I've been a shipwright for little over a week, my PA got right behind me and pulled together to help me master, I spent most of my time gathering High Quality resources to make with, while my PA provided me with grind resources and credits to buy them with,
I'm now finding that I can't match many of the looted components they are getting e.g my best shield 2500 and we're finding looted shields of 3000-3500 , basically my PA wasted their credits and time as when they come to me they find I can't make kit better than they can loot.
I spent all my game time on working to get a crafting profession, all I'm left with that's any use is the ability to combine loot to make it a little bit better and make missiles, I like to craft but why am I gathering masses of resources to make stuff that no one wants to buy? yes you need a lot of resource to master but you also need a lot to run a business and I'm exclusive to one medium sized PA. I dropped my smuggling skills on the promise of a new crafting profession, I wish I'd waited.
the whole IDEA and complexity of shipwright was very attractive to someone who likes crafting , the reality is no one needs your skills. Of all those fun schematics you're pretty much left with chassis and ammunition that is any use the rest is pointless and a waste of programming hours by SOE
in a nut shell my experience of shipwright is its a waste of time my advice to anyone considering it would be don't bother until SOE balance it out IF they ever do.
Im having the same problem, almost all my customers are using 90% loot parts in their ships, and about the only business I get is when they come to me to RE loot parts for them. Its rediculous how much better the loot parts are than crafted, and how common they are.
I'm not a shipwright, but I work closely with them.
I have noticed that crafted shields have a better recharge rate than any of the shields I loot.
I don't know what parts you guys are finding, but since 11.2 I haven't looted a single Item that even comes close to a crafted item.
Out of all of the people I have contact with the vast majority have more crafted parts than REed verisons.
Most of the people I know have equiped there ships with player made Ion and Disruptor cannons that have over .850 effectiveness versus shield and armor respectively.
What is the actual problem? The only reason I use a looted part over a crafted one is because its free.
Maybe the loot is different on your server, but on mine its crap. I loot nothing but crap. A lot of it could be REed into decent stuff, but 99% is crap.
I find level 10 engines with 72k mass and stats of a level 1 engine.
Message Edited by Craxus on 11-29-200412:20 AM
Colonel Craxus Blade, Imperial Bounty Hunter/Master Carbineer(not so much)
Vorean Blade, Elder Jedi (Yeah my Glow stick is faster than your's)
I'm a master SW, but just working for my guild I'm also a complete geek and have spreadsheeted everything to work out what's the best kit to send them out with.
Notatti looks closest to what I've found, just got a few comments to add for anyone who cares about the details.
Notatti wrote:
I process and reverse alot of loot as I am the master shipwright for a 5 player group. From what I have been able to tell, good quality seems to run on the odds.
Armor : Crafted has more strength but higher mass.
The light loot can usually be beaten by crafted of a lower level as it can have less mass and more armour. Always go for well-made crafted on this one, but be prepared to take lower cert than you could use if mass/RED are an issue.
Boosters : Odd rule here. Level 2 4 6 and 8 are better than 1 3 7 9 respectfully. So a looted level 2 is better overall then a looted level 3. All equal levels are better then crafted.
And capacitors. Aye, I found even-numbered thing too. I thought I was going mad.
Reactors : Odd rule again : Looted 2 is better than 3 ect... Sweet spot is a looted level 4 that can have close to 15k output. The one I personally use is a level 4 reversed with 2315 mass and 14573.6 output.
I think that is a pretty special looted part you have there! Generally I find crafted better than looted, using the optional overcharger (again, if you don't like the mass, use a mark lower).
Shields : Tough one actually. I feel that all shields in the game are less than what they need to be. If npc and player strength was increased I think it would provide longer more involved battles. Though, much could be debated on which stat is best on shields, I prefer a high recharge rate.
Absolutely its the recharge rate that matters. Shields are actually near what I'd call balanced (most loot lower than crafted, but some loot better). Only thing is the higher RE level loot is way too heavy, and the ranges of possible RED on all of it look way too big.
My conclusions are:
Loot is best for: Boosters (even RE levels), Capacitors (even RE levels), Sheilds (only sometimes)
Crafted it best: Armour, Reactors, Shields (most of the time)
Haven't made my mind up about guns and engines yet, but its looking good for loot at the moment. Deeply unimpressed with the revamp to increase speed of crafted engines, but still pants manouverability. Still, I'm sure SWs can find muppets who want to buy engines that go fast in straight lines... it means they'll be coming back for more armour!
