[Mining] how much mining skill for smelting?

[imperterritus]

My tailor/smith transferred his gm mining to another character, who will be able to mine using gargoyle pick-axes. He's equipped specifically to fight the ore elementals. I forgot though, that this would mean the smith couldn't efficiently smelt common weapon drops, or weapons and armor made while training.

I'm thinking of having him train up some mining skill again. How much would he need to be able to get maximal return from smelting iron goods? Does his skill in blacksmithing allow him to smelt stuff made from other ores? If not, I guess the answer would be he should probably re-GM mining.

 

[Basara]

Yeah, it does mean you need to.

Return from smelting is 0.66% times your Mining skill, in the percentage of ingots need to make the item. Most items are divisible by 3; as a result, the optimum point for return is 2/3 of the ingots, or 66.67%.

To achieve that, you need 101.1 Mining (including mining gloves). So, you'll need at least 98.1 and +3 gloves, or 96.1 and +5 gloves. If you're gonna get that close, you might as well go all the way to 100, and the +5 gloves (though, depending on the crafter's suit, you might want to imbue mage armor and resists onto some +5 gloves, then enhance until you succeed).

Smelting colored ores also requires the same level of Mining as it does to originally mine the ore. So, to smelt Valorite, you need 99.0 mining. This, theoretically, you could do with 86.1 real mining, +5 gloves, and Jacob's Pickaxe from the New Haven Quest (and, DO use that quest to get back up to 50, if at all possible, even if it means starting on another character and stoning over after 50). However, as noted before, you'll end up losing an extra ingot per item for most smelts, if you don't get up to 101.1 skill (and the pickaxe will only take you to 100, unless you put it on first, THEN equip the gloves to go over 100). Again, I'd just use the Jacob's pickaxe/Gloves combo as a stopgap measure for smelting prior to getting back up to GM.

BTW, It just so happened I updated the Mining Profession guide for Stygian Abyss a night or so ago. A lot of these answers can be found there, as well as other info you might find useful.

 

[Silverbird]

The higher your ming is the better are your results on semlting items. At GM you are getting 50% of the raw material back. (Rounded up + 1 if you use a recycle bag) Once you have finished your training, you wont need smelting anymore on your smith. (Or better: I dont need it on him. *g*)
One of the good points on smelting is, that you dont need blacksmithy for it. You can recycle loot/drops/items made for skillgains with your mining character.

Uhm ... Basara was typing faster than me. *g* Trust his numbers for smelting results more than mines. Usually roughly numbers are enough for me and I thought, you were getting 'only' about 50% back from smelting.