Artisan Archive

I am in favor of remote harvester monitoring, but I think it should be inside your designated home, and I think it should cost something. You can make a value judgment on whether you'd rather run around and spend time dealing with harvesters or paying a fee to a mechanized process to do so. The interface should probably be something you buy from an architect, and it'd probably be best to make the interface run in a way that is relevant to how many and what kind of harvesters you set up to use the remote interface. For instance, if you have 2 personal mineral extractors, 1 wind generator, and 1 flora harvester, you don't pay the normal maintenance rate on this. You pay the normal rate PLUS an added rate per harvester. In other words, you're maintaining a more expensive infrastructure by using the remote interface. You can choose to drop a harvester from an interface either at the remote or at the site of the harvester. (That way if you forget and go out to move the darned thing, you don't have to run back to the remote interface and turn off that harvester, then go back.)

There should probably also be an added fee for each time you hook up a harvester to the interface. The interface itself can charge the fee as a flat rate (based on the type of harvester--larger ones are more complicated, theoretically, therefore costing more), then it automatically updates the maintentance rate on the harvester you just hooked up.

The remote interface should not only allow you to pay maintenance and put in energy, but it should also let you change resources and perhaps even send you an email if the resource runs out! That's about it. You COULD allow each of the above options to cost in terms of money (on the maintenance rate addition). The remote interface itself could also have an energy rate, too, I guess, since it's an add-on to the building you own and would require more energy to run (theoretically).

I really don't mind having this since it allow all players to choose extra convenience at the cost of money. Given resource shifts, those who seek out specific types of things are going to be the ones hardest hit with the ideas presented above, though, since you'd pay that flat fee everytime you lugged the harvester from one spot to another.

AT LEAST give us a notification when there is a resource shift and our harvesters go offline.

What I want:

1) The ability to remotely check my harvesters hopper levels, power levels, and maintenence pool.

2) Email notification when a harvester goes offline due to a resource shift.

I dont mind having to go there to pay maintenence fees and put in power but its very expensive to have to keep close tabs on harvesters across the galaxy so i dont lose days worth of harvesting on a resource shift. Notification on harvester shutdown should have been in the game from the beginning.

I like the idea of remote checks, but not of remote adding power/maint. I love tending my harvesters, it's huge fun to me. An email when a resource vanishes would be nice, I admit. And I heartily agree with all the concerns about the interface - it needs a serious upgrade.

I would like to see droids that you could use to maintain and retrieve resources of a harvester... DE by heart

I am new at this crafter stuff but have been using personal harvesters for about a week.

1) I would pay extra to be able to montor from a distance. Say a 10% fee for some of the Holonet bandwidth. This would only allow me to check the extraction rate, remaining power, remaining credits, and hopper status. I should not be able to change anything but being able to check status remotely would be great.

2) While certifications are not a good idea, it might be a different way of handling this. Have an efficiency penalty for some people. If you are not an artitian then you get a 0%/10%/20% penalty on personal/medium/heavy harvesters. I would also have non-architect artisian classes have a 0%/0%/10% efficiency penalty. Only the architects can use heavy harvesters at no penalty.

Just like everyone else. I'm screaming for remote monitoring. I have to know when a resource shifts out from under me, and what my harvesters' maint and power are as well as their rates.

This situation is exasperated by player cities. If my harvester's maint can double or tripple in a day because of taxes I need to know what it is at all times.

Also it would be very nice to have some kind of skill that would let me place the larger harvesters on uneven ground.

I guess I don't fully see the need for remote monitoring. When I place a harvester I change the way point to contain the name of what it's harvesting. I check my survey tool daily and when the resource is no longer there, then it's time for a harvester run.

The issue about know how much is in your hopper, maintenance pool, and power/energy reserves I solved with 2 different methods. First, Ideveloped a spreadsheet to tell me all that information in real-time. The other wayis by putting more than 8 days of power and maintenance into my harvesters. Since most things shift within 6-8 days, it works out that I have to refill the maintenance and power/energy pool about the same time as when the resource shifts away.