Still, I'm sure SWs can find muppets who want to buy engines that go fast in straight lines... it means they'll be coming back for more armour!
lol
just a thing... with engine overload4 the YPR is not so important as the program will boost it a lot, for eample i found the same ship with a 60 YPR engine and EO4 more maneuverable than with a 74 YPR one and EO3.
also in some rare occasions EO4 can end in a ship difficult to maneuver if the YPR is too high, during beta sometimes it happened and even if here the engines have less YPR i think that it could still happen for some looted high end ones with some flight models (just speculation).
Still, I'm sure SWs can find muppets who want to buy engines that go fast in straight lines... it means they'll be coming back for more armour!
lol
just a thing... with engine overload4 the YPR is not so important as the program will boost it a lot, for eample i found the same ship with a 60 YPR engine and EO4 more maneuverable than with a 74 YPR one and EO3.
also in some rare occasions EO4 can end in a ship difficult to maneuver if the YPR is too high, during beta sometimes it happened and even if here the engines have less YPR i think that it could still happen for some looted high end ones with some flight models (just speculation).
Using the Force, or rather past experience with developers in the real world, I predict that if this continues on the path it's on that EO will get nerfed to not affect he YPR characteristics on a ship. Not sure why it does so already as it skews the roles of the ship tremendously. I mean, what's the point of flying an X-Wing if you can use a Y-Wing LongPig with EO to negate the deficient maneuverability? To be entirely honest, I don't even understand why engines have YPR values on them. That's really a flight characterstic of the chassis and has nothing to do with the engine in my mind, short of stress on the craft's frame which isn't as large a concern in SciFi space sims (lower inertia than atmospheric flight and all the fictional equipment like inertial compensators/structural integrity fields to explain away the impossible) .
Using the Force, or rather past experience with developers in the real world, I predict that if this continues on the path it's on that EO will get nerfed to not affect he YPR characteristics on a ship. Not sure why it does so already as it skews the roles of the ship tremendously. I mean, what's the point of flying an X-Wing if you can use a Y-Wing LongPig with EO to negate the deficient maneuverability? To be entirely honest, I don't even understand why engines have YPR values on them. That's really a flight characterstic of the chassis and has nothing to do with the engine in my mind, short of stress on the craft's frame which isn't as large a concern in SciFi space sims (lower inertia than atmospheric flight and all the fictional equipment like inertial compensators/structural integrity fields to explain away the impossible) .
Yup i think that too but also is not exactly true that EO negates all effects in maneuverability, the differences between ships are still there, like the best turning speed also is true that the heavier ship rotate faster but it doesn't get the new direction till some seconds (they have a big inertia).
Is quite evident when you fly near asteroids or the station (a thing that i don't know why but i like to do ) with big ships it seem you are skating around with the ships that go in a direction and you that rotate and give thrust to compensate, this thing doesn't happens to lighter ships that keep a good turning rate.
so overall the lighter ships have still the upper hand in "true" maneuverability, while the "cockpick" turning rate is more similar.
We can say that heavier ships are more viable with EO but not that they become equal to interceptors.
Also this is quite a complex and long issue and about roles, differentiation of ships, content for various roles and much more.
I can craft 16 k level 7 reactors, I have a looted level 8 28k reactor.
I can craft 1500+ shields, i have looted 2500+ shields
I can craft 1300 level 7 armor, I have looted 1500 level 7 armor
I can craft 1500-2500 level 7 weapons, i have looted 2000-3000 level 8 weapons.
I can craft 89-91 engines (with enhancers) i have a few looted 92 engines and I have looted level 2 engines with 70+ speeds
I have a looted 48.9 recharge cap and looted many level 2 caps with 37-40 recharge
I have looted 8.5 droid interfaces
Do we really want loot nerfed? OR do we want to craft better i think crafting better with more options would be better solution then pissing off the masses by nerfing loot.
