Shipwright Archive
Thread: Focus Thread: Loot Versus Craftables
TomoRainer
Tue Dec 07, 2004 4:25 am
#79
The only loot items that are undeniably better than crafted are capacitors. A few things, like boosters and engines, are in some ways better crafted, in some ways better looted (though YPR rates on crafted engines definitely need a bump). Shields might fit into this category, too, though I really haven't seen any non-reward ones that compare to crafted. There's no comparison between crafted armor and looted. As for weapons, the even-numbered ones do tend to have .600-.620 armor/shield effectiveness, but they also have a .400-.440 refire rate with a heavy energy drain--which means their DPS isn't much different from a .352 speed crafted blaster, and they're destroyed by a .265 speed blaster with a speed upgrade. What's left, droid interfaces and reactors? Interfaces seem like a wash, and while I've seen a couple really nice low-level looted reactors, I also sell more reactors than anything else but armor, which suggests the abundance of great looted ones may be overstated.
The point of this summary is to show we aren't exactly in dire straights and any changes to the balance between looted and crafted need to be very carefully considered. The plethora of loot gives pilots cash to buy our stuff, and the chance for a really nice item gives them the incentive to keep flying. I do think we could use some more help, but a real possibility for useful loot gives JTL a lot of staying power, something we shouldn't be eager to screw with.
The point of this summary is to show we aren't exactly in dire straights and any changes to the balance between looted and crafted need to be very carefully considered. The plethora of loot gives pilots cash to buy our stuff, and the chance for a really nice item gives them the incentive to keep flying. I do think we could use some more help, but a real possibility for useful loot gives JTL a lot of staying power, something we shouldn't be eager to screw with.
Ahrwynn
Wed Dec 08, 2004 3:00 am
#80
BioBlender wrote:
I dont know I think that it is prety close to being perfect. I like that there is a chance that Looted parts will be better then SW crafted items. Thay dont last forever so let people brag that thay have this or that.
Well, the new patch blew this argument....the higher-up pilots end up doing 90% PvP and now no decay at all.....
The uber-loot goodie lives on infinitum....
Diorchas
Sat Dec 11, 2004 8:46 am
#81
I suggest that crafters be given the opportunity to make a schematic when they RE an item. Perhaps it could be a limited schematic if unlimited proved to be too imbalancing.
Having something like this would keep the pilots pleased because loot will still be integral to the crafting process (and, ultimately, the final product would be better) and it would also keep the Shipwrights happy because they wouldn't be made irrelevant by uber loot.
There are many tweaks possible and various ways to implement it, but I think it would go over well with everyone involved.
ikolian
Sat Dec 11, 2004 9:13 am
#82
Gah, quite whining. From what I've seen so far, (As a pilot and a SW) crafted is better than the average looted, and RE'd is better than crafted in pretty much all cases except the capacitors and that one 92.x speed reward engine. This seems fair to me; you can't get away with just straight loot, so you buy crafted, and if you're willing to put the time in (or fork out the dough) you can get stuff even better in the form of RE, which shipwrights do for minimal cost and by running a RE selling business you could make some decent profit.
Just my 2 cents.
Graxul
Mon Dec 13, 2004 12:35 am
#83
keep in mind though that even though looted equipment is better you still have to go through a shipwright in order to make looted items even better than before. Why don't shipwrights sell more reverse engineered loot on their vendors beyond level 3 or 4. You could probably charge more for themthan player crafted and no resources would be required just time collecting the pieces. Sheer profit. There are components in high demand that justaren't being made or get sold out quickly. Myself I'd buy player made armor more if they sold reinforced armor platingwith little to noexperiment points in mass. Such armor is often better and more economical in light or low mass ships than higher level armor that is mass reduced...the mass reduction isn't enough to warrant the decrease in armor. More higher grade missles such as concussion mark II and III's, spacebomb missles I and II, including the launchers.
The beauty of looted equipment right now is what makes jtl fun atm while the devs try to come up with some real decent content for space. The players get nice equipment that they can use unlike the looted weapons in the ground game which are utter trash and unfun to get. In order to make looted equipment better a player must go to a shipwright to get it reverse engineered...thus keeping the motto that player made items should be better than loot. Currently most Shipwrights I know don't charge a set fee or any fee for that matter for reverse engineering looted equipment. Mainly because they want more items to reverse engineer on the off chance that they may get a schematic part for the firespray and eventually make some at an incredible profit. A set fee for the level of reverse engineered equipment could be something reasonable for the player...much like slicing equipment. (1000cr )x=set fee...where x=level of items to reverse engineer. Most of the player base should be able afford such a price setting and little work is involved for you only time and the cost of making component analyzers. If however you go out and aquire the equipment yourself charge a price well over the price you charge for player made equipment...since the reverse engineered equipment is better. Only time would be involved and rich players would buy the pre reverse engineered equipment just to save themselves the time and effort of setting up a reverse engineered set themselves. And once again this would only be a small time investment since there are plenty of spawn areas that drop level 1-8 loot(tier 3 npcs) or if you really want to take some time making the level 9 and 10 equipment and charge a considerable amount more for the reverse engineered item. Money can be made from reverse engineering you just have to set it up in a way that would be well accepted by the community.
