Crafting MK2's don't cost much of anything. Certainly not making Cryptic any money. You have to churn out thousands of beams trying to get one set that's optimal and that's not remotely fun. Just ends up being repetitive and grating. The problem here is obvious. Players want to cherry pick their mods without spending all day making thousands of items over and over again while Cryptic wants to make money. Clearly if Cryptic let you pay a dil fee to lock in a mod, escalating with each additional mod, we would have a solution. But as of now there is no option. I'm sitting on boat loads of dil, my resource worth less to me than my time at this point but the best I can do is push a button for a measly 75 dil to spin a slot machine.
I would gladly spend dil to lock in a mod of my choice, if the amount is reasonable.
The money in your wallet in your pocket. Not the inventory screens currency tab.
Yesss... and you don't need money for MK II stuff.
Not direct and not indirect (R&D Packs form the store or from a Lockbox)
Beta, LTA, CE, Multiple preorder Versions, all Addon Packs except AoY, nearly all KDF/Rom and ~50% of all Fedships, over 25 LockboxShips, Endurer of Atari's "Year of Hell", but...
just made 4325 mk ii antiproton dual heavies with lvl 19 cannon r&d skill, purple doffs. got 5 mk ii [crtd]x3 proc, was after only crtdx4 upon upgrading, they are all junk. everyone is trying so hard doing the same thing i am, therefore all items are valueless according to exchange. i cant even give em away! Random proc crafting is the weakest thing ive ever done here in 6 years. (and i spent 3 months hanging with slamek and neelix) please burn it down and design a new idea. (this all means im starting the same process again, here we go, hope im not wasting tons of time and currency.
From Cryptic's perspective, what with you sinking tons of money into it, the random Crafting system is super-efficient. Or, to paraphrase Spaceballs,
"Haha! Horribly inefficient to the payor, not to the payee."
From Cryptic's perspective, what with you sinking tons of money into it, the random Crafting system is super-efficient. Or, to paraphrase Spaceballs,
"Haha! Horribly inefficient to the payor, not to the payee."
But what we keep saying is churning out those mark 2's is cheap and effectively circumvents the high dil cost of the "finish now" button. It hardly costs us anything in resources. It costs us time. But that isn't making Cryptic richer. A mod cherry pick selection pull down menu that you pay Cryptic resources for would make them money. That is what presently does not exist.
First off, is that a typo or HOW did you make over 4000 cannons? Where would you even store them? Lastly, if so, they still sell as junk and at that number you're still looking at MILLIONS of ec.
Secondly, I agtree, crafting needs a tewak. I'd like to see the option to choose your procs (on a succeed/fail) but that opens the possibily that a fail would mean the consumables are used bt the craft is trashed, so it's kind of a double-edged sword there.
I'd also REALLY like to see the option to reverse engineer items to lean new (advanced) recipes, including the fames corrosive plasma, piercing tetryon, etc.
why cant you make 4k... and who needs to store em. vendor trash and recoup some EC.
Mimmic the rarity mechanic for mod choosing. That is, I can choose to craft with random mods as is currently in place or I can choose to craft a specific mod for a moderate dil cost (a few hundred). If I do, the chance of obtaining that mod is the same or a little more than gaining rarity. So I could fail and receive no upgrade. The higher the crafting skill the better chance of obtaining the desired mod and the more mods I can choose. So at level 15 I could choose up to 3 mods for a VR (if I instead get a Rare item the last mod I choose would be removed) with each mod chosen at a dil cost of a few hundred dil each. Additionally I could choose to select all mods for up to UR in case rarity is increased as I upgrade.
