Star Wars - Housing FAQ v0.8
by: Saintly

** THIS FAQ IS A WORK IN PROGRESS **

I'm still learning about houses too; I thought I'd post what I learned so far, and solicit comments so that we can all learn together. I haven't seen anyone else post about Houses yet, and there's lots to know. Please send in any info you have on this topic, and I'll add it into the FAQ (with credit for you). My email address is above. Just change the [at] to the @ symbol and remove the spaces.


1. What's a house?

A house is a building you own. If you've played Ultima Online, then you already know what they are. Basically, your house will be a small, basically square building with a few rooms for you to do with as you like.

2. Where do I get one?

Currently, houses are made only by Architects (someone who's mastered the Artisan/Engineering skill line). On my server and planet, houses sell for 10-15k credits. Since this is above the 3k maximum price you can list in the bazzaar, they aren't sold there. You have to track down an Architect and
buy one direct from them. They may also sell it on vendors in their own house.

To find an architect, open the Community window (Ctrl+P), head to Find, and pull down "profession" to say "architect", then find. It will hopefully list the names of several people online on your planet who are are architects. Send
them a tell and ask them if they can make a house for you.

At the earliest Novice Architect level, they can only make houses to go on a few planets; Naboo, Corellia and Tatooine (I think that's right). In order to get a house that will work on the other planets, they need to have worked up the architect tree a little to be able to make a Generic house.

3. I have a house deed, now what?

For starters, you can't place your house within a certain range of a major city. For Dearic, this is about 2km. if you try to Use your deed in that range, it'll just say that "building is not permitted here". Once you get outside that range, you need to find a large area of flat land, preferably away from any nasty red mobs. Then Use your deed. The game will switch out to a large overhead map. If you get a message saying something about a position (what's the exact message? I forget) you need to make sure you move to a larger flat area.

The map seems to have areas shaded in yellow. These seem to be places you CAN'T place your house. You'll see a big rectangle that you can move around. That's your house. You can vaguely see a wireframe model of your house, right-click it to rotate it. You'll see that your house is basically square, with an extra strip along one side. That strip is the entrance. You may have to rotate your house in order to place it. Your house-rectangle will light up Green when you can place it (and Red otherwise). Left-click to place your
house. Wait a few seconds for the game to render your house.

Your datapad will automatically get a waypoint for your house (which you should probably rename), and you can immediately go in.

You get surveying XP for placing a house. The smallest house takes up 2 lots.

4. How do I see my house status? How do I keep the riff-raff and rabble from muddying up my nice clean floors?

Right. As soon as you enter your house, wait a few seconds for the inside to render. Now look around the first room you entered from the outside. You'll see a display on the wall. Click and hold it to see the options.

One set of options lets you make your house Public or Private. It's private by default. With Private houses, only people on the Entry or Admin list are allowed in (you can add people to these lists from the other set of options). With Public houses, everyone is allowed in except for people on the Ban
list.

As far as I can tell, the Admin list lets people on it pick up and drop things in your house. (anyone know otherwise?).

For anyone who can enter your house, I believe they can also use any crafting stations inside it. (?? anyone know?)

Also on the options list, you can set the title outside your house to say anything you want.

5. What is Maintenance? And why do I want to pay it?

Your house is constantly deteriorating. My house requires about 350 credits per day of maintenance. If you don't pay it, I believe the "condition" rating will drop from 100% down to nothing and at that point your house will poof. I
have no idea if that's right or not since I never let my house get down that far. Anyone know what happens when your house gets to condition 0%? Do you get your deed back? What happens to your stuff?

You can "pay maintenance" from the list, and dump your hard-earned cash into keeping up your house. Tossing 1k at it every now and then seems to work. The "status" display shows you how much maintenance your house has left in it.

Supposedly, with at least 800 maintenance invested in your house, you can pick it up and move it somewhere else. I'm not sure how that works.

According to Sony, your maintenance rate is lower if you build near other houses. So it's cheaper for everyone to make "towns".

6. Can your house be destroyed by any other means?

I have no idea. Perhaps if you're an overt member of a faction. Can anyone tell me?

