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Updates post #199: Weapon/Armor modding overhaul.
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<pre>From: Ilyos, the Arbiter
Subject: Weapon/Armor modding overhaul.
We're very happy to announce that our overhaul of Weaponmodding and Armormodding is now complete. Please see below a list of changes and how the new system works:
- WEAPONMOD/ARMORMOD SHOW works now.
- Added WM and AM as shorthand for WEAPONMODS and ARMORMODS respectively.
- Reverse-Engineering a mod now gains you 'research credits' and 'parts' with the mod's manufactor.
- A manufacturer's research credits can be invested into any mod from that manufacturer you have previously unlocked via reverse-engineering to increase its mastered progress.
- As before, mods cannot be crafted until 100% mastered.
- Mods are crafted with proprietary parts from that manufacturer.
- Mods you have crafted yourself cannot be reverse-engineered.
- There is a new skill in ArmorModding and WeaponModding: Shipment. Once every real-life week, this skill allows you to request a shipment of random mods in exchange for a bunch of commodities. Refer to their ability files for more information. Available shipments will change each week.
As part of these changes, all progress and parts you have in existing mods will be reset to 0, and you will gain back research credits and parts for that mod's manufacturer so you can freely redistribute the points as you see fit.
Research Credits/Progress
-------------------------
The amount of research credits you will gain for each mod depends on its rank.
Simple mods: 1 credit
Complex mods: 2 credits
Advanced mods: 3 credits
Obfuscated mods: 4 credits
To master a mod, you need to invest an amount of research credits that is also based on the mod's rank.
Simple mods: 20 credits
Complex mods: 40 credits
Advanced mods: 60 credits
Obfuscated mods: 80 credits
The maximum amount of research parts (per manufacturer) and research credits you can hold at any given time is 500.
New commands overview
---------------------
WM/AM RESEARCH STATUS
View the research credits and parts you have available for manufacturers.
WM/AM INVEST <amount> <mod>
Invest the specified amount of research credits into the specified mod.
Example flow
------------
1) Obtain a mod in some way (shipments, mob drops, trading)
2) Reverse-Engineer the mod to unlock it, and gain parts/research credits for its manufacturer
3) Invest research credits into that mod from its manufacturer.
4) Repeat steps 1 through to 3 until you can reach 100% mastered on the mod.
5) Craft the mod.</pre>
Subject: Weapon/Armor modding overhaul.
We're very happy to announce that our overhaul of Weaponmodding and Armormodding is now complete. Please see below a list of changes and how the new system works:
- WEAPONMOD/ARMORMOD SHOW works now.
- Added WM and AM as shorthand for WEAPONMODS and ARMORMODS respectively.
- Reverse-Engineering a mod now gains you 'research credits' and 'parts' with the mod's manufactor.
- A manufacturer's research credits can be invested into any mod from that manufacturer you have previously unlocked via reverse-engineering to increase its mastered progress.
- As before, mods cannot be crafted until 100% mastered.
- Mods are crafted with proprietary parts from that manufacturer.
- Mods you have crafted yourself cannot be reverse-engineered.
- There is a new skill in ArmorModding and WeaponModding: Shipment. Once every real-life week, this skill allows you to request a shipment of random mods in exchange for a bunch of commodities. Refer to their ability files for more information. Available shipments will change each week.
As part of these changes, all progress and parts you have in existing mods will be reset to 0, and you will gain back research credits and parts for that mod's manufacturer so you can freely redistribute the points as you see fit.
Research Credits/Progress
-------------------------
The amount of research credits you will gain for each mod depends on its rank.
Simple mods: 1 credit
Complex mods: 2 credits
Advanced mods: 3 credits
Obfuscated mods: 4 credits
To master a mod, you need to invest an amount of research credits that is also based on the mod's rank.
Simple mods: 20 credits
Complex mods: 40 credits
Advanced mods: 60 credits
Obfuscated mods: 80 credits
The maximum amount of research parts (per manufacturer) and research credits you can hold at any given time is 500.
New commands overview
---------------------
WM/AM RESEARCH STATUS
View the research credits and parts you have available for manufacturers.
WM/AM INVEST <amount> <mod>
Invest the specified amount of research credits into the specified mod.
Example flow
------------
1) Obtain a mod in some way (shipments, mob drops, trading)
2) Reverse-Engineer the mod to unlock it, and gain parts/research credits for its manufacturer
3) Invest research credits into that mod from its manufacturer.
4) Repeat steps 1 through to 3 until you can reach 100% mastered on the mod.
5) Craft the mod.</pre>
2
Comments
The artifact regarding % mastery from reverse engineering will provide extra research credits now on reverse engineering?
