In light of the recent "buff the widowmaker" thread, it has come to my attention that many of the player manufacturable items need a buff to represent the time commitment required to create. For instance, what is the point of unlocking and creating Improved High Drain PCs when they are not even that useful?

For comparison:
Heavy PC
-550 Capacity
-45/sec Generation
-20 Grid Power

Improved High Drain PC
-500 Capacity
-46/sec Generation
-10 Grid Power

If I can buy a Heavy PC for less than 4,000c, why would I spend the time transporting cargo to the right station to make one of these? My suggestion to this is to buff the PC to be 48/sec OR, make the Extreme Drain PC a manufacturable item with a nerfed 400 Capacity and a buffed 10 Grid Power.

More importantly, crafting was a big draw for me to this game and I love being a part of the Trident Arms Syndicate where our main mission is crafting manufacturables. However, recently sales have plummetted for almost all manufacturable items across the board because 1. It takes too long to explain to the newbies what they are or why they are useful 2. Delivering an item safely or picking up a shipment of items is time consuming and 3. The time required to make them cannot be recouped from the sale price.

[TRI] is currently sitting on almost 100 Widowmakers and I personally haven't made a sale at asking price (500-600k which is more than fair for the time investment) because of all aforementioned reasons in over two weeks. I'm starting to feel like my favorite part of the game is getting phased out.

It isn't intentionally being phased out on our part. This kind of crafting and player trading plays a huge part in our larger goals.

Anyway, I welcome continued feedback on these specific Power Cell suggestions.

You can make the IHDPC at any commercial station once you've passed the right missions, and it has no license requirements. It's fine as an early game power cell. The EDPC could use a few extra generation points because it is difficult to acquire, limited per character, and has very low grid power. The widowmaker is fine. It's a blaster and a half.

I don't disagree with buffing any of the manufacturable equipment. I appreciate that as a member of TRI you may have far more experience manufacturing than most players. There may be other factors currently influencing the manufacturable goods market.

Draugath, I was almost really upset at myself for duplicating a thread you had just created... then I saw the year that was posted. Seems disheartening to see that exactly two years ago the same frustrations were voiced and still this issue occurs.

Incarnate, I understand it isn't an intention of yours. I was simply trying to explain that the process of manufacturing is simply made obsolete by the realities of the economy. Why would someone want to spend time manufacturing items that have no real sale value when they could spend that time doing something like trading and raking in millions within the same time frame? If I'm going to make the conscious decision to NOT spend my time trading, there should be a real, tangible value created. At the moment, that is not the case because as I stated, who would want to buy an IHDPC for 10-20x more (a price way below the value of time investment made) than a HPC which can be purchased at any station?

Trident parts are the only manufacturable items of value, but really only make sense to sell after you've crafted your own. They're valuable because the demand is present and the supply is low. But the supply is low because it doesn't make any sense to sell these parts because really, what are credits useful for? A billionaire from TGFT could buy a Trident Kit (if one were to be in supply) with the billions they amassed from doing what they like: trading. If I'm the only person manufacturing Trident parts and selling them for money when I don't have a dent myself, what's the point?

Extrapolating on that, I don't think Trident parts will ever have their own player driven market because they require a team effort. Neon Black has his dent. We're almost done with Darth's. Would we really start the process again and sell them instead of outfitting another guild member? It doesn't make sense.

Point is, manufacturing is an easy area of the game to implement change because it should only involve the changing of numbers and supply of items in a particular sector. Either make HPCs more scarce to drive up demand of the IDHPC, buff the IDHPC to include value of the wasted revenue that would come from trading the required materials rather than crafting the PC, or try and implement Draugath's suggestions on a completely revamped PC/ship variety system that is player manufacturable.

Again I state, as is, the manufacturing economy is basically non-existant. For whatever reason, I enjoy making things. It's just a shame that my making of things adds literally no value to the economy what-so-ever.

You can make the IHDPC at any commercial station once you've passed the right missions

Aren't those the missions that had to have been passed (or in many of our cases, existed) before your character reached level 5?

Anyway, ARF_01 will buy a bunch of those Widowmakers. I had no idea anyone had huge quantities to sell right now.

I was almost really upset at myself for duplicating a thread you had just created... then I saw the year that was posted. Seems disheartening to see that exactly two years ago the same frustrations were voiced and still this issue occurs.

I see someone forgot what game they're talking about. You can't expect anything other than graphics tweaks and Android bug fixes in the eyeblink of two VO years.

haha. a lawyer complaining about the pace of progress. irony in action.

Tokko Bashalis, I don't disagree with you, and I can appreciate how discovering these facts are disheartening. It definitely doesn't make me happy either, we seem to be constantly running from internet-service outage drama, to billing-service failure (the project this week), to hopefully avoiding getting fined out of business by the Federal Trade Commission. There's a massive pile of this kind of doom-threatening crap, most of which we don't discuss publicly. None of it has much to do with actual game development, and it isn't much fun, but thus far (?) we've kept the lights on. The first rule of game development seems to be that everything takes @#$@ing forever.

At any rate, the important focus is what to do with the opportunity we have in this moment. It took me nearly a month to get back to having the resources to do the relatively-small gatling cannon change I had promised, but I did come back to it.

Draugath's changes are a bit more far-reaching, and involved to implement (in fact, some PCC editor changes would be needed to do the scarcity thing); but there's a lot of great potential, and I'm not against the concept.

Still simpler would be some buffing or nerfing of existing power cells to make the HPC/IDHPC more distinctive.

