Commando Archive

Well boys and girls.. i have seen this question asked alot, so maybe our esteemed correspondent will find it valuable to sticky this.
Below is an exerpt from my guilds weaponsmith. I have been riding him lately for rocketlaunchers because I am on my last stack and haven't found any for sale (with good reason).
I have even gone so far as to drop what I was doing and run to Dathomir to "bail him out" against some nightsisters, using my rocketlauncher to demonstrate the motivation behind my constant badgering.

unfortunately some of my pestering was done in guild chat and now some of the other guildmates have chimed in too, prompting the following post in my guild's forums. It is a very informative read and a great argument for one of the problems with commando.


The T21 rifle is, without a doubt, the most complex and resource-intensive non-disposable weapon in the game. To build it, you need 20 units of any metal, 150 units of Ditanium Steel, 85 units of Polonium Iron, 30 units of Alantium Carbonate Ore, 15 units of Gallinorian Rainbow Crystalline Gemstone, a stock, a blaster rifle barrel and ten power handlers. The weapon has a difficulty level of 30, so construction errors on the schematic are common. It's a **edit**, but it's worth building because it will sell in a flat second.

Total resources: 300, total components: 12. Price: 43,100 credits

By contrast, the god-forsaken Rocket Launcher is a nearly unattainable dream. The launcher itself requires 150 units of iron, 65 units of any metal and 170 units of steel for a whopping total of 385 units of resources just for one launcher. The difficulty rating of this item is FIFTY.

It gets better.

Each launcher requires four blaster power handlers. Each launcher requires two weapon scopes. Each launcher requires a whopping eight projectile feed mechanisms. Finally, each launcher requires five Proton Grenades.

Still sounds do-able doesn't it? Not quite I'm afraid, for each Proton Grenade requires assembly as well.

Proton Grenade: 10 units of metal, 15 units of steel, 1 unit of polymer and 3 units of Crism Siliclastic Ore. In addition, the damn things require a Light Warhead Mechanism, a Medium Warhead Mechanism, a Warhead Fusing Device and a Warhead Stabilization Mechanism. This little daisy is at difficulty 35, so get ready for some failures in the final schematic.

Wow, getting a bit sticky, ain't it?

Light Warhead Mechanism: 18 units of resources @ difficulty 15

Medium Warhead Mechanism: a whopping 85 units of resources at difficulty level 30 (as hard to build as a T21).

Warhead Fuse Mechanism: 18 units @ difficulty 15.

Warhead Stabilization Device: 45 units @ difficulty 30 (there's that big three-oh again).

Plus the scopes and the power handlers which are little gems in their own right.

Bear in mind here that each individual component has different statistics that are important in their construction. Fuses need materials with high Conductivity and Unit Toughness. The Warheads need a combination of Overall Quality and Decay Resistance. The Grenade must have high Shock Resistance materials as well as a high Overall Quality. Scopes and handlers and everything else need entirely different statistics, and the launcher itself needs high Overall Quality and Conductivity. I list this to make it clear that just because it said "any metal" up there as some of the prerequisites, doesn't mean that you can use the same stuff for any two components.

Let's break it down. To make one crate of rocket launchers (say 10 launchers), here's what you gotta do:

1. Make schematics for four grenade components using upwards of 20 types of materials. Stick these bad boys in four of your factories overnight, knowing full well that the schematics will be worthless the second the runs are done (no other weapon uses these items). Remember, FIVE grenades per launcher (100 components per factory), plus another 20 or so per factory to account for critical failures and other crap, so it's gonna take some time...four factories out of comission for the better part of a day. That's 19,920 units of resources right there.

2. Take grenade components out and assemble the Proton Grenades. You'll need 120 of these (or as many as you can make accounting for failures in the grenade schematic). Each grenade is 29 units of materials so we're up to 23400 units of resources. These bad boys are gonna have to sit in a factory for a day as well. Meanwhile, make your schematics for the 48 blaster power handlers, the 96 feed mechanisms and the 12 barrels you're gonna need (again allowing slop for crafting failures). You may have some of these items kicking around, but Murphey's law dictates that if you need 48 of them you'll have around 46 on hand. These beauties require an additional 6300 units of resources, bringing the grand total to an even 30,000 units. They will also fill up the other three factories for a day.

Intermission: 30,000 units of resources and four factories chugging away for two days...we're almost ready to get started!

