Architect Archive

A few suggestions I have for our line of work:

General:

• Buildings should have a "zone of control" around it where npc cannot spawn. It's too often to see POI spawning right on top of my harvestors to make this even remotely "funny"


• Material qualities, sub component qualitiesand experiementation points -should- affect various properties ofthe finished product as well as the Critical Failure rate.


• An actual number on a resource vein should be assigned to each resource. Let a person who has survey IV be able to tell how much longer a resource vein will last.


• The option to Redeed should really be reconsidered. As of now, architects are the only ones whose finish products arenot subject to inevitable decay. All other crafters' finished product decay whether maintained or not.Make it so thateither Redeed can only be performed by an architect or that it incurs a heavierfine (which is reasonablefor realism sake. Trust me, it would cost A hell lot more to move a building in real life than to just start from scratch and build a new one)


• Deeds should clearly LABELED in the bazaar terminal window as well as personal transaction window. I would go one more step and suggest different"deed"Icons be used for varioius factories, small/medium/large houses, installations, etc.

Houses:

• Light source is needed! We need to have functioning light sources. A fire torch is -not- an acceptable form of light source when the rest of the universe enjoysblasters, starships, speeders, race pods, light sabers, andetc.


• Houses should offer more perks - Faster HAM regen rate, wound healing (if a freaking CAMP can heal wounds, why not a house?). It really should be a integrated part of SWG life instead of a status symbol. Houses needed to be made so that it is a priority for people to obtain in the game much like real life. When you move onto a new city either for work or other reasons in real life, one of the first things you do is look for a place to stay. Why not in SWG?


• People on the Admin list -should- be able to drop and pick up anything in the house.


• Provide individual data terminals for individual rooms which has an admin/visitor/ban list, make this an option to purchase from the architect (therefore actually making a use out of the data terminal we're able to craft)


• Large and mediumhouses should have MORE storage space than a small house and not the same.


• Players should be allowed to make customerize houses using generic "puzzle" pieces. Basically give architect a range of different "rooms" and "components" schematicsand allow us to piece them together creating our own "custom homes".

Harvestors/Generators:

• Power generators should have some way to link its power distribution to other harvestors. It's tiresome and pointless to have to run from point A, get the power, to point B, to point C. You'd think in the age where space travel is possible, people would at least figure out how to link a power cord to each harvestor. Hell, make this into an option where we need to pay for the layout of the power cords. This would also give rise to specalized power "companies" where someplayer(s) can use all their lots for generators and act as the power company to supply local miners with power.


• Bank terminalsshould have an option where we can pay -all- maintaince fee at one of the terminals, or set up recurring payments options at the harvestors. If the harvestors can draw maintaince money from our bank accounts, shouldn't we be able to set up recurring payment options on them?


• Power and Maintaince fee should be regained after a structure is "destroyed"

Furniture:

• Furnitures needs to have usage. They should not be there just for the sake of "looks"


• Player toons should exhibit different postures when "using" different furnitures. The plain rigid "sit" position on -all- furnitures is getting boring and meaningless.


• Cabinates, Book shelves, lockers should all be flagged with container and act as containers.

---

Tigrus wrote:

Figuredmaybe we should start a thread to help out Zarcath and list off some of the ideas we would like to be passed on to the devs. Please keep this clean and productive. We are here to provide suggestions to what we would like improved about how the game works: bugs, logical errors, etc.

I for one would like to see:

1) permissions to structures fixed: Administrators of houses being able to pick up stuff in the houses, Admins to factories being able to access hoppers, etc.

2) Corellian House models should not be the generic models! thxu!

This is just a start, if we all chip in I'm sure we can make a good list for Zarcath to report on.

---

I have to second both these points, and I want to *especially* re-emphasize #2. I'm not saying for this first report or even the second, I know there are bugs/issues like the power core bug and such that need immediate attention, and I'll actually list those in a minute that I'm aware of. But PLEASE Zarcath....make sure the devs are consciously aware that Corellian homes currently do not have any uniqueness to them at all and are just using the identical generic models! This dates way back into beta and this is one issue I don't remember ever reading one instance of a post by a dev regardless of which one that addresses this issue or even acknowledges that they're aware of it consciously.

As for the major bugs/issues:

1. This is THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT bug as far as I'm concerned: fix harvesters so that when you deconstruct them, any power you have left in them as well as any maintenance pool money left in them above and beyond the reclamation fee is either maintained in the harvester when you re-deploy it, or else is automatically returned to your inventory!!! There's no telling how much of both of these we lose every time resources shift.

2. Factory bugs need fixing badly. Chief amongst these are the admin issue where only the owner can properly use the factory. Also, the power core bug, even though we now know the work around, needs to be fixed. I also saw a post where the ore mining unit doesn't produce into factory crate mode; there may still be other items like this as well that don't properly stack into crates. I know it took a long while in beta for them to get structure modules to do this.

