Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: FOCUS: Harvest Module Bonus
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jemelby
Thu Apr 29, 2004 5:37 am
#1
There has been alot said in many great threads about how, exactly, the bonus is applied for the creature harvest module. There seems to be a relationship between the players inate skill, and the droids rating, but no one seems to be able to nail it down, exactly.
I would REALLY like to nail down the exact formula here.
There are a couple key pieces of information that are needed to accuratly proccess this formula: Rating on droid... Skill of player... base harvest rate of creature, etc.
darklightr1
Thu Apr 29, 2004 6:06 am
#2
here is apost from one of My main hunters in my guild, i think this is a great bit of info myself.
Harvest Module
Okay. I've done extensive testing of the Harvest Module and have come up with several conclusions that I'm going to share here.
First of all, the module does work. More or less as advertised. You have a droid with a harvest module and you have at least novice scout, you can send it off to harvest things while you keep killing more. And if it doesn't have an inventory of its own (storage module), it just dumps the resource into your own inventory. The droid does NOT automatically harvest, it follows your command to harvest, so as soemthing falls (becomes a corpse), you have to tell the droid 'Harvest' (or whatever you have it programmed as) and wait for it to start moving before you can change target. Or get your next attack started and then select the corpse and tell it to go.
As for the thought of these droids being bonuses to your own skill - this is where it gets confusing. I'll do my best to explain what I have observed.
First and foremost, this is not a straight up bonus like Veghash is. It is much more subtle than that. A +27 veghash will increase ANY person's harvest rate. A +27 droid will only increase, say, a Novice Scout's rate. Here are some numbers to help illustrate that.
Using Gurk Trackers to sample and a player with +45 Creature Harvest, we get 79 units of meat. With +27 veghash, that's pushed up to 89u. A +31 droid only increases it from 79 to 80. And a +16 actually DROPS it to 77. A Ranger coming in at +90 (not master, that'd be +100) harvests 97u. With the same veghash, that's pushed up to 115u. With a +31 droid, they FALL to 94u. And with the +16, their take is a pitiful 91u.
So, we've proven that the +XX droid does not have the same type of effect as +XX veghash. So how DOES it work? Well, it's a relationship of your skill to the droid's bonus. It seems like the 'break even point' is where the droid has 70% your skill, though to verify that I need the +90 ranger to use a +63ish droid. Anything above that point can bring in larger returns. Sort of. Here are two examples:
The +45 harvesting scout can bring in 79u. 91u with the +105 droid. 89u with Veghash. And 104u with Veghash AND droid. That means the 105 droid is a 15% gain over the player harvesting for himself. That's slightly better than the 13% boost the player gets from using the veghash. But the player on veghash sees an additional 17% boost using the droid, which means a total boost from no-veghash, no-droid of roughly 32%. Not insignificant.
Now, let's look at the +90 player, who brings in 97u without any help. 109u with the +105 droid. 115 with the +27 Veghash. And 122 with both Veghash AND droid. This player only sees a 12% boost using the droid, but a 19% boost using the veghash. And only a 6% gain using the droid on top of the veghash for a total boost from no help of 26%.
So, as you go up in skill, the bonus a droid can provide decreases. Furthermore, if your droid is too far below you in 'skill', it will actually hinder you. And the higher your own skill, the more outstanding the droid has to be to show any real gain for you.
Finally, it should be noted that droids with harvest modules act as the player when it comes to harvesting. The droid can harvest or you can harvest. Not both. And if you are grouped with another player, you take a 40% hit to your harvest rate, which the droid will then boost. The droid is not immune to grouping 40% penalty - it's only immune to getting hit with the penalty when it's grouped with you.
The big advantage to droids, really, is the ability to be harvesting WHILE you're fighting. In large groups, there's invariably someone who runs around harvesting while everyone else is fighting, which means that by the time everyone else is out of the combat, corpses are starting to disappear. With this droid module, everyone can harvest right away, fight or no fight, eliminating all the yelling at impatient players who harvest right away no matter how many times they're yell...reminded.
