Artisan Archive

My biggest complaint is the upkeep on harvesters. Nothing else bothers me.

I think lower performance as maintainencepercentage dropswould be better because what's the point of having 1-100% if it only works at 100% and not 1-99%?

I like how more challenging the game is now though and I'm hard at work figuring out a new strategy on how to keep up with the times. I won't be leaving because of the patch, that'd be silly. Nothing stays the same forever in these games.

Patience.

Personaly I think they should stop working at say 60 percent or something.. That would be more in tune with real life, And as it get lower it drops effecency ect

It would be better if the % affected their efficency/failur rate.

That way, the higher the %, the more efficent the harvester will be, and there will be a point of diminising returns reached when the % gets too low.

-p

The problem was that regardless of the things the Devs tried, the majority of people weren't paying maintenance on their harvesters whatsoever. Harvesters, operated normally, have a balancing effect on Artisan classes as they provide an expense where Artisans make money on their crafted goods. People that weren't paying maintenance or power (both now fixed) were getting a free monopoly -- resource gathering, crafting, and selling without expenses.

Harvesters really aren't as expensive as they're made out to be. What is most difficult is if you want to plop down several all at once -- then you have to have a hefty pool of money and power to draw from unless you enjoy going back and feeding your harvesters every hour or so.

Power harvesters cost about 10,000 credits a week to run. It's a bit daunting, but one power harvester can run about 4 regular harvesters (plus power harvesters don't need to be fed power themselves).

Personal harvesters cost about 5,000 credits a week to run. That's five newbie destroy missions or 7-8 delivery missions if destroy missions aren't your thing. Considering you'll probably also be selling crafted goods, you shouldn't be hurting! Also, since resources sell anywhere from 2-10 credits each and each harvester produces 1000 resources in 8 hours, all you have to do is sell some of the resources produced to have a money making machine.

My best advice is not to overdo it with putting down too many harvesters at once if you don't have the money/power to get them going. Add them slowly and you'll find them trivial.

I agree completely with the previous post. Unless you're in a group or something and can pool resources, take it slow and down outstrip your resources. You need to make a good survey of the area you're going to plant the harvester (mineral or floral, doesn't matter) and see that it has several resource types all at least 40 or more, with a scattering of others you can mine overnight if you need to.

I can pull in hundreds or thousands of units of various resources overnight, sell them during the day, and make 4-5 digit profits. This is with only 1 mineral harvester, 1 microfloral farm, and 1 wind power generator. I found a sweet spot for the generator (45 or so rating) that pumps out far more power than I need (which I sell for a considerable sum at the bazaar). The income I get from that keeps them maintained and me making a nice tidy profit for other expenditures.

I have a routine when online---empty the bins on the harvesters, make sure I have at least 1 day of maintenance and power on all systems, head for the bazaar to sell what I got, then head into the field for missions to get the organic/animal components I need, along with more cash for doing it. Lather, rinse, repeat. May sound boring to some, but I don't have excessive amounts of time online daily, and this strategy is moving me right up the latter at a good rate.

By the way, I'm taking the approach of being a completely self-sufficient character. I initially started as a scout/artisan, and have added medical, marksman, and even a little entertainer into the mix, so I can now hunt, survey, heal, engineer, and shoot. I don't see a point in wasting valuable points by having them just sit there doing nothing, when you can always lose them when you get to the expert level later. With a broad approach, I can let the fast-track guys get their skills, then choose the path I want to take with a large variety of choices when I master several of them nearly at once. This way I can provide a valuable "middle tier" service to the newbies and experts while using the skills of both to help me move up at a moderate pace.

On the other subject, should I decide to move at any point, by that time I expect to be able to build my own harvesters, and it definitely is cheaper to just destroy the units and build new ones at this point rather than pay maintenance fees fully up that you'll lose anyway. Just silly that.

I don't have a problem with the cost I have a problem with the realism of repair costs.

Paying maintence is the best practice. It is the most cost effective. I pay mine and friends because that is how it should work. I don't even think it is too high.

However if you ever forget to pay for at least say 8-12 hours the best thing is to destroy it and buy a new one.

I arrived at my Power generator with 73% damage, I think it was about 10 hours since it had ran out (thought a freind was gonna pay some maintence in my absence). It was gonna cost 2700 to fix it plus 1600 for maintence for the day. You can buy harvestors for 1000 - 2000 at any city. Plus since I made the harvestor in the first place I could make on for "Free" maybe a resource and time cost of 800~. So I used my engineering to make a new one, destroyed the old one and replaced it. I'm sure this was not the desired behevior.

