Luckybucket Post subject: Re: Artisans worskshop
Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2011 7:38 pm
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So far the only one I've tried out is making Burial Armour, but there's a few basics I can go over I suppose, for those interested.
First and foremost, it's important to understand that the Workshop is entirely about having ORES, not BARS. There is a rather large furnace in the middle of the top room where players can deposit up to 4k of each primary ore (iron, mithril, adamant, rune, etc.) and 8k coal. Once deposited, you can withdraw different grades of ingots at any time. There's no period you have to wait for the conversion.
Depending on the grade of the ingot, more materials are required. The list is provided here. Considering iron is the most efficient bar to use, I'll just list what's required for each grade of iron ingots.
Grade 1: 1 iron ore
Grade 2: 9 iron ore
Grade 3: 12 iron ore
Grade 4: 75 iron ore
Each of the above is required to make 1 iron ingot of that grade, meaning yes it does take 75 iron ore for 1 grade 4 iron ingot, while a grade 1 ingot is essentially the same as an iron bar in terms of cost.
I have only tried out the Burial Armour, as stated before, and I would suggest people only do it at grade 1 iron ingots. Each piece of armour only requires 1 ingot, meaning regardless of what you craft, you're getting at least 101 exp per iron bar/ingot. When you craft the same item as the dwarf announces, you get a 10% bonus and will get 111 exp/ingot. It does take 3 swings instead of the normal one per craft, so the method does take longer than traditional smithing (i.e. Iron Platebodies), however you're getting 4x the amount of exp for the cost, so it's a balance of speed versus cost.
Although I haven't done the Ceremonial Swords as of yet, I've done calculations on the Iron Swords.
Ceremonial Swords REQUIRE Grade 4 ingots. No other grade will work. Each sword only requires 1 ingot, therefore each sword requires 75 iron ore. When crafted perfectly, each Iron Sword will net 3,242 experience. If you take that and divide it by the 75 iron ore required, you're earning a little more than 43 experience per iron ore, compared to 25 per iron bar through traditional smithing. Through traditional smithing via Platebodies, which at least previously was the fastest training method, it'd take ~130 iron bars to gain the same experience, or ~5 inventories of iron bars and banking. I haven't tried ceremonial swords yet, but if an experienced smith could complete 1 sword faster than 5 inventories of platebodies, this new method will be both faster and more cost efficient.
One other factor which I haven't confirmed yet is whether or not SC tools work for these training methods. If so, a single sword will produce 6,484 experience. Granted you'll go through the hammers rather quickly, but you'll be gaining that experience quickly as well. If someone could confirm whether or not they work, that would be awesome.
There are 2 other training methods: Railroad tracks and Cannon repairs. From what I've read on the manual, railroad tracks look to be for very low level smiths, as the exp provided per action is very slim. Cannon Repairs are the 2nd highest requirement at the workshop, and yield 3,846 experience per repair, so they may be useful as well. I'll have to confirm this at a later time.
Lastly there are rewards available for those who earn enough 'respect' in the workshop. Some of these are experience boosts for activities in the workshop, primarily fixing pipes or making ceremonial armour. However, the boost is not very significant, and the remainder of the rewards are purely cosmetic. They do not provide any trading in for instant experience or anything of the like, so the primary benefit of the workshop is purely through the training methods available there, not the rewards.
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As the update is still rather new and many are wanting to test it out, ore prices, primarily iron ore, have gone up A LOT. If you have a large amount sitting in your bank, I'd recommend selling them now and buying them back once the hype has settled down. You could possibly double what you had.
od balrog232 » 10.03.2011 13:11 
