As far as I can tell there's a grand total of one player vendor on Atlantic stocking saltpeter, and they're only stocking like 500 at a time, which is enough for a whopping 20 powder charges or something. Under no circumstances should they keep the price of saltpeter expensive to preserve this dead non-existant market.
Only expensive if you buy it. So I will give you one of your typical short answers.... Spend a few hours mining 3k of it per hour. Saltpeter availability since they upped the niter deposits while dungeon and Ilsh mining is pretty much a non issue. Most of us that sell it sell direct to the alchemist. Typically 135,000-170,000 per 500 hard to sell it to other players because everyone wants to pay less than the alchemist but will buy the alchemist back up almost every day. Adding more alchemist selling saltpeter on prodo will not change that as shop prices if I am remembering right are global now. As far as a dead market I sell it till it is only bringing in 130k per 500 and then wait for the non existent market to buy it back up so the alchemist is paying high again. . It literally is the only way a non scripting miner can dig out a honest living in UO now. No need to completely make mining a worthless skill.
Yeah I know but come man this it total CHEEZ that is beyond even my acceptable CHEEZY levels. Limiting them to working light cannons and having to kill the crew would atleast be kind of fair
Then mine it yourself, the player buying demand is what drives the price up and keeps it up. You know that non existent market. It is totally free to mine it yourself BTW, otherwise STFU and pay up
Okay guys, never mind, guess we can leave the expansion dead for another five years. This guy is having too much fun indirectly selling saltpeter to the 3 people on his shard who use it.Then mine it yourself, the player buying demand is what drives the price up and keeps it up. You know that non existent market. It is totally free to mine it yourself BTW, otherwise STFU and pay up
Saltpeter availability is a total non issue, you can pay the alchemist, you can get it cheaper hiring a miner, you can GASP mine yourself. Yet you pick the one NON ISSUE to cry about the most.
"Sure you're hitting Vendor Search for the resources required and getting either nothing or stuff so expensive that playing the content actually loses you money, but I'm making money so the economy is fine! You can just roll a miner specifically for this if you don't like it!"LOL you are just really opposed to mining it for free aren't you
If it crapped out fuses too I'd buy the collection for that alone.They could always sell the Ship Painting from the King's Collection in the store. That thing cuts out the hassle and produces heavy powder charges, up to 250. I have several and am sitting in 8K+ in charges...
If the alchemist was the only option for obtaining it I would agree with you, but there are 3 other options other than the alchemist. Last time I was on Atlantic a few weeks ago there was a guy spamming 60k saltpeter for sale for 14.4 mil only 240 each. Alchemist was buying for 273 each. Two guys at the alchemist buying the hell out of it and complaining about the high price. Offered to sell them the 20k I was getting ready to sell of at 270 each and one told me I was Fing nuts if I thought he was going to pay that much to a player for it. I walked away from the NPC with 5.3 mil, two hours later the guy spamming 60k was still spamming it........ Now I wonder if the guy at the alchemist that told me I was Fing nut was you
Can see you paying 300+ to the NPC just to have something to complain about when there were 3 considerably less expensive options available.
LOL would go well with your collection of ship paintings
That could be another item... A Sapper's Box or something...
I used to do that since High Seas was released. I'd take a Tamer with a Nightmare & Rune Beetle, and a Bard and go kill the crew, then scuttle and loot the ship. I never even imagined you could start shooting at the ship and they wouldn't shoot back, then someone on Siege tipped me off that I could ignore the crew and just scuttle the ship. Haven't used the Taming skills to hunt since.Yeah I know but come man this it total CHEEZ that is beyond even my acceptable CHEEZY levels. Limiting them to working light cannons and having to kill the crew would atleast be kind of fair
Nooo they don't need to pirate ship hard there needs to be some low end worthwhile content in high seas and the merch ships are great for that. There are multiple other ways to CHEEZ both the pirates and the merch ships, but it would be neat to atleast have a little risk, I find myself using grape shot on the merch ships just to the crew will aggro on me and make it a little more exciting. If you want and don't know the other CHEEZ I will take you out and show you, its a little tricky and easier to show than explain.I used to do that since High Seas was released. I'd take a Tamer with a Nightmare & Rune Beetle, and a Bard and go kill the crew, then scuttle and loot the ship. I never even imagined you could start shooting at the ship and they wouldn't shoot back, then someone on Siege tipped me off that I could ignore the crew and just scuttle the ship. Haven't used the Taming skills to hunt since.
Since it's the only way to get high end ores, ingots, and woods without buying from scripters, I don't want to see it screwed up by making the ships difficult to scuttle and loot. That would force us to buy from scripters as the only way to get the goods in quantity again.
