Architect Archive
Thread: Proposed Solutions for Architect Decay
Meplorium wrote:
It's like the poor BEs stuck making only pet stims all day.
as least people buy their stims
They just cannot afford the massive costs, and architects cannot afford to charge any less.
Um what game are you playing? You say your a weaponsmith so I assume you charge roughly 20x the resource cost for a gun and probably get 20k per high end gun if not more. Armorsmiths charge 100k for good suits of top end armor. We charge a little more than 100k for only a few of the highest end items we can make.
Now remember that weapons and armor degrade. How is it that people can afford to replace armor and weapons once every week or two yet they cant afford the "massive costs" of our items that dont ever decay!?!
I think it would be best for the game for the developers to take decay out entirely for about one month. Once weaponsmiths and armorsmiths got a taste of what tailors, armorcrafters and droid engineers have been going through I bet that they would be more willing to agree with us that decay is necessary.
Right now people are against decay b/c it will add to their costs. Imagine people actually having to pay more than .5 cr/unit to sell that same unit for up to 10 cr/unit and on average 4 cr/unit. OMG the horror! And by the way the same people that cant afford our "massive costs" of large harvesters will make back the cost of a heavy harvesters in1 to 2 weeks even if they sell for 2 or 3 cr/unit.
The best idea I have seen to date is as follows (and I cant take credit for it though I cant remember who came up with this):
All houses use 1 lot...including PA Halls
All harvesters use 1 lot
All factories use 1 lot
Factories degrade so that you get roughly 100 runs.
Harvesters degrade so that you get 20 redeeds.
Houses never decay. You can only redeed a house within 24 hours of placement though.
I think that is fair for everyone and only adds to the cost of the people who are actually making money off our products. It also would help immensely in removing money from the game which supposedly is a big concern of the developers. It doesnt penalize people for buying PA Halls or Large houses if they so desire and it keeps the architect viable for longer than 6 months.
Basically you would get on average 1 to 3 months of life for your factory depending on how many runs you make per day. You would get roughly 20 weeks of harvesting or 4 to 5 months of harvesting for your initial investment.
Some may argue that this will increase our costs and scare people away. I agree it will increase our costs but it will also add to our ability to make more money and more sales. It might effect the market at first but people will realize that with a system in place where decay isnt something that happens in a week or two those harvesters still are worth the "massive costs" to anyone who is in need of lots of resources.
Since it is apparant that we wont be getting any schematics for items for the GCW it would at least give us something to do.
Do not impelemtn decay.
This is a dangerous thing and will do nothing but really piss off the players. There are other ways to accomplish our goal other than pissing off the players.
Heriw wrote:
I'm in total agreement we need to have a system where the deeds don't last forever & that certain things can only be re-deeded so many times. Also theres 1 other thing i noticed in our profession is all the undercutting on pricing these days. There would be more than enough business for everyone if people would stop selling at insane low prices. I witnessed this week at least a dozen times people selling houses for 3 to 5k less than the cost of the ore. Come on folks flooding the market with cheap stuff for the sake of a quick buck is not gonna help anyone & in the long term your going to screw yourself. If your in this profession as I am for the long haul then lowering price just to sell 5 houses a day is no way to build an economy. I've seen blasters sold for more than what I can get for a small generic or med tat house. Something about that is just not right when a gun that took less than 1k total ore & metal is worth more than a house. the armor smiths & weapon smiths dont run around gutting their own profession so why the hell are the architects doing just that.
Any system where the harvesters and houses that I buy don't last forever is UNACCEPTABLE.
I didn't spend BUTTLOADS of cash buying heavy mineral harvester for 120k each just so I could watch the things go up in smoke after 2 months. Do you realize how long it's going to take me to make back that in what I save on effciency?
I repeat... ANY system where my buildings don't last forever is unacceptible. Noone would ever bother buying the huge buildings anymore, unless the prices came WAY down (like maybe 20k for a heavy mineral harv... and this obviously would require them to completely nerf the schematic down to about 6-8k resources rather than 30k).
If the architects are really hurting for cash, I think this idea of requiring replaceable parts is a good one... gives the architects another market.
Has anyone considered removing the schematics for the small harvesters from the Artisan Engineering tree and moving them to Novice Architect? That too would give the architects some extra cash (especially the up-and-coming). Ithink one of the big problems with the architect profession is that it is WAY too easy to replace your own small harvesters (all weaponsmiths and armorsmiths can build their own). I almost NEVER bother redeeding my small harvs and wind gens (unless I got leftover maintenance or power), since I can build them myself instantaneously from crap resources.
A better idea would be to make resource quality and experimentation do something, as mentioned in previous posts. I actually would use the current maintenance rate and harv efficiency and make that the MAXIMUM. Make it so that only a Architect could produce harvesters that work as well as the ones in the game now. I don't know if this is possible, since currently the experimentation for these works with Artisan points, but maybe we could switch this to use Architect experimentation points, so that only Architects can improve them.
