Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Sub-Componets, Mech Quality, and the Final Product
Ogge_the_Lizard wrote:
Well, the only sub components that quality matters on is the combat modules and Repair Kit Subs... But you never know when the rest starts to matter, so the smart thing is to keep em good and nice.
It's a definate decision that needs to be made on a component by component basis. It also depends on what your goals in construction are.
Personally, it's not worth preventing a crit fail to experiment on the mechanism quality - each and every point of complexity you bring up the item adds eight seconds to the time it takes to make an item in the factory (complexity x 8 x items) for the droids that I do the final deed construct on by hand, and for droids which I complete the deed in a factory it's even more of a no-brainer - factories don't have crit fails, therefore it doesn't matter at all in that case.
That said, I *HAVE* been experimenting on brains lately, but besides those, the combat modules, and the final deed for the HAM benefits, I don't on anything else. I'm more worried about failing experimentation on the final deed than I am a crit fail - I just trash it anyway.
So if you make every droid component and droid by hand, and are afraid of crit fails, then yes, experiment away. But if you use factories you will find the extra time commitment (usually a total of 24-32 extra seconds PER item) likely not worth it.
AO
Thank you both, good information and input. I appreciate it.
Deidre
AudioOrgana wrote:
Ogge_the_Lizard wrote:
Well, the only sub components that quality matters on is the combat modules and Repair Kit Subs... But you never know when the rest starts to matter, so the smart thing is to keep em good and nice.
It's a definate decision that needs to be made on a component by component basis. It also depends on what your goals in construction are.
Personally, it's not worth preventing a crit fail to experiment on the mechanism quality - each and every point of complexity you bring up the item adds eight seconds to the time it takes to make an item in the factory (complexity x 8 x items) for the droids that I do the final deed construct on by hand, and for droids which I complete the deed in a factory it's even more of a no-brainer - factories don't have crit fails, therefore it doesn't matter at all in that case.
That said, I *HAVE* been experimenting on brains lately, but besides those, the combat modules, and the final deed for the HAM benefits, I don't on anything else. I'm more worried about failing experimentation on the final deed than I am a crit fail - I just trash it anyway.
So if you make every droid component and droid by hand, and are afraid of crit fails, then yes, experiment away. But if you use factories you will find the extra time commitment (usually a total of 24-32 extra seconds PER item) likely not worth it.
AO
Audio
Having read in another thread that the brain component does not matter in the crafting of a combat module, can you now confirm that it does in your experience, cos I have to admit I'm not seeing it. I admit that may be because I'm not using rare resources in the brain..... probably?
What news?
Thanks
Shian_Tavkin wrote:
Audio
Having read in another thread that the brain component does not matter in the crafting of a combat module, can you now confirm that it does in your experience, cos I have to admit I'm not seeing it. I admit that may be because I'm not using rare resources in the brain..... probably?
What news?
Thanks
I agree that they don't make any difference at the moment. However, I'm attempting to "future-proof" myself to avoid getting caught with my pants down (again!), so to speak.
That sort of goes along with the first reply; I'm doing it on the brains "just in case", since they are the only sub-component in our onlymodule that benefits from experimentation.
I have been using normal quality resources (nothing special) for the brains and the combat clusters; from everything I can tell, I agree that the only item that experimentation actually matters on is the plain old combat module.
AO
I have a follow up...
Yesterday I made one brain from average resources, and another from very high-end resources.
Then I constructed a combat module witheach of them using only high end resources.
Thecombat module with the "lesser" brain came out at 105CR, theother came out 106CR. Additionally the Mechanism Qualitywas radically different between the two, somthing like 12 MQ/105CR and 25MQ/106CR.
In the end though, I dont think 1 point of CR justifies the use of my best materials. Besides, this might have just been an artifact of the random number generator being nice to me. One run isn't enoughof an experiment. Though it was interesting enough to come back andnote it here.
Dedire
4.) What does mechanism rating mean for crafting stations, and is there a correlation with the rating on architect made crafting stations? If so, could you give us a hint on how it correlates?
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It's pretty... uh... well, it's another one of those what's-he-REALLY-saying-anyway kinda things, but it may be semi-useful.
CaixCatab wrote:
I recalled Thunderheart saying something way back regarding mechanism quality of craftig station, and with a some luck I tracked it down:
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4.) What does mechanism rating mean for crafting stations, and is there a correlation with the rating on architect made crafting stations? If so, could you give us a hint on how it correlates?
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In short, this gives you a better chance to resist critical failures. It works like Quality Modifiers on Crafting tools.
It's pretty... uh... well, it's another one of those what's-he-REALLY-saying-anyway kinda things, but it may be semi-useful.
... the idea to find it seemed a lot brighter before I found it...
Nice detective work. 
You are right - it's up for interpretation, but I believe this is about the rating of the crafting module, not mechanism ratings in general.
What would have made the answer useful is if it had included an answer to the correlation between the ratings on droids and the ratings on crafting stations. Are they on the same scale? In the larger sense of the game, there isn't a discernable difference for the end user in most cases with crafting stations.
If indeed they are on the same scale as architect stations, then the difference between a 1 mechanism quality and 10 compared to 40+ on the architect version isn't going to be worth experimenting very hard on, the benefit is negligible.
Until the recent additions of combat modules (and the semi-recent addition of experimental HAM in Probots, and now in all droids), crafting stations are the ONLY thing I ever experimented on after awhile. It just got proven to me that it didn't matter for anything else, and the crafting stations I did just because it made me feel good.
However, I have yet to tell the difference between my droid crafting stations - from -6 on the first one I ever made and still have, and +12 I believe I also have now, and my +43.49 architect version in practical gameplay. Some people in fussy professions in terms of named resources and final stats, i.e. WS, get *VERY* uppity when it comes to crafting station ratings - it's sort of strange. In regular gameplay, though, every time people have tested this stuff it comes up inconclusive because of the random nature - I believe that crafting station quality and the like does affect your random chances of a crit fail or not, but if you are lucky you can produce the same items on a crappy station as a good one and most people aren't going to notice it. I've had just as many "double in a row" fails at my good station as a crappy one. It's not bad to use a better one, of course, but I think the pursuit of perfection in crafting stations generallycosts more than it saves in terms of crit fails in everyday play.
And how's that for getting off topic on this lazy Sunday, kids?
AO
Thanks.
Are you putting a total of five combat modules in a Probot?
Yes. I may have remembered somthing wrong. Maby I remembered the .8 somthing from an earlyer experiment but I dont think so. I'll experiment more. But I did put 5 combat mods in all the experiments. One early one had less that 110 rating CMs.
I wouls also like to point out somewhere now that I remember. That when experimenting the Probot frames. The crafting dialog says that its SR,UT, that is invlolved with the efficiency. When it is actually OQ that effects the frames efficiency%. Any relationship of this rating to final build is not apparant to me.
Message Edited by Boeda on 03-21-2004 04:55 PM
Hmm all interesting stuff and again nothing proved but hey - who expected proof 
I said it months ago and I say it again, I have my 4x.xxx architect station mostly for customer PR purposes.
If I'm going to craft a droid, I use my R3. Note I do not use my R2 because I took no care in building that and it seems to me it crits far more often. The R3 i did make as near perfect as I could, and it seems to me produces better product.
Seems - I do not have proof, but it 'seems so'
*somewhere in the distance a DE dev chuckles to himself saying 'they havn't figured it out yet'