Shipwright Archive
Thread: Number of shipwrights in decline? Is is starting? How is it on your server?
Coran_Sienar wrote:
Like what? Surveying for resources?
Easy. Just pay the Master Artisan who's your friend 30-60K for each resource spawn point. But that's an Artisan skill, not Shipwright.
Deploying harvesters? Offer your friends free components and chassis for their lots. Heck, some of them even have their old, dusty harvesters that they haven't used in ages that they'll be happy to put into service for you.
So what else is there? Perhaps you mean the incessant mouse-clicking required because of lack of factory support? Oh, that's right...Doctor isn't a REAL crafting profession in your view and dabblers can dominate the market. (Why don't you go ahead and pm that assertion to Mono, Whippetor Esikof Tarquinas?) Well, what about Armorsmiths or Weaponsmiths or Architects? What exactly isfun about having to click your mouse more often than any other crafting profession?
The most custom work any shipwright does is in REing loot.
Message Edited by Rhysen on 01-06-2005 11:12 AM
Of course all of them also can fly as well so can go out to space and play there as well. I run a decent busines but do not try and service the whole server. I try and geep some stock for those looking for parts to fix up ship and also do more custom requests. Tend to travel with the tag on and when not doing resource shopping/hunting also carry around my crafting bag and my trusty crafting droid. That way can make ites on request as needed.
Coran_Sienar wrote:
What I don't understand is why you'd want to force everyone to play the way you like to play.
Quite frankly, I think that Shipwright would be a healthier profession if there were more dabblers and more Shipwrights, in general. A reduction in the number of shipwrights in each server (which is exactly what is happening and why our Correspondant is concerned) is not a good thing and is going to be the final result if the current situation persists. Sure, there will still be dabblers like me who master Shipwright just for fun and not really to have it be the end-all career choice. However, a small minority or a clique having control over the policies that affect the vast majority of the player base (i.e., PILOTS), is a *very* bad thing.
Now, the Shipwright exodus has been fueled by one major factor: Burnout. There isn't much you can do about powergamer burnout. Didn't you drop all of Shipwright, once?
But you can do something about burnout caused by unnecessary drudgery, competing with space lootand insane resource requirements. For space loot, I'm with theideology of, "If you can't beat them, join them." It doesn't mean that I won't stop fighting for better crafted components. Butconsidering the lack of decay (and consequences of decay)on ship parts andchassis(with the notable exception of armor), there will be a plateau for sales of any non-expendable crafted components, no matter how good they are.
Armorsmiths are doing well because armor decays with use.
Weaponsmiths are doing well because weapons decay with use.
Tell me, is there any difference in performancein theany componentyou bought or looted when JtL first shipped and now due to its age, conditionor use? That single factor will eventually kill the market for this profession.
Yes I know. I used to be an armorsmith too. I've had plenty of ship armor decay as well as other parts eventually wear down. It takes while and yes, decay is something we need more of and it is hurting us.
However I think decay is the ONLY thing I seem to agree with you on.
Message Edited by Subcriminal on 01-06-2005 12:16 PM
EdOWar wrote:
Not one single shipwright item requires a subcomponent. Just slap some resources together, do some experimentation and voila, out comes a hyper-jump capable engine or a fusion reactor. If shipwright had the same level of crafting complexity as other crafting professions, then I would say that factory support would be a necessity. But it doesn't. Frankly, shipwright is kind of like 'crafting for dummies' compared to every other crafting profession (and yes, I'm a shipwright).
If you think shipwright is a tough profession now, full factory support would kill it. Right now, burnout is the only thing keeping the low-ballers from completely killing the profession. The fact that they have to hand-craft everything is what gives other shipwrights a chance to compete. If the low-ballers had the ability to mass produce and supply the entire server, shipwright would be worse off than Architect.
