Artisan Archive
Thread: Good reason why Harvestors are not overpriced
Think about how the economy is working for a second. Everything is player driven, there are no NPC shops to spend money at, or to pay NPCs for healing. That means that every credit that is earned STAYS in the economy. If there were no way for that money to leave the players economy, we would have MASSIVE inflation because there would be an infinite amount of money floating around.
So then, ask yourself how does the credits actually balance itself out to counter this inflation? The answer is simple for artisans: Harvestors.
Out of all the money that Artisans bring in, most of it will be spent through harvestors, thus taking that infinite money out of the systems. People who complain about it being overpriced should remember this, because without those fees for maintaining we would be in a very inflated economy. The old build and burn method just kills this format, hence one of the reasons I'm sure it's gone.
Other ways money leaves the economy is through insurance, cloning, transport tickets, bazaar terminal listings, and training fees to NPCS. Besides these, I am hard pressed to think of other ways. Everything else -- buying items, tipping, etc --simply shift the money around the economy, where it lands in the hands of the elite crafters and... sits there? Surely there has got to be something for this money to go to and cycle it back out of the economy.
I would like to see an increase in time taken to teach players a skill, from instant (as it is now) to a 5 minute job (depending on how hard the skill is). This might give more of an incentive to get it from the NPCS (who would teach it better), thus cycling more money out of the economy and driving down inflation. If players are going to teach eachother, most likely it will be for either money or friends. Without the need to actually PAY for their skills, players can get by grinding and not making any money for what they grind. By forcing payments for LEARNING new skills, you force the artisans to actually sell what they are making to turn a profit to advance in their skills.
Just a thought.
True, I do think that needing an X amount to re-deed something is a bit crazy. I think that the minimum # to re-deed (with it being lost) should be dropped, and then up the maintence costs to offset it.
Half of me is inclined to say that as long as an installation (harvester/generator) is in credit on maintainence it should be able to be re-deeded
However I'm also aware of the effect that would have on the market. We'd end up with a similar situation that the Droid Engineers have where you only need to buythe produce once, and since you can repair it yourself (by virtue of maintainence payments) you wont ever need to go to another player about it again (so once you've bought your 10 slots worth, or whatever, youre set for life).
The re-deeding cost provides a needed (if currently inflated) money sink thatstimulates market demand - now at the moment its flat out too expensive to re-deed a wind generator (based on the current player sale price), however I understand that it can be cost-effectiveand beneficial to re-deed a harvester depending on its maintainence situation and the current resource conditions.
Perhaps the re-deeding costs are a pointer to how much we should be selling these installations for? To sales one must undercut the re-deed price (assuming this is financially viable) since making re-deeding cheaper will reduce the number of customers over time.....food for thought
Re-deeding serves two purposes as well. It gives continuous structure exp. Paying maintenance on a generator does not do this. I have a question for everyone. How long does it take for the harvester to die from damage? Is this 1 day, 2 days, hours? It only becomes economical at 3K to rebuild, if the harvester stays good for more than 3 days. Does production fall as the harvester takes damage? I that were the case, then that 3 day window would need to be extended to match the production throughput of a fully maintained harvester. Ideally what your looking for is a cost to operate to generate X amount of good in Y amount of time. If these redeeding generates the same or more over the same period of time and costs less than maintenance, then I'd say it is a broken mechanic of sorts.
Re-deeding also serves another purpose. If your rebuilding your generators when they die, you never have to risk putting money into them. Currently, if the vein runs out, and you need to move the harvester you'll eat all the prepaid maintenance costs when you destroy the harvester. Unless you can assign the harvester to work on something else, this mechanic supports re-deeding. Who cares about it if I didn't put any money into it.
Kressilac
if you think wind generators are over priced to redeed but not harvesters, youare missing a vital and crucial point. When you redeed harvesters, you lose all money AND power in it. Granted there isn't a power requirement for redeeding, but if you need to move it on the spot and you just sunk 500 power into it, say good night Gracie. Wind generators have no pwoer requirements so in theory if they lowered wind down to the 1500 credit requirement it would almost always be cheaper to move wind power than harvesters.. Just some input..
It's not just harvesters and factoriesthat need maintenance. Houses, droids, etc. all require maintenance payments which cause money to "leave the economy."
"Other ways money leaves the economy is through insurance, cloning, transport tickets, bazaar terminal listings, and training fees to NPCS. Besides these, I am hard pressed to think of other ways."
I find that the biggest problem is that most artisan players have little to no understanding of economics. I think most folks understand supply and demand, but don't know how to apply it.
I have Eng IV, so I can handle all of my basic needs for harvestors, yet I still own a couple made by others. Why? Because they were for sale on the bazaar for less than the cost of the resources required to make it... the seller lost money on the purchase. I think a lot of folks are putting a priority on Usage XP, when it's really a very small amount. I'm buying personal harvestors at 1000cr each. Market price should be about 5000cr for personal harvesters. When it costs me more to re-deed than to buy a new one, guess which one I do? I scrap the old one, thus denying the continued UXP to the creator of the original. Best case scenario for him is that he also made my next one... in which case he's lost 4000cr in sales, and I've saved 500cr+. I'm definitely willing to give up the 30 to 50 UXP he'll earn for that.
I'm not working to be an architect, so the USP from harverstors is of no value to me. And this arrangement makes me money. So, as long as they're silly enough to do it, I'll take advantage of them.
WillyWatanabi wrote:I would like to see an increase in time taken to teach players a skill, from instant (as it is now) to a 5 minute job (depending on how hard the skill is). This might give more of an incentive to get it from the NPCS (who would teach it better), thus cycling more money out of the economy and driving down inflation.
Noooooo!!! We need to train other players so we can get the appprentice XP and become masters. The last thing we need is a reason for players to go to NPCs and get trained.
I agree with the training session needing to be longer. I dont think that 5 minutes is long enough, and I dont agree that NPC trainers should be able to train better than the PC player of the same skill.
For each box, depending on the skill rank, 30 minutes of devotion between teacher and student. (harshI am huh)
=)
Draznar wrote:
According to Holo in his (IMHO) the losing maintenance and power is a bug... Hope to see that fixed. Right now it appears that maintenance is bugged. I logged last night with 25 hours of maintenance and power on my harvesters and this morning I had 15 hours power and 10 hours maintenance.
Seems like maintenance is double the listed cost per hour and power is right on. Just one of those lil things that make you go W T F huh?