In addition, if the mod chance doesn't occur as I upgrade the item I can break the item back down to it's base parts but lose the dil investment. This way the items I crafted from the mats is retained (valuable for attempting to craft higher mk items and using VR mats). For example:
I want to craft a phaser array with CrtDx3. My skill is 15. I can either choose to craft a lower mk ii phaser array or a higher quality mk xii.
mk ii:
I choose my phaser type and doff and choose to craft for a specific mod set. For the CrtDx3 it would cost me an additional 400 dil per so 1200 dil (400x3 custom mods). I craft the item and get a VR phaser array. There would be a chance to obtain sum or all of the mods I requested upon the initial craft. This would be a very low percentage. What would normally be the case would be a VR item with 3 blank mod slots. Now I upgrade the item and with each upgrade I build a chance to add my desired mods. This chance would be the same or slightly higher than rarity upgrade chance. Cryptic could provide some kind of catalyst item to increase chance in a special zen package for those who want to spend the money. Let's say I use a rare level upgrade package and to upgrade my phaser array to level VIII (or whatever it gets you to) and I hit 2 of my 3 desired mods. At this point I could continue to upgrade the item in hopes I get the final mod. Or I could destroy the item, lose my dil investment but get any sub items back to start again.
mk xii:
For a higher mk item the result would be more immediate. Once I select my mods and craft the item I will either get my mods or I won't. The chance here to get the desired mods would be slightly higher than at lower mk's. but of course i still have a chance to fail. In that case I just destroy the item and start over. Again, I lose the dil investment but i retain the VR subitems and mats I used to construct the higher mk phaser array.
There is still a chance to fail and an investment risk which needs to be made by the player. But the higher skill in a craft school increases my chances of successfully adding a desired mod and adds more interest to upgrading items. And I can craft specifically knowing with a little more investment and some time I will get the item with the mods I want. The chance should be slightly higher than rarity upgrade and significantly more than the current random mod mechanic.
I can understand trying to build something specific and failing having to try again rather than building something specific and getting something completely random. What is the point of increasing a skill set if I know in advance no matter how much skill I obtain i will never acquire the expertise to build with precision?
i ran up 40 beam ap arrays at mk2 and 60 plasma integrated warp cores at mk2 as well.
in total i found at least half a dozen [snare] on my beam array, about four [over], two [pen] and two 3x[dmg] and the rest is the usual mix of [acc] + crit and or [dmg].
for the warp cores, about 50 of them had [ecap] and half of these had [A>E] or [E>A] or [W>E] or [W>A] or [S>E] or [S>A], along with the usual mix of [eff] [ssr] [bat] and such.
8 of the rest were [acap] or [scap] and the last two were [wcap] but neither of these had any use to me.
what i looked for at the time were [over] for beams.
and for warp care is [wcap] [A>W] or [E>W], the others viable mods dont matter much.
i wasted a good 20-30k of dilithium of mostly utter TRIBBLE to the exchange, the two 3x[dmg] arrays i sent to the replicator, not even i would be that creul at allowing such TRIBBLE to be sold.
it was not worth my time or effort. yeah i dont like the randomness of the crafting. if it could be helped, i would choose ap beams at mk2, 3x[critx] and the chance to choose a 1x[pen] at UR and 1x [over] at epic. but unfortunately though, it would be so overpowered at mk14 epic, having 6% chance and 60% severity plus 10% shield penetration and a chance at a beam overload. imagine 8 of those suckers on your ship with faw, tt, apa3, epw2, a2b2, rmc, plasmonic, ap vol locators, ap exploiter, other consoles that increase damage output considerably. i dunno about you, but 30% chance potential and well over 100% severity along with any acc overflow as well would be utterly insane. and this is not including rep powers, captains rankable powers and spec. for ex.
while i can see the need for the ability to give the players the chance to assign weapon mods, ultimately i can see it being abused way too easy.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
At this point, I'd be thrilled if they just got rid of the PVP mods. At least let us opt-out if we are only trying to create PvE weapons.
That right there would at least increase the chances of you getting what you want. Slightly.
Or, have an option to only craft with the stock 4 mods, needing to turn on each of the others, e.g. roll 3-mod combos out of a pool of 4 possibilities, but if you want [Pen] you accept 5 possibilities in the pool.
I'd be happy if they made choosing MODs available once you max out on an R&D School.
Or once you max a school, you can put the desired item into a time/resources-controlled project where you select what mods you want it to come out with.
Also, we could have this "re-baking" open at any level in a school, with better chances at higher level and a disaster chance to consume the item at crafting lvl 10 or below and ~50% success for lvl 20.
Until I can choose what mods to use, I wont be crafting a thing.
Better to buy what you want from the exchange, if you can.