7. What's a house good for?

Given that it costs cash to maintain it, it's somewhat pricey as a vanity symbol. To that end though, you can buy furniture (sofas, loveseats, futons, potted plants, chairs, ottomans, tables, beds, lamps, etc... all in various colors and styles) and clutter up your house with it.

On the *functional* end, you can buy crafting stations and stash them in your house so you don't have to run to town to use them.

You can also put Vendors in your house to sell stuff at whatever price you want. Hint: you may want to switch your house to 'Public' if you intend to sell stuff out of it. I've seen a couple people who's house signs said they were vendors, but you can't go in cause their house isn't public.

I *think* (though I can't say for sure, since I can't find any place where it says so), that a house can serve (some of?) the same functions as a camp; improved healing inside, entertainers or medics can maybe heal wounds. I have no idea really. It would make sense, and be retarded if you couldn't, but I haven't tried. Anyone know for sure?

You can also drop anything you want in your house, you can treat it like a giant safety-deposit container.

If you work up the 'business' line of Artisan, you can charge people just to enter your house. That seems a tad... annoying, but hey- it's your castle.

Houses make handy meeting places. Mostly though, they seem to benefit artisans who make them into shops and crafting stations.

8. How do I place furniture/crafting stations?

Aggravatingly. Stand somewhere close to where you want the item to go. The item can't be in a satchel or container. Now select 'drop' from the item's radial menu. If you don't like where the item is, you can now access it's radial menu as it's placed in your house: you can Rotate left/right, or move "forward/back". Move forward/back are relative to you, so they should be more like "Move towards/away from you". If you move something forward or back, it will return to it's default orientation (whatever way it was facing when you dropped it), so rotate it *after* you get it into position. Stuff can only face North, South, East or West, not any diagonal positions. You often have to click the option to move/rotate several times before the game is convinced that you really want to do it. Click->rotate-Left. Click->rotate->left, etc. etc. till it actually does it. You get no message if you try to do something illegal, like push it through a wall. It just won't do it. Additionally, when trying to push/pull something into position, you can't make very delicate adjustments. The object will take fairly large steps in the
direction you try to go.

If the game ignores you when you try to rotate direction X a bunch of times, try going the other way. That sometimes works.

Chairs can be sat on once placed. Just stand close to it until the cursor changes to a green circle, then double-click. Whee!

9. Stuff I'd like to know still:

- What happens when your house gets down to 0% condition from not paying maintenance?

- How do you move your house? When you convert it back to a deed, does it "remember" vendors and furniture in it so they'll come back when you re-place it?

- What other uses for houses are there?

- Can they be destroyed by other players?

- Are houses like camps? Can entertainers heal mind wounds and medics heal the other stuff? Is healing accelerated?

- Exactly what does the "admin" list do?

- What's involved in making houses?

10. Credits list:

No credits yet.

This FAQ is freely reproducible in it's unmodified state. It can be found at: http://swg.allakhazam.com/

