Architect Archive
Thread: Profession Revamp Idea to improve the economy and Save Architect from itself.
If you have read my suggestions/ideas post you see that I had listed changing our profesiona nd adding some new ones. It is my belief that the best way to save the architect profession is to remove our ability to do every single thing by ourselves. Reliance on others is the only way to stabilize pricing and create a truely free market. If an architect can control every aspect of a craft from removing the resources from the ground to refining them to making factories to actually selling the finished item the price is determined by the person who can spend the most time doing it. This shuts out those who are more casual players and may not have the time to perform every task needed to make an item from the ground to market. These changes will also affect other professions. I beleive the effect will be a stabilization of pricing for all crafting professions. If one profession is the only one actively able to gather mass resources, then they set the prices which all crafting classes must follow. Limiting harvesting on all other crafting classes hurts the power gamers who now have to buy resources like everybody else and helps the casual gamers by ensuring everybody is paying similar prices for those resources.
Below is my list of revamped professions. These are major changes/addition to the game and there iwll be alot of people who will say its not possible as well as those who don't want to change because these changes will negatively affect thier strategy.
First make architect deal with pure structures. lose the furniture line and add a business structure line. Lose construction and add a Major Structures Line. Change the Name of the profession to Structural Engineer.
I. Profession: Structural Engineer - Players pursuing this profession make various structures from houses to shops to factories and harvestors to large city/military buildings.
A. Requires: Engineering I-IV + 35k General Crafting XP.
B. Novice: Structural Engineer - Personal Extraction Deeds. Personal Factories Deeds.
C. Line1: Residential Structures - Starting with Small houses, Medium houses, Large Houses, Mansions.
D. Line 2: Commercial Structures - Starting with Small pubs and shops, then restraunts and taverns, then cantinas and medical centers, to department stores and arenas.
E. Line3: Industrial Structures - Starting with small extractors and factories, then medium extractors and factories, then large extractors and factories, and finally multiproduction extractors and factories.
F. Line 4: Major Structures - Includes military structures and city structures like bunkers, turrets, shuttleports, hotels, theatres etc....
G. Master: Structural Engineer - Pa Halls, Starports etc...
H. Experimentation:Overall Quality - Maintenance Costs, Resistances - Decay Rate(natural climate of location determines which resist is needed. Generic use decay.), Unit Toughness - Storage Capacity, Conductivity - Power Consumption.
I. Skills Granted: Structural Assembly - gains bonuses to assembly attempts, Structural Experimentation - gains point to be used when experimenting with structures,Construction Times - Lessens time it takes to assemble and place a final structure.
J. Other Changes - Only Structural Engineers can do the final combine on structures. Factories can only be used to create components.
II. Profession: Artisan - Same as before with a few minor changes.
A. Change 1 - Surveying changed to Sampling and is reduced in efficiency.
B. Change 2 - All currently available structures in this line areremoved from this profession and replaced with lesser structures such as disposible extractors or portable extractors. They are not as efficient as personal extractors but they are cheaper and available to those outside the mining class. Disposibles cost no maintenance however only work for a set amount of time before they must be discarded. Portables work with lesser efficiency each time they are redeeded however do not cost anything to redeed.
C. Change 3 - Reduce information provided when sampling to general densities. like low medium high.
D. Change 4 - Return action/mind costs and time delays to thier previous state(or reduce them)for sampling but also reduce the yield and the time it takes to actually perform the sampling.
E. schematics requiring advanced resources such as steel, aluminum and other processed materials should be moved to more advanced professions or setup as supplemental to the line. Ensure there is a way to advance through the artisan trade using basic resources such as iron and ore being that the processing ability to make complex resources is being restricted to the mining profession.
III. Profession: Mining Engineer - Person pursuing this profession gain the ability to locate, extract and refine raw materials into usuable resources.
A. Requirements: Engineering I-IV, Sampling I-IV and Exploration I-IV + 10kGeneral CraftingXP, 8k Sampling XP and 5k Scouting XP
B. Novice: Mining Engineer - Ability to use all extraction related structures.
C. Line 1:Surveying - As you improve you can see more exact concentration percentages, See material purity and locate resources from further away.
D. Line 2: Extraction - As you improve you can increase yields and reduce the time it takes to extract a unit of raw material.
E. Line 3: Refine - As you improve you can improve the quality of the material removed from the ground. (increase its stats.)
