Artisan Archive
Thread: Harvester limitations
I think pretty much everbody except the fellow who started this thread believes that harvesters should remain available to the general populace. Some of us just think that there should be advantages to *specializing* in harvesting. If you need so many resources to make your own meds that you need mediums to pull in enough material, you should have to make the same sort of choice that other folks have to make--I'd be much better at surviving in the wild if I picked up novice medic, but I just don't have the skill points--so I depend on friends and allies to do that better. Same thing here.
(Just as a note: more than one medic I know prefers to buy pharmaceuticals from dedicated medical manufacturers, because they can make more effective meds at a lower cost due to economies of scale. Another sort of trade-off.)
Ok, had a huge post written up and lost it thanks to accidently hitting the back button.
So here is the super short cut down version.
To address the guy who said it was Quote:"impossible" for a high end crafter to supply themselves with only 5 lots, you are dead wrong, I do it on a daily basis. I am a master artisan, master droid engineer, novice architect, and I manage to supply myself very well using only five harvesters, provided the material I need is available to me.
The reason I decided it was time to bring up this harvester certification request is just as I said above, there are more and more harvesters out there lately, making it more and more difficult for crafters to collect their own materials.
Yea, you squeeze them out of the good resource spots, andof course they will have to buy materials from you, because they can not supply themselves very well anymore.
For whoever said "walk more then 1500 meters from town" please be a bit more informed before making rude remarks. I do quite a lot of walking around for your information. Just last saturday I spent somewhere around 4 hours walking around corellia, from city to city, JUST searching for a place where I can build heavy harvesters on a good concentrationof steel. Every good area I found was entirely packed with harvesters already, even though the steel had just spawned mearly hours before.
Not everyone who posts on these boards with a complaint is some kind of "just started playing yesterday" newbie. I am an experiancedhigh level crafter myself and I run a fairly successful shop. I have quite a bit of experiance with the crafting end of SWG at this point, and this is the conclusion that I have come to. Harvesters should be seen asa valuable crafters tool, not asan easy way for a warrior to make money. If Weapons require certifications to use, then I am forced to take up fighting skills if I want to have any realkilling ability. On the same note, combat classes should be required to take up artisan skills if they want to collect resources. All players currently, regaurdless of class, can go right ahead and build 10 heavy harvesters. They maybe need novice artisan for the ability to use survey tools. That is a huge differance compared to all theskills I am required to obtain if I wish to use a flame thrower.
A flame thrower is a toolused to help combat characters to do their job, kill things.
A harvester is a tool that is intended to help craftersdotheir job, make suff.
Anon merchant charactercan not setup a shop unless they get at least novice artisan andbusiness I, II and III, and then they get only one vendor and its the lowest end dumbest vendor. So why is it such a bad idea that Survey IV would be required before anyone can setup the most basic harvesters?
If high level combat skills are required to use a flame thrower, a fighters tool, then why are crafters tools, harvesters usable by everyone.
I mean, even survey tools are not usable by everyone, and those are the most basic of material collecting tools. Why is it that the really big and advanced material collecting tools are usable by everyone? I mean absolutely everyone with a character in this game can utilize up to 10 (per character)of the biggest and bestmaterial collecting tools. Yet, only a certain few people can utilize the biggest and best weapons in the game. Only a certain few people can utilize the biggest and best pets in the game. Certification systems are good and make sense. There should be certifications for harvester use, just like the other tools of the game.
To start off, I am a little insulted that some people think us resource gatherers are nothing but greedy parasites. I have a scout/surveyor/marksman char that does nothing but collect resources. I have about a half a dozensatisfied regular customers (medics, tailors, and chefs).I deliver resources to anywhere my customers want andI charge (1-3creds/unit).I haven't heard any complaints from them for the services I provide. Yes, when I put stuff on the bazaar I charge top dollar. If it doesnt sell, I knock the price down a notch and put it back up. If crafters are insulted that they have to actually interact with other people in order to get the supplies to make their products, maybe they are in the wrong profession.
However, I do agree that you should need to invest at least some skill points in surveying in order to use harvesters and that the efficiency of the harvesters should be relative to survey skill level. You should not be able to harvest resources if you aren't able to sample them.
As for the non-crafter people/PA's who have the parking lot full of harvesters/generators, I say all the power to them(pardon the pun). If somebody wants to invest the time (and the headaches)into taking care of all them they should be able to.
Ziga Freysen
Synra -
Sorry, but that's wrong. The proper way to say it would be....
A flame thrower is a tool that requires skill for a soldier to kill things
A harvester is a tool that requires skill for a miner (not crafter) to get resources
To simplify my arguement...
For crafters, all you need to worry about is crafting. I can't simply make a flame thrower. I am dependent on you for the tool to kill. In turn, you can not simply create metal. You are dependent on a miner for the materials.
