Weaponsmith Archive

I thought one of the biggest points to the CU in regards to weaponsmiths was the fact that they would make all weapons useful in battle. The old certification was terrible limiting us all to use only one or two of the best weapons in every class. If they are doing the same thing this time it is a terrible mistake (same with lightsaber crystals doing elemental damage based on the color of the crystal). If this is true I hope they reconsider before it goes live.

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WILDMAN_SOLO wrote:

not after this patch goes through. Helios has laready ststed that none of the mods we used to see (stocks/barrels/scopes) on hand assembly would be visible anymore. That kind of renderes hand assembly moot as the only reason I used to assemble regular weaps by hand was for this very reason.

With regad to high/low versions of the same weapon, this does not need hand assembly, just run a crate of each version off in a factory and you are good to go. The crate of the lowbie version will last longer than the crate of the master version so all you have to do is work out your production schedules accordingly to ensure you always have enough on the vendors with x% backed up in a sotrgae facility in case of an emergency.

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How do you expect to factory a large run of limited use or single use schematics? Only a very small percentage of new weapons are going to be constantly craftable. Forget about appearances of a weapon for a second and consider the fact that more variety and more customer custom request equals less cookie cutter weapons and more hand crafted ones. Sure you can factory run every permutation of every variety but why would you want to? Thats like 2 full time jobs. Some players are going to want more speed and less damage (to increase their chances of landing bleeds/dots/states/kd's etc), while other players are going to want more damage at the cost of speed so they use less action cost for the same amount of overall damage. Im not sure how many of you guys remembered the 'tell-hell' WS used to get back in August-November of 2003 but those days could be back upon us. With so many different requests comming in it may be rather useful to have creates of the subcomponents on hand make to order. When you add to this the krayt tissues, limited or single use schematics it seems as though being able to predict what to sell ahead of time will be difficult (atleast till everyone starts wanting the same templates again).

Another issue I forsee being a problem is slicing. As stated above with the various permutations, the new slicing system changes as many as 3 or 4 attributes and you spend points to make changes like a crafter, could create a market where selling pre-sliced gear just isnt the solution.

There is an artisan thread about the new powerups, simply choosing more damage isnt the solution since (atleast for now) it actually lowers the DPS of the weapon. Its likely slicing is going to follow the same 'more damage bonus comes at a speed delay cost' system. This would mean players seeking out smugglers to custom slice their stuff so you will want to carry unsliced gear along with sliced gear. Or you can just skip selling sliced gear all togeather should the population of smugglers increase with the new system.

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dsurfman wrote:

Think about it like this...is a .22 able to hit a target as hard as a 12 gauge? Same weapon "style", very different attributes. The weapons needed to be balanced...Not redesigned so we can make a LVL4 . Attributes definetly needed to be balanced...Either accuracy vastly improved on weaker weapons, speed improvements/reductions, modifiers add at the profession level.....Something...Now you have only eight or so weapons under this proposed system...you just choose what shell you place on it...That is why I dont like M&M's...they are all the same, just colored different...

If we change the weapons so that they are all equal in damage, or can be made so, we are white washign the personality out of the weapons...There is a reason that solo used a dl44...It just didnt happen to be a LVL4 he thought the look was cool for...

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this is a very terible analogy because there are so many varieties of every calibre. There isnt just one .22 and just one 12 gage. I am rather partial to 9mm but that comes in so many flavors and manufactureres why should I be limited to just Ruger if the H&K or Siig feels much better in my hand. They are probably going to do the same damage but comfort and accuracy (not to mention accuracy as a result of comfort) could affect how well I perform. Have you ever had the luxury of firing a Colt .357 Python? OMFG the action on that weapon is soooo sweet compared to lets say a Smith & Wesson Model 19 combat magnum. Both fire the same round and will do the same damage.

I am not saying that all weapons should have the exact same damage with different skins, I am saying that making the vast majority of the orignal weapons noobie weapons is a bad idea for a multitude of reasons including:

1. if the only weapons a master wants to use are single/limited use schematics thats quite a tilted playing field where only very rich WS (i admit i fall in here) or WS who belong to loot-whore guilds will even be able to make these. Forget about profit and sales, making new stuff is fun for the crafter. Why should WS not get to have fun too? I am not saying get rid of them entirely but they should not be the exclusive way to obtain new stuff.

2. While the new weapons are cool and interesting, lets face it, the graphics of some of the old weapons (e11, dl44, t21, dh17 pistol, heck even the cdef's) come straight out of the movies. Wouldnt you rather have 'star warsy' weapons preferred over non? If some weapons have to bite the bullet and be weak weapons why not make some new weapons to do that and keep the 'star warsy' weapons as some of the preferred weapons. Have you seen the graphics of the e11 mark II? That gun is so movie-like it makes me wanna go throw on storm trooper armor and pick up carbineer, and I AM A REBEL! hehehe

3. A wider variety of weapons that are craftable by a wide variety of weaponsmith means that you could specialize in certain weapons. Just like blastech made the dl44, the dh17 pistol, the e11 carbine, and the t-21, they didnt make the dx2 or dxr6 that was Tenloss. I understand the desire of some weaponsmith to make every model of every weapon with every permutation possible. I did that for a while before I retired but thats probably not going to happen anymore without working 2 fulltime jobs worth of hours in game. If anyone thinks its bad for WS take a look at armor smith. They have 17 suits of armor with 3 different levels within each suit and each suit has 9 pieces to a full set. I doubt they are going to be able to carry every type and peice of armor in copious quantities.