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It seems to me that characters with mining skills should have an idea of the quality of the ore they draw from the stone. Likewise a smelter would have an idea of how good the metal he smelted formed.

After many attempts he/she has seen a very wide variety of their own work so certainly they'd have some concept of which were the quality and which were poorer product.

Smithing requires that metals be of the same grade. So having 2 poor pieces of tin mixed in with the other 5 pieces of good tin is a real pain when examine shows them all to be identical. I find I keep ending up with a stack of metals, and at least one in the stack is of a slightly lesser grade, so will not allow me to smith until I remove the metal that differs in quality.

I'm not sure how ores and metals are coded, but is it possible for the quality to be in their description somehow?

As it is now, you can appraise metals with Appraise (Jewelry), to get their general worth and quality. But it wouldn't be a bad idea for a miner to have an idea what they're working with, to make crafting that much easier. I know it helps me out a ton when I go to make things w/my jeweler character.

I seem to remember another thread talking about this sort of thing.

I remember Glim mentioning that the quality of the ore shouldn't be a factor, but smelting it should.

I'm not sure where exactly that thread was. If anyone remembers and could link it that'd be great.

For the record, I completely agree with you, Liandria.

Ore/metal quality is determined by 2 factors: Mining level and smelting.

Mining level is the less common conflict. But, if you gain a level in mining it leads to a different 'quality' of metal.

Smelting is the most common conflict. Every smelting failure changes the quality of the metal. In regards to some more advanced metals, like mithril, where you can fail multiple times with ore before it is destroyed, this could lead to 3 or 4 different qualities of metal easily.

The two ways I use to deal with the quality issue are: Hand sorting... which involves moving small amounts of metals between several bags until most of the same quality is in one bag. Or dumping all metal on the ground and alternating between arrowheads and weapon/armor, depending on "lack of raw materials"... course this method is highly riskly with game crashes.

Metal quality is a bit annoying, especially in the later levels of some trades that require many pieces of metal per construct. But, it is managable.

Selveem wrote:I remember Glim mentioning that the quality of the ore shouldn't be a factor, but smelting it should.

I'm not sure where exactly that thread was. If anyone remembers and could link it that'd be great.

http://www.gallwey.com/fk/board/viewtop ... =33&t=8293