Shipwright Archive

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 Shipwright: 31 responses

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

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  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.

No skill tapes

• Levels the playing field for shipwright and makes resources and experience the major factors in creating competitive components.

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: 37 responses

Shipwrights unable to compete witheven levelloot

• The number one dislike about shipwright iseven levellooted components can be drastically better than crafted. In cases such as capacitors (recharge rate) and engines (YPR), a very large portion of loot is better than crafted with no reverse engineering required.
  
  
• Suggestion 1: Increase base stat result onodd level(crafted/looted) engines (ypr) and capacitors (recharge rate). This would allow the current experimentation points to have more of effect and allow only the best of the best loot to beat crafted components as is the case with starship weapons, armor, and many others.It would also add value to theodd level loot andprovidemore reverse engineering opportunities for shipwrights.Currently a great deal of the odd level loot is sold to thenpc orshipwrightsto be reversed then destroyed.
  
  
• Suggestion 2: Add subcomponents to lootable items. It makes sense that portions of some looted components might be destroyed in the fight and only a subcomponent would be intact. (ypr overdriver for example). This looted item could be used by shipwrights to craft engines with ypr that can compete with engines looted whole.
  
  
• Note: A good long look at the balance between all craftable shipwright items and their looted counterparts is in order, but engines, capacitors, and boostersseem to be thethree most often mentioned.

Lack of 100% Factory Support

• 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.

Resource quality not as effective in chassis as components

• Using high quality resources on chassis does not produce results that encourage the expense of obtaining or using those resources. The kind of resources needed to make a chassis blueprint get even into the 90’s could sell for 25-30 cpu on the open market. The steel alone required for a 95% chassis would most likely sell on the open market for twice what the entire chassis would sell for.

• Suggestion 1: Increase the min-max mass range on chassis.
  
  
• Suggestion 2: Decrease resource stat requirements on chassis.

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.

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.

If the graphics show it, the slots should allow it.

• An Xwing has 4 cannons showing on the wingtips yet there are only 3 cannon slots.Tie fighters have 1 weapon slot but display fire from 2 separate cannons.

• Suggestion: Examine the graphics of each ship and redefine the slots to match. 4 displayed cannons = 4 weapon slots and so forth.This idea has been expanded further to ideas such as multiple capacitors, reactors, and shields even though they are not “graphic vs. slot” issues. This would allow for POBs to have additional "layers" of armor, or multiple shield generators (front/back).

• Currently the main limits of putting components into a ship are the mass and power requirement. In order to obtain more performance out of a given component you either have to go up a level, or find the right loot to create a lower level higher performing item.
  
  
• Suggestion: redefine the way component limits work allowing for the placement of multiples (depending on chassis) of the same component (2 lvl3 caps instead of 1 lvl6.)

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.

Message Edited by IIscandar on 04-15-2005 01:10 PM

Message Edited by IIscandar on 04-15-2005 01:23 PM

Message Edited by IIscandar on 04-15-2005 04:25 PM

Message Edited by xtxShifter on 04-13-2005 03:47 PM

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Jagged-F3l wrote:

This looks great with one exception. You mention that the looted components that players think give us a problem include capacitors and engines. Engines? Really? I would have thought capacitors and boosters.

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Theseare "our" issues though, so if anyone else reading this feels boosters should trump engines now's your chance to speak

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Tokklyym wrote:
I like it, an excellent overview of the issues.

I'm a little curious about the fact that 2 or 3 issues appear both in the Positive and Negative issues side. Does that give the developers the idea that there is a lack of consensus?

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IIscandar wrote:

Shipwrights unable to compete with some loot

• The number one dislike about shipwright is that looted components can be drastically better than crafted. In cases such as capacitors (recharge rate) and engines (YPR), a very large portion of loot is better than crafted with no reverse engineering required.
  


• Suggestion 1: Increase base stat result on craftable engines (ypr) and capacitors (recharge rate). This would allow the current experimentation points to have more of effect and allow only the best of the best loot to beat crafted components as is the case with starship weapons, armor, and many others.
  


• Note: A good long look at the balance between all craftable shipwright items and their looted counterparts is in order, but engines and capacitors seem to be the two most often mentioned.

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Message Edited by Sar-larid on 04-14-2005 08:22 AM

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IIscandar wrote:

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Jagged-F3l wrote:

This looks great with one exception. You mention that the looted components that players think give us a problem include capacitors and engines. Engines? Really? I would have thought capacitors and boosters.

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Engine YPR is mentioned more than any other loot componentissue as far as I can tell. I've heard this about boosters, but if you spend the experimentation points just right and use an overdriver,crafted boosters are not half bad.They are one of the biggest sellers I've seen.

Theseare "our" issues though, so if anyone else reading this feels boosters should trump engines now's your chance to speak

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010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101Jagged' Fel
010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101"The Oppressor"
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You should note that the differences between Crafted and "Looted" components is not so much that looted are better. Technically that's true, but it's a simplification of the fact that ALL odd-level boosters, capacitors, and engines suffer this problem, INCLUDING Looted ones(and since crafters, with the exception of a couple of ordinance launchers, can ONLY craft ODD-level components, they get stuck in this group automatically).

If the base stats for only crafted versions of these components are improved, the bug will STILL remain for their same-level counterparts in loot; just as it does for Engines now, which had their base speed increased only on Crafted engines, but the loot odd-level engines still have pathetic speed(to say nothing of YPR, and the nerf of EVEN-level engine speeds that has occurred).

What they need to do is make that base stat increase for ALL odd level boosters, capacitors, and engines; crafted and looted alike. Otherwise a whole half of the problem is not being addressed. If it is NOT addressed, they may as well throw out the drops of odd level boosters, capacitors, and engines, and give us the credits for them that the Chassis Dealer would pay right when it's looted, since they're so worthless.

Message Edited by Sar-larid on 04-14-2005 08:22 AM

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I'll rewrite that part and add a bit about this, but I do have a concern. Let's say for a moment that sub-components were added to the loot table. Let's even say that they increase the base stats a bit on the crafted items in question.This would give uscompetative components. If odd level loot is increased in stats as well, we will be back in the same position again. I do feel that we should address the issue of odd vs even. Just wanted to share my reservations.