Architect Archive

I am not an architect, just a concerned buyer.

I talked to an architect today about the trouble making those ER-13 heavies. Now when final stats depends to some extent on the final assembly and not just the components it makes it hard to craft those harvesters. If you don't get perfect experimentation (great success) you end up with a 10-rate heavy.

Since the extra maintenance is baded on a fixed rate of 7 (everything over 7 cost extra) and not the base maintenance there is no market for 10 rate heavies (or anything less). I was convinced that this should not be the case. However, it is reasoanble to think that this might be changed.

I think the only solution to make heavies is to factory produce them.

I think:

1) ER-13 harvester will either be very expensive (because of possible failure rate which is not only criticals, but also every result making a low-rate heavy) or only be made in factories.

2) If they are factory produced this means you have to have a huge stock of (good resources). It might be hard for a non-guilded architect (i.e. if you don't have a lot of extra harvester to use). Still possible for the samll crafter but it would probably take some time to stock-pile resources (probably having to run all harvesters on a single resource for entire shift to get enough resources of that SINGLE resource)

3) ER-10 mediums will replace most heavies. Those are easier to factory produce than heavy harvesters.

4) All heavy harvesters with ER 10 or less will become useless.


5) Hopper size on mediums might become an issue, since you can't run a high-rate medium on a good spot for a whole shift. This MIGHT give an advanatage to low-rate heavies but I am not sure.

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I think maintenance should be changed so a heavy is always be more efficient than mediums. A 10-rate heavy should cost less to run (in maintenance/power) than a 10-rate medium.

As it is now heavies with same or lower ER than mediums are useless/unsellable.

/FLAME ON

Who is to blame for this mess? Of course SOE, first no comsidering every factor of the changes and also for changing maintence late in the test process.

But also YOU architects who has been playing on TC! I have followed TC forum looking for information about changes, Very few posted anything about it. I was surprised I didn't see more comments on the changes for architects. I had to post there to get any information about where architect changes were going. You should have spent less time playing with player cities and mounts and more time testing YOUR profession :-).

LOL! I expect to be flamed for this comment. I am aware of the problems you might have testing this stuff (getting enough resources etc) and that it is SOEs responsibility to test their changes.
/FLAME OFF

Also, I don't think rasing the price of high-rate mediums will work. With the stiff competition prices will be lowered until you reach the level where architects are not willing to make them. As soon as you are able to factory produce the "lowest price" will be resource cost + factory cost.

There will always be someone selling for a lower price.

The value for the buyer doesn't affect price level (it would however if supply was limited). Even if you pay 200k for a harvester it will be paid for in a sinle resource shift!

Using the resources i have (carefully saved) ber 13 heavies are about 1 in 5 chance, however even with 2 crit fails on the final experimentation i still get ber 12's.

That is not that bad. Er-12 heavies has a value. One architetc I talked to got 2 ER-10 heavies on failed experimentation.

with myprimary units experimented to 94% (no tapes) on the final combine i am getting base er of 10 before any final experimentation at all..it would take some amazing bad luck or poor primaryu units/ resources.

im lucky in that i could see it coming and hoarded some very nice resources..and i admit to having a slight grin now when the people who i also offered these same resources to come asking for them now after saying they wouldnt pay more than 2-3cpu take it or leave it.

I'm not having trouble making the good stuff. I'm getting about 50/50 BER 12 and BER 13 on heavies. On the 13s I often have 1-2 skill points to put into the hopper, too! I'm selling the 12s for 175k and the 13s for 200k.

And I've got a schematic for BER-10 mediums. I'm mass producing them and selling them for 30k.

You HAVE to have top-quality resources and top-quality tools to produce top-quality harvesters. Life has never been better for the skilled architect!

Good to hear that it isn't that hard to make ER > 10 harvesters.

I made 14 Heavy Mineral Mining Installations Yesterday.

13 were BER 13

1 Was BER 12. (Becuase of a Failed experiment on the stupid hopper size at the end)

So it's really not hard at all.

Perhaps its not hard to make a BER-13 Heavy but since it takes almost eight times the resources why would I. In fact I don't even feel like making small houses since people want to get them for dirt cheap and I can use the same resources to build a BER-10 medium mineral that will sell for much more. But alas, in fact I cant sell a single architecture item that any other architect can make since Wanderhome has all architects as slave labor in PA's.The only thing I can sell as freelance architect are high quality crafting stations.

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Neilla wrote:
I'm not having trouble making the good stuff. I'm getting about 50/50 BER 12 and BER 13 on heavies. On the 13s I often have 1-2 skill points to put into the hopper, too! I'm selling the 12s for 175k and the 13s for 200k.

And I've got a schematic for BER-10 mediums. I'm mass producing them and selling them for 30k.

You HAVE to have top-quality resources and top-quality tools to produce top-quality harvesters. Life has never been better for the skilled architect!

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You don't think there's anything wrong here ?

You should be selling those rate 10 medium at a much higher price !!!!!( probably 80k).

And probably those rate 12 heavy at a lower price.

Noone with half of a mind is going to spend 175k for a rate 12 heavy when for less than 1/5th of the price they can have rate 10 medium using less energy and costing less maintenance....

You customers are not stupid.....

Personally I think the only market left for heavies are the rate 13 as most of the miners will be flogging to the rate 10 mediums....

Some of us use heavy because we need the largest and fastest ammount of resources. I am willing to pay more in inital costs and mantenance for the higher extraction rates. At the pace I sell buildings I need all the resources as fast as I can get them.

Of course, the new problem is that the high-end heavies are more expensive to operate as well. The only advantage a 13 has over a 10 is the per-extraced-unit power and per-extracted-unit time values.. My 13 BER heavy is costing 186cr/hr to operate. That's ludicrous.. especially if medium 10's are costing standard medium maintenance.
As for cost.. a medium 10 should be going for well over 30k, probably at least 80k as it is a direct competitor for all your retired heavies. I realise some people architect as a second skill (for example, I'm a smuggler), but there needs to be some understanding that a hard-core artisan specialising in architecture really doesn't get a lot of opportunity to sell their wares. It takes a while and a lot of skill point to master architect.. so let's keep the prices reasonably high. That whole risk/reward thing.. ya know?

In the meantime, I think I'll replace my heavy fleet with big mediums until the SOE boys fix this bug with maintenance costs... the extra 30% harvested is not worth an extra 200% cost to operate.

I find it very disturbing that a medium harvester is more cost efficient than a heavy although it needs so much less resources to build. If anything heavies should benot only thehighest extracting but also more cost efficient than mediums as they are their upgrades.

I dont have a problem with the new BER's and the increased difficulty to make better harvesters. But letting mediumharvesters be more efficient tha havies will justdestroy the market. Everyone will switch to mediums as they are much more efficient and cost less to make/buy. The market for heavies will dissapear. Espessially the medium mineral harvester's requirements in resources isa joke. For 4k resources you can make hundreds of BER 10 harvester that work better than heavies.The market will be floated with these easyto make harvesters and likewith small houses (almost the sameresource requirements) they will only sell at3 cpu or below cost while no one in the right mind will want to pay +100k cr for +3 BER andhaveimediately a100% increase in maintenance.

That was just a wron move from the developers.

The solution is simple as more complex a structure, as more resources needed to build as more functional theyshould be, as better, more efficient etc. Other wise what reason would we have to build them, experiment on them and loose tons of resources failing assemply and experimentation