The State of Space Missions: Cybertech and Fleet Commendations

[hwnstylez]

Introduction

I became interested in responding to the current state of everything related to space missions after coming across the official Crafting Profession Changes in 1.1.2 Thread. In the last few pages (all posts made after February 7th), players responded to how BioWare treated the patch when it went live. Most of what the players suggested in the thread was overlooked in the actual patch. Meaning the effort was made to allow players to speak out for balance changes and suggestions, but there is no indication to whether or not any of it was actually taken into consideration when the patch went live and all those players who spent time writing feedback felt ignored and I wouldn't be too surprised if a few subscriptions were cancelled that very day. Anyway, let's turn our attention to the purpose of this thread which deals with some overlooked and incomplete aspects of the game. It happens to be that cybertech as it stands now is largely detached from a player-run economy that BioWare hopes to achieve for SWTOR. Therefore I came up with a list of arguments that run both for and against the current system of space missions and how cybertech crafting, fleet commendations and starship upgrades can be improved.

 

I. What Are Space Missions Like Now

Whether by design or not space missions are currently a reliable and sometime situations the highest yielding task for credits per minute. Taking the moderately profitable crafting profession Slicing for comparison, one can safely draw the conclusion that if just concerned with credit gain per minute, space missions when done manually exceed the profits made from slicing nodes. We will now take a look at the numbers from using slicing as a gathering skill to manually slice nodes oneself in order to compare profit gained from slicing to profit gained from space missions in an attempt to prove the worth of doing space missions for credits.

 

The Numbers (From a level 40 perspective)

At level 42 I can run Sullust Interception with a guaranteed credit yield of 3,200 credits every 4 minutes. Through a profession like slicing at 400/400 skill around level 40 I could roam a map for nodes and collect between 1,000 and 2,000 credits per node with a respawn time of each node set at roughly 20 minutes.

 

Let's assume for the moment that I have one hour to spend on SWTOR.

Slicing will cost me nothing and yield me an roughly 2,000 credits per node with the minimum being somewhere around 1,300 and the maximum around 2,300. The most heavily clustered set of nodes is found on Ilum, a set of five. With a 20 minute respawn time, I can gather fifteen times within the hour.

[(2,000 credits x 5 nodes) - (nothing)] x (60 min total / 20 min respawn) = 30,000 credits / hour.

 

At level 42 the highest credit yielding mission I can run is Sullust Interception on Empire that will cost me a negligible amount to start, and yield a guaranteed 3,200 credits every four minutes plus fleet commendations and 5,347 leveling experience.

(3,200 credits) x (60 min total / 4 min to complete mission) = 48,000 credits / hour

 

I will have made 18,000 credits more than slicing, gained 3 commendations per mission totalling 45 commendations by the end of the hour and 75,000 leveling experience too. So the current state of space missions? Good where it is. These numbers are well below those gained through solo questing, which should be the intent as space missions are more of a mini game rather and should not replace questing. However, the slicing crew skill could be slightly buffed seeing as the only return one can ever expect are credits. Sadly, the numbers from sending companions out to do slicing missions yields even less than that gained from node-slicing. At a return rate of 150% and a success rate of NOT 100%, one could actually lose money from slicing missions and would be better off finding another crew skill to replace it.

 

II. Starship Upgrades

At its current state, starship upgrades are heavily slanted towards players buying the upgrades directly from the starship upgrades vendor and ignoring those with cybertech completely at any level below level 43, where the first purple starship upgrade from cybertech becomes available to players. The space missions available are a static process with a 99.9% chance to be exactly the same each run. What does this mean? That a player who purchases starship upgrades from the vendor can reliably use those same upgrades until the next tier of vendor upgrades are available to them. Cybertech ugprades, which are situated to be half-upgrades between each tier of vendor upgrades can be ignored completely without any affect on the player running missions.

