Architect Archive

I've been playing for a long time - since Beta 2, and I want to help inform architects how to decrease failures by 75%.

First:

Create the best equipment you can. How do you go about this? Read below.

Understanding Crafting Tools

If you look at a Structure and Furniture Crafting Tool when trying to build one there are two real features to its building design. The biggest one is Conductivity. Conductivity improves the "effectiveness" of the tool when trying to experiment. Durability is the other. When using the best resources that have great conductivity and durability factors in them, you will be able to experiment "well over" the intermediate levels of the tool itself. What materials should you use?

Crafting tools require metal and chemical to make.

For the metal portion, look for Copper as the conductivity resource and find one that gives a 995 or + rating. 1000 is max so 995 is fantastic. As for conductivity and chemical? - you aren't going to find any. Chemical does not give a conductivity rating as far as I have seen in all the chemical elements. If you find one, post it. Since chemical doesn't give a conductivity element to the creation process, find a chemical that is high in durability. Most polymer chemicals will have a 900+ rating. Find one with a 900+ durability rating.

Now you have your Copper and your Polymer resources. Now what?

Go to a crafting station for Weapon and Droid and Items. When you start to craft, run an experiment with the creation. Click on one experiment notch and run the experiment. You will receive a "blank" success or failure. The good ones are great and the best are "amazing". Each notch you click on and run in the experiment will improve the overall percentages of the tool you will be creating. I have 3 Structure and Furniture Crafting tools at 99% experimental which is the best you can make. I have never seen a 100% tool. I don't think they exist.

Now that you have your 99% structure and furniture crafting tools, you may want to create a special experimental structure and furniture crafting station. Again, make sure to note all of the optional devices you can use and make sure to create everything with the best materials you need. The requirements for all equipment you create tell you what percentages of what type of resources they require. Just look over your resources and find the best ones you can. There is a great reference for understanding resources written by the SoE team on the main website.

Once you have a 99% Crafting Station and 99% tools, your failures will happen once in a blue moon.

What about bugs and critical failures?

There will always be a chance that a bug will occur with multiple critical failures. The way to minimize this is to always use multiple tools when crafting and make sure they are at 99%. Secondly, before actually creating the MAIN item like a wall module or a large house (which costs many many resources - do the following: Craft something small in a generic crafting kit before you make the big item. Then go back into your new tools which will be refreshed and then make the item. I have never seen a critical failure occur on a first time crafting session ever. With all of this, you should cut your failures down to 1%.

Hope this helps a bit.

Padashar

The first line is supposed to read by 99%.

While this is good psychologically (might want some Neutron Pixie Dust to sprinkle around to... track down some from an experienced smuggler )... really, I don't think it makes a difference right now.

Crafting tools have no stats.... in testing, it SEEMS that the ones that I made with 90% effectiveness and I think 60% durability (made AND tested while standing at a private crafting station,made high quality, with all optional components)has no better performance than a super-cheap generic AND specialized crafting tool made and used in the middle of nowhere. Other than the complexity benfits specialized tools and crafting stations give you, I don't believe they have any further benefit (private stations are SUPPOSED to give you the input hopper, but its broken).

However... that said, I don't think its a bad idea to make the highest quality tools... there is a chance they might unexpectedly suddenly actually have a benefit... however, I don't think that the effectiveness or durabiltiy currently affect the tools at all, and aren't even recorded into them, so if such a change occurs, might need to make new tools.

But, there is the chance my testing (which was by no means conclusive or perfectly controlled, but it was a pretty good run and gave pretty similiar results) was off, and it DOES make a difference... and while I don't think using different tools makes a big difference, there is a chance that the random number gen IS affected by such things... probably not, though, I don't think the seed is stored on each item, but is more likely a server generated seed... meaning anyone doing anything around you requiring a random number is going to be using the same engine, and there are probably thousands of them called between your uses of a crafting kit... random is random, and that means it IS possible to get 7 crits in a row... with computers, random is a little less random, but I don't think crit chains is really anything more than just bad coincidence, and for all practical purposes, the chances really ARE random.

