Architect Archive

Just wondering, thanks

The FAQ is your friend. Learn to love the FAQ.

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Q-3.10: What is the current max BER of each size harvester?

A-3.10: Current maximums are as follows:

Personals - 4*

Medium- 10*

Heavy - 13*

Fusion - 14**

Wind - 9*

Solar - 8

* It was possible to make mediums at BER11, heavies at BER14, Personals at BER5 and windmills at BER10 for one day when temporary experimentation changes were implemented and then removed the next day.

**It was possible to make BER 15 or higher fusions for a limited time several months ago.

Reading comprehension is your friend.


Anyone want to answer my question?

Maybe I should rephrase it - Can a 10 point Arch make Max BER harvs?

It's easy to make these, just as long as you have the right resources. Heat resistance, shock resistance and unit toughness are your highest concern. For components, make sure to use the best stuff on the ore mining units. When you make the harvestor, be sure to use the best stuff as well, and in the chemical section, use a lube oil instead of a fiberplast or a polymer. When you experiment, put points into efficiency until you get to 13 extraction rate. You don't have to put all points into efficiency, just enough to get to 13, and you can put the rest into storage capacity. A 12 point architect only makes harvestors with higher capacity. It's all about the resources.

Lexington Steele
Tarquinas

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You don't have to put all points into efficiency, just enough to get to 13, and you can put the rest into storage capacity.

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Think hard before you put those additional points into storage capacity, as to whether you REALLY need it or not.

After you achieve MAX BER, if you experience a crit fail experimenting on storage capacity, it will lower your BER as well and you're left with a fairly useless harvester. At least, not one that will sell for anything worth while.

The drop in BER from crit fail on a storage experiment only seems to happen if you are right on the edge of the BER cutoff. If you over shoot by a few percentage points it doesn't happen. The 'edge' seems to be mining unit + final combine efficency total of 177 or 178, so if you have already gotten over 180 you should be fine.

The *STANDARD* master architect IS a "10 point Arch". ALL master architects can make max BER harvesters. You do NOT need any additional points to make the max BER.

Extra points give you:
1. some protection from a bad experiment result - however, since you are most often are making a schematic, you would want the schematic to be the "best" that you can make
2. some additional hopper size

The FAQ *also* addresses this:

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Q-0.8: How much is a +x Structure Experimentation tape worth? What does it do?

A-0.8: The value of structure experimentation tapes will vary a lot from server to server. These tapes do have value but it will depend primarily on the supply and demand situation for your server. Generally speaking the value of structure experimentation tapes is a lot less than some other crafting experimentation tapes like Weaponsmith, Chef, etc. The structure experimentation skill increases the amount of experimentation points you have to use during experimentation. You get 1 more experimentation point for every 10 additional skill points. So +10 in tapes will give you 1 point and +20 will give you 2 points. Going over 20 will not increase your experimentation over the 2 points. The effect of additional experimentation points is to get larger hopper sizes on harvesters or recover from less than great initial experimentation. It will not increase the BER above the maximums.

Besides Reegan's point (which makes this *very* unlikely to happen), if you are making a schematic then thrashing one in the process, while not a joyful experience, isn't that big a deal, since you are going to crank out 10s and 100s of them from that schematic anyway.