Shipwright Archive
Thread: A Warning to the devs
CommTampers wrote:
First of all, I understand that you devs and SOE folk are very pissed off that your video was leaked and that you want to keep your expansions uberly secret as to get our money before we know what the expansion is totally about, but take my message:
I believe I speak on a large percent of the shipwright community's behalf. I am very worried that the capital ship expansion will cut shipwrights out of the expanding content. I beg you devs to please RELEASEthe info from your closed doors so that we shipwrights can give informed and useful input. The ROTW release already has shipwrights pissed off with the craftability of good ships. More good stuff that isn't craftable may cause an even further cut in shipwright satisfaction.My warning: If you fail to make fun capital ships, and any fun ships for that matter, craftable, then you can loose my subscription money and any of my remaining respect.
CommTampers,
First, from what I here, this isn't going to be an expansion, but a publish (and possibly the next one).
Second, I don't know any "pissed off" Shipwrights. I'm pretty happy with the way things are shaping up. There are some issues that need to be addressed. However, IIScander and DP are working hard to resolve those issues.
Finally, I'm pretty happy with what I have to craft. RotW was very much geared to deliver content and the rewards for these quests had to be substantial. Sure, Shipwrights were cut out, but how do you think the Armorsmiths, Weaponsmith, and all other crafters feel--the same.
A comment for those of you who frequent this forum more than I:
I know people have suggested making it possible to wander around in space stations, making them places, with cantinas and med centers and vendors. What I would like to see is something a bit more modest, the ability to dock with a space station and reload missiles and countermeasures and unload cargo holds. Being able to stay in space and not travel down to the ground everytime your launcher runs low or your cargo hold fills up would make life in space a lot easier.
And if we will be able to dock on capital ships, as suggested in the video, such things ought to be possible.
Message Edited by Aurelius_Pendragon on 06-09-2005 02:35 PM
zarko669 wrote:
Thunderheart specifically said that there would be an even split of craftable/loot ships in the future. I'm hoping at the time he said that he knew about the plans for Capitol ships.
Fuu
Trust me, they aren't going to let us craft capital ships--they are going to be quest rewards. Mind you, this doesn't prevent the devs from introducing other types of ships that we would be able to craft.
I'm trying to understand though, and I'd love to hear from other Shipwrights on this topic. Why do you want to be able to craft capital ships? In fact, what is the big deal regarding whether we craft ship chassis? Let me share my thoughts here:
- Crafting ship chassis is a huge drain on resources. I cring every time I craft a master ship, as I watch 150K units of resources sucked into the creation of a new ship. Can you imagine pouring 1M+ units of resources in even the smallest of capital ships? I have to run 8 harvesters with a BER of 13 for about 7 days on a 90%+ concentration of a resource to obtain about 1M units of a given resource. There are other problems associated with this as well--like having enough of one kind of resource. Of course, you could just dump recycled resources into it

- I cannot charge anywhere near the mark-up for chassis as I do components. In fact, I will typically only craft chassis upon request or part of a package order.
- Where is the fun in it? What exactly are you doing when you craft a chassis? You're scrambling around from container to container looking for the appropriate resources to dump into a chassis and pushing your experimentation points into mass until they are gone, then put the rest into HP (and even then this doesn't make much difference). In my opinion, this represents a mindless task that a monkey can perform. Whereas taking a custom order ot equip a player's ship--it's fun--it's challenging--it requires interaction with the player--it requires the use of my brain.
Personally, I could care less if all ship chassis became rewards of one kind or another.
Jounar wrote:
I honestly cant see the new capital ships being either player owned or player crafted. The impression I got from the video was that it was all part of a mission ( the boarding and capture of the corvette) and once the mission was over you lost control of the corvette.
The video didn't tell all. A friend of mine that was at Fan Fest shared his impressions with me and I'm passing them on.
I'd almost rather see us make something or have a special role in the capital ship quests. In fact, I'm writing a guide for new shipwrights, then I'm moving on to complete the shipwright quest document and pass it on. Perhaps there would be a special role for us shipwrights that would get us out of the shop and into some adventure. I'd gladly trade the responsibility for crafting capital ship so that I can have some adventure role in aquiring them.
We'll see though, even the wise cannot see all ends eh?
One thing about capital ships, I assume people can load their ships on it and fly out - so shipwrights could basically become support roles here and stay in a hanger and craft parts as ships dock and restock/repair them. People need to refill their missiles/chaffs
The shipwright is the guy who lays the keel.
That being said, the size of a capital ship could be very daunting and the logistics problematical at best to build a capital ship.
Rather than see a pure DWB type dungeon (for lack of a better term) to get a capitol ship I would rather see one that brings together different crafting disciplines into the mix. DE for computers, Armorsmith for armor, and so on. There is precious little content for most crafters. You go up there, getthe ship, and have like an hour to get the thing under weigh for example.
And yes, there are mad SW's out there. I am still ticked with RotW, and on my server there are far fewer SWs now than when it was released.
Sony has broken many promises, and words are nice, but unless they start delivering, then they dont mean much. And I am against new (and buggy) content until the old bugs are addressed, or at least significant progress is made. Try doing the JSF mission....
I should add that my Smuggler has been waiting ages (well over a year) for a promised upgrade, so until Sony shows the code it does not exist IMO.
Message Edited by Ashet on 06-09-2005 10:23 AM
Message Edited by Ashet on 06-09-2005 06:08 PM
We are not Hull techs alone either. For the most part we craft everything that goes into a starship. There are probably always going to be some chassis we can't craft and some components we can't craft. Judging by the fact that mining equipment and the heavy varients of the starter ships are being requested, special ordered, and bought off the market 10 minutes or less after placing, at least in some case, I'd hardly say ROTW gave the shipwrights the shaft.
I understand that we want to be able to craft the best of everything in game. I will continue to express the community's desire to have more craftables. In the case of ROTW, in my opinion, we were given way more profitable items to craft than those quest ships would have been.