See how the chain works? You are a CRAFTER, not a MINER!! Look at it in a real life scenario. Do you see Calvin Klein picking cotten? Does Emerill grow all the food he cooks?
So in the game we need miners, and they are not required to be Craftsmen!! There's no mining profession (cause it's boring game wise to only do that), so EVERYONE gets a shot at supplying the demand. (although personally I think it would be perfect to give only Scouts the ability to survey & harvest material)
You basically want to pay no one for anything. You want to make all the profit and full all of your costs into your own business. But sorry, business doesn't work that way. You have to pay others for materials. Sure that raises the prices a bit, but in the long run we all make a profit. And is that so wrong?
You are also buying into the hype about MASS PA COLLUSION.
One, I do not believe that there is such a thing. I am in one of the largest PA's in the entire game and if anything we compete with each other.
Show me one example of PA mass harvesting. Just because you see a lot of harvesters in one spot does not mean they are in the same PA. Come on, and even if they are so what, grouping helps in PvE and PvP why not here. That still does not stop you from getting to the nice spot first.
The truth is that synra is bitter because his resource game is not up to the task. Rather than getting better at it however he wants the devs to code out his competition.
The fact remains that the resource game is the only even playing field there is. We all have the number of lots, the same access to equipment (architects have some edge here), and the same ability to work together and communicate with other players.
I have to chuckle, I have aparently seen it all, people complaining because a mechanic in the game is too balanced...hilarious.
Zigabob wrote:To start off, I am a little insulted that some people think us resource gatherers are nothing but greedy parasites...
Ziga Freysen
Do not worry about that Zigabob. Synra is just using a classic techique by attempting to vilify you before you even get a chance to rebutt his argument although he may or may not realize he is doing it.
Basically you try to immediately take the high ground in the argument and force your opponent to fight his way up from a position of weakness by making him out to be "bad".
Sigh, once again, I am trying to make a valid and reasonable argument only to have agressive and offencive replies.
The truth is that synra is bitter because his resource game is not up to the task. Rather than getting better at it however he wants the devs to code out his competition.
Once again, a complete BSassumption that is nowhere near the truth. For nearly two months now I have been micromanaging my harvesters. I have gone through pages of scrap paper doing calculations on all sorts of factors of crafting, harvesting, etc. Every time the resources shift, I am one of the first players to react. I am usualy the person with the two best placed harvesters on the new resource. I spend far more time managing my harvesters and resource income, then I spend actualy crafting with the stuff. I am not asking for this change because I am bitter and I want to corner the market or something. I am proposing this change for all of the reasons that I have stated above.
I am a far more capable player then you guys are taking me for. I have asked a few times here "why not?" or "Why is it this way?". I have not yet seen anyone answer why it isnessesary for completely non crafter players to operate harvesters? I ask these questions and almost the only replies I am getting here are just agressive flamming.
I thought I had adressed Miners also, but maybe it was part of the post that was lost to the back button. Miners are a figment of your imagination currently. There is no miner profession at the moment. Yes, many people are talking about the possibility of a Miner profession, but the devs are not going to implement it this week. Infact, I doubt that they are working on any new professions at the moment, and if they do implementthe Miner, it is probably months away. They have far more important *current* issues to deal with rather then adding a new profession, thus adding a whole new corrospondant list worth of bugs to tackle.
So until they implement the miner, I ask that you please put the "I am a miner" idea out of your head. You did not build any miner skill or anything. You maybe obtained novice artisan for the ability to use survey tools. How much work did that take you? Zero experiance points and 100 credits. And you dont even need that to build harvesters. Any player, reguardless of skill can build 10 heavy harvesters and callhimself a "Miner".
I think many of you are completely mistaking my intentions. If you want to fancy yourself a miner, and actualy design your character around that concept, then I WANT YOU TO DO THAT! Go ahead and train the skills and obtain the certifications for it.Mine materials and sell them! But like so many other things in the game, there should be cerfications to limit the use of harvesters. Harvesters are a tool, and every other tool I can think ofrequires certain skills in order to use.
No, I do not buy into the whole "fighers have to sell materials to obtain the money to buy your products". You are a fighter, you should be gaining your money through fighting. I dont know, do destroy missions, kill Swoopers (please) and loot them.Raid darkness falls, do whatever it is you fighter types do.
The idea of a player spending all of their skill points infor examplecombat skills, and still being able to perform as a "miner" 100% as well as anyone else in the game strikes me as something that needs to change.
