Chef Archive

Has anyone got their own opinions about this drink?

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DiceDuP wrote:
Has anyone got their own opinions about this drink?

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I've been working with a wonderful chef and been trying both bespin port and that food that helps with assembly (forget the name). Here's how I've been using it.

Use #1) I've been making some high end creatures that are extremely time consuming to gather the materials for, sell for a lot, and even one failuring in experimentation can make the creature undesirable to the point of cutting its value in half. And of course a failuring in assembly is absolutely devestating.

Use #2) I've been making meds with my 4th level box in novice medicine crafting. Here my skills are terrible so it's very frequent that I'll need to craft 10 or more meds before I get a "great success" or "amazing success" and am able to make a resonable schematic. So obviously a boost in experimentation is very nice here.

My results:

I've noticed no difference in #1 with bespin port, and it's kind of ill suited for this purpose anyway. The reason is that it apparently only helps with 1 roll (if you believe that it even does that) and you have to divide 10 exp points into 5 different bars. No way I'm going to spend all 10 on 1 roll, and even when I put 3-4in the first roll my results have been bad with bespin port. I'd say bespin port is useless for this use unfortunately.

I tried the assembly food last week, and crit failed on assembly of a CL 70 creature immediately after eating the stuff. Needless to say I'll never eat that stuff again.

As far as #2 is concnered. I put on a crafters apron which gives me +5 and drank a port that should give me +9 I believe. This *should* have given me an extra experimentation point, but of course it doesn't. Also, in trying to make a schematic for some advanced meds I found port to be entirely useless. It went like this: drink port, put all experimentation points into the medical component, hit experiment: fail. Try again: drink more port, moderate succes, try again: drink more port, fail, etc. I went through like 10 ports before I got a great success which is about how long it usually takes me, so it was a total and utter waste drinking port.

<edit>

oh, just to clarify, I'm *not* in a research center either (damn PA).

Message Edited by ArthurDentOnBria on 04-12-2004 11:32 AM

Just to clarify - in the post above me has me as quoting something i didn't say. I know what all the foods do, and I know full well that Bespin - in my opinion is just the same as having an area bonus like a research centre gives.

However, the poster earlier, which was quoted is incorrect, and it is a popular misconception that Bespin gives a bonus to the Experiment modifier. This is just one of the reasons why I dont sell it on my public vendors and only sell it to those who fall under its phsycoligical spell of actually thinking it does anything. I am not sure if i'll make anymore of this till I can see or hear firm evidence that its actually useful.

I use port all the time. I can honestly say that I have never crit failed an experiment with stuff. I do get amazings without it, but I seem to get more with it. I never did a count though. I just did a schematic yesterday for brandy, 3 amazings doing 4, 4, 3, then one on filling without the drink. That is very rare though, with or without the drink. I usually shoot for 2 amazings when making a schematic. What I have noticed is that getting 2 amazings is as easy as getting one, but still mostly get greats. The distribution isnot random and you either get a bunch or non at all, very odd.

In my experience it is best for those that aren't maxed on exp. I don't have planned experiments to prove my beliefs but I do notice that going 1 point at a time on 12 points in a research center I get 3-5 amazings without port and the rest great successes (except when I occasionally fail). With bespine port I only got 1-3 amazings (this was with about 5 tries). Although that could hardly be called scientific its enough evidence for me to never use it since I have maxed exp and assembly.

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ArthurDentOnBria wrote:

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DiceDuP wrote:
put on a crafters apron which gives me +5 and drank a port that should give me +9 I believe. This *should* have given me an extra experimentation point, but of course it doesn't.

Message Edited by ArthurDentOnBria on 04-12-2004 11:32 AM

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Bespin port clearly says that it adds to Experimentation Success Rate and not Experimentation. It wont add points but it does increase the chance that you have an amazing success in my testing at least. The two top armorsmiths on my server use my +11 bespin and have reported that they notice the difference. We are all in research centers.

Reginald VelJohnson [LGN]
Semmi [CAKES]

From my findings, bespin port is broken. Out of 40 tests, 20 with and 20 without bespin, I actually did better without it. I made a big ol post about this a few weeks back, just after the last publish. It's not worth it to me...

The volunteers that tried out my bespin port said that it was helping them tremendously. As for me, I have noticed something really strange.

After I drank 5 times in one experimentation, using 2 experimentation points per attempt, I tried out experimenting with a full stomach and no effect of the drink. I did this numerous times. At that point, I got so many amazing successes at that step, it made me wonder. This phenomenon happened only after I had my stomach full with the drink, but the effect was long gone. I have gotten more amazing sucesses under the influece of the drink as well, but it isn't something drastically significant that will get you really excited about it.

After all, the bonus is like 10-13% experimentation sucess rate. 10-13% really isn't all that much if you think about it. It is all an element of luck and chance also. We can't really expect to get amazing sucesses on all tries anyway, as that will make this drink grossly overpowered. So in that regard, I think the drink is working as intended.

I have never had anything less than a great sucess while under the effects of this drink.