Experimentation Overview

Experimentation is the process by which a player increases the statistics on crafted items.

Almost every item that can be experimented on has stats . These stats are tied to particular experimentation categories. For example, Wind generators have two categories: Experimental Efficiency (tied to extraction rate) and Experimental Storage (tied to hopper size).

The experimental categories are displayed as percentages between 0% and 100%. The player experiments by allocating experimentation points of which whose quantity is determined by having experimentation modifiers. Every 10th value increase in experimentation modifiers, adds 1 experimentation point to the player. The success type of the experiment ("good success", "great success", "moderate failure") determines how much improvement (or deterioration) is applied to the experimentation percentage. For example, a "great success" increases the category + 7% for every point you spent; spend 5 points and get a great success, and the percentage increases by 35%.

Stats on in-game items have a minimum value (at 0% experimentation) and a maximum value (at 100%). The actual value of the stat is calculated using a linear scale between these two points and the experimental percentage you reached. You take the minimum stat value and add the stat range (Max - Min) times the experimental percentage.

For example:

Stat = [Base value at 0% experimentation] + ( [ Increase ] x [Experimental Percentage])

To determine the Mass bonus gained from experimenting we take the base amount that the item starts with and plug in the maximum amount that it can be increased by along with the value we experiment the item to. The result is as follows:

X-Wing Blueprint: Mass = 97500 + (5000 x E)

with E = Experimental Percentage
and 5000 = value of the item at 100% experimentation or in other words 5000 x 1.0 if E =100%.

The limits on the "best" item you can make is determined by the hard-coded maximum at 100% experimentation,and resource quality. Resource stats determine both the maximum experimentation percentage and (along with the assembly success) the starting experimentation percentage.

The Experimentation Window

After the initial assembly, a player is prompted to choose the option to experiment on an item if they are near a crafting station and are using a specialized tool. If the player chooses to experiment at crafting screen 4, they are then moved on to crafting screen 5 which is the allocation of experimentation points. On this screen there will be shown a bar to the leftmost, which contains the grouping of experimentation points available to be used.

Allocation Bar and Experimentation Percentage Meter

In the middle are the allocation bars and the experimentation percentage meters under them. The allocation bars are what players use to place the points into. These blocks are typically measured by the amount of experimentation percentage that the player fills up in the experimentation percentage meter under it. For every 10% filled in the experimentation meter, an experimentation allocation box is filled up and turned yellow. Once the box is filled, it remains this way unless a failure of some type occurs. During the occurance of an experimentation failure, the obtained experimentation amount is reduced by a rate which is linked to the type of failure. For example a critical failure will reduce the experimentation meter by 14%. This means that 14% is subtracted from whatever the current amount is on the experimentation meter and allocation bar. If during an experiment, the player gets a failure that brings down their experimentation meter to 0%, they will be unable to increase the experimentation bar any further and must either create the item as it is, or destroy it by closing the crafting process.

The general purpose of the experimentation percentage meter is to allow the player to gauge the progress of their experimentation to see if they are reaching the maximums available for that item. The experimentation percentage meter is somewhat misleading however as it only displays the average values of all the experimental properties under that particular experimentation line. This can cause a value to appear lower than what is actually present for some properties. Allocation boxes fill during crafting whenever the absolute caps are reached for the experimentation percentage meters. This means that when the player hits the highest value possible for all properties, then the allocation box will fill and turn yellow as well. Until this occurs, the player can continue to use the box(s) to fill the experimentation bars up until they run out of points to spend or reach the cap (whichever eventuality occurs first). For more information about how experimentation percentage meters work see Assembly Mechanics.

Complexity Bar

To the top right of the window is the complexity meter. Every item begins with a complexity value, and every time a player runs an experiment, the complexity value increases by one point. Running 8 experiments would increase the complexity value by 8 points.

Risk Meter

Source References