Architect Archive

I've been a Master Architect for a little while now, and after reading through a lot of the posts on this forum I wanted to respond to some misconceptions that I think people have about the profession and the economy.

Making Money

1. It is foolish to pay 3 credits or more per unit for regular resources like carbonate ore. Harvesting resources costs less than 1 credit per unit if you plant ona decent site (50% plus). There are even several articles on forums at other sites validating this. Taking survey and travel timeinto account the harvester are making a lot of money if they sell at 2 or 2.5 credits per unit. If you want to succeed as an architect you either need to mine your own resources (or get friends or a guild to let you borrow their lots) or find suppliers who will sell at a reasonable rate (2.5 per unit is the most I ever pay and that's only in an emergency).

2. It's foolish to give away furniture for free. In today's economy you are likely to make more money on furniture sales than on building sales. ESPECIALLY when you take critical fails into account. A furniture critical fail is nothing compared to a guild hall critical fail. Plus, furniture is a commodity that people may change - when they get sick of the way their house looks they may decide to redecorate.

3. Pricing - there will always be someone willing to undercut your prices. Whether you choose to compete with them or not is up to you. When I discover that someone is selling a building at a price I know to be a loss I tell anyone who complains about my prices to go to that person. What happens is that person is unable to keep up with the orders at the ridiculous price they are charging, or they burn out and give up because they are losing too much money. People then come back to me and tell me how flaky that person is or how undependable they are. If you think you are charging a reasonable price based on your costs then stick to your guns. Customers appreciate honesty, timeliness and quality. The people who are clueless about pricing to include their time and energy will burn out and go out of business or retire(and then come to these forums and whine) very quickly. Good riddance I say.

HOW TO IMPROVE THE PROFESSION

1. FIX HARVESTING MECHANISMS!!!! As everyone else has said - this is OBVIOUSLY a major bug.

2. GIVE ARCHITECTS THE ABILITY TO CHANGE THE COLORS OF FURNITURE!!! If you want - make us buy dye from other professions like tailors. But we REALLY need to have multiple colors on furniture.

3. MAKE MORE IN-GAME FURNITURE CRAFTABLE! Ticket counters, the cannisters in hospitals, desks, the various chairs (like the furniture in the Theed Cantina), etc. All furniture should be craftable. Maybe even add some planet specific furniture.

4. ALLOW ARCHITECTS TO CRAFT FACTION BUILDINGS IF THEY ARE PART OF THAT FACTION. If I'm an Imp or a Rebel, why can't I craft the buildings for that faction?

5. ADD MORE HOUSING TYPES. There should be a Master Architect level house, and there should be more designs for the planet-specific house. Why does Tatooine only have one style of Medium House? It would be very cool to add special houses that require rare materials to construct. Right now all architect buildings require fairly common materials. Making and selling these rare buildings would add an extra element of vitality to the profession.

6. DECAY - I am not one of the people totally in favor of applying decay to all buildings. First of all, the whiners who are selling houses at a loss will now have an excuse to stay in business. Second, isn't that why we all pay maintenance on buildings, to prevent decay? I believe that harvesters and factoriesshould have a chance to break down based on the skill level of the person who made it. That should be an attribute that can be manipulated through experimentation (considering that experimentation is pretty worthless for architects right now). This break down is more like a critical failure, NOT decay, and should be repairable by a Master Engineer of some type, not necessarily the architect. This way people have the choice of repairing the machine or facotry (which may be very expensive or difficult) or just buying a new one.

7. HOUSE ADDITIONS/RENOVATIONS - instead of making houses decay, why not let architects add new features to existing houses. Maybe change the tile on a balcony, change the flooring, change the way a door looks, add a closet. This will create a continued demand for the profession even after everyone has a house, and it doesn't require making people's houses fall apart. Keep in mind, the casual player is not going to want to log in daily or even weekly in some cases to check on their house.

I agree with you wholehardely regarding the pricing. My prices are no longer very negotiable and I wont meet the undercutters. I have often found that when I quote someone says, "Screw you I heard i can get it for XXX". Your more than welcome to get it from them I will be able to deliver you the item same day give me a tell if you interested. About 60% of the time I get an order from that person within the next 2 days. They don't mind the premium I charge because I can actually deliver

I would also like to add to your list something from my post:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=architect&message.id=16136

I think the best way to save architects is give us the ability to make war related installations as detailed in my post.