Server wipe planning megathread? Maybe?

So, Zambo here... (Stratum Zero in-game, due to weirdness with transfers).

This is something that came up in game chat today, and I figured that I might make a post here. Realistically I think we're a long way off from the beta launch and wipe, but I figured we should start planning so that we can be at the front of the pack when it comes to the rush for land, nations, etc. With that in mind, I have four (and a half) things that I think we should be planning for right off the bat:

1) City location. We're currently in Cromerth. It's not easy to get to, especially as we start out. I'd prefer to be in a more easily defensible spot either near Kaavo or Sept Falls. We should scout city locations and see what we like, and where.

2a) Specializations. I suggest that with the exception of installations, we should have 2-3 people per "end-tier" skill to be the authority and source for that craft. This means 2-3 people who will be focusing on armor crafting, melee crafting, tailoring, cooking, pets/handling, etc. Installations we probably need 4-5 people just because of how important that will be for city building.

2b) Specializations, continued. Obviously we aren't jumping straight to end-tier crafting, so we need to figure out where people are going to start tracking towards their "end-game". Electronics and mining go hand-in-hand for fittings, and chemistry/fishing/logging go hand-in-hand for a lot of other areas. Once we get our 2-3 experts we can start building a supply chain, but until then, it's going to be a grind. 

3) Resource mapping. Again, at this point in the game, some of us (not me, but others) have gotten to the point where we don't care about what monsters may or may not troll around the spawns. This will definitely not be the case on a wipe. It will become significantly more important to know where you can safely get certain common items. To do this, I propose screenshots of zones with the spawns marked, kind of like repopDB does. 

4) Grinding areas for combat. Again, not something that a lot of us are thinking of right now, but will be important after a wipe. Where can you go to safely and quickly level up your chosen combat skills early on. I know that the rule is "fight non-gray mobs" but that ignores the drops that you need later on.

For city location i love the Kavo area for harvesters, hopefully it gets populated with some manual harvesting nodes along the way. It also has some water spawns which after 15.10.2 is going to be vital.

Why specialize when you can be gark and do it all. But for sure we will need to focus our resources at the start and not double up too much on skills to ensure we can become the best.

Here are my thoughts on what to do right after a wipe. First get the 3 main gathering skills up to 2xxx (i forget the exact amount for 3 harvesters). The best way to do this is share resources at the start to gain skill by crafting. Over the next few months i plan to map out the skills that give the best gains in mining, foraging & logging. We need to get as many resources of any grade as fast as possible so if everyone always has 3 of each type of harvester out it will be a huge help. 

Also we will need a combat brigade getting some mob drop only resources like the robotics stuff as well as meat, tissue, dna, etc. 

Any bit of crafting will help even by those that don't care to go far into it. There are some things like distilled water, firewood, & glue that are used by the truckload and having a supply of whatever grade would save so much time for the dedicated crafters. When i set out to make cores and boards i spend a few hours doing nothing but making distilled water, firewood and glue. Its probably 50% of the work right there.

It also has some water spawns which after 15.10.2 is going to be vital.

Fill me in? I'm not sure what you're talking about.

I do like Kaavo as a location. If we could rush it so we can get close to the city, we can save a bit of coin on teleports. The west edge of Kaavo has a zone nice and close to a Niu spawn that I like in Skillet.

I would become gark, but there can only be one gark, and Zod is already trying to imitate. So I like the idea of specialization.

This is all great stuff and very necessary in my opinion. I highly commend you both for getting the conversation started. I will create another post with lists from you two as well as other members as possible sites for a city and plans to acquire it. Another post will be made so members can list their preference as to game play, ie a certain crafting profession, pvp, hunter gatherer, so forth. Looking forward to the advancement of all these great ideas in the near future.

Another thing that we should probably start doing now is set up a trade / crafting section on these forums. Players could then make posts asking for whatever crafting mats they are short on so we know who to send extra mats to. It could also be a place to post work orders for things. For example i have a couple thousand hudson fir logs i would love to have turned into glue. If a new player wanted to raise their logging skill that would be a great way to do it. Or the hundreds of copper ore i will eventually turn into bars then wires if i find the time. 

Also a google doc each player can fill out with all their crafting skills / recipe knowledge too so we can easily look up who to contact to make certain items. Since we all have different schedules it can be a pain finding a player who can make more obscure things.