I've taken the liberty of creating several FAQs, including FAQs on Surveying, Harvesters, Resources, and Factories. This document is the first I've completed, and I'll post the others as I finish them up over the next week or so. Comments, additions and suggestions are certainly welcome.
------------------- Harvester FAQ
Document Title: SWG Artisan Harvester FAQ Last Modified: 8 March 2004 Maintainer: JimerLins Version: 1.0
This posting is a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list intended to address the basic questions surrounding harvesters and their use in Star Wars Galaxies (SWG). This document may evolve and change over time, as information is added and the game changes.
This document addresses the following topics:
1) Preface 1.1) Acknowledgements 1.2) Revision History
2) General 2.1) What is a harvester? 2.2) Who can use harvesters? 2.3) What kinds of harvesters are there? 2.4) Where do I get harvesters? 2.5) How much do harvesters cost?
3) Placement and Operations 3.1) How do harvesters work? 3.2) How do I place harvesters? 3.3) How do I operate harvesters? 3.4) How do I power my harvesters? 3.5) How do I maintain my harvesters? 3.6) How do I redeed my harvesters? 3.7) Can other people use my harvesters?
4) Tips, Tricks, Bugs and Workarounds
1) Preface
Welcome to the Harvester FAQ. This is one of several FAQ documents I've created, that hopefully will address some of the issues and common questions related to harvesters and their use.
Each section deals with a general topic, and the subsections deal with specific questions. Some subsections also contain even more specific questions, which are not in the table of contents (to save room, mostly). If your question is not in the TOC, please read the sections most relevant to your question, as you may find it there. If your question is not answered, either send me (JimerLins) a PM here on the forums or post a question to this thread.
If you have a question and answer, please post them in the format laid out in this document- I'll add relevant ones to the FAQ in future revisions.
1.1) Acknowledgements
Contributors to the FAQ will have their contributions listed here, with my thanks.
owako: Corrected power generator maintenance rates.
1.2) Revision History
18 February 2004: Document Created. 8 March 2004: Initial Posting 8 March 2004: Updated section 3.5.2
2) General
This section outlines general questions and their answers.
2.1) What is a harvester?
A "harvester" in SWG is a general term used to refer to any device used within the game to extract resources from the environment unattended. Harvesters are used by players to extract resources for them, as they will work all the time, even when a player is not online. Essentially, a harvester is an automated method of getting a large quantity of a specific resource or type of resource.
2.2) Who can use harvesters?
Anyone can use any type of harvester. If you have the deed for one (see sections 2.3 and 2.4), you can place it, assuming you have the lots available (see section 3). Although any player can place a harvester, the Surveying tree in the Artisan class is required to locate particular resources (see the Surveying FAQ), so the harvester can operate most efficiently.
2.3) What kinds of harvesters are there?
There are harvesters for each type of inorganic, and SOME organic resource in the game. (There are no harvesters for any organic resources that come from animals, such as hide, bone, or shellfish- these must be killed and harvested by Scouts or sampled manually with the appropriate tools). The general types of harvesters are:
* Mineral * Chemical * Wind Generators * Solar * Fusion * Water ("What I really need is a droid that understands the binary language of moisture vaporators!") * Flora
In addition, each general type of harvester may come in several varieties, from light (personal) harvesters to heavy (industrial-class) harvesters. Each type is detailed in specific subsections below.
2.3.1) Mineral Harvesters
Mineral harvesters are used to harvest anything mineral (well, duh). This includes all metals, ores, solid petrochemicals, and radioactives (see also fusion generators in section 2.2.4). Basically, if it's not solar, water or chemical, you can get it with a mineral harvester. A mineral harvester can be used to extract any resource found using a mineral survey tool. These are far and away the most common harvester types, as almost every crafting profession requires minerals of one type or another.
Mineral harvesters come in three types:
* Personal (light) Mineral Harvester * Medium Mineral Mining Installation * Heavy Mineral Mining Installation
The larger the harvester, the more it requires in maintenance and power, but the more minerals it is capable of extracting. See section 3 for details.
2.3.2) Chemical Harvesters
Chemical harvesters are used to harvest anything, well, chemical. This includes everything you can find using a chemical surveying tool (see the Surveying FAQ), such as inert petrochemicals, liquid petrochem fuel, fiberplast, lubricating oil, and other chemicals.