Yes, I would like to see a Miner profession implemented at some point. But until then, I think that as theroot class of most crafters, "Mining" should be considered the domain of the Artisan skill tree, just like "harvesting" (hides, bones, meat) is the domain of the Scout. If you need to obtain hides,onlysomeone with the scout skill tree can obtain them for you. If you need to obtain aluminum, you can obtain it from virtually everyone. Everyone is currently given the capability of collecting massive ammounts of materials, withoutbeing required to have eventhe basicability to utilize survey tools and collect the materials manually. I feel that players should have to be master of manualresource collection with survey tools before they should be allowed to operate the best resource collecting tools, the harvesters.
I can not heal people unless I take up medical skills.
I stand little chance of killing anything, much less participate in PvP,unless I take up combat skills.
I can not dance unless I take up entertainer skills.
I can not setup a shop unless I take up someartisan skills at the very least.
I can not create a camp site unless I take up the scouting skills.
I can not take on bounty hunter missions unless I take up bounty hunter skills.
So why is it that just anyonecan harvest materials on the largest scale possible, without the need of so much as one single skill block?
I am looking for constructive discussion here, not flamming from people who do not want to lose their easy, skill pointfree, get rich quick sceam.
Give me a good reason why harvester certifications should be implemented.
Give me a good reason why harvester certifications should not be implemented (no "I want easy money" is not a good reason).
How would you do harvester certifications?
Do you have any othersuggestions on how to make harvester operationinto an abilitythat players have to earn.
"The idea of a player spending all of their skill points infor examplecombat skills, and still being able to perform as a "miner" 100% as well as anyone else in the game strikes me as something that needs to change."
"So why is it that just anyonecan harvest materials on the largest scale possible, without the need of so much as one single skill block?"
Everyone has 10 lots. Most combat classes don't really have a use for ALL of their lots (gross generalization, but I believe it to be correct). If the combat classes can make a little money on the side, and put more resources into the system, what's so wrong with that? Even with a Miner profession, those extra lots belonging to the combat classes can still be put to use for the better of the common interest.Players shouldretain their right to use their lots however they want. The Devs know how many lots each player has. They know how many lots a house takes up. They undoubtedly knew that sooner or later a combat player would have the miraculous revelation, "I just might be able to make money from my extra lots while providing benefit to others."
"Give me a good reason why harvester certifications should be implemented."
No such animal.
"Give me a good reason why harvester certifications should not be implemented (no "I want easy money" is not a good reason)."
Aforementioned reasons.
"How would you do harvester certifications?"
I wouldn't.
"Do you have any othersuggestions on how to make harvester operationinto an abilitythat players have to earn."
I think the luxury of affording a harvester's price tagis certification enough for anybody. Harvesters aren't exactly a piece of cake unless you have them all sitting in your front yard on a 10-20% resource concentration, which isn't even worth the maintenance fees. Any player who wants to deal with the ownership of harvesters should be able to do so. More power to them.
I think the luxury of affording a harvester's price tagis certification enough for anybody. Harvesters aren't exactly a piece of cake unless you have them all sitting in your front yard on a 10-20% resource concentration, which isn't even worth the maintenance fees. Any player who wants to deal with the ownership of harvesters should be able to do so. More power to them.
But do you not see the inherent flaw in this logic? The price of the harvesters is completely irrelevent considering that you are "mining" in the first place to obtain easy money.
Lets think about it a bit. You are a combat class, maybe take novice artisan just to locate materails yourself with a survey tool. Small harvesters are very cheap, every artisan with enough engineering skill can craft them, and they take very little materials to craft.
So first you obtain 8 small harvesters and 2 windmills to fuel them. Assuming you build them on 50% concentrations of material, those small harvesters will generate about 1440 material per harvester, per day.
So, 8 * 1440 = 11520.
As I stated before, very few "miners" sell materials as low as 3 credits per unit. Most demand a minimum of 4 credits per unit, so we will use that number.
4 credits * 11520 = 46,080 credits of revenue
Of course we must pay for maintainance, 8 small harvesters at 720 credits per day and two windmills at 1440 credits per day =
8 * 720 + 2 * 1440 = 8640
46080 - 8640 = 37440 total profit for one day, with only using small harvesters built on 50% concentrations. Are you starting to see where this is going?
Now, if you keep this up for 3 days, you should have over 100,000 credits and you can start upgrading some of your equipment. At this rate,in a matter of a coupleweeks, you should be almost completely upgraded to heavy harvesters. At this point, your harvesters are taking up a LOT of the landscape, and since you now have all the heavy and mediums yourequire, you now only need to pay maintainance and pocket the rest of the profit.
How much is your maxiumum potential money gain? Lets calculate this out assuming you are using two fusion generators and 8 heavy harvesters.
Assume the heavy harvesters are all bulit on 100% material (yes, I know its impossible, but its easier to calculate then 95%) And assume the fusions are built on high enough concentrations to fuel all of these heavy harvesters.
The heavy harvesters will produce 10080 material per day.
