Smuggler Archive

Ihave been thinking about slicing and the revamp for a while now and so I decided to post my ideas for your review/comments. A lot of the comments below probably fall into the it aint broke but I wana fix it anyway category. This is just my ideas on the way I feel slicing should be dealt with in game, not necessarily realistic suggestions, Im sure some of them will give GreenMarine fits.

Feel of slicing

What do we want from the slicing tree? In my mind slicing is the act of illegally (or just foolishly) modifying standard equipment, Hacking computer networks/terminals and possibly tinkering with vehicles/ships. Its not an exact science the smuggler may like to think he knows what he’s doing (he may even have the manual) but its unlikely to be recommended by a serious engineer concerned with safety or material tolerances etc.

GreenMarine mentions a new slicing method in his visability post, I feel this is a good direction, different objects require different slicing options/Methods.

Slicing in general

I Would like to see a real chance of failure, Slicing is not an exact science, if it was every weaponsmith/ armoursmith in the galaxy would sell sliced weapons/armour (which they do in SWG currently!) For starters I feel that slicing should be a longer process, not the 10 second routine we have at the moment, this should be a representation of the smuggler striping the Gun/armour down, filing off firing pins, removing padding etc. and should be a process akin to crafting. Each step should have a chance of wrecking the item or degrading its quality, (how much padding can you afford to remove, how far can you push the power curve on the blaster without causing an overload etc.)

Have you ever wondered how that looted Jawa rifle you have got a DOT rating? Well it was probably modified by an enterprising jawa in the same way as a smuggler slices weapons. I would like to see a way of introducing these sort of mods. to weapons, this would give a truly unique twist to smuggler modified weapons, perhaps we could see armour with skill modifiers as well?

Weapons/Armour,

These two items represent the bulk of our slicing work at the moment, who doesn’t get their weapons and armour sliced? The main reasons for this (IMHO) are the lack of any form of meaningful penalty and the 100% success rate. I would suggest that this be changed. The current increased decay rate could be replaced with a malfunction chance during use. Every shot fired has a percentage chance to have a sudden and dramatic drop in condition, perhaps even exploding in a dangerous fashion! Obviously if the slicer is careful and doesn’t push things to far then these would be low, but there is no reason not to try for a truly awesome increase in power if you willing to risk it. (N.B grenade, rocket launchers etc. (It occurs to me that this could be a little overpowered for one use items, but surely this is negated by the fact that if you do get a malfunction you are risking a lot more damage to yourself than with a standard gun? The guy in the training mission anyone?).

So that’s the penalty sorted, what about the success rate? I think its a little misleading to talk about success or failure when it comes to slicing. As soon as the smuggler starts tinkering, the weapon is sliced, success can only be determined by the results. What I mean is that there should always be a chance of getting a negative slice and the always present chance of a critical failure destroying the item in question. Perhaps you fiddle with the power input, hoping to increase max. damage, throw a few experimentation points at it in the same way as crafting, accept in this case you cant keep trying until you get it right and them make a batch of 1000, if you mess up, that’s the weapon busted, on the plus side an amazing success gives not only an increase in max. damage but an increase in min too! Perhaps there should be a chance to recover from failure by simply undoing the last step if this seem to harsh? (obviously loosing any experimentation points used)

Terminals

I don’t really have many ideas regarding terminals, this could be as simple as replacing clamps/nodes with computer virus/hacking program’s and having a decryption process similar to the bio engineers DNA override on faction basses. The ICE Breakers giving an easier code to crack and therfore reducing the time needed.

Doors

How cool was the Genosian Dungeon when you realised you could slice the door for the first time? No scrubbing around for codes for me! I think this is good because it fits with the game mechanic. (I remove the door panel, analyse the current flow and cut the appropriate wire, simple) A perfect example of door slicing from ROTJ, Han slices the back door to the shield generator (ok, he smegs up but he was under fire!) perhaps a restriction on using a clamp when anyone in your group is in combat and only those grouped with you get through the door? Obviously if your under fire yourself then you’ll be lucky to use an analyser node!

Ships/Vehicles

I have added this section mainly because of the Millennium falcon, (a few modifications). Im not sure if this falls under the new Starship engineer’s Prof. or smuggler. I think I really just want to try fixing my (modified) hyperdrive whilst I’m being chased my a stardestroyer Not realy much I can say untill we see how ship customisation works but I feel that Smugglers should get something here, probably just the obligatory smugglers hold, and overcharged engines perhaps?