Armorsmith Archive

Now that i have the powers of editing, I'm gonna just edit this sucker from now on... And no more dirty limericks, i promise!

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State of the Armorsmith Profession .99D

The armorsmith profession, overall, is working well and enjoying an era of prosperity. Armor is useful, people are starting to understand it better, and for the most part, everything works as intended. However, as with all professions, there are bugs both big and small, that need to be addressed. In addition, the armorsmith community has put together an impressive and exciting list of improvements and ideas that they would love to see considered and/or incorporated.

Economically, master armorsmiths are pretty well off. It is unknown how some 'standard' prices for suits of armor were set, but it is often worth it due to the extra time involved making quality products as compared to other professions. It takes 9 pieces not including subcomponents to make a full suit of armor.

There is heavy concern however, about the market viability of novice armorsmiths and their products.

• 
  
  There is too much reliance on being a Master Armorsmith, turning the path to Master into a frantic grind to achieve it, so that the smith has a viable product to sell. Virtually all requests are for composite, which only masters can create. Mabari, Tantel, and Padded are ordered seldomly for most compared to composite, and while the markets for Chitin and Ubese are decent, the majority of customers will quickly pick composite over them.
  
  
• 
  
  Contrary to many professions (mostly combat-oriented) that complain that too many people are able to 'dabble' and get the majority of the benefits of that profession, Armorsmithing and many crafting classes suffer from the opposite - a virtual requirement to become master of the profession before you can be considered to have quality goods.
  
  
• 
  
  Novice Armorsmiths start with Mabari Armorweave. To many, it is the least popular of our armors. It is also incredibly demanding in terms of its interdependent resources (synthetic cloths.)




• 
  
  For a novice smith just starting with Mabari, this can be a huge drain - not only is his product passed over by most players, he must acquire massive amounts of synthetic cloth just to make it.


• 
  
  Even if mabari were more marketable, the armorsmiths lack of technique guarantees that the armor will be poor in quality.
  
  
• 
  
  Chitin is very useful for PVE, but generally it is heavy and people would rather wear Ubese for kinetic protection.
  
  
• 
  
  So in essence, an armorsmith must make it to Personal Armor 3 and Technique 4 before his products would be considered worth the HAM penalties and cost, and even then, the available armors cant capture the sheer 'gotta-have-it'-ness of Composite.

This leads us to the unfortunate reality that there is a severe lack of variety in our day to day creations:

• 
  
  Composite, composite, composite, and more composite.
  
  
• 
  
  We have 6 types of armor (7 if you include bone, which is based only off artisan technique - except advanced segments...) but are constantly pressured to create composite armor as our other products get passed over.
  
  
• 
  
  We feel that each armor should have a 'best' use, and no one armor should be "the best" for all situations. This is accomplished to some degree with the varying special protections of our different types, but they can all be accounted for and either matched or exceeded in effectiveness by composite.

This problem is further compounded by the lack of viability in Tantel and Padded armors:

• 
  
  Tantel has energy resist as a special protection, which is desireable, but can easily be outdone by advanced bone armor - which can also be made into a complete suit unlike the 3 available pieces of Tantel.
  
  
  
  
  • 
    
    Tantel seems to be designed to have no vulnerabilities, which would change the complexion of this armor, but right now it is bugged and its true market value can't be determined.
  
  
• 
  
  Padded armor looks great, but its special protection - Blast - is rarely used in weapons. Furthermore, it has vulnerabilities to Heat and Acid - two of the most popular PvP damage types. It has an incredibly high HAM cost for an armor that looks so light and cloth-like, and offers what many people consider a poor resist table.




• 
  
  The exception to this is the Padded Helmet which most customers consider incredibly ugly and/or goofy looking.


• 
  
  Padded armor resource requirements are exceedingly high. We feel there is an imbalance in the desireability/playability of this armor and its resource count compared to the armor preceeding it (Ubese).

With that out of the way, lets get on to the specifics.

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Technical Bugs

(Severe . . . . . Minor)

1. 
   
   Armor Hole




• 
  
  The beast has returned. Was perhaps fixed for a short time, but we are seeing the ill effects of this belt/eyes/backpack hole yet again on live servers.


2. 
   