Okay. I've done extensive testing of the Harvest Module and have come up with several conclusions that I'm going to share here.
First of all, the module does work. More or less as advertised. You have a droid with a harvest module and you have at least novice scout, you can send it off to harvest things while you keep killing more. And if it doesn't have an inventory of its own (storage module), it just dumps the resource into your own inventory. The droid does NOT automatically harvest, it follows your command to harvest, so as soemthing falls (becomes a corpse), you have to tell the droid 'Harvest' (or whatever you have it programmed as) and wait for it to start moving before you can change target. Or get your next attack started and then select the corpse and tell it to go.
As for the thought of these droids being bonuses to your own skill - this is where it gets confusing. I'll do my best to explain what I have observed.
First and foremost, this is not a straight up bonus like Veghash is. It is much more subtle than that. A +27 veghash will increase ANY person's harvest rate. A +27 droid will only increase, say, a Novice Scout's rate. Here are some numbers to help illustrate that.
Using Gurk Trackers to sample and a player with +45 Creature Harvest, we get 79 units of meat. With +27 veghash, that's pushed up to 89u. A +31 droid only increases it from 79 to 80. And a +16 actually DROPS it to 77. A Ranger coming in at +90 (not master, that'd be +100) harvests 97u. With the same veghash, that's pushed up to 115u. With a +31 droid, they FALL to 94u. And with the +16, their take is a pitiful 91u.
So, we've proven that the +XX droid does not have the same type of effect as +XX veghash. So how DOES it work? Well, it's a relationship of your skill to the droid's bonus. It seems like the 'break even point' is where the droid has 70% your skill, though to verify that I need the +90 ranger to use a +63ish droid. Anything above that point can bring in larger returns. Sort of. Here are two examples:
The +45 harvesting scout can bring in 79u. 91u with the +105 droid. 89u with Veghash. And 104u with Veghash AND droid. That means the 105 droid is a 15% gain over the player harvesting for himself. That's slightly better than the 13% boost the player gets from using the veghash. But the player on veghash sees an additional 17% boost using the droid, which means a total boost from no-veghash, no-droid of roughly 32%. Not insignificant.
Now, let's look at the +90 player, who brings in 97u without any help. 109u with the +105 droid. 115 with the +27 Veghash. And 122 with both Veghash AND droid. This player only sees a 12% boost using the droid, but a 19% boost using the veghash. And only a 6% gain using the droid on top of the veghash for a total boost from no help of 26%.
So, as you go up in skill, the bonus a droid can provide decreases. Furthermore, if your droid is too far below you in 'skill', it will actually hinder you. And the higher your own skill, the more outstanding the droid has to be to show any real gain for you.
Finally, it should be noted that droids with harvest modules act as the player when it comes to harvesting. The droid can harvest or you can harvest. Not both. And if you are grouped with another player, you take a 40% hit to your harvest rate, which the droid will then boost. The droid is not immune to grouping 40% penalty - it's only immune to getting hit with the penalty when it's grouped with you.
The big advantage to droids, really, is the ability to be harvesting WHILE you're fighting. In large groups, there's invariably someone who runs around harvesting while everyone else is fighting, which means that by the time everyone else is out of the combat, corpses are starting to disappear. With this droid module, everyone can harvest right away, fight or no fight, eliminating all the yelling at impatient players who harvest right away no matter how many times they're yell...reminded.
Protilious
Thu Apr 29, 2004 7:40 am
#4
Wow, thanks for the heads up. IMHO this makes harvesting droids just about useless. The skill relationship between the droid and its owner makes for an overcomplicated formula that I simply cannot see a non-droid engineer taking the time to understand.
The first time I heard about harvesting droids Ithought they would provide a minor harvest skill to compliment a sout's skills. But to actually harm a scout's skills? I'm not sure what the logic is here.
But thanks again for the info, I appreciate it.
Starphire
Thu Apr 29, 2004 8:00 am
#6
also i wonder if it has nothing to do with the player and its just the droid IS a person so if it's +15 then its +15.. t hat would be easier..
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