Craft Q&A

[Athon]

I think the analogy between my suggestion of re-smelting ingots to auto-crafts is a bit extreme, but I get what you're saying. Here is my rebuttal:

As smiths (as well as other trades), we already have a huge time investment just into mastering our craft to the point where we can even make masterwork items. Not only that, but a single masterwork piece now takes weeks of RL-time as well as tens of platinum just to construct. Even if we had a surplus of outstanding-quality ingots, the game wouldn't be flooded with masterwork armour.

16 low = 8 average = 4 high = 2 superior = 1 outstanding. That's a flow chart of ingots under my suggestion for re-smelting ingots. Hell, if you made it a 3-1 ratio (requiring 3 pieces of a lower-quality ingot to smelt a higher-quality ingot with the safe return) would be fair in my book.

In a nutshell, there are already HUGE costs (time required to master, time required per piece, materials fee) just to make a single piece of masterwork armour. I feel that requiring a 'gamble' just to obtain enough outstanding ingots is a bit too much.

[Athon]

I'm going to roll with my slight change in my previous post and formally suggest this:

Code: Select all

Re-smelting ingots together would work in a 3:1 ratio. It would take 3 ingots of one quality smelted together to return an ingot of a higher-quality. A success would yield one ingot of one level higher whereas a failure would return the 3 ingots of the original quality. Maybe add a critical success/failure that yields an additional piece for a critiical success and destroys one piece (or more) for a critical failure?

In addition, trade focus in smelting would reduce the number of ingots required for re-smelting from 3 to 2. 

Remember, this is a suggestion and I am free to criticism/feedback. My intent is to make re-smelting a process that I want to use, not something that is a gamble that fails more than succeeds.

[Nysan]

It is a nice suggestion. But it all depends on trade focus's impact on mining and smelting overall. May not be necessary to code that change if trade focus has a respectable impact on success %, both in mining's production of higher quality ore and smelting's production of higher quality ingots.

[Selveem]

[Sarcastic mode = on]Why not just remove all ore quality and everyone mine outstanding and we're done with it? after all, it is only a matter of time and nothing else....
Or even better, we make it so that every x seconds an outstanding ingot spawn in your inventory...

That would be marvelous, and not too hard I suppose...

Or perhaps it's still too hard so we can just give everyone the Object creation commands and it's even easier this way.
After all, everything should be given to everyone for nothing, so why not just let everyone do their own items.[Sacarstic mode = off]

I love ya man, but I'm really disappointed in seeing this post.

The truth is I haven't really enjoyed the changes in mining. Athon is correct in that you primarily mine iron and finding mithril.. Has anyone even done it yet? The fact remains that there are not great veins of mithril that I've ever been able to find and even if I did, I suspect I would not be able to mine very much of it before the vein dies. With regards to ore, I find it very frustrating to try to accumulate outstanding ore.

Resmelting option is nice, but the failure rate (read: non-success rate) is frustrating. I'm wasting two of my ingots to get one. Most of the time I'm going to get the same quality or worse. I don't know precise numbers, but I could only imagine how many 'average quality' ingots it would take before I could finally get one up to outstanding.

Combine that with the highly (extremely) elusive higher-end metals, and we've got an extremely daunting task when you include how many ingots are needed just to make a breastplate.

Forget the days it takes to craft the object and imagine the IRL years the current process would take just to get one mithril breastplate.

[Nysan]

Hmm...

New question: Has anyone found and mined a mithril, metal (titanium), or other high end metal vein since the change to ingots/lumps? (High end, not platinum/gold/ect)

If so, what size was the node? Tiny? Very Rich? Huge?

No IC info like locations, keep it simple. This is merely a survey.

I haven't but I marked that up to my limited online time lately. Now, I am curious...

[Selveem]

I've not.

[Athon]

I've got searching pretty thoroughly and this is what I've found:

Iron (EVERYWHERE. 90% of the time I clear a node and get iron)
Silver (Second-most common)
Lead (almost as common as silver)
Tin
Copper
Platinum
Gold

I've searched extensively and found nothing. I've done a good amount of mining in "dangerous" areas on my GM miner and found nothing higher than iron.

Iron, silver, and lead are almost always huge or very rich veins. Everything else is small or tiny.

[Nysan]

I've got searching pretty thoroughly and this is what I've found:

Iron (EVERYWHERE. 90% of the time I clear a node and get iron)
Silver (Second-most common)
Lead (almost as common as silver)
Tin
Copper
Platinum
Gold

I've searched extensively and found nothing. I've done a good amount of mining in "dangerous" areas on my GM miner and found nothing higher than iron.

Iron, silver, and lead are almost always huge or very rich veins. Everything else is small or tiny.

A few gem nodes here and there and that is pretty much my results as well, even in high level areas. Was hoping it was just my limited time online.... If we cannot even mine the high end stuff, smelting enough to get outstanding ingots for masterwork is the least of our problems.