   Personal Shield Generators, Tantel Armor, and RISsuffer from "shifting stats"
   
   
   
   
   • 
     
     Our #1 issue (until the armor hole returned). Upon assembly, these3 armor types come out with wildly varying results in terms of their vulnerabilities. Furthermore, upon crossing server borders, travelling, or logging, the vulnerability list also shifts, making these items unreliable and unpredictable in their protections.
     
     
     
     
     • 
       
       The going theory is that for some reason armor intended to have no vulnerabilities suffers from this ailment.
       
       
     • 
       
       The padded belt is also affected
       
       
       
       
       • 
         
         With the removal of the "belt" hit area in the most recent patch, padded armor belts should be adjusted to act similarly to ubese bandoliers, and not require a segment or provide protections.
   
   
3. 
   
   Failure Rate Irregularities
   
   
   
   
   • 
     
     Critical Failure rates on assembly and experimentation seem far too high. Armorsmiths are noting approximately 20-25% failure rate across the board on everything from simple Mabari to complex Composite.
     
     
     
     
     • 
       
       I have brought this to the developers in the past as a general crafting issue but have had no sense of closure with it - we understand risk is required to create fun, but too much failure ruins it.
       
       
     • 
       
       We feel we need more ways to mitigate the risk of failure. It is far too random and out of control
   
   
4. 
   
   Experimentation Irregularities




• 
  
  Experimenting on durability (HAM cost/condition) often results in "moderate success" while in actuality either raising the HAM, lowering the base resists (not even in the right category), or both simultaneously.
  
  
  
  
  • 
    
    The going theory is that experimenting in this category actually conducts 3 or 4 experiments (condition, health enc, action enc, mind enc), and when one or more is a failure, it reports a moderate success.
  
  
• 
  
  Failure/Risk meter displays 0% for all experiments at master level - but this is not the correct risk factor or failure %.






Mabari special protection irregularities




• 
  
  Mabari has (incorrectly?) two special protections - heat and blast. When experimenting to raise these special protections, only Heat rasies on the chest, and Blast rasies on the legs.




• 
  
  Should both raise? Should there be only one? The segments only have Heat special protection.


5. 
   
   Bleed/DOT ignores armor rating and resists.
   
   
   
   
   • 
     
     Unsure whether this is a bug - but if regular damage is reduced, it seems reasonable that these types of damage be reduced to some degree also - especially bleed. The damage still has to pierce the armor to start the bleed, it should be reduced in strength accordingly.
   
   
6. 
   
   Doctor/chef stat enhancements inconsistent in allowing players to wear armor that they normally couldnt due to encumberance.
   
   
   
   
   • 
     
     Fixed? Which way is intended?
   
   
7. 
   
   Rancor Padded Armor Segments are not accepted into Padded Armor Schematics
   
   
   
   
   • 
     
     They do however work in Bone Armor schematics
   
   
8. 
   
   Composite Pants seem to be missing a colorable area.
   
   
   
   
   • 
     
     The belt and knee pads take the desired color well, but the majority of the upper leg coverage remains a constant grey - which is unsightly when using the non-gray hues.
   
   
9. 
   
   Ubese coloring inconsistent.
   
   
   
   
   • 
     
     Some pieces do not use the same palette, which makes color matching difficult.
     
     
   • 
     
     Even when using the same color value on all pieces, the colors do not always match on the final suit
   
   
10. 
    
    Glove/Bracer irregularities
    
    
    
    
    • 
      
      Some bracers and gloves cannot be worn together - some for obvious reasons, some not. Chitin gloves, while small, seem to be considered long and are not wearable with bracers other than chitin.

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Non-technical Issues/Grievances

1. Looted Armor Segments are poor/useless in general
   
   
   
   • The majority of these segments/layers have no use. The 3 that are desireable are the Krayt Segment, Nightsister Shard, and Janta Hide.
     
   • Virtually all of the others are either for Bone Armor (not an armorsmith item) or are at such low %'s that even novice armorsmiths with no technique can out-do them (ie Fambaa Padded Segments).
     
   • Some drops just add to encumberance and nothing more.
     
   • High level creatures, such as the kimogila, dropping segments for bone armor? Doesnt seem proportionate to the difficulty of the creature.
   