Keyword "if"... in the example of crtdx4 ap beams, to get an x3 costs 5-6 mil ec, with ~3 mil for the 2x quality accelerator and the superior experimental upgrade. Thus, if you don't have all the materials yourself or the r&d school needed for an upgrade, it costs ~9 mil per attempt, with ~25 % chance across all rolls that none will upgrade quality and a 1/4 chance on the 3/4 success that the item will take a particular mod.
But what we keep saying is churning out those mark 2's is cheap and effectively circumvents the high dil cost of the "finish now" button. It hardly costs us anything in resources. It costs us time. But that isn't making Cryptic richer. A mod cherry pick selection pull down menu that you pay Cryptic resources for would make them money. That is what presently does not exist.
In the current system, nobody wins.
And that's a good point. I was more thinking of higher Mk equipment (like a Mk XII PEP torp or something. Or a Mk XII partgen console).
I would gladly spend dil to lock in a mod of my choice, if the amount is reasonable.
How about a zen cost instead hmmm?
Cryptic wants it to be rough, people whining about having to have it handed to them the easy way, so that they can get mkxiv epic gear like getting EC's, is imo a bit ridiculous.
Either pay up or, get over it all.
Oh and, FYI poster, this isn't an intended attack on you personally so, sorry in advance.
Cryptic wants it to be rough, people whining about having to have it handed to them the easy way, so that they can get mkxiv epic gear like getting EC's, is imo a bit ridiculous.
Either pay up or, get over it all.
Oh and, FYI poster, this isn't an intended attack on you personally so, sorry in advance.
im down to pay anything for a choice rather than chance, paying huge amounts is ok, this issue is the next to impossiblility of even getting 3 procs desired, then the added issue of upgrading the incredibly hard to get procs without ruining them with terrible procs. its a hell of alot of money spent on junk, and more junk than i care to recycle.
with 4000+ attempts at high level and ideal supply i still have not aquired 1 desired weapon. see my earlier posts for any research as to mistakes in tactics,
all in all random crafting is 99% useless to those who want a certain thing (what crafting supplies in most games)
i ran up 40 beam ap arrays at mk2 and 60 plasma integrated warp cores at mk2 as well.
in total i found at least half a dozen [snare] on my beam array, about four [over], two [pen] and two 3x[dmg] and the rest is the usual mix of [acc] + crit and or [dmg].
for the warp cores, about 50 of them had [ecap] and half of these had [A>E] or [E>A] or [W>E] or [W>A] or [S>E] or [S>A], along with the usual mix of [eff] [ssr] [bat] and such.
8 of the rest were [acap] or [scap] and the last two were [wcap] but neither of these had any use to me.
what i looked for at the time were [over] for beams.
and for warp care is [wcap] [A>W] or [E>W], the others viable mods dont matter much.
i wasted a good 20-30k of dilithium of mostly utter TRIBBLE to the exchange, the two 3x[dmg] arrays i sent to the replicator, not even i would be that creul at allowing such TRIBBLE to be sold.
it was not worth my time or effort. yeah i dont like the randomness of the crafting. if it could be helped, i would choose ap beams at mk2, 3x[critx] and the chance to choose a 1x[pen] at UR and 1x [over] at epic. but unfortunately though, it would be so overpowered at mk14 epic, having 6% chance and 60% severity plus 10% shield penetration and a chance at a beam overload. imagine 8 of those suckers on your ship with faw, tt, apa3, epw2, a2b2, rmc, plasmonic, ap vol locators, ap exploiter, other consoles that increase damage output considerably. i dunno about you, but 30% chance potential and well over 100% severity along with any acc overflow as well would be utterly insane. and this is not including rep powers, captains rankable powers and spec. for ex.
while i can see the need for the ability to give the players the chance to assign weapon mods, ultimately i can see it being abused way too easy.
i dont see how paying a huge price for the weaponry desired could be abused, maybe used as intended but money packing powerful players is hardly abuse (with years invested in this crafting system which was promised as {amazing})
my own idea: choose mods, fail at crafting and upgrading (might as well tackle the entire production of the item) becomes option being less likley if crafting level is high compared to mk of weapon/console/etc. (but eventually you get exactly what you desire)
id waste a ton of time and money on this, well anything with a slight chance of success really.
it comes down to "WHAT IS SUCCESS" to each player who is crafting. and a possibility of success is the only thing that drives a player to continue.
a relative to perspective thing:)
we would also have to define what "failing" at crafting an item means
I've seen a lot of people asking for R&D changes. Not a bad idea, they're just looking at it the wrong way. Here is how I see it.
