Research menu for researching Schematics of items

[Wolfram]

Hello Noveans!

 

I'm quite new to the game itself and MMOs too, but something that definitely caught my attention was how the Industry is pretty much blocked for new players. Even when getting smaller/starter machinery, you just can't go on and start progressing, or even refining/crafting things that are possible using the Nanocrafter.

 

But yeah, there's the question of balancing stuff, as it would be ideal to people having specialized factories for goods, plus not getting to endgame too early, so I was thinking of creating some sort of mechanic like a Research menu, where one can select an item from their inventory and start researching it. The original item would be consumed and maybe some extra thing could be required for this too (maybe research points, just like talent points), and after some time the research would end and we get an schematic of that item. That schematic then could be sold on the market or used on industry, whatever fits the player better.

 

Doing so would reduce the need of bots selling schematics and would allow players to have an alternative way of getting schematics. One looking for a quick way could go on and buy the schematics from bots or other players, while other could chose to buy the item itself and spend some time researching it (if they don't have enough talent points). This also keeps the balancing that Schematics brought to the game, as they will still be something hard to obtain, but not so hard that the only way to get them is paying a very high price.

 

Other possible thing on this is having a Tech Tree that works just like Talents, where one can queue up items to be researched, but with all the required parts and steps being required to be researched first. This would have no cost to the player itself in terms of having to buy the item first, but would require an extended period of time to have things researched, so we're exchanging time for money pretty much. That way one could also get basic industry Schematics while just investing time to queue them up...

 

What do you guys think?