Chemical harvesters come in three types:
* Personal (light) Chemical Harvester * Medium Chemical Harvester * Heavy Chemical Harvester.
The larger the harvester, the more it requires in maintenance and power, but the more minerals it is capable of extracting. See section 3 for details.
2.3.3) Wind Generators
Wind Generators are used to harvest wind energy for use in other installations. The energy harvested by a wind generator is produced in a liquid form and stored in a canister-like object that you can carry in your inventory. This power can *only* be used in other harvesters, factories and so on as a power source.
There is only one type of wind generator. It has no power requirements, as it produces, not conusmes power. It does have a maintenance requirement, however. See section 3 for details.
In general, wind generators are considered to be the low end of power generation. They do not produce large amounts of energy, but they are suitable for running a few small to medium harvesters, or for low-volume operations. Their main advantage is that they are cheap, as they can be produced by Artisans and do not require an Architect to make. An Artisan with Engineering II can make a Wind power generator, although it will not be a very good one.
2.3.4) Solar Harvesters
Solar Harvesters, usually referred to as Solar Power Generators, are used to harvest solar energy for use in other installations. The energy harvested by a solar generator is produced in a liquid form and stored in a canister-like object that you can carry in your inventory. This power can *only* be used in other harvesters, factories and so on as a power source.
There is only one type of solar generator. It has no power requirements, as it produces, not conusmes power. It does have a maintenance requirement, however. See section 3 for details.
Solar generators are a good middle of the road power generation solution. They are not too expensive to maintain, yet produce a decent amount of energy. You won't run a huge fleet of industrial harvesters with them, but you can get some pretty decent amounts of power, if you get some with a good Base Extraction Rate (BER). See Section 3 for more details on BER.
2.3.5) Fusion Generators
Fusion Generators are the high end of power generation. Fusion generators are placed on veins of radioactives, preferably with the highest PE (potential energy) possible, and produce this resource by the ton. Oddly enough, it is also possible to harvest radioactives with a mineral harvester (see section 2.2.1), but this is not very efficient, as you don't have to spend power to do it with a fusion generator.
Fusion generators, properly used, are the best bang for the buck in terms of power generation. You can get a lot of power very quickly with a good fusion generator.
2.3.6) Water Harvesters (Moisture Vaporators)
Wanna be a moisture farmer on Tatooine? Well, here's your chance. Moisture vaporators are used to get water from the environment. Although no one is required to drink water or anything like that in the game, many medical components and craftable items require water of one type or another- the most popular being Talusian water, from the moon Talus.
[I've never used a moisture vaporator before, so any comments about them are welcome here. -ed.]
2.3.7) Flora Harvesters
"Flora" refers to anything organic that isn't an animal. This includes stuff like berries, wheat, wood, and other organics that you would normally farm and/or harvest from trees or plants. Many medical components and spices require flora of one type or another, and chefs need a lot of flora items.
[I've never used a flora harvester before, so any comments about them are welcome here. -ed.]
2.4) Where do I get harvesters?
Harvesters are obtained as a deed from an artisan or architect. They vary in price depending on the skills required to make them, the resources required, and the individual server's economy. If you're an artisan, you can make (low-quality) personal harvesters yourself, until you reach Master Artisan, when you can make somewhat better personal harvesters.
2.5) How much do harvesters cost?
Artisans can make most personal harvesters, such as wind generators, personal chemical extractors, and personal flora farms, once they obtain Engineering III or IV. The larger harvesters require an architect, and more resources, so are much more expensive. As usual, however, the answer depends entirely on the ecomony of the server your character is on.
3) Placement and Operations
This section deals with questions about placing, using, and operating harvesters. Anyone can use a harvester, but only Artisans can use Surveying to find resources.
3.1) How do harvesters work?
Once placed, you put power and maintenance into a harvester, set it to harvest a particular resource, then start it up. It will run unattended, filling its hopper with the resource you specified, until one of the following occurs:
* You or someone authorized to do so (See section 3.7) shuts it down * It runs out of power * Its output hopper fills up * It runs out of maintenance (and is destroyed, along with its resources) * The resource being harvested shifts out. (See the Resource FAQ for more info)
3.2) How do I place harvesters?
