Change slicing nodes to only drop mats like the looted satchels with a chance to have the purple mats. Take out the credits completely.

And since it would make sense to get circuitry from droids, add them to slicing with elite and boss droids having a higher percentage to give purple circuitry.

If someone has scavenging and slicing, then they will have to choose which materials they get, but can only get one, or the other, type.

It would be interesting to see nodes added for mission items. This would be all of the mission skills, not just slicing. So you'd see treasure hunting gemstone nodes and underworld trading metal nodes and underworld trading fabric nodes and investigation compound nodes and diplomacy medical nodes and slicing tech part nodes. And I'd probably also expect the yields to be pretty low compared to traditional gathering nodes to still enforce their "rarity" and encourage people to actually run the missions for those materials.

I suppose I could see this topic's thought then following up on that type of change. I mean, if all non-crafting crew skills become capable of gathering their materials from nodes... Well, having special nodes for slicing lockboxes would be kind of like having special nodes for treasure hunting lockboxes and special nodes for companion gifts which can only be opened up by treasure hunting / investigation / underworld trading / diplomacy. It would also be like having special nodes for scavenging / archaeology / bioanalysis to collect their white materials from (as opposed to visiting the vendor or sending companions out on those missions).

In other words, the green / blue / purple materials would be available to gather from nodes. (Higher yields overall and especially high yields on critical pulls for the green materials. Lower yields on the blue materials with a purple material being added for a critical pull on the blue material.) And everything else (boxes / gifts / white materials) would be classified as a mission-exclusive extra (for the most part).

Although I think if they did that they'd need to tweak the idea of the slicing lockboxes a bit. The treasure hunting lockboxes always contain some random piece of gear or whatever in addition to some credits. Maybe slicing lockboxes would always contain some random schematic (for any craft skill) or mission discovery in addition to some credits. Make them guaranteed to be about something more than just credits.

Or they take this line of reasoning the other direction and add in special nodes for all those other things as well.

Change slicing nodes to only drop mats like the looted satchels with a chance to have the purple mats. Take out the credits completely.

 

And since it would make sense to get circuitry from droids, add them to slicing with elite and boss droids having a higher percentage to give purple circuitry.

 

If someone has scavenging and slicing, then they will have to choose which materials they get, but can only get one, or the other, type.

Would make sense to have crafting materials for the skill you choose, also less credits flowing, would cut some "Inflation" on the GTN...

A few other crazy thoughts...

For Investigation: Investigate corpses of Strong+ humanoids - like Crime Scene Investigation (only you get to keep the evidence). Small chance for purple materials/items.

For Treasure Hunting and Underworld: The open world treasure chests can used. If both skills are present, then you must choose which skill to use. Small chance to get purple materials or items.

I'm at a loss for an open world Diplomacy solution. Maybe diplomatic packets that you can turn in to planetary diplomats for reward boxes with materials and a chance to get purple materials/items.

Edit: Here's the craziest thought:

Remove open world slicing nodes completely to bring Slicing in line with Diplomacy, Investigation, Treasure Hunting and Underworld and forget the above suggestions.

bring slicing in line with those listed?

you do realise Slicing is a gathering skill right? like Arch and Scav are

so wouldnt make any sense at all to "bring it in line" to UWT, Dip, Inv . TH

So much hatred recently towards Slicing and 99% of the time its people that think its a bonus CS like UWT

If someone has scavenging and slicing, then they will have to choose which materials they get, but can only get one, or the other, type.

For Treasure Hunting and Underworld: The open world treasure chests can used. If both skills are present, then you must choose which skill to use. Small chance to get purple materials or items

How exactly do you actually think that such suggestions would function within the game as it currently works? In particular I'm thinking of the automated process when the companion is sent over to harvest a node. If you have your character harvest the node personally it shows you the contents of the node just the same way as looting junk from a dead enemy, but if you have the companion harvest they just pick up the stuff automatically without showing the looting window.

So if something is added to make nodes potentially be dual purpose and we have to choose somehow which skill to apply to harvest with... Does one option become the default choice that companions always resort to automatically? Does having the companion do the harvesting start bringing up the loot options the same as harvesting the nodes personally? Does the companion decide at random which skill they're using on a node?

I suppose my guess would be that it becomes a pop-up that always happens no matter what. They'd probably have to kludge it into the system as some sort of mission. We wouldn't loot anything at all from nodes anymore. Instead, harvesting any node would trigger completion of a hidden infinitely repeatable mission where the exact mission that gets triggered is determined by the type of node and the applicable crew skills. If you only have one skill that applies to the node, the mission that pops up rewards materials for that skill. If you have two skills that apply to the node, a different mission pops up which prompts "choose one" with materials for both skills as possible choices. Hypothetically, if they wanted to make certain objects even more open-ended, this format could include missions for combinations of three skills as well.

At any rate, your idea about treating the open world chests as nodes brings another layer of complexity into this equation. The current contents (random material satchel + other junk) would have to be a mission reward for a mission completed by harvesting the node on a character that lacks specific crew skills and any character (even those with zero crew skills trained) would have to be allowed to harvest from it to trigger this mission. And then those with one or the other of those specific crew skills would see different mission pop-ups with the choice between that generic reward or the skill's exclusive reward. And those with both of those skills would see a mission pop-up with all of the choices available.

bring slicing in line with those listed?

you do realise Slicing is a gathering skill right? like Arch and Scav are

so wouldnt make any sense at all to "bring it in line" to UWT, Dip, Inv . TH

So much hatred recently towards Slicing and 99% of the time its people that think its a bonus CS like UWT

It's not that hard to see what he's talking about.

