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Tiers and Schematics - How I wish it worked....


Mordgier

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Yesterday I made a ‘top of my head’ style post of how schematics could have been made good, achieved the goals of creating industry specialization, expanding the gameplay loop while not crippling the existing players.

 

I’m going to expand on this now as much as I can.

 

 

Goals:

 

Maintain the ability of solo players and small groups to stay self sufficient for the basic ship building.

 

Create a gameplay loop around schematic development that does not involve bots.

 

Create a use for ‘damaged’ elements.

 

Create a progression system for developing schematics.

 

Inject a finite number of end game schematics that will allow the owners to maintain a market nice.

 

 

Games we are basing the mechanics on:

 

SWTOR Research system.

 

Path of Exile Divination Card system.

 

 

Tier 1 – Basic Technology

 

This is current stage of human technology that is publicly known.  For a contemporary example – think the “Internal Combustion Engine”. You and I may not know how to build one off the top of our head – but we can easily find full blown instructions and even schematics on google at no cost.

 

In the game, the vast majority of elements we have currently fall in this category. We do not need to buy a schematic or research one – we know how to build space engines, we know how to build atmospheric engines and so on.

 

 

Tier 2 – Advanced and Proprietary technology

 

This is the pinnacle of human technology that goes beyond common and public knowledge. There are two categories in Tier 2 that require schematics:

 

Propriety Technology and Advanced Technology.

 

Propriety technology is NPC created unique items that players do not know how to build and cannot research due to licensing restricitons such as patents etc. For a contemporary example – an Internal Combustion Engine with variable compression rate – we know some companies have developed the technology, but we don’t know how to make it ourselves. We would need to license such technology to build from it.

 

Things that fall into this category and require purchasing a schematic from the bots:

 

AGG, Warp Drives, L cores and so on

 

 

Advanced Technology is player created by ‘analyzing’ Tier 1 items. When an element is ‘analyzed’ it is pushed to it’s limits until destroyed and knowledge is gained about how it can be improved. A brand new item can be analyzed, or a partially damaged item.

 

The difficulty of developing an item will vary on the complexity of the item being analyzed and the results are unpredictable (but can be steered, more on that later)

 

Example of how it could work.

 

I have a Basic Space Engine S and would like to develop and Advanced Space Engine S.

 

The Space Engine has a complexity rating of 20.

 

I toss a brand new Basic Space Engine S in an analyzer and the following formula is applied to identify the progress made towards a BP:

 

 

((100-<Complexity>)/50)* RNG(1 to <Analysis Skill>)*<Item Repairs Left>

 

The Basic Space Engine S has a complexity rating of 20.

My analysis skill is at 3.

 

So the formula results in:

 

((100-20)/50)*RNG(1 to 3)*3

 

Let’s say the RNG gods bless me and I roll a 3 – the result is: 14.4 points progress.

 

I’m sure NQ could come up with a better formula for this – but you get the idea.

 

Once you have accumulated 100 points in the analyzer you get a schematic for a variant of Advanced Space Engine S which is 10% improved in a random trait. For example, we may get a Responsive Advanced Space Engine S which has faster warmup time.

 

Which schematic is generated the first time is entirely random.

 

We can further steer the direction of research to ensure that we do not get duplicates. To ensure we do not get a duplicate schematic with faster warmup time, we have to feed an engine with that trait into the analyzer – we can do this with multiple engines. For example if we are seeking more power and already have engine variants with all the other traits boosted to 10%, we can load them all in and be guaranteed to get a 10% more power engine as the end result.

 

Finally, we can research an “Pinnacle Space Engine S” which has 5% improvement to all stats by feeding every single variant into the analyzer.

 

 

The above system is not limited to just ship elements, it can be applied to all elements with stats, anything from containers that hold more, to assemblers that work faster and so on.

 

 

Tier 3 – Future Tech

 

This should be introduced with the new solar system. We are the first humans in that system, but someone was here before us. There are technology fragments that can be found when mining in asteroids, deep underground or in wrecks. Completing a full artifact and analyzing it will produce a tier 3 schematic. These cannot be further improved.

 

Some artifacts can be extremely rare and the number of them seeded should be finite with more added as the game progresses. The number fragments that you need to complete will vary depending on the element – an XL engine could have 100 and an XS just 5 and so on. The fragments can be sold and are rare enough that it is impractical for an individual to find all the fragments to complete a set without trading for some.

 

There is a finite number of fragments and not everyone or even every org will be able to get one. The players that can get one will have limited competition on the pricing of the final items. If any one org is able to gain a monopoly on a schematic or they exit the game via inactive players, more are injected into the system.

 

Not all Tier 2 items have a Tier 3 counterpart.

 

 

Tier 4 - Alien Tech

 

This is ultra-rare technology that can only be acquired through in game events etc. This is the actual alien technology that we are trying to replicate in Tier 3 – except this is the real deal. These can only be acquired through events etc and are a cosmetic upgrade from Tier 3. Ultra exclusive, ultra rare, and largely a cosmetic bragging rights item. 

 

 

 

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If wishes and buts were candied nuts, I'd be very fat.

 

But, instead, I am building, building, building, building, and then waiting on my groups of refineries and honeycomb industry to churn out more for me to build with.

 

Schematics haven't slowed me down one bit. Instead, they helped me narrow my focus, allowing me to concentrate on the things I really want to get finished.

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