Which is, again, why it is a mistake. Why would anyone craft another bit of armor after 1.3?

Not everyone wants to look the same.

Not everyone wants to look the same.

Sorry, the majority of orange soon-to-be endgame appearances are drops/loot/social compared to those that are craft-able. There might be a few niche pieces that people might prefer, but BW has taken the lion share of end-game armor production away from players. They should give us the schematics and have only player crafted items have augments slots. Post 1.3 Armormech and Synthweaving will be even more pointless than they are now.

It's currently set to 10, so that's what you can expect to see when it first hits Public Test. As with anything that's not live, this is subject to change.

So it'll be 10 on test and then suddenly 30 when it goes live. Got it.

Sorry, the majority of orange soon-to-be endgame appearances are drops/loot/social compared to those that are craft-able. There might be a few niche pieces that people might prefer, but BW has taken the lion share of end-game armor production away from players. They should give us the schematics and have only player crafted items have augments slots. Post 1.3 Armormech and Synthweaving will be even more pointless than they are now.

I really don't see the point in this. You mean to say you want to force people to buy their best in slot gear from crafters? What's the point of running Ops then? Sure running Ops is fun, but people also run it to get items that look different than what every Joe Schmoe can craft. As it is now Armormech and Synthweaving are very viable. You can craft the best augments. Arguably better than what Armstechs can craft when you factor in the class buffs. 1.3 will give you more things to craft so people can update their preferred gear not just some random piece of orange with an augment slot. And those augment kits are gonna come from crafters. Pretty sure no one is going to be selling those for a reasonable price either.

Thanks again for the response (though no one else seems to have noticed it.)

This has gone a long way to make the change much more palatable to me and likely others, though I still have the nagging issue that I won't be making much armor to sell, just more to pull apart for parts to make other gear slightly better. It seems sort of like making three piece suits and then cutting them up to sew a pocket for someone to hold a handkerchief in.

So far as the making cheap items and breaking them down, the gist I get from the type of player who crafts, in general, would not be against weighting the returns from RE. A level 50 item reverse engineered producing twice what a level 25 RE, and a level 10 less still, or even the chance at nothing at all, since the time/materials invested is often trivial at low levels.

Edit: I realized after a walk that the tiered augment slots idea has a slight problem. It would be easy to put a modifier on an item that said, "Augment Slot 1. Requires level 1." or "Augment Slot 6. Requires level 49."

What would keep a level 50 from using a level 1 item and get the same benefit? I can only think that you've figured this out already, and it's not something you've released- the final crafted item would have to include not only the augment pieces, but the augment itself as well.

Yes.

 

 

 

Crafted gear.

 

 

 

From a Crew Skill trainer.

 

 

 

Augment kits are tiered.

 

 

 

Not quite. Augment material drops from reverse engineering are not random. They are, however, in addition to the standard return you see now.

 

 

 

It's currently set to 10, so that's what you can expect to see when it first hits Public Test. As with anything that's not live, this is subject to change.

 

I expect that many people will not use those 10 crafts on the item they want. Instead, they'll make one copy of the item, then if it does not crit they'll make 10 cheap items that fall into the same range and provide the necessary component.

Thanks for the clarifications, David !

Can these augment kits be used on ANY item, or are they restricted to player-crafted items ? If they can only be used on crafted items, does that include ALL crafted item quality tiers, or can they only be added to orange shells (custom) ?

Will all grades of crafted items (green, blue and purple) yield augment kit components when RE'ed ?

Great to see that the augment kits are level-tiered. Will that be tiers 1 to 6 (similar to the crew skill level tiers) ? Or are they graded differently ?

I assume the components from RE will also be level-tiered ? So we'll get "Augment Material 1" from RE'ing L10-16 crafted items (e.g. belts and bracers), and "Augment Material 2" from RE'ing L17-25 items, etc. ?

When you say that the drop rate is not random, and "currently it's set to 10", does that mean we get the same amount of augment components, regardless of which item is RE'ed ? So you can RE either 10 bracers or 10 chest pieces and still only have enough components to make 1 augment kit ?

I really don't see the point in this. You mean to say you want to force people to buy their best in slot gear from crafters? What's the point of running Ops then? Sure running Ops is fun, but people also run it to get items that look different than what every Joe Schmoe can craft. As it is now Armormech and Synthweaving are very viable. You can craft the best augments. Arguably better than what Armstechs can craft when you factor in the class buffs. 1.3 will give you more things to craft so people can update their preferred gear not just some random piece of orange with an augment slot. And those augment kits are gonna come from crafters. Pretty sure no one is going to be selling those for a reasonable price either.

