Tradeskills: Engineers Vs. Traders

[coldwarkid]

Highorbit:- nice idea. I vaguely proposed an Engineer shop terminal a few pages back in this thread, with the idea that it could contain widgets for customising items. What would you say to the idea of an Engi terminal in the trade departments to sell the base parts for your time-limited items?

Ferria:- I agree with that vast majority of your post, especially your points on Lvl 200 trade characters and item creation. One thing about the prices PPPE's are going for though - I don't think the prices would be anything like to high if the credit exploit hadn't been running for as long as it has. That little glitch has been in place since beta apparently, so a huge proportion of the cash currently circulating probably originated as a dupe. Without that artificial devaluation of the currency it's unlikely that PPPE's and other rares would fetch anything like the prices they do.

Still, although it's certain that duping is responsible for at least some of the inflation, only Funcom knows for certain how much money has been duped in this way. Bit of a moot argument from that point of view, but perhaps something to think about.

Cheers,

~R~

[Highorbit]

Originally posted by Kzak
For the record, HighOrbit, I got one of these..

It took me long, long hours of camping, and competing with others for the spawn.

I think I had to take T.I.M. down twelve or thirteen times before the scope finally dropped. I'm not sure what the 'official' droprate is, but from my experiences I'd suggest it to be ten percent or lower.

With the scope, my skills receive a much-needed boost.

I hope you acquire such a scope too, even if the time spent waiting may grow long indeed. Keep faith in yourself.

Yeah... been looking for one of those.

Just got the Bowtie (which cost me 10 million since I was bored of finding the Foreman dead) which helps a bit. But if I want to do anything with nanos higher than QL200 before level 195 I have to get that item from TIM.

Not looking forward to camping TIM, respawn is too long and the dungeon is boring as hell.

Ahh... what am I saying! I love camping for hours at a time and killing grey mobs for no experience.

I like the idea about Engi only terminals, provided the items weren't so expensive as to rule out buying them for people. I'd be looking at the QL200 parts costing no more than 2000 creds in total.

[Maximilian]

I had another idea.

If one (Funcom) wants to enhance interaction between the trade skill professions, one might think about a system of 'interactive' buffs. Each tradeskill profession gets a buff line that is rather suboptimal on its own, let's say a +20 buff, duration 30 min. If now the respective buff from profession 2 is put on the same character, the bonus will become +50 (instead of +40) and duration is elongated by 30 min (additive duration).

Make the requirements pretty high and put some ! target ! level restrictions on them (cough - me and such a proposal - yuck ), so that they can't be abused in low levels. If the net result of the stacked buffs is better than the existing buffs, you might create some real interaction, because now, you would need two (or more) different professions to get optimal results. Especially the elongation factor would be interesting, cause you need lot's of time for trade skills!

This is not necessarily meant for Engis and traders alone. Doc's could get a Pharma Tech, Crats a Psychology variant, Fixers a WS version, Adv maybe a Mech Eng buff. Dozens of options would be available.

Comments welcome.

So long,

Max(imilian), neutral Adv soul twin of Vermeer, OT Engi

P.S. If someone else proposed this already, sorry, didn't want to copy steal ideas.

[Highorbit]

Originally posted by Maximilian
I had another idea.

If one (Funcom) wants to enhance interaction between the trade skill professions, one might think about a system of 'interactive' buffs. Each tradeskill profession gets a buff line that is rather suboptimal on its own, let's say a +20 buff, duration 30 min. If now the respective buff from profession 2 is put on the same character, the bonus will become +50 (instead of +40) and duration is elongated by 30 min (additive duration).

Make the requirements pretty high and put some ! target ! level restrictions on them (cough - me and such a proposal - yuck ), so that they can't be abused in low levels. If the net result of the stacked buffs is better than the existing buffs, you might create some real interaction, because now, you would need two (or more) different professions to get optimal results. Especially the elongation factor would be interesting, cause you need lot's of time for trade skills!

This is not necessarily meant for Engis and traders alone. Doc's could get a Pharma Tech, Crats a Psychology variant, Fixers a WS version, Adv maybe a Mech Eng buff. Dozens of options would be available.

Comments welcome.

So long,

Max(imilian), neutral Adv soul twin of Vermeer, OT Engi

P.S. If someone else proposed this already, sorry, didn't want to copy steal ideas.

I think this would only serve to compound the current problem.

If I want to make a QL200 gun now at least I only have to talk to a trader. What you suggest would mean I would have to find a Fixer and then an Adventurer before the buffs ran out, which strikes me as silly.

