One last shot at this resource thing

[Jed]

Ok going to give this one last shot before I repec to ent or something

Some of you spent a long time trying to educate me and I appreciate it. This is my final attempt.

So I want to make a Mark V engine. It calls for, among other things 1250 units of Alum.

I go out and mine this


ER CR CD DR FL HR MA PE OQ SR UT
- 751 769 800 - 778 867 - 885 826 841


Now the question is, should I use this?

Well the first question is, which one of these values are going to be considered right?

So specifically where do I find that? How do I know what ones are important for my Mark V engine. Will it always be just one of them that is important? Or will it be two of them or more that are important? And please just dont say schemitic, i open my tool click on it and all it tells me is what is needed. when i do put something in i do notice on the lower right some math forumla's that are either green or red. My guess it is somethign to do with that.

Ok so I figure out what one of these valves are important say its CD. I have seen that in examples. The CD of Alum is important in mark v engine.

So I go to the cap guide that someone magically made up following the link

So the schematic don’t call for a specific alum and say my alum is Duralumin

So the beginner guide said if it don’t call out a specific it uses the cap of alum.
Well the cap guide don’t give a general cap of alum it breaks them down to sub catogories.----So there seem to be some conflict in this.

Should not the general category of Aluminum have a Cap on CD?—if so how do I know it?

Ok so I somehow figure out that the cap of General Alum on CD is 800. ((and am I Right on assuming these caps are in constant change??...or is the general caps always 1000?))

So then the fun starts, I do something like 769 * 1000 / 800=

Then plug that into this

975 * 25 + 998 * 15 933,73493975904 * 25 1
Max = 0.6 * ------------------- + 0.4 * -------------------- * ----
25 + 15 25 1000

= 0.6 * 983.625 + 0.4 * 933,73493975904 * 1/1000

= (590.175 + 373.49397590361) / 1000 = 0,96366897590361 = 96 %

Now if it is over 94 percent its capped and good to use, if not, then your sol.

So to summarize how this plays out in game play

I need alum. So I got to mustafar and break out my survey device. Look for alum, “no resource found”
Ok
I hop on my bike and drive around clicking “survey” 5 mins later I get 10 percent, so I follow this line I drive more heading to the highest percent well turns out the highest is 17 and it would take forever to mine the quantity needed with that. So I move on. I drive for 15 more mins and find a decent amount I then sample and get some alum.

I go to the cap guide or whatever to find out the cap on my CD look at the cap on my sample and pull out the calculator and start running math formulas to find out if it is any good or not. I spend 15 mins running formula’s my wife wants to know if I am going to school at night and if I am having fun. If the CD is high enough I mine, if not, I drive on to I find some more, if so, I spend an hour gathering the 1250 needed.

I am just not sure I am getting this, to me it don’t sound like fun “game play” also it seems much more tedious and complex then it should be.

I think I am just missing “something”

[Laidbacca]

No, you shouldn't mine that Alum (looks like a phrik btw), least not for an engine. If you want some decent alum for chassis or even armour then that stuff is pretty much on the mark.

When your considering an engine build it requires several things, depending on what you want the engine to do then you must prioritize the stats. 99% of pilots demand speed, even when they say they want a turn based engine it still must be able to make them move. Therefore the two stats you need to look at first are OQ/PE at 50/50, those two determine the starting point (after assembly) on the speed line for your experimentation. Having a high OQ steel,alum,radio,iron will also help with the y,p,r and mass/drain. Aim for as high an OQ as you can lay your hands on (980 or more on all four). The PE value on the radio is extremely important here now, skimp on it and the engines top speed will suffer, get as high a PE on the radio as you can, aim for 950+. CD stats only come into play on y,p,r's/drain, in all honesty you can afford to skimp a bit here if need be, reason being the difference between using a slightly worse CD value in the resources has a very tiny effect on the finished engine, perhaps .1-.3 on y,p,r and 20 or so on drain.

If you use the following resources in your engine which all have a 980+ on OQ then i can virtually guarantee you will have a nice crafted engine. Duralloy steel with 980 or more on OQ, Kamris iron with 980 or more on OQ, phrik alum with 980 or more on OQ and one of the following radioactives, High grade polymetric 980 OQ and 950+ on PE, class 7 radioactive same stats as high grade, or unknown radioactive again same stats, one of those should at least be available on your server. If all else fails then go to musty and start digging there and look for the same stats as has been posted here.

