Architect Archive

I was thinking about being a “solo” Architect the other day and got wondering what a baseline level of production would look like. The reason I think that this is interesting is that prospective architects can look at this and decide if they will be happy with that level of production or not. If they aren’t happy with that level, then they need to start planning different ways to overcome various hurdles.

Here’s my picture of a “pure solo” architect. They have a house (medium, 2 lots), a structure factory (2 lots), and a vendor in the house. That leaves them with 6 lots for harvesting. Typically it makes more sense to buy power than to give up one lot to generating power, so they have 6 heavy harvesters running at all times. I assume that they keep about 4 harvesters on ore and the other 2 on metal all the time, and that on average the ore is 55% concentration and the metal is 75% concentration. Yes, you can beat these, but you also have downtime while you move them.

So with house, factory, vendor, and 6 heavy harvesters, their daily operating costs are about 41,000 a day. This doesn’t include any other expenses (tickets, weapons, stims, etc) – this is just the bare minimum to keep operating.

I assume that we’ll assess “production” in terms of heavy mineral harvesters. These are “bread and butter” architect products. Obviously focusing on mediums, or crafting stations, or furniture will give some different numbers, but I think that “heavy mineral harvesters per week” is an interesting number. A heavy mineral harvester requires 27,770 units of resources.

Prior to Oct 9, heavy harvesters would pull at BER7, so you would pull in 261,072 units of resources a week, with an overall cost of 286,560 credits, for a cost per unit of 1.10 credits. (Overall cost includes house, factory, etc.) At that rate, an architect could produce 9.4 heavy mineral harvesters per week.

Now heavy harvesters pull at BER13, so the picture is much better. You pull up 485,848 units of resources a week, with your overall cost still 286,560, for a cost per unit of 0.59 credits. At that rate, an architect could produce 17.46 heavy mineral harvesters per week.

Notice that these are just “funny” numbers to assess the state of our production. They don’t match reality very well at all. Some of the problems with this picture are:

1. They presume a “perfect” match between the materials mined and what is needed to produce the final product. The reality is that you will always be short of something at any point in time, like reactive gas for generator turbines or low-grade ore for walls. So the production cycle is much “choppier” than this.

2. Because of that imperfect match between resources mined and resources needed, you are faced with either buying resources on the open market or waiting days (weeks?) until you mine what you need. Most architects will choose to buy on the market so they have products to sell. That increases the total resources available to you, but it drives the cost per unit up.

3. Waste, in terms of failures during experimentation, is extremely costly. A BER12 heavy harvester needs to be deeply discounted to move – people are willing to pay good prices for the top-rated products and don’t want to buy the “seconds”. So from an economic perspective you either accept that level of waste, or you go to factory production to minimize it. Going to factory production is the most efficient, but it puts further pressure on you to amass a large stock of resources to make a large factory run. For example, you need about 150,000 units of very mixed resources to make a factory run of 100 generator turbines. (A heavy harvester uses 2 generator turbines). Again, typically this drives you to the open market for resources, raising your production costs.

If you are happy with this level of production and baseline operating costs, and recognize that your output level will be very choppy (e.g., no production for a week and then 2X your weekly amount the 2nd week), then you don’t have to do anything.

If you would like to produce more, or you would like to keep a more steady stream of products (tip: people don’t continue to visit empty vendors or deal with you if you have to quote 4 day delays), then you need to take some steps to rise above this baseline. Here are some ideas – I’m sure that other people will have others to add.

1. Get more lots to devote to harvesters. You can start a second account (which costs you money in the physical world). You can arrange for friends to “loan” you their lots (notice that they still must put the structure up and tear it down, so you need to manage that – see the next idea). You can arrange “lot swaps” with people on other servers where they create a character on your server for the sole purpose of providing you with lots.

2. Since managing more harvesters can consume more (perhaps MUCH more) of your game time, you can choose to manage them statically or dynamically. For example, having a friend own your shop and factory is very easy to do and you never have to bother them again (unless you want to re-locate). However, getting that friend to go out every 5-7 days and tear down harvesters and re-locate them *may* be hard. So you might choose “static” management for them to minimize your game time drain. Put them up in a convenient location and just leave them up. The advantage is that you never have to bother your friend to move them. However, you need to accept a reduced level of production, since sometimes those harvesters will have a high concentration of a resource you want under them, and sometimes they won’t.

