Shipwright Archive
Thread: Why Reverse Engineering and Crafting are the same (almost)
Why Reverse Engineering and Crafting are the same (almost)
I don’t think I need to get into how long I’ve been here, and how much I love JTL and space….. Since JTL beta opened and we learned of reverse engineering there were many of us who were impressed with the idea, and many who have cried foul. I think that most of the pilot and shipwright veterans have accepted that reverse engineering has it’s place in this game, but like everything else on these boards there’s always a group of people who will pop up and demand to have the whole system rebuilt or removed.
After the first few (hundred) debates on the issue, it just feels silly to have to explain over and over why things work the way the do…..so this post is for you confused noobs out there.
For those of you who don’t know what reverse engineering is, I’ll post a link to some great threads shortly. If you can’t wait, just check out the FAQs, they are among the stickies.
But really the whole system of reverse engineering, like crafting, can be broken down into the following
Resource Gathering
Combine
Result
And for all you “pure crafters” out there….game economics….yeah, I’m going there too 
Message Edited by Thunderbyte on 08-04-2005 10:43 AM
Message Edited by Thunderbyte on 08-04-2005 10:51 AM
Message Edited by Thunderbyte on 08-04-2005 10:46 AM
Game Economics – Just what is our economy based on anyways?:
And I swore I’d never touch this subject…….
So I admit, I am not an expert on game economics, and to be honest I don’t thinkthere are that many experts out there. There are books written on this subject for a reason, it’s not an easy thing. But from what I do know there are no black and white’s with game economics, just as there are no black and white’s with real economics.
Now I don’t know who ever promised anybody a pure player-based economy, but I’d sure like to know what the heck a pure player-based economy is. I’ll tell you what it isn’t…..MMORPGs are not pure player-based economies. They can’t be.
Money can be obtained and traded from player to player….that’s great, and does give credit to a partial player-based economy. But where did that money first come from? And does that money ever leave this system? Simply put, almost every credit in the game originated from an NPC or a mission or a quest reward. All those crafters with millions or more credits in their bank, every credit came from an NPC or mission and was traded for what that crafter had to offer.
So how do you keep inflation down in a system where money can be created from nothing? MONEY SINKS!!!!! Yep, all that maintenance you pay on your house and harvesters and factories and guild halls. All that money you pay to repair your ship (unless you’re a master pilot). All that money you pay to travel (if you don’t have your own ship). All of that is just a form of money sinks, to keep the average player from accumulating too much wealth. After all, we can’t all be millionaires. And it’s a fine art too, deciding how much these money sinks should suck out of a economy.
So what does all this have to do with reverse engineering? Well, to be honest not too much. But most crafters seem to think that any object not crafted takes away from the theoretical “player-based” economy. The truth of the matter is that it’s the players who assign a value to that item, and looted or crafted it doesn’t really make too much difference. There is no black and white here, and even the experts get these issues wrong on occasion too. And because most crafters associate reverse engineering with loot, they argue that reverse engineering goes against the player-based economy. But like I said before, that argument is moot because reverse engineering is a crafting variant.
For those of you who have read this far, /here’s a cookie. I don’t think I’ll change too many peoples minds on this issue, but I sure am tired of repeating myself. So here’s my official argument, I will clicky to it often.
/flame away, you know you want too.
Message Edited by Thunderbyte on 08-04-2005 10:48 AM
FriedSquidwrote:
Aha! You're wrong!
Here's why:
People don't sell their parts to the chassis vendor when they're going to RE them / sell 'em to a SW, so there's money that SHOULD be coming into the game and inflating the economy that ISN'T. Lame! SuperLame! SuperUberUltraLame!
Ok, so we're talking about game economics here then? I don't really understand what you're trying to argue though. If you want to talk about chassis dealers and economics then I'm sure we can agree that chassis dealers definitly do not fit in the economic scheme that SWG has been using since launch, but I'm pretty sure that the devs saw it as a neccessary evil when they realized that even with the RE system there just wasn't as much content to keep people in space as much as there was to keep them on the ground.
But as I stated before, all credits originate from NPCs or missions, and then find their way into the hands of crafters and other non-combatants. Or in the case of entertainer/artisan missions then it still works out the same.