Message Edited by Graxul on 12-13-2004 02:42 AM
Message Edited by Graxul on 12-13-2004 02:45 AM
pervel
Mon Dec 13, 2004 3:16 am
#84
ikolian wrote:
Gah, quite whining. From what I've seen so far, (As a pilot and a SW) crafted is better than the average looted, and RE'd is better than crafted in pretty much all cases except the capacitors and that one 92.x speed reward engine. This seems fair to me; you can't get away with just straight loot, so you buy crafted, and if you're willing to put the time in (or fork out the dough) you can get stuff even better in the form of RE, which shipwrights do for minimal cost and by running a RE selling business you could make some decent profit.
Just my 2 cents.
Shipwright is a crafting profession. There is no point in this profession if the main goal is to RE loot and sell it.
Redridge
Mon Dec 13, 2004 5:31 am
#85
I believe that it's all about having fun... if we are not having fun then why pay to play? in this balance is the key. What I see being discussed here is the method of obtaining balance.
hmm. My 2 cents: I'm favoring the crafted item boost angle. It's a tough call because i see so many interesting aspects to this prof. Ship Comps, RE of loot, repair kits (of which I still have oodles on my vendor after more than a month) and the Chasis.
so far the only items that I have NOT seen as space loot has been missiles and Counter-measure devices. I'm not sure anyone even uses them anymore...lol... seriously.. those two items have been my most popular item and my vendor is not even located in a high traffic area.
but back to the discussion at hand. if we are going to get a change in the SW prof... i say tweak the craftables a bit to make them stand out.
Graxul
Mon Dec 13, 2004 3:00 pm
#86
Well currently if I'm not mistaken you can only add one subcomponent to a weapon,capacitor,engine,etc. What if on higher level equipment you were able to add in more subcomponents or the subcomponents available gave a more enhanced benefit per experimental point used. One of the subcomponents that doesn't exist atm but should be added is a subcomponent that increased yaw,pitch,roll on engines...with say a negative impact on increasing its mass. One of the subcomponents removed for engines was the improved retrothruster component(not completely sure on name it has been a while since I last saw it) it was removed because it effected acceleration and deceleration which is now built into the chassis of the ship now. If this subcomponent was reintroduced to effect yaw,pitch, roll at a decent amount then this could help alleviate problems with crafted yaw pitch and roll rates being subpar to looted ones.
A more radical approach would be to allow player crafted engines to be slicable by smugglers. This would either improve the stats on the component except mass, or decrease the mass on the component. Or an even more radical idea would be for slicers to be able to make player crafted engines capable of being reverse engineered. If that was done crafters could concentrate their efforts on enhancing one or two parts of a part and then combine it later to make a much better piece of equipment...although quite expensive if done with all player made craftables. This would create a codependancy with another profession that is in need of some help atm. In canon from the movies Han did say he did a lot of special improvements on his ship...this would be one way of making this happen.
rexan
Mon Dec 13, 2004 3:30 pm
#87
styx66 wrote:
So I can have a single thread to point our devs at, lets get a single comprehensive thread on your thoughts and examples of how (and which) looted items are better than crafted.
Message Edited by styx66 on 11-22-2004 10:07 PM
I'm a master shipwright and a pilot. And I like the idea of looted items being better than what a shipwright can produce, to a degree. However, right now, some of the looted items are FAR superior to what shipwrights can produce. I think we just need to tweek some of the SW components to get everythign in track.
1. Engines,I think we should combine the Yaw/Pitch/Roll experimentation into one experimentation field. I believe this would put crafted engines in par with looted ones.
2. Capicators, this just seems to be completely broken how much better looted items can be.
3. Boosters also need some help as well.
Other than that, I think the loot system is pretty good. Shipwrights can make very specific weapons. But RE'd ones are going to have better all around characteristics. I think this is a good thing.
