Small industrial organizations will die... and so will market competition

[Patencore]

For all industrialist players and organizations here, I don’t know how you feel about the new schematics system. But for me it is a huge disappointment because it turns the gameplay experience into just a “click, check, drag and drop schematics” game…

 

Explanations

 

In the Beta version we have gone from one extreme to another in the industry: no schematics → everyone can produce whatever they want without constraint  - to very expensive schematics which only allow players of larger or wealthy organizations to get them. In the release version, the introduction of a new system for the use and management of schematics is in between. What I completely understand. On the other hand, the current system will gradually stifle any org that wants to specialize as an industrialist. Because if you take the slightest expansion, you will only do one thing in the game: click on each industry and pour schematics into it. Even if you pour a good amount of schematics they melt quickly and you will have to recheck, constantly reload all industries, manually. Think about it: schematics in each refiner, smelter, chemical industry, glass furnace, 3D printer, electronics industry, metalwork, assembly line, honeycomb factory that you have to constantly check and manually feed! It just becomes an annoying and time consuming task.

 

I'm all for using schematics but not that way because it just makes a game a boring and tedious experience. And the impression of progression is much less present because everyone can finally make what they want quite easily, it's just a question of available ore finally. I believe that it is possible to adjust the use of schematics to balance the game experience, so that it remains a game and that there is always a challenge in the progression. Some examples :

• no schematic for anything T1
• more expensive schematics just for final objects (ex. engine, elevator, etc.) from T1 to T5, but not for parts
• a combination of more expensive “one time buy and use forever” schematics as in the beta for intermediary parts or elements, and “single use only” schematics for final objects (ex. wing) as in the release
• a deployment cost for any industry and “one-use-only schematics” only for the final objects (ex. wing), but not for parts
• etc.
•  

In short, a solution that saves the player engaged in industrialism from having to spend his time clicking on each industry to drag and drop a bunch of new schematics. And to have more time to accomplish other things like collecting resources, negotiating contracts with other players, creating constructions that give content to the game, etc.

 

The actual system probably benefits light industry orgs or players. And it is probably sustainable for big orgs where each player is only responsible to feed just a small bunch of industries. But for the small orgs that want to go in the heavy industrial way it’s just a pain. Industrial orgs are important for several reasons in this game. They feed other orgs with objects that allow them to build content (ex. ships, cities, piracy, fights, etc.). And they feed the markets. If only big industrial orgs survive, with this new system of schematics management, they will have the monopoly on the market and the price of the objects.  

 

I heard about new talents coming in the December update. Eight talents for the schematics... Well, it will probably ease the crafting cost / time / batch size of schem and that’s a good thing for players and orgs that want to go the industrial way. But the main problem - and my biggest complaint - will probably persist : players will have to feed all the industries one by one, manually and spend so much time doing it instead of interacting with their mates or other players, or creating content. And the feeling of progression won’t probably be there much more. 

 

Maybe I’m wrong and most of the players are happy with the new schematic system. I would be interested in hearing from the players that play the industrial way in this game to know what they think about it.
 

[Maxim Kammerer]

15 hours ago, Patencore said:

• no schematic for anything T1
• more expensive schematics just for final objects (ex. engine, elevator, etc.) from T1 to T5, but not for parts
• a combination of more expensive “one time buy and use forever” schematics as in the beta for intermediary parts or elements, and “single use only” schematics for final objects (ex. wing) as in the release
• a deployment cost for any industry and “one-use-only schematics” only for the final objects (ex. wing), but not for parts
• etc.

 

Remove all options with “one time buy and use forever” schematics. They do not limit production, which is a (if not the) main reason for the new schematics system. But schematics for finished products only would indeed remove the tedium without any drawbacks. As there is no reason for unlimit accumulation of intermediates, there would be the same limit for overall production. Even the total schematics price per product would be unchanged if the sum of intermediate schematics prices would be included into the price for the final product schematics. I do not see any reason for intermediate schematics other than making industry gameplay tedious.

[Kezzle]

16 hours ago, Patencore said:

I believe that it is possible to adjust the use of schematics to balance the game experience, so that it remains a game and that there is always a challenge in the progression

The problem is that NQ are quite happy to see "small industrialists" fall by the wayside, since Schematics are primarily a means of limiting the quantity of Industry their servers have to calculate for. So making it easier, and letting people actually build active Industry is contrary to the purpose of Schematics.

[RugesV]

 Going to do a simple answer first so people dont have to read the wall of text.   Core Schematic Banks.  Thats the main thing that needs to be added. You put all the schematics into the core, Or even into a special container that we have to make. all the machines on the core can pull from that one bank. That would solve your main complaint.  Now onto the rest. 

