Shipwright Archive

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TomoRainer wrote:
Pervel, of those who expressed an opinion about factories, 60% didn't want them. That's more than a small majority--in the Senate, that'd nearly be enough to pass a constitutional amendment. We don't have to compromise on anything. If wisdom fails us, perhaps we will. But with the large majority of shipwrights in support of the current system, which exists for a reason (undisclosed though it may be), there is absolutely no mandate to change it. At all.

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pervel wrote:

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TomoRainer wrote:
Pervel, of those who expressed an opinion about factories, 60% didn't want them. That's more than a small majority--in the Senate, that'd nearly be enough to pass a constitutional amendment. We don't have to compromise on anything. If wisdom fails us, perhaps we will. But with the large majority of shipwrights in support of the current system, which exists for a reason (undisclosed though it may be), there is absolutely no mandate to change it. At all.

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Well, it was 56%. We can always argue when a majority is large or small. Your comparison with real-life polls are not that interesting. The fact of the matter is that there are a lot of people that think this could be cone better. Trying to silence those will not benefit the game. If it was a real-life vote, there would have been a proper debate on it first and it would not have been put up as a simple yes/no poll like it was done. This can be said about many of the issues in the poll that I think were made a bit too soon. I applaud Styx for taking the right path now and opening up for a more "official" debate on the issues.

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opening up for a more "official" debate on the issues

This thread is not an official debate it's an agenda for more factory support.

Questions 2 & 3 are points of veiw for increasing factories, no where in the "offical debate does it suggest keeping as it is.

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Shadwe wrote:


opening up for a more "official" debate on the issues

This thread is not an official debate it's an agenda for more factory support.

Questions 2 & 3 are points of veiw for increasing factories, no where in the "offical debate does it suggest keeping as it is.

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Of course it is a debate. Question 1asks you to voice your opinion about why you think factory support is good or bad. If you don't want it to be changed and you cannot live with any compromise, there is no point in answering the 2 other questions for you of course - except perhapsstating that you can accept no compromise at all.

I expect that Styx will collect the compromises and summarize them at some point. I don't know if he intend to then put up a vote on those compromises.

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Niacia wrote:
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.

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Message Edited by pervel on 11-26-2004 03:51 AM

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TomoRainer wrote:
I'm with Shadwe in that this third question is biased. It asks that, if we don't want factories, we should come up with ways to use them that might not be so bad. What kind of a question is that?

Both the game mechanics and, according to the information we have so far, the majority of shipwrights don't support factories.

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Message Edited by Tricki on 11-26-2004 04:59 AM

1. I want increased factory support.




• There are many reasons for why I want factory support, many of which have already been mentioned. I'll summarise my mainreasons:




• It will free up (some) of my time to be able to explore other aspects of the game. At the moment all of my in-game time is spent doing nothing but crafting and when I'm not crafting I'm gathering resources.


• From the buyers point of view, I have seen a lot of people complain that they have spent hours looking through several vendors that are low-stocked. So I think that increased factory support will benefit Shipwrights and buyers alike.
  


2. Increased factory support could be restricted in several ways but I think it might best be restricted by limiting the number of shipwright schematics that a shipwright can have to 1 or 2 shchematics. In other words, a shipwright can create a schematic for any component but they can only have 1 or 2 schematics in their datapad (or equipment factory) at any one time. This will avoid lots of potential issues. It will stop lot swappers or guilds from having 20 or 30 factories running at one time because the shipwright is limited to just 1 or 2 schematics. I also think it's a better solution than allowing us to create schematics for some components but not others because the problem we then would have is deciding which components to allow to be created in a factory. And then we'd just argue about the merits of allowing shields to be created in a factory but not engines, etc. The bottom line is that we should not be limiting what we can create in a factory. We should be limiting how much we can use factories and this can be done by limiting how many schematics we can use at any one time.




• Note that some people have mentioned limiting the number of factories that a shipwright can place. This wouldn't work because some shipwrights might also be weaponsmiths and of course we wouldn't want to limit the number of equipment factories that a weaponsmith can use (necessarily). But if you limit the number of Shipwright schematics that a shipwright can create at any one time then it might just work.

What are the arguments for having factory support?

Since the only evidence we have so far is that there is a significant and vocal minority that are not happy with the status quo, the case for factories needs to be made:

So far I've seen:
* It takes too much time: Which is either 'This jobs too hard' or 'I shouldn't have to spend *all* my time crafting' depending on your bias..

It's a fair point, but it appears that it's not affecting the majority of the players. I've not had a problem, don't play that many hours and split my time between 2 characters and two player cities. - In fact I'm less tied down by the time requirements than when I was playing a chef. (And you can reduce the amount of clicking by turning off crafting confirmations and by building macros - they're not *just* for grinding, can make quite a difference)

* Lack of supply:

Well, it's early to call that one - a lot of SW's are still grinding to Master, and there are probably more pilots flying more missions and upgrading more equipment now than there will be once the game stabilises again. (Or when everyone flees space to go play the Combat Revamp/Upgrade/Mirage

There are some interesting ideas though - the a quality difference between factory-made and hand-made items being the best, but the argument about how big that difference should be promises to be as passionate as the one about factories..

