Artisan Archive

We've got a huge list of Update Notes today. As you play, please let us know if you feel any of the notes are not accurate or if some change is missing.

We have no intentions of Stealth Nerfs. Sometimes we miss something and sometimes a new bug is introduced.

For example, in this update there is talk that Harvester maintenance and power consumption has doubled. This is not intended and we will investigate. If this is true, then it is a bug and we will get it fixed as soon as we can.

Kevin "Q-3PO" O'Hara
SWG Community Relations Manager

So it looks like it's a bug, and is going to be fixed. whew!

My experience is that there is no harvester nerf... just a lack of reading comprehension on the part of players.

I have been getting antsy all day to get online and feed my harvesters, as they were due to run out of maintainence today. Cut it REAL close, but the time I could stay online long enough to get there... but this is what I discovered.

My maintainence rate changed from 15cr/30 minutes on a personal harvester to 30cr/60 minutes. Folks are just reading the first # and having an 'Oh, Sh!!' reaction without reading the rest of it.

I was just enjoying the UI changes, so I actually looked at what was there.

I'm sure there are problems, such as armor no longer working for pets and PCs, but this is not one of them.

Note that we were recently given an upgrade to power. If you have power resource with 1000 potential energy it will be just as it always has been.

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Vaedross wrote:
Note that we were recently given an upgrade to power. If you have power resource with 1000 potential energy it will be just as it always has been.

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Actually, it looked like the PE adjustment was done at the point when you deposit power. So if you have 1000 units of 600 PE power (twice as effective, IIRC), on the deposit power window it will show you having 2000 units available.

And I'm trying to disseminate this as widely as possible: The power rate is a display only bug. But the harvester itself uses up the same amount of power as it did before the patch. The rate shown on the status window is doubled what it was pre-patch. The remaining time is calculated using that incorrect rate.

I checked a personal and medium harvester (placed on Tuesday, though). After about 35 minutes, the personal had used 14 units, and the medium had used 28. The power'sremaining time had only decreased about 17 minutes.

So to determine how much timethe power will really last, just double the displayed time.

Now, if someone has done the same test with a harvester placed after the patch, I'd love to hear your results. The ones I was looking at were already in place when the patch took effect. Since the hopper size adjustment is applied on re-deed, it is possible that newly placed harvesters consume power at the doubled rate. Anyone willing to take 30 minutes or an hour to check? I'm out of lots and I'm waiting to hear whether the new hopper size is going to stay or not before re-deeding.

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sciguyCO wrote:

Actually, it looked like the PE adjustment was done at the point when you deposit power. So if you have 1000 units of 600 PE power (twice as effective, IIRC), on the deposit power window it will show you having 2000 units available.

I don't think this is a correct statement, sorry. Let's make some definititions first: What you pull from your energy harvester can be considered to be a Resource Unit (RU). What you put into your harvesters as power can be considered to be an Energy Unit (EU). The potential energy is, of course, PE. To calculate the actual Energy Units available from a given number of Resource Units, the formula looks like this:

RU(PE/500)=EU

So, in your example above, 1000 units of a 600PE radioactive ore would calculate as follows:

1000(600/500)=1200 EU

It helps me to just consider EU to be the SWG equivalent of BTU's (British Thermal Units), which is the standard in our world for measuring the energy containedin, for example, different types of coal and natural gas.

And I'm trying to disseminate this as widely as possible: The power rate is a display only bug. But the harvester itself uses up the same amount of power as it did before the patch. The rate shown on the status window is doubled what it was pre-patch. The remaining time is calculated using that incorrect rate.

I was wondering if this might be astatus display problem only. I hope you're right. Kauri opened so late, all I was able to dobefore I had to log for the night was make my harvester rounds as quickly as possible. I was unable to stay and check the power useage.

I checked a personal and medium harvester (placed on Tuesday, though). After about 35 minutes, the personal had used 14 units, and the medium had used 28. The power'sremaining time had only decreased about 17 minutes.

So to determine how much timethe power will really last, just double the displayed time.

Now, if someone has done the same test with a harvester placed after the patch, I'd love to hear your results. The ones I was looking at were already in place when the patch took effect. Since the hopper size adjustment is applied on re-deed, it is possible that newly placed harvesters consume power at the doubled rate. Anyone willing to take 30 minutes or an hour to check? I'm out of lots and I'm waiting to hear whether the new hopper size is going to stay or not before re-deeding.

All of my harvesters were placed pre-patch. And this is the first I've heard of hopper sizes being changed on re-deed and newly-built harvesters, but I haven't checked many threads yet this morning. There was a rumor last night, making the rounds, that extraction rates had been reduced as well. With the long server down-times, I had no way to check this objectively. The extraction rates seemed to be the same on my heavies (nothing smaller on my lots). Pre-patch, they were 7 kg/hr. No change post-patch. Running on an 82% concentration, they showed an adjusted extraction rate of 5.65 kg/hr, which is the same as they showed pre-patch.