11. Changelog:

v0.8 - FAQ released

JTL updates Posted @ Thu, Nov 18th 9:42 AM 2004 By: twitchie 5 posts Score: Decent [3.00] Updating a few things, for the newbies.  Hope you don't mind.... First things first, you don't need a house at first. You have room for 100 items in your Safe Deposit box. Even though I have a couple of houses, I still use the box for commonly needed items that I don't want to carry around. Each player has 10 lots to build on: Small houses take 2 lots, medium take 4 lots, and large take 6 lots. I believe Guild Halls take 8, but I'm not sure on that part. The number of items able to be stored in a house are: Small house- 150, medium house- 200, large house- 250. As of right now, items in a backback or bookcase count toward the total, so if you have a chest with 10 items, that counts as 11 items in your house. I have two houses, one is set up as my "living house", to display rare items/loot kits/fun stuff, while the second acts strictly as storage for resources, extra weapons, and other crap that I use, but don't want publicly displayed. With the newest updates, things like bookcases, chests, and armoires can now hold items.....yay devs!!! I have found, though, that a bug can prevent you from opening a bookcase or such, if it's placed in a corner, or on a short wall, unless you're almost behind the bookcase. That may have been fixed by now......if you get an error message saying "unable to see armoire" or such, just walk to the side, and as far toward the backside of the item as you can get. Placing items is simple now. You no longer need a house with stairs to put items on the wall: Simply drop the item next to the wall you want, then /move up xxx, /move forward xxx, /move back xxx until you get it where you like it. You can even hang a couch on the wall, if you'd like, and I've seen people use a large fountain suspended over the "living room" in a two-story large house, to sortof enlarge the upper floor. Some tricks, for those who like to decorate: Items can be moved backwards into walls. For example, I use a large cafe' table as a desk, but I have the back half buried in the wall, since I needed a bit more room for crafting stations. BE CAREFUL, though, if you move it too far back, you'll lose the item, and have to use the admin computer to "find lost items", which is a pain. Likewise, you can move items down into the floor. Again, in my case, the cafe' table was too high to be used as a desk, so I moved it downwards, burying the legs in the floor. This will ONLY work on the second story of a house, though, not on the ground floor. Oh, and a quick way to pay your "rent". Since you have 10 lots, you probably won't use them all. Rent them out! Artisans/docs generally need to have harvesters to get resources, unless they want to buy them. Each harvester takes one lot, and you can need quite a few of them, especially the new Shipwright artisans. Build yourself a large house......unless you're a packrat (like me), that should be enough storage for you, with the 100 items you can keep in your Safe Deposit. That will leave you with four lots you're not using. Find an artisan that needs a lot or two, have them trade you a harvester. Put it where they want it, and set them as Admin. I set a flat fee of 500 credits per week, for use of my lots (fair enough, since you're giving up space). They're responsible for maintenance and power, of course. Four lots=2000 credits per week, more than enough to keep your house going, without you having to worry about it. That should be it for now.....   0 Replies

Placing items on walls and tables Posted @ Tue, Nov 11th 9:16 PM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Default [2.00] Has ANYONE figured out how to place an item on a table if youre house has no stairs?                                                                   0 Replies

Gunga Posted @ Tue, Nov 11th 7:18 PM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Default [2.00] I recently went into a house filled with creatures the owner obviously hoped he could turn into mounts and sell. How did he do this?                                                      0 Replies

Placed House Trading? Posted @ Tue, Oct 7th 12:10 AM 2003 By: Dedwud 2 posts Score: Decent [3.00] How do I do this correctly? I do not plan on renewing my SWG subscription after my 3months run out. I have a placed house with decorations using the stair method.  I want to transfer to someone and make them owner. Is there a way to do this? Or do I need to pickup all objects inside and redeed? Thanks               2 Replies

RE: Placed House Trading? Posted @ Sat, Oct 25th 7:53 PM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Default [2.00] OK, confusion reigns here. The Guide above says that you can store 75 items per lot. Hence, a small house taking up two lots would give a total storage capacity of 150 items. However, at least one reply to the Guide says that each SMALL house will allow 250 items to be stored. Which is correct ?? Second, The Guide says that items in a Backpack count towards the total items allowed in storage in the house. For instance, if you place a Travel Pack in the house and the Pack has ten items in it, then you are placing eleven items in the house, ie. Ten items plus the backpack = 11 items. However, a couple of replies to the guide insist that the contents of a Travel Pack, or any other container, do not count towards the items limit of a house. So, the Travel Pack indicated above would only count as one item stored in the house, not eleven. Will someone please clarify ?? If the above questions seem somewhat NooBy, it's because the game doesn't go on sale in UK for a couple of weeks, and I'm trying hard to get a grip on the basics before buying the game, installing and playing. Any answers to the above earn my appreciation in advance.   1 Reply  RE: Placed House Trading? Posted @ Sun, Nov 23rd 10:23 PM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Default [2.00] To clarify this point for future readers...  Backpacks only count as one item IF they are being worn. So if you take off a Backpack it then counts for as many items as are in it +1 (the backpack)                                         0 Replies  RE: Placed House Trading? Posted @ Tue, Oct 7th 5:47 PM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Default [2.00] Go in house near admin, target other player and type /transferstructure                                                                   0 Replies

