Politician Archive

Research center seems to work well. The Docs in my community love it. As an architect I get the highest possible extractions rates 60% of the time, instead of 30-40% of the time in the past.

Im not sure if it is worth the 125k though.

Thanks for doing that testing, Ewach. I'll be looking foward to seeing your results. What I would like to get from this is some statement we can make to the devs about the value of the specializations. They are a great concept, bringing the kind of decision making you see in RTS games and games like Civilization to SWG on a massively multiplayer scale. My concern is to get them properly balanced, so that they feel like useful features and rewards to the player cities who have earned them.

Here is the line up of city specializations including weekly costs and the benefits:

[quote]

Sample Rich- 70k cr / week Sampling in the city provides 20% more resources and a 10% greater chance of finding resources.

Manufacturing Center- 50k credits / week Crafting done in a 'Manufacturing Center' earns a 10% bonus to prototype assembly results, significantly reducing the chance of failures.

Research Center- 125k credits / week Any experimentation done within a 'Research Center' is enhanced. A 15% bonus to the final result roll is added during the experimentation phase of crafting.

Clone Lab- 80k credits / week The cost of clone insurance in a city with the 'Clone Lab' specialization is reduced by 20%.

Improved Job Market- 80k credits / week Missions taken in a city with an 'Improved Job Market' grant a 20% increase to their rewards.

Entertainment District- 80k credits / week Entertainer healing is 10% more effective in an 'Entertainment District'.

Medical Center- 80k credits / week Medical healing is 10% more effective in a 'Medical Center'.

Stronghold- 150k credits / week A 'Stronghold' has trained its militia members to the peak of their abilities in the methods of tactical defense. Militia members in a 'Stronghold' get a 50 point bonus to all defense rolls against other players.

Industrial Society- 200k cr / week An 'Industrial Society' gains the bonuses of both the 'Manufacturing Center' and 'Research Center' specializations. Master politicians get this.

Scientific Society- 175k cr / week A 'Scientific Society' gains the bonuses of both the 'Medical Center' and 'Entertainment District' specializations. Master politicians get this.[/quote]

In my city, for example, we decided against the cloning facility as a specialization due to what we felt was a cost imbalance. Saving 200 creds per clone, we'd have to be doing 400 clonings a week to make this a break-even deal for our citizens. Even if we called it a loss-leader in trying to attract other players to our city to use our cloning center, we'd have to generate considerable extra business in our shops every week from players attracted to our town by the cheaper cloning to make up that 80k per week maintenance, and it is not clear to me that saving 200 creds is enough motivation to get any player to go out of their way to clone.

Let's look at all of the specializations this way, in terms of cost-benefit (for instance, can your crafterssave enough in a week on reduced crit fails to make it worthwhile to spend 50k per week to be a manufacturing center?) , and see what we can tell the devs about how much we value and use these abilities. If many of us are using and enjoying them, great. If not, let's get them balanced so that they are valuable and add some fun decision-making strategic gameplay.

My opinion:

Sample Rich: Worthless. Most people don't place harvestors in town for a few reasons: First, why pay the property tax, second having to get zoning rights is a pain, third most towns don't want extractors in town and ask you to not place them. That leaves hand sampling, no one does that anymore.

Manufacturing Center: Not worth Much. Most crafters use factories, so the problem of crit failures is pretty minimal these days.

Research Center: Worth 50-100k. Crafters are seeing positive effects on their work. Not sure if it is resulting in higher sales or not. The medics love it for poisons, diseases and such. I don't think it is worth 125k. My cities maintenance is at 500k, more than 20% for the specialization is too steep.

Clone Lab: Worthless. As you said the cost benefit analysis isn't there. Now with people not being able to use NPC cities as "closest cloning center" I see even less benefit.

Improved Job Market: Worth 50-100k. One way to really differentiate your city. However, most people go to the adventure planets to make cash, so not as great as one would hope. If my city was on Dantooine, would love to have this one.

Entertainment District: Worthless. What is 10% more effective? So it takes 10% less time to heal someone? I guess buffs being 10% better might be worthwhile, but mind buffs take so long most people use food or drugs.