[Ibaum]

I'm getting the feeling that you are very new to crafting. I'm relatively new still, and I think I may be able to point you in the right direction without getting real technical.

You mentioned the numbers in the lower right when you start to put resources in. Those are the numbers you're trying to maximize. Red is bad, yellow is better but not good, and green is acceptable. However, a higher number is better than a lower number even with the green. Often there are several numbers that need to be added up in one area in order to figure out what resource is best. Going to chassis for an example, there are hitpoint and mass experimentation lines. There are 4 numbers under each of these categories, and adding them up will let you know which resource is best for that area.

Looking up the schematic for a Mark V engine on this site it doesn't have experimentation lines listed. That's probably an error so we'll go with what Laidbacca set out for speed, though there should also be mass and others (he's probably right anyway). Of all those stats listed for your metals, Overall Quality and Potential Energy are the only two that matter, and they're weighted 50/50. Some schematics weight differently (chassis, for instance, weight OQ, HR, SR, and UT at 25% each for one experimentation line, and MA, HR, SR, and UT each at 25% for a different one, so you need high stats in 5 areas).

Only the radioactive will have a PE, so you'll want as close to capped as you can possibly get. Because a certain type of radioactive isn't called for, the schematic assumes the type-cap of 1000 PE. Lunariel's guide to caps is helpful but limited as you point out. Later in the thread Zimoon posted a link to an updated guide from his site, and it's an XML file (which I'm presently converting into a word document for ease of my personal use). His guide does list type-caps as well as having the subtypes. So in this case you can forget the guide because the limits will be out of 1000, but if it had called for a Class 3 radioactive you would want to look up the cap because it would assume a lower cap. So you'll want as high a PE as you can get.

As for the OQ requirements, all of your resources will have OQ. To maximize your experimentation you'll want all of them to have as high of OQ as you can possibly get. You need an equal number of each of the resources, so the game will average the OQ of your resources and use that number. That means if you use a steel with an OQ of 960ish and everything else OQ 400ish, it will bring the average OQ down to 540ish. That's why you want the best resources you can get. If you use everything with a 960ish OQ, you'll have a higher average value and thus a better experimentation value.

Now for getting resources. Any resources at all will work. You can use the part you build, but it's not necessarily sellable. Pilots want only the best quality parts, which means the best quality resources. It takes a lot of time to get those resources, because the type you need isn't always and spawn, and when it is it could be a really bad resource. You can go through old resources on this site to find the best ones, but they'll likely cost you an arm and a leg, and possibly your first and second children as well for a usable number. You can build the part with any old resource, but it takes months to years to build up high quality resources that will lead to high quality products. I've been around since December and I'm still looking for resources to complete some high quality parts.

Sorry this post is long, but I had to use words because I don't like using the numbers either. The only ones I'm willing to use are the ones in the lower right of the crafting screen when I'm putting resources in. The numbers and equations others tell you to use tell you the same information without having to open the crafting tool and get to the screen to look.

I hope that's all helpful. I don't know how to put advanced crafting ideas any more simply, though I'm sure others can.

[Savacc]

Jed, Ive seen your posts here and on the SOE forums. You seem to have a huge misconception of crafting in this game. You seem to think that it should be possible to look at a schematic, find what resources you will need, go out and mine/sample them somewhere in the galaxy and be able to make a decent, even great part. No, you cant.

I have been mining the best resources for shipwright, literally from the start of the game. Realistcally, someone who has been mining for the last two years can probably make parts that are as good as mine. Someone who has only been at this for a year, no. They can match some of what I do, but not all. You really need to have been doing this for a long time, to be able to make server best parts or chassis on a consistant basis.

Unless you are willing to gather resources for a year or more, spend millions of credits buying crafting suits, hours and hours crafting to learn the profession, you are much better off giving those schematics to an established shipwright to make for you.

The Devs did you and every pilot a huge disfavor by letting pilots earn the schematics for the new parts and the Gunboats. What is a pilot going to do with a schematic? Make a shipwright alt so you can use the schematics? Well Jed, you have seen how that works out. If the Devs wanted to give out new schematics, the collections should have been for Shipwrights, not pilots. If the idea was for pilots to get new parts and a new ship, then the collections should have been for parts and a ship deed, not schematics.

