Weaponsmith Archive
Thread: Too Hard Too Compete with A +12pt WS vs A +10Pt WS
Naxet wrote:
/vote yes
Az hit it dead on .... his resources make hime near impossible to compete with. Consider that with good resources you can max the damage with 10 points .... so with 12 points your going to do what .... well there's always durability ... but wait .... with good resources it is already high. Hmm. well there's efficiency, maybe knock a whole 4 points off HAM! Or range ... move the ideal range stat ... that won't likely change the outcome of a battle so most buyers won't care.
Nope .... it is resources .... high OQ, CD, for firearms and high OQ, SR and sometimes UT for meelee. You have to win SOE's resource lottery, not the loot lottery. AND, just for the enjoyment and rich game experience of the weaponsmiths, from last April 1st to next April 1st there will be no spawn of resources used in weapons with any stat over 100... lol
Its true that resources are the most important factor, no doubt about that. But Its not as little difference as Naxet wrote here. With the extra 2 points the weapon becomes quite a lot better since you gotta remember that all the components can be made better. Lets take a stocked and scoped Laser Rifle. Youll get better ideal from a better barrel, better ideal and lower ham from scope, better ideal/ham from stock. All these in addition to the extra points in either ham, range or cond on the weapon itself makes quite a difference.
With the extra 2 points you can compensate for using lower resources in all fields but damage.
But for most smiths it would be better to spend money on resources then tapes. I just got 12 points and ive always bought resourcesbefore of tapes, whenever i came across a good deal or had some extra money id buy a tape.
Naxet wrote:
/vote yes
Az hit it dead on .... his resources make hime near impossible to compete with.
Hey, I compete with Az'
Consider that with good resources you can max the damage with 10 points .... so with 12 points your going to do what .... well there's always durability ... but wait .... with good resources it is already high. Hmm. well there's efficiency, maybe knock a whole 4 points off HAM! Or range ... move the ideal range stat ... that won't likely change the outcome of a battle so most buyers won't care.
Nope .... it is resources .... high OQ, CD, for firearms and high OQ, SR and sometimes UT for meelee. You have to win SOE's resource lottery, not the loot lottery. AND, just for the enjoyment and rich game experience of the weaponsmiths, from last April 1st to next April 1st there will be no spawn of resources used in weapons with any stat over 100... lol
For about.... 5 months of my crafting career I was a ten point smith, because 12 pts is not the make/break point that a lot of new smiths and a lot of non-smiths think it is. It's a nice number to float in front of the uninitiated, but it's not a game breaking thing. I mainly went to 12 points because in a one week span I got about 15 points for about 12 million credits (which on Ahazi where it's generally 1.5 - 2 million per point, was a steal). I actually hit +20 with the first 9 point attachment, but still needed to use the damnable toolkit (which I gotta say, what were they thinking making it a backpack)?
So now I'm a twelve point smith, and it certainly doesn't make the difference that having top flight resources makes, and more to the point it doesn't turn a bad smith into a good smith. 12 points doesn't make it any easier to stock your vendors, it doesn't take care of your email or handle /tells, and it doesn't give you an insight into the best configurations of weapons on your server.
To use an example:
I was talking to a 12 point smith, back when I was a 10 point smith on the issue of polearms and the fact that for the most part they're horrible weapons. They're slow, inaccurate and not at all sexy. The #1 complaint I'd hear from people going to Pikeman was how often they missed. This was before they did the accuracy pass, btw.
Now this other smith, who's a friend, uses the same Vibro motors in their VKs, and their polearms and used the extra experimentation for durability. When I asked why the answer was simply that with buffs etc the efficiency didn't matter, and accuracy wasn't that important.
Me? I usedpole-arm specific motors, with the accuracy experimented with the remaining points. These were very popular with my customers, and remain so. Why? Because they're about 13 -15 points more accurate then their counterparts. While these weapons have gotten better since I got 12 points? It wouldn't have mattered if I didn't think about WHERE to put the points.
Twelve experiment points can have an effect on almost every gun, most notably on things with lots of sub-components and generally that means they're just a bit more accurate than they otherwise would be and get a bit more condition as well. But thereal requirementis in the resources, and the proving ground is always going to be thinking about what the customers want, stocking a lot of it, and being good with the customers when they need your help.
