[Guide] Reverse Engineering

[ColbyC]

Thanks for the info. It had been driving me nuts that with artifice I couldn't RE a focus or shield. Now for an update to fix it.

[donmoocao]

I don't know how helpful this kind of data is. While cleaning out my cargo hold, I found 2 stacks of Desh, and decided to craft them all into Might Armoring 2 mods and RE them to see what happened. If my calculations are correct, that ends up being something like 148 Might Armoring 2 mods. I learned the blue version after about 3 REs. I decided to do the rest just because. I learned no more schematics, received no "You already know that schematic" messages, received no messages indicating that there were no more schematics to learn from this item, and did not critically craft any mods.

 

I have gotten the message for an already known schematic when trying to RE a particular mod. It does happen but just how RNG works sometimes.

[Khultar]

If I understand you right, you've gotten 3 of the 4 Tier 2 prefixes from reverse engineering your Redoubt recipe. I presume you're looking for the fourth one, Veracity (defense/shield). There is no limit to the number of purples you can unlock on one recipe--you will eventually get the 4th one. Just keep in mind that the game may try to teach you a variation you already know, so it will be harder to unlock the 4th one, since you still have an equal chance to re-roll one of the first three (which will fail and give you nothing since you already know it).

 

That Really sux, thank you for the info.

[HarvardAce]

I don't know how helpful this kind of data is. While cleaning out my cargo hold, I found 2 stacks of Desh, and decided to craft them all into Might Armoring 2 mods and RE them to see what happened. If my calculations are correct, that ends up being something like 148 Might Armoring 2 mods. I learned the blue version after about 3 REs. I decided to do the rest just because. I learned no more schematics, received no "You already know that schematic" messages, received no messages indicating that there were no more schematics to learn from this item, and did not critically craft any mods.

 

I believe the code properly does not give you an RE success on linear progression RE's -- i.e. if you already have the next tier up schematic you will never have a success on a linear progression RE.

 

Has anyone gotten a "you already have this schematic" message when REing a base item into its Tier 1 equivalent, or only when going from T1 to T2? I admittedly don't have a ton of the branching RE because I'm a cybertech, but I've never gotten the message when going from base to T1 -- only while going from T1 to T2.

[Soobe]

Armormechs can only RE Armormech armor

 

You can also RE the base armor your companions (or at least your first companion) comes with. Not sure if that's a bug or not, but it highlighted as RE-able for my armormech and gave me resources. It's odd some of the things the game will let me RE that I did not craft. Pretty sure that's a bug.

Edited January 12, 2012 by Soobe

[Delrusant]

Anyone tries to follow the special comment by your companion?

 

I have luck and no luck with basic crafting (exceptionnal or not) when REing.

 

But that is twice in 2 days that the special comment worked (not the smae companion, and not the usual job well done comment, kira/T7). This time it was with a lvl 47 blue bracer, and got the RE for critical bracer on the one that got commented on (but was not exceptionnal)

 

Earlier today I tried to RE exceptionnal items and got the same RNG as normal items (but they had no special comment when crafted).

 

 

It might be coincidence, but I would like other to pay attention to this because we only need one "special comment did not RE" to forget this stuff. (if it is RE-ed just after the comment was made, not 5 RE-ed later).

[Kotodama]

"Just because you can achieve the same results via another path does not mean one path or the other is useless.

 

Objection.

You've missed the point. The point of the armor crafting being 'not neccessary' holds true because if its not neccessary then it makes the crew skills associated redundant, meaning people can just buy the better gear and invest in a different crew skill(s) that allow them to strengthen yet another area.

[immortifier]

Does anyone.know if i can reverse engineer a my preorder crystal

:confused:

[immortifier]

And modification that i buy with commendations

[Rheria]

Yay, finally got the lvl 48 Hyperaccelerated Power Generator to its purple counterpart. Only took 97 REd blue offhands That said, got lucky in that I have gotten exactly the schematic I wanted.

 

Anyhow, it's actually kind of bugged. States that it provides 47 Power, which is increase of 6 compared to blue one(and stat comparison window reflects that), but actually it's only 34 points. Wonder where other points have gone.. Other stats are also bit glitchy - I've put augment before I noticed that, but.. Surge is supposed to be 75 with 28 of it coming from augment(so 47 core), while only giving 62 total(so that's again, 34 instead of 47). Everything else seems to be in order, but well..