Harvesters are placed like any other structure. Once you locate a suitable spot for your harvester, open your inventory and double-click the deed you wish to place, or select "Place Structure" from the radial menu [ed note- is that what the radial menu says?]. You will be shown an overhead view of your current area, with a "wireframe" outline of the harvester to be placed that you can move around to different locations by moving the mouse. The "footprint" of the harvester will be a square or rectangular block that moves around with the wireframe diagram.
Move the wireframe around to find a suitable location. If you can place a harvester, the footprint will become green as you move it over the spot. If you cannot place a harvester in a particular location, the footprint is red. You can click the right mouse button to rotate the footprint and try different orientations for your harvester.
Once you are satisfied with the location of your harvester, click the left mouse button to place the structure. If all the requirements are met, the deed will disappear from your inventory and you'll see a structure marker appear where you placed the harvester. After a few moments, the harvester itself will appear, ready for you to use.
If you can't find a suitable location, press ESC on your keyboard to return to the normal view, move to a different location, and try again.
3.2.1) Harvester placement notes
Each harvester (regardless of size or type) requires excactly ONE lot. Players have 10 lots available to them, so there is a max on the number of harvesters you can place. If you have no more lots, you cannot put down an additional harvester.
Harvesters require a flat space to be placed. The larger the harvester, the larger the area required (usually) for the harvester. You'll have a very difficult time placing a large harvester in the mountains or on hills, because there needs to be enough flat space for the harvester's footprint.
Some harvesters have irregular or rectangular footprints. You can rotate the footprint during the placement process by using the right mouse button, allowing you to try different orientations.
You can move the footprint around quite a bit while searching for a suitable placement spot- dragging the footprint to the edge of the screen will cause it to scroll automatically, up to a certain distance. However, if you can't find a suitable location, you'll have to try elsewhere.
3.2.2) Common placement problems
These are some of the most common issues when trying to place harvesters.
3.2.2.1) The ground is all yellow and/or red where I'm trying to place my harvester, and I can't put it down!
Harvesters cannot be placed near points of interest (POIs), municipal zones (static cities), or near lairs. If you're too close to a POI or static city, you'll need to move further away. If there's a lair nearby, you can destroy it (assuming you can take it on) or find another location, or wait for the lair to despawn.
3.2.2.2) I get a message "You cannot complete that action in your current state"
This just means you were running or something and tried to place a harvester before the server realized you weren't running. Just stand still for a few moments, and try again. It can take up to 3-5 seconds sometimes, but that's about the max.
3.2.2.3) I found a spot, and it was green, but when I try to place, I get a message that says "Building is not allowed here"
This is usually the result of trying to place a harvester too close to a POI, such as the Darklighter Estate on Tatooine, or within a player city. For the former, you'll need to move further away from the POI, for the latter, you could request zoning rights to place your harvester or find another spot.
(continued in next post...)
Message Edited by JimerLins on 03-08-200409:37 PM
Jimer's Bug Reporting Guide - Gonna file bugs? Read it! "A man may fight for many things. His country, his friends, his principles, the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I'd mud-wrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock and a sack of French porn." -Edmund Blackadder
Once you have placed a harvester, make sure you have added the appropriate amounts of power and maintenance (see sections 3.4 and 3.5), then select "Operate" from the radial menu. From the resulting window, you can click the "Select Resource" button to select a resource to harvest. The available list will be dependent on the location and planet you've placed your harvester. After selecting a resource to harvest, you can click "Turn Harvester On" to start the harvester, or "Turn Harvester Off" to shut it down.
The "Operate" screen also shows the Base Extraction Rate (BER) of the harvester, referred to as "Spec Rate", and the actual extraction rate, which is based on the density of the resource at a given location. So a harvester with a BER of 10 on a 50% resource would get 5 units of material per minute.
3.3.1) What is required to operate harvesters?
Power and maintenance (money). Anyone with these two items can run a harvester- there are no class restrictions on who can own or use harvesters. However, only people with the Surveying tree in Artisan can use survey tools to locate resources. Without surveying, locating a spot for placing a harvester isn't possible, although you could pay an Artisan to find a spot for you, or just place one anywhere, although this probably won't yield very good results.