Cidman wrote:
What about the Illegal Core Boosters? That is an entity that people are paying money for only to sink it back into a weapon. 3 days ago they were min: 2mil on Corbantis, today: 750k. Your creating money out of nothing there... Notice that when you kill a space based NPC you get a credit note and like every 1 out of 2-3 NPC's you get a part? Most SW's that do CUSTOM RE's are getting paid as a charity. Have you ever heard of a shipwright paying 2mil for a mediocre part.......didnt think so. Now do to the rarity of some items people are paying HUGELY INFLATED prices becouse like it or not creds are easy to get in this game. Ive been playing for more than 6 months, cant seem to stay over 5mil in the bank lol but over the course of my game history I know I've had more than 100mil in credits. Interesting.. Wish economy was like this in RL and I was as Uber as I am ING ROFL.
So once again this proves that this is not the "pure player-based" economy that people claim it should be. This is an MMORPG, and I've never played an RPG that didn't have a loot system, and of course the value of that loot is defined by the players. There are no NPCs in this game to tell you how much that loot is worth (except for chassis dealers, but that system is not part of the original game and as I mentioned before is not part of the normal economic system the game was based on).
As far as shipwright income and reverse engineering, it's up to the shipwright to set a price for his/her service. The process of getting resources (and loot) is no different in theory 'cause a shipwright must be an artisan to get ground resources, or a pilot to get space resources (loot). If the shipwright has no wish to get these resources him/herself, then they must require thier customers to get it for themselves. My second post covered that already, the 2 are no different except that they are obtained in slightly different ways, from a game design perspective. This is no different than when in other games all weapons/armor/crafted items are created by loot instead of machine harvested resources. In fact, this is the only game I've ever played that uses machine harvested anything.
So once again, this is not the "pure player-based" economy that people think it is, but it is still by-and-large player based, as the value of every item in the game is determined by the players.
CommTampers wrote:
If RE and craft were the same, then the stats should be more close to equal. Crafted engines are still underpowered. People are still afraid of decay because RE stuff takes a long time to replace. What can I say; I'm very pro-crafter.
Why should the stat results be the same when the benefits of the 2 systemsare different? Let's say you're developing a fabrication process for a factory. One of your developed techniques allows you to make a large number of parts from the same pattern, and those parts are of good enough quality to pass QA and be used further down the assembly line.
But you also have a slightly refined technique using the same or slightly different materials, that produces a slightly higher quality part but is so different that every part must be produced individually.
Both systems can be considered usefull to someone, although most factories would probably go for what can be mass produced. Where as a stand alone repair shop/customization shop might go for the high quality customized parts, but pay more for them.
As I said before, RE'ing is a variant of crafting. Both require resources, both require the shipwright to combine. Both end up with a result based on the resources used. By nature the mass producable system will have mass producable stats, and the more customized system will have the higher quality stats. I just don't understand why this is such a hard concept for some people, as it's something you see in everyday life. And from a game design perspective as long as both systems are equally desireable (and if you know how to craft the right parts then you can't argue this one) and both require shipwrights to do the combine (and they do) then there's nothing imbalancing about either system.
/thanks for the debate btw, this is a issue I feel strongly about and I'm not afraid to tear it apart and analyse it with my fellow players.
Some of my components have been on-and-off "under construction" since last December.
Last time I looked it didn't take that long to toss together a crafted engine.
And YES I know I'm an exception to most "REers." I'm a poster-child for the Remove-RE-ers because the only crafted part of my ship is the droid and chaff launcher. Even the armor is REed and I don't use missiles.
Message Edited by KaylBreinhar on 08-05-2005 05:35 AM
This argument is silly. RE'd equipment is better because it's harder to put together four hundred of them in an afternoon. The other option would be looted components or something, but that wouldn't be as labor intensive as looting the hundreds upon hundreds of parts you need to loot to get a phenomenal lvl 10 blaster. Never forget, SOE wants you to have months of playtime invested in this game no matter what, and you can only do so much per x time online. Ergo, this system is NOT going away, and you should just learn to deal with it.
Plus, it's cool. Really cool.
KaylBreinhar wrote:
There's no real comparison.
Some of my components have been on-and-off "under construction" since last December.
Last time I looked it didn't take that long to toss together a crafted engine.
And YES I know I'm an exception to most "REers." I'm a poster-child for the Remove-RE-ers because the only crafted part of my ship is the droid and chaff launcher. Even the armor is REed and I don't use missiles.
What do you mean no comparison? As a crafter I've had plenty or exceptional resources sit in my shops for months and perhaps years at a time because I didn't want to waste them with other less than exceptional resources. Back before the CURB I had a doctor on Kauri, and I had some avian meat that was soooooooo good for buffs that I almost didn't dare waste it untill I had everything else nearly that good. So I'll admit that that's a little obsessive, but great avian meat wasn't easy for me to get.