However, psychological impact and general karma are pretty useful, so I don't discourage ritual behavior to get your desired results.

Please, however, prove me wrong and show me that better made tools really help... I'd LOVE to have that proven, I haven't totally DISPROVEN it, I just strongly doubt it based on my testing... but I think that is just wrong. Hope someday soon, quality actually matters on more than just weapons, armor, and med kits.

The tools work. With my 99% tools I have a failure literally 1 in 100 tries. Out of 3 full medium houses build I encountered 2 failures on ANYTHING . There are 50+ individual items involved in a medium house build so that means 2 failures in over 150+ components. You do the math.

It's not a matter of doing the math, it's that you have provided anecdotal evidence. What you say may very well be true but unless you have done a controlled study under specific conditions your assertion is just an impression you have received based on your personal experience.

For some time I did combines on any crafting station I could find. I too had very few failures. Was that the norm? I have no way of knowing without further evidence.

The question of tools and failures was posed back in beta and the developers responded to it then. YES improved tools DO help with avoiding critical failures. Now then, if you are worried that something is not implemented correctly and that tools are not helping, I can firmly say that I believe they are. I have used generic tools and I have failed many times over with them. Using my 99% tools I fail at 1% of the time.

For those that aren't using custom tools are you accounting for your Furniture skills? Well I had the same 1% at no furniture skills as I do now with Furniture 3. At novice architect I was using 23% tools because I didn't have the time to collect the right resources and make the better tools. At that time my failure rate was about 5% to 8% for structural modules on up. After I swapped to my 99% tools at novice without having Furniture 1, I went from 5 to 8% to 1%. I've never looked back and how many of you can firmly say that you've not failed on a major structure yet?

Before my 99% tools I failed on 3 houses, 2 wall modules, and a host of misc. components. After my 99% tools, I have never failed on a wall module, factory, house, or medium harvester.

If you are so worried why not ask the devs? I don't need to and am trying to be helpful to other architects. Don't knock helpful advice just because you have an opinion about it. What I'm saying is fact and was posted as a response by the devs in Beta.

We've asked the devs in the forums, but they won't seem to reply. Personally I've done a lot of testing too, with tools ranging from 60% to 82% (highest I've made so far). The failure rate seem MUCH more dependent on the quality of your components than on the quality of the tools.

In your experiments, what quality of ore and metal were you using? Was it the exact same stuff as when you had worse tools? By switching from ore with a toughness of 67 to one with a toughness of over 700, my critical failures dropped by better than half. However, this is again only anecdotal evidence, so I'm not convinced it's a real effect and not an imagined one. I can say that the better ore I'm using raised the base durability of my structure blocks from 2% to around 14%, and crits seem to have dropped.

I'd love for the devs to come out and say that yes, this mechanic is functioning. But until they do, I guess we won't really know, and the people who believe will continue to believe, and those that don't will not.

I'm sorry, can you repost the Developer response to this? I'm not doubting you, I'd just like to see it myself.

You're very adamant in your opinion, but you have no hard evidence to back it up. I have given a counter to your argument, by saying that I use crappy GCTs for most of my stuff and have not noticed a huge failure rate, but instead you just dismiss it.

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Joshie wrote:
I'm sorry, can you repost the Developer response to this? I'm not doubting you, I'd just like to see it myself.

You're very adamant in your opinion, but you have no hard evidence to back it up. I have given a counter to your argument, by saying that I use crappy GCTs for most of my stuff and have not noticed a huge failure rate, but instead you just dismiss it.

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In response:

(not going to be sarcastic - was thinking about it because I'm tired after a long day at work ) - Nope I can't repost the developer response as it was on the beta boards and they no longer exist. If they did exist and I could get back to them, I would definitely repost it. I just never forget things that were posted in regards to crafting in beta.

Secondly, yes I'm adamant in my opinion because I know what I've read and what I've tested. Now if a developer comes on here and refutes the very same thing that the developers told us in beta, then I'll back off this particular argument. All I can post is what I personally test and that's all you can too. I don't see why the developers would purposely say one thing affects another thing and then remove it at live. That makes absolutely no sense to me.