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IdleThought wrote:
There are some interesting ideas though - the a quality difference between factory-made and hand-made items being the best, but the argument about how big that difference should be promises to be as passionate as the one about factories..

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You are probably right on this one .

However, there was a good point up there. The problem with factory support is mainly due to x-server lot trades. Many of the solutions suggested would work, if there was no lot trades.

As a player limited to my 10 lots, a factory would not be much help. I could not keep it running anyway. Somebody running harvester farms with 70+ lots would not have this problem.

Therefore, such people would be able to outproduce my by one or two factors of magnitude.

Sure, I can buy resources. But even this does not help. If there is one Shipwright (or a small number of SW) that can provide all stuff for all players then nobody will take the time to look somewhere else. (And demand is going to drop. Probably dramatically, so this will become easier).


If x-server lot trades were eliminated from this equation, the situation would be somewhat better. Only, how could that be done. X-Server trading has been named an exploit, so I am sure, if there was a easy but fair way to eliminate this from the game. this would already have happened.

Another thought:
Comparing handcrafting and factory crafting, assuming full factory support:
Speed:
Factory crafting is better, because more then one factory can be used.
Quality:
Factory crafting is better, because only the best tries are made into components.
Storage:
Factory crafting is better, because of crates
Resource usage:
Factory crafting starts with a malus, but gets better, if you produce a large number of high quality items.
Customization:
This is probably the only point, where handcrafting is superior. The question is, how much demand would there be for customization, if standard parts are readyly available.

There simply is no way, a handcrafter could compete with full factory support.

Regards

Niacia

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

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


1. 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.
   


2. 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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I voted yes for increased factory support. I voted this way because items required for specific shipparts are vastly numerous (and rightfully so.) No matter how hard we try, we're simply not going to have 25 (twenty-five)hours in the dayto create everythingwe need.This prevents the player from being offered everything they could possibly use. Sure, there are vendors out there that are well stocked, but how long will they keep itup?And if they are, how it is effectingthem in the real world? Surely this doesn't apply to everyone, but there have been a significant few that have thrown in the hat already.

Poor factory support also prevents the individual crafter from doing other necessary things in the game. As for face-to-face interaction. - I do more of that than anything else.Anything. This is because I've built a very distinquished reputation as being fair, and caring for the customer's needs. I gladly spend20-30 minutes with an individual justto make them feel completely comfortable with their purchase. I could do more of this if I didn't have to hand craftnearly every single item. I''ve had to put off a lot of people because I had to be a hermit and craft something that I couldn't make fast enough for the 5 people asking me for it. As it stands now, my main has become my alt, and my alt ( A goof off character who mastered SW has become my main.)

Factory support should absolutely be iincreased for shipwrights. Those managing their inventory well, will do better. Those having high contact and repeat customers will also do better. Overall, everyone will win. Most of all the buyer.

Every item should have factory support. Granted, I will concede that 900-1200 seconds per item is not an unreasonable number. (15-20 minutes) This is by far, slower then a crafter can make itby hand. However, with the freed time, the crafter can interact with customers, stock vendors, check harvestors, and go about their daily business. This way, we could "leave our shops", and "come out of our basements"

ROCK THE VOTE: Vote YES for increased factory support.

Message Edited by Homper on 11-26-2004 02:56 AM

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TomoRainer wrote:

By the way, I do think your idea about removing crit fails and such from experimenting is worth some discussion, Pervel, especially if you consider it a serious alternative to factories. Having to destroy or discount so many components is a serious annoyance, and one that I'm not sure the devs intended us to have to deal with.

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Removing the randomness in crafting is actually something I have been hoping for even since before all this no-factory stuff happened for shipwrights. I see that randomness as doing no benefit at all to the game - it only causes frustration. It is a poor attempt to simulate a more complex crafting scenario that would occur in the real world. But if I wanted to play a game of chance, I would go play a game of Yatzi.

• At the current time, there seems to be a issue of fairness and balance in the game. Every single crafting profession has full factory support, except shipwright. Just looking at this from a 50,000 feet view, it seems broken. If the devs are trying to change something about the game (concerning crafting), then why do shipwright have to suffer?
  


• Playing devil's advocate, many people have pointed out some salient reasons to not have factory support. They have concerns with players that have the backing of large guilds (and/or player citites) providing near limitless resources, making it impossible for the "little guy" to compete. I have to say that I have had a lot of "guildies" visit my shop complaining about their shipwright being overwealmed with orders. Thus, some good may be coming out of the lack of factory support.
  


• However, I'm going to switch hats again. Other crafting professions that depend heavily on experimentation (as does shipwright) have an advantage over shipwright. When they are crafting an item and experience 3 or more amazing successes, they can turn the thing into a manufacturing schematic and make more than one of that incredible item. I do this all the tiem for ship component upgrades, but would like to do this with ship components as well.

Given these observation, I would like to present a proposal. Shipwrights should be to create manufacturing schematics for everything except ship chassis. However, we don't want to give the players backed by large guildes (and/or player citities) an unfair advantage. Thus, we limit manufacturing schematics for ship components (not upgrades) to a reasonable number. What is that reasonable number? 4? 6? 10? 25? Personally, I think the smaller the better. Something between 4 and 10 (inclusive).