[Jed]

Well thanks guys, I am thinking I am understand this whole thing better now.

And Savacc I think your spot on, ((other then I cant post on SOE forums cause I have a trail account)). They should have given the gun ship deed. And of course I had no clue it took years to make something decent. Other games I have played You could craft nice stuff easily.

The gun ship is pretty nice, but its not that nice. I mean years of mining? Naw. And besides the best parts are RE’ed, not crafted for the most part. With the exception of most POB ship parts. And only then the shields and cap are the only two that really matter much. ((not even the engine cause most ships sit still for better aim when fighting)) If I where a real ship wright and had to spend years just to get good stuff, I think this would piss me off.

At this point I Might just mine part time sell what I get, and use my trader for the vendor and to RE parts and leave it at that.

I will either not ever use the gun ship schematic or just make a bad one just to have it. I mean very rarely is there allot of practical use for pob ships anyway. It normally is something just fun to have. When you have a ship with 5 million mass did not matter if the mass was off a few thousand, with the gun ship at 3 mil max,,,,mass starts to mean something. Because that is really the only important factor in a Gun ship chassis; Mass.

[Zimoon]

...Other games I have played You could craft nice stuff easily. ...

That is exactly while you will find many crafters in SWG that love crafting, the numerous amsll and large games in the game, the many thingies that keep us alert, the depth and diversity.

No Trader actually needs to produce top-notch stuff, many Traders love mining and live off of that. A miner can quite soon earn millions a month just from keeping on the top of new spawns. And since new resources come and go with always new stats you never know when something really attractive spawns in your galaxy.

Other Traders live off of selling desired but low-quality items such as every player sooner than later want a house and buy one. They take a lot of resources but call for no quality whatsoever, and the next day the want a Guild Hall and now we speak credits

The list can go on and on but in the end of the day, if it is top quality goods you want then it is "natural" to think it takes top quality resources, right. For certain items that call for very specific resources that can take a year or more, yes. But for the lot of the HQ items to craft less than a year would do easily and you just keep watching out for those items you cannot do. Yet.

But, as I said, there are so many different ways to go for Trader, no one is the other one alike.

Yes, I have seen my sons playing those dumbed down games: knock on a rock for a while, get some kind of ore, melt it and you get some resource that has the same stats every single time, put it into some tool, which everyone has the same stats, and get an item out of it, always the same stats. Yawn

OK. You started out to see if you could build something that is the harder items in the game. You are not alone, we see players that registered 2003 that do the same mistake. Tough luck. But crafting can be so much more fun if you just take it easy and pretend you start at level 1 once again

Good luck

/Zimoon

[Laidbacca]

Well thanks guys, I am thinking I am understand this whole thing better now.

And Savacc I think your spot on, ((other then I cant post on SOE forums cause I have a trail account)). They should have given the gun ship deed. And of course I had no clue it took years to make something decent. Other games I have played You could craft nice stuff easily.

The gun ship is pretty nice, but its not that nice. I mean years of mining? Naw. And besides the best parts are RE’ed, not crafted for the most part. With the exception of most POB ship parts. And only then the shields and cap are the only two that really matter much. ((not even the engine cause most ships sit still for better aim when fighting)) If I where a real ship wright and had to spend years just to get good stuff, I think this would piss me off.

At this point I Might just mine part time sell what I get, and use my trader for the vendor and to RE parts and leave it at that.

I will either not ever use the gun ship schematic or just make a bad one just to have it. I mean very rarely is there allot of practical use for pob ships anyway. It normally is something just fun to have. When you have a ship with 5 million mass did not matter if the mass was off a few thousand, with the gun ship at 3 mil max,,,,mass starts to mean something. Because that is really the only important factor in a Gun ship chassis; Mass.

There is basically no such thing as a bad gunboat, you only need to use medium grade chassis resources to make one with around 2.96 mass. In game options under interface scroll down till you see the boxes for show average for these resource attributes, ensure you tick ma,oq,sr and ut (four of the last five). Now when you start a craft session your resource containers should now display a number, this number is the weighted average for that particular resource, when making very high end chassis aim for an average of 800+, the only exception to that will be on the siliclastic ore used in master level chassis only. For a decent chassis an average of 750 is still pretty good, 750 - 650 is ok and less than 650 is what i consider to be poor.