3.3.2) How do I get resources from my harvesters?
Open the "Operate" screen and locate the button marked "Open Output Hopper". From there you can select which resources you wish to retrieve and do so. There is also a button marked "Dump Hopper". This empties the hopper and clears it of all resources mined. DON'T USE THIS UNLESS YOU WANT TO ACTUALLY DUMP THE RESOURCES. IF YOU DUMP THE HOPPER, YOU DON'T GET THE RESOURCES. It's just a shortcut for getting rid of the resources in the hopper without having to fetch them into your inventory, but you should not use it unless you want to destroy what is in the hopper.
3.3.3) Do I have to shut down my harvester to empty it?
No.
3.3.4) What happens if a harvester's hopper fills up?
It will shut down automatically, and you can't restart it until you remove some of the material from the hopper. Note that hopper size is determined by factors involved with the creation of the harvester, so some will be better than others in terms of how large their output hoppers are.
3.3.5) How do I set the harvester name?
Select "Set Name" from the radial menu and enter the new name. Keep it clean or a CSR will probably either change it to something else for you or worse- like simply removing it from the game world. Note that only the owner of a structure can change its name.
3.4) How do I power my harvesters?
After placing your harvester, you can access the "Status" page by clicking on the harvester, selecting "Manage" and then "Status" from the radial menu. This will give you a report on the harvester's current condition and status. It will show how many days of maintenance and (if applicable to that harvester type) power are in the harvester.
To add power, select "Deposit Power" from the radial menu. A screen will be displayed showing how much power you have on you, and you can enter an amount or drag a slider to select the amount of power you want to deposit.
A couple of notes about power- there are a number of items in the game with the word "fuel" in them, such as liquid petrochemical fuel, and solid petrochemical fuel. These are NOT used as power in harvesters, although the wording in certain sections of documentation and descriptions might make you think so. Here are the types of power you can use for harvesters:
The first two are harvested from solar and wind generators respectively. The energy is stored in liquid form in a canister-like object. The third is either harvested by a fusion generator or by a mineral mining installation set to mine radioactive mineral. Generally, using a fusion generator is much more efficient for harvesting radioactives.
Also, remember that the actual number of "units" of energy you have is affected by the PE (Potential Energy) rating of the energy you carry. The rule is, a PE rating of 500 or less on a give power resource equals exactly one unit of power. Anything about 500 and the amount of power you can get out of a resource is increased.
For example If you have 1000 units of radioactive material with exactly 500 PE, you have 1000 units of power. If you have 1000 units of radioactive material with only 250 PE, you still have exactly 1000 units of power, as you can't go below one unit of power per unit of resource. If, however, you have 1000 units of radioactive material with 750 PE, you have 1500 units of power!
The formula works like this: For anything with a PE over 500, take that PE rating, divide it by 500, then multiply the result by the amount of the resource you have to figure out how much power you have.
If PE is greater than 500- Formula: P = R * (PE/500) Where P=Amount of power and R=Amount of resource.
If PE is 500 or lower- Formula: P=R
Examples: 1000 units of PE 750 radioactive: 1000 * (750/500)=1500 3200 units of PE 920 solar power: 3200 * (920/500)=5888 7200 units of PE 114 wind power: 7200. PE is low, but you can't have fewer units of power than you do units of resource.
3.4.1) I have more than one type of power in my inventory. Can I choose which one is used when I add power to my harvester?
No. The game seems to take from the stack that was placed in your inventory first, but there is no way of being sure about this. If you want to only use one particular resource for power, it is recommended that you drop any but the particular resource you're intending to use before going to deposit power in your harvesters.
3.4.2) Can I remove power from a harvester?
No. Once deposited, it's there for good until it's used up.
3.4.3) How much power do harvesters require?
* Small (Personal) harvesters: 25 units/hour, or 600 units/day. * Medium harvesters: 50 units/hour, or 1200 units/day. * Heavy harvesters: 75 units/hour, or 1800 units/day.
Note that not all harvesters require power- wind, solar and fusion generators produce power, not consume it.
3.4.4) Do harvesters consume power when not operating?
Yes.
3.5) How do I maintain my harvesters?