LOL DPs are sooo easy to kill, only reason to take a pet is to cut it from 2 minutes to 1 min 30 secondsI scuttle the merch's, loot em and leave em alone, then I scuttle the orc ships, board it and whoop everyones butt, then i kill the dread in about 2 minutes. I take everything except the matches.
Pet alone is like 10-15 minutes to kill the DP. But come on man you take the gourds and pumpkins???
LOL DPs are sooo easy to kill, only reason to take a pet is to cut it from 2 minutes to 1 min 30 seconds
And people laugh at my Zoogie Fetish!!!!
At the prices you reference we're talking about 7200 to 8100 gold worth of saltpeter alone just to fire one shot from one cannon, never mind all the other crafting and assorted crap that goes into the whole ordeal. Once you do factor that stuff in, one shot from a cannon likely costs more than the quest reward for defeating a named pirate. Of course they're complaining. High Seas is an economic trainwreck, but you don't care because you're making money.
Somehow I doubt any developer is thinking "Yes it's intended that shooting a cannon once costs as much as the quest reward from defeating a pirate, this is exactly how this economic model was supposed to work, and High Seas is really supposed to be an expansion about mining, so everyone should make a miner if they want to do it and not lose money!"They specifically greatly increased the mining rate of Saltpeter just to shut everyone up that was crying about it how unfair and expensive it is. No one is making you buy it and no one is stopping you from mining it, you have free will and choice there
The more relevant question is why even have the toggle when there are more natural ways to solve the problem
Spock either you are playing devils advocate or are not nearly as intelligent as you think you are
I will type really slow for just in case it is the latter IT COST NOTHING TO FIRE A CANNON, UNLESS YOU CHOOSE FOR IT TO. As to making money don't even go there because the only thing that exceeds your ego is your admitted greed. The problems with Fuse Cords is not and only was early on the availability of saltpeter. The problem is time and tedium in the actually making the fuse cords. Typing really slow for you again. THEY GREATLY INCREASED THE RATE AT WHICH NITER DEPOSITS SPAWNED and ADDED SHIP PAINTINGS. IN THE START YOU DID GOOD TO MINE 800-1000 SALTPETER PER HOUR, NOW YOU CAN MINE 3000+ PER HOUR WHICH MAKES 300 FUSE CORDS. Guess you missed the long debates the miners were having about increasing the niter rates and driving the price of saltpeter down. 300 fuse cords scuttles 21-22 ships (actually more from looting them from the scuttled ships) I find it humorous that you had no problem with the price from the alchemist until I said my OPINION was to leave that alone. You were calling for all alchemist to have saltpeter stocked, which would as you very well know NOT lower the global NPC price. As there is a easy alternative to buying out the alchemist (Which people doing is why I make money) Spend a few hours mining and you PAY NOTHING for them. From reading many of your post, I know that you doing anything to achieve anything goes against everything you believe in, so you are stuck paying the miner or the alchemist, as you will not even acknowledge that mining saltpeter is a viable option. Again the time and tedium of actually putting everything together is the problem. On Siege the niter rates are about 1500-1700 per hour as no one in their right minds runs a top tier luck suit. But that is a whole different can of worms.
LOL and I am also very far from the only guy making money from mining saltpeter
When you're telling someone to roll a whole new character you've already conceded the argument. Saltpeter is horribly overpriced to the point that shooting once costs as much as the quest rewards (powder takes saltpeter too) and your personal sense of entitlement over some random ass mining nerf from years ago doesn't make that any more acceptable. Even at 100k for the quest you'd better off farming ettins given the current cost of saltpeter.Spock either you are playing devils advocate or are not nearly as intelligent as you think you are
Like the "natural way" the gave us: baby dragon turtles?
you're not alone in that thought
Saltpeter on Siege is a whole different critter than prodo. On Siege it makes more sense to buy it at 22 than to mine it. The drawback to Siege is you have to buy it up to 999 from 20. Prodo there are always 500 in stock and if you buy the 500 there are another 500 available right then. Just checked Legends prices today the Alchemist buy price is 245 and the sell price is 329 Selling it is down to 122500 per 500 buying it cost 164,500 per 500. Once bought up Siege price per 500 is 11,000 and as we all know you can't NPC sell on Siege. Same shop mechanic for gems, salpeter and a few other things that are kept stocked at 500 on prodo and the buying and selling causes the price to go up or down I believe every 1000 sold or bought and you can only sell in increments of 500. Every 1000 sold drops the price by 1 gold per and every 1000 bought raises the price by 1 gold per. There are a couple of new people on Legends selling and not as many people buying so over the last two weeks the sell price per 500 SP has dropped from 160,000 to 122,500 at the same time the sell price has dropped at the same rate. Siege and Prodo are two very different shop systems. Initially the sell price at the alchemist was very low and the buyer demand drove it to where it is today. If the same shop mechanic were in place on Siege as prodo the price would most like be in the 230-250 per range. I can mine it faster on Siege than I can buy the shop up to 999 so I still mine what I need. On Prodo I mine at about 2.5X the rate I do on Siege and usually go until I have 20k salt peter and use around 10k to make 1650 black powder and sell 10k to the shop and pocket 2.4-2.6 mil from it. or save it to 120k and then shield it to Atlantic and sell it usually at 20-25 more per than Legends because the demand is higher on ATL. Anyway the biggest challenge on Siege in obtaining saltpeter is keeping the alchemist bought up, not the price.