Slicing has nodes that we can gather from, the same as scav, arch, and bio. This is true. But where scav, arch, and bio nodes each produce materials which are marked at green quality level, slicing nodes produce credits in the form of randomized lockboxes. Not the same thing there, although we do collectively refer to those 4 as "the gathering skills" despite that difference.

All four of those skills plus all four of the ones that we collectively refer to as "the mission skills" happen to offer the option to send companions out on missions to retrieve materials. The first three gathering skills have missions which bring back the same green materials that we can gather from their nodes (plus missions for the white materials which can also be bought from a vendor). Slicing and "the mission skills" all have missions that bring back materials which are marked at blue or purple quality level (plus other missions like slicing's credit lockboxes, treasure hunting's treasure lockboxes, and companion gifts from all of them except for slicing).

Slicing is in this weird in-between place between the designations "gathering skill" and "mission skill". It's set up to function like both of them to some extent or another. And then it doesn't help that slicing's materials aren't an essential requirement for any particular craft. Instead, their use is for augment crafting (and some random things for strongholds/conquest and maybe also for some really high level things), which is spread out between three different crafting skills as a sideline to what those crafts are primarily meant for.

bring slicing in line with those listed?

you do realise Slicing is a gathering skill right? like Arch and Scav are

so wouldnt make any sense at all to "bring it in line" to UWT, Dip, Inv . TH

So much hatred recently towards Slicing and 99% of the time its people that think its a bonus CS like UWT

Slicing is nothing like Archaeology and Scavenging. Those yield resources. Slicing yields credits and the occasional mission discovery and schematic.

It has nothing to do with hatred towards slicing. Over half of my characters have slicing.

How exactly do you actually think that such suggestions would function within the game as it currently works?

As the game currently works? Good point. They can barely get crafting working right as it is. They'll probably break it again next month with 4.3.

For "Dual Purpose" nodes (I like that name), right click the node, a little menu box pops up, select skill, companion runs to collect your resources.

The open world chests would become Treasure Hunting/Underworld nodes. You would have to have one of those skills to open them. Same as dual purpose nodes. If you remember when 3.0 released they had 15-20k credits + a short stack of nice medpacks. They got changed to their current state of a few crap resources and a vendor trash item because of bot-camping. It shouldn't be too difficult to modify them again to produce other items.

Then again, they've failed to fix a lot of things lately and just compound one issue with another.

Wait, there are only 2 or 3 different boxes that they use for the treasure chests on all the planets, right? Not a lot of variety to add node functionality or repurpose them entirely as nodes and have something different to use for each grade.

I do expect though that if they were to consider a change like this they'd probably lean very heavily on making existing nodes as multi-purpose as possible to avoid needing to create new nodes. Like...

1) Scrap metal nodes would be scavenged metals/compounds for scavenging, underworld metals for underworld trading, and researched compounds for investigation. Droid bodies would be scavenged metals/compounds for scavenging and tech parts for slicing.

2) Crystal nodes would be power/color crystals (as appropriate) for archaeology and gemstones for treasure hunting. Artifact nodes would be artifact fragments for archaeology and maybe (I know this won't sound like a great fit...) luxury fabrics for underworld trading.

3) Plant nodes would be bio samples/compounds for bioanalysis and medical supplies for diplomacy. Beast bodies would probably remain single purpose (just bio samples/compounds for bioanalysis).

4) Computer nodes would be slicing lockboxes for slicing, tech parts for slicing (separate option from the lockboxes), and treasure lockboxes for treasure hunting.

I think I covered everything with that. Yes? And I didn't need to try to suggest changing anything about the treasure chests to do it.

That last thought with slicing for the computer nodes could probably be extended into all the other choices as well. Meaning that scavengers have to choose between pulling scav metals or scav compounds from a scrap pile, as the biggest and most obvious example.

Anyway, all nodes would probably have to follow these rules for yield rates (exact values negotiable and up to the developers' discretion to finalize, of course):

1) Harvests can have standard or critical results, which is randomized when the type of harvest is chosen.

2) For standard results with crew skills at or below the level of the node, yield might be something like 3 units green material or 1 unit blue material. Add 2 to that for every x amount that the skill is over the node for green material yields or add 1 to that for every x amount that the skill is over the node for blue material yields. (Enforces the notion of rarity of the blue materials compared to the green materials and theoretically also enforces the rarity of higher grade materials compared to lower grade materials.)

3) For critical results with crew skills at or below the level of the node, yield might be something like 5 units green material or {2 units blue + 1 unit purple} materials. Add 3 to that for every x amount that the skill is over the node for green material yields, add 2 to that for every x amount that the skill is over the node for blue material yields, and add 1 to that for every x amount that the skill is over the node for purple material yields. Critical results can also mean schematics, mission discoveries, or whatever else. With the specific details depending on the crew skill being used at the time.

edit: I'd also suggest that nodes get changed somewhat in terms of what spawns where.

Like maybe they take all current scrap metal node locations and all current computer node locations and they set those all with 70% chance to spawn as scrap metal / 30% chance to spawn as computer. Then they take all plant nodes and set them with 80% chance to spawn as plant / 20% chance to spawn as computer. Similarly, they take all crystal and artifact nodes and set those with 30% chance power crystal / 30% chance artifact / 20% chance color crystal / 20% chance computer.

Or if they really want to go crazy with it, just go in and set them up so that ALL node locations can randomize to be ANY type of node.

Either way, the current slicing nodes would become something that can spawn at any node location and entirely by chance instead of being guaranteed in a few specific locations. And that's a change that would disrupt the slicing credit botters significantly.