 

How do we solve this? It comes down to the simple matter of offering players the ability to craft the exact same or nearly identical starship upgrades found in the vendor through cybertech. Not all of them, but the main ones: Armor, Shield, Shield Regenerator, Beam Charger, Beam Generator and Missile Magazine. No doubt some newer players would still inevitably go to the starship upgrades vendor to purchase their upgrades, but at the least option would exist for the rest to purchase their upgrades through other players or the GTM. What does this solve? It keeps the money in the economy, rather than forcing players to choose another money-sink option which this game has enough of.

 

III. Fleet Commendations

Word about more items being available from the fleet commendations vendor has been rumored, and I think is something that BioWare needs to really focus on seeing as most players that are at or near level 50 have already maxed their commendations for both pvp and space missions. Currently there are not enough options to spend the fleet commendations on, and players like me who will run quite a bit of space missions will eventually grow tired of the only commendations sink being level 50 artifacts and armor.

 

How do we solve this? More customizations for gear and possibly some starship customizations like banner or artwork that a player can equip to their ship, custom starship colors, non-combat upgrades like body kits, wings, or rims (lol, joke). There is an endless supply of options that could be available that will neither diminish nor improve combat but will certainly help players feel like they are more in control of their character and story.

 

I also see a future for starship pvp. Fleet commendations will have a place there, too.

 

A note to BioWare

An anonymouse multi-million dollar company famous for changing the way MMOs were played beginning in 2004 will be obligated in Q4 of this year to announce the decline in subscriptions to their highly successful and highly marketable PC game. This number, rumored on quite a few websites, is well past 1.7 million subscriptions.

 

What is their flaw? Arrogance. They are guilty of largely ignoring their loyal community of subscribers and fans, known for doing their own thing even when the very players who populate their servers and that participate in making their game worth playing plead otherwise.

 

On the other end of the country, another anonymous franchise with a bright future of longevity and player loyalty made popular by its free-to-play PR strategy and its unique game type made famous through a custom map created for another game produced by the aforementioned multi-million dollar company is doing great.

 

What is their secret? Pragmatism. What works for them is their devotion to molding their game and their community service towards a community-driven model. They don't go through with every suggestion on the forums, but they do listen, and the gamers who play their game know that. Players feel like they can trust both their time, their thoughts and their hard-earned money to a company that regularly reaches out to the players and take player feedback very seriously.

 

I just opened my account on January 30th so I don't know much about BioWare, but I hope they are more like the second. Trust in your players and they will trust in you.

Edited February 8, 2012 by hwnstylez

[Russell_Solo]

I think crafting and PvP are in their infancy. They are going to get a lot of love from BW in the coming months and years. What they put in the release fro PvP and crafting is almost like a preview of coming attractions. The feature presentation is the story driven class RPG. With that done, other than some polishing, they will have a lot more time and resources to focus on other aspects of the game. Patients is the way of the Jedi.

[Damon_Mott]

I. Your math is flawed. You forgot to add in the time it takes to complete the space mission which is 5 minutes. With a 4 minute cool down that is 9 minutes per run So in roughly 60 minutes you can make about $19,200.

 

II. Grade II Cyber tech parts are far superior to Grade I and III ship parts. Likewise Grade IV parts are superior to Grade V parts. Grade II and IV parts and all the "purple" ship parts are all craftable by cybertechs. What was your point again?

 

III. Fleet commendations allow you to buy 5 critical ship parts that are not available for credits or via crafting. They also allow you to but social wear and mystery lunch boxes. However, I agree, there should be level 50+ purple mods avaialable.

[hwnstylez]

I think crafting and PvP are in their infancy. They are going to get a lot of love from BW in the coming months and years. What they put in the release fro PvP and crafting is almost like a preview of coming attractions. The feature presentation is the story driven class RPG. With that done, other than some polishing, they will have a lot more time and resources to focus on other aspects of the game. Patients is the way of the Jedi.

 

This is exactly why I created this thread, not to bash BW for doing anything wrong, but to have them revisit some of the things that should have been issues in beta and fixed upon release. Either beta testing was largely filled with players who didn't give enough feedback or who didn't catch on to such big gaps in the way everything was interconnected.

 

BW doesn't have to make all the changes themselves. Just spending some time in the forums reading threads like these will save them hours of back-and-forth brainstorming. Thank you for your input, it serves well as a TL;DR to my post.

