Architect Archive

I did an evaluation of harvesters, and put it on the SWG Discussion board. You can find it at:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=842480

Introduction

First, let me say that its my wife who plays a master architect, not me. I'm a math/physics teacher in Real Life (tm) who playsa ranger/rifleman/surveyor in game who specializes in finding resource waypoints for her needs as well as selling that service to others in the Tempest Galaxy. I do, however, use all my 9 of my 10 building slots to supply her resources for her architecture business, so I am familiar with harvester usage and costs. After hearing about her issues with some of the changes to harvesters with this last patch, I decided to do a little bit of analysis from an unbiased point of view and see is she was interpreting things correctly. I'd like to share my findings.

Now, I fully admit that I'm not the expert here, and that my numbers may be off a little bit. However, if anyone cares to correct any mistakes I made, I'll be happy to edit the data page with the correct information.

Explanation of Harvester Data

Data at http://rothwellhome.org/harvesters.htm

You will first notice that the table has been divided into several categories. The first is taken from data confirmed this morning from harvesters my wife just made today and placed, the second is what the current harvester costs are supposed to be according to posts made by GreenMarine, the third and fourth are two possible suggestions to eliminate the issues apparent in the first two charts. You will also notice a line in the medium harvesters and heavy harvester sections detailing what any of the best carry-over stock from before the recent patch will be - more on why I include that later.

You will also notice that I specify a ### quality resource that went into the construction of the harvester. This is so that you can verify our data. Harvesters were experimented on, but the architect wasn't using any experimentation tapes.

Section 1: Data for Harvesters Made 11/16

The conclusion here is that the formula, arrived at empirically after starting with GreenMarine's posted information, is that the BER maintenance penalty for higher than average extraction rate harvesters is double what it should be. I believe that is because GreenMarine set the penalty to take effect each half hour (the way harvester maintenance costs used to be displayed) instead of every hour like his posts indicate they should be applied. This should be an easy fix with entering the multiplier to be 4 if the servers calculate expenses every half hour or 8 if the servers actually calculate the expenses on an hourly basis.

Section 2: Data According to GreenMarine's Formulas - Efficiency Issue

Its this section that has me and my wife the most concerned, as we are assuming that the issue from Section 1 with the BER maintenance penalty being doubled will be fixed. You will notice that ANY medium harvester is currently more effecient in terms of maintenance costs per resource than any heavy harvester - and significantly so. In addition the power costs are significantly less, the redeed cost when you need to pick up the harvesters and move them is significantly less. If you choose to use the best heavy harvester instead of the best medium harvester, you are going to pay 64.3% more in maintenace fees and redeed fees and 50% more in power costs for only 30% more in materials.

I can see only two reasons to use a heavy harvester: if you need a lot of resources quickly and have money to burn, or if you need the increased storage capacity. However, a maxed out medium harvester can hold over 4 day's worth of materials on a 100% location while a maxed out heavy harvester can hold over 6 day's worth of materials on a 100% location, so unless you are placing on an advanced planet far from civilization you aren't really adding to the hassle of maintenance to maintain a fleet of medium harvesters instead of heavy harvesters.

The upshot here is that medium harvesters are more cost effective in every way than heavy harvesters according to this analysis. Now, if the gap in effectiveness can be closed, the best medium harvesters being roughly equivalent to average heavy harvesters and the best heavy harvesters even better than that, then the other considerations here make more of a difference in an individual's buying choice, and there is a reason to upgrade from personals to mediums to heavies. Currently everyone should just upgrade from personals to the best mediums (assuming they need more than a personal harvester can drag in) and never purchase heavy harvesters.

Section 2: Data According to GreenMarine's Formulas -Carry-Over StockIssue

Another issue for architects who sell harvesters is that the old best heavy harvesters can't compare to the best mediums now. They have the same extraction rates, but the heavies have 35.7% more maintenance costs and redeed costs, and 50% more power costs. For the same exact output, that's a no brainer. So how much stock do architects have in harvesters that can't be sold at all now?

Section 3: Proposal 1

This proposal reduces the problems mentioned above, but don't eliminate them entirely. You will still be paying more for heavies (maintenance, power) but the higher extraction rate and hopper capacity become more of a consideration because the costs are not as significantly more.

The idea here is that you figure out what an "average" extraction rate for each class of harvester is and base the formula's on that average, rather than using 700 for all harvesters.

Section 4: Proposal 2

This is the proposal I favor, as it give a clear advantage to pay the higher price for heavy harvesters. You pay more up front to purchase them and more in power, but you save money in the long run with better efficiency and more hopper storage.

Please give me your thoughts on this analysis.

Thanks to the above poster for the hard work. What I really am interested in now is a clear statement from SOE (Greenmarine) as to what is the official position. Is case 1 or case 2 from above whats intended?