Medical Center : Not worth Much. I would think you would be better off making medicines 15% more effective that work everywhere (using research), than having the results of your medicine be 10% more effective in town. Wound healing is quicker and cheaper since it takes less doses. You really need healing in the field not in town, limited value.

Stronghold: Not worth Much. With the removal of city warn the value of this is greatly reduced. Some people have faction bases in their town and this is probably worth having. Defensive roles never seem to do much for me, I would rather see an increase to offensive roles like 10% to damage, 15% to accuracy. If city warn comes back, may be worthwhile?

Industrial Society: Worthless. Since I see no value in MFG Center, why bother spending the cash, just stay with research Center.

Scientific Society: Not worth Much. I don't see the value of entertainment district and think the value of Medical center is very low, so putting them together doesn't help.

Sad to say that most are worthless. I hope some folks come in and prove me wrong, but everyone I know has gotten research center or job market.

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Mkappus wrote:

My opinion:

Sample Rich: Worthless. Agreed, Worthless. Most people don't place harvestors in town for a few reasons: First, why pay the property tax, second having to get zoning rights is a pain, third most towns don't want extractors in town and ask you to not place them. That leaves hand sampling, no one does that anymore.

Manufacturing Center: Not worth Much. Most crafters use factories, so the problem of crit failures is pretty minimal these days. Maybe valuable to architects, noone else who uses factories will care.

Research Center: Worth 50-100k. Crafters are seeing positive effects on their work. Not sure if it is resulting in higher sales or not. The medics love it for poisons, diseases and such. I don't think it is worth 125k. My cities maintenance is at 500k, more than 20% for the specialization is too steep. We get this tomorrow. I can't wait. Anything with more than one useful experimentation line will benefit from this. Buffs can have full strength experimentation AND require only 90 med use instead of sacrificing one for the other -etc etc. The cost IS worth it. As head crafter of my guild, I am happily footing the entire bill for this.

Clone Lab: Worthless. Agreed, worthlessIt is already cheap to clone. As you said the cost benefit analysis isn't there. Now with people not being able to use NPC cities as "closest cloning center" I see even less benefit.

Improved Job Market: Worth 50-100k. One way to really differentiate your city. However, most people go to the adventure planets to make cash, so not as great as one would hope. If my city was on Dantooine, would love to have this one.Disagree! Cities that have bases will give the players doing faction missions a HUGE bonus. 20% extra cash for fighter types is a huge boon to them.

Entertainment District: Worthless. Agreed Worthless - What is 10% more effective? So it takes 10% less time to heal someone? I guess buffs being 10% better might be worthwhile, but mind buffs take so long most people use food or drugs.

Medical Center : Not worth Much.Worthless This one actually made me mad.Does ahospital giveANY benefit? My master Doc/CM runs the hospital, and the ONLY advantage to it I can see isthat it is a 3-lot house giving you the MOST-EFFICIENT storage space in the game. Besides, a mouse droid for about 7k will give this benefit forever.Iwould think you would be better off making medicines 15% more effective that work everywhere (using research), than having the results of your medicine be 10% more effective in town. Wound healing is quicker and cheaper since it takes less doses. You really need healing in the field not in town, limited value.

Stronghold: Not worth Much. Disagree! Cities with bases have fighters around ALL-THE-TIME. The benefit from this could be STAGGERING when repealing an attack. With the removal of city warn the value of this is greatly reduced. Some people have faction bases in their town and this is probably worth having. Defensive roles never seem to do much for me, I would rather see an increase to offensive roles like 10% to damage, 15% to accuracy. If city warn comes back, may be worthwhile?

Industrial Society: Worthless. Since I see no value in MFG Center, why bother spending the cash, just stay with research Center. Not worth Much - for the same reasons he gives.

Scientific Society: Not worth Much. Agreed I don't see the value of entertainment district and think the value of Medical center is very low, so putting them together doesn't help.

Sad to say that most are worthless. I hope some folks come in and prove me wrong, but everyone I know has gotten research center or job market.