Edited January 13, 2012 by Rheria

[Arch-Stanton]

Yay, finally got the lvl 48 Hyperaccelerated Power Generator to its purple counterpart. Only took 97 REd blue offhands That said, got lucky in that I have gotten exactly the schematic I wanted.

 

Anyhow, it's actually kind of bugged. States that it provides 47 Power, which is increase of 6 compared to blue one(and stat comparison window reflects that), but actually it's only 34 points. Wonder where other points have gone.. Other stats are also bit glitchy - I've put augment before I noticed that, but.. Surge is supposed to be 75 with 28 of it coming from augment(so 47 core), while only giving 62 total(so that's again, 34 instead of 47). Everything else seems to be in order, but well..

 

I've also noticed the popup stat comparison window to be a little flaky (sometimes it shows a stat as a red decrease when it is actually a green increase, etc.).

[HarvardAce]

Does anyone.know if i can reverse engineer a my preorder crystal

:confused:

 

I don't believe that you can anymore. People were buying them from the preorder crystal vendor at 10 credits a pop and sometimes getting the purple treasure hunting component by doing so. Even if you could, all you would get would be materials and not the schematic.

 

As for modifications you get from commendation vendors, if you are a cybertech, yes, you can reverse engineer them. If they are not normally craftable (e.g. any of the "B" mods, tank-centric mods, or tank-centric armorings before around level 31 (when you actually learn those versions), then you will get materials but will never get a schematic from them.

 

At this point, I'm not sure if you can get a success from REing a mod you bought from a commendation vendor even if that mod is craftable. I've tried to do a few (bought ones I could craft because I had extra commendations I wasn't going to use and tried to RE them) and never got a schematic from it, but I also admittedly only tried it about 10 times which isn't enough to say for sure that you can't get a schematic from it. That said, even if you can, it would be a schematic you would also be able to learn through the normal craft->RE route.

[Duneadah]

Just heads up for people.

 

I am Synthw.. and as the OP states that Artifact armor can't be Re-e for upgrade , which on some level is not true. If anyone wan't i can post

some pictures , but i have (well just because i changed my Gloves to new ones) i re-e the Artifact gloves and discovered new schematic for it which was called Supremacy . It was also purple but it had addition stats on it *surge + something*

 

I haven't tried it with other purple but i am 100% sure i did it that time.

 

Please if you wan't ask for Pictures!

 

*p.s MY first post *

Edited January 13, 2012 by Duneadah

[Hydrolix]

I've seen a lot of comments about the critical crafting component. I thought that I'd just let everyone know that C2-N2 (not sure about the sith equivalent's name), that runs my ship, crits on crafting significantly more often than any of my other companions even the ones that I have 8k+ affection with.

 

I'm Artiface so he doesn't have any listed bonuses, but it isn't a fluke, I noticed it a while back and have been testing and while I'm not a math person who can shoot formulas or % at you, I can say that his crit % is exponentially greater than the rest of my companions.

 

If any of you are trying to get crit crafts, try using him and give me some feedback. I'd like to know if this is universal.

[Hydrolix]

Just heads up for people.

 

I am Synthw.. and as the OP states that Artifact armor can't be Re-e for upgrade , which on some level is not true. If anyone wan't i can post

some pictures , but i have (well just because i changed my Gloves to new ones) i re-e the Artifact gloves and discovered new schematic for it which was called Supremacy . It was also purple but it had addition stats on it *surge + something*

 

I haven't tried it with other purple but i am 100% sure i did it that time.

 

Please if you wan't ask for Pictures!

 

*p.s MY first post *

 

This is normal if your original schematic started out blue instead of green.

[kyoseki]

I've seen a lot of comments about the critical crafting component. I thought that I'd just let everyone know that C2-N2 (not sure about the sith equivalent's name), that runs my ship, crits on crafting significantly more often than any of my other companions even the ones that I have 8k+ affection with.

I've noticed that 2V-R8 (the Sith droid) does much the same thing, he's better at investigations than the characters who supposedly specialize in them.

 

.. now if only we could make him less annoying.

[Cortonto]

This is normal if your original schematic started out blue instead of green.

 

So if I was to RE my Artifact quality lvl 47 Yellow and/or Orange Color Crystals which start as Blue schematics, would I then be able to get a higher version of it?

[I-ku-u]

Last weekend, while relegated to playing on my laptop, I decided to carefully gather some stats. I had a mid-30s Biochemist (331 skill), and an alt just in position to choose her skills, so my testing focussed on the low level Biochem crafts. The idea being to have my experienced biochemist make most of the items so that my newbie biochemist could RE at controlled skill levels.