3. Houses. Admin bugs...this has already been mentioned so I won't go into detail. Lot allotments needs to be looked at, because there are a couple of the small houses that take *2* lots intstead of just one. *No* small house should take more than one lot, period.

4. Installations: the Harvesting Mechanism needs fixing like yesterday. There are a bunch of medics in particular beyond just architects that also are dying to have this bug fixed.

If I think of any more, I'll add them later...but these are the most dire emergency 'needs to be fixed ASAP' things that I can think of.

1. More lots as you progress up the construction tree

2. A way to find where all of your lots have been used if you do not have the associated waypoints

3. A way to let Architects distinguish themselves from others (ie. Expermentation doing something)

Here are my top 5 issues that are probably the easiest to quickly fix and I would consider us 'being thrwon a bone':

1. Fix admin permissions on factories.

2. Fix admin permissions on houses so I can drop things in buildings I admin.

3. A way to reclaim remining power / money in harvesters when you re-deed them.

4. Collision issues with furniture.

5. Icons for deeds.

After that I would like most of what is mentioned above. Experimentation meaning something, color options on furniture, lights that actually work, lamps actually on tables not under them, etc....

These are some of my ideas from other threads compiled here.

1. IDEA 1

Pogo's contract idea got me thinking so credit for this idea goes to him.

Why are all items sold for credits upfront? The answer is because there's no payment system in the game.

Structure items and any items with a maintenance cost can use the same system that's in place for UXP.

Architects charge a reasonable upfront fee for the deed. The deed gets placed and the architect begins receiving payments out of the maintenance pool the player is already paying. The cost for the player does not change or changes slightly. And the architect doesn't have to charge high upfront prices. Armor smiths can charge such high prices because they can sell one small piece at a time. Architects don't have that luxury. With the payment system the prices architects charge now are actually in line with true market value and the payments make up for any shortfalls.

After a set period of time the architect stops receiving payments from that structure. The structure begins to decay. The maintenance costs begin to climb until eventually it reaches the point where the owner has to move and buy a new house.

This allows Architects to make money like they deserve and it keeps them in demand.

Another benefit is the ability to make experimentation mean something to architects. Allow experimentation to extend the life of a Structure before it starts to decay thus allowing more payments to the architect from the maintenance pool. This benefits both the creator and the user.

PA buildings would be exempt from this. Architects would receive no payments and buildings do not decay. Maintenance on PA buildings will be deferred to the PA Guild Hall. Meaning the PA Guild Hall becomes more expensive to maintain the more PA Buildings it has under its control.

Something that will probable never be implemented but should be is the separation of the professions into something more accurate.

Artisan Stays the Same except Surveying is changed to Sampling and the rates are reduced to small amounts. (This allows artisans to be able to gather resources yet not at the point that they rival personal extractors.) Sampling also allows minor processing to render the items usable in crafts.

Mining becomes a profession. Surveying, Extraction, Processing become part of this profession. Surveying is unchanged except that it provides Mining XP now. Extraction would be the use of heavy equipment to gather larger and larger amounts of raw material. (This allows a simplification of the resource layout meaning resources can be more generic in their raw form and it's the processing that gives them their stats.) Processing is what allows Miners to refine raw material into something that's useful to crafters. The 4th skill tree is still up in the air but one possible idea would be resource tracking that gives advanced miners a general (Not pinpointing) idea of where new veins are likely to be found. As this skill improves he gains other abilities such as being able to determine the concentration and general quality before seeing the resource. It would basically enhance the Surveying skill line with new abilities and better results.

2. IDEA 2

Individual room controls allowing me to control access into each part of the house.

More business styled furniture related objects. (Cantina stuff in particular.)

Windows!

Bug fixes on the Admin. Functionality.

Banning somebody from your store who has made a purchase but not yet picked up the product cancels the sale. (Refunding the money to the buyer and the goods back into the vendor for sale.)

Dance hall style buildings and restaurant style buildings.

Bouncer NPC's (Or security guards.) (This would probably go under the merchant class)

3. IDEA 3

Architects and artisans have been screaming for more lots since they chopped them down in beta. Everybody has the same number of lots. No one is different. all is good in the eyes of the Government.

I havea couple ofideas for a lot system.

1, allow players to sell/trade lots they do not want. This is the simplest system and would allow the devs to keep thier hard cap on the number of available lots per world. Then restrict classes of structures to professions. Only Artisans can use harvestors, Only advanced crafting professions can use Factories. Non Crafting classes restricted to Houses and Military buildings etc...

2. Vary the number of lots a person may have dependant on thier Main Profession.

First create a set of types of lots.

