Artisan Archive
Thread: Changing Resource Spawns
A survey droid is made by Droid Engineers. It comes with 10-15 charges and each time you use it, you have to feed it a survey tool which is consumed. 30-45 minutes later you get a mail showing the contents of the survey tool from the planet you selected. The mail shows a list just like you see in your survey tool.
The survey droids require some rare resources and quality matter to get decent charges or quick droids. So they can be a bit pricy.
So it's basically there to save you the trip to the planet. But it won't sample for you or check concentrations. The most common casual use is to send it to a remote planet you have harvesters on. Then you don't have to go there to see if your resource has despawned. It's a bit harder if you want to use them to survey for new resources. If you want to get a list of the minerals on all 10 planets, you need 10 charges worth of droids and 10 mineral survey tools. The usefulness has been lowered a bit now that you can use your ship to zip around the galaxy without paying shuttle fees.
If you check the stickies in the Droid Engineer forum, you will find info on survey tools.
I have a Droid Engineer alt which I use to make crates of droids and survey tools. And I've spent long periods where I've sent out 50 droids every day. It only takes a few minutes when you have the crates ready. Then I saved the mail to my hardisk and imported it into a database. I use it primarily to gather statistics about the resource shifts and keep a history of the spawns. Also that's why I'm insisting that resources last at least 6 days. 
Lunariel
Jalinsol wrote:OK, this begs the question:What are JTL resources? Are these the primary resources of Shipwrights? Any examples of what some of these are, so I know what to look for?Many thanks!
To answer your question if they are the primary resource. Generally speaking no. From what I've gathered through the grapevine these resources are used primarily for modification kits shipwrights can use to enhance the components they craft. I'm not sure if they are used in components but I know they are not used in ships. I gather resources for a shipwright and the list goes: Steel, Ore, siliclastic ore, inert petro, iron, aluminum and copper. I have never been requested to get any shipwright resources as she mentioned if she ever needs any, she'll get it as putting one harv down is usually good enough. As opposed to the 10-18 hvy harvs i put down on a steel/ore deposit. From what I can gather about SW crafting components, reverse engineered copmonents usually come out better then crafted components. Hence many SW's reverse engineer and craft blueprints avoiding components all together. One thing u wont loot from a ship as far as i know (as it hasn't happened to me yet) are countermeasure and missle lauacnhers and packs/ordinance. These you need to buy from a shipwright.
A good place to see what is required for schematics is swg.allakhazam.com. Somewhere along the left you'll see a link for professions under the header of characters, click that then shipwright. This'll display all the skill boxes for shipwright and display everything the profession gives you with links to further get information on them. Nearly all of the schematics display a list of required resources and some have a screenshot of the item.
Dawgypoo wrote:
Five to seven day spawns are great, but I'm seeing a lot of 3 day spawns on Tempest. I'm hitting the spawns as soon as they are listed in asiabrothers.com (best resource for tempest) and they are gone within 3 days. While others are lasting 3 weeks. But what I've noticed is that it usually happens with the highest quality stuff, so maybe it's intended, but man what a hassle on some planets to find a good spot. Clear out any nests, and hope the terrain will allow you to place a heavy or two.
Please, please please give us atleast 5 days per spawn, just so we can recover expenses.
3 day spawns? Must be a server specific thing. Meaning of course that the resource has been on the server for the normal amount of time, just that there arent enough people reporting them to swgcraft.com.Im out mining every day or two, usually only move harvs once Ive gotten what I need or if a better spawn pops up. I to use swgcraft.com constantly...check it probably twice a day.
-Gooney
Message Edited by Gooney on 02-24-2005 05:15 PM
Lunariel wrote:
Dawgypoo wrote:
Five to seven day spawns are great, but I'm seeing a lot of 3 day spawns on Tempest. I'm hitting the spawns as soon as they are listed in asiabrothers.com (best resource for tempest) and they are gone within 3 days. While others are lasting 3 weeks. But what I've noticed is that it usually happens with the highest quality stuff, so maybe it's intended, but man what a hassle on some planets to find a good spot. Clear out any nests, and hope the terrain will allow you to place a heavy or two.
Please, please please give us atleast 5 days per spawn, just so we can recover expenses.
If it disappeared 3 days after the listed date, then it was already at least 3 days old when it was registered. I'm on Tempest too and I've seen resources registered several days after they spawned. I've registered a few myself, but don't have the time do it regularily.
I've collected tons of logs from survey droids for statistics. And I've yet to see anything last shorter than 6 days.
You can't always rely on external sites for up to date information. You have to dosome surveying yourself if you want to catch the spawns quicker.
Lunariel
This makes a lot of since now. I'm missing the first couple of days of new spawns, and if I'm going to stay in the mining business, then I going to need to try the survey droids you mentioned. Great post by the way, answered my questions, and I did more research in the DE section. www.asiabrothers.com is the only way to go for the Tempest server, but even as good the site is, there will always be delays on information posted.
Thank you for enlightening me!
There have been some very short-shift, high quality spawns on Lowca, too.
Dawgypoo wrote:
Five to seven day spawns are great, but I'm seeing a lot of 3 day spawns on Tempest. I'm hitting the spawns as soon as they are listed in asiabrothers.com (best resource for tempest) and they are gone within 3 days. While others are lasting 3 weeks. But what I've noticed is that it usually happens with the highest quality stuff, so maybe it's intended, but man what a hassle on some planets to find a good spot.
Survey Droids have been made somewhat obsolete by the 30K resource kits. I plan on keeping one around forever so that I can always survey (and get stats, no less!)from the comfort of my shop.
Lunariel wrote:
[survey droids]