Shipwright Archive

Greetings Shipwrights,

Welcome to the continuing State of the Shipwright Profession thread. This thread deals with current shipwright issues.

Thanks!

IIscandar

Report on the state of the Shipwright Profession

The data in this report was compiled using input from Shipwrights across the galaxies. In many cases it includes positive and negative feedback on a particular subject. At the end of each negative is a suggestion to resolve the issue.

What players like about the shipwright profession:

Customer Interaction

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  The number one positive comment involved customer interaction. Shipwrights expressed great satisfaction with the process of determining a pilot’s needs and then crafting components to meet them.

Custom Component Design

• The amount of customization in the crafting of starship components was the number two positive comment. Shipwrights find the ability to tune stats to a specific purpose such as rapid fire or high damage very appealing and rewarding.

Reverse Engineering

• Shipwrights enjoy the “puzzle” aspect of reverse engineering. Searching for a component with the stat they want to increase is challenging and the end result can provide the best components in the game.
  

The Grind

• The large resource requirement to master shipwright is a positive to many who feel it encourages less competition and more of a sense of accomplishment.
  
  
  
• The time to master shipwright can be spent either by gathering resources ahead of time so the actual experience gain time will be short, or it can be spent crafting over a long period of time gathering resources along the way.
  
  
  
• Shipwrights enjoy the complexity of the profession. Although the stat requirements can seem over whelming, many feel this too adds to the sense of accomplishment.
  
  
  
• Due to the disproportionate difference in resource quality effect between chassis and components, chassis created during the grind have a good chance of being sold.

Lack of 100% Factory Support

• Since most items are hand crafted this sets the shipwright apart as more of a “craftsman” profession with less focus on mass production.

No force sensitive point conversion

• Some shipwrights prefer that the “jedi” portion of the game not be involved with shipwright at all.

Looted Components

• Shipwrights can supplement income from crafted components by collecting/selling or buying/selling looted components to pilots.
  
  
  
• Gives pilots an item they can sell to shipwrights to earn credits they can then spend on new components or ships.

What players dislike about Shipwright:

• With factors such as large resource requirement to master, high inventory costs, and the requirement to hand craft most items, the demand for high quality crafted components is very healthy. Due to this demand, keeping a successful shipwright vendor stocked is a daunting task. Some shipwrights spend hours a day doing nothing but crafting for the weekend rush.



• Discourages shipwrights who want to be successful from spending time playing additional professions.
  



• Shipwrights wish they could replicate items that have 2 or more “amazing” successes.
  



• Suggestion: Allow for the creation of limited schematics for completed assemblies. If a shipwright has amazing success at experimenting on a blaster for instance, they could be allowed to make a run of 10 of that item. This would require a factory made crate of whatever sub component was used so the stats would be identical. This ability to create factory schematics could be tied to shipwright boxes (2count per tier and 2 for master 10 total), or it could be a “master only” ability.

Unable to view or work on another player’s ship

• Shipwrights often find themselves in an instructional role when working with players. Many questions must be asked to determine what a pilot is actually able to put in a ship. Mass of chassis, mass in use, mass of parts to be replaced, max reactor generation, energy drain of components to be replaced are some of the items you must know. If a pilot just wants to see if you can do better than their current components a complete rundown of the pilot’s parts must be done in chat. Mass and other calculations must be done out of game on paper or in a spreadsheet.
  
  
  
• Suggestion 1: Create an interface between the shipwright and the pilot’s datapad view of the starship or a trade type window that lists chassis & component stats. At a minimum this would allow a shipwright to view the current stats of a pilot’s starship and components. Many calculations would still need to be done by hand, but this would eliminate the 100 questions session just to determine the starting point.
  
  
  
• Suggestion 2: Create a starship customization terminal that can be placed in a shipwrights shop. The starship still resides at starport but this special terminal is an interface with the starport’s ship terminal. It would allow a pilot to grant a shipwright the ability to customize the ship much as an ID window works. The shipwright can remove and replace components and when both are satisfied, the pilot pays and they both accept the changes. Any components removed are transferred to the pilot’s inventory. If the pilot’s inventory is too full, the transaction will not be allowed to complete. In the event of this failure, the added items return to the shipwright’s inventory.
  
  
  
• Suggestion 3: Create a Starship Hanger structure. This special building would allow a player’s ship to be worked on in a traditional monkey wrench kind of way. This might be difficult with the larger ships such as YT-1300, but could be possible. It would need to be the size of a generic guildhall with both floors above ground and opened as one giant space. Not only would this allow the same interaction with the pilot’s ship as a terminal, but would also grant both the shipwright and the pilot the ability to see the ship on the ground. This would also allow for a very starwarsy walk around your ship experience. It could also provide a preview of texture kits, and or paint kits. These buildings could have a high storage limit (500 – 1000) items and a “master shipwright” only requirement. When a shipwright is present in their hanger, they can register on the planetary map as open for business. Players could see right away where to go to have their ships customized.

• Suggestion 4: Create a Starship Repair station/ship. This slow moving station would be a POB ship that only a master shipwright(tier 3 pilot or below)could fly. It would have a bridge, stateroom, observation room, and a huge hanger that takes up the rest of the ship. Large enough to fit a YT-1300 in the hold, it would provide a place for pilots to get their ships repaired, upgraded, and painted. If a ship big enough to hold a YT-1300 proves too large, then some sort of docking mechanism (robotic arms and stablizing supports) could be a part of the master shipwright ship. Given the size of the Y-8, a docking mechanism might be the only way to service that ship.

Players unable to view what a chassis looks like before purchasing

• Playersare unable see what a given chassis will look like before they buy and generate it. They must leave the game and view pictures of the ships on the web to decide what they want or just hope for the best on what the different styles look like.
  