[hwnstylez]

I. Your math is flawed. You forgot to add in the time it takes to complete the space mission which is 5 minutes. With a 4 minute cool down that is 9 minutes per run So in roughly 60 minutes you can make about $19,200.

 

II. Grade II Cyber tech parts are far superior to Grade I and III ship parts. Likewise Grade IV parts are superior to Grade V parts. Grade II and IV parts and all the "purple" ship parts are all craftable by cybertechs. What was your point again?

 

III. Fleet commendations allow you to buy 5 critical ship parts that are not available for credits or via crafting. They also allow you to but social wear and mystery lunch boxes. However, I agree, there should be level 50+ purple mods avaialable.

 

I. Unless we are speaking of two completely separate games, there is no 4 minute cooldown for space missions. You can do a single mission in 4 minutes and 07 seconds not accounting for the time it takes to click accept reward and to return to the galaxy map to take the mission again which is balanced by the time it takes to run between each node on Ilum. Perhaps you're speaking of another kind of mission, or the quests related to the space missions which are also a negligible part of the equation.

 

II. Grade IV parts are not superior to Grade V parts and I can tell you this as a fact from running nearly a few hundred missions. Grade IV parts give you upgrades to other stats, but still lack the bulk of the basic stat of their primary components. The Grade IV armor gives you blaster damage, which is cute, but doesn't compare to Grade V armor which ensures that you don't fail the Sullust Interception mission or pass it with 1-bar of health left. Comparing the 3000 armor of a Grade V part to the 2650 armor of a Grade IV part, you can take more than a dozen hits. What is the tradeoff? 4 blaster damage.

 

III. Yes, you are able to buy parts not available via crafting, I'm glad you noticed that. But that's not the direction I was taking. I'm saying that there isn't enough content even past those unique items. I opened my account one week ago and have made no less than 1,300 commendations in that time. 1/4 of what I made so far have gone to purchasing those parts you speak of. What am to do once I buy everything the vendor has to offer? That's where my argument was coming from, sorry to confuse you.

Edited February 8, 2012 by hwnstylez

[Xallionn]

I'd suggest making Cybertech upgrades fundamentally different from the vendor upgrades. This would not only break the rather boring linear progression in star ship upgrades, but would also make Cybertech upgrades quite desirable.

For example, Cybertech could have some upgrades that do something similar to the following, while the standard upgrades from the vendors remain the same.

 

Cybertech Missile Magazine upgrades -

Increases missile count by X and decreases missile reload time by Y

Increases missile count by X and increases missile damage by Y

Increases missile count by X and increases damage done to shields

Increases missile count by X and increases damage done to turrets

Increases missile count by X and increases max number of loaded missiles by Y

Increases missile count by X and causes damage to nearby enemy crafts

Increases missile count by X and increases missile range by Y

Unlimited missile count, but increases reload time by Y

[hwnstylez]

I'd suggest making Cybertech upgrades fundamentally different from the vendor upgrades. This would not only break the rather boring linear progression in star ship upgrades, but would also make Cybertech upgrades quite desirable.

For example, Cybertech could have some upgrades that do something similar to the following, while the standard upgrades from the vendors remain the same.

 

Cybertech Missile Magazine upgrades -

Increases missile count by X and decreases missile reload time by Y

Increases missile count by X and increases missile damage by Y

Increases missile count by X and increases damage done to shields

Increases missile count by X and increases damage done to turrets

Increases missile count by X and increases max number of loaded missiles by Y

Increases missile count by X and causes damage to nearby enemy crafts

Increases missile count by X and increases missile range by Y

Unlimited missile count, but increases reload time by Y

 

Good input, it is true that cybertech upgrades are so easily overlooked right now.

[hwnstylez]

cycling this post to the top of the list for additional input.

[DarthDemens]

Overall, nicely done.

 

I'd love to see some more 'customization' of ship loadouts created by cybertech. Maybe something similar to the Tree-Crafting of weapons and armors.

[Aerithel]

Overall, nicely done.

 

I'd love to see some more 'customization' of ship loadouts created by cybertech. Maybe something similar to the Tree-Crafting of weapons and armors.

