Had 13 heavy minerals on 93% fermionic ore about 2L outside the outpost that I serviced Monday, gald to have gotten it done before the rollout. Whoops, I realize tonight--rollback probably rolled me. Yep. Stuff not in inventory.
For background, I am master AS/Arch/Artisan with a smattering of merch and tailor. I have three combat xp, from an embarrassing incident with a scavenger rat several months back. I considered myself a turbo-surveyor, and was insulted when they made it possible to survey from a mount. Not to say I I didn't adjust to take advantage of that change, though...
Current character level? You know it. One.
Even worse--the two fusion I picked up from Endor that same night weren't in my pack, either. So, two harrowing trips. I group with someone at level 40 and head to Endor. No waypoints in my datapad. Poop, I think. i could have sworn I saw waypoints in my datapad earlier.
Head back to Corellia--bingo! Waypoints. I copy down the two waypoints on Endor and go back. Still missing. I smugly type in the coordinates manually, and head that way. Red dots sitting right on top of one of my fusions. I inch closer, and am able to empty and pick one up without problem. The other, not so good. I take a shot from a bluurg hunter, whatever they are, and run. My red health bar has maybe ten percent of it left (one hit).
I lose aggro, and circle around, and am able to get in and pick up the other one without problem. Now to Yavin for my ore harvestors--which, being on fermionic, just need to be emptied and tickled with a quick /paym 7000;/addp 7000.
Damn. No waypoints again. Back to Corellia. I tediouslywrite down 13 waypoints and head back to Yavin. Typing them in, one looks familiar and I realize I wrote one of them down twice. Double crap. Oh, screw it--I'll figure it out once i get there, even though I distinctly recall several other harvestors salted in and around mine and those I borrowed my wife's alt to drop.
I avoid problems en route, and greet the members of a Hutt expeditionary force having lunch in the shade of the first one I come to. I ask if any of them could help with the big bugs I see nesting on one of my waypoints a hundred ards away or so. They ignore me, the schmucks. Well, I could handle bluurgs. I'm sure I can dodge and rn from these...klikniks. On the fourth harvestors the queen aggros me. I'm hit several times for 74 dmage each time, then a few times for 180. I run. Circling back, I get to a few rigs on the other side of the field, realizing I need to count how many I have hit because my Ore #1, Ore #2, etc, naming convention was conveniently deleted during the ummm... server event. Sorry, Can't bring myself to call this an upgrade.
The queen spies me and comes after me again, only I don't realize it because the combat queue window doesn't appear. I take a few hits, my bike takes a few hit, I smell the coffee, and run again.
Rinse, repeat.
And again. Once more. Maybe again (I lost track).
Eventually I get to them all. 984K of good wall-quality ore--the same ore I had already pulled out once on Monday, but hey--who's counting? I update my excel log on the way back to MO, tempting fate, but survive. No incaps, no deaths. Some bike repairs, and I'm good to go. I can do this, I think. Sure, it took my entire window to play tonight, and I didn't have time to redo the harvestor schematicsI did on Monday, but I can do it.
But do I want to? It sure wasn't fun. It was just tedious. And afterwards, I had no energy or interest in emptying enough of my inventory to even think about re-loading my vendors.
Here's the pitch: Give crafters with no combat skills the same kind of flag that lets opposing faction NPC's ignore them when faction players are On Leave. Call it a "Harmless to local wildlife" flag. Kind of like maskscent, only it works. If we have ONE combat box, then we don't get this ability. Maybe it doesn't work against nasty NPCs on Dath, or one or two types of critters on each planet. Oh--but please don't let those critters build nests within 200 m of player structures...I did have one guildmate offer to come scare away the nasty spiders, but let's face it:a crafter's role is to provide things for his guild, not interrupt their own work.
Hey, it's a thought. I'm just trying to save the economy. Because without something like this, I can tell you, my prices just went WAAAAAAY up. Oh, and please find a bright high-schooler who can give adviceon how to cycle through vendor items on databases to update their stats and descriptions without forcing us to do it by hand.
Anyone else have a story to tell?
Morrow
