Smuggler Archive

First off let me say that as of right now I am neither a Master Artisan, nor a master eLite crafter. However, that will change very soon. Therefore on my daily scouring of the forums, I was shocked to see that in the Top 5 list for Artisans, they want harvestors to have certification. With novice artisan and no survey, they want you to use personal extractors only. As you progress up the survey skill tree, then you can use the medium ones. They want Heavy extractors for themselves, and no one else. Here are some links to the discussions:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=artisan&message.id=36994
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=artisan&message.id=37151

The artisans feel they are the welfare crafter, and this will help put money back in their pockets. This makes me laugh, because i believe artisan is a novice profession and not really supposed to be making as much money as the elite crafters that spend more skill points.

Currently the arguments for Certs for Harvestors are as follows:

1. "I need scout to skin animals, so why can a non artisan harvest
resources."
2. "This will help put money back in the pockets that need it, namely
artisan community." I laugh at this one, because artisans will
be in a position to price gouge all customers that want bulk
resources in a timely manner, for they alone can get the most
amount of resources , the quickest.

3. "You have to be certified to use the best weapons, so in all
fairness, you should be certified to use best harvestors."


IF we learned anything from this last image designer update, it's that the developers seem to have an affinity to take "Content" from the larger player base and give it to a small community, instead of developing new content for the profession in need of it. One would think that Space Expansion will yield some new schematics, and a new need for artisans to customize the ships.

If this is allowed to considered, and eventually implemented , i feel one or more of the following will happen.

1. Elite Crafters will now be stuck with medium harvestors, unless
the spend skillpoints on Master Artisan. Kiss your combat skill
bye.
2. For those elite crafters that stick to medium harvestors, they
will no longer be able to be self sufficient in getting resources
They will have to tighten their supply and make less items,
and thereby raise their prices. Or they may contract master
artisans to gather their resources, but again this will add to
cost of items.
3. Master artisans will rule the resource market, charging whatever
the market will bear, leading to resource shortages. New
crafters will not be able to compete because they are using their
slow personal harvestors.
4. People that are planning on doing Shipwright will now have to
spend more skill points to harvest materials. Leaving less points
for some sort of combat build. I can already forcee a shortage
ships if this happens.
5. Some elite crafters will in an uproar over this happening.
Less crafters = shorter supply = inflation in prices.

I understand that the most elite crafters don't usually bother with their own resource gathering. THey get guildmates and friends to drop harvestors and they pay them for what they gather. If this change is allowed to happen, using your combat buddies will be a thing of the past, in terms of resource harvesting. Moreover, many also use static lot swaps to get their needed resources. You should be warned that the artisan community wants they ability of static lots through lot trades elminated also.

If this is allowed to happen, then i call for some more changes in the name
of balancing. Feel free to add to this list.

1. Elite ,or best armor should only be worn by people with a master
combat profession.
2. Craftable items, such as harvestors should now be subject to decay
penalites on death. Heck, we have to worry about our armor, why
not let the artisans worry about losing value also. I know this
will not be a popular. IF crafters need protection, they they can
hire combat types to be bodyguards while they make their harvestor
runs.

In conclusion, after all my ranting and raving here I hope that the crafting and not-crafting community will let their voices be heard. DO NOT IMPLEMENT HARVESTOR CERTIFICATIONS. Harvestors are a tool, and i feel that novice artisan should be enough certification for the use of any of them.

-Ho'mer (FLurry)

p.s. sorry for the poor paragraph formatting. Its been awhile since i posted, and didn't try that hard to make it look neat.

actually I think its a good idea. It would actually help out the economy at this stage. There's a flood of resources on the market now because so many people (especially the holo whores) are using their lots for harvesters to make some extra cash.

I would probably be generally for some type of restrictions specifically as a way to make cross server lot trading no as brain dead easy as it is now, but some of the people contributing ideas over there are just off their rocker. I tried for a little while to have a conversation but it just wasn't happening.

My advice - don't go over there. Your time would be better spent contributing to yet another slice experimentation debate.

This is kind of funny. While artisans don't make a ton of cash, they're not really meant to. But, people use powerups like they're going out of style, and the average amount of profit made on powerups is insane. Also, with the fix to the shuttle exploit to repair vehicles, it's very possible you'll see an increase in the sales of vehicles over time.

It's not like artisans don't have a market.

In any case, if they want to keep heavies for themselves, fine. I find mediums give the best value for the credit. But I can only imagine the outcry that would bring about. On the other hand, it would give us even more ammo to use for a good smuggling/contraband system when combined with the ID/stat migration issue.

