Craft Q&A

[Athon]

I'm really liking the changes to mining/smelting. Finally having the quality levels (and more variety) makes it so much better!

However, I'm really torn with the overall change to craft. I love the potential it has and that it doesn't require 1000 successes in order to level up. And being able to craft offline is just spectacular! I'm super happy that harder things impact trade levels more!

What I am torn about: I really don't like the fact that your time spent logged-in has no effect on your crafting now. I like to RP in the forge and now that just counts as longer time until my project is crafted. I would like to see all time spent in the room that you set your craft in, whether logged in or not, counted towards your craft process. If this was added, I would LOVE to see an echo that "so and so is working in the forge" while the craft process is going on to other players that enter the room!

I don't really see a need for a "materials" fee. We've already seen the prices for weapons/armour to vendors drop as is. Now that it takes much longer to craft a single piece, any impact of profit is diminished even further. Obviously, the main intent is to sell our crafted weapons/armour to other players for good prices. But weaponsmithing and armoursmithing already have HUGE time investments; taxing the trades further with materials fees seems a bit unneeded.

I would also like to see shorter crafting times. It took me almost a week to craft a light metal shield. If I'm going to make a full suit of platemail, that's going to take me weeks of real life time? I know we don't want to flood the game with PC-crafted platemail, but right now it looks to be impossible to achieve any form of supply against the heavy demand for it.


I don't want to be taken the wrong way with my thoughts, I know I may sound a bit critical. I've been longing for a change to trades for a LONG time. I'm just adding in my thoughts as to what I would like to see, especially being a long-time weaponsmith/armoursmith.

[Nysan]

Don't feel bad. This kind of feedback is exactly what is needed. Informed, detailed concerns and not random "THIS SUCKS!" rants.

The following are my opinions, not the official FK staff stance so... take it as you will.

I wouldn't mind in-game time to count towards my projects. Old Gilain can spend quite some time at the forge smelting ore and it would be nice to see it count, at least in part, towards current projects. On the other hand, the system counts offline time because it assumes you are not doing anything but the project offline, not distracted by smelting or other projects. So, I could go either way.

Durations. As one that makes full suits of armor for sale, eh. I consider this a vast improvement over the old system. A full suit of full plate in under 2 minutes was just plain broke. I don't think anyone can argue that. A shield takes about 1 in-game week, which is pretty much a good night's sleep for me offline. Not so bad really. I have not attempted to make a full suit, since the change, but if I remember my testing (big if) it took 11 weeks for 1 piece of masterwork armor. Going off that, lets say 77 weeks for full 7 piece set. Add in a few extra weeks for errors and maybe a shield to match and its closer to 90 in-game weeks, or roughly 90 good night's sleep. Possibly a bit extreme. Still, that is for a full suit of the best possible armor, outside of enchanted stuff, so maybe not. Very open to debate.

Materials fee. No problems in my eyes. I could sell full plate to vendors for a nice return, not to mention the sales to PCs. That costed me nothing but time before, pure profit. It needed to be addressed. There needs to be some coin investment in projects. The amount certain things cost to craft may be a concern. I haven't crafted enough items to see anything wrong with materials fees but if anyone believes an item's cost is imbalanced, feel free to post a log here of it and we can review it.

I miss anything?

[Athon]

Thanks for your input! I'll try to add some of my reply to those.

The way I see it, once I start a craft, my character is devoted full-time to it. I would like to see it remain the same way as armour/weaponsmithing were before: once you are crafting, you can do certain actions (say, tell, smote, etc) but you can't do a lot of things, like move for instance. As long as you were in this mode, you are contributing to your craft. However, you can do a "craft pause" or some similar command to allow you to do other things. I just really would like to see time spent in-game counting towards crafting.

