If the Devs want to take another look at how Memory Alpha's setup I offer the following suggestions:
1) Rethink traffic flows: Right now Commander Romaine is the most popular person in space. Keep her around for the "intro to crafting" mission and as a "Helper bot". Add some crafting console's, call them "Fabrication Replicators" or something similar, where the player actually "crafts".
2) Have Romaine et al provide advice on "How much more is needed to craft to get to the next tier", as an alternative offer "Crafting Accolades" that provide information on how much more needs to be crafted to get the next tier of "designs".
3) Consider crafter progression keyed to level instead of "amount crafted", mostly to prevent characters who already have hit LCDR from having to gring Tier 1 junk just to access Tier 2 upgrades.
4) Kudos on adding Exchange and Bank access at Memory Alpha. Adding merchants who sell the basic equipment would be helpful.
If the Devs want to take another look at how Memory Alpha's setup I offer the following suggestions:
1) Rethink traffic flows: Right now Commander Romaine is the most popular person in space. Keep her around for the "intro to crafting" mission and as a "Helper bot". Add some crafting console's, call them "Fabrication Replicators" or something similar, where the player actually "crafts".
2) Have Romaine et al provide advice on "How much more is needed to craft to get to the next tier", as an alternative offer "Crafting Accolades" that provide information on how much more needs to be crafted to get the next tier of "designs".
3) Consider crafter progression keyed to level instead of "amount crafted", mostly to prevent characters who already have hit LCDR from having to gring Tier 1 junk just to access Tier 2 upgrades.
4) Kudos on adding Exchange and Bank access at Memory Alpha. Adding merchants who sell the basic equipment would be helpful.
5) Put in an actual crafting system instead of passing off a component upgrade system as one.
I agree, crafting, (er item enhacment) needs a lot of help. In addition to your third suggestion we should at least hammer them on the first level of progression. It requires way too much to get past that first crafting level - about 8k to 10k worth of creds on junk. That is rediculous.
I'm not a fan of the concept of crafting in Star Trek, but I was willing to accept trading rare scientific finds for advancements. During Beta, I even kinda got excited about it. But when Memory Alpha turned out to be a glorified store with it's own currency, I never went back.
I'd like to see it become a scientific location once again, and put the emphasis on gathering data/artifacts.
5) Put in an actual crafting system instead of passing off a component upgrade system as one.
Where you could actually make the base items from nothing by salvage? That would be useful. Most of the time the hardest thing to track down is the "base" item to be upgraded.
The crafting system is not so much a crafting system as an upgrading system.
They should overhaul it to make it so that you select a type of upgrade (Crit %, Crit Damage, Accuracy, etc) for any weapon/item and that will give you a number/type of samples needed to do it.
And as you gain ranks you would then be able to use the different npc's after doing a mission for them.
It would make it a lot simpler than the current system.
Better selection should be noted as "needed" too. I mean holy TRIBBLE you cant make squat at tier three I expected close to total weapon loadouts for each of the diff types of weaponry
Where you could actually make the base items from nothing by salvage? That would be useful. Most of the time the hardest thing to track down is the "base" item to be upgraded.
HERE is a VERY rough concept of where I think they should start with crafting and the economy. It could grow from there.
Comments
5) Put in an actual crafting system instead of passing off a component upgrade system as one.
I'm not a fan of the concept of crafting in Star Trek, but I was willing to accept trading rare scientific finds for advancements. During Beta, I even kinda got excited about it. But when Memory Alpha turned out to be a glorified store with it's own currency, I never went back.
I'd like to see it become a scientific location once again, and put the emphasis on gathering data/artifacts.
Where you could actually make the base items from nothing by salvage? That would be useful. Most of the time the hardest thing to track down is the "base" item to be upgraded.
They should overhaul it to make it so that you select a type of upgrade (Crit %, Crit Damage, Accuracy, etc) for any weapon/item and that will give you a number/type of samples needed to do it.
And as you gain ranks you would then be able to use the different npc's after doing a mission for them.
It would make it a lot simpler than the current system.
HERE is a VERY rough concept of where I think they should start with crafting and the economy. It could grow from there.