Hmm.... probably a better ratio would be 6k resources for a 30k harvester.
thelink333 wrote:
I repeat... ANY system where my buildings don't last forever is unacceptible. Noone would ever bother buying the huge buildings anymore, unless the prices came WAY down (like maybe 20k for a heavy mineral harv... and this obviously would require them to completely nerf the schematic down to about 6-8k resources rather than 30k).
Overall I like this idea. A couple things I would consider adding
Houses and Factories have a 4 hour grace period for redeed. This would let the person adjust the facing or position to make it fit better into the neighborhood. Once this period is finished the structure can't be moved (Or requires and Architect to Redeed)
Harvesters have a Redeed cost which reduces their durability.
The base durability for each harvester is based off the resource requirements to create it. This would mean that smaller harvesters could be redeeded less often than the heavy ones and would wear out much faster. (There really does need to be some benefit to justify the investment in Heavies)
Experimentation could increase the available Durability meaning that a well experimented Harvester can be redeeded more often than one that wasn't experimented on.
Harvesters and Factories would have a usage "wear and tear" based on the volume of work. This "wear and tear" would reduce the durability for each unit mined / manufactured.
Maintenance can be performed to repair durability on a structure (Not a deed) in a way similar to weapons and armor. The architect would use a tool and access the menu radial to be able to effect repairs. The overall durability will gradually expire as repairs are done. If someone makes efforts to maintain their equipment it should last longer than if they don't.
This will give more meaning to having Construction as the experimentation will serve a purpose. It will give junior architects work they can do while working up the skills. There will be long term business added to keep Architects with customers.
Fidg'Ter
What nobody has convinced me of is why is it ok for an armorsmith or weaponsmith to have renewable income and tailors, architects and droid engineers not to.
Sorry but when I see Armorsmiths selling composite suits for 100k I find people's arguments that they shouldnt have to spend money on replacing architecture to be lacking of any reasoning or common sense.
If decay wasnt in the game for anyone...sure that argument would make sense but someone explain to me why its fine to spend 100k for armor that will last 2 weeks but its not ok to spend 100k when you will make 10 times that selling resources in the life of the harvester?
Maybe this has been said, but here is my thoughts. Why not just have the person who crafted the "House, harv, etc" just get a nice small percentage of Money that gets put into the harv for maintence. 1-5% maybe I don't know what would be a good percentage but hey you could really make darn good money if thats the case. AND at the same time you do that, implemet that Redeed thing that was in the orginal post. But of course increase the amount you can redeed from the original poster. That why you make moneys and you still will get repeat sales. Just a thought though
Hmm, I'm torn. Replaceable parts is an easier route to go, but then again, like one fellow said, we'd end up being parts makers and not building makers which is boring. I like the house initialization idea, I don't think that'd be so horrible. I think allowing houses to take up 1 lot is nice, same with factories, I don't think PA halls should be 1 lot, but probably not 9 and there should be a 1 PA hall restriction per person.
Maybe this would work better overall:
1) Factories would probably work best with use-based decay, based on the number of crates produced. Something that can be experimented. Similarly, harvesters can have a restriction on the amount of resources they can pull up before dying, something also experimentable. Since the devs believe there is a resource glut, lets not mess with efficiency quite yet, at least not where it relates to the rate of production. Don't see why we can't play with storage size however. BTW- All this type of information, like how many uses an item has left, *HAS* to be listed on the deed along with other statistical information about the structure. Otherwise there'll be much fraud going on. Arch_Angel ask them if this type of use-based decay is acceptable.
2) I think houses should not decay at all and should simply not be moveable after 48 hours. Alternatively, allow only 3 redeeds for a house, allowing movement only a few times. That's not unreasonable. Peopledon't move their house often from what I've noticed.
3) No clue on furniture honestly. Time-based decay would be a headache and they've already said its not acceptable. So I'm not sure what to do about furniture. Best bet? Allow us to customize/color furniture and have more varieties. Maybe different hides from different planets allow different color pallettes? Only so many planets so you can focus on one, splitting it down by type would personally drive me insane and their DB people. Tatooine would have more brownish, less colorful pallettes, etc. That is just the way things will have to be for furniture I think. Metal-based furniture can use a dye kit that WE make. Maybe we require some colorization chemicals from tailors or something, but we do the final combine. The tailor-made component has more colors based on experimentation (go tailors! :smileytongue
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Sounds easier and doesn't require you to be worried about things disappearing while you're gone. They'll just stop working and say "I am out of uses, please replace me". No power-up kits, just repeat business and we keep making buildings and not ghetto kits. If the devs accept this idea, ask them what number they have in their heads for # of uses. Then we can respond to that and argue about it. No point in arguing about it if they hate the idea The comission from maintenance is an interesting idea too! Something to toss at them.