Architect Archive

When it comes down to it, ease of codeability may be what decides what our decay ends up as: replaceable parts, limited redeeds, or tickdown destruction. In a perfect world where all are just as easy as the others, I think that houses should have replaceable parts, where the others should tickdown, but I'm going to assume that limited redeeds might be the most feasible for coding.

That said, I think that houses should indeed have the ability to be redeeded. Some people have said that houses should never be, but I disagree for the reason that no redeedability will make Generic housing almost useless. Sure, it's great for people who like the style, or who want to live on Lok, or Dantooine, or Talus, but many people now buy Generic homes so they can take them along when a planet move is made. I don't think three redeeds would be out of line for such a large investment. Sure, it's not as realistic, but let's face it: this is a world with fish-headed people. I'm sure we can figure out how to move a home...

How about structure repair kits that are easy to make but we could charge for the cost of maintaining a building. If a guild hall is 3.5k a day a repait kit could cost 12k and would keep the hall going for 4 days that way the money that goes into maintaining structures would instead go to us. Of course the person would be able to put multiple repair kits into the hall, so they could "save up".

Aralithia Oran

having played an architect in beta i know how many resources these things take and hence a somewhat hefty price goes into alot of the harvesters, factories and houses. I know there needs to probably be some decay over time, but it sure cant be time over days but time over months. i know you need to sell your wares like the rest of the player professions, but i believe it comes down to a couple things first I am a casual player not to super serious but if you think im going to keep paying upwards of 100k-145k for a new fusion generator every couple of weeks you can forget it. now if the resources didnt shift about once a week now i could see putting in a redeed limit but with that often of shifts it needs to be much higher than 10 redeeds. i think they have more control over when and how the shifts come and also in what the resource density is in locations forcing redeeding now because not alot of players are going to go from 80% down to 15% and leave a harvester in that spot for long.

I personally like the idea of adding items to add to structures as an answer. radiation shields being a great idea for fusion generators. having to add one before redeeding would be a great option.

im not sure how to add things for houses, but i dont like the redeed and lose the house thing. i havent invested in a medium or large house yet because of the lot spaces and stored item limits. to expencive and no upside in going bigger.

the resource amounts all these objects take makes the prices for them to prohibitive to just be throw away structures, and resource prices are not going to drop to a level low enough to bring them down to a throw away state anytime soon, if ever.

now i have invested over 1.5 million credits in buying all my harvesters couple of factories and 2 houses. but in doing that i spent most of the money i had. saying that it hasnt exactly come flooding back in replacing what i spent upgrading. if i had to replace all that stuff every month i would be broke and not playing the game any longer. then whos going to be left buying your wares.

on issue of decay, Ifeel the best and possibly funnest soulution is to make everything decay and give architects repair kits in their crafting line . no limit on redeeds but make it take a decay hit each time. possibly effecting the effectivness of the item.

also give archs an increased performance to use the kits ( contracted reapairs ) based on skill level of the arch.

the gist of this is the arch would have a markatable product ( repair kits) as well renewed biz when a repair crit fails and destroys the structure, extractor etc,.. creating a need for new structures.

also this would give a new dimention in quality to the profession on many levels. ( repair shops would pop up ) some archs would not build structures at all but simply repair them reducing the over all output of structures thus increasing there value )

Let's not take it out too hard on the weaponsmiths. Their issue is they need top end ressources. They can pay up to 15cpu for good copper and so on. They may charge 125 cpu+++ but they pay three to five times the price for their ressources. Same thing with armorsmiths. It's like crafting high end crafting stations... Having 900 conductivity copper or having 950 makes the difference between a sellable crafting station and non-sellable. Same applies to weapons. In our case, we can craft structures with 98 Unit Toughness steel and it would be just fine, whereas if we had experimentation, our structure would be crap.

Just to broaden your point of view

I still hate weaponsmiths =) (J/K)

I posted this in the top priority thread before I read this (Was higher on the list )

This is one of the more complex issues I think. Whether to add decay or to eliminate redeeding, either way provides future market. The question then becomes which is more appropriate. On one hand decay would provide a steady market, players may complain enough that SOE might eventually add a repair device or simply link it to maintenance to repair as it is now with harvesters. On the other hand, eliminating redeeding is an unsure fix as I think most players enjoy their freedom to choose where they locate their home and simply select a more suitable spot before building. The sever undercutting by selling a used home in some locations would probably be offset by the overpricing in other areas though. Both have their flaws and could be balanced, but that would take more coding and waiting for the devs to do it (If things did go that route). I think if we can kick this in the bud right now we'll avoid future headaches and make acrhitect a long lasting profession.

