Artisan Archive
Thread: Idea: Artisan Skill refining. Improve the resource system.
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Ethany
Tue Mar 16, 2004 7:16 am
#1
Not sure if anyone has posted this idea and searches came up with nothing so here goes...
I've seen a lot of people complain about the lack of x resource at a good quality. Also, people complain about the near uselessness of anything but the absolute highest quality resource.
Instead of changing the way resources are spawned etc., why not give artisans a way to improve what is available? My idea could help strengthen the economy for almost all trade classes.
THE SKILLS
Novice Artisan
Ability - refinement.
The ability to refine all resources in the game by a small amount. The trait refined is random.
Random 1st level box
+1 refinement
The ability to further refine all resources in the game. At this point the artisan is able to select which resouce traits to refine.
Random 2nd level box
+1 refinement
The ability to further refine all resources in the game and do so more efficiently.
Random 3rd level box
+1 refinement
The ability to further refine all resources in the game and do so more efficiently.
Random 4th level box
+1 refinement
The ability to refine resources to near perfect quality.
Master Artisan
+1 refinement
The ability to refine resources to perfect quality. Also allows the distillation of any resource to better than perfect quality.
THE TOOLS & MECHANICS OF REFINEMENT
Refining requires a measurement tool to determine precisely what needs to be done to a resources in order to improve its qualities. This would require a different tool for each resource.
Refining requires a refining station, where a schematic of the refined resource must be created. This schematic is used in the refinery. It provides the instructions to the refinery for exactly what must be done to the resource to achieve the desired results.
The actual process of refinementrequires refineries, which can be made by master architects. Each resource class requires its own specific refinery. Each refinery requires 2 lots. Each refinery has a production capacity, defined by the skill of the architect and the quality of the resources used in constructing the refinery. Production capacity starts at 1 and caps at 100. At a production capacity of 1, the refinery can refine at.001 unit per second (100 seconds per unit). At a production capacity of 100, a refinery can refine at 1 unit per second (ups). Refining resources takes time. Refineries will require 200 power per hour to operate and 50 credits per hour. The high power cost is due to the extreme amount of energy required to refine the resources.
Every 1 use of a schematic is able to net 100 units of a resource (1000 use schematics would net 100.000 units of a resource).
The process of refining resources at the master artisan levelwould go like this:
The artisan MUST craft a schematic. Artisans cannot refine anything without a refinery, and those require schematics. During the refinement process the artisan would experiment on the resource to determine how much refinement is possible. Every +1 to refinement gives 2 experimention points. Every 1 point in refinement experimentation is worth up to 100 points on any resource trait. A master artisan has +5 refinement (+10 refinement experimentation points)so they can theoretically refine any resource up to +1000 in all traits. Obviously experimentation success would be a factor, +1000 only being possible with amazing successes on each experimentation attempt. At +4 refining (4th level box)an artisan is capped at 1000 for any trait. A master artisan (+5 refinement)is able to bring anytrait up to 1100.
Each +100 given to any resource results in more wastage. That is, the more you refine, the more resources it takes to get any useful refined amount. Each +100 applied to a resource results in a +2 to required units. For instance, say you applied a total of +500 to some steel, that means the refinement process would run at a 10:1 ratio.10 units of that steel to create 1 unit of the refined steel.
The experimentation would be straightforward. At novice artisan, there would only be an experimentation bar, and it would randomly select which trait to refine with each experimentation attempt. At master artisan, all the traits of the resource would show up, and the player would be able to select which trait and how many experimentation points to use in each. Theoretically, given all amazing successes, a master artisan could create a resource with 1100 in all traits.
EXAMPLE OF THE REFINEMENT PROCESS
Let's say we want to refine some steel. The desired traits are OQ, SR. The steel has a value of 500 and600 respectively. The artisan is a master, so he has +10 refinement experimentation. Let's assume that he gets amazing successes on all experimentations and is able to bring the steel to 1100 OQ, 1000 SR. That is a total of +1000 applied to the resource. He creates the schematic with 1000 usesand takes it to his perfectly crafted mineral refinery. He checks the required ingredients and it states that to create 100.000 units of the resource it will require 2 million units of the original steel (+1000 total applied to the steel, 20:1 refinement ratio). It will take 100.000 seconds (27 hours) to finish the batch.