Any other miners have any luck?

[Selveem]

Yeah, that was kind of my point.

[Nysan]

Yeah, that was kind of my point.

I was hoping it was just me on a lead/iron bad luck streak.

[Lirith]

My experience is very much the same as Athon's plus some gems here and there. I'm yet to see anything better than platinum/gold and those two I've only seen once each.

[Nysan]

Reading the feedback received and the lack of any other posting... I'm going to assume no one has mined any high grade metals: mithril, titanium, adamantite, ect... since the change. (Anyone find any on the testport?)

Considering the amount of time many of our miners put into their trades, I see this as a problem. Rare is one thing, unattainable is a whole different ballgame.

This needs to be addressed. Steel masterwork full plate only brings armor class up to 19. High grade metal armor can reach 20 (just a guess based on pre-change mithril full plate). Might not look like much, but -1 armor across all locations adds up in damage against tough enemies.

Not to mention the lack of titanium meaning a shortage of tiny titanium shields, a well desired spell component.

[Athon]

I agree with this 100%.

Not only are the better metals not showing up, but I imagine that if one did, we wouldn't get enough of the same-quality ingot to do anything with it.

I also think we're getting WAY too much iron. My second miner, whom has gone from inept to novice, seems to only mine iron with the occasional silver. Where is the copper, tin, and lead? I've mind more gold than copper or tin.

Edit: meant to say 'occasional silver,' not iron.

[Nysan]

Life is funny sometimes and often ironic.

----
<100%hp 0m 18%mv> You gather yourself and stand up.

<100%hp 0m 18%mv> You find tiny lode of titanium!
You find something but destroy it trying to extract it.
----

Doesn't change the fact that these are nearly unattainable metals and definately not in any amount usable in armor or weapon smithing. It is ironic and funny timing though.

Edit: Quite a few 'destroy trying to extract' echoes in that tiny node.

[Selveem]

Maybe it's just me, but I was making lots of banded mail before the change. Now that my Dwarf's strength has been fixed and I gave it more time before trying the actual crafting process (sorry, I was letting you guys be the guinea pigs so I didn't get as frustrated/annoyed), I seem to be having a difficult time discerning some echos as well as suspect failure rate may be a bit higher than it should.

I started crafting and logged in a day later. It said I failed. I'm going to break it down so that everyone can understand the check I went through:

Crafting difficulty roll is this: 10 + AC bonus
If you fail to reach this roll (on a 20-sided dice), by 5 or more you must expend 1/2 the resources to continue.
If you fail by 4 or less, you made no progress this week (but you've damaged nothing!).

Because it's banded that I'm crafting, it is 10 + 6.
That means, out of a 20-sided dice, I have to get a 16 or higher. That's pretty rough if you don't take my skill level into account.

So, to match that 16 DC, the following things benefit you: your skill level in the craft, your race, whether you're using artisan's tools or not. As 'artisan's tools' are not in game, I get no bonus for that. However, I am an Expert (for the ease of argument, let's say first level of Expert) in Armorsmithing and a Dwarf (Dwarves get +2 to craft checks regarding stone or metal).

So, the way I see it, my skill should be:

10+2
3 points for every advance, starting at Apprentice and a +2 bonus for being a Dwarf.

With that in mind, it is impossible to fail the craft check by 5 or more points. Even on a natural 1, I fail, but should only lose a week, not materials as well.

So, I paid in material and coin to continue.. I logged in today after 12 hours and made no progress (yet another failure). Maybe it's just bad luck, but I only need a roll of a 4 or higher on a 20 sided dice to succeed.. That's only a 15% chance of failure. I hit that twice already? I'm just using copper!

*As a Side Note, Soulhammer needs to be made into a tool, too. It's specifically stated in the Faiths and Pantheons handbook.

[Brar]

My guess is that your guess about how craft works in FK regarding to skill level is wrong (And you forget to take stats into account too).

And regarding Soulhammer, I agree, yet it all depends on which version of this particular item you have, old or less old. Mine works perfectly

[Selveem]

Shouldn't matter. It's a craft check. Even if stats mattered, they shouldn't matter enough to put me in the hole like that. I have no negative modifiers for crafting stats, for the record.

And, as far as the Soulhammer is concerned, it didn't used to work a few months back. I'll have to check again.

[Brar]

No, stats can only add to your check, that's why I say your guesses are probably wrong on the skill level part

[Athon]

My soulhammer does not affect craft and it is one of the olddddddd soulhammers.

[Nysan]

Sorry, I don't know the formula behind the crafting system, more a question for Mask. Its hard for me to test much on Gilain, being GM and with his stats... it takes alot of the failures out of his day.

As for soulhammers, please make a new 'game suggestion' thread. Not saying it cannot be here, but you have better chances with a new thread than hoping it gets noticed on page 8 of a craft Q&A thread.