 

So long as when REing you don't get, "You already know that schematic." This is one of the biggest reasons I'm avoiding any branch-progression crafting skills and just sticking with linear-progression ones.

[SpankyMcFlych]

I've gone with the blue cyber crafted ship upgrades for my main (and all my alts) and only ever used the first rank of vendor bought ones. Worked fine for me.

 

As for being able to craft the 3 and 5 ranks... wouldn't work unless they were superior to the vendor ones. No crafter would be able o compete with the vendor. Heck... even the blue and purple ship mods arn't worth crafting on my server as they sell for less then the materials cost.

 

But honestly... I don't really see much future for space combat. Running the exact same mission, which plays out in the exact same way, for the nth time gets real old, real fast. Unless they revamp space to actually be controllable by players (which I can't see happening any time soon) it's always going to be a boring timed minigame on rails with limited appeal.

 

Though I would like to see customization for our ships. Or the ability to buy other ships. More upgrades, where are the engine upgrades? oh right... on rails... and a timer. Can't really upgrade engines. But anyways there's endless bits of ways we should be able to upgrade our ships. They could add skills to skill up for space as well to add something to work on. And I want a turret for my companions to man to shoot at all the one-shottable fighters flying around and shooting me from behind. Heck they could give companions space experience and let them level up their space ability as well. Or they could give that stupid spacesuit social armor bonuses to space combat when you wear it heh.

 

But anyways meh. As it stands space combat is a forgettable and rather boring (after a while) minigame. An infinite number of ways to improve it and make it a real part of the game. Good luck having any influence whatsoever over what bioware decides to do (or not bother to do) with it.

[Spifnar]

Does anyone really care that much about credits?

 

The monotony of ship missions is the real problem with space combat. Always the same. This is especially bad because there is only 1 ship mission that rewards daily comms.

 

The rewards that can be bought with ship tokens should be expanded also

 

The cost of the purple bag is a bit high. It's almost 30 missions....and there are only 2 missions that reward the max amount of fleet comms.

 

We need more challenging missions. Or at least more bonus objectives. Challenging ones

[Battilea]

Personally, I don't bother much with space missions much because they aren't worth the cost of doing. Having to buy ship upgrades, plus the return per hour, compared to what I can get running around the actual game And then the repetitiveness factor.

 

If I really wanted to make money, I'd take a character and give said character both Scavenging and Bioanalysis as crewskills, probably with UT for the 3rd.

 

Also, as far as ship upgrades go, I do the opposite. After tier 1, I only use player upgrades. But I've got a cybertech, so...

Edited February 10, 2012 by Battilea

[GangaWolf]

Nice post, but in many ways the cybertech crafters are their own worst enemy.

 

I am good enough as I progress to do the missions I get *without* level 2 parts or level 4 parts that are crafted. I wouldn't mind the extra power they deliver, particularly "between" levels, but I can survive without them. On my server, people are charging over 100K for some level 2 parts. What player in their 20's can afford that unless they have another higher-level toon supplying them? Rather than waste my money on that I just wait until the level 3 become available, and the same from 4 to 5.

 

Maybe my server is abnormally inflated, but if the prices were reasonable I definitely would by the equipment. Call it Economics.

[Oghier]

I have no interest in the space mini-game, but that is one heck of a well written and argued post. Kudos to the OP.

[DarthDemens]

So long as when REing you don't get, "You already know that schematic." This is one of the biggest reasons I'm avoiding any branch-progression crafting skills and just sticking with linear-progression ones.

 

Already on the list of coming crafting changes according to a recent DevPost.

 

 

The cost of the purple bag is a bit high. It's almost 30 missions....and there are only 2 missions that reward the max amount of fleet comms.

 

The trick isn't to run the same mission over and over, but to do the Daily Operations that reward significantly more Fleet Coms.

 

Just running through those every day (a little over an hour of space missions) will get you enough Coms to buy a purple box every 3-4 days.

 

And there are 3 missions that reward 5 Coms per run. And with purple upgrades and the extra commendation bits they get pretty simple.