 

What follows is rather long and likely only of interest to those who want an idea how to better determine what RE's success rate depends on.

 

First test was the experienced biochemist RE'd 30 Compact Medpacs (who already know the blue and purple versions) to gather info on how often the "you already know that schematic" message appeared. It didn't appear once. I'd been hoping to see it happen multiple times as it would have made the later testing simpler. Oh well.

 

Second test, my newbie RE'd 158 Compact Medpacs at skill lvl 1, until my patience gave out, without success.

 

I then did 5 rounds on the newbie of:

1) skill up to 9 by making Compact Medpacs

2) RE them until success

3) unlearn biochem

The number of REs needed were: 4, 1, 6, 7 & 5.

 

I did three rounds as above at skill 7, with success after 2, 1 & 4 REs. At this point, I was losing patience with waiting to skill up after each successful RE, so I got my experienced char to make a pile of each of the stimulants so I could RE multiple items at each skill level.

 

The newbie then tried to RE 20 each of two of the stims (I think resolve and skill, but I'm not sure), but without success. I put that idea on hold since the stims weren't behaving like the medpacs were.

 

I did 5 rounds on the newbie as above, but skilling up to 5. The number of REs needed were 5, 12, 4, 1 & 3.

 

Then for skill 3, I only managed two rounds on the newbie. Again patience was a factor in the testing, but this time because the number of REs needed were 15 & 84. Yes, 84 the second time.

 

At this point, I made the realization that the second of the skill 3 tests may have been affected by the fact that I skilled up to 3 by making a stim, not a medpac. In other words, I realized that whether my char had actually made any of the item being RE'd might be a factor in the success rate, which could explain why the 40 stims didn't yield success.

 

At this point, I went back to REing stims on the newbie, but at skill 11.

 

I REd 63 Reflex stims without success, and never made any of them (I'd intended to RE 70, but I accidentally RE'd a stack of 7 of them, again, without success).

Might stims, of which I made several throughout the testing, RE'd after 5 & 6 attempts, but the third run failed after 42 - my notes aren't clear as to whether I skilled up to 11 that third time by making any might stims.

Skill stims were RE'd 33 times without success, even though I made some to skill up to 11.

Resolve stims, which were also made during skilling up, were tested 4 times, REing each time after 1, 8, 10 & 14 tries.

 

My patience was almost non-existant at this point, which is perhaps why I delayed so in posting my data.

 

Anyway, I went into this testing with the conjecture that the ratio of the char's skill with some "skill rating" of the item was important to the success rate of the RE, and that would be consistent with (but not confirmed by) the medpac data. The stim data though raises questions:

1) Does the char making the item increase the RE chance?

2) Do the stims have different "skill rating"s?

3) If making the item matters, then does resetting the skill reset the memory of making the item?

 

Another question I had at the beginning was if the "you already know…" message appeared as frequently as a successful RE, which I had intended to test by doing multiple rounds of:

1) skill up to some fixed value

2) RE until success

3) RE until "you already know…" msg

4) unlearn

 

Oh, and I can answer the question of what happens to learned schematics after you forget a skill. Every time but one, my char did not recall the learned medpac schematic upon relearning biochem. Given the number of times I relearned, that one exception is likely to have been a UI bug (or operator error) - I didn't test it by trying to make it, since my focus was elsewhere.

 

Anyway, since my number of tests are still relatively small, little can really be concluded from the testing. I clearly don't have the patience to continue with the methodology, but perhaps others in this forum do.

 

Oh, my newbie was (and still is) a lvl 8 Imperial Agent, who went to fleet right after acquiring Kaliyo - in case folks want to track the companion's skill contribution to the testing.

 

To sum up the methodology suggested:

A) use a low level char that has zero investment in any skills for the testing, because the char will need to unlearn the crafting skill multiple times

B) RE at a particular skill level

C) track the items made to skill up to that level for each run *and* in the entire history of the char.

D) have multiple types of items to RE at each skill level, otherwise you may spend longer preparing to do each run than doing the run itself.

E) Even if you expect to RE in under 10 tries, it's good to have 40+ of the item in question.

F) I suggest to only RE items that are learned from the initial training, or from REing those - otherwise there'll be too much variation in the data (and you'll be paying for schematics just to forget them later).

G) (Edit) Make most of the items to be REd from a higher lvl char.