Harvesters are pretty much self-maintaining, AS LONG AS THEIR MAINTENANCE IS PAID UP. Seriously, don't let them fall behind, or you'll regret it. It's much more expensive to repair a harvester that's damaged than it would be to just pay the maintenance ahead of time.
If a harvester runs out of maintenance, it starts to become damaged. If it takes enough damage, it'll start sending you emails. If you don't do anything about it, the harvester, along with anything it has extracted and any power left in it, will be destroyed when its condition rating reaches 0%. You can't get it back if this happens, so it's a good idea to keep your maintenance paid up well in advance.
To check your harvester's current status, select "Status" from the radial menu on the harvester. It'll show how much money is in the maintenance pool. You can add to this by selecting "Pay Maintenance" and entering an amount you want to deposit into the maintenance pool.
3.5.1) Can I take money out of the maintenance pool?
No. So be careful! Some people have accidentally deposited millions of credits into a harvester and regretted it.
3.5.2) How much maintenance do harvesters require?
* Small (Personal) harvesters: 30 credits/hour, or 720 credits/day. * Medium harvesters: 60 credits/hour, or 1440 credits/day. * Heavy harvesters: 90 credits/hour, or 2160 credits/day.
For maintenance purposes, all power generators use the "medium" rating for their maintenance rate, so regardless of the generator type, it requires 1440 credits/day to operate.
For all other purposes, such as who can create them, placement, and extraction rate, a wind generator is considered a "small", a solar generator is a "medium" and a fusion generator is a "heavy" harvester.
3.5.3) Do harvesters consume maintenance when not operating?
Yes.
3.6) How do I redeed my harvesters?
Redeeding a harvester is the process of removing it from the game world and converting it back to a deed that you can carry around in your inventory (convenient, no?). However, before you are allowed to redeed a harvester, several requirements must be met:
* The harvester must be turned off. * The output hopper must be empty. * There must be enough maintenance in the maintenance pool.
Note that if the maintenance pool is low you can still remove the harvester, but it will not be redeeded in this case- it will simply be destroyed and removed from the game world, and you will no longer have the harvester or the deed for it.
If you want to remove and redeed a harvester, select "Destroy Structure" from the radial menu. You'll be shown a screen that shows if the maintenance and other factors are correct for redeeding the structure. If all the items are green and you proceed, you'll get the deed back. If any are red, you won't. So choose carefully.
If you proceed, the system will generate a random number, usually 6-7 digits, that you have to type into a text box as a final confirmation that you do want to destroy the harvester. If all conditions are met, you'll see the harvester disappear from the game world and a deed placed in your inventory.
3.6.1) What happens to power and maintenance in a harvester when I redeed it?
Power and maintenance remains in the deed; if you examine the deed in your inventory, it will show the amount of maintenance and power in the harvester.
Note that when you redeed a harvester, a certain amount (the minimum in the maintenance pool for that harvester) is deducted from the maintenance pool as a "redeed fee", so you'll lose a little bit of money each time you redeed your harvester. However, power is not affected by redeeding.
3.7) Can other people use my harvesters?
Yes. There are two ways you can allow other people to use your harvesters. You can add individuals to the Admin list or you can add them to the Hopper list. Being on the Admin list lets people affect all aspects of a harvester's operation except the name and redeeding (only the owner can change the name or remove a structure). Admins can turn a harvester on or off, remove resources from or dump the output hopper and add maintenance or power to the structure. Persons on the Hopper list can only access the output hopper to retrieve resources.
To add or remove people from the permissions on a harvester, simply select the appropriate item on the radial menu.
4) Tips, Tricks, Bugs and Workarounds
This section will be used to add tips, tricks and known bugs.
Message Edited by JimerLins on 03-08-200409:38 PM
Jimer's Bug Reporting Guide - Gonna file bugs? Read it! "A man may fight for many things. His country, his friends, his principles, the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I'd mud-wrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock and a sack of French porn." -Edmund Blackadder
Nice FAQ, very detailed and well written and deserving of a sticky. One small correction. All power generators have the same maitenance, they obey the small, med, and large rule for size and placement, but they all cost the same to maintain. I'm pretty sure its the 1440 figure. They may have changed the wind ones (long time since I used on having a BER 13 and BER 24 fusion) but when I used them they had the 1440 maintenance. My fusions still do.