R&D, Create the BASE item in Common, Uncommon, Rare, Very Rare, and Ultra Rare with abosultely no Mods on it. Ok now we have the base item.
No mods you say? I'm getting to that.
You're R&D level opens up your Mods. There's a long list of mods, so each level can reward a new Mod that is open to add to the Base item.
This is where the Mods come in to play.
Upgrading.
This should be done much like the Kits. You select the mods you want on it. Like the Modules for a Kit. You're vaguely after that Epic Upgrade. But you're Upgrading the Base Item with the Mods you have selected. This is where it will get tricky as the Tech point Cost, EC, and Dil cost will change by Mod. Meaning Mods will need a rarity level as well.
How can Mods have a rarity level?
Easy, the Tech upgrade you can make, proc as either a Tech Upgrade or a Mod upgrade item.
This way you can still get those much needed Tech Point upgrades, as well as, something like a Common Mod, we'll use [Phys], for this.
Basic Tech Upgrade [Phys], Upgrade Ground Armor to have a Physical Damage Reduction Modification. And this can be done through Varying degrees as Common, Uncommon, Rare, Very Rare, and Ultra Rare. Each one offering different degrees of physical damage reduction. With this, add int eh extra tech point, ec, and dil cost by rarity. So that it cost more to build a cmplete suit of Ultra Rare Armor with the Mods that you want. Instead of the random mods that you get just creating an item.
This will also get away from the create MkII til you get the mods you want, which could be NEVER, and in to... Ok I can now create a Base MkXIV item. I'll have to work on creating the upgrade for Tech Points and Mods. Ok now I have my Tech Points and the Mods that I want. Let me step over here and Upgrade this UR MkXIV item with these Mods.
As far as the Epic Upgrade, well make the a % chance during creation. Just like C/U/R/VR/UR.
R&D Research
I overlooked this in my last post.
This should get a tweak as well. You're researching the school that you're in. There's is a lot to do in some schools, not so much in other. But really should be broekn down in to at least Reputation Weapon/Armor/Shield types. They will not get any set bonus' like the reuptation items give. And you can break them down easily.
Research
Federation
Klingon
Romulan
Undine
Borg
Tholian
Dyson
Delta
Iconian
Each one with its on Experience Bar. So you could just research the School to level it or the Sub-school. Granted I'd make the Sub-school available at at least level 10 in a school. This would allow people to research teh different enegy types and open them up in the schools they belong to, and who knows, maybe even add a % chance to the Tech Upgrades to proc an a Mod that the affore mentioned Reputation Enemy uses, albiet a small % chance, I wouldn't top this out at more than 5%.
just made 4325 mk ii antiproton dual heavies with lvl 19 cannon r&d skill, purple doffs. got 5 mk ii [crtd]x3 proc, was after only crtdx4 upon upgrading, they are all junk. everyone is trying so hard doing the same thing i am, therefore all items are valueless according to exchange. i cant even give em away! Random proc crafting is the weakest thing ive ever done here in 6 years. (and i spent 3 months hanging with slamek and neelix) please burn it down and design a new idea. (this all means im starting the same process again, here we go, hope im not wasting tons of time and currency.
It's horribly efficient but when you win, you win if you do it right. I made almost 200 mil ec from 60 mil ec and from 400 beams I made
The boss being a gigantic Winter Epohh Researcher. As you lay waste to the Epohh Horde, she can occasionally cry out things like, "Didn't you want an Epohh friend?"
The boss being a gigantic Winter Epohh Researcher. As you lay waste to the Epohh Horde, she can occasionally cry out things like, "Didn't you want an Epohh friend?"
The solution isn't letting people pick the mods, but fixing the mods we have to balance them out and taking out the ones not working (PvP).
