Architect Archive

Had a guy I know faily well try to sell me a Structure Experimentation enhancement.

I laughed at him saying experimentation meant nothing with Archtecture. He proceeds to claim he has two harvestors that run at different maintenance rates as a result of experimentation and is going to send me the screenshots.

Anyone know anything on these lines?

Well there are cases of harvesters eating up more power and money than they should but it is concidered a bug since it is eating them up too soon.

If you were getting a longer amount of work out of the same credits then I would consider that experimenting may be working. But I do not think this is the case.

Claims the actual maintenance ratio is lower on one of his harvestors.

There is only one little problem:

There is only two areas you can experiment on when it comes to installations, Storage capacity and durability.I can only verify this for heavy mineral installations, but I guess it most likely applies to other types of harvestors. Therefore how is maintenance lowered when you can't actually experiement on it?

Theoretically I suppose a more durable harvester requires less maintenance.

However, I would have assumed it be efficiency that effected this.

the small personal harvesters have efficiency experimentaion I believe... but mediums and heavy do not...

He probably does have screenshots. One before he got Merchant (Efficiency IV) and one after. It lowers the maintenance cost of structures.

I believe that generators and manufacture mechanims have an efficiency modifier.

Even still, how could you pinpoint that it's due to experimentation?

I have harvesters go screwy on me all the time. Sometimes they'll eat 1.5 the normal rate, and sometimes a medium will only use 500 out of a maint pool in a day. They always get 'back on track' in a day or two.

He's flat out lying, or mistaken.

While you can improve the efficiency of some of the subcomponents, it DOES NOTHING. Here's the proof:

I've made about 250 harvesters of various sizes in my time as an architect. Many of them were built using various materials, of varying qualities. Whether you experiment OR NOT, you will get a base value. If you use crappy materials, you'll have something between 5-10% efficiency on those subcomponents. If you use top of the stat stuff, you can get up to about 25% without even experimenting.

Therefore, some of my harvesters have a base efficiency of as low as 5, and some have in the high 20's. (Without ever experimenting at all) Now if experimental efffic lowers maint costs, EVERY single one of my harvs should have a variable maintenance rate, based on the quality of materials used. They do not. They're all the same.

The only method currently in game to reduct maintenance costs is in the Merchant profession.

Well, without experimenting yourself, how can you be sure it doesn't work? There could be a break point after which it makes a difference... (THESE ARE ALL JUST THEORIES)

As in:

30% success and higher= 5 points less maintenace

50% success and higher = 7 or 10 points less maint.

etc.

Maybe 5% and 20% are both too low to make any difference, so they are in the same low experimentation class...

Just a thought.

Plus I'll bet that experimentation definately works on hopper storage!

I hve found absolutely no benefit to the experimentation procees when it comes to anything and architect makes. I dropped that whole skill column so I can use the points towards something that works.

I experiment on every schematic I make, and I machine everything. I figure it can't hurt, and maybe will help with crit failures, having higher % parts. Some 250+ medium/heavy harvesters, & no difference.