3. Develop a network of resource miners to supply you with resources. This clearly drives your resource costs up, but it also lets you produce more products on a smoother cycle. You can get all kinds of resources this way or you can choose to do only certain types of resources. For example, I typically just buy gas (inert and reactive) and lube oil from resource miners rather than try to mine them myself. That lets me focus on the major resources (steel, ore) that I need.

I hope that this provides some ideas for beginning architects as they structure their businesses.

I am a realatively new artisan heading in the Architect direction. I was really into this thread but started getting confused when you started mentioning "BER." What is "BER" and is it important to look for in a harvestor?

Our FAQ hasn't been "stickied" so I just bumped it. Check there.

I think the best way, if you're a solo archi, is to place all harvesters on ONE resource until you accumulate what you need for factory runs. Of course you always need to take into consideration that an excellent resource will pop up, but once you've started along the route of having all harvesters on one resource, it will not be a problem to go off your pattern for one shift. You don't need much gas and chemical, so one shift of those should last you a lonnngggg time. Anyway, this method saves you a lot of time (from having to run between different resource harvesters) and it's so nice to see piles and piles of the same resource sitting in your inventory.

And while this isn't exactly solo, you could borrow someone else's factory to do runs and this would give you two more lots. Short of that, get a small naboo round to at least give you one extra lot. Or, you could just place your factory only when you're doing factory runs. If you're acculating resources to do factory runs (the best way, IMO), you might as well put those factory lots to use in the form of harvesters instead. Then when you need to make stuff, just plop the structure factory down. The redeed fee isn't high at all, especially when you compare it to the value of the resources you pulled while you had your factory in your inventory instead.

Solo is definitely doable and your numbers are interesting

If you want to gain an extra slot try a small Naboo style 2 house = 1 slot.....or get Master merchant your cost for harvesters goes down

You can use a round house for awhile, but my experience is that 75 items of storage is pretty tight.

I think that you only need "Effeciency 4" to get a break on your harvester maintenance. But that is investing like 14 skill points to get a 20% discount on your harvester maintenance. That daily maintenance isn't, to my way of thinking, the real killer in this equation - it's the lack of resouce gathering capability. If you are running your business well, you have credits flowing in the door - as long as you continue to pump out product.

As someone whose Holocron has said "Master Architect", and my reaction was "Cool, I can handle that!". Here is what I was thinking of doing... Since I don't want to drop my M Scout and M Marksman, but also don't want to grind up the Architect path... I'm trying to find a Master Architect that wouldn't mind an Apprentice, eventhough I know its an added hassle. I don't want to start a business for myself, but I don't want to use all my savings either. My plan is to makeitems for me and my friends, help out some n00bies in the process, sell some higher end stuff near cost to established Masters and enjoy the climb to Master Architect. In the process I've a couple heavies and personals (yes, i made them, thats why I'm using them ) on ore and steel. Problem is... I'm 'particular' and only mine the good stuff... and I can't see myself putting 900+ ore into walls. Trying to recruit some novice players to mine 'highest concentration' ore and steel for the walls for me, while earning them some good credits in the process. I'm also trying to be careful not to depress the current market, but its not like one solo architect is going to make a huge dent in it

i still dont see BER in the sticky faq, and couldnt find the definition mentioned on the boards anywhere....its apperently a measurement of how well the harvestor mines but a definition would be nice, thanks.

Zen,

your vision is good, but if I were forced to be a soloist, I would out produce you by a mile

ok, I kid, but when you work alone you will find all of the following "improvements" in order to be more successfull,

1 small house untill you set up a merchant tent in a city, but we will use small house for now 1 slot.

Own a factory, but DO NOT place it untill you need it. have 9 Mineral, 9 Gas, and 9 Chem heavy BER 13's ready to rock. first order is to mine 9 harvesters worth of Lube Oli. get a good 500k in storage(in a bag on your vendor) Then do the same with Reactive gas and I guess Inert gas for Med harvs

Once you have all of these in storage you just switch between the metals and ore as needed, of course dedicating to "special" resources

I would make mostly Med mineral harvs untill I have a massive amount of resources stockpiled and worthy of setting up the factory. then start making the parts required for heavy Harvs out of the factory, and pull it up when you have the components you need. again react to any high quality resources on planet, but only keep out the factory out when you need it. in fact you should have maybe 3 factories, so you can do your structure mods, wall mods, ore miners, small structure mods, and the like all at once.

not sure exactly what the increased production does in terms of harvesters per week, but it would require you to be able to wait a few weeks and pump out like 40HVY min, and 40 HVY chem

but leaving the factory on the ground is a waste of lots in general when you can store everything you need on your vendor or in your bank.

that all being said I have alot of workers

a ton of harvesters, and no way do I want to go back to struggling like I did afterdrop.

weasle

I'm sorry if people misunderstood the purpose of my post. This isn't my "vision". This isn't how *I* operate. My purpose was to paint a simplified view of how a single character *could* operate and then identify some of the issues with that "simple life".