[Dmg] - Needs a serious boost
[CtrH]/[CrtD] - They need to be rebalanced (Yes, not a popular idea, but they need it)
[Thrust] - Not sure why the devs thought this was going to be popular
It's interesting.... I vaguely remember from back when I played WoW (where crafting is just... put in these ingredients, get the same result every time), threads from people wishing for "the good old style of crafting", where you had to put in lots of work & craft lots of failures in order to get Valuable Stuff.
(Of course, I think the games that did that, also made it very hard/long/expensive to become a high-skill crafter in the first place, so it was only a few people who became the Rich & Famous Crafters. And, being long before f2p/microtransactions/DLC, there was no way for the impatient to apply real $ to it. You wanted more mats, you had to grind for 'em.)
If you let people pick the mods, all you will get are the same mods on every weapon. The "good" mods will become worthless on the exchange, and most of them will never even get used.
Random is good. Random lets you try different things.
Where the crafting system fails is that not all mods are worth having. If every mod was worth using in different builds/ways, then not getting CritDx4 stops being worthless, and actually opens you up options.
Comments
I would gladly spend dil to lock in a mod of my choice, if the amount is reasonable.
STO Screenshot Archive
Yesss... and you don't need money for MK II stuff.
Not direct and not indirect (R&D Packs form the store or from a Lockbox)
From Cryptic's perspective, what with you sinking tons of money into it, the random Crafting system is super-efficient. Or, to paraphrase Spaceballs,
"Haha! Horribly inefficient to the payor, not to the payee."
But what we keep saying is churning out those mark 2's is cheap and effectively circumvents the high dil cost of the "finish now" button. It hardly costs us anything in resources. It costs us time. But that isn't making Cryptic richer. A mod cherry pick selection pull down menu that you pay Cryptic resources for would make them money. That is what presently does not exist.
In the current system, nobody wins.
and, the crafting system isn't awesome, what might help it is drop catalysts that fix or add mods for you during crafting
I disagree, the mats are plentiful so pop in a movie and give it a try
I've seen many people excitedly posting their crafting "wins"
if we could set mods the "game" would be over in 2 seconds
why cant you make 4k... and who needs to store em. vendor trash and recoup some EC.
In addition, if the mod chance doesn't occur as I upgrade the item I can break the item back down to it's base parts but lose the dil investment. This way the items I crafted from the mats is retained (valuable for attempting to craft higher mk items and using VR mats). For example:
mk ii:
I choose my phaser type and doff and choose to craft for a specific mod set. For the CrtDx3 it would cost me an additional 400 dil per so 1200 dil (400x3 custom mods). I craft the item and get a VR phaser array. There would be a chance to obtain sum or all of the mods I requested upon the initial craft. This would be a very low percentage. What would normally be the case would be a VR item with 3 blank mod slots. Now I upgrade the item and with each upgrade I build a chance to add my desired mods. This chance would be the same or slightly higher than rarity upgrade chance. Cryptic could provide some kind of catalyst item to increase chance in a special zen package for those who want to spend the money. Let's say I use a rare level upgrade package and to upgrade my phaser array to level VIII (or whatever it gets you to) and I hit 2 of my 3 desired mods. At this point I could continue to upgrade the item in hopes I get the final mod. Or I could destroy the item, lose my dil investment but get any sub items back to start again.
mk xii:
For a higher mk item the result would be more immediate. Once I select my mods and craft the item I will either get my mods or I won't. The chance here to get the desired mods would be slightly higher than at lower mk's. but of course i still have a chance to fail. In that case I just destroy the item and start over. Again, I lose the dil investment but i retain the VR subitems and mats I used to construct the higher mk phaser array.
There is still a chance to fail and an investment risk which needs to be made by the player. But the higher skill in a craft school increases my chances of successfully adding a desired mod and adds more interest to upgrading items. And I can craft specifically knowing with a little more investment and some time I will get the item with the mods I want. The chance should be slightly higher than rarity upgrade and significantly more than the current random mod mechanic.
