Shipwright Archive

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Niacia wrote:
1) I voted no. My reason for this is, that without factory support it takes a larger number of shipwrights to supply all the ships and components needed by the server population, thus allowing more crafters to have a part of the pie. Furthermore, as mostly a custom crafter the benefits of a factory would be very small for me. No factory support allows me to compete with the industrialists. It also negates the effect of x-server lot trades somewhat, because the amount of components produced has a more direct relationship to the time spend crafting.

3) A compromise would require, that the benefits of factory support are balanced in some way. As a handcrafter I would need an edge to compensate for the volume advantage of factories. A way to compete. One thing, I suggested earlier is: No experimentation for schematics.

Or maybe reduced experimentation schematics. How about, it costs 5 experimentation points to create a schematic. Then handcrafted items would usually be stronger the factory crafted components, thus balancing the factory advantage.

I also could imagine something along the lines of higher resource requirements for factory crafting. Then, the advantage of factories would be volume and quality, but the drawback would be price. (Quality would factor in, because only optimal builds would be made into a schematic).

However this difference would need to be significant.

Regards

Niacia

Message Edited by Niacia on 11-25-2004 12:22 PM

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1.

I would have voted No.

My reasoning for this is as I feel that with the current method of limited factory suport it makes Ship Wright much more of a custom proffesion which you need to design stuff around the indiviual customer insted of placing many cookie cutter style veriations on a vendor & hoping they sell. As well as this it stops one group of ShipWrights from dominating the market like we often see with Weapons, Armour & Food.

Also with the lack of optional Factory Support we have gained the, in my opinion, great bonus of having no required factory run time either. Our proffesion is the only one which never needs any identical products, & I think this is a very good thing, when I am crafting I prefer to be doing that, crafting as opposed to waiting for Factory X to finish componant A & Factory Y to finish componant B so you can put both comonantes in to factory Q for part C etc.

3.

Personly I belive the balance of factory suport we have is just right so no compromise is needed. However by that I do not meen that if a good idea did come up I would not agree with it. Most ideas that would often be suggested would I have a feeling would be "Limit our factory runs for final products to 100, or to 10" unfortunatly I think this in many cases would just lead to more lot swaping & so not help in the long run.

Just my 2creds.

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Niacia wrote:
1) I voted no. My reason for this is, that without factory support it takes a larger number of shipwrights to supply all the ships and components needed by the server population, thus allowing more crafters to have a part of the pie. Furthermore, as mostly a custom crafter the benefits of a factory would be very small for me. No factory support allows me to compete with the industrialists. It also negates the effect of x-server lot trades somewhat, because the amount of components produced has a more direct relationship to the time spend crafting.

3) A compromise would require, that the benefits of factory support are balanced in some way. As a handcrafter I would need an edge to compensate for the volume advantage of factories. A way to compete. One thing, I suggested earlier is: No experimentation for schematics.

Or maybe reduced experimentation schematics. How about, it costs 5 experimentation points to create a schematic. Then handcrafted items would usually be stronger the factory crafted components, thus balancing the factory advantage.

I also could imagine something along the lines of higher resource requirements for factory crafting. Then, the advantage of factories would be volume and quality, but the drawback would be price. (Quality would factor in, because only optimal builds would be made into a schematic).

However this difference would need to be significant.

Regards

Niacia

Message Edited by Niacia on 11-25-2004 12:22 PM

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styx66 wrote:

This thread is for the issue of factory support.

The poll showed a slight majority in favor of no change to factory support, but a significant number of you believe there should be some change.

So in this thread, please:

1. (Optional) State what way you voted (or would have voted) in the poll.
• (Optional) Why you voted (or would have voted) this way.
  
2. If you believe factory support should be increased, please state how you think this would be best achieved with minimal reprocussions to those on the other side of the issue.
   
3. If you believe factory support should not be increased, please provide (if any) proposals you would be willing to compromise on.

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PLEASE do not start major arguments or flame wars here. This post will be deleted and/or restarted if it gets out of hand. This will be a post the devs eyes will see, so lets make it good.

Also, I have a dev statement about why factories are the way they are. I will post when I get the OK.

Message Edited by styx66 on 11-25-2004 01:34 AM

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1. I understand that shipwright is a sort of different approach crafter, one that generally works on orders, fullfils customer expectations and thats a main reason for people not wanting more factory support

2. My personal belief is however, that increasing factory support will not change this role, because there are more limiting factors:

• resource usage - sheer volumes of resources going into schematics (especially higher level and hulls) will limit ability of people to mass produce, due to average run size and loses on experimentation to prepare blueprint


• very big variety of statistics - there is awesome variety of modifications and stat configurations you can apply to components, so its really impossible to mass produce everything

3. Reasons why it would be worth having factory runs

• it hurts casual crafters/guild support crafters - there are people who dont have time to really play the SW role ofbeing an order maker, because they play casual times, yet they would like to craft ships and have a decent offer on vendor - something you cant do currently. Guild support crafters - that goes especially for leveling equipment - you know you won't be using it later, so it has to be decent, but you need to supply your guild with mind numbing and repetitive work of making X sets of tier 1-3 ships and equipment


• you really want to cry seeing those 3 amazings on master level hull to be wasted for one product


• it will actually give you time to focus on custom jobs for master pilots who know their trade and need really custom stuff with specific requirements, then sitting in your crafting shack thinking "only X engines, shields, weapons to make before I can make Y hulls... Awww I should be making this custom order" while clicking same stuff over and over again, drinking your favourite drink so you dont go nuts.

