Architect Archive

There need to be more lots available for Architects. I can see someone who doesn't have Artisan skills, or a low level Artisan being restricted to 8-10 lots, but when you climb up the Architect ladder, I personally think that you should get a greater number of lots to use. I have a small, relatively dedicated group of people with me, and they are willing to place harvesters for me, but for crying out loud. Why in the world would a Master Architect be restricted to the same number of lots as a character who has not developed any crafting skills. This does not seem right to me. As a Master Architect you are able to make things that require enormous quantities of resources. In that respect it seems almost necessary to have a large number of lots to harvest said resources. Being that the resources move, and I have to have others place the harvesters for me, then I have to go get them from what they are doing to pack up their harvester and move it to the spot that the resource has migrated to. This is not fair to them, or to me. I cannot be efficient if I have to wait for my Bounty Hunter friend to come from halfway across the Galaxy, after hunting down some fugitive (If they aren't in the middle of the hunt at that point), without getting any healing, and move the harvester that I cannot place because I don't have enough lots.

I believe that the Construction certs should add one lot per cert with an additional lot for Master Architect.

Then again the Devs don't care about what I think.

The logic follows a bit of real-life. Very rarely do you see a general contractor who owns their own forest and lumber mill, as well as a quarry, steel mine, electric company, plastics factory, etc.

The intent, as far as I can tell, is to make architects rely on others to gather the resources they need, and spread the 'generous wealth' the architects should be making by selling buildings.

The main downfall in the intent is that Houses, while in demand, are not the high-ticket commodity they thought they would become. As has been pointed out in numerous other posts, weapons and armor smiths are by far more lucrative careers, and too many people question the need for a house or furniture, especially when the functionality of both are very questionable at best.

I agree, Architects need more land if they're going to do all their own resource gathering, though. Maybe a payment system to purchase more lots from the empire could be set up?

Not a bad idea, Knocky. ^_^

I agree with you about the contractor not having their own steel plants and such, but then again, how often does an Iron Ore mine have to be picked up and moved? There is a mine in Illinois that I know of that has been there (being mined) for at least 30 years now. So your real life analogy is correct given that your resources don't move, and that the vendor you purchase your resources from is dedicated to just mining those resources. However in this game, it is more about being a jack of all trades. I am also working on Master Weaponsmith, and have attained Pistol Specialist to hunt my own creatures for their bone and hides. Those that are in my group are not going to always be handy to move my harvesters (unlike a mine in real life), therefore my efficiency will drop like a rock. In that respect, I should have more lots. Also a mining company themselves are not restricted to just ten "Harvesters." What about the large windmill fields in California? Do you think that 500 different people placed on that one person made? I think there should be an advantage in terms of lots for putting the effort forth to get the umpteen Experience Points to become a Master Architect.

Now about buying lots from the Empire, I am all for it. I would be willing to buy more lots once I have hit a legitimate cap in lots. It makes sense at thatpoint. After all you do pay for an acre of land in real life. It is also much closer to real life. Perhaps rather than granting more lots as you increase in your Architectural skills, you get to buy your lots a little cheaper. That I could deal with. It would also stimulate the economy, and get crafters to stop running their operations like a dollar store.

1 of the problem was the burning harvester patch we seen during the begining of release, Lots reduction was the dev attempt to solve 2 things(in early beta 3 ppl have 75lots imagine the size of buring harvester patches), limit burning harvester and reduce database load(less structures = less DB uses) reducing lot fixed issues somewhat, but lot sharing/renting and we still see decent sizes burning harvester patches during early releases.

my 2cents/suggestion which is pretty radical. I dobut it will ever get accepted or even consider and cause alot of outcrys.

bring back the miners class and implement a resoruces/commdoities market Seperated from the bazaar. or a resrouces brokering system, the system handle by the servers have flutating buy/sell price base on supply/demand, difference/profit would act as an extra"Money sink" the dev always wants more of(not enough money-sink = hyperinflation)

allow only 1 personal harvester per type (mineral, gas etc) per artisan and/or harvseter/lot certificaitons.

only allow miners to use medium/heavy harvsters with increase lots base on harvseter/lot certifications.

Miners/Merchants would act as player run broker where they can sell for higher than the server broker system and other can buy for cheaper than from the server broker system.

this would severly hamper lot sharing and establish a easily accessible resoruces commondity market where crafter can purchase resources and help set a stanardrize price on products base on resources cost. although large PA with several miners may still be able to under cutt by cheap/sharing ofresources within the PA.

The Devs want a social game with interdependencies and cooperation. 10 lots per personforces you to find ways of working with others to meet your needs.