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Bajeezus wrote:

Sample Rich- 70k cr / week Sampling in the city provides 20% more resources and a 10% greater chance of finding resources. Garbage - The only people who hand sample are newbies (prolly not in a city) or grinders working up Artisan (and know all about the macros). Now if this specialization were to "stick" to you when you were out and about, and affected any harvs on your lots, well, thats something I could jump on board with! SO my harvs run 20% more effectively...that makes my ber10 Mediums an effective 12. Very nice. And it only works for the ones on my lots. Maybe my survey tool gets the bump up to the next level too. I can survey beyond 320m.

Manufacturing Center- 50k credits / week Crafting done in a 'Manufacturing Center' earns a 10% bonus to prototype assembly results, significantly reducing the chance of failures. Marginal. As other have stated, serious crafters use factories, and lots of them. I personally have kept 6 of them busy for nearly 2 days cranking out powerups. Besides, the name and the description seem to be at odds...This *shoudl* be the specialization that effects Factories. 10% less maint and Power AND faster. That would be totally worth it for all 3 to be boosted 10%.

Research Center- 125k credits / week Any experimentation done within a 'Research Center' is enhanced. A 15% bonus to the final result roll is added during the experimentation phase of crafting. I have to defer to the other crafters...as my sig indicates, and for those in the know, experimantation is either broken, or I only have 1 real line to experiment on (droid quality? whats that?). But I can see how its good for the rest of the crafters who can put the extra point or 2 into a different line.

Clone Lab- 80k credits / week The cost of clone insurance in a city with the 'Clone Lab' specialization is reduced by 20%. Garbage - THis one ties in with PvP too much to be useful to the majority of the players in the game. I'd be truly suprised if ANY city has kept this for more than a week. Now, how about reducing further any decay if they clone at the lab in the city? That 1% if insured become 0%, and the 5% if uninsured becomes 1%.....That would be worth it.

Improved Job Market- 80k credits / week Missions taken in a city with an 'Improved Job Market' grant a 20% increase to their rewards. Not too bad, but could use some tweaks. Maybe you can get special missions at these city terminals, worth the same, but you get a chance for different loots as well. Maybe the range is decreased, etc...

Entertainment District- 80k credits / week Entertainer healing is 10% more effective in an 'Entertainment District'. Garbage - Master Entertainers can heal over 200 BF in less than a couple minutes in a group. Who cares about PC Cantinas? The Devs cities have a monopoly on this area. Even our city Holo grinders will not spend tim ein the city Cantina...it's just not worth it. And besides, healing can be done just as well in any house. WHat if the Entertainers get a "salary" equal to the amount of XP they get? So after healing someone for xx damage, they get 200xp AND 200cr. Maybe their HAM heals faster in a City Cantina with this specialization.

Medical Center- 80k credits / week Medical healing is 10% more effective in a 'Medical Center'. Garbage - See Entertainment district.....What if Buffs had a 25% extension of time, or effectiveness?

Stronghold- 150k credits / week A 'Stronghold' has trained its militia members to the peak of their abilities in the methods of tactical defense. Militia members in a 'Stronghold' get a 50 point bonus to all defense rolls against other players. Fine for PvP cities.

Industrial Society- 200k cr / week An 'Industrial Society' gains the bonuses of both the 'Manufacturing Center' and 'Research Center' specializations. Master politicians get this. Since this is 2-in-1, refer to the above parts...in addition, all the numbers should be a little bit higher, as befitting a Master skill...so the Maufacturing Bonus is now 20%, and the Research is 25%

Scientific Society- 175k cr / week A 'Scientific Society' gains the bonuses of both the 'Medical Center' and 'Entertainment District' specializations. Master politicians get this. Okay, what is the deal with the name!? Exactly how did they equate Science with the Tango or Robot, or the latest Fusion-Jazz tune? This shoudl be renamed to something like "Utopian Society", or "Mardi Gra's", or "Holistic Retreat". Even with a small boost to the base 2 Specializations, it's not worth 175k. You'r really have to juice this up to make it worth it. Maybe raising the Civic structure cap, or doubling the Decoration cap. A city where lots of healing and entertainment go on should proly be a bit prettier than your run-of-the-mill city. Maybe even unlocking a new set of Gardens or decorations. A 100m x100m Rock Garden, or Botanical Garden, or Meditation Garden. Maybe this city can place Casino Terminals (please give games a graphical interface!), or how about a being-made pool for fishing? Pick a relaxing thing! This SPecialization has the possibility of being the coolest one out there! But no mater what, CHANGE THE NAME!!!