Artisans do not even craft the primarily used types of harvesters. As such, asking for restrictions on it is entirely unreasonable. It would absolutely devastate the harvester market for architects which is their primary money-maker.

1. word moronic. ok if Master artisans want the heavies to have a cert aw well then make sliced weapons a smuggler only cert everthing sliced = smuggler only

master artisans cant even craft heavies and ginving them the only cert for them would be screwing architects over since medium and heavies are they're number 1 selling item. Master artisans can make tons of cash, selling vehickles about 8k to make if you mine your own resources selling at between 13k for teh X34 and 35k for a swoop. i go throgh 2 crates of power ups in about 30 minutes of hunting. if they made some inprovements to the vehicle upgrade kits they can make a killing and so on. there are tons of ways for a master artisan to make money if heavies need a cert make it survey 4 not master artisan i cant think of a single thing thats a master cert whaether it be weapons or armor for that matter so why should they be alowed to chage ow much they want for resources, its like giing the ID's the only way to do stat migrations its just plain insane.

Not only that they want factories as well and only personal mines for scouts and medics... Well there goes my whole business as a smuggler, crates of smuggler goods and bulk of resources. Faction prices just went up to 200 per fp and Slicing prices just went up to 50k per slice I think.... If this went through. Okay I don't like the idea of selling smuggler goods on a vendor (spice) but I have to as part of the game. Only once have I been asked if I had acrate of moun when in coronet.

alright thats just **edit**ing greedy then....

Dont think theyve realised but a heap of professions use em all..... Factories would only really be used by elite crafting profesions and smugs (docs an taht are in elite craft profs)....

Due to this i doubt itll be put in, so nothing to worry about methinks.....

What crock of **edit**. Artisans produce tons of stuff people buy everyday. Lets list

clothing

droid batteries (post pub-8 droids are widely used)

crafting tools (damn near EVERYONE uses a crafting tool)

weapon pups (this should be damn near to #1 money maker for artisans)

personal harvs (great for casual harvesters or newbies)

vehicles (who doesn't have/need a vehicle these days?)

vehicle customization kits

electronics GP modules (DE's MUST have these)

electronic memory modules (DE's MUST have these)

travel packs! (any serious merchant, especially armorsmith goes though these like water)

So answer me this, why do aritsans need to be the only people that can use harvs? If an aritsan can't make money, its because they do not understand the game. To be a crafter you must understand what is in demand, where it will sell, and how much it will sell for.

Example, every artisan should "contract" to DE's. They need you for the EGP's and EMM's, and offer to sell droid batteries for there customers as well.

Contract out to armorsmiths for crates of travelpacks for there special orders.

Run a vendor with low end clothing, crafting tools, weapon pups, travel packs, vehicles, vehicle customization kits, personal harvs, and droid batteries.

I don't see how an Artisan could think they need more ways to make money. The fact is they can run vendors that have items a wide varitey of players need.

Even better idea : cert medium harvs to all novice crafting profs + master artisan the heavy cert only for elite master crafting profs crafting profs being the following : All artisan elites + smugglers and docs + anyone else who uses lots of resources to make they're products.

Cert factories at Novice Elite no factories for master artisan. since they compare the weapon certs wll a master marksman can hold his own on a started planet but not on dathomir, using only marksman skills.

A Master Artisan is still only a STARTING prof they shouldnt make as much money as an Elite, they have enough products they can make lots of money off, they dont ned to be the only ones who can useheavy's after alli have 4 heavies 2 fusions and a1 flora and 1chem up now to get what i needto make clamps, spice, and Wuk's and auk's,

think about it which master artisan has the about 1 million to invest right off the bat to get the harvs + power and to put 25k in maint on all? It will be aresource shortage in the game which will put even more inflation on the game.

Bottom line Personal =anyone mediums = novice elites and master artisan heavies = master elites

Artisans can expect to make tons of money with only 64sp invested

Why not just don't fiddle with **edit** that isn't broken.

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Ipseck wrote:
actually I think its a good idea. It would actually help out the economy at this stage. There's a flood of resources on the market now because so many people (especially the holo whores) are using their lots for harvesters to make some extra cash.

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Although the holo whores are a pain in the ass, yea we allagree there, the HUGE influx of resources is good for the player economy. It helps lower prices, and reduce inflation. Yea you wont be able to make a HUGE profit off of your resources, but you will still make decent coin on decent resources. It doesn't make me sad that good resources sell for 6cpu now, rather then the 25cpu or more in past months. This enables new crafters to get into the market and compete with the ones who have tens of millions of dollars of buying power.