A. Factories. (Restricted to Advanced Crafting Classes.)

B. Mining. (With the exception of the personal extractors these should actually be restricted to the miningprofession which currently does not exist. Restricted number to level of miner)

C. PA (Restricted to those The PA Leaders. They would have the authority to place these structures.)

D. Housing (Ignore Lot size on houses but only allow each player 1 house of any size.)

E. Seperate deeds for business buildings. (Restrict to Merchants. Restrict size to level of merchant.)

This by far is the most complicated but probably the most Accurate way to handle the lots issue.(By re adding the mining profession you remove the burden of collectign resources from the Adv Crafting. This will allow miners to control the price of resources and stabilize the market. This would be very benificial to Architects who now are forced to undersell to stay competitive.

3. Simply reduce the number of lots players start with and increase them as they advance. Players start with 2 lots and as they advance they earn access to more lots base on the number of skill points they have left unused then they slowly increase to 20 to 30 lots as they use up thier skill points.

#1 fix admin rights houses& PA Halls

#2 fix vendor list rights houses & PA halls

#3 some kind of remote maintenance/check on harvesters. Allow us to pay maintenance fees from bank, if we can use bank funds instead of cash, why not pay remotely. Also we should be able to change resource harvestedremotely, and see the status of the extractor.

Battlefield structures? The manual says architects will be able to place battlefield structures. Is this a future enhancement or does it exist now and we just don't know how to do it. Hopefully we can create the deeds for battlefield structures, and they aren't a faction perk. This is just about the only disposable/destroyable item there will be.

Can you give us some insight into the plans for player cities? I know a lot of architects are considering quitting, but a glimpse of the possibilities would make the profession more interesting and maybe keep some folks around.

#1 Architects need about 4 more lots to take into account the need for house, factory, and huge resouces needs.

#2 Make the heaviest harvesters better so they are worth making. The personal and mediums harvesters are about right, but the heavy should give better (lower maintenance) and slightly higher results in KG/HR. (At same time make both medium and heavy harvesters easier to place.)

#3 Furniture skill by all accounts really does increase failure rate, not the other way around. I never had a major failure, and rarely a minor failure til I got furniture skill. Right After I got Furniture III, I had two major failures back to back. Coincidence? I think not!

#4 Maintenance rate bug: Harvesters sporadically charge double maintenance. I have sat and watch for two hours as this happened one time, since I was curious. Many threads attest to this continuing problem. This really harms unaware players in form of extra repair costs.

#5 Factory Hunger. Let us get those resources back that our factory doesn't actually use instead of them disappearing into the void when the factory stops running at end of a production run.

#6 Furniture placement and other interior design issues. This is only low priority because of the bad bugs that come first, but this is one thing I'm sure Zarcath will be an excellent spokesman for. We could use about another 100 schematics in the Furniture line of skills. Curtains, Framed Art, Statues, and other imaginative decors would be much appreciated. A hottub anyone? A Conference table? A mini-bar? Cultural Iconographs?

#7 Admin rights need tweaking.

#8 Long term issues of sales and financing. Repair of deeded (and placed) items might be important here.

Chocobacca - afraid to get any more Furniture skill.

Here are my votes on what should go into the weekly letter to the Devs.,

1. Admin on houses and factory's does nothing. (they said they were working on the house adminafter they entered the Vendor no-trade nerf).

2. Harvesting Mechanism uncraftable

3. PA Halls - Tatooine only takes 7 lots and the other 3 take 9 lots. They should all take 7, and I really think 6
so atleast the PA Owner (This is not the same as PA Leader) can atleast build a Medium House of his own.
Or keep them all 7 and give everyone 1 additional lot.

4. Furniture Items such as Chest, Cabnets, Etc should be usuable storage space.

5. Items inside a Container droped in the house should not count toward the max items that can be placed in a house.

6. Expermintation and Resource Quality should do something.

7. The huge difference is similar schematics. Like Medium Mineral harvester taking 3 Structure Modules, Medium Gas and Chemical 3 Wall Modules, and the MEDIUM Flora Farm taking 6 WALL Modules. There are also some Small and Medium Houses taking more resources than others, specificly the Generic Models.

8. The Corellia House Models being generic.

First, I would start off by fixing bugs. In particular harvesting mechanisms, house admin rights, factory admin rights, and the constant factory eating of components or it just stopping at random times (that might a server stability issue).

Then move on to profession specific issues, lack of experimentation doing much of anything, structure decay.

And then the stuff that looks nice: furniture coloration, light sources, letting me hang my dress in my arimore or put my Jewlery in my chest. Adding more furniture more floorplans and decorative structures (fountians and such).

But I know this is all too much to ask. Its been a month, I'm about to pay my first monthly bill and nothing, absolutely nothing, regardingour professionhas been fixed since I started beta MONTHS ago. It hurts me to be paying money for this. How hard can it be just to throw a bone and put a container flag on a cabinet?