[General] Hungry's Suit Making Diaries

[hungry4knowhow]

I'm recently back from an extended break, and haven't messed with crafting since the big thing was Archer Dex suits (mix of ring, chain, and plate GM made). I used to sell them out of my small house on Sonoma in Minoc for 1200gp ea. And I raked in the dough! That small house cost me 100k....anyway...

Since I'm back and reading up on all these new suits and what not, I want to get back into suit making and selling them. Maybe not the uber takes 2mths and 1BIL gold to build suits, but good suits that I can vendor. Better than the regular all 70's, 100LRC training suits. Say starter uber suits. For those that are done training, but don't have the dough to fork over for all the best arti's a true ultimate suit needs.

I figured I'd track my progress and stats for myself and others to see what it costs to make a really good suit on a regular basis. *prays to the RNG*

I'm also hoping to finally get this crafting thing down. Imbuing/reforging/enhancing its a damn headache.

Anyway the first suit/ set of suits I'm building is Sampire Luck suits. Loosely based on DJAD's post about his, "1 in a few hundred" sampire luck suit.

The Sampire Luck Suit
So in reading up on DJAD's suit he starts by crafting a bunch of the same piece, only saving the ones with minimum fire resist. I am using plate, so that would be 3 the majority of the time. I have elected to also save pieces that have a +1 to fire resist as well. So 3 and 4.

I'm starting with enough ingots to craft 166 of each piece without smelting. I am not counting smelting amounts. Just 166 pieces, only saving the pieces with 3 or 4 fire resist, and smelting the rest, re-crafting, smelting, etc...until not enough ingots to make 1 piece.

Platemail Arms: 3,000Ingots + Smelt amount Yield: 22 Usable Pieces
Platemail Gloves: 1,992Ingots + Smelt amount Yield: 28 Usable Pieces
Platemail Gorget: 1,650Ingots + Smelt amount Yield: 24 Usable Pieces
Platemail Legs : 3,300Ingots + Smelt amount Yield: 24 Usable Pieces
Platemail Tunic: 4,125Ingots + Smelt amount Yield : 24 Usable Pieces
Norse Helm : 2,475Ingots + Smelt amount Yield : 30 Usable Pieces

That's all I've got time for tonight, early day tomorrow. I'll edit in the rest and also divide up the 3 Fire from the 4 Fire and see what that equals out too for people who want to go that way.

DJAD, if you read this, I'd love to pick your brain on the rest of the process you went through in crafting the suit. It was a quick and dirty rundown in the thread I read.

Hopefully tomorrow I've got time to finish the basic crafting and the reforging process. I'm interested to see how that breaks down. Part of me wants to go ahead and craft basic pieces until I have atleast 100 of each so I can get a better idea of the RNG in reforging....not sure I have the patience for that though. Playing time is somewhat limited lately.

Looking forward to any comments/suggestions from everyone else as well. I kind of like spreadsheet games, though I'm no mathematician, I like stats.

 

[Tuan]

For the record: I'm with you, I spent many, many an hour enjoyably mining and smithing up suits that I sold for 1000-1500 gold on my vendor back in the mid 90s. I wish there was still some place in the game for most crafters to craft up "consumable" stuff. Other than swamp dragon armor and exceptional instruments, there's not much out there for the smith/tinker/bowcraft/carpentry. Even making/selling arrows and bolts isn't really profitable.
I've thought about doing what you're doing, but in my experience it's really hard to sell 3rd tier suits. Most newbies can simply ask in gen chat, and someone will imbue up an all 70s, pretty nice mage suit, or melee suit. For free.
I don't know what the max luck you can get on a piece is so that it can still be enhanced with ingots, but you'll definitely want to find that out. I do know that 150 luck = 100% chance to break the item by failing to enhance.
You might be fortunate, and be able to do the reforge with Dull Coppers, but even still will break most everything.
The problem with making a 190 luck piece, including it into a suit to sell is that you'll need to use forged metal to get there. At that point, you're basically trading real life $ for gold - which you can probably convert at a better rate by simply buying gold for $$.
Or would your plan be that you craft the suit with 150s and unenhanced, and then it falls to the purchaser to also purchase a forged metal tool and enhance?

 

[hungry4knowhow]

I won't be using forged metal tools on anything I plan to sell regularly because of what you listed. So it will be up to the buyer to decide if they want to go that route. I'll be reforging for 150 luck and hoping the random resist bump goes to fire, then imbuing and calling it a day.
I may use tools on personal suits, but haven't decided yet.

I'm going for suits that are beyond the Gen chat freebies. I am hoping that by starting w base pieces that have good resist distribution it will allow me more imbuing room as opposed to the take whatever and go route that freebie/super cheap suits use. I may be totally off base, not sure at this point.

