Architect Archive

A friend looked at me the other day and asked, 'How can you fail such a large structure as a PA hall.. that would be like someone making a sky scraper fall down.. It just isn't probable.'

Thats true.. when was the last construction project in your downtown metropolitan area collapse because of their critical failure? I haven't seen one to date..

One +construction doesn't equate into 100% at master.. this is a fault that must be fixxed.

If a skyscraper did come tumbling down.. what about all the scrap metal you could either reuse or resmelt?

If we are going to fail, at least bring a resource % back..

For those that are arguing about quality pieces, I've heard someone used 900+pt ores and such with all the bells and whistles and still had a good collapse.. check swgcraft.com for more on that..

This game wants immersive behaviorisms without having mechanics to make it immersive.

-C9-

Every time I fail a final combine and I'm tempted to get upset I remind myself of one thing. This is what separates the architects from the wannabe architects. If you are emotionally strong enough and have based your operation on solid business practices you will survive, if not these are the events that will put you out of business. With that thought in my mind I start the project over again with a smile knowing that my business will continue, I am an architect

Tued the Master Builder

"You know what they say about beggars
You can't complain about the rules
You know what they say about beggars
You know who's the first to blame his tools"
-Dire Straits

What an amazing overall lack of sympathy.

Critical failures on HUGE items like housing are BS. They can be easily brushed off by uberplayers and resource griefers, but DECIMATE honest players. That's not only unbalanced, it is effectively penalizing the players who arent driving down prices or flooding the landscape with ridiculous numbers of housing.

When I finally made it to architect, the first two small houses I made critically failed. Now that I'm in practice and selling loads it's easy to shrug off, but at the time it had taken me a lot of time and effort to get the resources together only to have them go poof.

IMHO if you're going to have anything like a critical failure on items which require massve resources, it shouldnt result in the complete loss of those resources. Again, it's easy to shrug it off when you're rich. But if we all end up being that rich the game is going to be pretty boring, so let's try to aspire to 1) a continum of players from poor to wealthy and 2) game rules which don't beat on those who are down and trying to move up.

Then don't be arch. I like the fact crit fails are scaring people away form arch because its too popular as it is. And to the comment of skyscrapers not failing: Skyscrapers aren't made by 1 person and his trusty crafting tool... Sure you use a factory for some stuff, but in the end it is still built with a crafting tool...

Hey, not an architect, but considering the profession. Two days ago I bought a medium Naboo house from an architect south of Mos Espa in the Kettemoor server who suffered a critical failure in the final assembly. After reporting to me that she would need a day to assemble resources for another attempt, she PMs me a half hour later saying she got the house. She called in favors, went out and busted her butt to pull off getting that house to me and within a half hour of failing. I was perfectly willing to wait the extra day, I suffer crit failures every so often myself, and it was impressive to see her dedication to getting the job done in spite of the loss. That is the attitude of a successful architect. As for real world critical failures, they happen. As the families of the six guys who were reduced to a red paste under a 45 ton concrete panel they couldn't escape falling about 10 years ago when the project was shut down due to the lawsuit.

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Matic3d wrote:

IMHO if you're going to have anything like a critical failure on items which require massve resources, it shouldnt result in the complete loss of those resources. Again, it's easy to shrug it off when you're rich. But if we all end up being that rich the game is going to be pretty boring, so let's try to aspire to 1) a continum of players from poor to wealthy and 2) game rules which don't beat on those who are down and trying to move up.

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Well if you support a spectrum of success stories rather than a guarantee of success, which your comment about not wanting all to be rich suggests, then I would think you'd support the way crit fails work currently. The failures, combined with the individuals ability to survive them, are what will set the rich and poor apart. This doesn't come down to dumb luck of who gets the crits so much as who has done the groundwork to be prepared to survive them when they come since sooner or later we'll all fail on a big project. It's not just the rich who can survive the failures, or none of us would have survived since none of us started out rich. No, its those who planned ahead for failures who are best able to survive them.