What I'm saying is that currently if you want BIS armor you take the mods out of raid gear and put it in player crafted gear. In 1.3 you will be able to put the mods from the raid gear in anything, side-stepping crafters. Example:

There are 379 of light armor chest pieces with slots in the game: http://db.darthhater.com/items/armor/light_armor/chest/?filters=8011=6

Of those, 60 can be crafted and are thus BIS: http://db.darthhater.com/items/armor/light_armor/chest/?filters=56=7;8011=6

After 1.3 all 379 will be best in slot while only 60 will be player crafted. Pre 1.3 BIS light armor chests are 100% player crafted, post 1.3 16% are player crafted. It amounts to a giant crafting nerf.

I'm not saying that anyone should be held back as far as appearances, only that it should be players should have access to the schematics and be able to contribute to an actual economy rather than simply mass producing augment kits.

Sorry, the majority of orange soon-to-be endgame appearances are drops/loot/social compared to those that are craft-able. There might be a few niche pieces that people might prefer, but BW has taken the lion share of end-game armor production away from players. They should give us the schematics and have only player crafted items have augments slots. Post 1.3 Armormech and Synthweaving will be even more pointless than they are now.

Going to have to disagree with you there, even if we're looking only at augments that can be obtained from those 2 professions: Shielding, Absorbtion, Defense - These are essential augments for tanks, and while leveling you can gear out your companions and yourself with armor that is hard to replace until you get to endgame. Sure you can always suit up in orange shell armor and keep swapping mods but that gets to be tedious and expensive, either way I feel Armormech and Synthweaving have their place before and after 1.3.

Augment kits are tiered.

This is the one I really want some more information on. Exactly how does the tier system work? Gear level? Player level? If I add an augment slot using a level 10 kit, will I be required to use another kit to keep the slot when I reach the next tier?

If I run Black Talon at level 10 and get the orange chest, can I augment it using the level 10 kit and keep it through 50?

if I run Black Talon at 50 and get the orange chest, can I augment it using the level 10 kit and keep that augment through lvl 50?

What if I swap in level 50 mods first? The item now requires level 50. Do I need to use a level 50 kit, or will the level 10 still work since the shell item level is 10?

Does using a kit bind the item, or will I be able to augment orange world drops and sell them on the GTN? If it's based on player level instead of gear level, would that mean I could send it to a lower level alt to use a 'cheaper' kit?

I figure the easiest way to level restrict the augment kits is to have them include the augment in them. As players level and want a better augment they can buy another kit instead of an augment. Also it would make it impossible to cheese the system by buying an augment for a level 11 item and put a level 49 augment in it.

Further, it will not burden crafters by requiring them to list both the augment and the kit. Since we're still limited by 50 listings at a time, which is a major roadblock in the crafting world, it will have less of an impact if it's an integrated system.

Which crafters can make which augment kits? Do each only make augment kits for the gear they produce? Would BioChemists be able to make them for Implants, while Synthweavers make them for Jedi Armor?

Or can all professions craft them equally, they are just level tiered?

Yes.

 

 

 

Crafted gear.

 

 

 

From a Crew Skill trainer.

 

 

 

Augment kits are tiered.

 

 

 

Not quite. Augment material drops from reverse engineering are not random. They are, however, in addition to the standard return you see now.

 

 

 

It's currently set to 10, so that's what you can expect to see when it first hits Public Test. As with anything that's not live, this is subject to change.

 

I expect that many people will not use those 10 crafts on the item they want. Instead, they'll make one copy of the item, then if it does not crit they'll make 10 cheap items that fall into the same range and provide the necessary component.

But how much will it cost credits wise?

But how much will it cost credits wise?

Of course, crafting the augment kit and selling it is only half the story

The catch is what price will be charged to use the augment kit at the Modification Table, because this "NPC price regulator" will tend to determine the price cap on both augment-slot kits and indirectly on critted armour with an augment slot.

It will be difficult to sell a crit-crafted item (with augment slot) for more than the average price of buying an augment kit and using it at the Modification Table. Hopefully the fee that is charged for applying the augment kit will not be too high, otherwise it will limit sales of the kits...

