Artisan Archive

It still amazes me that the Chef advanced profession made it through the Beta cuts, but the more neccessary Miner got the axe. The excuse in Beta was that it didn't have enough content. Well, I've given it a lot of thought, and have come up with my own version of the Miner advanced profession. I won't go so far as to diagram the tree, I'm just gonna talk about it.

First off, the Novice box. Increase how much of a resource is sampled, and the chances of sampling in lower percentage areas. Add a lot (wait for it). Add the advanced survey tool schematics (wait for this too). Give schematics for medium harvesters (once more).

The four trees for the profession would be; Operations, Alloys and Compositions, Harvester Efficiency, and Advanced Survey.

Operations would deal with structure lots and harvester schematics. Each level in the tier would add lots (with novice and master adding one or more as well), allowing the Miner to have more harvesters than other artisans in operation at one time.

Alloys and Compositions would involve improving the statistics of harvested materials. How many times have we waited for plumbum iron to appear in the galaxy only for it to be the worst possible quality? This skill would allow the miner to improve thestatistics through experimentation for material he or she has on hand. Each level would be for different materials, for example level one allowing minerals, level two chemical, level three organic, level four gas (these are just examples). This alone would make Miners very desirable.

Harvester Efficiency involves the amount of material pulled from a given site by a given harvester and the cost to power and maintain said harvester.

Advanced Survey would continue where artisan survey left off. Level 1 and 2 are a bit fuzzy for me, but I see level 3 as being a regional survey and 4 being a planetary survey, where waypoints to the highest concentrations are placed on the planetary map of the Miner. I also see survey droids being employed for these levels of survey, and these surveys taking some time as the droid travels the planet doing the survey.

My reasoning for this post is simple; I'd rather spend my game time actually crafting and selling, not running out to my harvesters to get materials. I'd like nothing more than to have others who entire existance involves getting the materials I will buy to craft with.

Also, this Miner version could just as easily be a Farmer, as long as the harvesters being used are organics instead of inorganics so we wouldn't need a separate advanced profession for someone interested in that....

My 2 cr, thanks for reading.

I generally agree with your ideas here. The only things I would add would be to specify that extra lots be for harvestors and generators only (so they can't be used for houses, factories, etc.). The extra lots should start at skill level 2, to discourage every crafter from taking Miner just to get the extra lots. The other thing would be no planetary survey, it would remove the challenge of the game.

My 2 creds.

Slim Vargo, Corbantis, Mos Eisley

Hear Hear

Totally agree, Im having a wonderful time Mining. I tried Droid Engineer, made two skills in that, and the grind was too much for me to handle, and DE's total uselessness.

But I keep mining away. Making 6:1 profits, cause I sell the stuff nobody else is selling *IN BULK*. Just stay away from my server, cause thats the secret, only way I can sell 6:1 is doing it *IN BULK*. Heck im starting to mine WOOD, cause nobody is selling it, and the architects are gonna start needing it (and I saw a 75% area hardwood with great qualities).

Sure beats the H8ll out of UO mining

*swing*

*swing*

*swing*

*swing*

I played UO for a month before becoming borred out of my mind.

NEED A PROFESSIONAL MINER CLASS!

Im planning on becoming a part ranger-part bounty hunter that mines on the side for fun. And a little extra cash. And oh yeah, I'd like to make a note about the economy. THE ONLY INFLUX OF CASH INTO ENTIRE ECONOMY IS FROM PLAYER MISSIONS. Higher paying missions, everyone wins. All the way from the artisans, to the miners, down to the players themselves. Lesser paying missions will bring economy to a grinding halt.

Very interesting idea. I like the general layout. Ive savedthis post for future reference. There are serveral other threads on Miners that also have a lot of interesting ideas in them. There does deftianlly seem to be support for a new professions we'll just have to wait and see.

Wow, what a great post. I really like your ideas for the miner profession, especially the survey droid. Somehow, it would be really cool to have a droid or beacon you could leave on a planet to just tell you what minerals are located there without having to travel there. Also a droid that could go out and give you a general idea of where some high concentrations were located would be cool.

Mining would also be more fun if, asin my post about resources being the same on every planet, they would vary the resources significantly from planet to planet.

More lots would be extremely unbalancing. (It might actually end up nerfing real miners because crafters would take the extra lots and only the extra lots and stop buying their materials from miners.)

On the item improvement and increased efficiency on harvestors the problem I see is that you probably will get your choice on these: either not worth taking because they don't do enoughor overpowered and unbalancing. This is sort of the situation with merchant--you can get reduced maintenance fees, but the fees are so low as it is that it hardly seems worth bothering.

The rest I like. But it seems a bit slim for a profession with four lines. I can see a situation like merchant where crafters take a couple of skills.

Bbug -

"And oh yeah, I'd like to make a note about the economy. THE ONLY INFLUX OF CASH INTO ENTIRE ECONOMY IS FROM PLAYER MISSIONS. Higher paying missions, everyone wins. All the way from the artisans, to the miners, down to the players themselves. Lesser paying missions will bring economy to a grinding halt."

I think you've got this backwards. Yes, the only influx of cash into the economy is from missions, which are easy and unlimited. The real issue, is THE ONLY OUTFLOW OF CASH FROM THE ENTIRE ECONOMY IS FROM MAINTENANCE FEES! And since harvesters and structures are generally super-profitable, there is NO real money sink in this game. You won't see the economy grinding to a halt... you'll be seeing rampant inflation. It sounds like you're saying that lots of money for everyone is good. All that does is devalue the credit.

Think about it. Any time anyone wants, they can bring money into the economy. You CAN'T get rid of money from the economy even if you tried. 20 credit bazaar fees and 5% bank transfers? Transport tickets? Please. Remember, when you buy something from someone, that money is NOT leaving the game, it is just changing player hands.

Sorry to get off topic, just had to respond to that statement.

PS - I'd love to see Miner added back in, I know I'd try it. I don't know about the planetary survey ability, but perhaps the use of survey droids would be pretty cool. Maybe you could set waypoints on the map and tell the droid to survey every 100m between those points, then return. That could save you a lot of time, but the thing is, it could get attacked if unprotected/unescorted, thus balancing its use.

Advanced Surveying - maybe you make an advanced tool and instead of surveying for a specific resource, you just pick a class - Copper, Aluminum, Steel, Polymer, Reactive Gas, etc. It surveys once and returns a set of data on all the corresponding materials present. Your range would start low with this new tool, just like the basic ones, then go up. Another possibilities for surveying: survey only the single point where you're standing, but return to you every resource there, like you'd see if you were setting the resource on a harvester; a single survey that also returned 1 unit of the material, if present, so you could immediately and conveniently check the stats on it - useful for surveying after a resource shift; maybe a galactic scan at the highest level that lets you pick a resource and it tells you a basic YES/NO for each planet? Too strong?

More lots would be cool, but I'd like to see it fairly small, like 1 per box at the very most, NOT counting Novice (so someone who just wants extra lots needs 11 skill points) but including Master, so 15 lots at Master Miner. I like the suggestion someone made about the extra lots can be for harvesters only.

Aha! In the harvester efficiency line, small increases in power/maint/production rates, as suggested, but maybe at the higher levels also include the ability to remotely check the Status on harvesters. Not even manage them - you still need to go out to them to add power/maint or empty the hoppers, but just being able to check the status (including on/off and hopper volume) would be nice and a great little perk for miners.