Personally, I find your estimation of the duration to craft a suit of full plate to be right around what I was my guess was. I think that is far far too long. I don't want to see anything made in a day, obviously, but 90 days? I think even a full-month for a full suit is a big lengthy, given how much time is necessary just to get that far to be able to craft. I've been working towards being a GM for five years now, the last thing I want is to wait another 90 days before I can even make my first full suit of armour! Even if you're looking at a real-life standpoint, it didn't take nearly 2 full-years to make a full suit of platemail. Some quick internet research states that full suits of armour took around a few months - but the biggest time-consumers were the decoration and detailing of the armour. I think allowing a full-suit of masterwork platemail to be crafted in 2-4 weeks (real life time, which equates to 2-4 months game time) would be reasonable in the game. After all, I only know of one armoursmith that can make the armour as it stands right now, anyways. We don't want to flood the market, but we don't want to starve the market. Right now, we're projecting to be well, well, below the current demand. Hopefully we'll also see an increase in the price for the suits of armour (from PC to PC).

Overall, I just think things should be a little faster. Maybe make it so we can make things 2-3 times at quickly as it is now but see a price reduction from vendors that are inversely proportional (2 times faster = 50% lower price, 3 times faster = 66% lower price, etc.)? This would also help with the huge abundance of ore/metal that I have now. Previously, I had no wasted metal from the old system. Now I'm getting tons and tons of waste because I only use 10 pieces a day but I have to mine/smelt 50+ just to get the 10 I want.

I guess the materials fee is just a whine from my perspective. At my level, I return a profit with or without the fee. I'm sure at the lower-levels though, that isn't the case - but it makes sense to lose money when you first start and work your way up to prosperity. It just might be very difficult for the lower-level dwarves trying to advance their trades.

EDIT: Also, can you give us a brief answer for the woodworking/bowmaking change? All of my toons that knew woodworking now know bowmaking. Can I still make boxes? Do you have an answer for what this change entails?

Thanks!

[Grenwyn]

So... wait. Don't you have to buy the materials (pieces of steel, etc) to make armor/weapons any more?

[Athon]

So... wait. Don't you have to buy the materials (pieces of steel, etc) to make armor/weapons any more?

Yes, you still have to have the metal to do the trade. So if I wanted to make a light steel shield, I would need 4 "pieces of steel" for example. But there is now another 'materials fee" on top of that, that usually ranges around a few silver to a gold, depending on what you make. This is to cover "other" costs in the trade.

[Nysan]

Best of my knowledge, bowmaking/woodworking is a bug. We shifted a few things around during testing and it looks like a few things were not reverted properly. I have passed along the error to the man behind the curtain. I expect it will be fixed or be told it is 'working as intended" within a few days. I'll update this thread on that issue, if needed.

And as Athon said, there is a service fee attached to certain trades now: weapons, armor, and woodworking... I think leatherworking too, but cannot remember. Short, short version is you are paying a small coin fee for tools, renting work space, ect. Cost varies by difficulty of item crafted, duration of craft, ect. So you'll need your metals/wood/leather as well as some coin to pay the fee to construct stuff. As I mentioned in a prior post, you can type out the construct command, without coin in inventory, to see your costs. Similar to the "you need XXX coins" type echoes you see when you try to repair an item without the money in hand.

In other words: construct takes <metals/wood/leather> and money now.

[Nysan]

For the crafting online, I'll leave that discussion for the higher ups. I voiced my opinion and I'm done there.

The duration definately could be looked at, especially in the higher tiers. 2 mins was broken, but 90 weeks might look like the old "going overboard trying to fix the problem" reaction. I want to do a little more crafting before I really weight in on the topic.

Fees, as I said, see anything that looks out of wack, post a log. I understand restraints of low-level craft vs profit but I haven't seen any items that would really break the bank of a low level dwarf to make, while leveling a trade. Anyone that is barely trying can maintain a coins every day or so per craft needed to advance, at least the items I have seen.

[Athon]

Can trade focus be used on smelting and/or mining?

[Nysan]

Trade focus improves crafting check by +3. So, no. Trade focus is only for weapons and armor, for now.

Mining and smelting were updated, but still fall under a stat and skill level check system. Not under any crafting ruleset. Cannot avoid that Luck check,

[Athon]

I personally find this to be a typo or something, but I think the name is a bit misleading:

'construct armor steel head 'ring mail'

leads to:

'ring mail coat of plates.'

When I see 'coat of plates,' I think platemail body armour. In fact, when I Wikipedia the phrase I get:

"A coat of plates is a form of torso armour consisting of metal plates sewn or riveted inside a cloth or leather garment."