QFE, I totally, totally agree with that last statement. Here's what it boils down to for me: a looted component, as-is, should *never* be better overall than what we can craft....there should be one random stat that also has a random chance of being better, but that's it. RE'ing, however, should produce components that *are* better than crafted. And before anyone balks at that, keep in mind, to RE a component, the higher the level the more components of that type it takes to reverse engineer....so having RE'd components be better would do little harm to the profession because it's not like you'd see a plethora of these better RE'd components just overrunning your business or driving it away. So basically here's what I would do:
(1.) Increase our ability/range of affectation during experimentation on crafting components, with particular emphasis on areas where it's just stupidly wrong/out of whack (i.e. capacitor recharge rates for example). Also in general along this line of thinking, if you're going to have the highest tier components increase so rapidly in mass, make the other stats scale proportionally and in parallel fashion. It's ridiculous when you have Mark IV/Level 7 crafted components that have an incredibly higher mass value but yet by comparison maybe have 10-15% higher stats in the important categories.
(2.) Leave the loot rates as-is, but do a balance pass on loot to make sure there's never more than one stat (at random) that can be better than the max craftable range after #1 is taken care of.
(3.) Change the RE percentage rates that get tacked on after the highest stat values are tossed in the pot a little so that you get a bit more of an increase and a bit more of a reward for RE'ing higher end component that take alot of time/effort to acquire all the pieces for.....but do so with balance in mind (i.e. make getting higher end RE's more rewarding but don't go overboard with it and create ridiculously unbalanced items). As an example. I'd probably change the rates at each level to 1.5x and adjust/balance as necessary from there if any tweaking was needed.
So I can have a single thread to point our devs at, lets get a single comprehensive thread on your thoughts and examples of how (and which) looted items are better than crafted.
My experience so far is that the major blunder is capacitors, followed by engines (low YPR on crafted) and, honestly, weapons (low Vs. A and Vs. S drop damage (.5 avg compared to .6 or more on loot).
Message Edited by styx66 on 11-22-200410:07 PM
I was trying to match the stats on the pre-nerf quest reward 92.2 speed engines. I think if they would combine the Y/P/R ratings for an engine into ONE experimentation catagory, we would have a good chance of matching the performance of the looted engines.
Right now it makes no sense to put any experimentation points into Y/P/R because since these stats are seperate, you have to burn ALL your exp points to get any noticable benefit.
With out exp points we can realistically experiment only 2 full lines. If Y/P/R were combined into one experimentation field, we would have 3 desirable fields.
Speed:
Y/P/R:
Mass:
Currently, we have the following
Speed:
Yaw:
Pitch:
Roll:
Mass:
Therefore its impossible to make a crafted engine which is on par with the looted engines.
I highly disagree on this one. I have 4 or 5 level 2-3 reactors under 3K mass with12K-15K power generation, all looted. Plus my level 8 33K mass 28K+ generation. More power than a fully overcharged MP ship could use. I dont think either of these can be touched. And Il'l point you to this thread for a discussion about 20K generation reactors.
BUT I THINK WE ARE MISSING THE POINT!!
How can we be saying that 1/2 of our stuff is better, the other half loot takes the cake AND BE OK WITH IT?!?!?!?
Message Edited by MonsofoLexius on 11-24-200410:53 AM
I think we need understand that the JTL system is different than the ground game.
1. Loot in space is fun. I actually look forward to getting loot, as its usually has a good change of being something useful. Unlike the ground game where 99.9% of the loot is a CDEF or broken datapad.
2. I would like to see our crafted items on par with some of the looted items. This would be especially true for engines and capicators. Also, high end reactors seem to be bugged in that the best crafted reactor is around 19k, while looted reactors have reported to have as high as 35k generation rate.
3. I think we have to accept the fact that RE'd items are going to be hands down, the best in the game. However, the nice part here is that we are still going to be in the loop with RE'ing them. Its just not something we will be able to push on our vendors, unless we have a good source for looted items (which will be harder now that the chassis vendor buys loot)
So I can have a single thread to point our devs at, lets get a single comprehensive thread on your thoughts and examples of how (and which) looted items are better than crafted.
My experience so far is that the major blunder is capacitors, followed by engines (low YPR on crafted) and, honestly, weapons (low Vs. A and Vs. S drop damage (.5 avg compared to .6 or more on loot).
Share some examples of what you've found on a consistent basis that is always better than what we can loot.
For instance: I'm finding most level 2 or 3 looted capacitors with approx 800-900 total energy and a recharge of anywhere from 32 to 35. My crafted (with very good materials) maxes at about 700 energy, with about 23 recharge. Usually at twice the mass as well. Just not worth making.
