Merchant Archive
Thread: Would item creation at time of purchase help DB issue?
I'm not a merchant, but I was just reading TH's In Development post about vendor limits and its sounds like Merchants are getting screwed over by the DB problems. I made a post to that thread with an idea I thought might help their DB problems a bit, but I wanted to see what the merchants thought of it. This would affect both vendors and factories.
Instead of a vendor containing some number of finished items, it would hold manufacturing schematics and the resources and components needed to make the items in those schematics. A customer would browse the items available for sale. The item is created and resources/components used when the customer makes a purchase. The item will sell as long as resources and components are stocked for a given schematic. A new, unused item sitting on a vendor would no longer take up DB space until someone comes along and buys one.
Bah too complicated. Now we can craft prototypes, manufacturing schematics, and "vendor items"?
It doesn't add any complexity to the system. It uses the same manufacturing schematic and resources already used by a factory. But instead of creating a run of 100 items at a factory, the item is only created when the buyer clicks the "Purchase" button.
I outlined the details in Perilous's fine post about a Sad Architect. The short version:
Allow items with identical serial numbers (factory runs)to be listed on vendors with a single line, a "quantity" field, and a price per unit. Buyers can purchase as many (or as few) as they like, without requiring multiple vendor entries.
The database load drops like a stone, and both buyers and sellers are happy. Less relisting time, less carpal tunnel syndrome, happier customers.
No need for the kind of complexity you're talking about. A quantity field meets the same goal faster and easier.
Another caveat about the idea of the Vendor making stuff...
Tailor items cannot be customized (colors) until AFTER the Create Prototype crafting stage - how is the vendor supposed to know what color to make that cloak? 
This is the reason you don't find crates of clothes - they don't get customized until AFTER that stage (create manufacturing schematic, in this case).