As a long time player it's my view that crafting is the heart of the game. Crafters are the main target market for much of the hunters loot and the miners finds, without them everything ends up at tt value. They are, of course, a main source of equipment too. I'm writing this from the point of view of Arkadia, but much of this could be applied to other planets. I think one of the reasons that Arkadia worked well from the start and gained a good player base was it's extensive blueprint collection that gave players a reason to find the new loot/ores. However, to keep the heart beating you need to take good care of it. The ark team came up with a couple of interesting ideas (such as the maps/keys) to get people crafting but the poor returns for hunters meant that they haven't really taken off as good as they could have. My aim here is not to create a wishlist of new systems that would take months of coding, but to improve things within the current parameters of the game. And the solution is simple, we need to get crafters crafting. We do this in two ways (a) create the right types of blueprints (b) create the right kind of incentives. THE BLUEPRINTS Although arkadia has a great set of bps one thing it's lacking, and desperately needs, are 'skilling bps'. These are those bps that are relatively easy and cheap to click in relation to their level, and that usually produce a fairly worthless item. I know It may sound daft to have bps creating useless items, but they are actually needed. Crafter want to do big runs (depending on your pedcard this may be 100 clicks or 10,000 clicks) and they can't do this with bps that cost 50ped a click, take 7+ materials and create items that are actualy worth something (strange, I know). Let's compare the 2 cheapest lvl 3 weapons on caly and ark. Jester D2 1 gazz 1 lyta 3 cald tt per click 2.66 Manta k-3 2 Vorn 4 Wenrex 10 kaz 10 Banite 20 weld filament (2 animal oil, 1 ospra, 3 hydrogen) tt per click 7.44 I know the current markup to click jester d2 is high but it hasn't always been that way and will come down in future, this is not the point (except that a few bps to select from is helpful) The point is that the cost and complexity of the ark print makes it a bad bp for skilling. I know you can use the caly print instead but the aim is to get those arkadian ores used. So exactly what makes a good skiller? 1) low tt cost 2) low number of materials 3) low (preferably none) crafted components 4) Relatively useless end item lol 5) low markup (not really something the ark team has a direct influence on but put here for completeness) Of course the bp has to be balanced to fit the game, I'm not expecting a level 8 weapon bp with a 1ped click, but it's essential to get those Arkadian ores and looted materials used. INCENTIVES If you want the crafters to do to thousands of clicks with markup materials and most likely throw the resulting items in the tt then they need some added incentives. Most of these incentives will be bp related, in which case they need to be rare enough to hold the value but not so rare that you feel you'll never drop one (although some special bps will, by their nature, need to be uber rare). Here's a few ideas for incentives. 1) Missions: This is a simple brute force way to get people clicking. Offer a series of missions (ultimately you need a repeatable mission for them to work all the time). Rewards can be skills, special bps, or maybe something different the obviously creative ark team can think of. 2) Limited prints with 'boost': These are those prints that give a boost to tt return on item ie. a 10ped click gives average 200ped item. I think most of us realize we're getting this instead of a higher global but they're fun anyway. 3) Limited BP for special item: When I say special item I just mean it can't be crafted with a book bp. The item should be good and sought after but doesn't need to be uber. Drop rate of this kind of bp is very important, too many and the print loses it's incentive (as seen with the vast amount of ziplex A,B,C finder prints). 4) Limited bp for Unlimited item: I'm not talking about getting a 50 click print for a U gun doing 6dam, I'm talking about a serious U item like an Unlimited CAP-40. Print should be uber rare of course, and if the system doesn't allow for 1 click bp drops then you'll need to give the print a massive boost to prevent someone drop a 90 click print. 5) Combination print: This would be a series of maybe 10 rare L prints that each create a different special component (maybe these are rare arkadian prints that somehow got mixed into the crafting system after some scientist was doing tests on the ancient systems). These components would then be used in other rare L prints to make some really special ancient treasures, with the ultimate find being the print that uses all 10 components to make something uber. I think you guys get the idea. I'm sure you can think up some other ideas to incentives the crafters but it's absolutely essential that you get those 'skilling' bps in game. CONCLUSION Get the crafters to click more and you get the miners to mine more and the hunters to hunt more, which will give the crafters more chance to make items they can sell for markup. The UG will become more active which will result in you selling off the remainder of the UG deeds. You'll also get a more active auction which means people won't keep going back to caly to sell their ores and oils.
Listen to this dude Slither, he knows what he's talking about. Another possibility to add to the list of idea is exchangeable BP drops, e.g. like the Calypso BPs that aren't supposed to be clicked but can be exchanged for an item as part of the robot event at the moment (I forget what item you get for them). Or previously the ones that could be exchanged for a CLD.
If I could add a thought that may help this to work would be to add Arkadia specific but mob generic loots. IE: Generic loots that are available from multiple Arkadian mobs but only Arkadian mobs. This would spread the improved hunting returns across skill levels whilst still maintaining a high drop rate/lowish MU for cheap skilling materials and not just stimulating imports from other planets.
