Producing Goods & Utility vs. Wealth

[SSS]

To keep it simple, I don't think crafters and artists produce high enough quality goods for their level, particularly at the higher levels. Even with a maxed out "Godlike" crafter/artist, you still wind up with lots of "good" quality products, when "good" is the dead center of the scale. I feel for the amount of time investment to max out the skill, Superior should be the lowest quality produced, with Excellent being roughly par.

For reference, quality levels are: Awful -> Shoddy -> Poor -> Normal -> Good -> Superior -> Excellent -> Masterwork -> Legendary

Given that, it looks like the current random quality is a five-level spread based on the colonist's skill level. I'd like to see that reduced to a four-level spread, meaning lesser skilled colonists would average lower quality goods than they currently do, and greater skilled colonists would average greater quality.

The main problem I see with this suggestion is trading: It's currently possible to rake in large amounts of cash with high quality products, especially if they are made of certain materials. This is especially noticeable with art. So, to make this suggestion fair, I'd like to see the sell price of higher quality goods curbed down, even aggressively if necessary. Purchase prices can stay as is as far as I'm concerned: I currently see Rimworld as being about survival and eking out a supportive environment in a hostile environment. Because of that, I think deemphasizing trading-based progression and placing more importance on colony self-sustenance (when possible) would be more appropriate for the game, as it is now. Making things to use for yourself should be preferable to getting rich quick and simply buying everything needed, generally.

[Mathenaut]

I've had planet-level masters pumping out 'low' quality stuff before. I agree, there needs to be a throttle on the low end of what skilled people can do.

The ideal solution to this would be to scale everything down, though. The reason exploiting art for cash is such a big deal is because most worthwhile items run almost 10k, which is kinda insane.

Then again, if that stuff is supposed to be 'only affordable in endgame', then there shouldn't be a problem with consistently high-level art from a master, as that's also 'endgame'.

[Johnny Masters]

I'd ditch selling art at all, at least for any worthwhile amount of money or for its regularity. I mean, lets just take a look at how we value art today, it's a complete subjective matter depending on perceived value and market potential or any of the highly debatable and centennial reason it has.

So, unless due to some rare trait you have a well established artist and, for some reason, you have a highly artistically aware trader that happens to bump into your colony and recognize the work of art done by the master artist, THEN i guess you could trade a large sum for it. But then again, why such trader isn't rescuing you (or the artist) is one of the oldest discussions (and plotholes IMO) in Rimworld.
   
Ditch selling art for silly and sustainable amounts of silver, make it the following: Every once in a while moon you get a trader event of some quirky trader who happens to be a connoisseur of art. He, casually, asks to scan any work of art you might have and is then amazed by the works of one of your pawns, saying something about hidden beauty and the raw visceral truth it conveys, so obviously he asks to buy all of the art of that pawn for some valuable silver. He then goes away without saying goodbye and saying nothing about a rescue because he's on a mission to find the perfect art or some other shit. (he IS quirky).

There, you can still profit from art (albeit a rare occurrence) and you have one extra event to make your story richer, you also solve the silly amount of wealth you make from art, which makes no sense because no trader should care a dime about some unknown artist in a backwater town you can barely call town.

+1 to the rest btw

[b0rsuk]

The scale is not linear.

[Mathenaut]

Replace consistent income/advancement with an obscure, maybe slight chance of not wasting all of the time and effort making art (not to mention storage space)?

Would just make it useless

[Johnny Masters]

Such is the world of art. If not, everyone would just do...art

Don't forget art also provides beauty, and in future patches will probably (it should) provide  joy, both from crafting and looking.

Don't be afraid to lose your cheap cow machine, but then again i like my games hard.

[SSS]

This is worse than I thought. My 20-level crafter has recently taken to pumping out normal and occasional poor goods.

Seriously? Poor? When you're supposedly many times beyond the realm of a master? -_-

[Johnny Masters]

Can't speak for painting and sculptures, but this is perfectly understandable for writing and cinema

[SpaceDorf]

Can't speak for painting and sculptures, but this is perfectly understandable for writing and cinema

This is really sad, because it's true.

Maybe low level Artists will produce more inspired work

[b0rsuk]

Does your artist have OK Manipulation ?

[Mathenaut]

SSS is right.

There's no real throttle with skill level. It seems that higher skill only increases the ceiling, but doesn't raise the floor at all. It's beyond disappointing, and lends toward the OP's argument/suggestion.

There isn't much of an excuse for a master crafter to make consistently poor work.

[Johnny Masters]

Regarding most craft, yes, regarding art, which is (highly) subjective, then no.

Not that the average result shouldn't be better with skill, but the chance for sloppy works, even if really small, should still be there. Constant poor results does sound like a problem though'

[daft73]

Have to agree with most of the statements. We can all have a bad day, but to constantly make poor 'items', I'd say you did something else to get those good grades to pass your classes.

Raising the minimum quality level as you level up your skills, at the very least use a % based system, to craft a higher quality item.

ie: at skill level 1-3, having a high chance to make crap 90%/ low chance high quality 10%

As you level up I'd ideally see this start to margin out, then eventually get higher favor to high quality.

ie: at skill level 17-20, high chance to make Supreme quality goods 90%/ low 10%.

[SSS]

Does your artist have OK Manipulation ?

It's my crafter in this case, and he has enhanced manipulation (140%) and eyesight (120%). He didn't have plague either (which affects consciousness and manipulation). Even so, those should only affect smithing/tailoring speed, not quality (going by the pawn info menu).

Also, just to make sure this doesn't get overblown, it was 3/4 items in short succession of normal quality plus one which was poor. After getting another poor awhile later I ended up bumping this. If the cap is so low that you can still get poor goods at skill 20, I think it's too low.