Architect Archive

I've just spent about 30 hours over the last 3 days dealing with the resource shifts on Eclipse; finding new spots (at lower concentrations every patch it seems), moving about 30 medium harvesters around, in some cases twice in 24 hours, etc., etc. You've all been through it too. And it finally occurred to me. When the devs pulled the miner profession, they pulled the lynchpin out of the building economy.

Theobvious with the way things are is that the building economy grew way too fast. In my opinion, this was mostly due to the disposable harvester tactic, and the power bug. When they finally fixed it, it all should have come crashing down. But it didn't. Because enough people were far enough along, in terms of skills and even money, that they could re-adjust their approach and continue. We did, and I'm sure alotof you did as well.

Still, there's a problem. Because now that people have built up there stock of harvesters, they can move them. When a resource shift happens, those that manage harvesters simply scramble around, find new spots, and place them. The powergamers (16 hours day) find them, react to them, and get the best spots. It's a buttload of work, tiring, stressful, and it's not fun. But, as a result, Architects have become completely independent as a profession and rely on no-one for what we need. Therein lies the problem.

What makes most sense about the Miner profession is that it could have been the price control in the economy that doesn't exist today. The architect tree never should have been given the Installations line. If it were in the Miner tree, then you wouldn't have the harvest-and-sell-down architects you have around. Their price for ore would be market-driven, not based on how many lots they had access to. Then they would have to consider what their time is worth. If, for a power-skiller it's worth nothing, then so be it. But still, the miners would be setting the base prices for materials.

And competition in the miner profession would come to bear as well. But there would be no easy way out for them. Their sole income would be from selling the resources (which, IMO should be *refined* not simply transferred from the ground to the house), and they would set the market price of the materials we need in bulk based on their work dealing with the resource shifts, and also, focusing on quality where the market demands it. They have one source (resources) and one sink (whoever needs resources).

Architects shouldn't have to do that. I would have been much happier establishing relationships with Miners for resources and establishing relationships with customers. I'd like to plan player villages and cities, not spend my time dodging aggro on Lok for that sweet 58% spot of ore (that will likely be gone in two days). But I have little choice at this point. Or do I?

I had a conversation with an artisan in game today who is running an association of resource brokers. Basically, they do what Miners would have done, they just don't get the skill tree. Right now, she's charging around 3cr per unit or so for resources, mostly for weaponsmiths. She definitely could charge them more, but there's no way I could buy from her at that price.She has the right idea, but the problem is, since Architects can build their own medium and large harvesters, she has no market for materials in bulk. Architects are getting their resources at cost, out of the ground. If she made any money, I couldn't. And there's no way our server will handle more than 3cr/unit for a house, as sad as that sounds.

If only Miners had access to medium and large harvesters, none of this would bea problem. If you wanted to work on a very small scale as an artisan of any type, you could. But to scale production in terms of size or quantity on structures, you'd have to deal with the materials market. And that would provide the stability of pricing that we all wish we had.

While I agree with your points on the problems, I can't say that the miner would have solved the problem. Architects just need such huge amounts of resources. Most of them are not going to have the money to afford even paying 3c/resource to start out and build their first house. Yes they could use their own havestors but there they don't really need the miners if you allow them to use person havestors. I could easily have worked just with personal ones if I needed to. It would be slower yes but I actually woulnd't have to sell a thing. Just do some detroy missions with friends to pay the maintenance.

The Miner profession probably should have been left in although many architects are turning to that anyway. Why sell a house for 3c/resource when you can mine at much better spots with copper/steel and sell those fro 4-5 c to weapon/armor smiths.

The Architect profession is broken right now. I don't really care if there are too many of them, this wouldn't solve the problem in my mind if there were just a few. The idea that a house doesn't degrade is a huge issue. Weapons degrade and have to be fixed or you have to buy new ones. You can buy one house and it is there forever if you pay the maintenance. Maybe instead of just paying the maintence the people actualyl have to come to an architect to buy building supplies or soemthing and apply them to the house every so often.

There is no continued support for the architect. Everything else needs repairing(except Droid engineer, but that is another problem). Once someone buys a large house from me, I really never expect to hear from them again. They never need to come back to me. While a person doesn' thave to take their weapon to the same weaponsmith, they still need to take it to a weaponsmith every so often.

