Seems like the SWG system is still completely 'character-skill' based. I'm going to start up a topic on 'character-skill' versus 'player-skill' shortly, so if you would clarification on the difference, look for it there.

As for how to make craft classes more interesting then “produce", read on...

Imagine you are a blacksmith in training who wants to make a mighty blade.
Making your sword will require the following steps, which will be explained in more detail:

Preparation Stage:
1. Require resources.
2. Prepare tools.
3. Prepare oven.

Crafting Stage:
4. Heat metal.
5. Remove metal from heat.
6. Craft the metal until metal cools.
7. if shape needs more refinement return to step 4.

Tempering Stage: (only available to journey-men black smiths)
8. Heat metal to perfect temperature.
9. Douse metal in Water.
10. Return to step 8 a number of times.

Polish Stage: (only available to master black smiths)
11. Sharpen blade by using wheel.

Imbuing Stage: (only available to grand-master black smiths)
12. Charge blade using "magical charging stone"
13. Add enchantments to blade

Blade is done and beautiful...

Detailed Explanation Of all steps:

1. Require Resources
Making blades isn't cheap, but selling them isn't either ;) A black smith will need the following before making a blade:

Fuel for the fire (in the form of wood) - specially treated wood will yield different heating results and affect later steps
Metals / Mix of metals - The metal type will greatly affect the attributes of the blade, so selecting the right mix is crucial
Crafting Tongs - Used for transporting the metal from the fire to iron and back.
Crafting Hammer - Different hammers will have different crafting results and affect later steps
Charging Stones - Think of charging stones like magical 'fuel' used to charge the blade for enchantments the same way fire is used to prepare blade for crafting.

The process of requiring resources will be carried out by collecting them from the world or buying the resources from local shops.

2. Preparing Tools
Preparing the tools involves equipping the tongs, and hammer, and getting the stones ready (if applicable)

3. Prepare the Oven
Preparing the oven involves putting the fuel into the oven then turning it on. The oven will take a short time to heat to the correct temperature. The temperature of the oven will be displayed via on-screen caption. Once the oven is warmed up, the player can control the temperature via a blower on the oven. The temperature of the oven will affect how fast the metal is heated.

4. Heat the metal
With the Crafting tongs equipped, the player selects the Metals and places them into a basic mold inside the oven. The temperature of the metal will be displayed on screen just like the temperature of the oven. The first step will be to heat the metal to a high enough temperature for it to melt into the mold. The player must be careful though, because if the metal is heated to much, the metals chemistry will falter and the finished blade will be too weak to use.

The player will be informed of the chemistry of the metal via a display that involves "atoms" rotating around each other. The hotter the metal, the faster they will rotate. If they rotate too fast, they will collide and blob up, which will cause them to rotate much slower. This will indicate to the user that they have ruined the metal.

5. Remove the Metal from Heat
Once the metal is heated to a good temperature, the player will use the Crafting tongues to remove the metal from heat and bring it to the Crafting Iron.

6. Craft the Metal until Metal Cools (this is where the real fun begins)
When the metal is placed on the crafting iron, the view will be switched to a close up of the blade laid horizontal with the screen. The new view is used to spot the imperfections of the blade. When a metal is first melted to the mold it will contain many imperfections in the form of cracks, bends, and bubbles.

The user will use the crafting Hammer to smack out the imperfections of the blade. This will be carried out in the following way: The mouse cursor will change to a display of a target reticule. The player will target the imperfections and click and hold the mouse. When the mouse is clicked a power gauge will appear on the screen that increases until the click is released. When the click is released the hammer will fall with power and speed corresponding to the duration of the hold. If the player picked the right spot and the right power, then the imperfection will be removed or decreased. If the user applies too little power, then very little change will happen and the imperfection will remain. If the user applies too much power, the user runs the risk of making the imperfection worse, or with the higher-level metals, completely destroying the blade.

7.
While the blade is being crafted, the temperature of the Metal declines. The temperature of the blade will affect how easy the metal is to alter – meaning that fixing imperfections on a hot blade will be much easier then a warm blade. This means that the player will have to reheat the blade several times before moving on to the next stage. Different metals will have different heat storing properties, i.e. steel will loose heat faster then iron, making it harder to work with.

When all of the imperfections have been hammered out it will be time to move on the next section. The Apprentice Black Smith will finished here, as the next steps are unavailable to him. This obviously means that the blades he makes must be sold for very little and have worse attributes then the blades of Black Smiths with higher skill. But that’s okay, because as there are apprentice black smiths there are apprentice swordsmen who need cheap blades because they can’t afford anything better.