Message Edited by owako on 03-08-200407:25 PM
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein
owako wrote: Nice FAQ, very detailed and well written and deserving of a sticky. One small correction. All power generators have the same maitenance, they obey the small, med, and large rule for size and placement, but they all cost the same to maintain. I'm pretty sure its the 1440 figure. They may have changed the wind ones (long time since I used on having a BER 13 and BER 24 fusion) but when I used them they had the 1440 maintenance. My fusions still do.
Message Edited by owako on 03-08-200407:25 PM
Thank you very much- I've corrected section 3.5.2 and added your name to the "acknowledgements" section. I'm sure there's other inaccuracies that need correcting, so if you spot any others, please let me know.
Jimer's Bug Reporting Guide - Gonna file bugs? Read it! "A man may fight for many things. His country, his friends, his principles, the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I'd mud-wrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock and a sack of French porn." -Edmund Blackadder
While i'm thinking of it, might want to throw in the BER 4 max for small harvestors, BER 10 for meds, and BER 13 for the heavy harvestors, so people will know what the best they can get is. I know the current best on fusions is 13, and I think wind is 9, don't remember know what solar was, jumped right to fusions. Thanks for the acknolwedgement. Again, nice FAQ.
Message Edited by owako on 03-08-200410:01 PM
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein
I'll add that data into the next revision. Thanks for the info.
In the meantime, does anyone even find this useful? It sank like a rock to page two, even though I've seen at least 3 questions asked today alone that were in this FAQ. If they're not going to be used and/or useful, I'm not going to bother finishing the other FAQs I'm working on.
Jimer's Bug Reporting Guide - Gonna file bugs? Read it! "A man may fight for many things. His country, his friends, his principles, the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I'd mud-wrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock and a sack of French porn." -Edmund Blackadder
Nice faq.. exactly what I was looking for. A few questions though from something totally new to harvesting:
1) When placing a harvester for the first time, do I need to have bought or harvested power first? If not, how much power does a harvester begin with?
2) Can you buy/sell power or do you have to gather that yourself?
3) what sort of BER levels should I expect from a personal extractor? Medium extractor? etc..
4) how many units per day of power should I expect from Wind Gen? Solar Gen? Fusion Gen? Does 1 unit of Solar power = 1 unit of Fusion power if the PE level is the same?
These are more ideas than questions... I'm new to the Artisan tree. I'm 3-2-2-2 at the moment.
Wouldn't it make sense to sit a wind generator next to the Harvestor and connect it so that we don't have to collect energy from the generator and drop it in the Harvestor.
I guess you have to visit the Harvestor to collect your resources anyway, but seems like an obvious improvement.
Also, why can't we have driods that collect resources for us. i.e. buy a driod, program it, give it a waypoint and instructions and send it to collect your resources.
Nice faq.. exactly what I was looking for. A few questions though from something totally new to harvesting:
1) When placing a harvester for the first time, do I need to have bought or harvested power first? If not, how much power does a harvester begin with?
2) Can you buy/sell power or do you have to gather that yourself?
3) what sort of BER levels should I expect from a personal extractor? Medium extractor? etc..
4) how many units per day of power should I expect from Wind Gen? Solar Gen? Fusion Gen? Does 1 unit of Solar power = 1 unit of Fusion power if the PE level is the same?
Thanka again for your time & effort.
Thank you.
Answers-
1) When you place a harvester for the first time, it will have 0 power. You have to put power in it before you can operate it. 2) You can buy power from others who have harvested it. This is usually fusion power (radioactive), because it's cheapest to harvest in truly large amounts. Ask on your galaxy trade forum or look around for resource vendors on your server. 3) Personal extractors have a max of 4, mediums 9, and heavy harvesters 13. Fusion gens, I'm told, are capped at 14. As far as wind and solar goes, it would depend on the concentration and the BER. For example, a BER 9 solar generator on a 50% solar concentration would produce 4.5 units per minute, which would equate to 6480 units per day. And yes, a unit of solar/wind energy with the PE the same as some other power would produce the same amount of power, although this is only useful when calculating how many units of power you can put in a harvester. You can't use solar/wind energy for anything but power, although some crafters use radioactives for other items.