Really there are only 2 reasons I keep going in this profession. 1st is because of mining. Once I make my 10-15 heavy havestors I can mine and just sell off minerals to recoup the cost and maybe sell a house every now and then for some profit.

2nd is the hope that starships will be made by Architects and the huge hope that all repairs will be done by them also. Maybe not personally repair them but them being the people that make the parts to fix them.

I just want my one Starship

And of course, there is always the hope of player built cities, just imagine the resource cost of a starport... uckl

What's stopping an industrious bunch of folks from grabbing some large miners and doing just what you're talking about? You already said there's people doing the "mineral brokering" on your server... which means, they're doing the miner bit. If ONLY a "miner" profession could gather bulk resource... you'd probably see prices go UP not Down... the fact that anyone can buy a large harvester (or be in good with an architect that makes them), is what keeps the prices around 3c/u...

Rath, that's pretty much along the lines I was thinking. Actually, if I had designed the resource system, I would have make raw materials useless and implemented a Refineries track in the Miners line. No more "type of iron" nonsense. You get a bunch of ore from the ground and then refine it into proportional amounts of whatever it contains. Processing alloys could have been another interesting track. Well, at this point, I think it's pretty clear we're stuck with this. It's just too bad they didn't give it a little more thought.

Feyd, read my post again, it's in there. There's 0mm space for a bulk materials market in this game, between the high price small-quantity crafters (like weaponsmiths)pay and the low price thathigh-quantity architects need. And you're right, the fact that people can place their own large harvesters is why pricess for buildings are at 3cr each. Which means that a Large Naboo House sells for about 2-3x the price of a decent pistol. Sound right to you?

I don't know what the end game for our line of work will look like. I know that we have to stop house sales to upgrade all the time. We went from 28 small harvesters to mediums. Then go back to selling houses for money then stop to upgrade to larges.

As you mentioned running a minning company is a huge headache. You have to keep survey 4 to facilitate the moves whent he fields dry up. Points that could be spent elsewhere. I have been able to hire a few people to look and send me waypoints but usualy we have to do the work as well.

I suppose I would be in a happy place if I could buy power from a power company.

Anyway this thread was very insightful and I apprecdiate seeing you vetrans share your experiences and make projections of where we are heading.

Saxos

Thirty harvesters is the problem! Of the one thing that shouldn't be shareable in the game its harvesters! Harvesters are crack to Architects, and we all want a fleet of heavys so we can mass produce PA Halls. If we only had what we were allotted then a resource market would open up. People would have to help gather the resources needed to build the large structures. The home owners would have more of an investment in the process. Yes the many of you in PAs would still have 50 harvesters running, but the owners would have to keep them powered and maintained.

But what about the solo guy? How is he supposed to build a PA hall withthe 10 lot limit they placed.

So heres a proposal:

• Remove permissions from harvesters (even the playing field some, and increase materials market)


• Change the lot rule to Add a the number of lots needed to your 10 for the type of factory you need for your Secialized trade. So Architect would get 2 more lots for a structure factory and if the person also wanted to be a weapon smith they would get 1 more lot for a generic factory.


• Make buildings require Material Maintenance (ie you need to replace the power core, so you have light in the house again, or the inner doors stop working and you need to replace a structural module or Wall unit)


• What about landscaping - Roads, street lights, fountains, walls, etc


• City planning - The architect places the deed then sells the property (I sold a guy a house yesterday and before he put it up next to mine I asked that he face it the same way and keep it in a streight line with the rest of the houses on the street, but he got it turned wrong so now we have 1 odd house in the row)


• Fortifications - who builds these turrets the faction people get, why cant they get a voucher for the item that they can trade to an architect for the item and the architect can then cash in for money?


• As for Vehicles - That definitly lends itself to another Elite skill tree, 1 branch for space craft and another for land based, 1 for repair and experimentation, and 1 for Power ups (you say you want the delux plasma cannons for your shuttle craft)

Thank you for reading all this, I just want a craft I can still do 6 months from now.