(I have to find a hacker to teach me about making guns and an explorer to teach me about mechanical engineering??)

At the moment in order to make anything above QL180 I have to get Trader buffs and a doc buff so I can change implants.

As for level restrictions... they're pathetic. There is absolutely no difference (in terms of trade skills) between a level 162 and a level 189. Both will almost certainly have hit ability caps (if they the abilities were maxed in the normal 125 - 150 cap), both will have hit title caps.

And as I will keep saying: These are trade skills not combat skills. These are designed to help people and yourself not make you able to slaughter people in PVP combat. They will absolutely not make you better at PVM combat. We don't get much experience from using them and the financial gain is not great.

I don't want to remove the buff from traders, nor deny the buffs to other professions, I would just really like something that we (engineers) can be good at, and as a side effect of this I would like to see this benefiting the other professions such as traders since these Trade skills are in such short supply.

Ultimately, in my opinion trade skills are two hard, and the two professions that are generally raising them have to go to a lot of effort to make them useful.

[Maximilian]

I thought this 'interactive' buffs as add on, not as replacement, god prevent that.

To give the Engis(/others) an alternative to get higher buffs, not the always same way of trader begging.

Nevertheless valid points, HighOrbit.

Side note:
- Fixer -> WS: Somebody who is able to break things usually learns about their construction as well.
- Adv -> ME: Sheesh, I wish, I would be able to play an Explorer with my Adv. In case you forgot, Adventuring and Swimming are among the most useless skills in AO. And we know pretty much about Machancis (skill wise).

So long,

Max(imilian)

[Highorbit]

Originally posted by Maximilian
I thought this 'interactive' buffs as add on, not as replacement, god prevent that.

To give the Engis(/others) an alternative to get higher buffs, not the always same way of trader begging.

Nevertheless valid points, HighOrbit.

Side note:
- Fixer -> WS: Somebody who is able to break things usually learns about their construction as well.
- Adv -> ME: Sheesh, I wish, I would be able to play an Explorer with my Adv. In case you forgot, Adventuring and Swimming are among the most useless skills in AO. And we know pretty much about Machancis (skill wise).

So long,

Max(imilian)

hehe... In which case I shall join you in the campaign for more buffs!

[Kzak]

Something I've thought about (but I'm not sure if others have suggested this before) would be a new line of nanos. Sympathetic nanos for engineers, to be precise.

The idea goes something like this:

An Engineer can cast the aforementioned sympathetic nano, creating an aura affecting all people in a certain radius, let's say 20 meters.

The effect of the aura increases choice tradeskills (MechEng, for instance) by e.g. 20 points. Several variants of this nano exists for each tradeskill or group of tradeskills - and the nanos should stack, as long as no two similar auras are running.

For instance, a MechEng+10 aura is running, and another engineer fires up a new aura, giving MechEng +20. These ones stack, giving a total of MechEng +30 for both engineers. If a third engineer joined the first two, firing up a +30 aura (perhaps this should be the maximum benefit from any single aura?), the total bonus would stack to +60.

Thus letting several engineers working together accomplish more than an engineer working alone would.

--

Thoughts on this one, people?

[Highorbit]

Originally posted by Kzak
Something I've thought about (but I'm not sure if others have suggested this before) would be a new line of nanos. Sympathetic nanos for engineers, to be precise.

The idea goes something like this:

An Engineer can cast the aforementioned sympathetic nano, creating an aura affecting all people in a certain radius, let's say 20 meters.

The effect of the aura increases choice tradeskills (MechEng, for instance) by e.g. 20 points. Several variants of this nano exists for each tradeskill or group of tradeskills - and the nanos should stack, as long as no two similar auras are running.

For instance, a MechEng+10 aura is running, and another engineer fires up a new aura, giving MechEng +20. These ones stack, giving a total of MechEng +30 for both engineers. If a third engineer joined the first two, firing up a +30 aura (perhaps this should be the maximum benefit from any single aura?), the total bonus would stack to +60.

Thus letting several engineers working together accomplish more than an engineer working alone would.

--

Thoughts on this one, people?

Only the lack of higher level engi's, and most of the serious trade skill engi's are 150+.

For clan on RK1 there are only 50 Engineers listed 150+ on AG.

And I'm sure a lot of those aren't all that active if at all.

[Krabbus]

The funny thing is that the Virral Triumvirate Egg was first devised by Elyse "Virral" Persichetti who is an engineer - but you all know who's best at making this blend of art and engineering.