But I see where people will argue that it's still not the same, so I present exhibit B!!!!! RIS Armor.
Ever tried crafting a set all by yourself? Especially months ago when almost noone had a set? I spent the better part of a year trying in my spare gaming time, and I'll tell you I never even finished. And if I had, I would have only had one set anyways. There just weren't enough loot to go around to mass produce the stuff. And you won't find anyone to argue that that wasn't crafting, although a little extreme.
Whether it's crafting or reverse engineering, if you are obsessed with having the best than it might take you months or years to become happy with the resources you've found. In the end, the combine takes the same amount of time, just a couple seconds. As stated before, the difference is that you cannot mass produce RE'd components because you'll never find 2 looted items of the same stat, but reverse engineering isn't alone in that fact.
Jagged-F3l wrote:
Resource Gathering -- does not equate to looting. The process of gathering resources is far more sophisticated and involves quite a bit more skill than farming ship components. First, a crafter has at least two alternatives open to them for acquiring resources: purchase and harvest. The decision to purchase resources may be driven by many factors, including resource quality, resource quantity, demand placed on the crafter by the market, and the crafter's own ability to harvest resources (e.g., there are periods that the crafter may be faced with harvesting one or another of two resources, and sometimes the crafter may have to purchase the other resource). Second, a crafter can survey planets across the galaxy and harvester desirable resources. This process requires skilled management, as all crafters have a finite number of lots to deploy a harvester on. Of course, a crafter that has an entire guild behind them offering their lots for this purpose has more choice in the matter, and thus probably doesn't require as high a level of skill regarding harvester management.
Jagged-F3l wrote:
- Finished Product -- when you finish reverse engineering, you have a one-of-the-kind, one useproduct. Once it has decayed, you can consider yourself very, very lucky if you ever see anything close to it again.From the same (or evensimilar)resources, I am reasonably guaranteed that I can craft more than one of any particular item with comparable stats. When I sell a customer a particular item, they can be rest assured that when it decays into dust, they can come back to me and be reasonable guaranteed that I can make them another.
Jagged-F3l wrote:
- Ship Buildout -- a shipwright that does nothing but reverse engineer looted ship components has less options open to them in building out a ship for a customer. This restriction comes in the form of what the stats of components you have to work from. As a crafter I have different resources, upgrades, and experimentation that I can use to meet a wider variety of requirements from customers. In fact, I find it a most enjoyable challenge when a customer comes to me and says, "Hey, someone reverse engineer this awesome weapon for me and I want to put it in my JSF, you know, the one you built out for me about a month ago." Now the true engineering begins. I have been an engineer now for 25 years and the most enjoyable part of the job is working with real-life constraints, determining the trade-offs and analyzing the pros/cons of each of those trade-offs.
Thunderbyte wrote:
CommTampers wrote:
If RE and craft were the same, then the stats should be more close to equal. Crafted engines are still underpowered. People are still afraid of decay because RE stuff takes a long time to replace. What can I say; I'm very pro-crafter.
Why should the stat results be the same when the benefits of the 2 systemsare different? Let's say you're developing a fabrication process for a factory. One of your developed techniques allows you to make a large number of parts from the same pattern, and those parts are of good enough quality to pass QA and be used further down the assembly line.
Except that fullfactory support doesn't exist forcrafted engines.
But you also have a slightly refined technique using the same or slightly different materials, that produces a slightly higher quality part but is so different that every part must be produced individually.
I do craft mine individaully. Each component I make gets a full dose of Tender Loving Care.
Both systems can be considered usefull to someone, although most factories would probably go for what can be mass produced. Where as a stand alone repair shop/customization shop might go for the high quality customized parts, but pay more for them.
As I said before, RE'ing is a variant of crafting. Both require resources, both require the shipwright to combine. A shipwright can only make money on the crafting, since an RE kit comes dirt cheap. Both end up with a result based on the resources used. By nature the mass producable system will have mass producable stats, and the more customized system will have the higher quality stats. I just don't understand why this is such a hard concept for some people, as it's something you see in everyday life. In real life, we can keep the knowledge we learn, anduse it repeatedly. In SWG, we forget the stuff we learn after one craft. And from a game design perspective as long as both systems are equally desireable (and if you know how to craft the right parts then you can't argue this one) and both require shipwrights to do the combine (and they do) then there's nothing imbalancing about either system.