Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: How necessary to being a DE is Master Artisan?
Thank you for the replies. I've read the FAQ and quite looking forward to DE actually.
I've never really done much crafting and was wondering how you guys get your resources. I have been asking for resources off my galaxies' trade forum and gotten no response and I have a combat char which I've been spending a lot of tiem with recently and not sure what to do regarding resources as I don't feel I ahve the necessary time to survey and harvest myself...
Most subcomponents need only grind quality resources. I sometimes mine them, but if I've got a lot of factories up, then I just buy them as cheap as I can.
For quality resources, there are a number of ways to get the good stuff. First thing is first - Get familiar with the resource names of the top three or four spawns of each type of resouce on your server. Knowing the good stuff makes your search for resources easier. To do this, use the "Find Resources" at swgcraft.com. Choose your planet,classof resource (i.e. tolium reactive gas) and put the experimentation %. For most things, this will be a 50 in Conductivity and a 50 in Overall Quality (check the component's experiementation % to be sure). When the results come up, go to the "rating column and click the down arrow. You'll then see the highest rated resources based on the experiementation % you put in. Some typical resources that require high quality:
Tolium Reactive Gas, Known Inert Gas, Copper, Steel, Metal (you can use whatever resource is highest in your glaxay - copper, alum, or steel).
How to go about obtaining good resources:
1) If something uber actually spawns (we have some GREAT steel right now on Bria), mine the heck out out of it. Get some buddies with extra lots and drop as many heavy mines as you can. 2) Check your galaxy's trade forum for people sell resources. 3)Check the Bazaar/GVS in the resource container - search the entire galaxy for a specific resource name (I do this daily). 4) If you're in a guild, ask your guildmates who has resources. Sometimes, they may even give you a good amount of something uber to help get you started (if they have been around for a long time). There may be other ways, but these, I find, are the most effective.
If you are in a guild of crafters, have tons of time to play, or do very low volume, then yes, you likely can get away buying your parts.
If you plan to do factory work, to have any semblance of self-sufficiance (virtually everything we make takes TONS of MA parts - they account for 1/2 the parts in some advanced droids), or just to be able to build any droid from scratch at will without carrying crates and crates of parts made by others all the time, then yes, you probably need MA.
We were told very long ago that this dependance would be addressed - and the Devs admitted that we are WAY out of balance when it comes to interdependance. No other crafting profession has this level of need to buy parts from a totally seperate profession just to make our products. Sure, other professions have a smattering here and there, or you could take a look at the BE/Chef relationship, but they still do not even begin to approch the very core functionality requirement between DE and MA. You cannot make any of our advanced droids without a minimum of a dozen MA parts, in many cases much much more.
I've always been of the school that wished the EMM's and EGP's were moved to Novice DE. I could deal with buying control units - it's not terribly difficult to purchase and store a single item like that but obviously becomes exponentially more difficult with so many parts to juggle. Serial numbers make this a nightmare.
AO
I'm lucky enough to ahve 3 characters and with the respec I ahve had ample opportunity to rejig them and start making the most of them so I have sacrificed almost all my merchant skills ofr Master DE and swapped Master Weaponsmith for Architect for a change and I should still ahve room to get back Master Merchant. As it is I ahve decided to make one of my other characters more of a surveyer so have allowed him to pick up Master Artisan too so ensure my self sufficiency.
I must say you've all be quite friendly compared ot other boards and you can expect a few more posts with "noob" questions as I get to grips with DE.
I presume that BH droids and possibly flight computers and the odd barker droid are what sells?