Artisan Archive

Ok, ive seen alot of posts on where vehicles are headed the next few months and this is my two cents on the matter.

1.) Make an elite profession out of it - Vehicles are just as important as droids, armor, weapons, ect. ect. But make it an elite off of master artisan and not off of the engineering tree. That way master artisans have something to look forward too. Nemidioan Bird Cages are exactly the most exciting thing in the world.

2.) Lets just say the Elite Profession is "Mechanic." Branch off the skill trees into these types of customizations-

Novice Mechanic - Give a Novice (orMaster Artisan)a Vehicle Crafting Tool Schematic, an aray of color palet options and a few perfromance upgrade schematics.Also I think racing should be a big part of vehicles in general (Han Solo raced swoops when he was younger). A novice should be given special waypoint clusters of race tracks. When activated the starting line is a waypoint and the next waypoint of the race is activated. The waypoint cluster (maybe a device) tracks the time also and the next waypoint of the race isn't activated unless the racer passes though in a sequence activating the next waypoint, so on and so forth untill the race is finished at which time the timing stops and you are given a time for the course. This could add alot of content to the game, races, new tracks (Agrilat swamp sprint?) Gambling, trophies, ect. ect. the possibilities are endless.

Skill Tree 1 - (Vehicle Painter) Painting/Decals. Vehicles desperately need a revamp on looks. New decals and paintjobs could be added every skill level.

Skill Tree 2 - (Racing Mechanic) Performance Upgrades.Racing anyone!? Engine upgrades, make upgrades to a engine componet to increase acceleration, increase top speed, increase handling. (higher performance engines should also require more maintence and have less durability as they get faster).

Skill Tree 3 - (Combat Mechanic) Weapon & Armor Upgrades. Vehicle Combat? Swoop gang wars? The ability to make a stronger more durable chasis and fit low-level weapons onto vehicles. Maybe be able to increase resists. (In combat, weapons can only be fired forward while in first person view, if you arent on target you miss.this would prevent kiting as vehicles cant reverse. Might be a little tricky with the existing combat program though.)

Skill Tree 4 - (Grease Monkey) New Vehicle Models, vehicle experimentation. More vehicle models as you advance. Advanced models of certain vehicles. better experimentation on vehicles.

Master Mechanic - Maybe one or two Master Vehicle Models, high experimentation, uber paint jobs, a boost feature (like nitrous) that when used gives you a short fast burst of speed that in turn would damage your vehicle, the ability to place a player garage in a player city and collect a small percentage from player use of the facility. Maintence rates should be fairly high so Mechanics aren't extremely rich.

I think I got everything. haha. Feel free to make fun of any typos or anything you dont agree with. This is just what I came up with off my head and I hope everyone gets a chance to check it out and put in their "two cents" too.

-Lanik Kast, Master Aristan / Bria

Some great ideas here. Like to add a few things. Just my opinions.

1. First, make vehicles only 2 branches of the elite profession. A) New Vehicles and B)Vehicle upgrades (paints/decals/naming/experimentation/customization). Mounted weapons should be an option (hey, if AT-STs use them...), however, it would be a bit sad to see every swoop bike with dual-mounted frontal flame throwers or heavy cannons of some sort. Hopefully, the devs learned their lesson with AT-STs.

There is a real danger to having increased speeds over the long haul. Already, I don't think I know of a creature that can outrun a speeder, much less a swoop. Perhaps short "bursts" as you suggest, maybe not useable if you are under attack, or a special racing mode or location where players can square off and use burst speeds to their advantage without causing game imbalance.

Some other ideas for customization:

a) mounted survey equipment (must be used in conjunction with survey 4 and only while vehicle is at full stop)

b) multi-player vehicles (yes, I know it's hard, auto-follow doesn't even work correctly with the chase camera off, but I have faith in ye developers and programmers). Would allow for cross-planet taxi drivers!

c) mobile hospitals (requires master mechanic + the work of a master DE), mobile merchant vehicles, mobile command centers for squad leader masters.

2) For the third branch of the tree, I'd suggest first, Item Repair. It makes no sense to me that armorsmiths and weaponsmiths don't have a listed repair skill. Either list it and make them better at it, SIGNIFICANTLY better, or create a profession that has a better chance not to destroy or downgrade an item when using 99% repair tools. Create a tree, maybe require the artisan to be a master armorsmith/weaponsmith/tailor too, I don't care, just create a more consistent and reliable repair system for armor, weapons and clothing.

3) For the 4th branch, since it seems the devs refuse to allow for harvester decay, no matter how slight, to force people to EVENTUALLY re-purchase harvesters and what not, allow master mechanics to "soup-up" harvesters to 110-120% of the BER. The effect can be permanent or not, but it would force the harvester to decay, while giving a chance to really pull up that super rare resource before it shifts. This could belong in the slicing tree as well...

Anyway, some great ideas Lanik...hope the devs take a look at them