One Idea I had was rather than decay or redeeding, perhaps a linearly increasing rate of maintenance. One where eventually, buying a new home would be better than paying the maintenance. Also able to be experimented on for efficiency (eg slower rate of increase) and shows in the deed's "examine" window. I'm pretty certain this could be coded pretty easily (Like the way vendors' maintenance increases when you have more items on them...same principle) The only downfall I can think of right off the top of my head would be the furniture being moved to the new home (Could be solved by redeeding at the terminal) or left alone might lead to people wanting to remodel (More furniture market). Anyways just an idea. I'm sure it has more pros and cons than these.

I think the first thing to be catered to is a compromise between the casual gamers and the hardcore gamers. The second should be how it currently affects the way we craft/mine/sell. The third would be how it affects our future play.

first, these are all good ideas but almost every one takes and extreme towards the casual or power gamer. In all honesty they will all appear as nerfs to most players regardless of the balance they will create.

1) Redeeding-limited & none-caters to casual gamers since the hardcore people are more likely to move.

2) Powerups- These don't cater to either type player as far as I can picture it. They're pretty straight cut here.

3) Decay-use based- caters to casual gamers since it would only decay what the casual gamer set it to be used for. Basically if he went away for a long time, when he returned it would be at the lower maintenance, but not vanished.

4)decay -time based- caters to the hardcore gamers since the casual gamer will not always be around to stop decay.

5) maintenance increase - caters to hardcore gamers for same reason as #4.

A) Harvesters

Anyone of these ideas can help the profession, but I think perhaps a compromise of the different types is more suited than anyone above the other. IMO the powerups should be added for diversity alone. Also another idea is to let smugglers slice harvesters (No houses since there's no similar aspect to a house aside from maintenance redeeding or decay). The slice could increase their rate of harvest with a decay rate, number of deeds penalty, or increased maintenance costs, etc.

Give them a limited number of redeeds AND a time based decay (both experimentable and linked to durability). 10 is a good number for all practical purposes for the redeeds (perhaps experimentable or higher number of redeeds with the higher end harvesters).Either way works fine. The time based decay will incapacitate harvesters after 2 weeks, but is only active while the player is online and can be repaired using kits we make(also lowering durability similar to weapon repair kits).

I'm pretty sure this would be relatively simple to code in for the devs since it's just another logical based timer + counter equation. I think the triggers could be done client side also soas to not add much to the DBase.

At any rate, this would allow hardcore gamers to repair every couple of weeks so it's not too big of a hassle and casual gamers wouldn't suffer since it wouldn't be active while they're not logged on. It would increase the market for harvesters, since after the redeeds, they're non-functional (Either fix with redeed kit or replace..I'd suggest no fixing for personal harvesters, and redeed kits for the bigger ones). Also, the timebased decay would force hardcore gamers to either move their harvesters to better percentages after shifts and thus use a redeed.

B) Houses

Houses tend to be more permanent structures except for the generics. And since we're trying to compromise here, the same process above will work just as easily.

limit the number of redeeds (So generic houses don't get taken out of the game). 3 to 5 is a good range (along with the time for initial placement) so that generics are still useful and plant specific can still be relocated. Time based decay here is different than harvesters though. It should naturally decay slower as there aren't as many moving parts to wear or break down. Time decay should last a long time as houses are more permanent than haresters.There's two different routes here with the same effect.

1) Time decay goes slowly and steadily (or once per entry) requiring replacement parts (eg..new power core, wall assembly, etc). The key here is to give some items high durability (like the way high end armor has), but no repair option available while other items have a significantly lower durability with repair options. Basically the structure as a whole decays for so long before it is finally "condemnable" even if repairs are made consistently.

For example, in a real house, you can replace everything except one thing in it's entirety..the foundation. This is what happens to a lot of the old buildings that historical societies try to preserve. The leaning tower of Pisa is a good example. It's foundation has had to be strengthened numerous times to prevent it from finally collapsing and the task was monumental due to the soft ground below it. Once the foundation goes, the house is ruined (Or at such a diminished state that it would cost more to repair than rebuild). In the same way, once a house has decayed so far, it's cheaper to replace than repair, and since the only historical buildings in SWG aren't ours, then lets just build a new one.