Engineers need serious help to make a blend of art like the Virral Triumvirate Egg, but Traders can do this of their own, and much earlier - I find it really strange since it developed by an engineer...



By the way, is it 4 weeks now and counting???

[______________Rez-SN]

I am really glad this thread finally caught Cosmik's eye. For a very long time I have been saying the same things Krabbus has through out this thread. He just put them in better words then I

I applaud you Krabbus, thanks from this Discontent Engineer.

[Sean-Roach]

Actually, if this item, an item conceived by a player and actually put in the game, was the norm and not the exception, having traders better at mass producing it wouldn't bother me in the least.

It's that there really CAN'T be much innovation, (the things engineers are really best for), in something as ultimately simple as AO, that makes me wish Engineers had a balance to Traders in tradeskills.

I mean, if Engineers could truly customize, with items that truly were a conglomeration of the stats of their components, and not an item that required a set of very specific steps to produce, I wouldn't care if a Trader could out-produce gear.

Ultimately, I'd like to see a tradeskill system more in keeping with the implant or jewelry system. Here are the gun parts. Sure, you can substitute a short barrel for that ultra-long composite. You'll get something with less range, and easier to aim, (also, less damage,) because the barrel has a modifier on the final range, damage, and skill-required-to-use. Okay, you want to make a shotgun that has Burst.

Fine, but the Burst skill is going to be automatically higher on a shotgun, and it'll require a little heavy-weapons skill as the approx-kick on that combination tilts the balance of the base skill to the 60%-40% entry.

Then, make the ability to innovate an Engineer Only system, but append prototype to the end of all the products that an engineer produces, and allow a trader, who has "used" the prototype, (in the manner of a map or nano-crystal, but without dissolving the original), or anyone else for that matter, to get a list-out of the components and build the same thing without "prototype" appended to the end.

My primary character, an Engineer is Doublebarrel, if I used the above system to innovate a short-barreled full-auto shotgun, by adding in the right parts in the right order, (and trying, one after another, various non-central parts, until I got a "base" that'd accept the next central part,) and managed to find something that worked, I'd say it should be called a "Doublebarrel's shotgun MK 1-Prototype." Named for it's innovater, (always an engineer although a lower level trader might be able to make more of them, faster, later on,) with the name of the weaponsmithing kit I started with in the name, given a designation to distinguish it from any future shotgun I might devise, and appended with the word "prototype" to make it clear it's the first of its line.

Imagine this scenario. I'm sitting, with a wad of cash, next to the weaponsmithing terminal in the Fair Trade in Tir, (I can afford the parts there, and I figure on scaling up to a higher QL set of components later once I settle on a working recipe.)

I start with the Shotgun Weapons Construction Kit.

I try to add the Lock and Stock so it'll use one of the conventional ammo-types. Done. It'll now take shotgun shells, (Base ammo for the shotgun weapons construction kit.)

I go to add the Shells magazine, no luck. (Shotgun weapons construction kit database entry number, lock and stock database entry number both taken into account to generate a pseudorandom number that points at one of the available non-central tradeskill items, such as nano-paste or nano-pylons, or a place-holder for any of the available central-components. Some value attached to the kit appended by 1.)

Okay, try the nano-pastes, cheapest first. No-luck. Go through the other items, a nano-pylon works.

I go to add the shells magazine again, still no luck. (QL of the construction kit, shotgun weapons construction kit database entry number, lock and stock database entry number AND NOW, nano-pylon datbase entry number. Same as before. Some value attached to the kit appended by one again. Oh, and if the value is now, five, freeze thee next item as the last item before some central-component, like a sight, magazine, or barrel, or cooling system, is permitted.)

Okay, try the nano-pastes, cheapest first again. Got lucky on Layer 4.

I go to add the shells magazine a third time. This time I have to add another nano-pylon first. (attached value is now 3, but lets jump the gun and assume that one of the placeholder values is the new "random" choice, permitting the next item to be a central one. Probably one in 3 to one in 5 values should be placeholder values.)

On the forth try, I manage to install the shells magazine. Okay, now to try to equip a sight.

I have to install 5, (the maximum number) non-central items before It'll allow me to install the sight. I chose the basic "simple crosshair target", for expense. This gun will have a lower crit as a result, no aimed-shot, than if I'd chosen, oh say, the "targeting scope", but it'll be cheaper to make too, (and since NONE of these guns will ever drop as loot, cash and the skill required to use become the game balancers.)

I manage to get lucky and install a ultra-short barrel without going through any of the non-central components to "glue" it in place.