As for your tests, they don't match up with my tests. Using the same thing you refer to I get many more failures than I do now with my 99% tools. But, here's an even bigger question to ask yourself. For the sake of pleasing you, even if I were wrong on this issue (which I'm not and know I'm not 100%), is it going to hurt you to make 99% tools which are better (even if on paper) and use them? Nope. Now I've used all the different types of tools from normal to mediocre experimental to max experimental and I feel great about the 99% tools. Make some 99% tools and test them out and use them a lot. Let us know what you find out. I don't think you can even be in the argument unless you can see things from all points. Do you own 99% experimental tools?

I'm not trying to be rude, crass, or mean. I'm just a logically minded person.

Regardless of whatever the developers may have said in the past (which you cannot provide evidence of), there is nothing available in the game that supports your claims. Even moreso, I'd go as far as to say that the Structure Assembly and Structure Experimentation skills, as well as the qualities of resources, do nothing for Architectural failure rates.

But you're right, until someone can actually come in with some actual data, rather than just saying "I think I am doing better", then both arguments are ineffective and a waste of time. Neither of us have facts, and neither of us should pretend that we do.

You continue your encouragement of acquiring experimented tools, and I'll go off and encourage Tailors to continue experimenting on the durability of their clothes. And remember, just because the developers say that something is working one way doesn't mean that it actually is.

IMHO its a simple matter of a dice roll. Roll a d100, + structure assembly points + mind bonus if there is one +/- the quality of the raw materials used +/- the quality of any sub-components used, +/- the quality/conductivity of tools/station - complexity of item being created. Add/subtract it all up and anything below say a 20 for example would be a critical failure, anything 20+ is a success. how good a success is based on how high your final tally came out to. This is by no means the formula they use, but merely just an example of how I feel it looks at things when you hit that "assemble" button and cringe.

It would be nice if the Devs would give us a hint as to what to look at, however just like real life, trying new things and figuring it out is part of the fun. (or aggrivation depneding on how you look at it) I will say one thing more, my tools will be getting upgraded tonight, cause it certainly can't hurt

Your system is what it should be, Shakiel. Here's what I bet the current system is:

Roll d100.

d100 = less than or equal to 2 = critical failure

d100 = 3 or greater = success of various magnitude (doesn't actually matter since structures have no variation).

That's it.

I don't remember seeing a dev post on this past beta 2... can't remember if it WAS working and stopped (I wasn't an artisan at the time, but I was keeping up on it), or if it has never been implemented, but from my own experience, I just as firmly believe it makes no difference. However, I don't claim to be right... belief is stronger than truth, sometimes.

Do what you think, and I DEFINITELY recommend creating everything the highest quality you can, even if it makes no difference.. all of my tools are as effective as I can make them (at master artisan with good materials at a crafting station crafted similiarly), so it's about as effective as possible with the materials I use.

The ritual randomization appeasement, however, I really don't think helps.. but it could, "random" generation on computers can always be potentially flaky... but you shouldn't try to pass bad luck off as a poorly coded random gen.

In the end, do what you think is best, and forget what anyone else says... if you need conclusive proof to form an opinion (as I usually do), do the tests yourself and come to your own conclusion... sure, maybe its right, maybe its wrong, maybe its different than the guy next to you believes, but for YOU, it is right... go with that. I really try to stop reducing everything to formulas and just enjoy things for what they are, not how they are coded, but being a coder myself, I always fall back to trying to be as effective as I can. But if you can just play to PLAY and not to win, I think it might be a lot more enjoyable. We really DON'T HAVE to know EVERYTHING! LOL... of course, no matter how often I tell myself this, I keep trying to know it all.. heh.

Well, be who you are, do what you do, and enjoy what you enjoy. *shrug* We are all different, and as I said, a personal opinion is often more important than truth. Just don't force it on others... sharing info is one thing, but preaching religiously is another... let others be right or think they are right, counter their points, but never assume YOU are right.. even the devs MIGHT think it works one way, but due to a one-line bug, it might work totally differently... we can all be wrong.