   
2. Krayt scales make armor less desireable




• Many armorsmiths were excited after the last patch when we discovered that the %'s on the scales actually added to our existing resists. However, using these in segments leaves at most one (restraint) resist in the general effectiveness category - which renders the armor virtually unaltered in the event of an effectiveness slice from a smuggler. In the case of composite specifically, a general effectiveness slice greatly outweighs the bonuses given by the scales.
  
• They are acting like layers, which is a good thing, but there are too many little resists - perhaps they could contain one high % instead?

Message Edited by styx66 on 11-27-2003 03:41 PM

Message Edited by styx66 on 11-27-2003 03:42 PM

Questions

Just a few questions that have sprung up that we would like an answer to:

1. Tantel mystery
   
   
   
   • Why only 3 pieces?
     
   • Why no advanced segments?
   
   
2. Medium Armors
   
   
   
   • Will they be introduced in the future? Why/why not?


3. Usage/Factory XP




• What are the ranges/conditions on these aspects of the XP system? Within X meters? Online/Offline? It is truly insignificant the way it is now especially given most people wear master level armors only.

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Wishlist and Ideas

This is by far the largest section of this document, but it contains some great wishes, ideas and suggestions.

• User Interface Changes
  
  
  
  • A more specific and descriptive armor encumberance message. Many people don't understand what "You are not healthy enough to wear this armor" means.
    
    
    
    • "Your constitution is too low to wear this armor" or something similar would work much better.
      
    • Also, upon examination of the armor, it could say "Constitution/Strength" instead of Health, leading to less confusion.
    
    
  • Damage type added to combat spam
    
  • Sort Crafting Tool schematic list by armor type instead of body position - or give us a choice
    
  • The ability to make an entire suit of armor all at once
    
    
    
    • Would accept resource penalties or something similar in order to reduce the number of steps and pieces (and chances to fail) making a full suit of armor.
      
    • At the very least, a one-time use container to hold a full suit of armor to aid in the selling process (like a factory crate - once it is pulled out it cant be put back in)
    
    
  • True Practice mode
    
    
    
    • This would allow armorsmiths (and crafters in general?) to experiment on the effectiveness of new resources or ideas, perhaps with a reduction in the number of resources used
      
    • No XP or useable item would be produced
    
    
  • Encumberance distribution
    
    
    
    • The ability to shift a limited amount of encumberance from one area to another to aid in the customization of suits of armor for specific individuals/races.
      
    • To balance this, perhaps it could be done at an uneven ratio
    
    
  • Resist distribution
    
    
    
    • Same principles as above, but for resists
    
    
  • Looted Segments in crate-like packs

• Techincal/Gameplay Changes




• Personal Shield Generators




• Personal Shield Generators with selectable resist types
  
  
  
  • Heat shields, acid shields....
  
  
• Increased viability




• Higher experimentation yields on condition or resists
  
• Higher baseline resists/condition values


• Dual condition shields




• Have PSG's have an overall condition (high like standard armor) and an immediate condition, which would be a low value on a regenerative or rechargeable system.


• Sub-components




• These have been reduced to merely a time/credit sink as the quality of these items do not have any effect on the shield itself


• Because of this, the resource cost is not balanced with the fragile nature of the PSG.


• Socket/Slot loot for PSG


• Experimentation range on encumberance is too low to be useful and should be raised




• Virtually all armorsmiths choose resists over encumberance because per point, encumberance is not reduced significantly enough to warrant the drop in resists
  
• Most armorsmiths only spend left over points in this category


• Encumberance on Layers needs more adjustment




• While overall, layers in themselves seem to have a good balance between resist % and encumberance, but when multiple layers are used, inconsistencies develop.




• Two encumberance-experimented layers are far lighter than one layer of the same or less combined resist %. (I.E. Two 6% heat layers at 4-4-4 are lighter than one 10% layer at 10/10/9.) Logically this doesnt make sense.


• Perhaps a solution would be to lower the assembly value of the layer encumberance by a bit, while simultaneously lowering the amount of reduction per point of experimentation.




• Balanced correctly, this would allow the minimum encumberance to still be achieved with the same # of experiment points, but balance a less experimented layer.


• Slicing Issues


• 
  
  
  
  • Give smugglers the ability to choose between encumberance reduction and effectiveness boost
    
    
    
    • There is an actual physical process and inherent difference in making a piece of armor lighter and making it more resistant to damage. It doesnt make sense that it is a shot in the dark.
      