I belielve the following to be bugs or at least sub-opitmal:
1) An engineer can not fix a broken Machine with resources, componets or skills.
I made the thing I should be able to fix it. I do delievery loops to make money but I would rather be out doing other things. I would rather spend the amount of game time or more collecting resources to fix my machine and then spending time making components to fix it and then "installing them". Rather then run to 3 cities and do 6 mission to make the money to do pay for it. It is a matter of Role playing, I am an engineer I fix and make things, I do side jobs to make money but my love is fixing (and music :-) )

If this is about making sure your character makes money to suppport his life style, well then fine that is what the maintence if for (which I pay). It's the fixing it part that doesn't make sence. I should be even be able to make a living going around and fixing peoples harvestors for them for tips. It cost 1600 to fix X harvestor and 2K for a new one but Tityc the repair wookiee will fix it for 400 plus resources. I would rather provide a service then sell goods at the bazar.

2) Maintance rate stays the same when the machine is off.
I am going away for the weekend. I don't need to collect resources all weekend long and I'm not yet orgainzed to collect the 10K (3200 (one collector 2 harvestor) per day for the 3 days). I will not be playing (friday, saturday, sunday) So I will turn off the harvestors and collector. But it will still decay at the same rate and then when I get back it will cost probably 5K a peice to fix. I will of course destroy them becaue I can buy three new ones for 6K total in any city. That is a savings of 9K which no matter how much money I had in game I would always take. This is bug. The off button does nothing but stop the machine for making resources, why would anyone ever turn it off? You don't need to turn it off to change resources even.


In general I think the recent changes to harvestors and collectors and sampling were needed and the right thing to do. I just worry about the oops I forogt to pay maintence for 8 hours, better destroy it.

Cole (Tityc [Tee-Tic] Radiant)

P.S. I am a multi-classer. I am not out uber crafting to rush to anything. Look at my skill list and you'll see a wookiee you just loves life and tries everything.

Someone had a really good point, an Artisan with Eng 3 can build a harvester, we can also build various repair tools, but we cant repair or build repair units for our harvesters, how does this make ANY sense.

I think that instead of maint. fees, harvesters should require a supply of oil and fuel, as in real life. They should also degrade over time, requiring maintainenceor repair services of an engineer and replacement parts. (Depending on how long you tried to run it, or if you ran it without a supply of oil) Better oil would make them run longer on less maintainence.

If they are going to get rid of the re-craft rather than repair problem, they are going to have to make them harder to craft. This is either going to have to be difficulty due to the resources or skills required. If they made them architect items, every WS, DE, AS, and Master Artisan wouldn't be able just trash and recraft when it is convienient. They'd be better off using their own engineering skills. They could also make them require a crafting station, so as to be less field craftable.

About how much power does a typical harvester need for 1 day..

The Maintenance Fee tells you how much time you have until you run out, but the power is bugged.

Is 1000 power too much?

Considering the cost of maintaining harvesters... If they are producing well on a somewhat rich vein, would it ever be cheaper to use them until they break and then just rebuild them (as opposed to paying their maintenance)?

Relocating harvesters seems like a really bad thing. You have to pay the maintenance to positive 3k and then when you set up the harvester in the new spot, that 3k of maintenance is all gone. Seems definitely cheaper to just build a new harvester. They're what 250 or so units of resources... even at the outrageous 10 credits per unit resource, you save 500 credits. A little math show the avg cost of resources to be about half a credit.

Maintenance on a wind generator and one extractor is over 2k per day. I'd rather pay a few hundred credits to rebuild them than to keep them properly maintained. Of course I haven't accounted for how dramatic the percentage collect drops off as the harvesters deteriorate. In fact, will they even run any more when the maintenance budget is 0? I think they do, but you can't change resource type until maintenance is payed up.

Anyway, just some thoughts. The relocation costs are pretty obviously not worth it. How about maintenance?

if the quality falls below 100% they shut off now

the problem i have is that my harvesters were at 98% the night i went to bed before the patch and when i get back online later that day, GONE. not shut down GONE. I got my lots back but all the resources i had in those harvesters are gone as well as the money i put into them. Yes i am whining but since the devs ignore us anyway I see no point in bugging it.

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BrainBlood wrote:
Someone had a really good point, an Artisan with Eng 3 can build a harvester, we can also build various repair tools, but we cant repair or build repair units for our harvesters, how does this make ANY sense.

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I suggested this in Holo's thread too. I guess because I didnt use giant letters and colored text it got lost.

I also thought that if we had a new miner profession.. this would be a perfect skill for a miner. They were looking for ways to make a miner worthwhile beyond just more survey mods. This would do it. Heck.. people would hire you to maintain their harvesters.

Regards,

Artuk