Architect Archive

If I mine 100k materials with a 10 medium I would get 130k with a 13 heavy. Even at 3cpu that is a sales gain of 90k. There is no way that it costs 90k more to use that heavy. 100k is possible on a 90%ish spot for 7 days. It doesn't cost even 30k extra in those 7 days. How is a free 60k credits bad?

Also to my knowledge they don't have a bigger footprint. Not 100% sure on other types but I know mineral don't. Never used a medium chem or flora myself.

Well I was not able to make the combat character that I wanted and the crafter that I wanted in 250 skill points, therefore 2 accounts

I don't have a problem with the BER 13 vs the BER 10. As people have pointed out already, different harvesters for different types of customers. Personally (and yes, to theguy above who is insulting the original poster, I am a master architect, have been for a very long time, and in fact have two accounts I use to harvest with... I guess I'm a power gamer then because my husband and I both play, huh? ), I prefer to maximize my cost per unit, not my quanitity over time for most things. I am constantly harvesting ore with one set of lots, and there I will use BER 10 mediums because it keeps my overhead down. On the other set of lots, it varies what I will use depending on the quality. Obviously if something I need spawns of very high quality, throw cost per unit to the wind and pay a bit more to get more over time. Again, that keeps my overhead costs down as much as possible to do so, because I would have to pay a lot more on the open market.

I agree with the original poster that the math doesn't "add up". However, it isn't a problem that the math between a BER 13 and a BER 10. The problem I have where the math doesn't add up is when you compare a BER 10 medium and BER 10 (or even 11) heavy. In fact, if you get a series of crit failures on experimentation, you can use the BEST components and resources out there, and get a heavy harvester which is WORSE than making a medium with those same components and resources. THAT is where I have an issue with the "math not adding up".

SOE devs seem to feel they "fixed" this issue when they removed the high extraction rate penalty, but really, they only made it worse because they took away any hope of getting real changes in. Mediums and heavies should not have any overlap in their extraction rate, plain and simple. And if SOE insists they should, then it REALLY should not be between a "good" medium and a "average" heavy. (Good defined as what is pretty easy to make right now and average defined as what most everyone had in deed form when the change went through and what heavies start out as when experimenting with high quality ore mining units.)

The heavies have *exactly* the same footprint and placement restrictions as the mediums.

If you do all of the math, it turns out that mediums are a little more effecient on a per-unit basis than heavies. Depending on your assumptions about the concentration of the resource mined and the cost of power, you are looking at a difference of 0.05-0.08 credits per unit more in operating costs for a heavy.

However, if you compare the *output* of a BER13 heavy on a 60% spot to a BER10 medium, the heavy pumps up about 18,000 units more in a week (the difference is bigger on a higher concentration). At 2-3 credit per unit of resource pumped (if you sell it), that's a boatload of credits of additional gross revenue.

If you assume 60% conc and 2.5 credits per unit, then you have your choice each day of:

- BER10 medium - spend 2,745 to get 8,640 units of resources which you sell for 21,600, pocketing the profit of 18,855 (where the operating cost is 13% of the total revenue)
OR
- BER13 heavy - spend 4,405 to get 11,232 units of resources which you sell for 28,080, pocketing the profit of 23,675 (where the operating cost is 16% of the total revenue)

I don't know about you, but I like the idea of having almost 5K more money in my pocket at the end of each day.