[Mask]

I personally find this to be a typo or something, but I think the name is a bit misleading:

'construct armor steel head 'ring mail'

leads to:

'ring mail coat of plates.'

When I see 'coat of plates,' I think platemail body armour. In fact, when I Wikipedia the phrase I get:

"A coat of plates is a form of torso armour consisting of metal plates sewn or riveted inside a cloth or leather garment."

Thanks Athon, yes it was a typo - there are so many armour type/body location combinations I was bound to mix a few of them up!

One of the reasons that masterwork stuff is so expensive and time consuming (please bear in mind that you are under no obligation to solely make masterwork items) is that masterwork items are a pre-requisite for making enchanted magical weapons, shields and armour.

[Nysan]

Just so I only have to say this once: No, you cannot enchant armor/weapons... yet. It is a planned addition that will make its way into the game soon. Don't freak out.

[Eltsac]

Well... finally tested it for the first time today...

Just a suggestion : would it be possible, when you are crafting something that takes 1 week to craft, to have the estimated left time displayed as days instead of weeks?
It's fustrating not to see the estimated time to progress :p

I guess it would work too when you are in your last week of crafting for a bigger project.

El & co

[Nysan]

Mining gives time to think and experiment. It has given me an idea I want to run by folks. Some projects take quite a bit of time and, from time to time, folks get carried away in their typing. You got leg guards on the mind and start a leg guards project instead of that belt someone ordered. Errors happen, after all.

So, what about a 'craft end' type command that will end the current project? Nothing that will return materials used, just a failsafe command to end a mistyped project so you are not committed to a 5 week project you did not want. Thoughts?

[Algon]

Mining gives time to think and experiment. It has given me an idea I want to run by folks. Some projects take quite a bit of time and, from time to time, folks get carried away in their typing. You got leg guards on the mind and start a leg guards project instead of that belt someone ordered. Errors happen, after all.

So, what about a 'craft end' type command that will end the current project? Nothing that will return materials used, just a failsafe command to end a mistyped project so you are not committed to a 5 week project you did not want. Thoughts?

I like this idea. I can imagine how upset I would be if I had to wait weeks for something to finish that I typed wrong lol.

[Athon]

I spoke with Gilain in-game regarding a small issue with the craft system. This is also related to the 'armour type' helpfile, which is outdated.

Pretty much, my goal is to rewrite the 'armour type' helpfile so that it reflects the current armour system and lists what armours are light/medium/heavy. But I need more information to continue with this mini-project.

First, what are the cutoffs for light/medium/heavy armour? I always figured that hide/studded leather are the cutoffs for light armour and that ring mail was the the cutoff for medium armour. However, armour smiths can also make some armour types not on the list, such as heavy mail.

Secondly, Gilain and I would like to see a consolidation of the armour types for use in the helpfile and a slight improvement to the 'construct' command for armours. What we'd like to see is that when 'construct armour' is typed, the list of armour that can be constructed is listed from lightest to heaviest. That way smiths can have an easier time making the right armour for people.

Is there anyway we can be provided with an updated list of the armour types currently in-game, how they rank in regards to heaviness, and if the construct armour command be changed to reflect the updated list of armour types?

Thanks!

[Nysan]

I was hoping to see 'armour type' updated to: 1. remove out of date stuff (field plate). 2. List everything in 'construct armor' command.
And 'construct armor' organized similar to 'armour type', lightest to heaviest style. I like helpfiles and such to have similar layouts, but thats just me.

Oh and please ignore the craft end post. I overlooked 'craft abandon' in my sleep-deprived haze, sorry.

[Brar]

From what I know, in order of preference.

Light : Padded, leather, studded leather, light chain (chainshirt in dnd)
Medium : Hide, Scale mail, Heavy mail (chainmail in dnd), Brigandine
Heavy : Splint mail, Banded mail, Half plate, Full plate

Missing Ring mail, I think it is equivalent to chainmail but not sure

[Athon]

Quick question:

Say like I log off in the middle of a craft and I log back in 22 game hours later. Since that isn't a full day, I get an echo saying I haven't made any real progress. So, what is the base unit that the craft durations are determined by? Is it the seconds, hours, or game days?

[Nysan]

Days, then weeks.