    • Many people simply dispose of their unwanted slices or keep hounding armorsmiths for replacement pieces until they get what they want - it is very time consuming and wasteful the way it is now.
    
    
  • Add the ability to slice special protection (albeit to a much lesser degree)
    
  • Upon examination of a piece of armor, display whether the piece has been sliced and in which way.


• Wookie Armor
  
  
  
  • A set of AR0 armor for wookies wouldnt be as powerful as AR1 for other species, but it could give them some armor and a limited amount of protection, rather than having to rely solely on the fragile and costly PSG alternative.
  
  
• Allow armor experimentation and assembly bonuses to apply to the creation of Bone Armor
  
• Boosts to the effectiveness or useability of lower level armor (i.e. Mabari)
  
  
  
  • These armors are seldom desired, seldom made, and seldom sold.
  
  
• Change Padded special effectiveness to something useful such as Heat or Acid or lower the encumberance
  
  
  
  • Besides looks, there is little reason to wear padded armor over any other type.
  
  
• Add a layer slot to lower level advanced segments (mabari, chitin...)
  
• Insurance penalties
  
  
  
  • Along with weapons, armor already has its own decay system. We feel that the addition of decay upon deathis too harsh when applied to armor.
  
  
• Armor Certifications
  
  
  
  • Not necessarily to be able to wear the armor, but profession-based certifications that could give bonuses to certain aspects of the armor piece (i.e. lowered encumberance for chitin for melee classes, etc)
  
  
• Armorsmith Specific bonus to wearing armor
  
  
  
  • Simliar to DE's making more efficient use of their droids
  
  
• Salvage?
  
  
  
  • The ability to retain some resources from a sub-par piece or a damaged piece of armor would be very useful (tho admittedly hard on the DB)
  
  
• Armor powerups?
  
• Encumberance layer
  
  
  
  • The ability to create a layer that would lighten a piece of armor, perhaps lowering the effectiveness slightly to compensate
  
  
• More questable Armor
  
  
  
  • RIS is a great idea - MORE!!
  
  
• Real Shields
  
  
  
  • Perhaps this is the realm of a weaponsmith, but perhaps one-handed melee (and maybe ranged) combat professions could have the ability to wield a blocking shield in one hand and have a check in combat to be able to use it to block attacks.
  
  
• Ubese/Composite Helm special abilities
  
  
  
  • They have a special technical look to them - why not special abilities?
    
    
    
    • Perhaps wearing a full suit of ubese could hide your name tag and provide some anonimity (like leia when she wore it at jabbas palace)
      
    • Perhaps the glowing eye slot in a composite helmet could grant some sort of night vision or infared?
  
  
• Shield Grenades
  
  
  
  • A temporary stationary shield that deploys in a small area around you or in front of you thrown out like a grenade - acting similarly to a gungan shield generator
  
  
• Pet/Mount Armor
  
• Increase Secondary Stat caps on races to at least 450.
  
  
  
  • Many species are unable to wear full suits of armor due to the 400 limitation, no matter what they migrate to, or how well sliced it is. (My zabrak has a fully encumberance sliced set of composite and has only 18 con/str to spare.)
  
  
• Bio Engineer interaction
  
  
  
  • New tissues able to be used as layers/enhancements
    
  • The creation of synthetic hide and/or bone with special properties
  
  
• The ability to recover, at least partially, from a critical failure on assembly or experimentation
  
• More types of armor. 6 types is getting somewhat repetetive.
  
• Faction acquired armor schematics
  
• Decorative Armor
  
  
  
  • Similar to a schematic but taking little to no resources
    
  • Able to put on display in a shop or home - not equippable


• More Animals that drop Wooly Hide




• Armorsmiths are heavily dependent on this hide type, and we would like to see more available creatures that drop wooly per planet. As it is, it is too rare and too expensive.

• Cosmetic/Visual Enhancements




• Visual effect for active PSG, or a brief animation when activated
  
• The ability to crest armor with faction symbols/rank and guild initials/emblems.
  
• Added 'styles' of armor
  
  
  
  • Masculine vs Feminine
    
  • Different look for Advanced armors
    
  • Altered appearance when looted segments are used
    
    
    
    • I.E. Scaley appearance when using Krayt pieces
    
    
  • Planetary or Regional armor variance
    
    
    
    • Tattoine composite might look somewhat different than Corellian
    
    
  • Various visual enhancements such as spikes, shoulder pads (like stormtroopers)...
  