CONCLUSION
This would provide a use for less than perfect minerals, as well as giving a very strong economic base for the artisan to capitalize on.It would give the architects another useful item to make. It would givenew crafters the ability to attain high quality resources that veteran crafters have been able to hoard over the past months. It would also give crafters onservers with poor resources spawns to still be able to craft high quality product.
Any comments?
yjkoo
Tue Mar 16, 2004 7:54 am
#2
something like this has been mentioned before, ever since they took out miners and farmers during beta :/
BigAke
Tue Mar 16, 2004 8:05 am
#3
have you ever thought about how much such a change would affect the size of the game database?
right now they probably have one table that associates the resource attributes with a unique identifier (e.g. the name of the resource)
then each resource stack would just consist of that unique identifier and a quantity.
the number of different resources increase each time a new resource spawns, but it is controllable by the developers (perhaps at one point in the future they decide that no new resources will spawn and from that time on only old resources respawn)
if you allow each artisan to change resource attributes and thus create unique resources at will the database will explode.
right now they probably have one table that associates the resource attributes with a unique identifier (e.g. the name of the resource)
then each resource stack would just consist of that unique identifier and a quantity.
the number of different resources increase each time a new resource spawns, but it is controllable by the developers (perhaps at one point in the future they decide that no new resources will spawn and from that time on only old resources respawn)
if you allow each artisan to change resource attributes and thus create unique resources at will the database will explode.
Jnath
Tue Mar 16, 2004 8:07 am
#4
Ethany wrote:
Not sure if anyone has posted this idea and searches came up with nothing so here goes...
you're right....http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=artisan&message.id=33572
But you've got some good additions.
Ethany
Tue Mar 16, 2004 8:31 am
#5
Actually they wouldn't be unique resources. You just change a few numbers in the database for whatever particular stack of resources you just modified. The actual resource name would remain the same, or else you'd have crafting issues when crafters require a very specific resource.
BigAke
Tue Mar 16, 2004 8:46 am
#6
Ethany wrote:Actually they wouldn't be unique resources. You just change a few numbers in the database for whatever particular stack of resources you just modified. The actual resource name would remain the same, or else you'd have crafting issues when crafters require a very specific resource.
if the numbers on the resource are changed, then the resource stack is no longer of the same resource as before. therefore it is unique.
let me explain:
if i have 3 stacks of "Olim" Polysteel Copper in my inventory (100k, 50k and 1k), you need to save the fact that "Olim" is Polysteel Copper and has a certain set of attribute values. On top of that you need to save that i have 3 stacks of "Olim" in my inventory and those have a quantities of 100k, 50k and 1k - i do not need to save the attribute values on each stack since i know that all "Olim" has the same attribute values.
if you are allowed to change the resource attributes, then you need to save the values for each stack - or you change the name of the refined resource, creating a new unique resource (if i refine "Olim" then i get a smaller amount of a new Polysteel Copper that receives a new name)
Ethany
Tue Mar 16, 2004 9:00 am
#7
I see your point, however I still think that the only that needs to be done is to simply change the numbers and possibly put a "refined" tag somewhere on the resource to prevent it from stacking with non-refined.
I can see how this would cause an increased load on the database, but is this really any different than when they added new weapons? Or a new dungeon? Or new crafting resources (think about the billions of Geonosian power cubes floating around)?
I believe that any database bloat from this is irrelevant. It's not any different than adding/changing any other part of the game.
Jnath
Tue Mar 16, 2004 9:06 am
#8
On the thread i mentioned above we were discussing combining different resource types to get a blend and therefore better stats. This of course would be creating a new resource type; however, i think it would be very benenficial if such a profession had the ability to combine/refine to create a specific type of resource. The point being that we wouldnt all sit and twiddle our thumbs until say Lidium Ex Ore spawned, instead we could be finding other ores and trying to refine into the Lidium.