Again you had no issue with price until you found out someone was profiting from it. Your issue was with time and no one stocking the fuse cords. And at 6 salt peter per black powder at 329 shop sell price, that is 1974 gold per shot but as usual Spocky roll with the over exaggeration and claim it cost more per shot than the quest returns Which is just not true. The increased niter mining was not a bug. I believe it was pub 69 where they said they were increasing the rate. Niter popping in Ilsh. Was a bug that they said they would review and consider leaving in, obviously they decided to leave it in. Following your logic if I don't like rolling a combat type but I want 120 scrolls I should be able to easily do champ spawns with a pure crafter/LJ/Miner and easily be able to obtain the scrolls. Because I don't want to roll a combat type, and paying 18-20 mil for 120 mage scroll is just crazy I mean after all those guys that built templates just for spawning well, screw them...... Right? Same with Crims, tangles, slithers etc. That stuff should all be low cost. Unless of course it is what Spock does and then it should 150mil minimum.
Setting the Saltpeter aside which I am not going to change my opinion so long as there is a totally free mechanism that takes minimal effort to mine significant amounts of it as an option. I hate farming Black Thorn arties but I like the 140 luck robes my options pay some crazy price for the robe or collect the arties. There is a choice same holds true with mining or buying salt peter.
But back on topic, sorta, regardless of how much gold can be made mining niter or how many you can get in three hours ( 3hours of mining just numbs my mind, OMG!) the fact remains that time and again we have complained about the long drawn out clickfest busywork tedium that is HS ship battles. Regardless of which team put it in, it seems that at sometime in the past someone on some team should have played this, NOT in godmode, but as a normal player, and realized "Hey! this is stupid!"
The team that put it in probably didnt play it either, I can see them sitting around drawing it up, and going, "We really need to break some of this up into smaller steps and give every possible trade skill a chore in it" .
Seriously, just fix it. Don't blame someone else, we know who did it. Don't pass the buck, just make it fun to do. And then, you can fix some of these other clickfests we have to deal with.
My rant of the day: Quit introducing short-term soon to be abandoned stuff-like almost anything Eodon- and make what we have already less tedious, and FUN to do, then you will have a happier player base. And for clarification:
FUN: Noun-
1.
something that provides mirth or amusement:
A picnic would be fun.
2.
enjoyment or playfulness:
She's full of fun.
Being overly time consuming and clicky is not listed in that definition. /rant
The fel side and the tram side don't sync with the global shop pricesI made a lot of gold on Chessie buying saltpeter from the fel Sea Market and selling it at the Tram Sea Market. The prices got seriously different at times.
@Kyronix The poster above hit some of the big issues on the head. Here are some of the worst problems I see with the High Seas ship mechanics:
This reminds me of another bug that is annoying. It has only happened 5-6 times but while firing at the opposing ship, it is like the cannon I am firing is back firing and destroys the cannon on the opposite side of it on your ship. And occasionally destroys itself. Not the normal wear and tear destroyed. Heavy cannons are bit on the expensive side so when one you are not firing goes from pristine to poof.......... atleast for me it is a desk pounding WTF just happened moment.
Especially with all this talk of Salt Peter . . .
Last time I brought a player crew on board and gave them 50 fuse cords powder and balls 2 of them recalled away and GC'd Thanks for the supplies
What you're actually hitting is the side of the mast/sails, which will in fact do damage to the whole of the ship. It's a tactic I use often with dreads that allows me to hit them but not them to hit me.
Salt peter in your food in basic training was a myth. The drill sergeants ate the same food as the rest of us. Doubt they would do that if there were nasties in the chow.
I just park my ship right at the very edge of cannon ball range and scuttle them, they never move and never fire and the merch ships don't take off running
Yeah they need to fix the "ships run away when you steer bug", the ships don't move if you let your tillerman do the driving, at least it seems that way to me.I just park my ship right at the very edge of cannon ball range and scuttle them, they never move and never fire and the merch ships don't take off running
Yep. I think they did fix the hiding bug, where you could hide sail right up to the pirate ship and work the cannons hidden and they would not attack. Last time I tried that I unhid as soon as my boat moved. Never explored it further after that.