Keep in mind there will be loot that is better, that won't go away. It seems that the frequency needs to be toned down. I'm using a lot of loot in my own ships and my parts are free. It was worse in beta. My ships were almost 100% loot. Is this happening to you and your customers?
Message Edited by styx66 on 11-22-200410:07 PM
That is exactly what I have found with crafted vs. looted components. The number one problem is the Capacitors -- looted are far better than crafted. Engine Y/P/R is the number two problem -- consolidating the Y/P/R into one experimental line seems like an ideal solution. Weapons are borderline -- I do have a few level 8 weapons that have considerably better damage (factoring in the vs. armor/shield numbers), but they are also considerably heavier, so may not be a viable replacement in many of the ships that people use level 7 weapons in.
A lot of the replies to this thread appear to be just comparisons between looted and crafted items and moaning about the situation. I haven't seen many that are actually offering a SOLUTION to the problem, so here's my suggestions for what they're worth...
1) Make more loot items Enhancers instead of specific items - the players can then trade these with the shipwrights to create enhanced items. ie a pilot would loot a Max Damage weapon enhancer instead of an uber big weapon, take it to the shipwright and ask him/her to stick it in a new weapon.
2) Put in SW clothing attachements.
3) Allow limited use schematics to be created from RE'ing items, not just the Firespray.
4) Create a seperate skill tree for each type of component an SW can craft which will come from the SW box. You would not need SP for these trees. For this to be effective you would need RE experience to be added. Each SW can only specialise in one or twospecific components, to gain these skills you would need RE and SW Crafting XP (lots of). This will create your "uber" Weapon crafter, Chassis crafter etc and encourage crafters to WORK TOGETHER. Crafters would become known for their speciality, 5 out of 10 players would still buy the rest of the components from them because they couldn't be bothered to travel around to find the best stuff. The other 5 would hunt until they had a list of shops selling specific uber items.
Well, thats my thoughts for the day.
Praise or flame away!
EPIVI
Epivi Woclem - Leader of the Crater Crave Criminals 12 Exp. Point Elder Architect ~ Elder Shipwright ~ Elder Merchant Eskimo - Mayor of Crater Crave on Lok
QFE, I totally, totally agree with that last statement. Here's what it boils down to for me: a looted component, as-is, should *never* be better overall than what we can craft....there should be one random stat that also has a random chance of being better, but that's it.
Why?
Then you just end up with the same situation as you have in the ground game where most loot is worthless and the really good bits are rare and overly expensive.
The current system is fine, Shipwrights can still make better stuff most of the time and loot still is fun and interesting.
Also remember that SW is new, you have yet to get the best possible out of things as the special resources have yet to spawn at their best. You can make good stuff, you can make good money you don't need a total monopoly as that means that loot is boring.
Oh and thanks to those of you who one starred my last post just for expressing a different opinion to you, though I fully expect the same to happen to this post.
QFE, I totally, totally agree with that last statement. Here's what it boils down to for me: a looted component, as-is, should *never* be better overall than what we can craft....there should be one random stat that also has a random chance of being better, but that's it.
Why?
Then you just end up with the same situation as you have in the ground game where most loot is worthless and the really good bits are rare and overly expensive.
The current system is fine, Shipwrights can still make better stuff most of the time and loot still is fun and interesting.
Also remember that SW is new, you have yet to get the best possible out of things as the special resources have yet to spawn at their best. You can make good stuff, you can make good money you don't need a total monopoly as that means that loot is boring.
Oh and thanks to those of you who one starred my last post just for expressing a different opinion to you, though I fully expect the same to happen to this post.
The difference comes in the RE process. Re-read what I said....I think RE-ing the loot should generate the reward or 'considerably better than crafted in all areas'. And I also said that loot should have a chance to be better than crafted in one random stat, which would still give it a minimal 'reward' quality and keeps things relatively fun and interesting without outclassing what can be crafted top to bottom. You want to strike a balance between the two. Loot itself is way too plentiful to have it be better than crafted a majority of the time. The end result of RE'ing however especially on the high end of the spectrum won't be nearly so plentiful as to cut the shipwright profession down at the knees.
I'm also a complete geek and have spreadsheeted everything to work out what's the best kit to send them out with.
) with big ships it seem you are skating around with the ships that go in a direction and you that rotate and give thrust to compensate, this thing doesn't happens to lighter ships that keep a good turning rate.
