Architect Archive

Ok first, for those of you who have not checked crafting stations now display a value.

This value as far as I can tell is based on the optionals and experimentation. The experimentation of course is limited by the quality of the metal used in the appropriate stat. In the case of crafting stations this is conductivity.

From what I have seen a plain jane, no upgrade, base resource crafting station is abut -12 on the new scale. If you go onto the bazaar you will see no shortage of these, although some did not display a value at all, this might be a bug.

last night I made several crafting stations fully upgraded with all optionals (all upgraded themselves) and fully experimented and I was able to get 23+ points on the new scale. That is about 3 times better than a plain jane model.

From what I have read the more points the better your experimentation success and this has also been my personal experience.

So that having been said, and now that we have a number that allows our customers to easily distinguish top quality product from garbage, now that for the first time ever in the history of architects we can compete on quality like other crafters....How much do we charge for these things?

I mean 15 sub components + a requirement for master artisan and novice droid parts makes for a pretty complex and interdependent product. Add to that a not insignificant amount of high end metal needed to make the things along with the obvious advantages that are conveyed by owning one of these shiny crafting machines.

For example 10K too high or too low for a master architect crafting station? I mean to make these by hand takes like 30 minutes if you upgrage all subcomponents and then settle for nothing but the max.

Ok is it just me or what in the world does an upgraded crafting station do for you ? Does it make better products, is the failure rate less? I know that for a furniture / structure station it makes no difference what so ever.

at 70% you are only looking at about 17-18 functionality points. My failures are around 69% and I get about 17.6 points if I recall.

As far as working I have seen at least one well done experiment on the boards specifically addressing that. The functionality effects the occurance of successes and the number of great and amazing successes on experimentation. Depending on how much you experiment you may not see a difference. For example overall crafting rates do not seem to be affected, but i know armor and weapon crafters I sell to have told me they see the difference and they clamour for the 95%. This is also consistent with my own experience using high end stations for my own artisan items.

As far as price I use a high level metal that is highly prized amoung weaponsmiths as are my other components. Given the resources, risk and labor involved I do not see why these stations should not command a fairly high price.

Again this is the only item that I am aware of in the entire architect profession where experimentation allows differenciation based on quality. I personally am very excited about this change. Now only if they would do the same to extractors.

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crobsahm wrote:
Ok is it just me or what in the world does an upgraded crafting station do for you ? Does it make better products, is the failure rate less? I know that for a furniture / structure station it makes no difference what so ever.

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The reason you do not see a difference is probably because you are an architect. The enhancements aparently effect "experimentation success" not crafting success. Since and architect often does not experiment their stuff quality of the station will probably not matter. Although just in case I experiment up all my heavy installations just in case. Also I have found much greater success making crafting stations in front of a good structural crafting station than a bad. I failed twice on a low end station last night to get my full 95% whereas my 65% station in my old house hardly ever failed to get my my 95%.

The difference is seen more by crafters that actually experiment a lot. For example weaponsmiths and armorsmiths. For them anything that increases the change of great and amazing successes and reduces the amount of critical failures on experimentation is a big deal.

To my knowledge though there is absolutely no effect on crafting failure rates or success. This is of course what mostly affects architects.

As an aside, if the number does not matter why then put it in? and even if right now there is a "bug" that prevents it from really helping would you not want a fully maxed station if you were a weaponsmith for when it does start to matter?

I made a full crafting station last night, with all good resources and fully experimented components. I ended up at 79% effectiveness. This yielded a -4.1 effectiveness on the station. The one I have been using has all the components, was built with low quality steel, and no experimentation, and has a -3.1.

I looked at 2 stations I made for friends a long time ago, with no extras, no experimentation, and one was at 14 and the other at 9.

**edit**?

I have not been able to get above 10.8 on my structure crafting tool either.. had zero crit fails last night with it. I made a LOT of stuff too..

I charge 2k.

70-79% Effectiveness

Unless you are a novice droid eng, and a master artisan, you would have to buy the componants to make these, a droid eng charged me 3k per droid storage compartment, hand made, he offered to make them from a factory for half that much. By that reckoning, I would have to charge at least 10k to break even. Add in maxed out experimentaion, and the fact that crafting stations never decay, you might wanna consider charging alot more. Also most crafters will make their own rather than buy one. So righgt there says you are not going to sell very many maxed out crafting stations. Mark up the prices I say.

I keep seeing that everyone will make their own..... how do you think they're going to do this? its an architect only item.

I haven't looked into it yet myself, might play with it tonite, but this was driving me crazy seeing it repeated again and again.

Most people seem to charge 4-5k for a fully upgraded crafting station with maximum experimentation. This is why I only sell them to people I love. The highest I have made myself is around 70%. The materials really effect the outcome on this. As a side note, I have not noticed any changes since I personally went from a 30% crafting station to a 70% one. I don't think anybody has real proof that this does anything.

--Myrial

I can't help but wonder how much material goes into a droid storage module. It's not like I couldn't afford the cash/points to go train novice droid engineer to get the schematic, and I'm already a master artisan.

3k for a droid storage module?

Wow... that's some pretty good profit for an item that uses 23 metal to make.

Heck, at that rate, I'd grind em out too.


-Loserwan Ka'newbie

Experimenation Effectness when "Crafting" the station is not an indiciation of final functionality rating.

Final Rating depends ALOT on the quality of resources used as well as the quality of the SUBCOMPONENTS

for example a little experiemnt I did last night using the same material for 2 crafting station. 1 with HI quality sub-comp and 1 with low quality(unexperimented + crappy material) sub-comp. the low qual have a BASE effectiness of 11% and a rating of -27! spending all my experimented points on effecitness raiserating to a mere -13 even though effeciness is at 70ish percents(4 great success using 2 points each experiment)

for the hi quality one I made. base effeciness was 13%... I did not remember base rating, but it was already positive, after experimentation effecitness was also 70%(4 great success using 2 points each experiment again) but the rating is over +10

so yes while effectiveness % does raise rating, the rating depends ALOT on the quality of mateiral and sub-comp.

FYI using the BEST metal(867 cond) and the best sub-comp my PA(90% control, 68% sensor, unknow droid all factory made so identical)gave me, I made a crafting station with a rating of 27+

I am a Weaponsmith, and I have a 30.8 Effectiveness crafting station. It was made using 2 Control Units with 90% Effectiveness Experimentation, and 2 Micro Sensor Suites with all Sub-components fully experimented, and the ending MSS was 87%. These were made using the best possible resources of the time.

The Crafting station was made using 450 units of 947 Conductivity Copper. It was experimented fully, to the extent a Master Architect could.

I provided all the optional components, and the copper. My friend, the Master Architect, did the final combine and the experimentation.

We did not use Droid Storage Modules...it seems like these items do not affect the end Effectiveness rating.

I utterly implore the Master Architects of their respective servers to create these elite Crafting Stations, and charge substantially for them. As a Master Weaponsmith, the value of such a station to me is...well...invaluable. Do NOT let yourselves be swindled out of these masterwork items. I would have gladly paid 50K, or even more, for a crafting station of this calibre. Had I been a non-Master, I would have paid even more, as the value of these stations is an increased chance of Great/Amazing successes. These highly improved stations *could* theoretically narrow the gap between a Master Weaponsmith's weapons, and a non-Master with Techniques 4. (Of course, these are Weaponsmith issues...I'm just telling this to you all so you know what the value of your stations truly is.)

I hope this help you guys.