F. Line 4: Process - Gives you the ability to create new composites such as steel and aluminum from the raw materials extracted from the ground.
G. Master: Mining Engineer - Produces the best quality resources and advanced composites such as titanium, duraplast, duracrete etc... Ability to run all Extractors from a single remote location.
H. Experimentation - Gains points to use on refining processes to improve the various stats of the materials being refined.
I. Skills granted: All access commands related to extraction structures. A newtool (like crafting tools) to process materials into new alloys and such. improved survey devices.
J. Other changes: Resources should be more generalized with only the basic resources available for extraction. it will fall to the Mining Engineer to take those raw materials to make non naturally occuring alloys and composites.
IV. Profession: Industrial Engineer - Uses factories to create mass components. buys schematics from crafters and sells the components back to the crafters so they may make the final combines.
A. Requirments: Engineering I-IV +35k XP
B. Novice: Industrial Engineer - Ability to use all factories.
C. Line 1: Mass Production - Ability to produce more and more components from a single schematic.
D. Line 2:Production Rate - Ability to improve production rates to reduce time need for production run.
E. Line 3: Waste Management - Reduces overall resources needed for large runs saving quantities of resources.
F. Line 4: Multi Production - Ability to make more and more complex components. IE the ability to make Structural Components then take those structural components and make Wall Components all in the same factory on a single production line.
G. Master: Industrial Engineer - Ability to run all factories from a single remote location. further improvements on each of the professions skill lines.
H.Experimentation: None, however, no critical failures either.
I. Skills granted: all of the factory function commands.
J. Other Changes: Factories restricted to Industrialists. change XP to 100% with industrialist getting 80% for each item and the schematic creator getting 20%.
V. Profession: Design Engineer - Makes items for interior/exterior structural decoration. Also provides planning and items for cities and military bases.
A. Requirements: Engineering I-IV andExploration I-IV + 15k general crafting XP and 10k Exploration XP
B. Novice: Design Engineer - Ability to incorporate PA structures into a City or Mililtary Base. (Requires PA's to have several required structures to determine whether they become a city or a military base.)
C. Line 1: Interior Design - Ability to make furnishings and equipment for use in habitable structures.
D. Line 2: Terrain Design - Ability to smooth rougher and rougher terrain into buildable locations.
E. Line 3: City Planning - Ability to create exterior objects relating to cities such as streets, parks ponds fountains etc..
F. Line 4: Military Planning - Ability to create support objects for military bases such as fences, barricades, spotlighting etc... (fences and barricades would be limited to the base ZOC and can be destroyed or removed by PA leaders.)
G. Master: Design Engineer - Ability to move PA structures around creating a city/base layout and re-placing said structures. This does require a redeeding cost per structure but allows the design engineer to redesign a city/base from the ground up. Structures that are not placed after a certain period of time return to the owner. Design engineers can also set aside the amount of land = to the number of lots the PA has so that only that PA can build on it.
H. Experimentation: Objects can be experimented on to be more durable or provide more benefit or cost lest to maintain.
I. Skills Granted: Terrain Tool and Planning Tools to alter terrain and peform city layout tasks.
J. Other Changes: Add the ability to lay down on beds.
This mostly affects the the crafters that use inorganic resources however the same principals can be applied to organic resources by creating a profession that gains mass organics through breeding programs and such.
I know this is a huge change to the game but I also beleive if they want to stabilize the game they need to do this.
One other thing I ask is to restrict the use of commercial buildings to merchants. This seperates the economy into 4 processes(extraction to creation to production to distribution.) and stabilizes the market by ensuring no one class can do everything by themselves.
If by some remote chance the game is changed to this idea (I doubt it) there are some consessions that will need to be made. The return of xp and skill points for changed skills to allow players to either reinvest in their current professions new skill-line or use them to pursue the changed professions if the xp is applicable or to move in another direction. Example a Master Structural Engineer would get xp and skill points back for Master, The Construction Line and The furniture Line, He/she can then choose to reinvest those points into the new skill lines for Structural Engineer or pursue one of the other professions with those points. such as re-placing the points in furniture(Interior Design).
Again I know it is far fetched so comments about how this will never happen are not required. This is just the best way IMHO to fix the current economy issues in the game.
Architechts arent going to make big money anyways on the small extractors even in this plan.
I dont think there is too much to worry about. The vehicles and later starships will likely be crafted by architects and these things wil be flimsier(especially starships) and will get destroyed and will need to be replaced.
