Artisan Archive

I'm generally in favor of this idea. (I actually proposed a /salvage command myself several months ago... for the Space Expansion. )

It would be both fun and useful to be able to salvage resources. The only question I have is whether there's enough value in being able to salvage small amounts of resources or components to justify the time and cost of programming this newfeature.Does salvaging have a high enough "coolness factor"as to be that much better than just improving the kinds of loot generated by the existing system?

--Flatfingers

I agree also. Perhaps the mineral or whatever is used to make the item will just return as "Unknown Steel" or "Unknown Inert Petrochemical". It could then be refined (See some of the suggestions for a Miner profession) and then be used for building stuff.

For example, Soandso gets100Unknown Steel after salvaging an old pre-patch Flamethrower. He gets another 50 Unknown Steel from salvaging apre-fixBowcaster (durability was broken). He opens up his refinement kit (works similar to a crafting tool) and refines the steel into Refined Steel. This steel gets semi-random stats based on his refinement skill (For example, Level 1 refinement,+0-100 to every stat on the steel). This could work very well in a miner profession, or perhaps somewhere in the Artisan Profession (Surveying line maybe?)

Perhaps then Refineries could be built by Architects to automate the refining process.

Thoughts/suggestions?

I suggest this mainly as one of several potential ways to make monster/npc looting more interesting than the present amount (which is to say, not much). I realize this has probably been suggested before, but I want to see what the current player opinion is and (hopefully) get some traction with the devs on the possibility.

I got my first treasure map last night, and I thought it was nifty. The *payout* on the other hand, was just plain disappointing, essentially worthless.

So, here's how I'd fix it. Salvage would apply to any item, not just dropped loot, but I mention this mainly as an improvement to the loot system. However, as I'm proposing it as an addition to the Artisan class, and because it affects most items and not just loot, I feel like it should be discussed here.

1) Resource drops should be in much larger stacks (I've always had 1, though apparently others have gotten multiple but still less than 10). Make this 100, or 1000, and suddenly we're talking valuable loot. Given the fairly good variety of resources on a planet at any given time, and you needn't worry about it being boring or predictable, either. This seems like a fairly straightforward change, and reasonably safe -- provided they don't drop TOO often or in stacks that are too large, you're not endangering players running harvesters. Non-crafters will likely just give these to their crafting friends or sell them on the bazaar, both of which are good for the player economy provided the volume isn't too high. As it stands, players are FAR more likely to just scrap the 1 or 3 count resource stack unless it's something they're currently carrying a stack of. Clearly the stack sizes vs. the drop rate will require careful monitoring at least initially.

2) Equipment drops are, as it stands, pretty much doomed as a concept.Either they're good, which competes with the player crafting system, or they're worthless -- I mean, I might be able to sell a CDEF Carbine for 50 credits on the bazaar, but why bother? I'd still be competing against a novice artisan or weaponsmith by doing so. (The current system falls clearly on the 'worthless' side -- or has someone out there seen a composite body armor (of any quality, let alone one with 35%+ effectiveness and good encumbrance ratings) drop?)

Instead, let's add /salvage. Yes it's an idea already expressed in other games (notably DAOC, from which I'm basing my suggestion), but so what? There's no such thing as a truly original idea.

Specifically, I'd make it so Novice Artisans get a salvage command. I'd like to see points granted in it as the artisan progresses up the Engineering tree, but that tree is pretty chock-full already, so you could scatter the points around the tree or just grant an additional bonus at master or something. The curve would work like an assembly skill curve, affecting relative success rates for the potential outcomes outlined below. It *could* also potentially govern what sorts of items (in terms of complexity or value?) you can salvage, but that's probably significantly more complicated implementation-wise.

When used on -- pretty much any "item" -- that is, something that's not itself a resource, any of several thingscould happen, which I'll rank from least to most preferred from the salvager's perspective:
1) Crit failure: Item destroyed, nothing salvaged. Bonus: Could always have anything vaguely explosive, caustic, whatever actually damage or wound the salvager, but that's probably more work implementation-wise than is worth it.
2) Failure: If the "ouch factor" above is doable, failure no resources, but no damage either. If damage from crit failure isn't doable, skip this outcome.
3) Success. Some small percentage of ONE of the resources used in an item's construction is generated, based on what's currently available -- in game, on that planet, whatever's appropriate and not too difficult. I only mention planet-specific if it's easier, since it's clearly less realistic. What's currently available galaxy-wise is still a *little* weird, but you don't have to track anything crazy like what the item was actually made with (or make it up). As a purely hypothetical example, say you get a base success on a CDEF Rifle. You'd get 10 of a random metal. (I don't recall the schematic, but I'm thinking 10-50% of a single slot's size).
4) Good success. Same as #3, but 25-75% of a single slot.
5) Amazing success. Same as #3, but 50-90% of a single slot. Then some percentage of a 2nd slot, and keep rolling some % chance to process additional slots, in a best-possible-case getting 90% of one slot and 75% or so from each additional slot.

The assumption here, of course, is that every droppable item has a schematic to salvage against. Since that's probably not the case, the salvage command would have to be smart enough to just tell you "You cannot salvage this item".

I can see 'things' happening if this were to happen. I think they're good, others might disagree. The main one that comes to mind is some artisans basically acting as *player* junk dealers, buying items people don't want in order to recover the resources, basically resource gathering by recycling rather than by harvesting or hand-sampling. Like I said, I see that as a *good* thing, assuming it's balanced such that it's not a compelling way to gather resources, only a viable one. After all, a fair number of people out there gathering 'junk' loot won't have the salvage command, and I believe at least some artisans would be interested in picking these items up.

*Particularly* if there's some sort of experience associated with using /salvage. I'm not convinced there *needs* to be, but there's at least a possibility there.

Thoughts?

I like the idea of more dynamic resources, refineries, etc. I even suggested an ability for artisans to "purify" resources, taking a stack with a low stat or stats and making a smaller stack with improved stats.

However, I doubt anything in this realm of possibility will come about, because the game just doesn't seem set up to handle dynamic resources, or stacks of resources with the same name but different stats. Not saying it's not doable, just that it's probably sufficiently complicated such that the devs probably won't be willing to take the risk.