As for compromises, IMHO it would be good enough to allow factory running components, maybe (if possible) make max schem count lower ? like 50 ? or 25 ?

However if factory running components is in, it would be illogical not to allow factory running hulls, as they are much more gated by resource requirements

PS one thing, consumables are factory made, and I yet have to see more then 50 item runs of Mark IV protons or Mark III concusions.

Hope that helps

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styx66 wrote:

This thread is for the issue of factory support.

The poll showed a slight majority in favor of no change to factory support, but a significant number of you believe there should be some change.

So in this thread, please:

1. (Optional) State what way you voted (or would have voted) in the poll.




• (Optional) Why you voted (or would have voted) this way.
  


2. If you believe factory support should be increased, please state how you think this would be best achieved with minimal reprocussions to those on the other side of the issue.
   


3. If you believe factory support should not be increased, please provide (if any) proposals you would be willing to compromise on.

---

PLEASE do not start major arguments or flame wars here. This post will be deleted and/or restarted if it gets out of hand. This will be a post the devs eyes will see, so lets make it good.

Also, I have a dev statement about why factories are the way they are. I will post when I get the OK.

Message Edited by styx66 on 11-25-2004 01:34 AM

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1. I voted Yes for more factory support.

2. Limited schematics numbers is the way to go.. If you want to use a factory, they should limit the schem to 50 units or less. I have noticed a continuity with orders. Example, about 90% of my customers want fusion reactors with the highest energy possible and the rest of the experimentation points going to mass... Factory support would help me cater to those customers, and I could take custom orders for people that want them configured otherwise.... Remember factories is an option, the other side doesn't have to use them.

1) I voted YES for several reasons:

I simply cannot see any valid arguments for why factories will hurt this profession or the game in general. I do not believefactories wouldmake it one bit harder for new players to enter the profession. I do not believe factories would enable any single shipwright or a small group of shipwrights to dominate the market. There are two main reasons for this.First, the resource requirements are high compared to other professions. This creates the "bottleneck" that will ensure that you cannot flood the market. Second, this might be the only crafting profession where there could be an actual demand for both mass-produced "standard" components and for custom-made components.

I consider this decision by the devs to be a "nerf" to the crafting system in the game. And I fear that this is only the first step towards nerfing all crafting professions in this way. Nerfs are often made because of the fear of powergamers ruining the game for others. I am not a powergamer but I have no fear of them either. Even in the crafting professions where there is little need for custom-made components, it is not at all impossible to penetrate the market as a new player in the profession. If fact, factories is one of the things that make this possible. It enables a single player to compete with the bigger guys because he can also mass-produce stuff.

Lastly, there is much more to crafting than just the mindless clicking of buttons in the crafting windows. There is the hunt for good resources. There is the actual combining of those resources and making them into either a prototype or a schematic. There is running the factories. There is managing your vendors. There is advertising your products. The combining of resources has a high degree of randomness to it. The ability to make schematics is there primarily to limit the impact of that randomness. It is all well and balanced. I feel that by taking schematics/factories out of the game without changing the randomness, they have severely unbalanced the system.

2. I believe that factory support should be increased

As stated above I believe that full factory support would be best for the game. But since the poll showed a small majority against this, we have to come up with a compromise.

Option 1) Increase factory support to include components. This is a very simple solution that actually might be supported by the majority. I think many of those voting against factory support feared that chassis would also be mass-produced.

Option 2) Increase the factory times by a factor of 5-10. If you increase it any higher than that, it doesn't make sense to use factories and this compromise will be of no use to anyone.

Option 3) Make a daily limit on the items produced by each schematic - perhaps a number of 10-20. Please note that this is NOT the same as decreasing the total number of items that can be made from a schematic.

Option 4) Decrease the total number that can be made from a schematic to no less than 100. If it goes any lower than that, I cannot support this compromise. This should be done for the final components and NOT for the sub-components. As a successful (but not a big) weaponsmith I don't actually think I have ever used more than 100 out of the 1000 potential items on any of my final products. Resources shift all the time and better ones spawn.So already today you simply toss away schematics before ever using it to the full extent.

Any combinations of the above options are possible.

3. If factory support is NOT increased

I could actually live with the current degree of factory support if the following was also implemented:

Completely remove all randomness when making prototypes.

The randomness is one of the main reasons I want to use factories in the first place. The devs have already removed part of the randomness: You don't lose your resources when getting a critical failure on assembly. This could be extended to experimentation. If you get anything other than a "Great success" or an "Amazing success", the stats are not changed and the experimentation points would not be lost.

A = a) Full factory support - with manufacturing time at a rate of x5 or x10

A = b) Devs make STARSHIP FACTORY - Get certified for "1" for master shipwright box (or one questable reward nontradable)

The crafing system is not designed for manual production:

Double Click Crafting tool

Press enter

Double Click subcomponent

Click input hopper

Double Click resource

Double Click resource

Double Click resource

Double Click resource

Press enter

Press enter

Click allocate experiment points

Press enter

Press enter

Click allocate experiment points

Press enter

Press enter

Click allocate experiment points

Press enter

Press enter

Press enter

Press enter

Delete std name

Ctrl Shift V - paste name

Press enter

FOR ONE ITEM

Message Edited by Tricki on 11-26-2004 05:32 AM