I can understand trying to build something specific and failing having to try again rather than building something specific and getting something completely random. What is the point of increasing a skill set if I know in advance no matter how much skill I obtain i will never acquire the expertise to build with precision?
in total i found at least half a dozen [snare] on my beam array, about four [over], two [pen] and two 3x[dmg] and the rest is the usual mix of [acc] + crit and or [dmg].
for the warp cores, about 50 of them had [ecap] and half of these had [A>E] or [E>A] or [W>E] or [W>A] or [S>E] or [S>A], along with the usual mix of [eff] [ssr] [bat] and such.
8 of the rest were [acap] or [scap] and the last two were [wcap] but neither of these had any use to me.
what i looked for at the time were [over] for beams.
and for warp care is [wcap] [A>W] or [E>W], the others viable mods dont matter much.
i wasted a good 20-30k of dilithium of mostly utter TRIBBLE to the exchange, the two 3x[dmg] arrays i sent to the replicator, not even i would be that creul at allowing such TRIBBLE to be sold.
it was not worth my time or effort. yeah i dont like the randomness of the crafting. if it could be helped, i would choose ap beams at mk2, 3x[critx] and the chance to choose a 1x[pen] at UR and 1x [over] at epic. but unfortunately though, it would be so overpowered at mk14 epic, having 6% chance and 60% severity plus 10% shield penetration and a chance at a beam overload. imagine 8 of those suckers on your ship with faw, tt, apa3, epw2, a2b2, rmc, plasmonic, ap vol locators, ap exploiter, other consoles that increase damage output considerably. i dunno about you, but 30% chance potential and well over 100% severity along with any acc overflow as well would be utterly insane. and this is not including rep powers, captains rankable powers and spec. for ex.
while i can see the need for the ability to give the players the chance to assign weapon mods, ultimately i can see it being abused way too easy.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Or, have an option to only craft with the stock 4 mods, needing to turn on each of the others, e.g. roll 3-mod combos out of a pool of 4 possibilities, but if you want [Pen] you accept 5 possibilities in the pool.
Or once you max a school, you can put the desired item into a time/resources-controlled project where you select what mods you want it to come out with.
Also, we could have this "re-baking" open at any level in a school, with better chances at higher level and a disaster chance to consume the item at crafting lvl 10 or below and ~50% success for lvl 20.
Keyword "if"... in the example of crtdx4 ap beams, to get an x3 costs 5-6 mil ec, with ~3 mil for the 2x quality accelerator and the superior experimental upgrade. Thus, if you don't have all the materials yourself or the r&d school needed for an upgrade, it costs ~9 mil per attempt, with ~25 % chance across all rolls that none will upgrade quality and a 1/4 chance on the 3/4 success that the item will take a particular mod.
And that's a good point. I was more thinking of higher Mk equipment (like a Mk XII PEP torp or something. Or a Mk XII partgen console).
yeah i was critting 100% of the time already. oops that was a completley new idea, my apologies. i totally agree ingredients for desired proc:)
There's the special roll with 10 mods. so you have a 1 in 10 chance of CritD there.
Then there's two rolls that are 4 mods, so 1 in 40
then 1 in 160
After that you have a roll on upgrade to UV which also has 4 mods.
My character Tsin'xing
How about a zen cost instead hmmm?
Cryptic wants it to be rough, people whining about having to have it handed to them the easy way, so that they can get mkxiv epic gear like getting EC's, is imo a bit ridiculous.
Either pay up or, get over it all.
Oh and, FYI poster, this isn't an intended attack on you personally so, sorry in advance.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
all my efforts were with all the best paid resources
im down to pay anything for a choice rather than chance, paying huge amounts is ok, this issue is the next to impossiblility of even getting 3 procs desired, then the added issue of upgrading the incredibly hard to get procs without ruining them with terrible procs. its a hell of alot of money spent on junk, and more junk than i care to recycle.
with 4000+ attempts at high level and ideal supply i still have not aquired 1 desired weapon. see my earlier posts for any research as to mistakes in tactics,
all in all random crafting is 99% useless to those who want a certain thing (what crafting supplies in most games)
crafting mk ii doesnt involve any real cash (i did use lots of pay supplies anyway it wasnt upping the odds, already maxxed)
id waste a ton of time and money on this, well anything with a slight chance of success really.
it comes down to "WHAT IS SUCCESS" to each player who is crafting. and a possibility of success is the only thing that drives a player to continue.
a relative to perspective thing:)
we would also have to define what "failing" at crafting an item means
Here is a thread for Doff and R&D suggestiong I started.