My biggest goal is to learn and document the process of recreating suits I see. As knowledge is limited right now, I can't look at a suit and go, "Oh, they did this, this, and this to make that." I'm the type of learner that learns by doing, repeatedly.

If it doesn't work for setting up a shop again I'll be somewhat disappointed, but at least all my characters will have great suits to build on, and I'll have learned a lot more about the mechanics of the new UO.

Thanks for your contribution Tuan, your knowledge in crafting is enviable.

/EDIT: typos.

 

[hungry4knowhow]

Small Update, started reforging armor pieces this evening. Started using copper hammers, selecting Auspicious/Fortune and Fortified/Defence. highest luck amount I got was 110.

Switched to Bronze hammers, and got up to 130. Not sure how to get 150 and a resist drop unless its just extremely rare.

Also unsure how the imbuing process is going to go. With an overcapped resist and overcapped luck, there isn't a ton of room for imbuing.


Question, if I imbue before reforging can I end up with an item that has more than 5 properties on it?

 

[Basara]

imbuing prevents reforging.

Reforging requires plain-jane iron/leather items with no properties other than ones from being exceptional.

 

[Tuan]

Small Update, started reforging armor pieces this evening. Started using copper hammers, selecting Auspicious/Fortune and Fortified/Defence. highest luck amount I got was 110.

Switched to Bronze hammers, and got up to 130. Not sure how to get 150 and a resist drop unless its just extremely rare.

Also unsure how the imbuing process is going to go. With an overcapped resist and overcapped luck, there isn't a ton of room for imbuing.


Question, if I imbue before reforging can I end up with an item that has more than 5 properties on it?

With Copper hammers, you want to only choose Auspicious/Fortune not the 2nd title. If you want to make leather 150 luck you need to use horned kits and choose 2 titles. If you want to reliably reforge 150 luck + resist on plate, you need to look at the LBOD hammers (gold+).

I think that a Bronze hammer can do 150 luck + resists if you were willing to make it Brittle/Cannot Repair (you shouldn't be willing to do that), or it might just be really rare.

 

[hungry4knowhow]

With Copper hammers, you want to only choose Auspicious/Fortune not the 2nd title. If you want to make leather 150 luck you need to use horned kits and choose 2 titles. If you want to reliably reforge 150 luck + resist on plate, you need to look at the LBOD hammers (gold+).

I think that a Bronze hammer can do 150 luck + resists if you were willing to make it Brittle/Cannot Repair (you shouldn't be willing to do that), or it might just be really rare.

Again thanks Tuan, a couple questions in response:

1) If I were to use Gold+ Hammers, then do I choose the Auspicious/Fortune and Defense titles? Also in studded since that's a project as well coming up, using horned do I choose those same two titles?

2) Does it really matter how the resists are distributed in the base crafting part since there is going to be imbued resists anyway?

 

[hungry4knowhow]

imbuing prevents reforging.

Reforging requires plain-jane iron/leather items with no properties other than ones from being exceptional.

Thanks. Bummer, but I suppose it makes sense.

Question, when it comes to enhancing, is it like reforging where you can narrow it down but not pick the properties or is it like imbuing where you can pick the properties you are trying to enhance?

Second question, while reforging, I've made quite a few suits that are WAY over cap in some resists...should I choose to use refinements and lessen resists for DCI, do I get to choose which resists are lowered?

2a) Would lessening the resists for DCI also lessen the total imbuing weight thereby letting me imbue more or is it not possible to imbue once enhancing has been done?

 

[Tuan]

Again thanks Tuan, a couple questions in response:

1) If I were to use Gold+ Hammers, then do I choose the Auspicious/Fortune and Defense titles? Also in studded since that's a project as well coming up, using horned do I choose those same two titles?

2) Does it really matter how the resists are distributed in the base crafting part since there is going to be imbued resists anyway?

1: Yes. When the runic tools match in number of charges, they're effectively the same. So shadow hammer = oak fletching = spined. Same holds for everything. The only question comes about the hammers that are in the middle.

2: Yes, you don't wanna waste stuff. Lets say you 3 items that are 150 luck and 18 cold resists (which you'll enhance to 22ish)... when you're all said and done, before imbuing anything, you'll end up with a suit that has 90something cold resist - but you'll need to imbue pieces just to get it up to 95 fire (for a sampire), which wastes imbue slots.

 

[Basara]

Enhancing is a set value for each material type.

Gold, for example, gives armor
+2 Physical Resist
+2 Fire Resist
+3 Cold Resist
+3 Energy Resist
+40 Luck
as well -30 Lower Requirements.

http://uo.stratics.com/content/skills/mining.php