I completly disagree with paying maintenance and/or power/energy remotely. If you want harvesters then you need to walk/ride/sprint to them to pay them and get your resources out. Remember that harvester runs will get a lot faster with mounts and vehicles.

A read-only remote status window wouldn't be too bad as far as game mechanics goes but, as I stated earlier, I don't fully see a need for it. I feel the same way about the status emails. Running harvesting should require SOME work.

I would like to be able to remove maintenance and perhaps power from a harvester. It makes little sense that you can't. While I'm pretty sure this is an oversight, if there is supposed to be some penalty (why?) to do this, how about implementing it at the deed level. That way we would at least have to pay the decommissioning costs to retrieve the maintenance.

One way to handle the remote access issue is to make it optional. Add to each harvester schematic a remote communications module. If it is present then it will allow anyone with admin rights to the harvester to link into it from abuilding terminal that has had a comminications module installed in it also. This will prevent the need for recoding all existing harvesters and still allow for the remote option to be implemented. This will allow for some price differences in harvesters with and without this module. To prevent everyone from having it overnight make the comm module a Master Artisan only schematic. This, ideally, would create an increased demand for Master Artisans and therefore a more layered market for Architect designs. Those that can either make the modules or get them will have a product that has more value than a standard harvester. You can even go as far as using the comm moduel as a way of connecting a droid with a harvesting module to fetch the hoppers contents. Payment and Power would still require an on site visit. But for those that arrange to have several days between visits you can still retrieve the hoppers using a droid. The droids programming could be set to deliver to a preset waypoint. Such a waypoint could be a set spot ina city, such as the starport, or the players declared residence if it is on the same planet. This way a player can go adventuring on a world while the droid fetches his hoppers. The droid would count as a 'pet in use' and prevent most players (except Droid Engineers)from using any in combat. But, the main tasks such as picking up a harvester, paying power and maintanence and changing resources would require a visit. All this could be tied to the one module upgrade to the harvesters.

Perelay

Some great ideas here!

I concur or think:

• All harvester maintainance functions in one window, not seperate tabs. Bloody inefficient and annoying


• A craftable item [Remote HarvesterScanner or somesuch]allowing remote status checking of harvesters. NO remote maintainance functions, too easy. Don't let the remote harvester checkers say too much, but give time left on power and cash maint., hopper full %, and whether the harvester is harvesting or not. Perhaps location as well.


• Since the RHSwould be craftable and thus improveable via experimentation, give it a range that can be experimented. However, default items allow max range only on a single planet. Or have them be planet-specific.


• A LOOT item that allows RHS to increase their range to another planet.. perhaps planet-specific? This will add another loot item to the MUST-HAVE lists for those who go after such things, add another interesting item to the trades, and be used only in the crafting of the original RHS a la Krayt tissue, thus increasing the number of craftable items inthe game.

WhatPerelay said. I agree with everything 100%.All of his ideas also fit in with the other classes needing helpfrom others, andgives architechts ability to sell more harvestors again. I thinkthat would be a brilliant move.

I also kind of like the ideas of harvestor certifications, but am afraid that the few resources I do buy willbecome more expensive then before. I could live with it though.

Remove the ability for non-artisan professions to use Artisan tools without certification or training, make all Basic professions equal. ie. two pets, two droids, two harvesters all at the same level.

Allow set name to persist after a reclaiming and the ability to set font and stack for ascii art advertising.

Certification ability based on engineering level to use droids to maintain and retrieve resources of a harvester at a cost per use.

Be able to remove maintenance cost and power from a harvester.

Add to harvesters a schematic for a remote communications module. If it is present then it will allowthe Artisanand Advanced Skill tree to link via the survey device also equipped with optional communications module to check status of the harvester it'sresource list and location at a cost per use based on survey level.