answers Posted @ Thu, Sep 25th 2:42 PM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Default [2.00] The redeeding amount 800 is based on 100 x the maintenance amount.  100 x the maintenance amount is how much it costs to redeed anything. Just check the "status" and you'll see the maintenance rate amount. Admins CAN pick up and drop items in your house now. They cannot destroy it. Only the owner can. That's the same with all structures. The amopunt of items your house can hold is based on how many lots it takes up. You can store 75 items per lot, so a small house that takes up 2 lots can store 150 items. Items in a backpack count towards the total number of items just like they were on the floor, but it is much easier to sort your things like resources in a backpack. Instead of having to examine each item, you get a list of everything and amount of each when you have them in a backpack.   0 Replies

my house Posted @ Tue, Sep 2nd 11:39 PM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Default [1.50] i have a small house on naboo can i move it to tatooine                                                                                2 Replies

RE: my house Posted @ Sat, Oct 18th 1:26 PM 2003 By: merryweather 10 posts Score: Decent [3.00] Actually what happens is that the graphic defaults to the sytle for that planet. So if you place a Tatoonie house on Correllia your house will look like the correllia style house. I did this that is how i know. Joshuah Tindsdale Master Artisan wanderhome                             ---------------------------- Merryweather Stormyskies Enchanter Bertoxxulous 0 Replies  RE: my house Posted @ Tue, Sep 16th 12:51 AM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Default [2.00] no planet specific houses (such as small Naboo or Small Tatooine style houses) can NOT be moved to a planet other than thier namesake. If you want a house you can planet hop with, get a generic one - they are more expensive but will be worth it if your havent decided where you want to live yet.                            0 Replies

House Styles Posted @ Fri, Aug 29th 10:23 AM 2003 By: Hollowtree 2 posts Score: Decent [3.00] Anyone Know if a small tatooine house can be placed in Naboo or Rori?                                                                   0 Replies

one more question Posted @ Tue, Aug 26th 6:13 PM 2003 By: pitch 1 posts Score: Decent [3.00] recently ive seen color coded house titles. any idea on how this was done i asked the owner of the facility and he told me to type in \#(color code rgb) but my power cut out before he could tell me what the color codes were. does anyone know?                                         1 Reply

RE: one more question Posted @ Wed, Sep 3rd 4:04 PM 2003 By: Taushar the Wise Sage 240 posts Score: Good [3.51] I am totally taking a stab here but I think the code is the hex code for RGB (Red Green Blue) values. The values are expressed in hex from 00 (0) to FF (256). So for example. 000000 is white (lack of all colors) and FFFFFF is black (all colors full). Purple would be equal number of red and blue so FF00FF would give you deep purple color and maybe CC00CC would give you lighter purple color. I haven't tried this since I don't have a house yet but I would be willing to bet that is the way since many of the games use similar methods for color. Taushar   ---------------------------- Taushar Tigris Social Anomaly Guild, Xev Server Expert Artisan+ w/All Trophies Jewelcraft (300) Baking (300) Brewing (300) Pottery (300) Fletching (269) Smithing (254) Tailoring (252) Fishing (200) Alts: Tinkering (238), Poison Making (300) 1 Reply  RE: one more question Posted @ Tue, May 25th 11:35 AM 2004 By: Tomshirk 181 posts Score: Decent [3.00] Everquest used a simple 0 - 256 color value for each RGB color... since this is by the same folks, I'd guess that to be the case.  Much easier than expecting the math deficient to know hex! Hence: 256 0 256 is deep purple... But I'm just guessing here.                            ---------------------------- Why do we fear death? It is the one common thread that binds all living things. We should emrace it with the love of life and desire for harmony. Or should we instead cling to life and diversity, at the cost of peace? 0 Replies