• Suggestion 1: Add artwork to the Chassis Blueprint object that shows the ship it will create. This could be a "model" of the ship or a "picture". Either way it would convey the future look of the blueprint once turned into a chassis. The icon for the blueprint could stay the same except in the trade window or vendor window.
  



• Suggestion 2: Create a new painting that shows all the ship chassis and their different styles. This could be one giant painting that has all the ships, or one for each faction. Not only would this allow a player to see what the ships look like in game before buying them, but would also add a nice new item for shipwrights to seek out from other players.
  

No Force sensitive point conversion

• Many shipwrights feel they should be able to convert shipwright experience to force crafting experience. It is the only crafting profession that does not allow for conversion.
  
  
• Suggestion: Allow point conversion or advise the shipwright community as to why the final decision was made to not allow it.
  

Using Deep Space to minimize decay to starship components during repairs

• There are many confirmed cases of Pilots PVP or PVE'ing in sectors other than deep space, travelling to deep space and using that sector to repair with. Rather than the full decay that would take place on these components with a full repair at a regular station, these pilots are only receiving the decay from 25% repairs so they can then travel to deep space to repair the rest. While no decay for deep spacewas a solution to encourage pvp, it does not seem that it was intended to bypass the normal repair process for combat in other sectors. This is having an effect on business from Master pilots who can go much longer than intended without replacing components due to repair decay.
  



• Suggestion 1: Modify deep space to only allow damage from death in that system to be repaired without decay. Any damage a ship has when it enters deep space will not be repairable without decay.



• Suggestion 2: Modify deep space so that only damage from PVP is repairable with no decay upon death. This would still allow damage from pvp deaths in other sectors to be repaired, but would not allow PVE death damage to be repaired without decay.

• Suggestion 3: Modify deep space so that damaged ships are unable to enter. A warning npc sends a message to the pilot saying they won't last long in deep space with dmg and suggests they get repairs before going there.

Message Edited by IIscandar on 06-02-2005 10:28 AM

Message Edited by IIscandar on 08-02-2005 01:43 PM

Unable to view or work on another player’s ship

• Shipwrights often find themselves in an instructional role when working with players. Many questions must be asked to determine what a pilot is actually able to put in a ship. Mass of chassis, mass in use, mass of parts to be replaced, max reactor generation, energy drain of components to be replaced are some of the items you must know. If a pilot just wants to see if you can do better than their current components a complete rundown of the pilot’s parts must be done in chat. Mass and other calculations must be done out of game on paper or in a spreadsheet.
  
  
• Suggestion 1: Create an interface between the shipwright and the pilot’s datapad view of the starship or a trade type window that lists chassis & component stats. At a minimum this would allow a shipwright to view the current stats of a pilot’s starship and components. Many calculations would still need to be done by hand, but this would eliminate the 100 questions session just to determine the starting point.
  
  
• Suggestion 2: Create a starship customization terminal that can be placed in a shipwrights shop. The starship still resides at starport but this special terminal is an interface with the starport’s ship terminal. It would allow a pilot to grant a shipwright the ability to customize the ship much as an ID window works. The shipwright can remove and replace components and when both are satisfied, the pilot pays and they both accept the changes. Any components removed are transferred to the pilot’s inventory. If the pilot’s inventory is too full, the transaction will not be allowed to complete. In the event of this failure, the added items return to the shipwright’s inventory.
  
  
• Suggestion 3: Create a Starship Hanger structure. This special building would allow a player’s ship to be worked on in a traditional monkey wrench kind of way. This might be difficult with the larger ships such as YT-1300, but could be possible. It would need to be the size of a generic guildhall with both floors above ground and opened as one giant space. Not only would this allow the same interaction with the pilot’s ship as a terminal, but would also grant both the shipwright and the pilot the ability to see the ship on the ground. This would also allow for a very starwarsy walk around your ship experience. It could also provide a preview of texture kits, and or paint kits. These buildings could have a high storage limit (500 – 1000) items and a “master shipwright” only requirement. When a shipwright is present in their hanger, they can register on the planetary map as open for business. Players could see right away where to go to have their ships customized.

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Arands wrote:

Wow, first?

Nice report, IIscandar.

I kind of like the idea for the if the graphics show it, the slots should allow it. Would really make each individual weapon mounted on an X-wing be important, rather than only needing to worry about 2 (or 3) weapons. Each blaster would have to be carefully spec'd to be sure it complimented the other weapons onboard.

Then again, it would take a complete revamp of the chassis' setup.

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Thanks Arands,

The idea of this thread is to not only describe certain issues, but to provide input on solutions. I'm looking for smallsolutions as well as pie in the sky dream solutions. I feel that this game has many years to go, and that means there will be a lot of publishes that could contain the things we'd like to see. It is important to view this world as an ongoing one that can and will change as time goes by. So, nothing wrong with saying you'd like to see something even if it would mean a huge change. The world of tomorrow is a huge place.

Message Edited by Rypht on 05-12-2005 11:26 PM

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Seloth wrote:

this new quest engine sort of blows anything out of the water that i can make.

ypr in the mid 60s

spd 96

and that is before you re this thing.

am i missing something?

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the capacitor "tweaks" that happened along with the engine tweak was just not enough. we produce higher mas capacitors so they should have a much higher energy output.

I'm only new to shipwright but if i dump all my experiment points into cap energy, i cant break the 1k mark with a regen over 11 on a lvl 7 capacitor. in one ship I'm using a looted capacitor with regen of 12.1 and total output of 1184(before an RE). and it only lvl 5 or 6 with half the mass of anything that i can craft.

YPR on engines needs to be pushed up a little bit more, I'm getting much better engine results than i was when jtls launched so thats ok, but most of the "tweak" is on max spd.