BradSTL
12-05-05, 09:38
Last night, in the space of about an hour, I heard two people on the Trade-NC channel begging for constructors or researchers at Tech Haven, and one in Neocron City.
At the time, I was playing Little Brad, my constructor/researcher hybrid character. Using borrowed-outpost bonuses, self-buffs, and machina gloves he constructs at 185 and researches at 196, with TL150 tools on both. Base INT and DEX 95 and 89, with all implants but no drugs 117 and 113.
And even as bored as I was running around the Steppes rare parts harvesting, no power in the 'verse could have dragged me in to do any of those people's jobs for them. No power in the 'verse.
Why would I? They're not my friends. They're not my faction, and I will go out of my way for members of my faction because we Tsunamis, being the most crapped-on faction in this whole game, have to stick together. But for anyone else, is there a single damned thing they could offer me that I would care about? I have every weapon I'll ever need. I have every piece of armor and every implant I'll ever need. I have every vehicle I'll ever need. I have real estate in every city. That character isn't even my primary money character, and runs around with about 550k to 600k credits at any given time.
And yet what people are generally offering is a tip of about 2000 credits - when to genrep there and back from whatever I'm doing would cost a smidgen under 8000 credits, involve synaptic impairment delays of about 5 to 10 minutes each way, and most of them don't even bring constructor grease or research substance. So for that loss of about 9000 to 10000 credits and 20 minutes of my game time, what do I get? About 500 XP. And, I guess, theoretically the satisfaction of helping others, but since that usually means "helping enemies who will cheerfully blow my tradeskiller ass to kingdom come next Tuesday" forgive me if my enthusiasm for philanthropy is muted.
The only thing that character needs, that just about any of my characters need right now, is XP. Little Brad needs about 50,000,000 INT XP and 100,000,000 DEX XP to cap. (We'll leave WOC out of this for now.) I get about 50 to 1000 XP per construction or research job. So, great. All I have to do to get from 95 INT to 100 INT is build about one hundred thousand weapons. Requests for constructors come in about twice an hour, maybe. That's probably too high, but let's be generous. Let's further assume that I had the patience to sit in the single most boring environment in the game, in a tiny cramped place, staring at non-moving concrete walls painted industrial-bathroom blue, listening to the same 3 songs over and over again, for four hours a day. At that rate, I might build 8 weapons a day, and will cap INT in 12,500 days, or a little over 34 years. Since constructing gives half the DEX XP and I need twice as much, I should finish capping DEX in about 130 years.
And that is why it's so rare to find a tradeskiller.
Now, if the tradeskilling environment weren't so institutionally dull, and if the demand for tradeskillers was high enough that I could stay busy instead of waiting half an hour between jobs, and if at bare minimum building a TL64 weapon gave at least the XP that I could get from killing a level 100 Decayed Horror (two tasks of equal difficulty that take about the same amount of time), then maybe it would be worth it.
As it is, if you know me personally, ask and I'll do any job for you as a favor. If you're a Tsunami, ask on the Faction chat channel and if any of my characters is logged in, I'll switch and be right there for you. Anybody else? Screw it, why would I bother? And if you think I'm just going to sit around Tech Haven waiting for someone to come along, you're insane.
(Maybe if I had two accounts and two computers I might leave my tradeskiller logged in there and glance at the screen from time to time. Maybe. But I can't afford that, so I don't. Nor do I see any reason why I would invest in another gaming-quality computer and pay another $20 a month plus electricity just to work a second job for y'all for free.)
At the time, I was playing Little Brad, my constructor/researcher hybrid character. Using borrowed-outpost bonuses, self-buffs, and machina gloves he constructs at 185 and researches at 196, with TL150 tools on both. Base INT and DEX 95 and 89, with all implants but no drugs 117 and 113.
And even as bored as I was running around the Steppes rare parts harvesting, no power in the 'verse could have dragged me in to do any of those people's jobs for them. No power in the 'verse.
Why would I? They're not my friends. They're not my faction, and I will go out of my way for members of my faction because we Tsunamis, being the most crapped-on faction in this whole game, have to stick together. But for anyone else, is there a single damned thing they could offer me that I would care about? I have every weapon I'll ever need. I have every piece of armor and every implant I'll ever need. I have every vehicle I'll ever need. I have real estate in every city. That character isn't even my primary money character, and runs around with about 550k to 600k credits at any given time.
And yet what people are generally offering is a tip of about 2000 credits - when to genrep there and back from whatever I'm doing would cost a smidgen under 8000 credits, involve synaptic impairment delays of about 5 to 10 minutes each way, and most of them don't even bring constructor grease or research substance. So for that loss of about 9000 to 10000 credits and 20 minutes of my game time, what do I get? About 500 XP. And, I guess, theoretically the satisfaction of helping others, but since that usually means "helping enemies who will cheerfully blow my tradeskiller ass to kingdom come next Tuesday" forgive me if my enthusiasm for philanthropy is muted.
The only thing that character needs, that just about any of my characters need right now, is XP. Little Brad needs about 50,000,000 INT XP and 100,000,000 DEX XP to cap. (We'll leave WOC out of this for now.) I get about 50 to 1000 XP per construction or research job. So, great. All I have to do to get from 95 INT to 100 INT is build about one hundred thousand weapons. Requests for constructors come in about twice an hour, maybe. That's probably too high, but let's be generous. Let's further assume that I had the patience to sit in the single most boring environment in the game, in a tiny cramped place, staring at non-moving concrete walls painted industrial-bathroom blue, listening to the same 3 songs over and over again, for four hours a day. At that rate, I might build 8 weapons a day, and will cap INT in 12,500 days, or a little over 34 years. Since constructing gives half the DEX XP and I need twice as much, I should finish capping DEX in about 130 years.
And that is why it's so rare to find a tradeskiller.
Now, if the tradeskilling environment weren't so institutionally dull, and if the demand for tradeskillers was high enough that I could stay busy instead of waiting half an hour between jobs, and if at bare minimum building a TL64 weapon gave at least the XP that I could get from killing a level 100 Decayed Horror (two tasks of equal difficulty that take about the same amount of time), then maybe it would be worth it.
As it is, if you know me personally, ask and I'll do any job for you as a favor. If you're a Tsunami, ask on the Faction chat channel and if any of my characters is logged in, I'll switch and be right there for you. Anybody else? Screw it, why would I bother? And if you think I'm just going to sit around Tech Haven waiting for someone to come along, you're insane.
(Maybe if I had two accounts and two computers I might leave my tradeskiller logged in there and glance at the screen from time to time. Maybe. But I can't afford that, so I don't. Nor do I see any reason why I would invest in another gaming-quality computer and pay another $20 a month plus electricity just to work a second job for y'all for free.)