Okay, I could stop there, but the gun would be a very basic shotgun-only, low-crit, cheap weapon. Instead, I decide I want it to do FA and Burst. That requires three additional components, at least. A cooling rig sufficient to handle FA, and something to open up burst and FA as options. I'll also need a triple pulse enabler and a rapid reload-and-fire gyro to give it Burst and FA capability respectively.

Now I have a working gun, but I also want it to have a good crit. There are several things I could tack on that'd boost the crit. Something to keep the gun serviced would help, and it ups the cycle time as well. So I throw in a Self Cleaning KO-CR. Not the best out there, but it doesn't elevate the necessary skills too much and I can afford it. Of course, even to do this, I have to install anywhere from 0-5 random non-central-parts first.

Finally, I decide the gun is "finished". Any more and only a soldier could ever hope to have enough green skills to fire it, (as each option still requires a skill to use, and thus that skill to equip the gun.)

Now, one of the following two ideas present themselves. One is I simply "use" the gun to finish it, I don't care for this idea to be honest, as it's too easy to do so by mistake. The other is I must buy an experimental-weapons-registration form and apply the gun to it. Now I have my prototype weapon that anyone can use. If I really wanted to, I could try again, assembling the items I initially used until I found a combination that required fewer non-central components. Heck, I might find that a higher-function varient of a core part I used might have allowed for fewer nano-layers and nano-pylons. Maybe if I'd gone with the nano-interfaced cooling instead of the freon cooling system for instance. I'd have had a faster rate of fire AND a cheaper weapon. However, I'm on a budget, so I stick with what I have.

Now, I can sell this prototype to someone, and they can use it. A fixer could "hack" it, and get a recipe for it, or heck 'I' could apply this to a "blank book" and get a recipe for it. (which the system allows because this gun has my name right in it.) One other thing. The prototype gun DOES work, but if I rebuilt the gun using the generated recipe, the new one would lack the "prototype" designation, (some way to allow a possessor of the recipe to make the thing while preventing others from doing so. Perhaps a test for the recipe before allowing a step to progress outside of the pre-existing recipes that generate the pre-existing guns,) and would only need 90-95 percent the original skill to use as well, (or wouldn't need 20% of the main weapon skill in mechanical engineering to use as well).

Let's assume that my prototype ends up needing 102 Shotgun, and 51 Heavy Weapons to use. Well, the prototype also needs 30 (roughly 20% of the sum of the skills needed for the weapon,) in some other tech-head skill. Because it's a shotgun at heart, and uses shot-shells, the skill is Mech-Engi, but had I gone with an energy cannon of some sort, It'd have needed Elec Engi to work, If I'd gone with a chemical weapon, chemistry to use. Now a unit that didn't have the prototype tag would be identical to the prototype unit, except the user wouldn't need any skill in mech-engi to use, as the gun isn't glitchy like prototypes tend to be.

On another variation, it might just need 10% of the skill of the highest NON-weaponsmithing requirement I needed to make the thing. Since this thing might have very well needed more mech-engi than any other skill but weapon-smithing, that'd mean the skill the bearer would still need, besides shotgun and heavy weapons, is mech-engi.

This, is how I wish the tradeskill system did work. Then engineers would be most valuable for the things they could design, not the things they could actually make in mass. (Or make at all, I could generate a 41-60 recipe using QL 41 parts to make a QL 41 gun, and never actually have the skills to finish a QL 60 varient, but a trader might use my recipe and scale up to 60 without any headaches, and be about the same level as myself when he did it.)

I can't believe I did that. I started to write this in the box, realized I could lock-up at any moment, wrote the rest in notepad (where I could save), then hit "submit" without copying and pasting first.

Well, I've edited in the full thing now.

Further edit. Corrected a couple typos. Furthermore, don't tell me this would be impossible. Do you REALLY think that EVERY implant is in the game? I just fired up Nano-Nanny, and checked through the possible implants for the head slot. 26 for shining, 27 if you count null, (I will,) 7 bright, (counting the null), 6 faded, (counting the null). 27*7*6=1134 Do you really think there are 1134 DIFFERENT head-slot implants in the database? More likely a basic one, and MAYBE one for each of the one-nano-cluster ones for the name. I think it'd be easier in the long run to just recognize that some amount of customization of character owned items is easier than trying to keep note of each and every possible varient in a static database.