I think the rumors are based on subjective observations. With the server down-time, it's hard to get a handle on how much your extractors should actually have harvested. I'll be keeping a close eye on it, however.

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Before the patch, I made sure all of my harvesters had a minimum of 48hrs worth of power. When I managed to log in for a few minutes last night I checked ALL of my harvesters and they had 4hrs worth of power. I added 600 units of power and it went to a 16hr reserve. I add another 600 units of power and I now had a 28hr reserve. I did not have time to verify how much power was being used after I added more power, but considering I had 48hrs of power in before the patch and logged in 20 odd hrs later (the patch now in place) and see I have 4 hrs of power left means the harvester IS USING double power.

Forget the useless comments about PE ratios andreading the status screen incorrectly. I wishmore people would actually TRY things in game before they offer up answers.

No, you are wrong. The credits per hour is fine. My medium harvester says 60 credits per hour, which is normal. The power, however, is saying 100 credits per hour. This is what's wrong. Check your harvester again. Check the power not the credits. That is reading out to be double. It was credits that needed to be fixed as it only showed half of what it really cost. Power, however, did not need to be 'fixed'. I am not sure as of yet if it is actually operating at 100 units per hour or if it is just visual.

Yes Maintenance rate is just a change it the way it reads.

The power cusomption rate however is doubled.

It costs 1200 power per day for a Personal Mineral Harvester. Pre patch it was 600 per day.

New rates for power.

Personal = 1200 per day

Medium = 2400 per day

Heavy = 3600 per day

This is power only...maintenance fee's have not changed.

.

I usually set up my harvestors to run with 2 days and 2 hours worth of power(pre-patch 1250 units). Last night when I logged into game I had to put in 2500 units of power to show that I had 2 days and 2 hours worth of power in my harvestor. All of my current harvestors were placed before patch, so I don't know yet if they are actually using 2x the power or just displaying that they require to 2x the power as some others have suggested on pre-patch placed items.

On Q3PO's Update issues Status post in announcements:

Issue:

Harvesters also report power usage doubling.

Verified by our QA: no

Expected resolution date: Not a bug

Notes:

The issue with power consumption on harvesters may be because of potential energy, a previously unused stat on the resources. The result is that 500 quality energy resources actualy at 100%. This is why power appears to be being consumed too fast. By the way, the quality of the resource now allows for power usage to be reduced by half - if the quality of the resource is 1000, power should last twice as long.

It doesn't look like they intend to fix this since they don't think it is a bug.

I think I've finally understood Q's reply on that harvester power rate "bug". I think he saying (and correct me if I'm wrong) that the rate displayed is the rate of consumption of a 500 PE Resource Unit, not the rate of consumption of the displayed "power reserves" (energy units). I've been using 900+ PE radio power so it seems that the rate is halved. I still think the rate and "time left" display should be based on the "power reserves" (energy units) value.

RaTok
Master Artisan/Weaponsmith
Coronet, Corellia

Mine are using double the power. A personal is using 1200 units a day. Have tested it multiple times. Put 1200 units in, come back 24 hrs later & 1200 units have been used up.

Y the devs dont park one & look for themselves is beyond me.

This not a display only, or problem with the person reading the display of the Harvestor.

The power cost HAS doubled, this is NOT display only, and i am NOT just having "trouble reading the display".

Pre-Patch:
Small Harvestors requirred 720 creds and 600 power per day of operation.
Medium Harvestors required 1440 creds and 1200 power per day of operation.
Large Harvestors required 2160 creds and 1800 power per day of operation.

- This rate was tested on numerous occasions, simply by placing 1 days worth of creds and power in the given facility, returning just shy of 24 hours later and seeing that the previously deposited creds and power were nearly gone.

Post-Patch:
Smalls 720 creds and 1200 power per day.
Mediums 1440 creds and 2400 power per day.
Larges 2160 creds and 3600 power per day.

- Once again these rates were tested simply by placing 1 days worth of creds and power into the facility, returning a bit less than 24 hours later, and seeing that yes.... the facility had in fact used up nearly all the creds AND power.


I am however not certain how widespread this issue is even on a given server because a friend of mine, who's harvestors are predominantly placed on Naboo(Mine are mostly on Tattoine) does not seem to be experiencing double power reqs. Either he IS actually experiencing it, and is having trouble determining how much the facilities are actually using, or this may only affect certain planets on the Tempest server. (not sure how the tracking is done, so this may or may not be possible)

But just to clarify, this issue is not visual/display only, and I am having absolutely no difficulty in reading/determining the actual consumption. I am a numbers guy, always have been. The numbers indicate double usage, and the testing supports this arguement.

I, for one, have redeeded all of my mining facilities until this is resolved.