2) the other route is to increase the amount of maintenance at a linear rate (It must be a slow increase, but steady) and can only occur while your character is online (Perhaps any admins as well, but only for structures like PA halls). Basically this would mean maintenance costs would eventually soar through the roof (No pun intended ) and it would become cheaper to replace than continue maintenance. Here, repair kits could be used to bring the maintenance down to a lower level, but never as low as "new" (eg only so many kits can be used before they fail, and there's always a chance of crit failure).

Either way these both accomplish the same goals.

C) Furniture

I really don't see a need for decay in furniture as long as the furniture can be diversified (Except for furniture that actually gets used like chairs, amoires, etc... high durability 1 decay per entry for those...) Filing cabinets don't open like new after years of use so neither should these. As for diversification, color for one, custom textures (using image designer setup?), and experimentable durability for the ones that have a function other than to look good.

*side note* furniture should not count against a house inventory unless it is useable **

Wow, I wrote a LOT more than I planned to Well, that's my idea, maybe some of you others could fine tune it.

I also like the powerup/replaceable parts idea.

It would certainly be a waste if we had made heavy harvesters for ourselves, only to use them about 10 times before they erased from existence. There is just too much time and effort that go into making these monstrosities, to have them decay away.

I know this isn't real life, but in a factory setting the machines are repaired by maintanence. The companies just don't go out and buy another 2 million dollar machine every 10 times it broke down. Maybe after like 30 years they would have to replace it. Replaceable parts was the solution in the Industrial Revolution , why can't it be in SWG? It seems like they would have the technology to do that.

Perhaps after like a month or two of useage (in RL) the harvester should break down and do half or a quarter of what it could originally do.

• And i know that is has nothing to do with the topic, but we should be able to experiment how well the harvesters perform and the rate at which they decayed, or have these tied into each other.

For example, if X harvester pulls up Y Kg amount of materials , the decay stat will decrease by D units.

The rate at which the harvester pulls up materials (R), will be completely dependant on D.

So if D decreases , so will R in a linear fashion. And as R decreases, the less and less materials the harvester wil be able to pull up.

The only problem is: as D decreases so will Y, causing D and Y to come to an evening limit, and the decay will become smaller and smaller each time. So to fix this, the decay rate{ D(Y) } (read D with repect to Y) must be proportional to Y.

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I've seen this suggestion numerous times:

"Allow transfer of houses so you can sell them instead of destroying them when you want to move"

I can't possibly be alone here, but I've been able to do this for a long, long time.

I've transferred ownership of my Large House, my Medium House, my Guild Hall, and probably everyone of my harvesters during lot shuffles. You walk up to the structure (or stand inside for a house) and just type:

/transferstructure Acer

assuming that I'm standing there with you and you want to give me your structure.

Just to help out those who don't know.

Informingly,

Acer - Master Architect, Kettemoor

A'cer - TKA and DE, Starsider

Am I the only one who thinks the proposed solutions is doing this the hard way?

My personal opinion. Houses require maintenance, NOTHING else should. You buy a harvestor, and run it till it drops, then are forced to get a new one.

This code is already in game, and it actually worked this way when this game launched. Quality of harvestor / factory / whatever would determine how long it could operate, and when that time ran up, it stops running. I'll exclude houses from this, since no one should have to deal with moving all thier stuff to a new home every month or so, but on our more "normal" items, I don't see this being any issue at all.

Practical method of how this would work is simple. You buy a high quality Heavy Harvestor from a Master Arch, and on the deed you see a "durability of 720". When you've run the harvestor for 720 hours, it will simply stop running. You buy the same harvestor from someone with my skill level, and you see 400 hours. The savings from not paying maintenance, should easily cover the cost of replacement units, and would also create a potential secondary market for selling "low hours left" equipment.

While I have no doubt, that they would have to play with the number of hours until they decided they were happy with the "cost" of mining or manufacturing, the benefit of this method is, that all the code needed to implement it already exists. It would introduce a permanent market on everything but houseing, and I'm sure many of the proposals already out in the forum for solutions to house decay, would work without making owning a house a royal pain.

Vorgus on Bria