Architect Archive
Thread: Decay Thread
If you all think that these are the only stuctures ever to be in the game then yeah your right..I doubt that these will stay the only things to be built and if they are the game will die not just architects..And i dont know how this repeir thing would work but I dont plan to make house calls all over the galaxy to repair houses..
The biggest problem is that people are still making new architect chars thinking they can make some money and there are just too many..If some of them have to pick up a new road later down the road cause demand is low good for them I will still be making my wares..
Rarek so if your not a master architect you should not even attempt to be an architect? I know that there is atleast 10-15 master architects on Bloodfin if not more. There are people that can make 40 plus small houses a day. The market will get saturated very very quickly
Does anyone know what the total population of a server is? I have plenty of demand for PA Halls, Large Houses and Heavy harvesters now, but it in 2 months I don't see the demand still being there.
There are people selling small houses for 3k on my server, so if you want to be an architect just for fun you probably can break even for a few more months. Then sell all your equipment or change professions.
PS
It is a waste of time telling architects to sell for more or don't make 40 houses a day. That is how they enjoy playing the game.
Still, I think you need to shift maintenance on houses from being a simple credit out-flow, to a potential for architect business...
Similiar to the ideas in my above threads, but slightly different:
Add a new type of resource, which is craftable (in stacks which work like droid batteries, fireworks, etc... i.e. as you get better materials and experiment more, you produce higher quantity stacks... this way, novice and master alike can partake in this trade, but the master still has a benefit to his rank).
Raise house maintenance charges, perhaps double or triple, or quadruple... however, have credit maintenance ONLY applied if this architected resource is unavailable. Something set up similiar to the way harvesters use power. Have a 'house power' pool that is drawn from at a steady rate, and is the primary maintenance. IF this pool is reduced to 0, then start using the house credit maintenance pool.. if that is reduced to 0, the condition pool is then eatten at until the house reaches 0 condition, at which point it collapses.
This would give architects a constant source of business, while not REQUIRING people to find an architect to keep their houses intact.. it will simply be cheaper to use an architect. Some people may choose to simply ignore the architected units entirely and just use the easier to come by credits.
I REALLY don't want my PA hall/medium-heavy harvesters decaying away on me...and Zarcath I'm SURE you don't want your harvesters decaying on you too.
This is quite simply a really bad idea for us. You are trying to create more business for us by causing things we create to decay, but at the same time our harvesters are decaying too causing us to feed more money/time/energy into ALSO making ourselves new harvesters every month. HORRIBLE idea.
Instead of having structures decay, my advice would be to just have a redeed timer set on them (After, X amount of time, you can not redeed a structure, and this timer never resets.) This won't solve the problems, but the redeeding market is the real major long-term pain for architects - kill long-term redeeding and we're in good shape. (Obviously, harvesters/factories are trickier when it comes to this.)
Like I said, this isn't going to solve the problems, but I think it's a step in the right direction.
Zarcath- here is my proposal that would keep architects a viable profession long term.
Tie everything to increased maintenance rates as buildings age. For harvesters, the maintenance only increases as you move the structure. For houses, the maintenance steadily goes up just as time passes. Eventually the structures would become prohibitively expensive and would need to be replaced.
The percentage would go up as the quality of the building went down. If you use low quality materials with no experimentation a medium harvester's maintenance would go up by 10% every time you move it. Its a crappy structure and it just falls apart whenever you try and move it. For a high quality harvester the maintenance would go up only 4% on every move. As an aside, doing it this way would give architects a tangible benefit, because we could afford to keep using newer, and therefore more efficient equipment because our replacement cost is so much lower.
For a house, the maintenance would go up 5%every 2weeks for a poorly constructed house. For a well constructed house, the maintenance would only go up 2% a week. Obviously these numbers are completely adjustable for the devsto decide. If they want a poorly constructed house todouble its maintenance in amonth or a year its easy to play with the numbers.
Houses shouldn't be able to be redeeded. If you decide to move you can either sell your house where it sits or destroy it to reclaim its lots.
I think that people who think houses shouldn't decay have never taken an econ class in their lives. Yes it would drop demand some initially. Yes some people would think its a pain in the ass. But if nothing is done then Architects are a dead profession. Its just inevitable. I don't think its particularly important to tell the devs the mechanism we want so that houses need to be periodically replaced, they just need to know that without it architects are dead in the water 2 months from now.
A HRK will use 75% of the resources needed to create a house of the size kit you're attempting to make.
Too High! It would be enough to get a nice architect to run across the planet to help you. I like our leaders comments about a Stim Pack...but how about 20% of the cost.
And don't leave out droid engineers. They should have a maintenance droid that just runs around and fixes up your stuff...but you better keep enough materials in it.
BTW, what a pain in the backside if you have ... say 40 ... pieces of furniture -- to have to maintain each one individually. I woun't want to do that for my OWN home. BTW a leather sofa should be able to outlive ME. (didn't your folks try and hand stuff down to you?)
-Moon (Teir III) Naritus
There is no way that having structures decay to permanent loss would be a good thing. I am still rather stumped as to how we get usage xp though because of the lack of decay on our objects but I guess they keep track of usage somehow /shrug I never notice a movement of xp from the numerous factories I have sold but hey 
I thin the best way to deal with decay for structures would be to do what happens in the SW universe have repair droids makable in the game. Would give droid engineers another integration and be more realistic to see a relatively small droid doing some repairs on your house and or harvester now and again.
So no more maintenance fees if you have a repair droid ... you just drop by the structure that needs repair and sick the droid on it. I'm sure it would need to be a little more complicated than just that but it's a start
I had, (and posted,) a different idea.
Give houses a really nice benefit.
Make this benefit decay, but never down to zero.
Make new houses have a higher benefit.
For instance. A BRAND NEW house, could have (a.) lower upkeep, (not preferred.)
(b.) faster healing while inside.
(c.) faster acquisition of merchant exp.
(d.) give the player an advantage for just RESIDING in the structure and it being close. Such as.
(1.) SLIGHTLY higher mission rewards from local terminals and/or NPC's.
(2.) longer before local faction enemies become KOS, or Kill-Blow.
(3.) slightly better percentages on skills.
Reasons? A new house would have that new feel. it'd. (a.) not need repair as often. (b.) be more restful, with less fungus growing in the filters. (c.) be more attractive to shoppers, (which store do YOU shop in? The one that looks like it hasn't been repainted since bellbottoms were invented or the one that still has the construction dust on the brickwork?) And (d.) confers more respect for its owner, resulting in, (1-2.) NPC's being more favorably inclined to their company/proximity, and (3.) oh heck, there isn't a reason for 3.
Now, make this bonus fairly small, but noticable. Make it maximum for a brand new structure, but drop down to about half, over time, with the oldest structure. Some players would thus be satisfied with any structure, as they'd get SOME benefit. Others would want the Latest, Newest construction, as it'd give the MAXIMUM reward.
We could continue to sell new homes to the powergamers,that way.
I think this should also be done for clothing. Since it currently doesn't decay, if the "freshness" of your outfit effected how MOB's reacted to you, people would be encouraged to buy a new suit every now and then to impress the questgivers and ward off the KOS mobs a bit.
I agree. Structures should be permanent. The ability to just uproot a house is crazy and is ruining the market. This is a very simple solution and does not require degree in business to figure out. There is no need for an over complex thought process of adding some crazy structure degrading mod as well as an additional skill tree. Just simply make structures permanent and deal with the degrading later. 
Jiel
Why not make a % of the maintenece fees go to the architect that build the house?