Feedback:
Crafting costs: Crafting cost for mods are exorbitant. At 15,300 marks for a top of the line mod at level 75 - the affordability is in serious question. Adding the cost of research, parts and a small profit for the modder this is stratospherically high ... to the tune of 25,000 marks for a top of the line mod. Consider costs in the 5k-10k range after accounting for everything. Mods at lower levels should cost SIGNIFICANTLY lower.
Mastery costs: To master and manufacture an obsfucated mod, you need 20 of them! At above costs you are looking at 15,300 *20 = 306,000 marks (equivalent to 150 credits in today's credit costs). And this is for just one manufacturer's one specific mod. Perhaps the costs should be lowered to make them accessible to more modders. For reference, there are 8 manufacturers, each with mods in 6 different damage areas and 4 different level classifications. So, to master ALL obsfuscated mods I need to spend 306k * 8 * 6 = 14.7 million marks to just master all obsfuscated mods at level 65-75.
P.S. This extrapolation is extreme but you get the picture. Other mods probably cost lower.
Shipments: Perhaps provide a note of what is needed to procure a shipment in WM SHIPMENT LIST (it is in AB SHIPMENT).
Also, each shipment costs about 16,000 marks based on the costs of commodities needed. You pay 16,000 marks for 35-40 parts (which is roughly the cost of crafting 4-6 mods) - adding another 3,000 to 4,000 marks to costs
**Consider variety in shipment costs, particularly for less used commodities, magnaril, elessium, stesium, ultarine**
Display: Please add pagination to WM LIST/ AM LIST since it is difficult to see them all in one screen.
Information: Please add min/ max level, quality, effect to the existing WM LIST screen
Capstone Skill: Perhaps allow modders who have mastered 5 mods of each quality (simple, advanced, complex, obsfuscated) to start their own line of custom mods. These would be crafted by using parts from all other manufacturers but perhaps be a touch better.
Mod Drops Rate/ Usage: Considering advanced, complex, obsfuscated mods cost A LOT, perhaps allow them to be only craft-able and not dropped since it might make them more lucrative to simply sell rather than invest in research.
Installation: Not a fan of this but just thinking of ideas to supplement modder’s income since upfront costs seem over the top in every respect. Perhaps allow only modders to install mods. This would allow weapons and armor to be safely modified without risk blowing up in your face. Modders could perhaps gain small amount of research credit for installation.
Question:
AEGIS TECHNOLOGY: This manufacturer always gives one research credit towards research (feature or bug)
- Reverse-Engineering a mod now gains you 'research credits' and 'parts' with the mod's manufactor.
- A manufacturer's research credits can be invested into any mod from that manufacturer you have previously unlocked via reverse-engineering to increase its mastered progress.
Also you are not supposed to master everything in short amount of time, after all people gotta establish trade not become fully self-sufficient. And there are droves of low MLI mods that can be sold to the dedicated modders which can yield parts and research points. You are speaking of a MLI 75 Obfuscated mod after all. A bit of difficulty on best pieces especially encourages people to sell those finds to the local modders.
Currently the remaining issues I see are MLI-requirements and crafting costs. Because in current rates no one will produce low MLI mods because low MLI people would not have resources to cover that much. Even then, armor pieces are upgraded so frequently in low levels, those mods would not mean much unless they can be bought for a pittance. Abolishing MLI restrictions could be a potential idea but that would require re-balancing the entire catalogue of mods to fit the change.
Could we have a command called something like MODWHO, where you can list all available modders (and ideally their specialization)? This could be an opt-in system, not unlike RPWHO. This could probably be applied to the other trades, too, if it's something people are into.
Potential Solution: I can envision a system where you can retrieve your existing mod from a weapon/ armor and upgrade it to the next level from the same manufacturer.
Retrieve: Allows a weapon modder to retrieve a mod from a weapon/ armor piece
WM RETRIEVE <MOD> FROM <WEAPON>
Upgrade: Allows a weapon modder to upgrade a mod from a low level mod from a manufacturer to a higher level mod from the manufacturer.
WM UPGRADE <MOD#> TO <SCHEMATIC NUMBER>
WM UPGRADE MOD31242 TO 21
The vacuum sphere suddenly implodes, dragging you towards it.
armor mod torso with mod
You carefully slot Stronghold 4000 (Draining) into a Trajectory Systems Bluestreak v7.1.
Concentrating intently on the emptiness inside yourself, you lift your gauntleted hand, and a sphere of cold darkness manifests there, dragging matter powerfully into the void.
The vacuum sphere suddenly implodes, dragging you towards it.
Should not there be some difference? So basically in two different pieces it should provide 20 reduction against draining I think.
Placed one Stronghold 4000 (+10 Draining, Obfuscated, 65-75 MLI) on every armor slot for an extreme stacking case test. Mind you the test is without nanoseer defenses such as Protect like the last time so we can use previous damage number of 902 draining as reference too. That is 35700 marks plus 40 Armor King parts as cost, so to make profit potentially a modder would have to sell for higher.