 

If the item stacks then you can make help yourself a little with the following trick. Before you start REing, put the item in question in a quickslot so the game will tell you how many of that item you start with and you can then see how many are left when the RE succeeds. If you don't do that, or the item doesn't stack, then carefully recording each RE can get tedious too. You can't go by the number of messages received about the items looted from the RE because sometimes nothing is returned.

 

I figure that focussing on the numbers that result when REing the initially taught items, we can tease out a pattern.

 

Here's hoping all that info helps!

Edited January 13, 2012 by I-ku-u

[Rynak]

Out of curiosity, has anyone managed to RE the Beskar'gam blue items you learn from the crafting trainer (armgaurds, boots or gloves)? I've tried many, many times and only get mats. I want to make sure that this level 49 named blue recipe and in fact be upgraded to artifact quality (no theroycrafting please, only let me know if you have actually accomplished it).

[tloris]

Out of curiosity, has anyone managed to RE the Beskar'gam blue items you learn from the crafting trainer (armgaurds, boots or gloves)? I've tried many, many times and only get mats. I want to make sure that this level 49 named blue recipe and in fact be upgraded to artifact quality (no theroycrafting please, only let me know if you have actually accomplished it).

 

again, been done plenty of time with Synthweaving. I am 95% certain there was a SS confirmation of success with Armormech.

[MuratReis]

I am at lvl 12 and have spent about 10k credits RE the assault carbine and sonic rifle. The first time I RE these weapons I attained the critical prefix schematic. However, since then I haven't been able to derive any other prefixes from these base items. Am I doing something wrong or is this to be expected? TY-Murat Edited January 14, 2012 by MuratReis

[donmoocao]

It's all RNG. First time I RE'd I got the 3 T1 Prefix back-to-back and sometimes it takes 30-40 tries to get the T1 prefix and it has taken ~100 RE to get the T2 prefix that I want sometimes. Others have tried 200+ and still haven't gotten what they've wanted. I've been trying to get all the good combinations of and sometimes you get lucky and sometimes it takes awhile just keep at it.

[MuratReis]

Yeah -- I just found that out: after an hour or so more of REing, I derived the other two tier 1 schematics back to back.

 

I'm now farming a low-level prototype drop in hopes of REing it into a nice schematic. I suppose this will take awhile....

 

Thanks for the feedback. though

[Arch-Stanton]

Last weekend, while relegated to playing on my laptop, I decided to carefully gather some stats. I had a mid-30s Biochemist (331 skill), and an alt just in position to choose her skills, so my testing focussed on the low level Biochem crafts. The idea being to have my experienced biochemist make most of the items so that my newbie biochemist could RE at controlled skill levels.

 

What follows is rather long and likely only of interest to those who want an idea how to better determine what RE's success rate depends on.

 

First test was the experienced biochemist RE'd 30 Compact Medpacs (who already know the blue and purple versions) to gather info on how often the "you already know that schematic" message appeared. It didn't appear once. I'd been hoping to see it happen multiple times as it would have made the later testing simpler. Oh well.

 

Second test, my newbie RE'd 158 Compact Medpacs at skill lvl 1, until my patience gave out, without success.

 

I then did 5 rounds on the newbie of:

1) skill up to 9 by making Compact Medpacs

2) RE them until success

3) unlearn biochem

The number of REs needed were: 4, 1, 6, 7 & 5.

 

I did three rounds as above at skill 7, with success after 2, 1 & 4 REs. At this point, I was losing patience with waiting to skill up after each successful RE, so I got my experienced char to make a pile of each of the stimulants so I could RE multiple items at each skill level.

 

The newbie then tried to RE 20 each of two of the stims (I think resolve and skill, but I'm not sure), but without success. I put that idea on hold since the stims weren't behaving like the medpacs were.

 

I did 5 rounds on the newbie as above, but skilling up to 5. The number of REs needed were 5, 12, 4, 1 & 3.

 

Then for skill 3, I only managed two rounds on the newbie. Again patience was a factor in the testing, but this time because the number of REs needed were 15 & 84. Yes, 84 the second time.

 

At this point, I made the realization that the second of the skill 3 tests may have been affected by the fact that I skilled up to 3 by making a stim, not a medpac. In other words, I realized that whether my char had actually made any of the item being RE'd might be a factor in the success rate, which could explain why the 40 stims didn't yield success.

 

At this point, I went back to REing stims on the newbie, but at skill 11.