Another edit. There should be a way that anyone can copy the recipe, but this is ESPECIALLY critical if there is a test to ensure you actually possess the recipe. As two engineers might develop the exact same gun, I'd say possession of the recipe is cricital so the system can tell who developed the gun you're now supposedly reproducing. This way the database doesn't need to be edited each time an engineer decides to get creative. For duplicating the book, I'd say use another "blank book" on the completed recipe book, to generate a clone. I'd also say that there should be no skill test to do this.

[Warlock]

Well, it looks like the players are done with this thread

and it looks like FC are done with this thread also

[Krabbus]

Originally posted by Warlock
(...) and it looks like FC are done with this thread also

But I'm still waiting for an official comment, even if it says nothing nice for engineers... I just want to know what my engineer is supposed to do...

If Funcom decide to do nothing, please increase the duration for meastroes to 2-3 hours, it's really hard to do anything in 30 minutes - if it last 2-3 hours I would be more happy than I am today...

[Sean-Roach]

It's not a dead thread, it's information overload. People are balking on reading the thread any longer because of my recent two-page post.

I've accidentally killed more threads that way...

[Kzak]

Hmm... well, if nothing else, Engineers make all other professions look good in comparison.

[Plasmatorch]

Originally posted by Sean Roach
It's not a dead thread, it's information overload. People are balking on reading the thread any longer because of my recent two-page post.

I've accidentally killed more threads that way...

Sorry to put it this way Sean but I don't think it is information overload that killed this thread. What realy happened is that everyone finaly realized that the engineer profession is going to be broken. It will never be fixed no matter how much they talk about it, or whine about it. This I realized after I saw the fact that cosmik siad he had an eye on it but that was on page 2 after that he idn't care anymore. Also the fact that this Thread happens to avoided by all the dev's like it carried the plague. Which gives just more evidence that the engineer profession is doomed to never be fixed.

[Krabbus]

Cosmik, it's 5 weeks now I will keep bumping this until I get an official answer to this issue...

if funcom don't want to do anything with the engineer profession, please increase the duration of maestroe's... anyway, it's pitty to see engineers all alone and not working together with traders...

[Kzak]

Bump to that, Krabbus.

[jakesnake5]

One bit the Engies are ignoring. It costs you a little less to raise the tradeskills than Traders. It's just you don't WANT to raise tradeskills.

Sure, its not MUCH of a difference, but it means you can get higher lvl's than traders if you devoted the same amount of IP.

A major hairball is you Engies insist on being combat capable. I treat my Engie as a support personel. I support my bot, keep it fixed during a fight, slap the best shields and buffs on it, so I DON'T need to join in. I do anyway with my low lvl pistols cause I've boosted defenses, and if the mob slaps me a few times I can take it, and my bot isn't getting whacked.

Traders do have nano's that require we boost blue skills just to be effective.

And to show just how silly this argument is. I've encounterd a CRAT who can out tradeskill BOTH class's at her lvl. So you got to KNOW that cost some ip.

In short, spend the same amount of IP for your tradeskills as a Trader. You'll end up better than him AND you can ask for the buffs (like my Trader when I need NP or Chem buffs).

[coldwarkid]

Actually, to run a Positive Agg/Def Trimmer, a Divert Energy to Hitpoints Trimmer, an Increase Aggressiveness Trimmer and a Divert Energy to Offence Trimmer (my basic loadout) at a decent level, I have to invest heavily in Quantum Physics, Mech. Eng, Nano Programming and Comp. Lit. These are effectively combat skills for me.

At low levels the majority of Traders seem to be combat oriented and don't invest heavily in tradeskills as a result, but at the high levels it's a different story. A Trader will spend more IP than an Engineer to max out all tradeskills, but only just. Someone (Warlock? Krabbus?) did the calculation and determined that it was just under one level's worth of IP. Of course, if the Trader wanted to leave his skills a few points off max and just rely on buffs, he could easily beat the engineer on equal IP.

As for combat effectiveness, there's a thread in the Engi forum about that right now. Acting as support is all very well, when the mobs allow you to act as support. It's the random aggro from the next room that you really dread, since if the bot fails to pull the mob off you, you're probably heading for reclaim. With Body Dev as costly as it is, with pistols as poor as they are and with bots taking as long as they do to kill mobs, once you pass level 35 or so getting aggro from a yellow mob is a serious emergency. If it's just one mob, you'll be OK. However, if the bot has two to get through...

If a Trader wants to put the IP into Tradeskills, he can equal an Engineer without using buffs for minimal additional IP expenditure. If he wants to spend the same amount of IP, his skills will be only marginally lower. In either case, when both parties are fully self-buffed the Trader wins hands down.

Cheers,

~R~