Slim Vargo, Corbantis
No, it keeps the half-hearted crafters out: the ones who want to produce everything while they sleep at night so they can wake up, restock and otherwise hardly lift a finger. You're wrong about the lack of factory support being responsible for keeping lowballers away,I'll admit that it help helps a little but it's notdriving reason behind it. Iffactory support was the reason thengood composite armor would be dirt cheap and armorsmiths would be dirt poor. What keeps lowballers out is resource quality and rarity. You can't make good ship parts with crap. You need resources with two and sometimes three or more attributes of +900 to make a superior product. You also have to wait for specific resources to spawn in order to make certain parts- generic metals and chems just won't do. Lowballers can't harvest enough of the good resources to keep up with demand (assuming they are using good material and not crap), nor will they make enough profit margin in the long term to buy resources (that can easily fetch 20+ cpu) once they run dry.
This is also why any lowballers you see are probably selling chassis. Chassis is the only SW product where resource quality doesn't matter. You can't play that same game and makes shipcomponents, especially ones without subcomponents, because your end product will SUCK comapred to elite crafters.
Message Edited by Subcriminal on 01-06-2005 02:27 PM
Subcriminal wrote:
EdOWar wrote:
Not one single shipwright item requires a subcomponent. Just slap some resources together, do some experimentation and voila, out comes a hyper-jump capable engine or a fusion reactor. If shipwright had the same level of crafting complexity as other crafting professions, then I would say that factory support would be a necessity. But it doesn't. Frankly, shipwright is kind of like 'crafting for dummies' compared to every other crafting profession (and yes, I'm a shipwright).
I'm very surprised that you're a shipwright. Why in hell would anyone want to make ship parts without the subcomponents that make them so good? That's like making composite armor without the layers- who on earth would buy that!!!I've never made anything without using subcomponents, the performance boost they give are what makes the parts sellable. I'veseen shipwrights who make everything sans components and the ones near my corner of theed have gone out of business, or are gone from the global map at the very least.
Please read what I said very carefully. I said that no shipwright item requires a sub-component. All shipwright items only have optional sub-components. And even then you can only use one optional sub-component. By way of example, a laser rifle requiresthree power-handlers and a blaster rifle barrel, and can take two optional sub-componets (scope and stock)--and quality matters for every sub-component in that rifle.
In my view, a laser rifle should be infinitely less complex item to make than, say, a fusion generator. A fusion generator is basically tapping the same energy generated by stars, and keeping it bottled up with a magnetic field in a tiny metal container without exploding. But no sub-components are required for that reactor. In game terms, it's less complex to craft a fusion reactor than it is to craft a laser rifle.
I agree that using the optional sub-components in shipwright items makes them better...but that wasn't my point. My point is that shipwright is much less complex than any other crafting profession, and this is one reasonwhy full factory support isn't needed.
Hell, with factory support, I could just plop the resources in a factory and pump out 1,000 top-of-the-line reactors. Do you think that 1,000 reactors would be enough to supply the entire server? I sure do, at least for a good while.
I wouldn't name shipwright "crafting for dummies", that would be tailoring. Since resource quality makes a huge difference in the end-product, it's not like any moron can plop harvies down in their backyard, suck up whatever crap resource spawns and make anything close to whatan elite Shipwight does. They wouldn't be able to compete since people seek out quality- which you can't make without subcomponents and good resourcesin the SW profession.
Even compared to Tailor, shipwright is still crafting for dummies. True, resource quality isn't important for Tailor, but they still require sub-components (trim, metal fasteners, synthcloth, fiberpanels, reinforced fiberpanels...I'm sure there are others), thus makingTailor a more complex crafting profession.
You can't just slap together some steel, copper, aluminum, ore, radioactive and polymer and plop out a finished product. First you need to do a factory run of synthcloth. Then you migh also need a run of trim and/or metal fasteners. Maybe you need some reinforced fiberpanel too. I'll grant that quality and experimentation doesn't matter in this, but it still takes time, planning and eats up factory time.
If you think shipwright is a tough profession now, full factory support would kill it. Right now, burnout is the only thing keeping the low-ballers from completely killing the profession. The fact that they have to hand-craft everything is what gives other shipwrights a chance to compete. If the low-ballers had the ability to mass produce and supply the entire server, shipwright would be worse off than Architect.