What kills me is you have half the people complaining about the leasing/using other folks lots, but they want more lots for themselves? Some guy posted it as a problem on the list of this weeks report. If they ever do fix permissions on houses and factories, we will probably wind up asking them to change it back to force everyone to own a house. Its unfair that people can share a house and not help drive up demand and prices. People can't share a gun...(that is sarcasm by the way)

I feel for the Devs. Half the people screaming for this, half screaming for that.

I like Knocky's idea too. I have a med house 2 solar gens and 6 med harvesters. I'd love to put up a factory but I don't want to get rid of 2 of my med harvesters....or 1 solar and 1 harvester. I need as much as I can get to keep my business going. I have a few friends that let me use their lots as they are fighters and don't need them all, but still, we should get 1 more lot per construction level and maybe 2 for getting to master architect. Give us a total of 15 or 16.................oh, and I also think we need need more skill points.

I am not disagreeing with a social game. I maintain a highly social game when I play, but on the same token I want to be able to make a living, and if I have to keep having my friends shift the harvesters, then that will brew resentment because I am always asking them to go out of their way, pack up the harvester then follow me to the nearest decent instance of said resource.

I am all for miners and contracting out your materials. It boosts the economy. I am just looking for efficiency without having to step on other people's toes. I wouldn't mind sharing the lot, or leasing it, or whatever you want to call it, but with the frequency that the resources move, it makes that idea all but unreasonable. Make the resources stick around a little while. At least a couple of weeks, or make them static, with the highest quality resources in the most dangerous places. That will prompt socialization too. If you want that hotspot of uber steel, you best have some friends that are handy with a weapon to cover your butt as you head towards that monster on Lok to place that harvester.

I was all alone trying to get steel from my hopper last night, and found that there was a tusk cat camp within spitting distance of my harvester. All I can say is thank goodness for maskscent.

I agree more slots or...

Slot A - Houses (2 max)

Slot B - Factories (1 max)

Slot C - Harvisters (10 max)

How can you say that a good business person cannot setup a shop on 2 different planets and still have slots for a house the critical harvisters? We're being FORCED by this into being small business people. Was jabba told 'sorry you've only got enough slots for 2 bounty hunters?' how can he own that huge place? it must take up 10 slots! lol i bet he cant put any harvisters down.......

I can definately see the argument when it comes to the programming. That would make things more difficult if you reliquished the skills, but then again, would I work that hard to get to Master Architect and then say to *expletive deleted* with it, and give up the skills, not likely. Now buying the lots is cool. I like that, I won't argue that at all, makes sense. And as far as the programming goes, that might be a bit easier. Then if you do, for some odd reason, give up that big fat Master Architect skillset, then you can still keep your lots because you bought them. I also think this applies to all of the Elite crafting skills, not just Architect, but the architect definately seems to be the resource hog.

I used to be an Everquest-CSR so here is another reason lot size may be limited. Now, Everquest was slightly different in that it had zones (areas). We have these in Star Wars but they are HUGE areas. Now the EQ graphics engine was limited in the amount of "global" models it could have at any time. These were models that could be seen in ANY zone. Basically pets, the player races etc would fall into this category because anywhere the player/pet can go needs to be able to draw them. Different professions constantly complained for more models (Necro's want their skeletons at different levels to look different) but they were not able to be updated because the global model pool was full. It would severly hamper server performance to add more and required adding more servers / updating graphics engine to fix this problem.

So, as far as Galaxies is concerned, it could just be they are limiting the number of lots this early in the game because all these constructions have to be drawn. This creates lag in huge areas, much the same way tons of corpses laying around in Everquest could slow a system to a crawl. 2000 people times 10 lots is alot of harvesters.

Basically, I'm hoping that later on they get added once they realise the engine/players can handle the load. The only thing that really concerns me is that they have a huge list of "in development" items. Each class, the basic as well as elites, have a section with updates/bug fixes/exploit removals EXCEPT Architects (I apologize if other classes were overlooked like Chefs or Image Designers but I can't remember what classes were missing right now hehe). That doesn't bode well for the state of our class.

I am willing to bet that variable lot pools would be a technical pain to do. Let's say that as an architect you unlock lots as you move up a line (like construction. we'll pretend it actually does something for the moment) and you fill up your lots. Then you get tired of being an Architect and surrender the skills. What should happen to those installations/houses that are using those lots?

My point is that it's kind of tricky and a level of effort risk that I'd rather not introduce until down the road. Yes the lots are kind of restrictive for us. I find it ironic that as an architect I down own a house (or factory currently) because all my lots are going to mining. It's all a question of choice an priority. Nobody is forcing me to devote all my lots to harvesters. I just want to be able to get resources faster.