Mounting items on walls and table tops...the answer! Posted @ Sat, Aug 16th 3:19 AM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Default [2.00] Found out from a few folks what the trick is to mounting items on the wall, or on table tops. You have to have a house or building that has a set of stairs. Drop the item on the stair level that corresponds with the height of the table top, or the height you want the item mounted on the wall. Then, use the move commands to put the item in the place you want it. Simple, really. If you have a small house without stairs, you can still do this to some degree, only not nearly as well. Drop the item on the bump up in the doorframe, then move it as usual. It won't allow you to mount that trophy fish on the wall at a decent height, but it's better than nothing.Mounting items on walls and table tops...the answer! Hopefully the powers that be will add a function to the radial menu that will allow you to move items up and down (mainly up) as well as forward and back, so those of us that have small houses can also do this!   1 Reply

RE: Mounting items on walls and table tops...the answer! Posted @ Fri, Jul 2nd 1:03 AM 2004 By: Acygloree 1 posts Score: Decent [3.00] or you can move the item up now                                                                                0 Replies

Items on walls and tables? Posted @ Fri, Aug 15th 7:21 AM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Default [2.00] I've now seen a few places where folks have items mounted on the wall, or placed on top of tables. Anyone know how this was done?                                                      0 Replies

MOVING Your Structure Posted @ Tue, Aug 12th 8:42 PM 2003 By: Cynti 1 posts Score: Decent [3.00] To relocate your house, mining facility, factory, or any other structure,  you just need to reclaim the deed, and this takes a little cash. 1. Pack up everything in your house and put it somewhere safe (like in your inventory, another structure, or the bank safety deposit box). Anything you leave in the house will be destroyed when it's packed up. Also, in the case of mining facilities, any power reserves you deposited will not be there once you relocate the structure. 2. From the Admin menu, do a status and see how much maintenance reserve you have in the house. To reclaim the deed to the structure, you need to have 800 credits in reserve. So for example if you have 225 credits remaining, you need to pay a maintenance of 575cr to reclaim. 3. Select Destroy from the menu. You will receive a warning that you must select destroy AGAIN within 30 seconds to confirm. Now, if you DO NOT have 800 credits in maintenance, you will also get a warning that you must have 800 credits to reclaim the deed or the entire structure will simply be lost. However if you did what I said to do, you will not get this warning, and a deed for your house will be placed in your inventory. 4. Go ahead and relocate the house where you like just as you did in the beginning, and that's all there is to it!   ---------------------------- Cynti Lanceworth 0 Replies

Answers Posted @ Tue, Aug 12th 4:30 AM 2003 By: Cassiopeia 1 posts Score: Decent [3.00] If you fail to pay maintenance and condition goes zero the house will disappear. Destroy house and reclaim deed will make you lose the items in it. House got many uses, not only a "status symbol". I cant build most of my buildings without my house. Crafted items with complexity higher than 25 need a private crafting station (means build by an architect). Storage for sure, a house can hold up to 250 items. You can avoid that limit by using backpacks as they count for 1 item even if full. They cant be destroyed by other players. House is like camp for healing issues ... no accelerator though. Admin makes you able to pay maintenance and set some privileges, nothing more nothing less. Admins CANT take the owner from the admin list. Admins CANT drop nor pickup items in your house. Needed for a house .... depends on which one, there are 4 styles (tatooine, naboo, corellia and generic) and 3 sizes (small, medium, large). Sometimes there is a second floordesign too, like medium generic house floorplan 1 and floorplan 2. Resource needed go from 3k up to 37k. ----- Additional: Everyone can call a pet in YOUR house. Cassiopeia Master Architect Radiant <Freibeuter> Edited, Tue Aug 12 04:33:15 2003   0 Replies

Yellow Areas Posted @ Fri, Aug 8th 12:32 PM 2003 By: Trickster, Eater of Souls 25 posts Score: Decent [3.00] Something I haven't seen mentioned yet... The guide talks about certain areas being yellow where you can NOT place a structure.  This is an owned boundary marker. Other structures will show up with a varying degree of yellow around there where you cannot place other strucutures. In addition, monster camps, areas of interest, etc, all have owned area boundaries. Mainly, if you cannot place your house where you want because the area is yellow and there aren't buildings around, destroy any nearby camps (monster camps seem to have a large radius...) and then try again. I've found this almost always works.   0 Replies

House rules Posted @ Fri, Aug 8th 10:56 AM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Default [2.00] Only the owner can drop things but anyone ont the Amin list can pick thins up. Also only the Owner can call a pet from the house                                                      0 Replies