Slim Vargo, Corbantis
No, it keeps the half-hearted crafters out: the ones who want to produce everything while they sleep at night so they can wake up, restock and otherwise hardly lift a finger. You're wrong about the lack of factory support being responsible for keeping lowballers away,I'll admit that it help helps a little but it's notdriving reason behind it. Iffactory support was the reason thengood composite armor would be dirt cheap and armorsmiths would be dirt poor. What keeps lowballers out is resource quality and rarity. You can't make good ship parts with crap. You need resources with two and sometimes three or more attributes of +900 to make a superior product. You also have to wait for specific resources to spawn in order to make certain parts- generic metals and chems just won't do. Lowballers can't harvest enough of the good resources to keep up with demand (assuming they are using good material and not crap), nor will they make enough profit margin in the long term to buy resources (that can easily fetch 20+ cpu) once they run dry.
No crafting profession is for half-hearted or casual players, at least not if you want to run a successful business.
You're right that resource quality is an important factor. But it's not that hard to get large quatities of resources with a little help from a guild or some friend. I use 10 heavy mineral harvestors. On a 80-90% spot I can get roughly 1 million resource units in a week. In a two week span I could get over 2 million resource units. Even a low-baller can last long enough to get to the next decent spawn on 2million units of a really good resource. True, you need more than just onetype of goodresource to be successful, but without help from guild members or friends, no shipwright is going to get every resource they need in just a week anyways.
And for the record, lining up a factory run of composite armor isn't easy. First you run the layers, then the segments, then the final pieces of comp armor. And there are nine pieces of comp armor to run (with multiple segments in each piece), and 1,000 layers won't be enough to do a full run of all 9 armor pieces, so you have to make multiple schematics oflayers and figure out how to use them between the segments, and you'll probably have to do multiple schematics of segments too. Mind you, this is all for just one run of comp armor. The logistics are mind-boggling andcan take days, even weeks to finish a run of comp armor. Which is why I left AS (give me WS anyday of the week.
This is also why any lowballers you see are probably selling chassis. Chassis is the only SW product where resource quality doesn't matter. You can't play that same game and makes shipcomponents, especially ones without subcomponents, because your end product will SUCK comapred to elite crafters.
Here's my point about factory support. Time spent producing required sub-components in a factory is time spent not producing a finished saleable product. In other words, required sub-components are a time-sink that help to limit the level of production. A T-21 requires 10 blaster power handlers with the same serial number (as well as a blaster rifle barrel). Because I can only produce 1,000 power handlers (2 or 3 days of factory time), that means I can only make 100 T-21's at a time (actually, only 99 because 10 are used in the T-21 schematic). That's one reason why T-21's are so expensive...because they're a huge pain to make (true, they also require some specialized rare resources, which is another reason why they're so expensive). I guarantee you that if I could just slap a few resources together, with absolutely no required sub-components, and pump out 1,000T-21's theywouldn't go for anywhere near 30K to 70K. More likely they'd go for around 5K to 10K, even with the importance of resource quality.
If a fusion generator required three or four sub-components, especiallymultiples of the same component, then I'd be all for full-on factory support. The added complexity would help to reduce production, eat up factory time and the logistics of planning all those factory runs wouldprobably keep most of the low-ballers away (that may be one reasonwhy there aren't too many low-baller WS or AS).
But if you give full factory support to shipwright with it's current level of craftingcomplexity, servers will be flooded with easily produced product. Buying the cheap stuff and reselling it for a mark-up would be pointless, because the low-ballers would just crank out another 100 reactors or blasters in their factory.
Slim Vargo, Corbantis
Message Edited by Subcriminal on 01-06-2005 02:27 PM
Message Edited by EdOWar on 01-06-2005 02:05 PM
Subcriminal wrote:
Coran_Sienar wrote:
What I don't understand is why you'd want to force everyone to play the way you like to play.
Likewise.
...
- I wanted to be a shipwright to make my own ships....well...turns out that I don't like JTL much, and I primarily use my ships to avoid shuttle waits, nothing more, nothign less. Since I don't like JTL, I lost my primary customer...ME!
- The ship chasis' simply take too many resources. Crafting is a pain, and getting all those high quality resources is either another big pain, or a expence that I just don't with to invest in.
- The profession seems more like a job than a game. I'd get home from work/school and I'd have 3-4 custom orders. By the time I completed the orders, I had no time to play my own game.