Hope this helps. I'll add these questions to the FAQ.
Jimer's Bug Reporting Guide - Gonna file bugs? Read it! "A man may fight for many things. His country, his friends, his principles, the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I'd mud-wrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock and a sack of French porn." -Edmund Blackadder
These are more ideas than questions... I'm new to the Artisan tree. I'm 3-2-2-2 at the moment.
Wouldn't it make sense to sit a wind generator next to the Harvestor and connect it so that we don't have to collect energy from the generator and drop it in the Harvestor.
I guess you have to visit the Harvestor to collect your resources anyway, but seems like an obvious improvement.
Also, why can't we have driods that collect resources for us. i.e. buy a driod, program it, give it a waypoint and instructions and send it to collect your resources.
Great FAQ by the way.
These are good ideas- particularly the droid one, and variations of these have been kicked around for some time. It's my fond hope that we'll see utility droids you can program to go do your harvester runs for you someday.
And thank you.
Jimer's Bug Reporting Guide - Gonna file bugs? Read it! "A man may fight for many things. His country, his friends, his principles, the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I'd mud-wrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock and a sack of French porn." -Edmund Blackadder
Bumping this up, hopefully will answer some questions that I've seen started getting posted again. I'll be making some changes to this and hopefully finishing up some other Artisan-related FAQs in the next few days.
Jimer's Bug Reporting Guide - Gonna file bugs? Read it! "A man may fight for many things. His country, his friends, his principles, the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I'd mud-wrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock and a sack of French porn." -Edmund Blackadder
The energy harvester next to the mineral (or what have you) harvester doesn't intreset me much, because you may not find the value you want in the same spot for both. But the droid idea is great. I don't understand why it hasn't recieved more attention. It's been almost a month since anyone has replied.
Isn't anyone else intrested in have a droid programed to go get your resources from a harvester? Load it up with a round trip ticket and a way point, or how many ever way points need to be collected, and send it on it's way. It could even deposit energy and credits to keep it running. Just asssign credits and energy values for each waypoint.
Well, this faq is a bit old, but I just found it today. A couple of things to add here.
The mineral, chemical, gas, moisture, and flora harvesters all come in the same personal/medium/heavy sizes, and all of those have the same maint costs and power consumption as the others at the same level.
The current max extraction rate on new harvestors are as follows:
You can find some medium and heavy harvestors that have an extraction rate 1 point higher than listed, these were made during when a change to the crafting system was made. That change was reversed the next day, so there are not that many around. During that 1 day it was possible to make harvestors with a 100% experimented rating, even though the resources to make perfect harvestors has never been found on any server.
In addition it is possible to find Fusion generators with an extraction rate in the high 20's. I believe the highest is a 28. These fusion generators date back from around publish 3 or 4. When the game first started, harvestors all had a fixed extraction rate (personals: 2, mediums: 4, heavy: 7, wind: 4, solar: 8, fusion: 12 I think). Somewhere around publish 3 or 4, I don't remember when it was, the changed it so that you could experiment on harvestors and increase the extration rate. The top extraction rate at that point was personals: 2, mediums: 6, heavy: 10, wind: 4, solar: 8, fusion: 14, if I remember correctly. A few weeks later they changed the harvestor extraction rates again to the current max rates. However during this update there was a bug such that any fusion generators that were in use at the time of the update from the first set of upgraded extraction rate changes got their extraction rate doubled. These fusion generators are very hard to find, and sell for extrememly high prices. I believe that they are unavailable on the European servers.
Also, a few commands that can help with working with harvestors:
Targeting a harvestor at a distance of less than 10 meters will allow you to use the following commands on that harvestor:
/struct This will open up the structure status display, showing how much maintenance and power is in the harvestor.
/addpower This will add the specified amount of power to the harvestory from your inventory. If you do not specify an amount, it will open the add power display.
/pay This will add the specified amount of credits to the maintenance fund. If you do not specify an amount, it will open the add credits display.
/name This will change the name of the harvestor to what ever you want to set it as.
Ive been a miner since launch and love it, but this is great for all those newbies that need some help.. Harvester Q's are tops on the Board clutter.. Lets clean it up : )