Ethany
Tue Mar 16, 2004 9:12 am
#9
To use Lidium as an example...
Well my system requires Lidium in the first place, of any quality. I didin't think morphing one resource into another was very practical nor sound for the game economy. However, if the Lidium that does exist spawns and is horrible, then you can refine it to have better stats.
It still sucks when some resources only spawn once every 5 months... that much is for sure. I think increasing the spawn should be done, though far be it from me to decide how much to increase it.
Jnath
Tue Mar 16, 2004 9:44 am
#10
/agree as long as the spawn is stepped up a little. But i definitely agree that the stats should be able to be tweaked. Now it sounds like you wanted this to go into the artisan tree, but for a lack of room for change there, i think we need a new profession, or really bring back the miner profession.
stryfex03
Tue Mar 16, 2004 11:56 am
#11
Changing the numbers and adding a 'refined' tag probably is simple, but that still is a new uniqueresource. Not to mention the different ways people are going to want to refine it. You'll end up with Copper A (original stat), Copper A (refined for CD), Copper A (refined for UT), Copper A (refined for OQ), etc etc.
Why not just ask for more consistent spawns of resources w/ 1000 stats? Because that's what's going to happen. No one will want to craft w/ that 990 CD copper, or that 100 CD 900 OQ Plumbum Iron. They all are going to want perfect, refined resources, and everyone is going to end up with the same end product.
Jnath
Tue Mar 16, 2004 12:22 pm
#12
But only if they have the funds to pay the miner/refiner. So what if everyone ends up with uber resources, they still have to afford the service.
Ethany
Tue Mar 16, 2004 12:28 pm
#13
Well, the problem, at least as I see it, with more consistent spawns of high quality resources is that it does nothing to really help the economy. The game NEEDS more money sinks and the game NEEDS more interrelationship between crafters (note that I did not say interdependencies). Consider in my original example that it would take 2 million resources to create 100k units of the refined resourcesl. This money sink alone would be a huge boon to the architects who make the harvesters and refineries, not to mention everyone else involved in the process (gathering the resources, refining them, distributing them, crafting with them etc.).Think of the armorsmith who wants the best Duralloy. He'll have to pay the 2cpu-4cpu to get the 2million initial resources, then pay the artisan to actually refine it. Considering in the example it would take the refinery 27 hours at 200 power per hour (5400 power for one run) and 1350 credits in maintenance just to produce 100k units of the refined steel, and likely a smart artisan would split that load between multiple refineries, and you can see how the premium for the absolute best refined resources would be astronomical. Also consider that to obtain the best stats on any resource it would still have to be at least semi-decent in the first place. Costs would be huge. I'm willing to bet that the 100k of steel I've described here would cost somewhere around 5m credits. So the armorsmith could have his "premium" line of armor and his high-end, non-refined line. There would not be a huge difference in actual item quality but the price disparity would be huge. I feel that most importantly this system would actually give crafters a real variety, instead of now where there really is only one line, the best (I know of very few armorsmiths who make more than one line of armor).
Also, think about it. Everyone has the same end product now. Everyone will always want the best, or at least what is perceived to be the best. The system I outlined simply adds another layer of content and involvement, not to mention the all important variety.It adds the possibility for more unique items. The ability to specifically adjust stats of a resource allow a crafter to choose precisely which attribute of the final product they want to focus on, even more so than now with the latest changes to experimentation.
Also bear in mind my system isn't perfect. I'm sure some adjustments would need to be made. Perhaps reduce the total amount any resource can be refined, this way it would be impossible to have an "uber" resource with all 1000+ stats. Maybe make it so you could get one trait to the better than perfect level of 1100, and after that there won't be anymore points to put into it anywhere. I don't run the numbers for SOE, so I'm not really sure how my system would work in the game.
Yes changing the numbers and adding a "refined" tag could constitue a unique resource. I thought you meant that it would be unique in as such that it wasn't a Duralloy anymore, but rather something else that would not work in the duralloy crafting slots anymore. My misunderstanding.
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