The damage of the vacuumsphere went down to:
I am not sure what +10 Draining means exactly or how the calculations are done. But the total difference in reduction was about 25 damage. Seems like a 2.77% extra reduction on top of my current armor.
Protect alone gives an extra 10% by reducing the damage from 877 to 789. So modding, even at its concentrated case pales in providing any significant relief compared to the costs involved.
This might not be too alluring for people to pay that much for that amount of difference. Basically a modder would have to sell it higher to make any profit and if the goods will not provide the customers any noticeable relief, they will not be inclined to buy. Especially when they wish to have concentrated type armors for different PvE/PvP challenges.
Also as a side thought, it could be fun to have utility armor mods that could work in other ways, such as emergency health units with cooldowns, regen mods, rush mods etc. But that is just a wild thought. Keep up good work!
Oh wait...you can't find them yet...guess I've been exploring in all the weird places again...
Though I would still suggest making them matter enough that people will demand them. Because investment costs are quite intensive in these skillsets already. And while I do not say armormodding should create impenetrable damage configurations, an armormod configuration providing noticeable changes in a damage type or two would create the necessary demand.
But yeah, I will try to work with skillset more. If I do not go bankrupt first!
Socketing another +10 Draining mod was not possible so I attempted to use a +2 Draining mod from another manufacturer but I get the message always:
You can not use another mod of that type on that armor. So it seems like making a dedicated protective mod array is not possible currently. Is it intended?
While testing I found a bug that trying to replace +10 Draining or +8 Melee with +2 Draining gives the message:
You are about to replace the existing mod 'Stronghold 4000 (Draining)' in slot #1 of a Trajectory Systems Bluestreak v7.2 with 'Titanmod Draining HD-4'. The old mod will be discarded. Enter AGREE to proceed.
You are about to replace the existing mod 'Pitiless Melee.GA-4-M' in slot #2 of a Trajectory Systems Bluestreak v7.2 with 'Titanmod Draining HD-4'. The old mod will be discarded. Enter AGREE to proceed.
AGREE command does not work.
Tested it on feet armor which had only those two mods.
Also a few questions: Is it normal for a melee mod to bump all resistances to a degree? I thought they were melee only or their reduction would only reduce melee attacks. Unless they are overall protection mods. I could not test yet, but how would Tech, Kith variants differ then Melee variant?
Addition: With a full set of +10 Draining and +8 Melee mods (meaning a total of 14 mods) Armor Overview shows:
Vacuumsphere damage is still 877, I presume that 1% bump on draining was not that effective. So far my thought is that armormodding is decent as far as its mechanics go but protection-wise it is a small edge that will not matter too much. The production cost of this array is 59052 marks without including the parts cost and the profit of the armormodder.
I think at this iteration the price of mods is not the issue but rather the allure of the crafted goods. PvE and PvP players would be willing to pay for the goods that will provide them the advantage against a particular damage. Of course I am assuming in future there could be boss mobs with particular damage types and it would add strategical depth to the PvP battles to choose your armor.
damage mod on a weapon, so be sure to use the best one you have!
resist mod and one tech resist, but not two melee resist mods.
So, Xyca is strictly always better than Driver type mods in all level ranges and damage types. This makes crafting certain types of mods never desirable to learn to craft or use
One potential solution to get around this rather dubious situation are Schemes much like runewords in Diablo 2)
An example would be, slotting in 3 weapon mods of different manufacturers and damage types to gain additional boosts.
So an arrangement of Driver (Thermal) + Surger (Impact) + Tazi (Cellular) could give you +1 to each damage type. Schemes could be given flavor names (Canned Heat)
Additional effects could be added flavor lines. 'Your minigun recoils furiously as the mod scheme grants you additional power'
Schemes could be inherent or need to learned by whoever is slotting the mods (monetization)
1) There are way too many types of damage defined for mods and not all of them are useful or useable for a given weapon.
Considering they are not stackable it makes most weapons use maybe 1 or 2 mods.
I just realized most damage is classified as (melee or ranged) this is not evident.
allow stacking of weapon mods. Armormodding is different in that you face different adversaries
Consider reducing the types of damage in mods - some of them do not make sense
2) BEAST - they again get the short end of the stick considering they have to equip mods for each type of weapon on their MWP. Suittech related offensive skills also do not have a corresponding weapon mod slot. Further plasmacasting has no associated weapon making modding rather useless for it.
allow BEASTS to have a weapon associated to plasmacasting/ suittech probably? I don’t have a good Solution. perhaps increase their drop rates while bashing so they get compensated for equipment requirements
3) Weapon damage artifacts occupying a mod slot does take away from the business of modding due to its permanency.
most IRE games have smithing which allows you to reach L1 artifact levels in game. modding should allow you similar effects. Right now it seems underpowered.
4) Consider mod schematics as mentioned above. They provide a monetization opportunity in addition to complementing the skill set