Artisan Archive

1. Repairing items is completely unreliable. (Submitted to current top issues thread)

With decay implemented repair is the most frustrating part of the game.

First, we are punished for repairing items too early. For example repair a 900/950 item and its condition may plummet to 450/450.

When repaired, an item should lose max condition based on its current lost condition rather than total condition. In this example the same random result would make the condition 925/925. Repairing an item should never lose more maximum condition than it is missing in temporary condition if the repairer has any skill. This penalizes us for taking good care of our items.


Second, the utility of the repair skill is severely reduced by the constant risk of destroying items.

Give players a certain skill level and tool quality required to completely avoid destroying an item. Perhaps a 95 rated repair tool used by someone with +50 of the appropriate assembly skill would have no risk of destroying the item. Let the item decay all the way down to being unusable instead of making the player gamble every time they have their gun or armor worked on.

Third, players are unaware of the risks involved in repairing items. Perhaps publish the risk tables for repairing items (a friday feature? a new advanced guide?). In general the effect of quality tools is completely unknown. We need these tables exposed to the players so that they know the risks they are taking with their equipment.

2. CRITICAL BUG "Crafting Session Ended" during practice mode.

If you use practice mode to level up you've noticed this. You will practice on 2 tools and then enter in your components into the 3rd tool. About this time the first tool finishes crafting and your crafting screen disappears with the message "crafting session ended". The resources you put in to that item are lost.

There is a way to avoid this, but it's not pretty. Select your schematic, fill in the resources and then use the following macro to complete the practice assembly with a single button press (avoiding the resource loss):

/nextCraftingStage;
/nextCraftingStage;
/nextCraftingStage;
/createPrototype practice no item;
/createPrototype practice no item;

USE THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK. By creating this macro you will be one button press from destroying any crafting item you are working on without confirmation.

3. Artisan survey & craft missions need a lot of work.

Survey and craft missions scale based on your weapon / combat level. These missions should be more rewarding for crafters and not a quick source of cash for mercenaries! I understand this is also an issue for entertainers.

Survey and crafting missions in general do not scale to elite levels as well as combat missions. With mounts and vehicles in the game I don't want to see survey missions nerfed. I'd rather see better limitations & requirements instead of lower payouts and increased minimum survey distances

4. There is still no INCENTIVE not to survey macro.

Novice survey failure rates seem very high. Sitting on an 80% area with novice skills I fail too often.

There is no bonus for accepting extraordinary survey events other than a few more units of resource. Extraordinary survey events should give you a 100-200 exp bonus if completed successfully. Alternatively the survey experience granted could be a flat 5exp per unit of resource recovered. This would discourage AFK sample macroing and make the grind more bearable.

5. TEF ejection from houses.

If you are covert and you trade with an overt it gives you a TEF. You will be ejected from your house or shop. You should be attackable, but not TEF'd to the point of ejection.

Do you agree with this order?

Please give me your top issues so that I can re-prioritize them.

I will still accept new issues and bump these off if there are more critical ones.

Message Edited by Vaedross on 12-05-2003 08:10 PM

Message Edited by Vaedross on 12-07-2003 11:55 AM

The survey range is not accurate on the survey tool. i look up my tool and it is not at maximum range even though i am a Master Artisan. Is this a bug or is it a set up for a futur proffesion, suchas Miner?

i think my range is at 320, but the max is like 382 i think, can't tell you for sure since i am at work. but there is also another number which i don't remember says but i am set at 5 but the max is 6. I can't get my tool to go to the max. even when i crafted a really excellent tool.

Survey range is based on your skill box. Survey skill tapes don't grant increased survey range. 320m is the correct maximum for you. I don't know why the devices have a max range listed. That range isn't even experiment-able.

With vehicles introduced this may be a good issue to raise. Anyone else?

Here's a possible top issue I hear all the time.

Occasionally if you repair an item that is only slightly damaged it will take a LOT of damage to it's max condition. For example a repair of a weapon that is at 900/950 and after repair is at 450/450 should NOT HAPPEN! Limit the damage max condition can take. Instead of losing 50% of max condition, make it lose 50% of the condition that is missing. In this example the same "rolled result" would make that weapon condition 925/925.

It would be nice if the crafting tool would show the effects of materials on a schematic before having to use those resources.

You are using a 850 item, so it will get XX points in XXX property.

Shouldn't be too hard to put that in a mouseover box.

Does it really make sense that we need excel spreadsheets to figure out which resoures to use?

Hi folks. Been a master artisan since about the dawn of time. Don't spend too much time on this board, as things seem to work just about fine as gnort hair for me.

Looking at these top issues, I'm pleased. Looks like we have a class that is working quite well for the most part. Everything has its problems, but we seem to be mostly working, which is damned good in my book. Guess thats why I rarely visit this forum.. haven't found any problems.

My vote for #5 -> please for the love of Vader, tell us what the cage is for!

I know, that's an old, old issue. But I figure most classes don't have that blessed opportunity to put something so philosophically profound into their top 5.

The repair thing is really driving me crazy. I had the same carbine and pistol for a month and a half, repairing them as I went and taking good care of them. I knew it was time to replace them, so when they both broke within a week after the death decay patch (not from this but from repairing with a 96 level kit), I was put out, but figured it was time to buy a couple more weapons anyway.

So I bought a new carbine and pistol. Now, after 2 weeks of casual playing ( a few nights a week), I've repaired each one 3 times because they were decaying so fast (no, i haven't been dying). Each repair knocks off too much from the total quality of the item. 800 max --> 680 max -->450 max in just two weeks on two different weaponsreally sucks. I should just never repair them. Actually, my pistol is less than a week old and is less than half its original max with one "minor blemish" repair.

1. Horrible, horrible, clunky, user-unfriendly, harvester UI


2. During harvester placement - terrain bars show yellow to denote a blocking lair spawn when the ground underneath is red and non-buildable anyway! Don't make me spend an hour clearing out a lair for ground I can't harvest on anyway!


3. afk-macro sampling


4. Need seeker droids to extend surveying range


5. Premium Auctions are not 'premium' in any way except the cost

Yes, but note that the elite professions get the bonuses for repairing their particular item. A Master Artisan without the elite profession really doesn't know the best way of repairing a weapon.

The real bug here is that the elite repair mods are screwed right now. For Armoursmith, they don't get them, yet can repair weapons as well as Weaponsmiths. The AS mod is broken and needs to be fixed. More than half the time the AS repairs armour, they destroy it. That's bad. I would not expect a MA to be able to repair a gun or weapon as well as a professional in that field. Just because we can make the tool does not mean we are the best ones at using it.

For the #5 issue, I agree with the post above about "premium" acutions. That's the other top issue to me. They're useless right now. They should default to being listed on the first page, not have the little star beside it.

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BlueMorgoth wrote:
The real bug here is that the elite repair mods are screwed right now. For Armoursmith, they don't get them, yet can repair weapons as well as Weaponsmiths. The AS mod is broken and needs to be fixed. More than half the time the AS repairs armour, they destroy it. That's bad.

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This brings up another issue... it's not known how crafting & repair tools should behave so we have no way of knowing when they're bugged.

Why can't we craft a mechanical bird to put in our stinking worthless bird cages. heck, let us have a bird cage stand so it doesn't sit on the floor.

Why, oh devs, why did you give us bird cages. we don't understand!!!

Heh, I've got a stuffed Bantha in my cage - appropriately renamed "Nemoidian Torture Device"