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Over the last couple of months I decided to get my build on. As many of you know I was a market builder in EA live and In stress test 3 and 4. And because of that I prefer the previous method of building where the amount of prints and builder devices and factions made you the builder vrs the current method where you can build a couple thousand items in a day or two and be the builder I was in st4 and live.   This is a tale of 2 builders.. Der Debbil and Trader. Devilmagoo my Progen warrior vrs my Progen privateer Tradermagoo.   Let's preface this by saying I chose the 2 characters because of the disparaging amount of builds on Devil vrs 0 builds on Trader.   My pw has quite a few high level prints mainly beams oddly enough.. I build all 3 bile weapons I was being fairly selective getting prints and because i was asked to be the graphics dude for the game and running Builders Inc. I needed to give something up or I would have never gotten anything done. There is only so much time in the day. So I took a year+ off from being a public builder and let a lot of early on prints go to the guild in hopes someone would take the mantle and lead the charge. Alas with my retiring as the guild leader(4 years is a long time to play anygame much less be a guild leader), and other changes, I have more time on my hands. And as some of you know I built low to mid level weapons and exotic ammo for the market when I was online and in the game. So I had quite a few builds and a decent number of prints. I just limited myself to lvl 1-6 and the occasional lvl 7 build to fill in holes for the up and coming players and not build high level stuff and have more time for doing the games graphics.   My PP Trader, I was originally planing on making him the all around agrippa builder. And be the main builder along with Warknee and Blondie my other traders. but alas.. Trader had early on problems with agrippa and with the graphics stuff I essentially gave up on him and let him sit for a year before I even got him past lvl 55. So since the graphics work has dwindled for the time being I wanted to get my builders up to snuff and this is what I learned about the new builder system.   I was told by many people that the magic number for 200% lvl 9 non agrippa builds was around 3000 to 3200 lvl 1-2-3 builds and I had a dev tell me that the higher the level the build the faster your build % would raise. So with those 2 facts in mind I went hrmmmmmm I wonder IF...(big word IF) So I decided to put that dev and the games player base to the test and see what it really takes to, 1 Build lvl 9 non agrippa items. And 2 how many on trader to build 200% agrippa. At a bad faction station.   As previously mentioned trader has nearly 0 builds other then agrippa and low level reactors and shields(maybe 40-50 builds) vrs 250-300ish builds devil has.   So I chose lvl 4-5-6 type b missile launchers 1 because they are good weapons and since I was vendoring them anyways give them to up and coming players. And they would consistently build 197-200% everytime (till i got past a 1000 or so builds then it was 200 all the time). I also wanted to do this at a base that I didn't have good faction at, and since faction makes a difference in the build%. My thought was if I can build it 200% at omp I can build 200% anywhere. I also have a decent amount of credits in the game and wanted to shorten the process a bit. i can always make money.   So Playerbase says 3000 to 3200 lvl 2 builds to get to 200% non agrippa lvl 9 builds and a 1000 more for agrippa builds. The Dev... says if you build higher level gear it takes less terminal humping to achieve that magical goal. So which one is right? The test 200% non agrippa builds and 200% agrippa builds using the weapon test lvl 9 beam as a standard. If you look at my builds on Trader it took 874 lvl 4/874 lvl 5/855 lvl 6 type b's a total of 2603 to achieve 200% lvl 9 builds( I went to mars and bought a couple of augustus reactors and mapped 1 and dismantled and rebuilt it with a 100% lvl 8 and a 100% alchemist to 200% first try) After a little consideration and if i would have checked regular builds vrs the agrippa test i would imagine it would take 24-2500 builds on a PP to achieve 200% lvl 9 normal builds. Agrippa started at 78% and after the above mentioned total of builds the agrippa test beam shows around 155% (149-164%) Far less then the 3000-3200 quoted to me. But at what cost. Having a fairly robust ego