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One of the first things I'd like to get feedback on is how many of you have used the city specializations and how you think the cost-benefit balance is working on those.

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Last week we were a Manufacturing Center. Along with being Mayor, I'm also a Master Artisan/Master Architect and I didn't note any significant difference in the number of critical failures.

In particular, at least one time I was hand crafting Medium Mineral Harvesters and had 2 out of 7 fail and come out as only BER 6 instead of the customary BER 10. (Using all same resources and components).

Of course, this is only a subjective opinion as I did not do any kind of controlled crafting prior to implementing the specialization or keep records for statistics.

This week we are a Research Center - the blurb states that it "adds 15% to the finall experimentation roll". Again, I've not seen any difference between the items I crafted before and after enabling this specialization.

My next step is to pull out my crafting droid, go outside the city limits and craft 10 items with same resources and then come back into the city and do the same. I'll record my observations and post them here.

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Mkappus wrote:
Lets get some more opinions. It drives me crazy that only 3 of the 8 specializations we get are worth anything and that the 2 master ones are worthless.

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Research Center:

My city has research center, and to be quite frank I can't tell if this is doing anything for us.

Assumption: Research center would in effect give me 1.5 more experimentation points either by literally giving me another point, or by making it 15% more efficient requireing me to use fewer points to max out a line.

This would mean if I can get something up to 97% using 10 experimentation points before, I can now get it to 97% with a maximum of 9 points. This simply is not true.

Yesterday, I WILL admit that I have an extraordinarily low research failure rate, but since I was working on large harvesters and only doing 1 box at a time, my sample set is too small.

Is it possible that all research center does is reduce the number of research failures??? If this is the case, then I am not happy with it at all. I may as well tell my mayor to skip this and save the cash.

Ok, I completely understood what Research center did.

Misinterepretation: I thought research center gave me the equivalent of 1.5 experimentation points, enableing me to make better products.

Correct interepretation: Research center reduces research failures, and improves research successes.

As such I need to drastically lower my opinion of this city specialization. Research does NOTHING for someone who makes stuff in a factory, it does help architects a lot if they intend to make harvesters one at a time, but architects are the only discipline that this is going to matter on.

So, my change of opinion from above -

Research Center: Worth 50-100k. Crafters are seeing positive effects on their work. Not sure if it is resulting in higher sales or not. The medics love it for poisons, diseases and such. I don't think it is worth 125k. My cities maintenance is at 500k, more than 20% for the specialization is too steep. Research center reduces the amount of research failures. This is nice, but certainly "NOT WORTH MUCH" to a majority of crafters. The end result is that when making schematics you will not need to make as many on average to make a good one. Since creating the schematic is cheap in resources compared to making 1000 items in a factory, this is basically a "who cares" bonus.

Here's test results that where posted on Armorsmith forum concerningResearch Center. I think it might be usefulto you: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=armorsmith&message.id=28267

I also have a question about Manufacturing Center. Haven't seen much information about it at all, but from what I can read in this post you all think that it only makes a difference with crit. failures. Correct me if I'm wrong in my assumption but I though (based on the description posted by Bajeezus) that it not only reduce the chance of failure but also enhance your prototype assembly result. What I mean is that when you assemble something (before you get to experimentation) your prototype can be 0 to 100 quality, where 0 to let's say 15 is crit. failure (don't really know if this is true) and 60+ is amazing success. As far as I understand this system the number is selected based on resources you used and random generator. So my question is, does manufacturing center brings up your chance of hitting amazing success on prototype assembly (in math terms does it change quality of the prototype from 0-100 to 10-110), or does it only reduce the chance of crit. failures (from 0-100 to 10-100). If my assumption is correct, this option might be more valuable then research center.