TEMPURING STAGE
8. Heat metal to perfect temperature
The idea behind tempering a blade is to increase the chemistry of a blade to make it stronger, which will result in better attributes. This is accomplished by heating it to very high temperatures then dowsing it in cold water.

The player must again heat the blade up. This time the goal is to bring the blade to the very limits of its heat (as high as it can go without ruining the chemistry)

9. Douse the metal in water
Next the player will use crafting tongs to dip the blade into a bucket of ice-cold water. If the blade is too hot it will crack. When the blade is dowsed the metal-chemistry indicator will respond accordingly. The ‘tighter’ the blade becomes, the more orderly the ‘atoms’ of the chemistry indicator will rotate. Every blade will have a threshold of how many times it can be dowsed determined by its metal. If the threshold is broken then so will be the blade. It follows that metals that have a higher threshold for dowsing can be tempered more, will create a better finished product.

POLISH STAGE
11. Sharpen the blade with a wheel
During this stage, which is only available to the master blacksmith, the player will be taken to the view of a wheel with a rectangle representing the sharpness of the blade. At the onset of the sharpening, the blade will be a perfect rectangle, with no ‘blade’ to speak of.

With the wheel on, the user will have control of the rectangle with the mouse to glide its edges carefully against the wheel. The goal will be to create perfect triangles on the short edges of the blade. This will be a fine-tuning mechanic where finesse is key.


IMBUING STAGE
The imbuing stage requires the help of a magician.

12. Charge blade using "magical charging stone"
This stage closely resembles the heating stage in that the blade must be charged up to a maximum threshold without going over the top. The difference is that imbuing only happens once, so the grand-master blacksmith must get it right the first time.

13. Add enchantments to blade
After the blade is charged, a display of the current charge will appear on the screen of the blacksmith. He will tell the magician when to cast and what to cast on the metal to imbue it with magical properties. After every spell is cast, the charge of the blade will decrease. The power of the enchantment(s) on a blade will be determined by the remaining charge. Only casting spells will lower the charge of a blade. So, casting as many spells on a blade that will fit will not yield the best results.
Examples
Blade – Max Charge = 500
One spell is cast on it – Fire
The new charge is 400
The Blade now has 1 Fire Enchantment with 80% power (400/500)

If the blacksmith then has the blade enchanted with ice:
The new charge is 300
The Blade Will now have 2 Enchantments:
Fire 60% power (300/500)
Ice 60% power (300/500)

Cast too many spells, and the charge will be less then 0, which result in all of the enchantments having a negative power, making the blade cursed.

And now we are done. The blade has been created. Only the best black smiths will be able to create the best blades, and when a blacksmith creates a blade, he will be proud because of all that went into creating it.

This is what it means to create a game mechanic out of a support role. Does the amount of effort going into it sound daunting? That’s because it is. But any time someone takes a half assed route to a goal they are cheating themselves and their players. I personally believe that anything worth doing is worth doing the best. If creating fun support roles is your goal, then be prepared to focus on a few. A few that you can time with to make as good as they possibly can be.

For the love of god, FARMERS!

Food shouldn't just magically spawn in taverns, it needs to be produced as well! (And if/when stores run low, be prepared to pay through the nose for it)

Quote:Original post by Influenza
A proposal I've heard would be to grant all experimentation points at the Novice level, with schematic availability being the only thing differentiating newbies from veterans. This has pretty much the same effect as your idea, only very specific to SWG.

Experimentation points sound good, but perhaps you could limit how many can be used on a particular thing. For example you can only really make a handle so good, so that object could be capped at three points. Once you are past a level 3 builder, your handles are just as good as any other level 3 builder. You need to move on to more complex systems to give you more room to "experiment"

Ah, I getcha. That seems a very effective means of ensuring lower-level crafter usefulness.

Question: In SWG, how are credits introduced into the economy (I assume people don't just barter)?

Players get credits by running missions from static mission terminals... things like "Go here and kill these creatures for 30,000 credits." There are also missions for exploration, surveying resources, crafting items, delivering items, or performing dances/music. Most humanoid NPCs drop credits as part of their loot, but the amount is typically dismally low. You can also get money by doing "theme park" missions, which are static missions given to you by famous NPCs (Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, etc). You can only complete these missions once, so the amount of money awarded is small.

A complete statistical breakdown of SWG's economy can be found here: http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/content.jsp?page=Astromech%20Stats%20Economy