Graxul
Mon Dec 13, 2004 3:42 pm
#88
In beta I was a master shipwright and one of the things i enjoyed the most about the class was reverse engineering. I'm a space sim junkie been one for years so I spend most of my time in space rather than on the ground..I feel more at home up there. I changed servers when jtl beta ended mainly because of the friendships I developed while testing the game. Since I didn't have the resources or the cash to become a shipwright I focused on becoming a master pilot of the smuggler's alliance first then became a TKM. I'm currently working on becoming a smuggler and doing some of the trees in pistoleer. Mainly because of the eventual smuggler revamp...and the roleplay value I have for being a smuggler and somewhat of a mercenary. But for the most part I'm a pilot. If the smuggling thing doesn't work out I will become a shipwright because that is the only crafting profession that I've actually enjoyed playing. And because of that I do care deeply for what a shipwright does and reverse engineering. Currently I do a lot of killing of npc ships in endor,kessel, deep space, and dathomir. I do this partially because I enjoy fighting in space and also because I enjoy getting loot that is actually worth something. I mainly collect level 8 and level 10 loot to have reverse engineered to put into my ship. I'm very patient in finding loot that not only has good stats but also has a certain look or sound on my ships. That is one of the things that keeps pilots like myself flying in space and a lot of shipwrights in business. Take away or nerf the good loot from killing npcs in space and you basically kill the fun in space.
Currently I have a partnership with a friend of mine that is working on getting master shipwright. I sell him the loot that I don't want and that he can reverse engineer and he'll help me get a firespray without having to spend millions on it...he wants a firespray as well. I'm quite certain you have friends or regular customers that are constantly in space fighting and helping out lower level pilots with their missions like I do. Approach one of them or send them an in game e-mail stating that you would like to purchase unwanted space loot at a reasonable price and at a convenient location and I'm quite certain that some of them would be willing to set up such a partnership thats long term. My only inconvenience atm with my current partnership is that I'm only allowed so many auctions on the market at one time...so what I'm not able to sell to my friend right away I keep in the bank, on my yt-1300, or in my house...until he buys what I offer him and can put more loot in to sell him. Such partnerships encourage interaction with other players and its mutually beneficial for everyone involved.
Also not everyone reads spatial chat in starports or in big cities due to all the spam. Because of this an in game e-mail to regular customers that buy products from you or get a lot of their parts reverse engineered by you would be best. I know myself I only read spatial chat when I'm looking for a doc buff and even then I use the in game word color sentence system to change the color of sentences with buff,master doc or bank tip to red...so I only scroll the spatial chat for the color coding and ignoring the rest. I also have chat boxes active only for those in my group or guild members. So you could not be getting business just standing next to the chassis dealer due to these reasons.
Message Edited by Graxul on 12-13-2004 05:59 PM
QuiGonJ
Mon Dec 13, 2004 5:21 pm
#89
I found this thread after posting in the other one, and concur with Rexan.
The capacitors are just ungodly compared to what I can make, and the engines out strip me also. Beyond that, the system is all right.
The capacitors are just ungodly compared to what I can make, and the engines out strip me also. Beyond that, the system is all right.
Insidius
Tue Dec 14, 2004 12:09 am
#90
Here's a suggestion to make reverse engineering more interesting, while at the same time, resolving the "crafting vs. looting" issue that's been on the forums lately.
Pilot loots an item.
Pilot takes item to shipwright, who Reverse Engineers the item into a subcomponent comprised of stat bonuses.
Shipwright then crafts a new item, using the reverse engineered subcomponent in the crafting process.
Shipwright creates an enhanced part from the subcomponent and his crafting skills combined, much like a weaponsmith would.
There you have it. Short, simple, and sweet.
Pilot loots an item.
Pilot takes item to shipwright, who Reverse Engineers the item into a subcomponent comprised of stat bonuses.
Shipwright then crafts a new item, using the reverse engineered subcomponent in the crafting process.
Shipwright creates an enhanced part from the subcomponent and his crafting skills combined, much like a weaponsmith would.
There you have it. Short, simple, and sweet.
Insidius
Tue Dec 14, 2004 1:41 am
#91
Shipwright crafteables currently worthless:
===Capacitors (low max charge/recharge values).
===Boosters (extremely low top speed/acceleration values).
===Droid Interfaces (all round).
===Engines (Only in regards to Yaw, Pitch, Roll values).
Mentioned parts that are fine as they are (as far as I'm concerned):
===Weapons: A low shields/armor effectiveness was mentioned, to this I say that's what subcomponents are for.
=========================================
People, let's just remember, that some loot SHOULD be better than craftable stuff. Please stop calling for the loot nerfs. I'm an Ace Pilot and a MSW; I get plenty of sales, and use primarily Reverse Engineered stuff. It's just like any loot: if you want the best, get a Krayt weapon.
===Capacitors (low max charge/recharge values).
===Boosters (extremely low top speed/acceleration values).
===Droid Interfaces (all round).
===Engines (Only in regards to Yaw, Pitch, Roll values).
Mentioned parts that are fine as they are (as far as I'm concerned):
===Weapons: A low shields/armor effectiveness was mentioned, to this I say that's what subcomponents are for.
=========================================
People, let's just remember, that some loot SHOULD be better than craftable stuff. Please stop calling for the loot nerfs. I'm an Ace Pilot and a MSW; I get plenty of sales, and use primarily Reverse Engineered stuff. It's just like any loot: if you want the best, get a Krayt weapon.