 

 

What schematics you putting into metalworks,  or electronics industry? Most glass machines, or 3d printers dont need it either. 

 

Only 3 things need schematics: Pure, Product, Final item.  Everything in between, no schematics are needed.   I keep all the refiners in one location, all the smelters in one location. and all the chemical doing product in one location.  I generally keep a couple days stock in each. But the key is, if the light turns orange on one of these machines I have run out of schematics (could be ore) For the assemblers, I only put in the amount I want produced. 

 

As far as talents for schematics, Only really interested in cost savings. Because at the end of the day. A single player can make enough schematics that a single player can harvest the amount of ore to run said factory.  And if your running a factory large enough to exceed a single players ability to make schematics, then you also have more characters harvesting ore, and those players too can make schematics. You just need to keep those Q's going 24/7.  And I think Quanta is more of an issue at that point.

 

The no schematic system really hurt the market.  It was so bad that you would never buy anything on the market. I mean, why buy it when you could make it yourself. When they added schematics in, that fixed this issue. Because why setup a 500m quanta production line when you could buy the items you wanted instead for that kinda money.  The problem with that system is the rich got richer, and only the rich could afford to get into late game industry. 

 

The current schematic system allow anyone equally to get into the industry game. No longer can a rich guy setup a 2 billion quanta factory and keep reaping rewards from that single investment. If anything it puts us back to the stage of if you want it produce it yourself. 

 

If anything is broken in the industry system. Its skills for item production. There are 0 skills for industry beyond refining, smelting, ammo and intermediary products that make it more profitable. And while refining and smelting can be a high skill point Q. intermediary products are a quick train.  This all means once your train max skills for T1, you can produce any type of T1 no matter the type. IE if you have max skills for Basic engine, then you have max skills for basic guns. Same goes for Tier 2/3/4/5 stuff.  If they had seperate skills for S/M/L/XL engines, and seperate skills for S/M/L Adjustors, seperate skills for screens, guns........... That would actually allow people to specialize in industry.  As it is now, you can just pay someone to touch your refiners, and smelters and intermediary skills and be the best at producing anything.

 

Now this all might change when they add in a power system for industry. Because then all the time savings skills that you get from industry skills will reduce the power draw on your factory since your not having to run it as often. 

 

[Novean-61657]

17 hours ago, Patencore said:

For all industrialist players and organizations here, I don’t know how you feel about the new schematics system. But for me it is a huge disappointment because it turns the gameplay experience into just a “click, check, drag and drop schematics” game…

 

<snip>

How exactly was industry anything but a “click, check, drag and drop schematics” game? The only part of industry that was ever interesting was designing the factory, not actually deploying, connecting and setting up each element at a large scale... While it might be 'interesting' the first few dozen times, but after element 'a couple hundred' it starts to suck badly! How was industry 'fun' when you set it up and then ad-infinitum just put in ore in one end and pulled out finished elements from the other? Now you just add schematics to the Assembly lines, Smelters and the T2+ Refiners... Just grind up an f-ton of quanta to put in days worth of schematics, so you no longer have to do that once every few hours for every schematic element. The last few weeks I was already down to twice a day, I just hit once a day... Once a week: Here I come! (but just not from industry)

 

But I'll probably keep doing it, just like the stupid calibration mini game *twitch* *twitch*, because we want to build sh!te and sh!te requires elements and honeycomb. We want to fly stuff, especially those rad ships some of the other players designed... The little devils want quanta for that! Greedy gits! 😉

 

My conclusion is: Quanta is the source of all evil in DU!

 

But small industrial organizations will not die, nor will market competition. Due to all the grindy sh!te, there's a hard limit how much a person can do in DU, sanity dictates that there's also a hard limit to how much a player will do without benefit. Because if a small industrial org can't make any money on industry, neither will a large org. If something is not profitable, you need better skills. If you have perfect skills, if it's still not profitable, you buy IT and then sell it for a profit! Don't make stuff that isn't profitable! And when it becomes profitable and you don't have any stock, you're already too late to make some!

[Cabana]

1 hour ago, RugesV said:

 Core Schematic Banks. 

Good idea !  Along with a new construct dismantle tool that would be awesome .

 

46 minutes ago, Cergorach said:

Don't make stuff that isn't profitable! And when it becomes profitable and you don't have any stock, you're already too late to make some!

 

Yeah you never know when the skies will open for quanta rain on your shoulders 🙂