If there are no challenges to overcome then everyone succeeds. That may sound nice, but in practice you end up bringing everyone down to an average level rather than creating the spectrum you say you are in favor of. There is a lot more to being a successful architect than clicking your way to master and that is what makes it interesting. Remove this risk and you cheapen the reward.

Tued the Master Builder

Once again, I say that crit fails on any second or third level of construction should not risk the components. You have the risk the first time you make something, then have to risk it 2 more times.. Your chances of losing that component to a failure go up each time.

From experience, let me say that

1) the better crafting tool does seem to help a small amount.. SMALL! I still failed 2 easy pieces of furniture in a row last night, using decent materials. And I still fail about 1 of 15 blocks, and 1 of 15 walls.. (and a PA hall)

2) Better resources does not mean lower failures. I failed on the PA hall that I made with the BEST resources I have ever used. 900+ on every component, the metal in the end had a 968 decay resistance, and the ore was at 906. every block and wall was made to over 24%. I crafted 2 pa halls one day using 141 toughness for bricks and wallsand 343 decay resistance ore for final assembly. I even made 30more bricks after the last PA hall, just to try to fail.. 20 minutes after deciding there was a dev watching my crafting making sure I didnt fail (after my long rant here) I failed on a novice architect furniture piece.

3) I can do a final assembly on anything (that doesnt need a station) while running, standing, sitting, swimming.. I can pull materials from the backpack mid craft, or back out partial qtys of materials. I can press alt halfway through assembly, and go to my factory, pull a crate, go back to my house, and hit alt again and finish loading stuff and hit the button and succeed. Its all superstition.. I do however not make a wall unless I have one extra brick in inventory. It is no different than someone putting on old socks or hopping on one foot while hitting the button.. pure superstition..

4) I don't care what anyone says about architects, we are getting screwed by having the lowest assembly skill in the crafting profession, and we have the highest overhead and the lowest margins. This does not mean that architects cannot get rich fast, given a little luck and a lot of work, but anyone with serious motivation and good business skills can make huge money in this game. I work with one partner, and she is an armorsmith, and 3 weeks ago she was making 250k per day making armor.. If she were not focused on acheiving master (funded by me now) she would be able to make huge money too, and she has a future where peoples armor falls apart and people always need armor.. How many more PA halls can I make before everyone in the galaxy has a PA hall that wants one?

5) One PA hall failure CAN break an architect.. if he/she has not planned well. Losing 250k in one day hurts if you have 500k to start, and 50k a day in maintenance, and a long list of impatient customers. Just because I have 5 times more cash than a fighter, does not mean I can go a week without doing anything.. I cant log in and say "hmm what do I want to do today.. maybe I'll go to Endor and putz around" I have to work my tail off for at least 2 hours just to get my daily maintenance and factory runs done, then if I want to take care of customers, I have to spend another 2 hours building, all the while answering a million questions about small harvesters. Having a lot on money is nothing.. keeping it coming in is the hard part, and keeping it from all going out is even harder.. add a crit fail on 2 days of harvested resources and you are hurt..

6) You can always sell furniture. I sold 275k worth of furniture last night.. I emptied my house of all but the essentials and filled my vendor to the brim with 5cr per resource furniture. I made a killing. 5-7 credits per piece is reasonable for furniture, and people will pay it.

I've critical failed PA halls on more than one occasion. That is just life. The real problem is having factories and crates not work right which wastes hours of game time not to mention frustrating as all hell. I'm not sure why people are having such problems gathering ore. My current operation is producing enough ore to construct a PA hall and several medium structures a day.

Well i would personally like to see the crit fails on large combines go away for one big reason. In RL you wouldnt see an entire house go up in smoke because of a failure in the final construction though you would see failures of individual sections.

And the rate at which these failures are happening is too high in the game IMO.

Though I am copying and pasting this link to every idiot who likes to argue about the prices I would like to charge for houses and PA halls.

These are the HIDDEN costs that non-crafters fail to realize.

They must raise the +construction up to at least 90... it's just too low, same thing with +experimentation even though they're not doing anything... The critical fails on a architect should be as low as the one on weaponsmiths... we're using more ressources so it cost more too make them to have a higher chance of losing it... and make a smaller profit marge