  
• Visual degradation of armor as it wears.




• A piece of composite on its last leg should look somewhat different than a brand new set


• Ability to dye armors after creation
  
  
  
  • Via tailors
    
  • Via faction perks
  
  
• Ability to wear a cloak or cape with/over armor
  
• Sound Effects associated with wearing armor
  
  
  
  • Heavy breathing, altered impact noises...

Message Edited by styx66 on 11-23-2003 07:12 AM

Ok here we go again. Let me know of anything that still remains. Im still not quite sure how to re-address the mabari issue, but i added a suggestion that i would love your guys input on, i kind of like the idea. This is it specifically:

Grant more experimentation on lower level armors to lower tech-level smiths.

• To correct the imbalance of master level goods to novice goods, a novice smith could gain the ability to fully experiment on lower level armors when he meets a certain tech requirement.
  
  
  
  • IE a novice armorsmith with no tech would have limited experimenting ability on mabari, but when the smith learns tech 1, they recieve double the current bonus to experimentation for Mabari.
    
    
    
    • When this smith hits PA1, they won't make high quality chitin until they gain tech 2.
      
    • At some point up tech tree, Mabari and Chitin (and perhaps tantel) should receive full 10 point experimentation as if the crafter were a master, perhaps at tech 4.
      
      
      
      • An armorsmith should not have to learn layers and deflectors just to make better mabari/chitin (these 2 are needed to achieve master.)
    
    
  • This would still give a large cushion to the abilities of a master armorsmith for the more desireable/expensive/complex armors, but give novices a marketable and full quality product.
  
  
• This could also be applied to all other quality-based crafting professions with tech trees.

Thoughts?

just want to bump the other shield issue... repairing makes them completely useless!

Styx,

Great post. All I would ask you to do is provide an overall intro which states that what we want most of all is stuff to work the way it is supposed to and to give us more ways to customize armor for our clients. Thiswould makearmorsmithing more fun for everyone.

Cheer,

Spice

I havent run into any issues repairing shield gens, at least not the way it works now. Before the recent publish, anything at 0 would go negative, true...

But now apparently near-zero condition items are unrepairable, which obviously makes 0 condition items totally unrepairable as well.

I have also used repaired shield gens and they still work (albiet rarely just like a fresh psg)

Not sure what im missing....

please add

• RIS armor for Weaponsmiths!

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Leber wrote:

please add

• RIS armor for Weaponsmiths!

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er huh?

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NoHup wrote:
just want to bump the other shield issue... repairing makes them completely useless!

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NoHup ... can you clarify this?

My buddies and I go through shield generators like candy, but we're always able to get anywhere from 2-5 repairs out of them before we pitch them and open a new one, and they work fine each time after repair.

The one thing that I do, and what I encourage all my PSG purchasers to do is to unequip and re-equip their PSGs before going into a fight. Maybe you're encountering the "zone deactivation" bug where they'll randomly deactivate themselves after crossing a server zone (anyone still seeing this, btw? Styx?).

/shrug

Stxy,

I'm speechless...

Allow me to be the first and not the last to say, Perfect Job on this State of the Armorsmith.

I'd wager we couldn't find a better correspondant even if we paid them. You hit every nail on the head, and even took some of my own ideas out of my head for me.... Great job gathering these responses!!

As for the armor tech idea, it makes sense...... But I'm not entirely sure if this is truly needed, as the rewards of eventually becoming master armorsmith are well worth the tedious month(s) of smithing. I had no problems selling my first (thousand)sets on the bazzar for slightly above costs, keeping me in constant supply of resources. This all being said, I would like to see the youngsters aspiring to be a famous armorsmith go through the drudgery of being insignificant. It adds to the taste of success once the job is complete. Also, and most importantly, I think it weeds the "Wanna get rich and craft armor ASAP" chaps out of the herd. Only those with the patience and drive stick with it, thus we seem to have found a unique balance of supply and demand for armorsmiths.

- "Taglines have always boggled me." - Me.