and a fairly deep set of pockets.. i take a look at this and went how much did it cost i had started at roughly 150m credits on trader expecting to see how much it really cost. total.. estimated cost was 200-250m credits. So yes while more effective to build higher level gear vrs lower level but the cost is pretty silly. Time spent vrs pocket book which is more important to you? And so der debbil, he already had a couple hundred builds and I used a ghost edge for his control (100% comps bad faction base it also uses 5 comps so it's harder to build 200% then say an archos with 3 comps) It took exactly the same amount of builds as trader to achieve 200% ( I watched his % more closely then on trader since I mistakenly used the agrippa test as the control vrs a difficult normal item) The Agrippa test score tell the tale.   Testing with an without an ego and duct tape is as follows: Agrippa Weapon test level 9 100% comps Devil at omp (2550 faction/2900 builds approx) No enhancements  157-172% 164 expected. Duct tape 160-175 167 expected Ego 171-186 179 expected Both ego and duct tape 175-190 182 expected.   This was achieved by clicking on a different item then clicking the test line till the highest % was reached a couple times.   Tradermagoo at omp (1019 faction 2700 builds maybe total) No enhancements 149-164% 156 expected Duct tape 150-167 157 expected Ego 163-178 171 expected Both  166-181 174 expected.   Both devil and trader started out with 80% agrippa beam test builds without enhancements.   Thanks go to Ralen for loaning me the duct tape > :)   Conclusion lvl 1-2-3 builds as per the community is 3000 or so, lvl 4-5-6 is 24-2500 builds(easy builds) 2800ish for harder builds for non agrippa and approx 3200-3400 for agrippa builds (sans ego/duct tape). Building I would use a better faction station and enhancements till you get your builds done.   For fun i went to prasad station in xt to check devil's %  because he has +37,000 Shinwa warrior faction   I did not have a duct tape but you will get the basic idea of what a really high positive faction is worth.   lvl 9 agrippa weapon test No enhancements 167-182 175 expected Ego 181-196 189% expected..   So yes faction makes a pretty signifigant change.   Someone asked in market what a 200% comp vrs 100% comp build is.   Agrippa test OMP 2550 faction/2900 builds No enhancements 164-179 171 expected ego 179-194 186 expected.   And people asked why I made all the comps in the game.. 5% on one comp...   I was asked to make a MTL beam for a guildy and with 1 200% comp (astral mount) I saw 189-198 192 at omp without an ego (ego was 200/200 and thats what the beam built) So if you use a MTL with 100% comps and low faction you would be a bit more accurate. Just an obvservation.   As an update to the above post I kept going to get my agrippa build on, and here are the numbers for 193-200(lowest I can get at omp) Flechette 9 build 4 100% comps 1200 faction no ego no controller nadda just me and the machine 193-200 or 200/200 lvl 4 type b's  = 877 lvl 5 type b's  = 874 lvl 6 type b's  = 855 lvl 4 draco's  = 650 lvl 5 draco's  = 646 Total 3902*   I did find that every 144 builds = 6% for agrippa I switched to dracos because my js actually made money (broke even/just postive) building 4/5's vrs adding the 6's.   2600 builds = 200% vendor level gear 2900 builds = 200% 4 part builds 3200 builds = 5 part weapons and reactors (essentially everything non agrippa) 200% builds <-- the number you should shoot for(My pw is in this range and cranks out 200% biles and stuff at will without the ego or duct tape or other nonsense at a 1500 faction station) 4000 builds for agrippa flechette 9's.   Conclusion after all this building, build lvl 1-2 stuff it makes 0 difference. If you want to build this level instead of the lower level stuff then build 4/5 3-4-5 stuff or level 5 alone leave the lvl 6 stuff alone it chews up more money then it's worth and a negotiate toon can at least break even with 4/5 builds. If you only build at high faction stations with 200% comps and a matrix device you could knock off 500 builds. Just don't try 100% comps at a bad faction station.(which was my goal) With all that said now you have a goal to shoot for and know what to expect. Optimal builds for a non agrippa builder is around 3200 builds. You can walk into pretty much any base and crank out 200% gear at this level. Good luck and have fun I hoped this helped someone.   * currently I have approx 300 builds worth of comps to use up.