Architect Archive
Thread: Problem with heavy harvesters that is getting very expensive.
I've already lost two heavies and two mediums to this (which CSR replaced), and today i had to pay about 25k in repairs alone.
What happens is this--i generally pay power and maintenance for 5-10 days on my harvesters, depending on how much money I have. This time, I paid 5 days and today was my day to go pay up or pick up. All havesters had about 725 power left in them-cutting it close, yes..and they all should've had a small amount of maintenance left. Well...exactly half of my harvesters still had 8k of maintenance, the other 1/2 cost me 8k to repair. Now the maintenance had been paid when i placed the harvester..so it's not as if i made a mistake and put the maintenance in the wrong harvester (for example..forgetting to go to one, and putting twice as much in another).
Today was not a huge deal since i dno't *think* I lost money (none of the harvesters should've have more than a few hundred credits left in them, but some still had 8k, some cost 8k)--but when i lose harvesters--that IS a big deal and since you're limited in your reimbursements (from what I've read...)...
Has anyone else come across this?
My experience is that maintenance in general, is not consistent. I can relate 4 frightening incidents:
1) 3 weeks ago, my entire large house/store vanished---a merchant's worst nightmare. 3 vendors, over 400 items on them, and dozens of displays, crates, and furniture items all gone in the blink of an eye. I was told by a CSR that maintenance had expired, but I am 98% certain I had days left on it.
2) Prompted by aforementioned disaster, I ran to check my factory, which I KNEW for a fact had 4 days on it when I had checked the day before. That morning it was at 39% integrity!!!!!
3) Relating these woes to guildmates, one told me that had had placed two harvesters within 30 seconds of each other, and often found that one was suddenly behind/ahead a day in maintenance from the other one. Power consumption was the same.
4) And lastly, I ran around to friends' houses who I was admin'd to in effort to check everyone's maintenance. A girlfriend told me "oh mine's ok, thanks. I just fed it yesterday." I checked anyway---it was 12% integrity----a few hours from poofing. She freaked out.
Now tell me that the maintenance system is consistent and reliable!! I check every day now, often finding 'leaps forward' after a patch (especially a big patch). If you got your harvesters replaced, you are very lucky. All the CSR's I spoke with told me tough luck and its a miracle I didn't quit the game after a store I put so much effort into vanished. Thank goodness for supportive friends and guildmates.
It is more imperative than ever that structures (ALL structures--not just factories) send email reminders when they drop below 75%.
They said that there was a "leap into the future" in the area where my harvesters were and they could verify it through the logs, and so they replaced my lost harvesters.
This time, i do not think it's a leap in time, rather a case of the wrong harvesters getting the maintenance input.
I make sure that I email myself every tiem i pay maintenance and power, and for how long i did it for--that way at least *I* have a record and i know i'm not crazy.
Actually, I have seen this phenomenon the CSR spoke of.
I once placed a windmill down in a certain spot. I usually keep my harvesters with enough maint./power for 36 hours, in case I can't get to them during my normal time because of servers down or whatnot and it gives me a 12 hour window.
Anyway, the next day, I came to check on it only to find it had used all 36 hours of maint. (should have only been 24) and had some repair cost on it. Thinking I had made a mistake, I made sure it had 36 hours on it. Next day, same thing.
Well, I decided to pull it up and put it down again to see if that would fix it. Because of a spawn, I couldn't put it down in exact spot so I moved it about 10 squares in another direction. I never had a problem after that.
Was wierd.
I think this is why they replace these. They know there is a problem, they just can't figure it out.
EVERYTHING can be traced in logs. ALL transactions and who the transactions are with, etc. are ALL logged. Everything you do and that happens can be traced back 99% of the time. I lost 47000cr because of a server crash right after I got the money. They saw the transaction I spoke of about the harvesters I gave the person but never found the record of me recieving the cash so they reimbursed me. Heck, they could ven tell I had some more problem with staying connected right after the crash because they saw every instance of me logging in and getting booted.
Kissalicious--
Did your harvesters have the same name? I had an issue with crates in my house, the CSR said to try and use /move Crate of Metal Fasteners, so it seems some of the commands use the name of thiers target to figure out which item to affect. If that's the case, having harvesters right next to each other withthe same name might cause the confusion you see.
Bad design using text strings.
Don't know if csr told you this or not...
If you drop things on top of each other in your house, you will not get a full radial menu..you'll only get "examine", you won't get "pick-up", "move", etc.
You do not have to type /move Crate of blah blah blah. You can simply target the object, type /move back 5 (or forward..whatever)...the object will move, and then when it's no longer stacked on something, you'll get the full radial.
Yea, I give all my harvesters the same name all the tiem so I can distinguish mine from others when they have to be scattered around.
Did you add the maintenance using /paymaintenance? You might have had the original harvester targetted when you did that. Therefore paid double maint on one, then not the other.
If you used the menu, well then, that's probably a bug.