factory run of 200 powerups, I get *ONE* crate with 200 in it. If I make a factory run of 1000 structural modules, I get *ONE* crate with 1000 in it.

I have to believe that the operational database is better off with one record for a crate with a quantity in it of X items rather than X records for the individual items themselves, so this proposal would reduce the size of the database. It would reduce the storage pressure on players. It would increase the convenience of the players a lot, particularly for crafting components like Ore Mining Units or Metal Fasteners.

The only place where this would cause more work would be for commodities that are sold “by the crate” today, like powerups or control units. Given the capability already in the game to “split”, it’s not clear to me that this would really add that much work. For example, if I made a run of 400 powerups and wanted to sell them in 10-packs on the Bazaar, I could take the one 400-item crate out of the factory and split off 10-packs as I put them up for sale.

I may be missing something at the game design level where those sizes were chosen for “balance”, but I think that this notion is worth considering.

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/clap I agree completely, mostly because it would provide more storage space, as well as free up space on

SWG's item database

:happy:

The history behind this is 100 was the orginal intended limit. Doing 1000 was an exploit the people cried for and got. So when you thing about 10 crates per schematic, that doesn't sound too bad. However the schematic size went up, but the crate size did not. All we got was crates that actually produced an item, that is a wow, and the ability to make crates smaller. We do need a change to make crates come in at least 250-500, especially for subcomponents.

Right, but even at 100, the choice to have OMUs produce a crate of zero, and Light Power Core Units to come in a crate of 5 seems a bit crazy. When you look at production runs of heavy harvesters right now, we are limited to 166 Heavy Minerals per schematic because we can only produce 1000 Small Structure Storage Modules.

Note that I'm not suggesting that the 1000 max schematic size be increased - just that the max crate size be set *much* higher.

BTW - since the start of the game we now have *at least* 2X the mining capacity than we did at the beginning (since smalls went up 2X, mediums went up 2.5X, and heavies went up almost 2X). What would happen if the max stack size for resources went up to 200K? To 1M? I can tell you that at least in my case a stack size of 200K would cut my resource storage needs by almost 2X. So that's another 0-100 items off the database per player.

I totally agree with you Mikka, should there be any reason that the devs don't want/cant give uscrates of 1000 that we are not privvy to, then at least crate sizes of 100 would resolve a lot of our issues. And since right now crates come in different sizes I would have thought that there is more coding involved than there would be if crates had a 'standard' size for all. For example, when crating structural modules there has to be some coding that says when 100 is reached then start a new crate, whereas with wall modules it would saystart a new crate when 10 is reached, and so on. Likewise when removing from crates. This leads to more lines of code to think about when modifying the system where crates are involved. By setting asize of 100, or 1000 for every crate the lines of code are reduced overall as this code can be 'shared'. The added benefit for the devs must be simplified maintenance of the system as if for any reason changes need to be made to the functionality of crates they only need to change once, rather than check/ changethe code for each crated item.

Now bear in mind, I have not coded in earnest since my Spectrum ZX81 days, so maybe I have oversimplified things, but I have been involved in development of IT projects on and off over the years and I am always hearing devs tell me that they want to use commonality to simplify the maintenance of systems as much as possible as this helps to avoid problems where 1 code change affects other areas in an unexpected way.

Actually, I *hope* that the numbers for crate size aren't explicitly in the code per say, but rather in a "table" someplace. (If they are in the code I'd get some new programmers pronto. ) As I say, I would imagine that associated with each schematic is the "max crate size".

What is the procedure for suggesting something to the devs? As I say, this isn't really an Architect issue only, although it seems like we may suffer the most because of the current settings.

If it is in a table then it still makes sense? presumably the table used will reference to the different crated items and 'act' accordingly, one crate size means one reference rather than a table.

Message Edited by FelNuruodo on 03-27-2004 05:55 AM

Us architects don't eat babies... unless it will help with experimentation in which case...

...I'll have mine lightly toasted with a small dollop of mayo

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FelNuruodo wrote:

i'm more worried about bug fixes before this... plus there is nothing about eating babies in this thread...

edit - thought this was in the chef forum... what am i doing in here?

Message Edited by FelNuruodo on 03-27-2004 05:55 AM

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Well, I don't know if you regard OMUs not going into crates at all as a "bug" or not, but that one sure impacts how Architects have to operate. The awkward crates sizes for other things (Light Core Power Units, Small Structure Storage Modules) also impact us. And part of the reason I suggest this is because this *should* be a relatively simple thing for them to change which would have an immediate impact on the database loading and player convenience.

/agree

Crate size ---> 1000 please

You might want to state your idea before the 7th paragraph, ZenDragon.