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darthhashbrown wrote:

As for the armor tech idea, it makes sense...... But I'm not entirely sure if this is truly needed, as the rewards of eventually becoming master armorsmith are well worth the tedious month(s) of smithing. I had no problems selling my first (thousand)sets on the bazzar for slightly above costs, keeping me in constant supply of resources. This all being said, I would like to see the youngsters aspiring to be a famous armorsmith go through the drudgery of being insignificant. It adds to the taste of success once the job is complete. Also, and most importantly, I think it weeds the "Wanna get rich and craft armor ASAP" chaps out of the herd. Only those with the patience and drive stick with it, thus we seem to have found a unique balance of supply and demand for armorsmiths.

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Thanks for the kind words

I do agree with you that the road to master should be difficult, but the way it is now, itfeels like just a grind. I was hoping for some way to encourage the 'youngsters' to kick it out of practice mode and take the junk off the bazaar and be able to sell their goods on quality vendors for decent prices. All in all, that is the fastest way to armorsmith (in terms of xp per click etc), but it just involves many more types of resources than say, a ubese shirt.

There have been a lot of posts in this forum asking what the fastest way to master is, and i know that its common in every craft forum, and that its increased lately due to holocron drops, but I'd like people to take the scenic route a little bit

Everyone else, i'd like to hear your thoughts too on my idea!

of course i read that far

and your points are great, i didn't look at it that way. Thats the whole ideer of this here forum!

i'll probably remove that from the SoP and we'll open another discussion about this situation in the near future, and once we get something good, we can go ahead and ask for it

Havent had many responses to.99c, looks like overall we're just about there, and in perfect time as well. Will post 1.0 on sunday ready for TH's correspondent bonanza week!

Some thoughts, suggestions, ideas, discussion...

Perhaps instead of a change in the armor experimentation would it be possible to split out segment experimentation to another skill and have that be something that you gain the full 10 points on within a couple boxes? It would give the master / novice armorsmiths more reason to work together--and would give the novices something of a viable market.

Currently what I did to make a little money as I grinded out xp:

--sold Mk.1 PSGs. they sold slow, but they sold. (price was 1.5-2.1k)
--sold crates of AUKs. again..only 1-2 a day at most (barely enough to help take the sting out of harvesters), but they did sell. (price 4k)

I sold little to nothing else. Those are the current things that people want from a novice armorsmith--or I should say...the things that others are willing to buy.

Bone armor is almost universally neglected whether that is a player education issue or a design issue I can't say. In either case there IS no market in it. Personally I still use my first bone armor suit that I made and it works great on faction missions, for some reason most people don't do that. I think bone armor needs a serious re-thinking as to its usefulness and place in the game. I can see the logical reasons it is in the skill tree--but its simply not a viable product in SWG.

Mabari as you said is extremely difficult to make as a novice--I'm not sure there is another item in the game that relies so heavily on other classes for components as do some of the earlier armors (mabari and chitin...hides hides hides and synth cloth). It is also largely neglected--but not as badly as bone.

I'm not sure that giving more experimentation points to novices on low end armor is going to help things--in fact it may make things more difficult for the masters as they start to see prices on those lower end armors take a terrible beating. The reason why this would happen is because the novice has no money--and has nothing to lose by pricing near the bear minimum. The novice is looking for enough cash to run his harvesters the next day so he can grind his way up some more--he's not really concerned about the market consequence and that his underpricing may actually force the masters into more of a corner where they only make 1 or 2 types of armor. They simply don't find it worth their time and effort to make anything on the lower end. In the end I think the masters of the profession would end up with an even smaller market.

I really think that we need to find a way to get them involved in making the sub-components, etc to give them a market of some type, also...there should be more cross-pollination for them--why not have them make the armor components for droids, have them make the shielding units that contain fusion reactor cores, etc. There are a lot of "novice level" items that could be introduced and would improve the markets between professions, and also could give them a brand new market. I'd make the suggestion that most of these items provide constant stats and not have anything to do with experimentation--that takes away the issue of a novice not being able to experiment well. Since they would not be end-products but rather sub-components for other professions, we can ignore / avoid any master vs. novice quality arguments.

The real issue to solve is--how do we get these guys some much needed cash so they don't have to run missions each day to pay for their harvesters (I had to do that a lot). We need to try and preserve the current variation of armors--master quality mabari shouldn't be the same as novice quality and we need to balance that against the definite need of the novice armorsmiths to have more than one or two mediocre products that they can get income from.

If you read this far, thanks.

My $0.02,

-Zanik