Doctor Archive

I'm all for the whole player-based mission thing. Honestly, I am. But how far down the pipeline are player missions? It's probably in the range of months.

As for the idea of giving Artisans the ability to make limited use survey tools, you know...that'd be fine with me as well.

Give the Novice artisan something they can make that actually, oh, i dunno...Sells!

I would gladly, and I mean GLADLY, pay money for a tool of that type if it meant I could get back my 15 skill points...

I love this idea....heres my idea..

Give Artisans around Eng II the ability to craft "Ease of Use module" that would be an optional addon to all Survey tools, what this does is allow anybody without Artisan skills to use this survey tool. But because they are not an artisan and do not know how to properly use the equipment there is only 25 uses before the Survey tool breaks and is no longer functional.

Make the module take the same amount of resources as a survey tool, so the overall cost is 2x that of a normal survey tool.

I'd pay a good penny for these(atleast 1k each) if it meant i could get my 15+ points back im all but wasting to use my surveying devices.

I don't mind because I still need Business III to set up shop, but your point is taken that it is discouraging that we don't have the ability to find the resources ourselves. But, that is the case with the other crafting classes, such as Ranger. What it does is force class interdependency. If you want to be totally self sufficient, you have to pay the price. That is the basis of the system and it appears to be working just fine.

I find that people are willing to do just about anything for money these days. Offer a novice Artisan $1000 to survey resources for you. Pick out what you need from SWGCraft.com and he can find whatever you need.

Well... I guess I will join the Party.

I agree that this issue must be worked on. Although some of my friends are artisan based, that certainly doesn't mean they have the time or inclination to go out and find my Dolovite Iron or Yavinian Fiberplast.

Player mission present a problem, however - We have to ensure that we pay for the costs of the players to do this for us. A novice artisan cannot, more than likely, afford to go to Lok and clone and afford the trip back home. Higher skilled people "might" do this if they were just running along in a group to do destroy missions, but I really think they might not. And then, whats 1k to them for their troubles?

Also, this could come to be expensive. Server resource cycles may come once per week. So do we pay up to 10k per resource per week? Not considering quality? I don't have that kind of money available.

- So why not this solution:

Improve Artisan survey skills in some way. Give them really high range, maybe 512m, and/or a new ability at higher levels of the survey skill to find exemplorary quality (higher than what is available on the planet elsewhere) resource mines which they could then place a harvester on (this would be an automatic skill that has a certain percentage chance of going off and the stats vary, but overall are better than what is available on that planet for that resource).

Next, do what they are doing with Pet Stim packs - allow everyone to use a resource tool, poorly at best but still able to use it. Set it with a small range.

As far as being able to "see" the quality of the resources, have an additional box which will give information on the resource, but only at high concentrations of that resource - say like 70+.


I think that this is not a bad suggestion as it does improve the ability of the artisan profession with what they want and likewise allows the Medic related classes to use surveying skills - just not as well as the artisans.

In addition, artisans will still have the ability to sell high end quality resources to the medic based classes as they may only exist poorly on planets during an off cycle. This particular fact will help us not have to deal with having a 33 OQ 100 PE resource if we are willing to pay for it.

- Silax the Mime

Am I the only person who has nearly mastred Doctor (only a little crafting away from it) and never once picked up Novice Artisan? I get all my organics by hunting (Scout skill are actually useful for other things than crafting, unlike Artisan) and inorganics can be purchased very cheaply on the bazaar. It isn't that hard to master Doc without ever being an Artisan. Take it from someone who has.

We aren't talking about resources for exp... we are talking about getting specific type or quality resources for crafting, particularly crafting advanced components. As a CM, for me the resources I need to make quality poisons and diseases are hard to get, if at all. People don't sell what I need for adv. infection amplifiers and such. Sure, my poison with crappy quality resources still does 200 damage every 8 seconds, but it can be way better with higher level resources and advanced components. Same thing goes for meds and stims, or even the BE line.

I am sure everyone can get by on crappy resources for exp, because the quality doesn't matter. But would you rather have a mediocre Med E, or a really awesome one?

- Silax the Mime

Arrow, if I wanted to stick to standard medicines, I can afford to by everything I need on the bazaar. Both organics and inorganics go for about 3:1 these days, if you're willing to by bottom-shelf ingredients.

But all of the advanced subcomponants require planet-specific resources that - with the exception of Tatooine fiberplast - are not really used by anyone else. Ergo, artisans don't look for them, because there's better money to be made selling houses, guns, and armor than in selling raw materials to credit-starved doctors. I'll bet anything that my Stim Ds using Advanced BECs and Advanced LSs are at least 50% better than anything you can make without them. I make Stim Bs at about 33/330, and that's using only decent materials, not really, really good ones. I can easily see 35/350 if I spent the time to find all 900OQ resources.

So yes, it is possible to make Master Doctor without ever using a single hard-to-find resource. But you're nerfing yourself if you do it. Plus, you've decided to invest 15-30 skill points in Scout instead of in Artisan, so you aren't really much better off for doing so.

Traigus, I have to disagree with your basic argument here. It could just as easily be argued that none of the other crafting professions (i.e. artisans) NEED surveying. Architects can just buy their resources after all, etc.

To me the important point to note is that while it MIGHT be argued that Medic is not a crafting professions, it absolutely must be argued, IMHO,that any of the advanced Medical Professions (including BE, here) most definitely are crafingt professions because of the need of utilizing crafting in order to advance into those levels of the profession.

