Architect Archive

I'm cross posting this to both the architect forum and the swg disscussions, while I believe the discussion needs to start with the Architects it is a concern for all home owners.

As it stands now the lot usage and item storage limits breaks down as follows

Small Naboo House (style 2) 1 lot - 75 items
All other smalls 2 lots 150 items
All Mediums 2 lots 150 items
All larges 6 lots 250 items
Tatoonie Guild Hall 7 lots 250 items
All other Guild Halls 9 lots 250 items

Equipment, Food & Chemical, and Wearable Factories 1 lot 100 items
Structure Factories 1 lot 100 items

The concers that I have with this breakdown are multiple

First I will make a few statements based on my architectual homes sales and observances:

Small homes are starter kits due to low price most players can afford a small home for storage and apperence. Many will upgrade those homes in the future. Small homes are a disposable item resales on small homes flood the market as servers mature making small home sales a lost cause for an architect.

Due to the lot useage of the medium houses they are by far the most popular house style for artisian/merchants they have much larger floorplan than a small and many include a large gallery room that is useful for displaying wares.

Large homes should be the bread and butter for the Master Architect Housing Sales they are the best of the best in terms of private player homes, while some players will opt for a private guild hall to live in most are content with a large home as living quarters.

Large Homes have many drawbacks which make them less than desirable. A large home takes up 6 lots but only offers 250 items storage. With the numerous rooms included in a large home it is difficult to fully decorate a large home with 250 items let alone have any storage space left over. This leaves large homes starkly decorated in many cases.
The large home is also difficult to justify for the crafter/merchant character that does their own resource harvesting taking up 6 lots leaves the artisian with 1 lot for a factory and 3 lots for harvesters, most crafting professions require more than 3 harvesters for even the staple resources.

Artisians require a large amount of storage space for resources and components. The crafter is attempting to store a variety of raw resources through various shifts while waiting for additional rare resources to appear. Factory craftes only take up 1 spot but they rarely hold more than 25 items leaving the crafter with needed space for additional factory crates in addition to raw materials.

The idea of several crafters sharing a work room with some "pooled" resources can currently only work if the crafters are of the same profession, and even then it is difficult to achieve. The variety of resources needed for various professions combined with the storage item limits on houses create the need for each crafter to have their own work room and storage. This increases the total number of houses being built.

Many crafters will leave resources and crates in the input and output units of their factories in order to increase their in home storage. While it is reasonable to do so it should not need to be done.

Due to storage vs lot useage it is better for a character to own 2 (or even 3) small or medium homes rather than a single large home.

1 Large Home 6 lots 250 items
2 small homes 4 lots 300 items
3 small homes 6 lots 450 items

It should be viable for a PA to offer joint resource storage (pooling) to it's artisian members. This decreases the total items in the data base by combining small chunks of resources that are might be spread out in many homes into 1 larger chunk. However due once again to the item storage limits and the variety of specialized resource needs per proffession a PA can not offer this service to it's members.

Proposals

The 75 items per lot is fine as is but the max item limit needs to be set accordingly.

Small houses should remain as is, a 1 lot useage small home should be added to the Coriella, Tatooinie and Generic line. This allows the resource gather to fully maximize their lot useage.

A single room Showroom house should be added to the small housing line for each planet type, this allows the artisian to have shop that does not require additional lot useage.

Medium houses should be increased to 4 lots with their item storage limits raised accordingly to 300 items this provides a good multiple house for crafter/merchants they will now be able to use the same house as both a showroom and a workspace. This should decrease the total number of houses on a server but not increase the total items stored.

Large houses remain at 6 lots but their storage limit is raised accordingly to 450 items. This still allows the best of the best for housing for all players while at the same time encouraging several artisians to pool together and share a showroom / work house.

PA Halls should be equalized at 8 lots, their item storage should be set for 600 items. This would allow for fully functional PA Halls that could either be combined living quarters or pooled resource storage. It also gives the PA the option to fully decorate their Hall in a manner that befits them. At 8 lots the PA owner could still opt to have their own private home and not be penalized for dedicating their lots to their PA.

A new warehouse skematic should be added to the architects installations line. The warehouse takes 1 lot and has 100 item storage. There is no footplan the building access is similar to that of a factory but removes the need need to use factories for storage only. Maintence for a warehouse would be on par with a small house.

Structure factories should be decreased to 1 lot to keep them on par with other factories.