In order to make crafting viable BW has to stop elevating loot above all. Crafted stuff should always be around second/third best, not dead last in the gear progression. I'd suggest that whenever BW introduces a new tier of gear, the oldest tier gets added to the crafting schems. So we'd be crafting collumni-quality armor, mods and weapons when people start gearing up with campaign gear.

As a Cybertech, I can craft Columi grade mods now due to schematic drops from HM Operations such a KP and EV. However, I'm not going to grind my *** off for months at a time and try to RE the new Tier of gear such a Campaign Gear. But they don't sell at all, as everyone wants Rakata or better. So what's the point of doing it that way.

I already grinded my *** off for Blackhole Comms only to RE 11 Ear Pieces to get jack all from it. So no thanks BW, you can stick that system you know where. They need to put in schematics for the new tier of mods and gear. As I refuse to waste anymore time on trying to learn new schematics from RE'ing the new Blackhole and Campaign gear, only to have weeks of grinding and have nothing to show for it.

But I will say this, Cybertech crafters are getting more and more shafted with each new improvement to crafting skills. Artifice as well. big whoop we get to sell grenade that no one buys, ship part are probably our best thing to sell. And now we can sell augment kits for earpieces. Mods are a joke since ger progression and every damn vendor in the game sells better mod s than we can craft and sell them a lot cheaper than we can craft them for due to prices on the mats. If mats were to be cut in half for the mods we can craft it would work out for us a little better as we could make some money from crafting mods as people would buy them from us.

Yes.

 

 

 

Crafted gear.

Augment slots for weapons, they will also be in 1.3? Please!

Currently, if you want a "Best in Slot" visible armour or weapon piece, you have to spend at least 100k credits pulling the mods out, in addition to the cost of the critical-crafted piece -- which means even for people who craft their own pieces, the cost is well over 100k. With this method, if you don't want to change your look, it ONLY costs you the cost of the augmentation kit -- which leaves plenty of room for profit at the end-game.

At the same time, this could make the craftable blues/purples more viable sellers at ALL levels, not just the orange shells as at present.

Regarding the restrictions: in terms of programming issues, I would imagine that, if you got a nice orange piece at level 10 (from the Esseless or Black Talon, for example), you could use a type 1 aug kit and keep putting in mods, including augs as you continue levelling. But, if you got that piece at level 50, you'd need to buy a type 5 kit. (It would be fairly easy to restrict the Tables so that you can only put aug kits on items you can equip, and that makes them Bound).

You can think of not having to upgrade kits as you go as a "perk" of planning ahead and it won't unduly affect the market. In fact, I think that it could the price of the low level kits down to the level that low level people can afford kits they can use, while the level 50's will be buying stuff at a price they can afford.

As I said before, this system has the potential to be full of win

Which items/slots will these augment kits work for ?

Helm, chest, legs, boots, gloves and weapon of course, that's available already with crit crafting. Will they work on bracers and belts as well ?

What about implants, ears and relics, or weapons and offhand focus/shield ?

First of all, thank you David for answering questions here, very much appreciated.

This is the one I really want some more information on. Exactly how does the tier system work? Gear level? Player level? If I add an augment slot using a level 10 kit, will I be required to use another kit to keep the slot when I reach the next tier?

 

Does using a kit bind the item, or will I be able to augment orange world drops and sell them on the GTN?

These are also the things I'm wondering about the most. I would assume he meant the item level (however it is calculated for oranges - maybe level req without any mods) Also, does certain tier of "augmenter" work on any item, or is there special augmenters for say armor and another for weapons?

I expect that many people will not use those 10 crafts on the item they want. Instead, they'll make one copy of the item, then if it does not crit they'll make 10 cheap items that fall into the same range and provide the necessary component.

This I'm little worried about. It sounds like it could collapse the market for crafted augmented oranges, if making the augmenter is too cheap/easy. And in that case selling the augmenter (which,depending how specialized they are, every other crafter is selling as well ) wouldnt make up the loss.

The situation I'm worried about is kinda what happened to slicing (only have alts with that, so not too annoyed myself). They used to be able to "make" (ok, gamble ) augments. This was taken away from them, and instead promised they'll be the ones selling raw materials to make the augments. What actually happened is every slicer is now selling the same grade 6 purple material (and getting tons of blue mats noone wants). I wouldn't want that to happen to the other crafting professions now.

