Arknights: How Do Jaye's Base Skills Work?

Jaye's base skills have been causing quite some confusion since his release. Both skills are much more complicated than a typical base skill, and it's not easy to figure out the best way to use him in your Trading Posts. Hopefully, this guide can help.

First, let's look at what each skill does.

Elite 0 Base Skill: Street Economics

When this Operator is assigned to a Trading Post, increases order acquisition efficiency by +4% for every difference of 1 orders between the current number of orders and the maximum number of orders

In a Trading Post with no pending orders, Jaye will grant efficiency equal to 4% multiplied by the order limit. Every pending order will decrease this by 4%. This means you can increase production by frequently collecting orders.

Example Calculation: E0

Let's put Jaye into a Trading Post with E2 Cliffheart. Cliffheart's base skill, Karlan Commercial β, grants +15% production and +4 order limit. Max-level Trading Posts have an innate 10 order limit, and Cliffheart will increase that to 14. Jaye will provide a 4% boost for every order limit: 56% in total. Cliffheart provides another 15%, for a total of 71%.

Every uncollected order will reduce this by 4%. For example, if there are 2 uncollected orders, Cliffheart and Jaye will only provide a 63% boost.

Elite 1 Base Skill: Basic Needs

When this Operator is assigned to a Trading Post, reduces the order limit by -1 for every 10% order acquisition efficiency provided by all other Operators stationed at that Trading Post; furthermore, increases order acquisition efficiency by +4% per every 1 orders

(This stacks with the effects of Street Economics.)

First, this skill increases production by 4% for every pending order. This partially cancels out Street Economics, which decreases production as orders arrive. Now, Jaye simply provides a 4% boost for every order limit, and this boost will not change over time.

But that's not all: for every 10% of production granted by other operators, Jaye will lower the order limit by 1. This will in turn decrease production by 4%. The game rounds down when counting "every 10% of production".

Example Calculation: E1

Again, let's put Jaye in a Trading Post with E2 Cliffheart. The 15% production boost is divided by 10% and rounded down to 1, so Basic Needs decreases the order limit by 1. The final order limit is 13: 10 from the Trading Post itself, 4 from Cliffheart, and -1 from Jaye.

Jaye will increase production by 4% for every order limit, a total of 52%. Cliffheart then adds an additional 15%, for a 67% total production boost.

Elite 0 Jaye

To calculate how much a particular operator will increase production when working with E0 Jaye, multiply their order limit boost by 4%, and add their production boost. For example, Plume's Order Management α grants +2 order limit and +10% production. Multiplying 2 by 4% gives 8%, and adding 10% to that gives us a total of 18%. Thus, Plume will boost production by 18% when working with Jaye.

Here's a nice and pretty formula:

The best operators to use with E0 Jaye are Texas and Lappland (E2). Texas provides a +65% production boost, while Lappland grants +4 order limit, which translates to 16% production from Jaye. The Trading Post's innate 10 order limit boosts this by another 40%, to a total of 121%.

Other good operators are:

• E2 SilverAsh E2 (36% production)
• E2 Croissant (34% production)
• E2 Bison (34% production)
• E2 Cliffheart (31% production)

Elite 1 Jaye

This is a bit more complicated, as we need to look at pair of operators instead of individual operators. Like the above calculation, we can figure out how much a particular pair of operators will boost production when working with Jaye.

Start by calculating the order limit granted by the pair of operators. Add up the total order limit boost, and subtract the order limit penalty inflicted by Basic Needs. This number can be negative. For example, Melantha and Orchid provide +2 order limit and +50% production. First, divide the total production boost (50%) by 10%, giving 5 with no rounding needed. Subtract that from 2, and we get -3. This means adding adding Melantha and Orchid to a Trading Post with Jaye will decrease the order limit by 3.

Next, multiply the order limit boost by 4%, and add the production boost provided by the other operators. For Melantha and Orchid, multiplying -3 by 4% gives -12%, and adding the 50% production boost results in a total production boost of 38%. This means adding Melantha and Orchid to Jaye's Trading Post will increase production by 38%.

Once again, here's a formula:

The best operators to use with E1 Jaye are SilverAsh and Cliffheart, both E2. They increase the total order limit to 15, and provide a total production boost of 95%. Using Texas and E2 Lappland grants slightly faster production (97%), but it's better to use those two in another Trading Post with Exusiai. If you don't have Exusiai, use Texas and E2 Lappland with E1 Jaye instead of SilverAsh and Cliffheart.

If you don't have both SilverAsh and Cliffheart at E2, and are also missing either Texas or E2 Lappland, it's better to avoid using Jaye and use 3 operators with 30% production boosts instead (for 90% total). There are many operators with 30% Trading Post base skills, most of which don't even require E2 upgrades. For example:

• Yato
• Fang E1
• Midnight
• Catapult
• Haze E1
• Mousse

You may have noticed that an Elite 1 Jaye provides less production than an Elite 0 Jaye. Unfortunately, his E1 base skill, Basic Needs, decreases Jaye's production boost based on his coworkers' production boosts. If you want your Trading Post to be as efficient as possible, it's better to leave Jaye at Elite 0.

However, Jaye is also quite a strong operator. His healing is quite powerful, and his low redeployment time makes him very versatile. If you want to use Jaye on the battlefield, it's probably worth decreasing your LMD production to upgrade him to Elite 1.