That is the specific feedback I would like to hear, because it is the feedback that can lead to the most immediate and straightforward action. So, if we could just focus on the OP suggestion, specifically, and comment on that, I would appreciate it.

I never really understood what "high drain" meant... but if the intention is to make a more desirable player manufactured powercell, then I'd suggest the following buff:

Improved High Drain PC
-600 Capacity
-50/sec Generation
-22 Grid Power

I don't know how hard it is to make these things, but this would make it a hot commodity in player trade, since it would top the UC as the premium powercell. The upped grip would also make it possible to mount a widow maker and a powercell blaster, something I've wanted to do for a long time.

Thanks for the reply incarnate. I run a small business and I totally understand how behind the scenes stuff can pile and make it seem like nothing is progressing. I wasn't trying to jab at you with my comment. I apologize.

I like Greenwall's suggestion for a buff. I've played a variety of different games with manufacturing elements and can attest that when the best items in the game are easily purchasable by an NPC, the manufacturing economy fails. I think the numbers proposed are going to start a riot though with the added Grid power.

I think the IHDPC would do well on it's own combating against the UC with a moderate buff such as:

Improved High Drain Power Cell
- 500 Capacity
- 50/sec Generation
- 20 Grid Power

You could even nerf the capacity to make up for the increases as I'm sure most people would be fine with 400. If we're going to explore the potential of a power cell that supplies 22 grid power, it would need to be nerfed down to UC numbers to give some sort of sacrifice for the higher grid.

On the other hand, the buffs proposed would greatly impact the player driven manufacturable economy because the IHDPC would be the best/most sought after PC and would immediately drive up demand for not only the PCs, but the materials required to make them as well.

Production is still limited to 10/day correct?

If we're going to explore the potential of a power cell that supplies 22 grid power, it would need to be nerfed down to UC numbers to give some sort of sacrifice for the higher grid

why? It's available to anyone who does the mission (which anyone can do) -- this isn't some kind of exclusivity item we are talking about. It should be very desirable over the UC-- not "just a little more" desirable.

If any kind of nerf needs to be made it should be in the manufacturing portion -- to make it harder to make, and thus, even MORE valuable - which is the whole point of this post.

In the spirit of Incarnate's request, buff the extreme drain and improved extreme drain to have the same recharge as ultracells, but the higher capacity.

MMO weapons should follow the following formula:

Rare drops > Crafted > Purchased

One of the things holding back crafting is that station purchasable items are as good or better than crafted items.

Greenwall, I agree with you. I just fear that making such a drastic change such as allowing a widowmaker + blasters on the same ship is something that will require heavy fore-thought to ensure balance. I want changes that can be made asap, not debated for months on end with no change. If widowmakers were designed to never be coupled with another blaster, then we have an issue.

If Incarnate sees that a new power cell with the expanded grid power is within the realm of reason for VO, then great because it solves two things: widowmaker demand and the IDHPC. Manufacturing would instantly boost and be a prominent part of the game over night.

Again, I want changes that can be agreed on unanimously and implemented in as short a time frame as possible.

The burst damage of widowmakers is dwarfed by the burst damage of gauss and/or sunflares.

I am a big fan of widowmakers, but you'd have to try pretty hard to make them less balanced than flares. I also like flares, so I'm saying this as a neutral party.

I like the idea that changing a few numbers on an item already in the game could enact such an amazing, instant change to game play. Can it be done?!

I'm totally not going to sit over here and get my hopes up so high that I'll cry like a teenage girl dumped on prom night when it doesn't get implemented next update...

I'd like to offer that the Extreme Drain Power Cell should also be changed with the new IHDPC, at the risk of being rendered even more obsolete than it already is.

Extreme Drain Power Cell (suggested)
-500 Capacity
-60/sec Generation
-5 Grid Power

I'm also not convinced that either the IHDPC or the Extreme Drain Cell should eclipse the Ultra Charge Cell. Acquiring 40 mentor points, if done fairly, is quite an accomplishment. I've been playing for over a decade and so far I've managed to accrue 8 mentor points.

I would suggest for the IHDPC:

-500 Capacity
-50/sec Generation
-15 Grid Power

/2c

+1 Paserlight with the EDPC suggestion. I agree that the UC is kind of like a hybrid player created item. It takes a considerable amount of time to acquire.

But again, the problem is that the effort required to get a UC only gives you 50 more capacity. It's a no brainer to ditch the 50 and just buy a fast charge because it's available at all stations for cheap. There should be a market/demand for high level player manufacturables that make a pilot think twice about buying a run-of-the-mill station bought power cell.

I'm also not convinced that either the IHDPC or the Extreme Drain Cell should eclipse the Ultra Charge Cell. Acquiring 40 mentor points, if done fairly, is quite an accomplishment. I've been playing for over a decade and so far I've managed to accrue 8 mentor points.

Phaserlight, the UC still retains the enormous advantage of being purchasable in stations in unlimited quantities. Savets formula makes the most sense. The rarer the item the better it should be.

There should be at least one advanced powercell with an expanded (rather than reduced) grid. The goal should be to expand possibilities, not simply re-arrange numbers to stay within the same closed system of boring. I'm not saying there shouldn't be balance, but I think some here are balancing so much that ultimately no gameplay will be effected (like, for example, the recent and pointless UDV buff).

And don't get me started on the crappy and totally broken mentoring system.....

Ok, I've buffed the IHDPC to 50/sec generation and 18 grid power. Yes, the mission still limits to 5/day.

And I buffed the Extreme Drain to 52/sec generation.

Changes are listed as part of tonight's release (1.8.331), but should be live in the game now.