It can be found here
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/forumdisplay.php?f=251
I've seen a lot of people asking for R&D changes. Not a bad idea, they're just looking at it the wrong way. Here is how I see it.
R&D, Create the BASE item in Common, Uncommon, Rare, Very Rare, and Ultra Rare with abosultely no Mods on it. Ok now we have the base item.
No mods you say? I'm getting to that.
You're R&D level opens up your Mods. There's a long list of mods, so each level can reward a new Mod that is open to add to the Base item.
This is where the Mods come in to play.
Upgrading.
This should be done much like the Kits. You select the mods you want on it. Like the Modules for a Kit. You're vaguely after that Epic Upgrade. But you're Upgrading the Base Item with the Mods you have selected. This is where it will get tricky as the Tech point Cost, EC, and Dil cost will change by Mod. Meaning Mods will need a rarity level as well.
How can Mods have a rarity level?
Easy, the Tech upgrade you can make, proc as either a Tech Upgrade or a Mod upgrade item.
This way you can still get those much needed Tech Point upgrades, as well as, something like a Common Mod, we'll use [Phys], for this.
Basic Tech Upgrade [Phys], Upgrade Ground Armor to have a Physical Damage Reduction Modification. And this can be done through Varying degrees as Common, Uncommon, Rare, Very Rare, and Ultra Rare. Each one offering different degrees of physical damage reduction. With this, add int eh extra tech point, ec, and dil cost by rarity. So that it cost more to build a cmplete suit of Ultra Rare Armor with the Mods that you want. Instead of the random mods that you get just creating an item.
This will also get away from the create MkII til you get the mods you want, which could be NEVER, and in to... Ok I can now create a Base MkXIV item. I'll have to work on creating the upgrade for Tech Points and Mods. Ok now I have my Tech Points and the Mods that I want. Let me step over here and Upgrade this UR MkXIV item with these Mods.
As far as the Epic Upgrade, well make the a % chance during creation. Just like C/U/R/VR/UR.
R&D Research
I overlooked this in my last post.
This should get a tweak as well. You're researching the school that you're in. There's is a lot to do in some schools, not so much in other. But really should be broekn down in to at least Reputation Weapon/Armor/Shield types. They will not get any set bonus' like the reuptation items give. And you can break them down easily.
Research
Federation
Klingon
Romulan
Undine
Borg
Tholian
Dyson
Delta
Iconian
Each one with its on Experience Bar. So you could just research the School to level it or the Sub-school. Granted I'd make the Sub-school available at at least level 10 in a school. This would allow people to research teh different enegy types and open them up in the schools they belong to, and who knows, maybe even add a % chance to the Tech Upgrades to proc an a Mod that the affore mentioned Reputation Enemy uses, albiet a small % chance, I wouldn't top this out at more than 5%.
It's horribly efficient but when you win, you win if you do it right. I made almost 200 mil ec from 60 mil ec and from 400 beams I made
I too love crafting 3000 beams only to throw them away because none of them are what I want.* /sarcasm
*ok maybe 0.1% of those are worth selling.
sig
http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/5451/om71.jpg
It is a peculiar phenomenon that we can imagine events that defy the laws of the universe.
Then you have bad luck. Out of those 3k you should've gotten at least 70 good ones or so
[Dmg] - Needs a serious boost
[CtrH]/[CrtD] - They need to be rebalanced (Yes, not a popular idea, but they need it)
[Thrust] - Not sure why the devs thought this was going to be popular
(Of course, I think the games that did that, also made it very hard/long/expensive to become a high-skill crafter in the first place, so it was only a few people who became the Rich & Famous Crafters. And, being long before f2p/microtransactions/DLC, there was no way for the impatient to apply real $ to it. You wanted more mats, you had to grind for 'em.)
Random is good. Random lets you try different things.
Where the crafting system fails is that not all mods are worth having. If every mod was worth using in different builds/ways, then not getting CritDx4 stops being worthless, and actually opens you up options.