Would it be possible to "tier" the augmenters based on how high augment can go into them? And make the endgame augmenters require considerable amount of "failed oranges" (more than that 10) and/or some of the grade 7/8 crafting materials (which aren't operation-only, for those worried. You can get them via space battles, I'd also suggest making them buyable with daily/columi commendations). This way there would still be market for crafted augmented oranges (cheap way), and selling the augmenter would actually be profitable enough to make up the loss. And ideally make the augmenters specialized enough so that every crafter isn't selling the same "grade 50" piece.

 

Edit: I realized after a walk that the tiered augment slots idea has a slight problem. It would be easy to put a modifier on an item that said, "Augment Slot 1. Requires level 1." or "Augment Slot 6. Requires level 49."

 

What would keep a level 50 from using a level 1 item and get the same benefit? I can only think that you've figured this out already, and it's not something you've released- the final crafted item would have to include not only the augment pieces, but the augment itself as well.

Easy fix, you have the augments restricted, so a level 58 (the highest grade) augment could only be equipped to either a crit crafted augment or augment slot 6 (or what ever the highest level slot will be)

It's 44k per enhancement/mod/armoring to pull out ilvl 61s. That's 132k per piece. Moving all my stuff to crit crafted variants was very expensive.

If it costs less than 150k to add an augment slot, I'm still on the up. (It's significantly more money than just the 132k, since you have to spend a metric ton of materials to make said things to get a crit.)

What I'm saying is that currently if you want BIS armor you take the mods out of raid gear and put it in player crafted gear. In 1.3 you will be able to put the mods from the raid gear in anything, side-stepping crafters. Example:

 

There are 379 of light armor chest pieces with slots in the game: http://db.darthhater.com/items/armor/light_armor/chest/?filters=8011=6

 

Of those, 60 can be crafted and are thus BIS: http://db.darthhater.com/items/armor/light_armor/chest/?filters=56=7;8011=6

 

After 1.3 all 379 will be best in slot while only 60 will be player crafted. Pre 1.3 BIS light armor chests are 100% player crafted, post 1.3 16% are player crafted. It amounts to a giant crafting nerf.

 

I'm not saying that anyone should be held back as far as appearances, only that it should be players should have access to the schematics and be able to contribute to an actual economy rather than simply mass producing augment kits.

So what? You keep saying this like people will just be pulling Augment slots out of their butts and will be good to go. The only way in the world to get augment slots is from crafters. Whether it comes from a kit or a crit only crafters can produce the slot. Therefore those 379 pieces of gear can only beomce BIS through the grace of crafters. Crafter will not be making these kits and then just throwing them up there for nothing unless they moronic. They will be charging major credits, and they SHOULD be charging major credits in order to allow non-crafters to up the potential of their current gear.

It makes no difference if it is crafted gear, social gear, or raid drops. Only through crafters will it be BIS, as you put it.

Which items/slots will these augment kits work for ?

Helm, chest, legs, boots, gloves and weapon of course, that's available already with crit crafting. Will they work on bracers and belts as well ?

What about implants, ears and relics, or weapons and offhand focus/shield ?

See this interests me because I was concidering what they said about the mats coming from REing. I was thinking, that means Artifice, CyberTech and BioChem could make some money selling those mats. But then I though, wait, each of those crafts makes items that can get an augment slot. Artifice makes sabers, CyberTech makes ears and BioChem makes implants.

Everyone has been concidering only ArmsTech, ArmorMech and Synthweaving for making Kits, but really every crafter should end up with an Augment slot they can make, even if it's only for one type of item they can make.

See this interests me because I was concidering what they said about the mats coming from REing. I was thinking, that means Artifice, CyberTech and BioChem could make some money selling those mats. But then I though, wait, each of those crafts makes items that can get an augment slot. Artifice makes sabers, CyberTech makes ears and BioChem makes implants.

 

Everyone has been concidering only ArmsTech, ArmorMech and Synthweaving for making Kits, but really every crafter should end up with an Augment slot they can make, even if it's only for one type of item they can make.

That does indeed make sense. If you can currently create an equippable item with an augment slot, you should be able to create an augment kit for that item. It opens the market up significantly.

I'm still wondering if all augment kits are going to work on all pieces. I'm a Synthweaver. Will I be able to make augment kits that work on Armormech armor? Will augment kits work on implants, earpieces, and relics?

For the reasons stated above, I hope they will be better focussed and not cross-skill.