I am intersted in this because the patch has just destroyed the viability of my entire pre-patch heavy harvester fleet and I need to make new purchases immediatly. I can not afford to buy a whole new fleet of 10 ER mediums and have the numbers changed again.

P.S. If this is SOE's idea of harvester "decay" I want off this ride....

In regards to the power display problem,check to see if your machinery is operating first. If it is turn the harvester off then on , this should restart the animation. When I do this it seems to fix the power display problem when looking at the status screen.

Ghordath da-Vinci

Master Architect, Gorath, Naboo

More data on maintenance/powerconsumption bugs

It seems that the maintenance consuption is a display only issue with my BER 13 harvesters newly made after patch and hot fix. After one day of operation they used only part of the maintainance according to the desplay. On the other hand powerconsumption seems to be a probblem since consumption seems to be douvle of the displayed consuption value. Although the harvesters drop to 0 power, they seems to continue to run (not many tests). After redeeding the harvesters that displayed 0 power (though they should have some powerleft according to consuption display and time operated) deed displays 0 power

I just placed 3 new 13kg/h mineral extractors, they were all 48cr/hr more than they should be, they were 186cr/hr at base of 138cr/hr.

I will accept payments of 3*48 = 144cr/hr until this bug is fixed.

ByroTimere; You put a lot of effort into that, so I will give you a response.

> Currently everyone should just upgrade from personals to the best mediums (assuming they need more than a personal harvester can drag in) and never purchase heavy harvesters.

Sorry on this I don't agree. The bottle-neck is not the cost of the harvester or maintenance, it is the 10 lot limit and the time it takes so find the resource and care for the harvesters.

Using your figures:

13r Heavy Daily Cost:
Maint + Power*24*1cpu + redeed/5 = 3312 + 75*24*1 + 7000/5 =6512

10r Medium Daily Cost:
Maint + Power*24*1cpu + redeed/5 = 2016+50*24 *1+ 4200/5= 4056

Cost Difference:
Heavy Daily cost - Medium Daily cost = 6512-4056= 2456

Extracted Difference:
(13r Heavy Daily Ext - 10r Medium Ext)*average_resource_desity% = (18720-14400)*75= 4320*75=3240

So the best Heavy would be getting an extra 3k of resources a day for less than 1cpu.

> Another issue for architects who sell harvesters is that the old best heavy harvesters can't compare to the best mediums now.

On this I do agree. Even if the Heavy was 11r and you sold the resources at 3cpu, you would make more with the 10r Medium. While your proposals would help alleviate the problem, earlier in this tread I posted a very simple solution. Forget the base rate and change the hourly maintenance of all sizes to 10 or 12*extraction_rate. What I failed to include before, is the powerneeded should also be based on the extraction rate, rather than the size of the harvester.

> Even if the Heavy was 11r and you sold the resources at 3cpu, you would make more with the 10r Medium.

Correction, I made a mistake. The 11r Heavy makes more than the 10r Medium. A 10r Medium nets you more than a 10r Heavy, but not an 11r Heavy.

Here are some numbers that I have come up with for Med vs Heavy can someone check them to see if they are right?

Med: Heavy:

Extraction rate Cost Extraction rate Cost

4 60 7 90

5 688 98

6 769106

7 8410 114

8 9211122

910012130

1010813138

A Medat a rate of 10 has 98% of the Efficiency of a Heavy at rate 13.

A Med at a rate of 10 has 100.25% of the Efficiency of a Heavy at rate 12

A Med at arate of 10 has 101.8% of the Efficiency of a Heavy at rate 11

all I know is Maintence and Power are flying out the door at a rate that is very disappointing. I just wonder If SOE will reimburse the massive expenese that this bug caused.5 of my 7heavies I have out are 12+ BER and have 170 maint cost.

Heres what I have encountered:

This happens to all of my Heavy Harvesters...

They are90 maintenance/hr and 75 power/hr...

I deposit exactly 6480 credits forexactly 3 days maintenance(3days x 24hoursinaday = 72hours x 90 maintenance = 6480 credits for 3 days)

I deposit exactly 5400 units of power for exactly 3 days of power (3days x 24hoursinaday = 72hours x 75 power = 5400 units of power for 3 days)

I check my harvesters dailyand the time left untilmy maintenance is depleted versus the time left until my power depletes do not even come close to matching.

My 13 BER heavies are using a confirmed 186 credits an hour. I did read the whole thread, but I got confused between pages 3 & 4, is this then the rate goingh forward or a bug? I have not had the cance to confirm power, but from reading it "appears" to be a display bug. Is this a correct assumption? Thanks !

I would just like an official word on if these are the final changes to harvesters.

I almost dumped 2 million into a new fleet of BER 10 heavies last week but luckily was out of town and didn't have time. As it stands I still need to upgrade but am afraid to commit to an order because it seems things just keep getting revamped.