Architect Archive

OK .. Let me clear up some confusion...

First off.. We will get 2 questions a month.. Yes that is not originally what was promised us from TH that he would do .. ( on his own time mind you ) .. However.. IN the time that it has been even from this point and when we submited our top 10 questions in .. even some of those are outdated or addressed... and that is the reason for this change.. Though TH should have made sure he could have delivered before he said He would do the 10 questions.. to me this is better than nothing .. and in the long run really a better deal for us.. Every Other Weak We get to ask A new question.. By the time our original Top Ten would have been answered we will have asked and had answered more than 10 questions.. And the best part each question will be current.. Because I will ask TH it on our weeks Monday and He will answer it that same week..

As For this weeks Question.. I had VERY short amount of time to give him one.. not enought to poll the forum .. I choose this one because since the beginning there has always been doubt whether or not Tools Or Stations do anything.. Now We Know that they infact do .. and they are working as intended..

So .. it works like this.. (Tool + Station) x(some modifier)= Bonus to succes roll for both assembly and Expirement

If tool is 0 and station is 0 then no bonus.. the more positive the these are the bigger the bonus.. the more negative these are the larger the penalty is..

Obviosly since the MANY test that has been done this bonus is small because we have had a hard time tracking this..( this last statement is my personal observation )

On the craft droid issue.. The bonus of the droid is it gives you the advantage of having a portable station.. and If my interpretation is right is equivalant to having a public station that you can whip out at anytime and now any where.. ( well ok not in combat) ..

---

ZenDragonMLS wrote:

---

Dvnce wrote:

So .. it works like this.. (Tool + Station) x (some modifier)= Bonus to succes roll for both assembly and Expirement

If tool is 0 and station is 0 then no bonus.. the more positive the these are the bigger the bonus.. the more negative these are the larger the penalty is..

---

Is this *exactly* what he said, or is that your interpretation? Because the TH statement that we saw in the first post was NOT (to my eye) even this definative. I'm not picking fights here - I just want to get some things distilled down to very very crisp statements.

---

well.. I am assuming their has to be a modifier because.. between 0 effective equipment. and 14 tool +43.5 station there is not a whole lot of noticeable difference.

this is not word for word what he told us... but this is the gist of the conversation that transpired after he released the answers to us correspondants early this morning..

---

Dvnce wrote:

If tool is 0 and station is 0 then no bonus.. the more positive the these are the bigger the bonus.. the more negative these are the larger the penalty is..

Obviosly since the MANY test that has been done this bonus is small because we have had a hard time tracking this..( this last statement is my personal observation )

On the craft droid issue.. The bonus of the droid is it gives you the advantage of having a portable station.. and If my interpretation is right is equivalant to having a public station that you can whip out at anytime and now any where.. ( well ok not in combat) ..

---

Actually, tools and stations canhave negative ratings and ones made by a novice usually do.

My impression is that nobody got statistically significant results despite a large number of tests. What TH said was "The effectiveness rating on crafting tools and stations influences the chance of success or failure during the assembly and experimentation stages. These are working as intended." Which leaves me with the impression that the bonus is effectively zero, but is not intended to be fixed.

The droid modulesare obviously not the same as a public station, since you can see schematics that those won't show you. They have to be equivalent to a private station at some effectiveness rating, but perhaps quality doesn't affect that.

Since we already have ineffective things to experiment on, it wouldn't suprise me that the Station ratings are actually useless to the end user, andTH didn't convince me otherwise. The ratingsaren't useless to the architect though, as they make a selling point. I would consider them decoration only, but wouldn't waste good resources for one in my back room.

That's kinda my point - I don't feel like I know anything more about tools and stations than I did before reading this.

I disagree.. I do believe that there is a bonus.. just not a very big one.. .. well .. rather pretty small...

But I do believe that it is there..

---

Dvnce wrote:

I disagree.. I do believe that there is a bonus.. just not a very big one.. .. well .. rather pretty small...

But I do believe that it is there..

