Architect Archive

I noticed a LOT of folks don't understand how the PE is calculated and placed in.

When you add power you get a dialog box that says "Add XXX units of power."

This is where I think the misunderstanding is. It's assumed that when you put in say... 5 units of power, exactly 5 units of your power resources are inserted. This isn't true.

If, say you have a PE 1000 (for ease of use) energy source. And you have... 1000 of it. You go to your hopper, click "Add Power" and get the dialog box, the box will show that you have 2000 power. But you only have 1000 units of a 1000 PE power (Anyone lost yet?). If you want to put in 1000 units of power, only 500 of your 1000 PE power units will be used.

In essence, the place you'll find the PE to be counted is only in the Add power window. You really do deposit 1000 useable units of power, but it may only actually take 500 units of the resources out of your bags.

I hope that cleared things up , and if my muddled thinking made things worse, I'm sorry.

You're absolutly right. PE now makes a difference as to how good it is. And your explanation is very clear. At least to me. Thanks!

But this isn't the problem alot of people are complaining about. There is the doubling of required power from this last patch.

Example: If I put in 150 units of power that had PE 500 before the patch, it would power the harvestor for 2 hours. After the patch, the same amount and quality of power will only power the harvestor for 1 hour.

The power requirements for harvestors doubled this last patch. It has always been 75 units per HOUR for heavy mineral harvestors. However after the patch, it's now 150 units. Now if the DEVs WANTED to double the power requirements, fine. That's a different arguement.

This is going to raise the cost of resources.

I just tested this not two hours ago, and I got no double power usage, merely a doubled display on the rate.

5:09 had 1786 units of less than 500 PE

5:39 had 1760 units.

that's only 26 units in 30 minutes which equates to approximately 50 units (± 1 minute due to errors in clock times, lag, fudge factor, etc) per hour (The pre-patch usage was 50 units per hour)

the display read 100 cr/hr which is double the actual power consumption.

This was done on a pre-patch mademineral mining installation.

I verified this on 5 seperate harvesters with the exact same results.

Hi Gla1ve.

I don't doubt your numbers, but heavy minerals used to use 75/hour, not 50. And now display 150/hour, not 100. You've got to be using a different harvestor. What kind?

ive run multiple tests on harvesters made pre patch,harvesters post patch. harvesters i have had working since before the patch.

the BUG is with the display. harvester costs have not doubled on any of the harvesters i have placed. and i have over 20 placed.

they use the old power requirements,at least on the server i am on,its possible knowing sony,that they have screwed it up from server to server

no, these were the medium minerals...mineral mining installation. And I made all of them prepatch and used them for a couple of weeks before this patch. They did indeed use 50 units/hour before the patch as I would calculate just how much power I would need before making my runs out to empty/maintain. I'm not sayin all harvesters are the same as prepatch, in fact, I know it's quite the opposite.

This is just a part of the equation. medium mineral miners made pre-patch, deployed during the patch.

I did some measurements last night. As near as I can measure: 1) the display is wrong. 2) the old power usage rates are still in effect. 3) Q-3PO's explanation of this being related to potential energy is bogus.

I have measured depletion of the power reserves on 3 different heavy harvesters and the old numbers remain in effect.

Harvester 1: Built post-patch, installed yesterday. Used 101 units of power in 1:21. Rate = 74.81.

Harvester 2: Built pre-patch, deeded pre-patch, installed yesterday. Used 377 units of power in 5:00. Rate = 75.40.

Harvester 3: Built pre-patch, deeded post-patch, installed yesterday. 12 units of power in 10 minutes. Rate = 72.

Within the limits of measurement, all these are spot-on. And, by the way, in all of them the U/I reported power utilization rates of 150/hour and quoted hours of power remaining according to 150/hour.

Potential energy is only meaningful when you fill up the harvester, as discussed above. It affects the conversion between resource units and power units. Once the resource is converted to power-units, it has no meaning.

Thanks CandaVespin, I was just going to try to find exactly what you posted today. I just started using radioactives to power my harvesters and was wondering exactly HOW the PE was figured in.

Thanks much !

The Artisan Correspondant explained this pretty well:

BiancaMole said:

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There is a good thread explaining how PE is believed to work somewhere in the Artisan FAQ. (short answer: Units*PE/500 - where PE>500)

Because of the PE of the Radioactivebeing used, it has the effect of being 17568 units as opposed to being 12000.

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My experience supports the "display bug" theory too.

In my pack is 7535 units of Wind energy -- two types with different PE (about 100 and 200 respectively, if I remember). I go to a personal harvester and add power: 7535 units available, not what you'd expect from the different (and low) PE ratings.

The display for the harvester reads about 10 hours of power left. I come back a few hours later, and the power has hardly budged.

Maybe I'm just unclear on the concept? If it's not a bug, then a much better display or explanation should be available in-game.

It's my understanding the PE only comes into effect when it is above 500.

0-500 PEis a 1:1 ratio, 1 unit of power = 1unit of energy

501-1000 PE is where the PE comes into play. Take the PE value and divide by 500 to get the ratio.

A PE of 750 would equate to having 1.5 units ofenergy for every 1 unit of power you have.

As for the rate energy is used now, It seems they doubled the time the rate applies to and not the rate it self.

Below are Examples, not actual numbers:

If before the patch the rate showed 50, it was for 30 minutes.

After the patch the rate now shows 100, but it is for 1 hour, not 30 minutes.

I would normally verify this, but since I haven't played for over 2 weeks and will have to wait another 2 weeks before I can play again, I've just been gathering the information from reading posts and this seems to be the majority consensus from the different boards I've read.

Having run my harvesters on the same energy budget before and after that patch (fill to 4500, come back 2 days later), I can assume you the energy usage rates are the same. However here is what I think happened :

Pre-Patch

Maint : Number (with no units) was credits per 30 minutes
Pool Duration was in easy to understand units

Power : Number (with no units) was power per hour
Pool Duration was in hard to understand units

So they clearly decided to add units, base them on a per-hour basis, and try to have an easy to understand duration. They appear to have fixed Maintenance first, the someone probably did a cut and paste over to power, forgetting that in the DB power was in per hour already, and did not need a multiply by 2 like the maintenance did. Net result :

Post-Patch
Maint : Number (with units) is credits per hour
Pool Duration is in easy to understand units

Power : Number (with units) is supposed to be power per hour, is actually twice what it really is
Pool Duration is in easy to understand units, but since the rate used for calculations is twice what it should be, the pool appears to last half as long.

I suspect if they fix the 2x multiplier they use in the dialog display routine, it will clear up real quick.

Balagor