 

Aeten/Kalee (EW removes the ability to be targeted during the one "heavy damage" portion)

Vondoru/Zosha (Torps make taking out the generators simple)

Ascendancy/Impossible (EMP can wipe out a whole minefield, and you can use it on the first and last minefields, making that objective trivial)

 

 

As to the ship upgrades, it probably depends on your server. On mine, the missile magazine is the only part that doesn't sell for its CoM, everything else sells for significantly more, and is a more vital upgrade than having more missiles. You can do just fine with a class 5 (or even a 4) missile magazine if you have the other survivability and cannon mods.

Edited February 11, 2012 by DarthDemens

[xxBreemenxx]

haha @ arrogance. More like some decent alternatives opening up and playing the same game for years gets tiring.

[Quiet]

Pretty much the only time I did space missions was to farm them for credits for speeder training at level 25.

Since, my friend was doing cybertech, he made the grade 2 ship parts for me for free.

 

At around level 21, I started doing the three space mission dallies which got my around 8000 credits for the three dalies.

Did the three mission dallies for 5 days and had my speeder training money.

I did this on all 8 of my toons.

 

After that, I really haven't done any space missions.

 

My level 50 has all the comendation vendor only space ship parts and mostly grade 4 ship parts with 2 purple ship parts (got the cybertech made grade 4 & purple parts for free, they were freebies being handed out in my guild).

The other 7 toons just have all grade 2 ship parts (all obtained for free).

Edited February 11, 2012 by Quiet

[DarthDemens]

Pretty much the only time I did space missions was to farm them for credits for speeder training at level 25.

Since, my friend was doing cybertech, he made the grade 2 ship parts for me for free.

 

At around level 21, I started doing the three space mission dallies which got my around 8000 credits for the three dalies.

Did the three mission dallies for 5 days and had my speeder training money.

I did this on all 8 of my toons.

 

After that, I really haven't done any space missions.

 

My level 50 has all the comendation vendor only space ship parts and mostly grade 4 ship parts with 2 purple ship parts (got the cybertech made grade 4 & purple parts for free, they were freebies being handed out in my guild).

The other 7 toons just have all grade 2 ship parts (all obtained for free).

 

You really should do the level 50 daily spaces as well.

 

I assume you do the dailies on Belsavis and Ilum?

 

The space daily Operation rewards 12753-18639 credits (depending on if/which bonuses you complete) and 2 Daily Coms. Which puts the rewards about even with the Heroic Daily missions, and only takes about 7 minutes to do.

[Quiet]

You really should do the level 50 daily spaces as well.

 

I assume you do the dailies on Belsavis and Ilum?

 

The space daily Operation rewards 12753-18639 credits (depending on if/which bonuses you complete) and 2 Daily Coms. Which puts the rewards about even with the Heroic Daily missions, and only takes about 7 minutes to do.

 

Sadly it's a "no" on the level 50 dalies. Even though my guild mates and friends yell at me to do them.

 

I'm an altaholic (been that way for every MMO I've played), so I tend to spend my time leveling alts then doing level 50 dalies on my main.

Edited February 11, 2012 by Quiet

[Ohoni]

I enjoy space combat, and my Cybertech character has outfitted himself and my other characters with the blue gear, which is WAY better than comperable leveled green gear. My level 23 characters, thus equipped, are decimating the missions at that level in a way that my green-geared main never did.

 

That said, more options are always nice, a wider range of ship-craftable gear would be cool, especially in the form of pieces that actually shift your power balance, like being able to choose to have guns that can pierce shields, in exchange for doing less standard damage, or something like that. Or "power missiles" that take out shielded targets with less of them, but you only get half as many of them as you would standard missiles at that level. Maybe an "evasive maneuvers" package that enhances your defenses while rolling. There are all sorts of fun options.

[Jedted]

My suggestion for Space Combat is make the mission difficuly based less on upgrades and more on skill. Currently there is not a ton skill required for any of the space missions, as long as you have the highest possible upgrades in your ship then it's a breeze. Maybe have you gain Space XP for completing missions which you can then sink into a set of skill which increase your ability effectiveness in combat.