Also hopefully player cities that are faction aligned will be able to get destroyed and will haveturrets and such that will need to be replaced. Factioned buildings being able to be destroyed (and defended) would make architechts very needed.
I doubt it, they'll probably make a new profession to deal with vehicles.
OctopusSoup wrote:
I dont think there is too much to worry about. The vehicles and later starships will likely be crafted by architects and these things wil be flimsier(especially starships) and will get destroyed and will need to be replaced.
to much work.
they have prioritys that are so much higher than implementing your *well crafted* idea, that it's silly.
Cyberthugg wrote:
Actually under my idea artisans can still obtain thier own resources. See Sampling which is the replacement for surveying. however thier materials won't be as high quaility because they can't refine them and they can't sample non-natural alloys and composites .... they can still advance and grind they just won't be able to grind using advanced equipment unless they make money to buy advanced resources.
And therein lies the problem. You will end up with too many non-stacking qualities of resources with the same name. It would create total chaos when trying to use em in a factory. If these different quality resources didn't stack, it would be near impossible for anyone to find large quantities of these identical resources for big items, like the heavy gas harvester.
Also, if the qualities were interchangeable, people would cheat and use the really good stuff in the schematic, and the cheap stuff to feed the factory, getting a whole batch of items with the "high quality" stats.
I for one do not like these ideas, but it is good that you are thinking of improvements. There simply aren't enough items we can craft in game to even think of splitting the Architect profession into several other professions.
Most of us current architects belive that things will be fixed once there is enough currency floating thru the game. Prices will balance out. In addition, When new items are added for player cities, you can bet there will be a VERY high demand, so prices will start out rather high. We just need more thinks to make. Vehicles will be nice, but I really want a turret myself. Just something to take out those red dots that spawn near my shop.
-Loserwan Ka'newbie
Tarquinas, Talus
I agree that we need to re-seperate the professions. I think your specific proposal goes a lot farther than I would go, however. My comments:
I. Profession: Structural Engineer - this is really what I think of as an architect. They build things.
II. Profession: Artisan
- regarding harvesters, I have always had a problem with the fact that you don't get anything really as you go up the harvester progresion, except you save on lots. A medium harvester should be a little more efficient. Right now, 2 personal harvesters = 1 medium in everything buy lots. I suggest we just drop the output of personal harvesters 30%. Also, raise the output of heavy harvesters 5% to justify that expense. There should be reasons for going up.
- Reducing sampling is not a good idea. Rather, put a 30 min limit on macros. Without macros, sampling sucks again, giving incentive to buy materials or move up to personal harvesters.
- I like the idea of reducing the detail you get on surveying in the artisan tree.
III. Profession: Mining Engineer - Yes! We need it
- I like in general your overview. I remember posting something similar back in beta.
- (my old pet idea) miners should be able to make alloys that are required for advanced combines in all other major artisan professions. Want to build a speeder, you need an alloy a miner can make. Lots of opportunity for fleshing out miners in this ability.
IV. Profession: Industrial Engineer - I just don't see this as being all that fun to play. I don't mind the fact that people of each class can manage their own factories. You can eliminate this totally and not lose all that much.
V. Profession: Design Engineer - The problem is that most of what I see listed is stuff architects would do in RL. This profession would work well if you just put all the stuff taht is currently in architect back (furniture) and then put the rest as an Elite profession that comes out with the Player Cities expansion. Some good ideas here, especially like moving buildings around to form better city designs. On starsider I have seen some valiant attempts at player cities. So far the best i have seen is a sprawl with one discernable avenue. They rest are just sprawls.
There is a lot here worth reading. Good work.
"If an architect can control every aspect of a craft from removing the resources from the ground to refining them to making factories to actually selling the finished item the price is determined by the person who can spend the most time doing it. This shuts out those who are more casual players and may not have the time to perform every task needed to make an item from the ground to market."
Huh? Are you even a casual player? This makes zero sense. If you eliminate self-reliance then the casual player is going to spend a great majorityof his time hunting down others to get what he needs and running missions to get the cash to buy it. There would be little time left for actually Architecting anything much less advancing.
I'm already annoyed at therediculous miner missions that require you to go offworld to complete. This takes away half the reward if not more making about half the missions not worth taking. So to make up the balance I have to take destroy missions, which is sillysince I'm an Achitect not a fighter. And this is just so I can keep harvesters going. Now imagine if I had to buy all of the resources. Nah I'd rather not imagine that.