Archived Post
07-05-2010, 02:31 PM
As I stood around K7 last night looking at all the lovely weapons laying on the tables after playing around with the tailor in the same room, I began to ponder. There used to be a time when I would pick a weapon or armour simply for how it looked. In some games, of course, that is pure folly; you're pretty much at the mercy of whatever the game's devs thinks looks nice as endgame armour / weapons. (And in some games *coughwowcough* that can be pretty poor).
I've only ever played one game where armour and/or weapons with end game power could be crafted by players; something that suited me perfectly. Currently, most of the end game armour and weapons come from spending marks of honour or exploration; some comes from the TF drops, but from what I've seen from the chat channels, they are pretty much the same as what is purchased with the points gained from doing those task forces (and they seem to be the same quality as the non TF weapons except they lose one stat to gain an anti-borg stat.)
Going back to the tailor, for a moment, our customisation options are nice; if not a little limited. I'd like to see a little of the same customisation applied to our weapons, armour and kits.
The (non-)issue:
Currently, weapon crafting seems to only give us a choice of polaron and plasma, but there's no real incentive to do so. While cruising around collecting materials for crafting, I'm also completing cluster missions and getting badges of exploration with which I can purchase a comparable weapon from ESD or Battle Group Omega once I'm RDML 3+.
The crafting:
Aside from the vanity aspect, this could be incredibly useful from a player standpoint. It could give us the opportunity to add specific traits to our weapon (such as [CrtD] or [KB3]) or armour ([HPP] or [REV]) with the rarity and quality based upon the materials (initial weapon and mats) and number of materials used (up to a point.)
Each change would cost a specific material and amount over the original weapon's appearance and function. Adding [CrtD] would cost a specific number of mats plus the original weapon; making it [CrtD]x2 would cost double the mats or more. Changing its appearance from a large phaser rifle with the glowy blue things around the barrel to a smaller variant that looks like something seen in the series might cost an additional set of mats.
When crafting, a new UI might be necessary where you select the initial starting weapon or armour, select its new appearance if applicable, then select its tags. Each selection would show a required amount of materials and indicate whether or not you have the number necessary on the left and perhaps the end product to the right to ensure you've selected the appropriate appearance. (And perhaps with Anti-proton weapons, increase the scale so they don't clip in the hands of anyone taller than 5'4" :p )
Weapons of rare or vary rare quality could be BoP automatically or perhaps (for substantially more materials) be made BoE for trading.
Similar set ups could be selected for armour and kits. The appearance currently does nothing (Klingons don't even get to see their armour or kits at all. :( ) so picking and choosing the appearance would be purely cosmetic.
Kits could probably be scratch built, since they don't really get [stat] tags, they're just abilities with I, II, or III next to them. It could start with a base kit, if necessary, but possibly more mats could be used to build it from scratch. Appearance could also be selected for these, since some of us might like the simple belt and gauntlet design of some of the kits while others might enjoy the backpacks from other kits. Obviously I'm not saying that a tac officer could wear tac kit that looked like a science or engineering kit, only that she would be able to select from the various tactical kit designs. (Possibly changing their colours as they would with their uniforms.)
Armour could get the appearance selection and [stat] tag selection like the weapons, possibly even giving us the ability to show rank pins, comm badges and select the colours of the armour. (If I want to hide my role visually in pvp, I'll just hide the armour and kit.) (I'd love to say "hide portions of the armour so that we could show our boots or trousers with them, but I don't want to go too far, here. :3 )
Eventually, we may even want to have the ability to select the colour of our plasma fires, thermal vents or fields so we can see who's dropped what and whether or not its ours or a NPC's. (So we know at whom to direct our ire for dropping a plasma grenade on our head. :p )
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All this just because I'm such an insufferable fashionista. :3
I've only ever played one game where armour and/or weapons with end game power could be crafted by players; something that suited me perfectly. Currently, most of the end game armour and weapons come from spending marks of honour or exploration; some comes from the TF drops, but from what I've seen from the chat channels, they are pretty much the same as what is purchased with the points gained from doing those task forces (and they seem to be the same quality as the non TF weapons except they lose one stat to gain an anti-borg stat.)
Going back to the tailor, for a moment, our customisation options are nice; if not a little limited. I'd like to see a little of the same customisation applied to our weapons, armour and kits.
The (non-)issue:
Currently, weapon crafting seems to only give us a choice of polaron and plasma, but there's no real incentive to do so. While cruising around collecting materials for crafting, I'm also completing cluster missions and getting badges of exploration with which I can purchase a comparable weapon from ESD or Battle Group Omega once I'm RDML 3+.
The crafting:
Aside from the vanity aspect, this could be incredibly useful from a player standpoint. It could give us the opportunity to add specific traits to our weapon (such as [CrtD] or [KB3]) or armour ([HPP] or [REV]) with the rarity and quality based upon the materials (initial weapon and mats) and number of materials used (up to a point.)
Each change would cost a specific material and amount over the original weapon's appearance and function. Adding [CrtD] would cost a specific number of mats plus the original weapon; making it [CrtD]x2 would cost double the mats or more. Changing its appearance from a large phaser rifle with the glowy blue things around the barrel to a smaller variant that looks like something seen in the series might cost an additional set of mats.
When crafting, a new UI might be necessary where you select the initial starting weapon or armour, select its new appearance if applicable, then select its tags. Each selection would show a required amount of materials and indicate whether or not you have the number necessary on the left and perhaps the end product to the right to ensure you've selected the appropriate appearance. (And perhaps with Anti-proton weapons, increase the scale so they don't clip in the hands of anyone taller than 5'4" :p )
Weapons of rare or vary rare quality could be BoP automatically or perhaps (for substantially more materials) be made BoE for trading.
Similar set ups could be selected for armour and kits. The appearance currently does nothing (Klingons don't even get to see their armour or kits at all. :( ) so picking and choosing the appearance would be purely cosmetic.
Kits could probably be scratch built, since they don't really get [stat] tags, they're just abilities with I, II, or III next to them. It could start with a base kit, if necessary, but possibly more mats could be used to build it from scratch. Appearance could also be selected for these, since some of us might like the simple belt and gauntlet design of some of the kits while others might enjoy the backpacks from other kits. Obviously I'm not saying that a tac officer could wear tac kit that looked like a science or engineering kit, only that she would be able to select from the various tactical kit designs. (Possibly changing their colours as they would with their uniforms.)
Armour could get the appearance selection and [stat] tag selection like the weapons, possibly even giving us the ability to show rank pins, comm badges and select the colours of the armour. (If I want to hide my role visually in pvp, I'll just hide the armour and kit.) (I'd love to say "hide portions of the armour so that we could show our boots or trousers with them, but I don't want to go too far, here. :3 )
Eventually, we may even want to have the ability to select the colour of our plasma fires, thermal vents or fields so we can see who's dropped what and whether or not its ours or a NPC's. (So we know at whom to direct our ire for dropping a plasma grenade on our head. :p )
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All this just because I'm such an insufferable fashionista. :3