Artisan Archive

I know there’s been a lot of talk about a Miner class, here’s some ideas I’ve had about possible skills.

Planetary Survey: Basically improved surveying with greater range and at the top level highest locations will be able to be seen on the global map. These will become easier to get to one riding is implemented. Obviously this is based on the survey skills. XP Requirements would be very high due to the fact that surveying is so easy to get.

Resource Improvement: Just like it sounds, basically it’s a way to give a one time bonus to a set of minerals. Maybe some minerals have to be “used up” to improve the batch. The degree of improvement and amount used up will be determined on skill. For example, “Experiment” on a batch of 1000 copper units and get a 25% bonus to overall score but lose 10% of the total minerals. Again, this would be limited to a one time event for balance issues.

Location Improvement: Basically a line of machines that can raise the resource level in an area around it. So if you are mining a location that’s at 60% you would put one of these down and you can raise it to 70% or so. The range and increase would be determined by level.

General Mining Construction: Determines Mining Assembly and experimentation

What do you all think? Would this work? Does it do enough? Too much?

I think its a great idea! Its solves the dead stop of the Survey track. I would like to be able to do more with Survey XP than just keep getting it. I'm glad you came up with something like this. I hope the DEVs are listening!

Aazhia Korano

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Here are my thoughts on how to make the minerprofession viable -

1) Only allow miners to use anything other than personal harvesters. Individual non-miners could still have personal harvesters allowing an artisan to generate some of their own raw materials, but for bulk purchasers, miners would become the primary source.

2) As a miner gets more skilled, their ability to use larger harvesters increases. Perhaps add a 4th size of harvester which only a master could use.

3) More skilled miners are able to use harvesters "more efficiently". Maybe this is reduced maintenance (say 10% at tier 1 of some skill, with an additional 10% savings at each tier up to 50% for Master). Alternatively, give a 5% production boost at each tier.

4) Allow miners at some skill level to remotely monitor harvesters at some skill level (maintenance still paid in person)

5) Allow miners at some skill level to begin to see resource shifts. Perhaps this is in the previously suggested form of "This mineral pocket looks strong" or "This gas looks very depleted".

6) Novice miners don't get all of the skills (remotely monitor, detect resource shifts) to make sure that an artisan doesn't simply plunk 6 points into mining and not advance further.

The resource improvement idea is interesting.

Previous ideas of a commodities market were good, though it might be hard to implement. Best thing about a commodities market rather than justusing existing mechanisms to sellis ease of providing material to artisans when the miner/merchat in offline.

This would make craftsmen less independent, which in certain respects is probably a good thing (currently they are one of the few classes that can be completely independent if you have the patience to deal with harvesters). It also helps deal with the massive PA harvester farms that are maintained. That could still be done, but only with personal harvesters (or by including miners).

I wouldn't mind seeing harvesters restricted in number differently than lots. Perhaps 1 harvester "lot" of each type per person. A miner would have this number go up with skill progression. A personal harvester = 1 lot, a medium = 2 lots, etc... Allowing a a miner to scale his operation as he becomes more skilled. Also, a non-miner could then only mine 1 type of mineral at a time, where a miner would choose between mining more of a single type (medium harvester) or mine multiple types (with personal harvesters). The existing lot structure will work though.

If enough people wanted to be miners (and I think enough do) and skilled miners could get resources more efficiently than today's power harvesters (those with multiplenon-personal harvester operations), then I think they could generate enough resources at a low enough marginal cost to supply artisans with the materials that they require to allow them to spend their time crafting and selling, rather than harvesting.

What if the miner gets more lots as they progress up the track? I know every character starts out with 10. Well, other professions keep those 10, but the miner, as they progress up, gets an additional lot every so often. This would give them the ability to mine even more resources and sell those to individuals who need the resources to craft.

Aazhia Korano

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If they keep the existing lot system for harvesters (and it seems likely they would), the additional lots would have to be harvester only, or you would end up with miners who use their extra lots for things like houses, PA halls, etc.

Installation specific lots might be a good idea anyway, as merchants could gain extra lots for stores, a Master of any elite/hybrid profession could gain extra lots for a PA hall (alleviateing some of the PA hall takes up 9 lots concern), etc.

check out the forging topic. That has a huge discussion on miners.

I really like this idea!

To help flesh out the class, the miner could be instead named an Industrialist, and would get bonuses and abilities related to factory ownership/operation as well. Things that decreased power and maintence cost and increased production speed in harvester/factories are a possibility. This would give real benefits over a craftsman who simply has basic Artisan skills and runs personal harvesters to supply themself.

If it's possible to flush it out, industrialist ought to be a separate elite profession. Just like miners would get bigger harvesters they could use more efficiently, industrialists get bigger/faster factories. The most efficient supply chain would become:

Miner ->Crafter -> Industrialist ->Merchant -> Consumer

The industrialist can buy schematic from artisans to mass produce items. The schematics where out (when the specific resource used runs out) so the cycle should continue.

Now I'm not trying to turn artisans into inventors. There is still the ability to gather the resources yourself, run a small (slower than today's models) factory yourself and/or handcraft everything for personal sales. An artisan would just have more choices to make under this model. Do I sell myself or let another merchant sell? Do I contract out all production, or just contract out production of sub-assemblies? Do I simply sell the schematic and finished product to the industrialist and let him deal with distribution? Do I gather resources myself to keep costs lower or really on miners so I have more time to craft? I'm not opposed to the do-it-all-yourself crafters, but it you shouldn't be able to do it all as effectively as you can under the current system. Surveying IV is easy. Everyone can run a factory. Everyone can run 10 big harvesters. The only choice is on the how far to go in the merchant side of things.

The only problem I see is that I'm not sure there's enough to completely flesh out an industrialist profession (though they somehow did it with merchant, so I guess it's possible). It doesn't make sense to me to include facotry skills within miner since they are separate parts of the supply chain.