 

I REd 63 Reflex stims without success, and never made any of them (I'd intended to RE 70, but I accidentally RE'd a stack of 7 of them, again, without success).

Might stims, of which I made several throughout the testing, RE'd after 5 & 6 attempts, but the third run failed after 42 - my notes aren't clear as to whether I skilled up to 11 that third time by making any might stims.

Skill stims were RE'd 33 times without success, even though I made some to skill up to 11.

Resolve stims, which were also made during skilling up, were tested 4 times, REing each time after 1, 8, 10 & 14 tries.

 

My patience was almost non-existant at this point, which is perhaps why I delayed so in posting my data.

 

Anyway, I went into this testing with the conjecture that the ratio of the char's skill with some "skill rating" of the item was important to the success rate of the RE, and that would be consistent with (but not confirmed by) the medpac data. The stim data though raises questions:

1) Does the char making the item increase the RE chance?

2) Do the stims have different "skill rating"s?

3) If making the item matters, then does resetting the skill reset the memory of making the item?

 

Another question I had at the beginning was if the "you already know…" message appeared as frequently as a successful RE, which I had intended to test by doing multiple rounds of:

1) skill up to some fixed value

2) RE until success

3) RE until "you already know…" msg

4) unlearn

 

Oh, and I can answer the question of what happens to learned schematics after you forget a skill. Every time but one, my char did not recall the learned medpac schematic upon relearning biochem. Given the number of times I relearned, that one exception is likely to have been a UI bug (or operator error) - I didn't test it by trying to make it, since my focus was elsewhere.

 

Anyway, since my number of tests are still relatively small, little can really be concluded from the testing. I clearly don't have the patience to continue with the methodology, but perhaps others in this forum do.

 

Oh, my newbie was (and still is) a lvl 8 Imperial Agent, who went to fleet right after acquiring Kaliyo - in case folks want to track the companion's skill contribution to the testing.

 

To sum up the methodology suggested:

A) use a low level char that has zero investment in any skills for the testing, because the char will need to unlearn the crafting skill multiple times

B) RE at a particular skill level

C) track the items made to skill up to that level for each run *and* in the entire history of the char.

D) have multiple types of items to RE at each skill level, otherwise you may spend longer preparing to do each run than doing the run itself.

E) Even if you expect to RE in under 10 tries, it's good to have 40+ of the item in question.

F) I suggest to only RE items that are learned from the initial training, or from REing those - otherwise there'll be too much variation in the data (and you'll be paying for schematics just to forget them later).

G) (Edit) Make most of the items to be REd from a higher lvl char.

 

If the item stacks then you can make help yourself a little with the following trick. Before you start REing, put the item in question in a quickslot so the game will tell you how many of that item you start with and you can then see how many are left when the RE succeeds. If you don't do that, or the item doesn't stack, then carefully recording each RE can get tedious too. You can't go by the number of messages received about the items looted from the RE because sometimes nothing is returned.

 

I figure that focussing on the numbers that result when REing the initially taught items, we can tease out a pattern.

 

Here's hoping all that info helps!

 

Awesome, finally, some good stats in there.

 

I've been keeping a log as well, but Armormech is a little different. I've also noted how often i'm crit crafting items while I'm making them to RE, and who did so. I have seen Mako with a higher level of affection crit craft almost the exact same number of times as my droid with zero affection. I have seen similar trends of huge numbers of RE with nothing and then have two REs back to back, not enough info to be statistically sig yet.

 

Do you have a spreadsheet? Heading for NY today, return next thurs, but I also hoped to put together very simple spreadsheet/crafting log that people can use to track their crafting stats easily without having to manage all of the stuff on their own.

[face_hindu]

I am an experienced Synthweaver, and have just read this entire thread. Slaign, you rock.

 

There are 3 unanswered questions that I am very interested in knowing the answer to:

 

1. Can you RE a Tier 2 Artifact to Legendary?

 

2. Can you crit craft (i.e. c/w Augment slot) an Orange with empty slots?

 

3. Can you get a schematic from REing an Orange?

 

Regarding my second question, I have seen the screenies of the orange blaster and cannon, but Slaign asked specifically about the initial condition of that gear, when crafted, and wasn't answered. As an aside, the way the stats display on those items is different than any orange I've seen, with the stats broken out under each slot. Not saying I don't buy it - but I'd like to see, say, a Dreliad Jacket with an Aug slot.

 

Very interested in question 1.

 

Thank you so much all.

 

Lightsaber!