In home lighting?? Posted @ Fri, Aug 8th 7:36 AM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Default [2.00] Anyone happen to know when or if well be able to have useable lamps and whatnot? The torch fumes, while wonderful at keeping mosquitos and annoying neighbors out, are somewhat hard to live with. =-)                                         0 Replies

Crafting Stations Posted @ Fri, Aug 8th 12:30 AM 2003 By: Tabathia 3 posts Score: Decent [3.00] to answer the last unanswered question: anyone who can enter your house can use such things as crafting stations.  so if it public so are the crafting stations                                                      0 Replies

Destroying Posted @ Thu, Aug 7th 8:59 PM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Default [2.00] Even if on administrators list noone can destroy a house cept the owner. like harvesters                                                                   0 Replies

Things I'd like to know Posted @ Thu, Aug 7th 8:23 PM 2003 By: rendek 15 posts Score: Decent [3.00] 1. If your house gets to 0% maintance it is destroyed. 2. If you destroy your house when it has stuff in it, well, I hope you didn't want any of that stuff. 3. Houses can't be used for much other then the things you mentioned, although my poor PA is currently using a small house as our base till I get better at Arcitect 4. I don't know of any house that have automatic weapons but if any are ever included, they could be destroyed.  Man, I wish I could put guns on my house, nast infestation around it right now, and I am a bad fighter. Oh ya, and if they where on the admin list (and it was working right (see #5) they could destroy it) 5. Admin list lets anyone you place on it do anything you can do (or at least it is supposed to, as this is how harvesters work), including taking people off the list, so be careful who you give acess to, they could boot YOU off the list (at least I have heard something to this effect happening on harvesters (maily to sell a placed harvester to someone))   ---------------------------- IT(Illuminati Trading) Wants you!! http://www.online-gamers.org.uk/it/index.php 0 Replies

Answers Posted @ Thu, Aug 7th 6:42 PM 2003 By: goldyEE 1 posts Score: Decent [3.00] -Once your house goes below zero maintence it starts to lose structure durability percentage points.  These points can be restored by paying up your maintence and paying to repair lost structure durability. These repair costs are very expensive in comparison to the maintence fee! -Yes by paying a fee you can move any house or structure. The fee is associated with the maintence rate. -Right now there is a bug preventing people on the admin list from dropping items in the house. They can move things, and can add/remove people from the ban/admin/vendor/entry lists. -Houses cannot be destroyed by other players. Although if a player was evil they could set up a turret next to your house so you couldn't pay maintence.... but who would do that -Yes houses are like camps -Lots of resources are involved in making houses. 20,600 for a medium house, I forget the exact number but something like 3k resources for a small house. Ahab Otack Architect Flurry   0 Replies

House FAQ Posted @ Thu, Aug 7th 6:34 PM 2003 By: Anonymous Score: Default [2.00] Admin does not let others place stuff in your house. It does let them pay maintence. If you select destroy and your house has enough extra maintenace in it 800 for a small you get the deed back other it is gone.  You have to select destroy twice in 30 seconds for anything to happen. A house acts as a hospital and a cantina with respect to wounds and Battle fatigue. They can only be destroy by the owner, time without maintence and I am sure Sony   0 Replies

Some tips for placing furniture Posted @ Thu, Aug 7th 6:26 PM 2003 By: JeckGoglac 7 posts Score: Decent [3.00] There are a couple commands you can use to make furniture moving/rotation much, much easier. /move forward x /move backward x /rotate left r /rotate right r "x" is any number greater than 1; I think the default from the radial menu is 10. "r" is any number from 1-180; it determines how many degrees the object is rotated. So in fact, you *can* have objects facing directions besides the 4 compass directions.  Put your chairs in a giant circle and hold AA meetings. Fun stuff. Oh, one more thing... how exactly are we supposed to find your e-mail address? I don't see it anywhere in the guide. Edited, Thu Aug 7 18:19:19 2003   0 Replies

0 Message(s) skipped by filter settings, 29 displayedAnonymous posting has been disabled on this forum.

Forum system by Illia