Magne wrote:
Its true that resources are the most important factor, no doubt about that. But Its not as little difference as Naxet wrote here. With the extra 2 points the weapon becomes quite a lot better since you gotta remember that all the components can be made better. Lets take a stocked and scoped Laser Rifle. Youll get better ideal from a better barrel, better ideal and lower ham from scope, better ideal/ham from stock. All these in addition to the extra points in either ham, range or cond on the weapon itself makes quite a difference.
Even with those advantages, which I also touched on, the end result weapon is not quite a lot better. A bit more accurate with a bit better max condition, yes but with a lot of masters thataccuracy won't mean anything. What's the big difference between a +100 accuracy DXR6-b and a +110 accuracy one?
With the extra 2 points you can compensate for using lower resources in all fields but damage.
Actually, no you can't. A ten point smith with better resources will make a better gun than a 12 point smith with lesser resources. The only area where the 12 point smith can exceed the 10 point smith in those circumstances is in max condition. Because the lesser resources will net lesser max condition, greater HAM cost, and less accuracy. So you'll have a gun that with the right experimentation will still end up worse in at least 2 categories of experimentation.
But for most smiths it would be better to spend money on resources then tapes. I just got 12 points and ive always bought resourcesbefore of tapes, whenever i came across a good deal or had some extra money id buy a tape.
First :
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=weaponsmith&message.id=48024
Second: It's all down to the resources at this point in time.
Third: As frustrated as you are - PLEASE learn to punctuate and have your posts flow. A LOT of folks on these forums are here to help, make their jobs easier.
I have to agree with Eola and Nobax. In the final combine of the weapon, that extra two points don't seem to make as much of a difference as it does in the components. If a weapon has 3-4 components, those little differences add up.
Luckily, as a master architect almost since launch, I have been able to use my profits from my architect business to not only purchase all the great resources available on Ahazi, but also to put almost 40 million into tapes. Even though I have only been a master WS for a couple months, many of my weapons are as good and often better than the long time Ahazi master WS.
Don't think of the extra 2 experimentation points as a necessity. Think of them as a reward for your hard work as a weaponsmith. They're kind of like the end-game content for successful crafters. They aren't vital (unless you're planning on making a lot of enhanced weapons), but they are nice to have. I'd like to get the skill tapes myself, but I'm not willing to break the bank to get them. I figure in time I'll either have more than enough money saved up, or I'll get lucky and loot one with my PvE alt. It gives me something to work towards.
Slim Vargo, Corbantis
I will give you two examples of where the extra points come in handy. When I went from 10 to 12 points, my advanced weapon stocks went from 36 min/36max to 40min/40max. That gives me an extra four points of min/max damage per weapon.
The second place where the extra points come in handy are commando weapons. Commando weapons have horrible accuracy, but when you can max damage and still have 4 points left for range, you can get that range up to a reasonable level. My 'sureshot' line of weapons is a big seller.
I am a crafter because I chose to be, not because I was told to be. I have +1 to Assemble and have noticed a dramatic loss in the occasional Crit fail. I to have searched for the elusive Weapon Experiment tapes and have only gained 4.
The tapes truly do not have as great effect as the quality of the minerals you find. They are core critical, having been on Sunrunner since 2 weeks after launch I have minerals that have yet to spawn in a better shift. Do to this I always have better weapons than the new up and coming weapon smiths. This is just simply do to time.
I have always felt a pure crafter is 98% miner 2% crafter.
GenChaos wrote:
I will give you two examples of where the extra points come in handy. When I went from 10 to 12 points, my advanced weapon stocks went from 36 min/36max to 40min/40max. That gives me an extra four points of min/max damage per weapon.
The second place where the extra points come in handy are commando weapons. Commando weapons have horrible accuracy, but when you can max damage and still have 4 points left for range, you can get that range up to a reasonable level. My 'sureshot' line of weapons is a big seller.
I'm a 10-pointer and my advanced stock is 41/41
However, two more points means les HAMs. On the heavy weapons, a little extra in range could be a nice bonus.
Message Edited by d0qtrX on 05-26-2004 12:45 PM