Cities And Housing Archive

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This is a messy issue and SOE hasn't been able (or bothered) to create a good answer. On the face, it seems to be a good idea to delete"orphaned" buildings. On the other hand, I use 2 factories and three houses (for storage) belonging to people who aren't in the game anymore, or no longer play on my server. I don't know which ("inherited" a couple). I pay maintenance on all of them. Two are in the same city; the rest are "free-standing." SOE has obviously not come up with a solution that won't outrage the thousands and thousands of players doing the same thing.

Spare me the moralizing about how I'm breaking the game, please. They leave them in, partly just in case players come back, but it's largelypoor game design. The problem is SOE's lot limits are tied to characters, not classes. And all crafting requires huge numbers of lots. Mining resources takes lots--lots of lots!. Storing resources and sub-components takes lots. Storing completed items takes lots. Multiple factories are needed to produce items in a reasonable time--more lots.

A crafter is faced withfour alternatives:

1. Lengthy production times, & large runs:On 2nd account,I set up a single food/chem factory and decided to make a full 1k run of Stim-b's.It has taken over four days for just the three sub-components. Then the final run will probably take two days. After that I'm going to have 20-100 crates. (I forget how many stim-B's in a crate.. 20?) Now multiply this by a wide array of items. Result = fewer stacks of resources stored, but more product.

2. Lengthy production times & small runs: Factory-produce a few of each item, and then store the components & schematic between runs. Less stock kept on hand, but higher requirements for resource/schematic storage. Also problems with forgetting and using up a key resource in multiple schematics. (I'm bad about this with furniture.)Quality resource needs are highly unpredictable, depending on sales, and out-of-stock problems nearly constant. Requires close attention on almost daily basis. (edit: because youre having to run a few of each item constantly, in order to stay in stock, you end up baby-sitting the factory.)

3. Quick production & large runs: Multiple factories used to produce sub-components in bulk.Very large storage requirements (esp. for Architects and non-crated OMU's). Requires more factories & large numbers of lots, but lends itself to pre-planning & leaves the most free time for other pursuits.

4. Quick production& small runs: Worst of both worlds. More lots tied up in factories; large amounts of resources kept on hand, dozens of schematics. Multiple final items may be possible from the same sub-components, which encourages hoarding of sub-components & small finalproduction runs as needed. Very high storage requirements on both ends of production process.

My Architectuses#4 due to lack of harvesters for ore: I can make semi-large runs of power cores, generators, etc. from grindresourcesand then do OMU's/Turbo FluidicPumps, etc.& assemble what I need when the quality ore/aluminum/steel become available for the final combine. But this means when a high quality resource pops, I jump on it and mine as much as possible; then sit on it until the remaining quality resources pop in turn.

It is for these reasons crafters have been begging for an increase in item storage (the recent increase helped) and have resorted to using vendors for storage. Many screamed when a bug fixing crafting station storage limits was fixed in Pub 13. I have kicked around several suggestions for fixing the problem; the best one I've been able to come up with is that certain skill boxes give lots that can be used only towards specificstructures:

1. (new) Shop: larger, profession-specific vendor location. Vendors not allowed in anything but Merchant Tents and Shops. High box ormaster of eliteprofession required.

2. (new) Warehouse: 1 lot, 1000 storage items. You can have only one, and must be at least novice in an elite crafting profession.

3. Increased lots used only for harvesters, available with the surveying tree of Artisan & elite crafting professions.

Database room for items 2 and 3 to be made by reducing the global lot allowance to 7, anddeletingtheorphaned/excessstructures. (The items have been confiscated by the Empire & sold to finance the war!) Record all the itemsto backup & if someone returns to the game, charge them $15-20 (or 1-2 months fee) to retreive it. Only the owner can retrieve the items.

The hard part would obviously be the transition from the current system to the new one. It might be necessary to delay full implimentation of the delete by 30 days; in the meantime anyone on the admin list of a structurecan retrieve items/deeds etc. through a specialized bazaar function for free. Warn everyone in advance so that they can try to get all their necessary items into homes they own or storage vendors. (obviously the new warehouses,withtheir higher limit,can't be introduced until the database has been cleared of sufficient items).

Maybe it's not the best idea, but it's an idea.... Comments and ideas from the political perspective?