Doctor Archive

So I was making some Enhance-D's by hand last night using some of my3rd-string resources just to have a few more buff kits on me.

I was using factory-generated Advanced SDS's (67 power) factory-generated Advanced Chems (50 power), factory-generated Advanced BEC's (10-power, 21 charges), and the same avian meat & gas for all of these.

I made 5 Enhance Stamina kits... and here are some scary results:

Kit #1 (10 exp points left)
Experiment on effectiveness (clicked all the way at the end)
Great success (2 boxes left to fill on effectiveness, 4 exp points left)
Experiment on effectiveness (clicked all the way at the end)
Great success (1 box left to fill on effectiveness, 2 exp points left)
Experiment on effectiveness (clicked all the way to the end)
Great success -- (maxed out the effectiveness bar, 1 exp points left)
Experiment on charges
Great success (0 exp points left)

Power after experimentation: 792
Duration after experimentation: 11640
Charges after experimentation: 30

Kit #2 (10 exp points left)
Experiment on effectiveness (clicked all the way at the end)
Moderate success (4 boxes left to fill on effectiveness, 4 exp points left)
Experiment on effectiveness (clicked all the way at the end)
Great success (2 box left to fill on effectiveness, 2 exp points left)
Experiment on effectiveness (clicked all the way to the end)
Great success -- (maxed out the effectiveness bar, 0 exp point left)

Power after experimentation: 797 (!!!!!!)
Duration after experimentation: 11640
Charges after experimentation: 29

I made a few more of these kits... Every time I got only great and amazing successes, I would get 792 power, and every time I got a single good or moderate success along the way, I would end up with 797 power (but one less charge because I'd have to use that last experiment point to max out the effectiveness bar)

So in summary: It looks like experimentation has a bug in it. That the calculation of the maximum possible value for an item's stat after experimentation is not as simple as you'd think it would be. All great successes should ALWAYS yield a better result than some great and some lesser successes, but as I've shown -- that's not the case.

Has anyone else seen this?

You really don't have to put my name on stuff, I'll still read it anyway. It's what I've been asked to do, after all.

I amwondering about one variable you didn't mention, though. What was the level of success on the inital creation before experimentation?

And I agree, crafting and experimentation seems so nebulously odd, most of us are having a really hard time trying to figure out what the formulas used really are. (Is our figuring that out supposed to be part of the game of this? I't just frustrating if you ask me!)

Definitely something else for us to try and look into and experiment with. Whenever the crafting issue makes it high enough on the list, hopefully we can bring that up to the Devs as well and see if we can get some indications. It's just to hard to tell what is and is not a bug with crafting when we get results that seem to be all over the place at times.

Oh, one more thing. Were there any boxes left open at the end of that first item? THe reason I say this is that it is possible to experiment so that all of the percentage line looks like it is full, but sometimes there is one little blue experimentation box still left over at that end that will often produce an extra, very mine, addition to that section. That MIIGHT explain the reason the second item had a slightly higher base but still had a lower set of charges.

I've also noticed that sometimes when I get a "failure" (not critfail), the actual values of the medicines do not drop...but the % of the bar drops. Therefore I can get a much higher final value on my medicine if I receive a failure.

This doesn't always happen...maybe one out of every 3-4 failures.

It's weird...

Kiarda Kismet
Master Doctor
Gorath

Actually the one that bothers me most is when I fail an expermentation and the numbers go UP!

I don't have numbers on it because I havn't made an enhance pack in the last few days, but from time to time a failed expermentation on an enhance pack raises effectivness. I'm not sure about duration becuase I'm not usually keeping my eyes on it.

Dr. Ackoroba

Starsider

I'd have to do a serach for it, but the crit failure to 0% being unexperimentable is, in fact, by design. The Dev who mentioned this did mentione that perhaps they should grey out the box to no longer allow experimentation on it, since it was a critical failure. Now this is not true in all cases, because sometimes a crit failure will not actually reduce the value to )% (or possibly not a a true 0% which might be way one poster was able to experiment it back up even though it said 0%)

There was also a bug early on where a Crit failure would completely fill out the success instead of reducing it. THat has been fixed, but it sound like some signs of it may still be lingering. Lots more stuff for me to really try and test on TC, methinks. Of course anyone else who wants to take some time and work out some of these things and see what you can figure out would be great.

Okay, answering questions:

>> I amwondering about one variable you didn't mention, though.
>> What was the level of success on the inital creation before experimentation?

All initial creations were Great Success.

>> Oh, one more thing. Were there any boxes left open at the end of that first item?

No there weren't. Each time I finished, there were no more boxes -- I couldn't click to add any more effectiveness even if I had points to spend.

>> I've also noticed that sometimes when I get a "failure" (not critfail),
>> the actual values of the medicines do not drop...but the % of the bar drops.
>> Therefore I can get a much higher final value on my medicine if I receive a failure.

Hmm. This must be what happened. But I'm having trouble understanding what you're saying. How can the percentage of the bar drop and thereby give you a higher final value? If the percentage of the bar drops, then your effectiveness value and percentage should drop with it... no?

>> the actual values of the medicines do not drop...but the % of the bar drops

Ahhhhhhh... okay, I read it a few more times and it's clear to me now.

Sometimes a "less than great success" will drop the BAR but will not drop the VALUES. So for example, I'll be at 25% effectiveness (say 200 power), and I'll experiment. A great success will put me to 50% effectiveness(400 power), but a failuremight put me at 20% and leave the stats at 200 power. So if I experiment to 50%, now I'll have500 power rather than 400 power.

I get it now. The bug is that the "values" don't always drop when you get a "less than great" experiment. Verrrry interesting. This bug canhelp you turn your lemons into lemonade! lol

I ran into two other annoying crafting problems yesterday. I experiment and I happen to fail and it drops all the value in that section to 0%. Fine I still have tons of points left, so I click and try again. Great success! But yet its still 0%. Try again. Still 0%, etc.

My biggest pet peeve. Have one bubble left to fill and I have 3 points to experiment with. Wonderful I'm thinking. Click on the bubble, Great Success!...yet the bubble doesn't change. Try again. Another success. Bubble remains empty. Sometimes on the third try it will fill sometimes it won't. So annoying. Evil last bubble gets you every time.

>> Fine I still have tons of points left, so I click and try again. Great success! But yet its still 0%. Try again. Still 0%, etc.

That only happens when you get a critical failure - and I'd argue it's by design. Once you critically fail, that stat is ruined. Makes sense to me.

Once, and only once, I was able to experiment a crit fail to 0% stat back up . I have no idea how this occurred compared to the hundreds of times it never worked at all.