I wanted to get new architects and people thinking about the architect profession a notion of the types of hurdles that they will face, and some ideas on how to overcome them. So I expected people to make exactly the types of suggestions that are coming out here (e.g., don't have a vendor for awhile, only put up your factory when you need it, slam down harvesters on key resources and then save them up).

That's the point - to get people (particularly new people) thinking about how they set themselves up. In particular, the shear weight of the resources needed by the architect profession really requires that people *manage* everything about their resources thoughtfully if they are to survive and prosper.

BER is base extraction rate. It runs from 1 up to about 13. Bascially for roughly the same costs of running you can get more material out (high extraction rate) with a BER of 3 over a BER of 1.

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--Infinite-- wrote:
i still dont see BER in the sticky faq, and couldnt find the definition mentioned on the boards anywhere....its apperently a measurement of how well the harvestor mines but a definition would be nice, thanks.

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I brought up the stickied thread and did a text search for "BER" in the browser. Here's what I found:

Q-3.9: What does BER mean?

A-3.9: BER stands for Base Extraction Rate. This is a term for the amount that the harvester will collect in one minute if at 100% density for the resource. Shown in the harvester operation window as Kg/h.

Thank you Zendragon for the thought provoking post.

I wish I had read one like it 4 months ago!

In keeping with the spirit of your post here is my experience as a Architect, newbies take it for what its worth:

I bought a second account, not specifically at the time for arch needs but to have a "support" character for my main character. My first character is a BH and I wanted to be able to make everything I would ever need for him myself...so I went out to the local CompUSA and bought another copy of SWG and got a second account...shhhhh don't tell my wife...anyways

I quickly ground up the engineering branch of artisan and starting thinking about what I wanted to make first, armor, weapons, droids hmmm....

So I started grinding mabri segments to work my way up the armorsmith tree as quickly as possible. Well it wasn't long until I decided buying synth cloth was a pain so I'll make my own factories.

And that was that I have been an arch ever since and will never be giving it up...the money is wayyy too good

So what I guess I'm getting at is this, I had my BH put down a small house, near Coronet, and a structure factory as nearby as possible. This leaves me with 6 lots for harvesters, I use these lots for all resources needed save for ore, Aluminum, Copper, Gas, Steel, Power (always Radio). My arch character uses his 10 lots all for Ore...and its still the one I'm most often short on.

I mostly make medium harvesters and factories. I prefer to make mediums because my profit margin is much bigger than if I sold heavies (based on my experience on Shadowfire). I stock factories simply to keep my tell/email requests for them to a minimum. I do not make houses of any size unless it is a special order and then I still try to limit this as much as possible. I can't really say why I don't like making houses I just don't, maybe because there really no challenge /shrug

I guess my point is simply, if your going to solo, you had better either get a second account ...I pay way too much to play this game or you had better be really good at networking to get hold of some xtra lots somehow 6 or 7 lots is not going let you keep the spice flowing so to speak.

So with my 16 lots for harvesting, I will not be pulling up my factory, I found a decent spot not far from my shop that will be gone likely within hours if I do, I can make about 1.5-3 million a week based on how well I manage my resources. I mine everything I need, even the Lube Oil, gas and power and still cannot keep my vendor stocked. I seem to have weekly cycles that go something like this....

Sunday night I restock my vendor after a long weekend of making factory crates. I try to stock at least 5 of each type of factory. 5 med. gas harvies 10 each of med chem, med moisture vap, med flora and as many med minerals as I can make. My vendor is usually empty before thursday or friday. So Friday night I start crafting again. I know I would probably make even more credits if I was fully stocked by say Thursday night, because it does seem that I get more browsers on weekends than during the week. But oh well I'm happy with the way its working now.

Anyways enough of my rambling, hopefully reading this helped someone out there.