---

I can believe whatever I want. You can believe whatever you want. But neither of us have any *statement* by SOE that clearly backs up our beliefs. I'd like to move my understanding of the game mechanics from "it's magic" to a little more "it's physics".

well .. Usually if SOE is not sure if something is working as intended.. they are a little more kryptic than .. They add to chance of success and they are working as intended..

If it makes a difference then why do I get MORE low end results when using a 45.0 station and 15.0 tool than I do when using a 42.7 station and same tool? At this level I should find it almost impossible to get anything less than even 'moderate' but I get loads of crap results on the very bestequipment in the game. This tells me that chance is involved, and that the 'risk factor' plays too big a role in deciding the outcome.

It is total BS to say that it is 'working as intended', in my case I should get nothing less than 'great' mostly 'amazing' and 1 in a million 'poor' or 'critical'. As it is I am getting some 10% of the latter.

---

Bandola wrote:

If it makes a difference then why do I get MORE low end results when using a 45.0 station and 15.0 tool than I do when using a 42.7 station and same tool? At this level I should find it almost impossible to get anything less than even 'moderate' but I get loads of crap results on the very bestequipment in the game. This tells me that chance is involved, and that the 'risk factor' plays too big a role in deciding the outcome.

It is total BS to say that it is 'working as intended', in my case I should get nothing less than 'great' mostly 'amazing' and 1 in a million 'poor' or 'critical'. As it is I am getting some 10% of the latter.

---

Aye! Noticed exactly the same thing. My 45.0 got the boot and my 43.31 Station is back. I noticed huged differences.

With the 45.0 I got alot of Amazing & Criticals. With the 43.31 I get much less of both.
(Which is good enough, since Amazings is only a bonus and critals is lost money on reduced price on final product)

Let me try and translate what TH said into mathematics and code:

---

Thunderheart wrote:

Architect: What is the exact effect that the effectiveness rating on crafting tools and Crafting stations have on the crafting process and are they working as intended?

The effectiveness rating on crafting tools and stations influences the chance of success or failure during the assembly and experimentation stages. These are working as intended.

Medic: What are higher rated crafting stations and tools supposed to do for you, exactly? (Assuming they are even working, of course.) and how do droid crafting stations relate to the standalone stations, since we cannot see any kind of rating numbers on droids?

The effectiveness rating on crafting tools and stations influences the chance of success or failure during the assembly and experimentation stages. As far as the droid itself, it has a neutral relationship (does not effect) on the crafting process.

---

---

Mathematically:

for a private crafting station:
pcrafting_success = f(crafting_station_rating, crafting_tool_rating)

for a droid crafting station:
pcrafting_success = f(some_unknown_constant, crafting_tool_rating)

---

---

In pseudo-code:

float probabilityOfSuccess;
if (craftingStation.isPrivate())
{

probabilityOfSuccess = someFunction(craftingStation.getRating(), craftingTool.getRating());

}
else if (craftingStation.isDroid())
{

probabilityOfSuccess = someFunction(DROID_CRAFTING_STATION_QUALITY_CONSTANT, craftingTool.getRating());

}

---

What this does NOT tell us is:
a) What the function is - linear or non-linear, positively or negatively correlated.
b) What crafting station rating the droid module is effectively equivalent to.

Can I make a suggestion for future questions to try and avoid answers that weren't quite what we wanted. Give TH multiple choice questions. For example for this question I might have worded it:


(Why am I not suprised that this forum disallows valid html - <br /> disallowed, <br> allowed, the ever-dangerous <sub> tag disallowed!)

/Agree. If we make the wording more specific, we may wind up getting more specific answers out of TH. But, it could be that he's been told that he has to be vague and that his hands are tied.

---

Dvnce wrote:

I disagree.. I do believe that there is a bonus.. just not a very big one.. .. well .. rather pretty small...

But I do believe that it is there..

---

Well God bless you, Dvnce. I'm glad you can believe anything they say anymore. Personally there's so much smoke flying up my rear I can't tell if he doesn't know and won't tell. Looking at track history I'd vote for doesnt know.

I'm really tired of being treated like crap by a company that hires people half my age to be their public PR and gives them tools akin to elementary school to function.

Fivo Asia

Message Edited by Cafa on 04-23-2004 11:19 AM