3. Grab all your stuff from your factories (it'll take several trips). Assemble all of the components, critical fail, do it again, moderate success, etc. etc. Hopefully, you'll end up with a halfway decent schematic by the time you're done throwing huge quantities of resources down the toilet in the attempt.

4. Load everything in a factory, along with another 3850 units of resources (go ahead and round up to 5000 for all the crafting fun) in and set her on broil. Don't go far, because it'll be done pretty quick since you ONLY MADE TEN GODDAMN LAUNCHERS!!!

Final tally: 520 units of resources beyond what are included in the components, and 34 components...per weapon. Price per weapon: 100,000 credits.

I will make these things, I will. I will do it not because I will make any money doing it, not because I think that they will sell beyond a few rich and curious Commando types, not because anyone will give a damn but because I said I would and because no other weaponsmith with half a brain will. They will be the most awesome, HAM-eating monsters weapons you have ever seen.

At least they goddamn well better be.

I know the pain, constructed almost 400 of those recently (with the exception of the schematics themselves).

He forgot to add, the top crate size for Rockets are 7 per crate.

He also forgot to add that it is impossible to build a large quantity at a time because of the 8 feeders needed.

For example, I wanna make 200 of these bad boys at a time..well that is 1600 feeders...and you can't do it. You need to make even more subcomponents for slop if you what to reach that mark.

My alt is a weapons smith, and hell I only made one large batch for myself. I will probablly never make 'em again because it just ripped through my resources.

-eakop-

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garvin wrote:

This is the EXACT reason I'm pushing for RL's to be crafted seperate from RL Ammo...Make the RL non-consumable, but the Ammo packs that goes in the RL consumable...The Ammo packs would be no more difficult to craft then grenades. All of our consumable launcher weapons could be converted into ammo packs to be used with the non-comsumable RL housing and would work like Power-ups work on weapons.

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Wouldn't it be better if the ammo worked like crystals will for lightsabers. If I understand it correctly, you could then have an "ammo pack" item, and add it to the launcher whenever you want, possibly adding multiple ammo packs if you have plenty. Might make it possible to remove them as well.

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garvin wrote:

This is the EXACT reason I'm pushing for RL's to be crafted seperate from RL Ammo...Make the RL non-consumable, but the Ammo packs that goes in the RL consumable...The Ammo packs would be no more difficult to craft then grenades. All of our consumable launcher weapons could be converted into ammo packs to be used with the non-comsumable RL housing and would work like Power-ups work on weapons.

The template design for this is already in game...Trap Droids are the perfect example. You drag and drop the traps over the droid to reload it. Then you can command the droid to fire a trap. With some tweaking, this is how the new and improved Rocket Launcher should work...

I have submitted (awhile back) a rather long and detailed proposal to TH and the devs regarding this idea...Back then it met with VERY favorable reviews from them, so who knows, we may yet see this come to light...As soon as the Jedi stuff starts it's completion phase I am going to re-approach them on this idea (the devs pretty much have blinders on to anything besides Jedi Revamp and Smuggler Revamp at this point)...

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Good idea.

BTW, fishing poles use/used consumable bait way before trap droids. The "ammo" could also be treated as a power-up, which it is, and therefore there is even more justification for the code pre-existing.\

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Pure_Fusion wrote:

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garvin wrote:

This is the EXACT reason I'm pushing for RL's to be crafted seperate from RL Ammo...Make the RL non-consumable, but the Ammo packs that goes in the RL consumable...The Ammo packs would be no more difficult to craft then grenades. All of our consumable launcher weapons could be converted into ammo packs to be used with the non-comsumable RL housing and would work like Power-ups work on weapons.

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Wouldn't it be better if the ammo worked like crystals will for lightsabers. If I understand it correctly, you could then have an "ammo pack" item, and add it to the launcher whenever you want, possibly adding multiple ammo packs if you have plenty. Might make it possible to remove them as well.

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I really like that idea...and now that I've had the opportunity to play with a lightsaber and see how they work, I think "openning" a Rocket Launcher to remove and replace ammo packs is a great idea...

I just made a post in the Correspondent revising this part of the Rocket Launcher revamp...Hopefully we'll hear something soon...

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garvin wrote:

I really like that idea...and now that I've had the opportunity to play with a lightsaber and see how they work, I think "openning" a Rocket Launcher to remove and replace ammo packs is a great idea...

I just made a post in the Correspondent revising this part of the Rocket Launcher revamp...Hopefully we'll hear something soon...

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Message Edited by StarNick on 06-18-2004 09:11 PM