Certainly it is true that crafting is only 1/4 of our respective trees (except for BE, I think, where it is more) whereas for artisans it is all 4 branches, but out item complexities and normally lower XP gain (complexity means our items take longer to manufacture for less XP than what many artisans can use to grind on.) And, of course, for the many already maxing out their skill points, XP if of no use anyway, anymore.

In that respect I think we have already given up a LOT for a useless bone thrown at us in Beta (/medicalforage) for what are otherwise non-existent skills in advancing in a required branch of our profession.

Our primary method of obtaining those needed materials without artisan capabilitiesis, as has been mentioned, through the purchase of good. However, for any Doc really worth their salt out there we need soome very specific requirements in resource needs. If you are lucky then on some servers and/or some locations you just might find some folks putting those needs up on the bazaar for reasonable prices. In my experience, however, those resources are not to be found ont he Bazaar or somebody's vendor, nor are most surveyors willing to contract for medcical resource requirements when they can turn a much better profit selling to weaponsmiths, armorsmiths and architects. So it might very well be a "seller's market" out there, but it's not much of a market when most of the buyers simply cannot afford the prices requested.

My preferred solution to the situation would be to provide simple surveying capability the same as the surveyor levels to Pharmocology. Or worst case scenario would be to add it to the Med Usage line of each of the elite/advanced/hybrid profressions that branch off of Medis.However, sampling would be limited to only a single unit of a resource per sampling tick (failures for retrievel of none of a resource would still be possible, of course.) In this way we can see if a particular resource matches our needs and still be able to find locations for placing harvesters(which we are still dependent on artisans to supply us with anyay). But it would be difficult to even think about competing with an artisan on the hand sampling level. As it is it is hard enough for a Medical proessional to compete with an artisan on the resource market as well, simply because of our varied resource requirements. Sure you can sell half of what you pull up, but if what you pull up doesn't have the stats those weaponsmiths, armorsmiths and arcthitects need (and rarely do we really overlap) then you still won't be competetive with the full-time surveyor.

I definitely think this is something that medics of all kinds need and that not supplying it to us really was a sever oversight.

*cough*

Organic Chem. not Pharmacology.

Two reasons:

1 - its the line that seems to be crafting

2 - BE's require Organic, not Pharmacology.

Good point. i was lookig at it from the point of view of the current /medforage skill. OC probably would be more appropriate in that respect.

Yeah, it would most definately need to be in the OC branch to aid the BEs...

Traig...it's been months since my last rant...didn't think I had any more in me. But, well, here goes.

We are a Crafting Profession. We simply are. There is no argument there. We HAVE to craft to Master, or buy from someone else who DOES craft. But, the fact remains, there is indeed CRAFTING involved within our profession. And there is a LOT of it involved.

So we don't branch off from Novice Artisan. This makes us suddenly NOT a crafter? How so? How? Tell me. Our B-Level meds take 3 seperate components. And it just goes up from there. We are as much a crafting profession as, at the very least, Artisan.

You say we're greedy and making a power-grab. I say we're trying to find alternatives. Do I want to be able to use the current artisan-only survey tools? Yes. Does that mean it's the ONLY solution to the issue? Obviously Not.

Other ideas have been brought up regarding this; limited-use tools that Artisans make that they can sell(lord knows they need the help in this arena), the ability to use dumbed down versions of the survey tools, the ability to only sample one unit at a time while STILL having failures, etc etc.

Doesn't sound like a 'power-grab' to me. Sounds like a bunch of like-minded individuals who are attempting to make the best use of their skill points.

As for us becoming miners without investing into the Artisan profession at all, why not just do like they had suggested at one point and simply Cert all the harvesters? Then we'll be left using the personal ones, which is all I use currently, that provide just enough to make meds for use and sale and have a bit left over for stockpiling for those times when the resource shifts in the wrong direction.

All we're, all I'm trying to do, is give us a different option. CHs have the option of using the new pet-stim(after it actually works) or keeping Novice Medic and using B-Stims.

Why can't we get something similar in intent?

Why does that make us imbalancing bastards hell-bent on stealing skills from other professions for the sole purpose of overpowering our 'class' to the point of 'uberness'?

I don't know about you, but I just want to find some resources...without wasting 15 Skill Points to do it...

I think it was my turn to rant...it was pretty nasty... still though your logic does not follow.


My reponse is.. If you wanna be a subset of artisan by claiming to be a crafter (which I might be inclined to agree with, considering the amounts fo crafting I do).. then fine.. pay the 15 points for novice artisan, JUST LIKE all the other artisans.

Seems fair to me.


I, however, DON'T want to be a subset of artisan.. I want to be a medic... that means I want to find solutions they are MEDIC SPECIFIC... not stolen unfairly from anoter profession.

I, personally (again I should be clear to those of you jsut arriveing... this is a personal opinion.. and has nothing to do with currently being the Medic Corrspondant)...

I personally, will stand 100% behind any productive request that makes medics able to get materials... through encoutraging other players to get them for us, or through a new game mechanic... but I will rant and scream bloody murder at any attempt to hijack an existing profession's skills, or duplicating them exactly with a different name.

I am not aruging the problem.. the problem is there (and BTW for those of you lurking who want Miner back... Miner isn't the solution to this problem... miners will sell metals to weaponsmiths like everyone else).. we are not getting the materials we need.

I AM arguing that filching /sample and /survey, is greedy, petty and shortsighted.

We NEED a NEW way to get those materials.

-T
(PS.. that was really pretty calm for one of your rants... I think we may be switching places lol.. I'm getting all unhinged about this...)