Weaponsmith Archive

Recently I had to go out of town for a couple weeks on business, when I got back and back into game I got to thinking about my two main characters. One is a master weaponsmith, the other getting close to master rifleman. Here is my rant:

1) Before I head out: With my rifleman I basically let my friends know, and then hunted up till when I had to logout, and then I logged out. With my weaponsmith I first had to take down all my harvestors, as even if I had the money and power to supply them for 14 days, the resources they were mining wouldnt be there that long. I then dumped money into my shop, vendor, and took down my factory. I then had to remove every item from my vendor, because even if I refreshed the sales they would go poof in the stockroom before I could get back. 4 hours later and 60k less in the bank, I was ready to go.

2) I come back from my trip and logon my rifleman, he is immediatly exactly where I left him, and ready to start doing his thing again. I logon my weaponsmith. First I need to investigate what resources are out there, what I want and replace all my harvestors. Then I need to replace my factory. Then I need to completely restock my vendor. Then I need to find out what resources I missed while I was away, and try and buy anything of importance, in this case I missed out on 2 really great resources and I can only scrape up 5-7k of each at completely idiotic prices, but course what else do I have to spend money on?

4) I have explored far more of the content in the game with my rifleman, I have grouped more, I have socialized more, I have RPed more. With my weaponsmith I have spent a lot more time running around looking at resources, feeding harvestors, unsocial grinding up the skill trees, and most of my social activities are restricted to providing 'pimped out weapons' to people (their term not mine), or randomly destroying weapons when I try and repair them.

Conclusions: Being a weaponsmith is a full time job and completely unsuitable for casual players. Most of the time spent being off on your own looking for resources, setting up and managing harvestors, your vendor and your factory. The resources system in its non-ending, rapid changing methods make being a weaponsmith a chore, more than something thats fun to play. I enjoy making weapons for people, I enjoy talking to people about weapons, I enjoy slaving away to make a truely great weapon. I dont enjoy having to spend a portion of every evening I log into the game to see what new resources are out there, if the new resources are worth harvesting, if they are; finding a spot for harvestors, then finding out what resources are gone and removing the harvestors I had working on that resource. The resource system in my opinion is completely out of control in its rate of change, and the worst part is that its never going to end, there is always going to be some material better then the one you have so you have to keep doing it, for ever and ever. Its a chore to log on to face, every single night.

i know exactly what you mean, and i'm not even near master yet, it is a chore half the time, i can only hope i enjoy it more when i get to master

I have to agree with the extreme labor of collecting resources. I'm on corbantis and have been looking for diatium copper for over a month to no avail. So, I can't make weapons. The resource shifting is way out of control, and absolutely necessary resources can be unavailable for months. That's ridiculous. And worst of all is when you finally track that resource down and lay as many harvestors as you can on it, and an minutes later that resource is gone - leaving you with a couple hundred of it in each of your harvestors and no other option but to redeed them again thus blowing away thousands of credits. At least now extra credits and energy stays with the deed. It was even worse when you put a ton of energy on it, were forced to redeed and then lose all that energy. I'm working on getting to master and the grind is so incredibly laborious that it has taken me months. This is because Iprefer to have fun when I play the game, so I run around and adventure instead of grinding.... but if you don't grind for literally hours, then you NEVER advance. I get a lot more out of being a smuggler and pistoleer. (pistoleer only because smuggler gives you almost no combat ability.) Actually making stuff - crafting - is fun. Grinding = not fun. Weaponsmith = the absolute most grinding in the game.

I have been thinking about giving up weaponsmithing for this reason. I play an aspiring BH on another server and he is maintenance free. With him, I dont have to worry about my account balance becuase I have no harvesters tomaintain.No reponsibilities! I am more of a casual player and it does make it tough.

I just started weaponsmith and i am looking forward to the challenge i have a couple of people who gather resources for me so i dont have to but like most of you people said it does take a certain type of person

Ube Nell

[novice weaponsmith, novice merchant, novice TKA]

I was a architect first and if you think weapons is tuff try that im enjoying my vacation of sorst only have to mine a few things a wk and then i can just mine with my lots and get all i need. I love weaposnmtihing but yes it requireds checking daily for good new stuff

Yup, you're right, it does take your full amount of play time. That's how it should be. I want to be a Weaponsmith, hence I do all those things. If you don't like it, don't be a Weaponsmith...that's just about all there is to it.

Not like you have to pay bills in the game...quit Weaponsmithing, go do something else. You'll be fine.

/agree weaponsmithing is a chore but that's why you should take another profession with it, I'm part carbineer (what was I thinking worst Combat class problem ever) but I enjoy an occasional PvP or PvE trip make for a bit of a relief in game. It's not like you have to worry about it your harvs 24/7 I put mine down for about 5-7 days and let em go to town until shift, then I go move emm, sure there is some money involved but I sell E11's for 2k and make enough to do it so I don't want to hear any complaints about the money to move stuff especially from you masters . Just like real jobs it takes a certain person to fill the position, if you don't have what it takes to fill the shoes than go find something that does instead of complaining about it. Instead complain about real stuff like expermentation not working correctly and gated resources . Not I have to spend to much time doing this or that, that's part of being a crafter in general. I mean no disrespect and I'm not trying to flame just making the point that you should enjoy what your doing and if you don't instead of complaining go find some you enjoy .

I agree with DTox. If you want to be a weaponsmith who sells the highest quality weapons, then managing resources on a daily basisis part of the game. A casual player is more than able to be a decent weaponsmith. It will just take longer and it will likely be at the expense of having the best of the best resources (unless the casual player hooks up with a full time resource gatherer and buys resources). Crafting in most games I have playedis very time consuming, especially if you want to be well establishedin your craft. It's the resource shifting that makes the craft fun for me. If resources were static, then nothing would separate the masters fromeach another.

Bubo Ubotin, Lowca
Master Weaponsmith
Master Artisan

Well, weaponsmithing can be tough and thats part of what makes it rewarding! However, Culdon has every right to come on the boards and vent a little.

I have to agree with D'Tox, if the profession were anything less than what it is I probably wouldn't do it. It wouldn't be much of a challenge therefore it wouldn't be much fun, IMO.

Yes, it requires checking for resources daily, but that's part of WSing that I enjoy. It's really cool when you're out running around, decide to check the survey tool to see if anything has shifted in in the last few hours and, voila, there's Link-steel alum and Ostrine ore at the same time (this happened on Corbantis last week, yippee!). Now I'm just waiting for the day when I check my survey tool and I see Diatium Copper...

Slim Vargo, Corbantis

Watch your servers guys...the average life-span ofyour averageMaster Weaponsmith is about a month...I would say this is probably typical of every crafting profession though.