Hi all, Miner here from Azhasi

Great thread. I would have to disagree with limiting sharing of harvesters. I have been successful at mining selling to architects and w/c, and often times I'll need a boost in production. An example is below.

Once I agree on a quote to the customer, I will "sub-contract" lots out, and figure out what I want my profit to be, and then find some folks, and use there their lots for that job. For example, if an architect would need 20k of ore in 1 day,I would fine a close spot, figure out how many harvesters I need, and contact someone with the available lots, and they would give me admin rights for them. (usually for a small fee, dont forget to include that in your P/L!)

So, next dayI pick up the ore/mineral/whatever. I decide whether to keep the contracted harvesters or just let em rot and forget about em. Maintenance and power expenses are already calculated, as well as other expenses. I make a 30-200%net profit every job, never less than 30%.

For example, one of my last jobs the cost per unit of material was .92 cr. I sold 10k of that unit for 5cr ea. Gross Profit= ((cost of sales-cost of manufacture)/Cost of sales)

= ((5-.92)/5)

=82%

Net Profit = (Units sold x gross profit) -variable costs - fixed costs.

= (10000 x .82)- (travel expenses = 1470; subcontract expenses = 5000) - (cost of making harvester x 10 = 2600)

= 31930

So,

Gross Profit = 5 x 10000 = 50000 cr

Net Profit = (50000 * .82) - 1470 - 5000 - 2600

= 31390

So I made 31390 from that deal

thus net profit percentage would be:

Net Profit/Gross Profit = 63%

If I couldn't use other people's lots, then I would be out of 31k credits. That would make me very sad as a miner

Also, just a few credits on what I seeas what alot of architects and miners having problems with:

1. Not realizing all the costs involved. Many just look at gross profit, and don't realize they are losing money, untill they have lint in their pocket. Don't forget energy expense, travel expense, maintenance expense, and if it applies, new harvester expense. Every credit counts, especially if you're pulling 20k ore out the ground, it can add up!

2. Relationships with suppliers/customers is everything. With suppliers its called inside sales. With customers its called outside sales. Subcontractors are inside sales also.

3. Don't be afraid to subcontract and take risk. Some folks refuse to allow someone else to run a harvester, and then they wonder why they can't out pull 40k out of the ground in one day. Its a business risk, but it may be worth the gain.

4. If you're not going to make money, then don't do it.

5. Set you're own prices, don't worry about other people. If you are maxed out production wise, and someone wants 20k of ore tomorrow, either tell him no thanks, or quote a price per unit that makes it worth your time. This is known as how "hungry" you are for business.

6. Establish a contract price with a regular customer. These guys will be your steady income flow. For example, I have a armor crafter who sends me weekly emails on what his needs are. We agreed on a flat rate of 4cr per resource. He also gives me very high end armors too which is nice

Anyway, hope that helps fellow miners! Happy Harvesting!

Well this is an issue we threw around in beta. We, well some of us, were trying to gate harvesters to the surveying profession because the devs had every intention in bringing back mining. Now I don't know about gating the harvesters. I think everyone having access to a personal harvester is a good thing because it puts more materials on the market and keeps resource costs down. However if I was to create a mining profession I would gate the medium and heavy harvesters to Novice Miner and that's it. Mining would be above the survey line. Let it take about 40K survey xp to get. My 4 columns in mining would be... 1) Increased Range, once again increase the range for the survey devices to between 784 and 1Km, maybe make it where you need an advanced survey device that Master Artisans could make. 2) Increased Efficiency,this is the real kicker here. With this skill you can increase the amount of materials your harvester can get per hour, also I think it should give decreased harvester maintence costs. 3) Increased Speed, for hand sampling. 4) Alloys, the ability to make alloys that are better than standard metals. This way you can have even better resources.

Anyway if you have anything else to add, feel free.

Well I wouldn't say 'too bad they didn't give it more thought'. This is still the best crafting system in any of these games, and, as far as I'm concenered, the first system to actually surpass UOs. Just have to remember that you can only do so much before the game has to leave the door. The devs said they have the intention to bring back mining. I hope they do. When they do, don't be surprised if some of these changes we're talking about right now take effect.