8 * 10080 = 80,640 per day
Once again, assuming that you sell all of these materials at 4 credits per unit,
4 * 80640 = 332,560
The maintainance for all of these is 2160 per heavy, 1440 per fusion. This comes to 20160 maintainance per day.
332,560 - 20160 = 312,400 profit in one day.
Yes, I realize that it is impossible to built any heavy harvesters on 100%, much less all 8 of them, but that is your maximum potential income per day as a miner, assuming 4 credits per unit of material. Assume that you can build all 8 heavies on 85% or higher, and that total profit will still be over 250,000 credits per day.
This is an easyget-rich-quick sceam that every single player can take advantage of, and more and moreplayers are starting to realize this.I think that you should have to train some artisanskills in order to gain the ability to do this. Artisans in general are the basicbusinessman/crafter/miner of the game. To take advantage of this is to be playing your characterboth a businessman and a miner. Therefore I feel that artisan skill should be required to take advantage of collecting and selling resources.
I hold to my opinion. The good resource pools are just not large enough to accomodate the number of harvesters out there currently.
It's a simple law of capitalistic economics; he who is aggressive is successful. Hell, it's a simple law of everything. Do you think Microsoft became as powerful and rich as it did by helping it's rivals? No, they crushed their competitors out of business and then gobbled up the rubble. Is it fair? I think it is fair... if I work my butt off to get ahead in anything, I'll be damned if I'm going to give leeway to those who don't feel the need to work hard. Now this doesn't mean I won't help people, but you have to understand that helping people must be part of the strategy to success, "You pat my back I pat yours." But, there will be no patting of those who sit in the back and whine about how they're at a disadvantage because they feel it more necessary to sit in the Cantina and make friends all day.
As the cliché goes, "The early bird gets the worm." For instance, the resources just shifted on Intrepid yesterday morning. Instead of being social and having fun, I spent all night surveying for resources (**edit** is Dantomir nasty). I came across an 82% of Omniian out in the wilderness. I didn't have enough power on me to start them up, but I thought if I didn't drop them now this prime spot would be gone by the time I got back. So I dropped the harvesters, paid the maintenance, and ran 2 hours back and forth (well past my bed time) just so I could power them up. And low and behold, when I got back, there were harvesters everywhere.
Now if I weren't an Artisan should I have to give that spot up to you? I don't think so; I wasted many hours of my time to get that spot. I don't care if you "have a real life", "have to work in the morning", or "were to busy flirting with someone in a cantina." I worked my butt of to get there first and I should benefit from that, not you. If you want them then you can get in trouble with your boss for being to tired at work.
I find that those people who whine and complain about things not being fair are those who are too lazy to make them fair. They call it survival of the fittest for a reason; if you're not aggressive enough to survive then you should be dead no questions asked. That's the problem with America; there are too many people out there who feel they should be able to sit on their lazy asses in front of a TV all day trying to figure out who's going to get kicked off the island next while getting fat off my blood and sweat. Nope, sorry, if you don't feel it necessary to get off your butt early enough to get the worm then you don't deserve any part of that worm.
-Al
For argument's sake let's say that his 8 heavies are on an average of 70% concentrations, and that he sells his resources for 3 CPU (the going rate on Starsider). That's 56448 resources per day * 7 days * 3 CPU = 1.1M credits per week. This figure is significantly lower than the one you arrived at, and I believe it to be a little closer to the truth. I also believe that you're correct in saying that it's still a LOT of money for a player to be making by "simply" running a bunch of machines.
Long-term, I don't expect the miner to last, for the same reasons that some of our elite crafters are throwing in the towel. They're just making more money than they know what to do with.
"This is an easyget-rich-quick sceam that every single player can take advantage of, and more and moreplayers are starting to realize this.I think that you should have to train some artisanskills in order to gain the ability to do this. Artisans in general are the basicbusinessman/crafter/miner of the game. To take advantage of this is to be playing your characterboth a businessman and a miner. Therefore I feel that artisan skill should be required to take advantage of collecting and selling resources."
I'm not going to do it. I know a lot of people that wouldn't want to do it. Why? Combat is more fun than managing a bunch of harvesters. Harvester management is a bore to say the least, and a pain in the rear to say the most. All for what? Making so much money that your credits are useless due to a lack of large money sinks in the game? It's for this reason that I maintain my previously stated view of these miners and say that they are doing it to the benefit of others. I'm yet to meet one of these greed mongering miners everyone talks about. Every large supplier I've come across is not only nice, but willing to go the extra mile for my business.
I firmly believe that the devs aren't going to do any major reworking of the harvester system. It's too much of a pain for them, too much of a pain for paying customers (imagine the calls to CS when Joe Smith's harvesters are no longer usable by him), all for something the Devs probably don't even perceive as being a problem.