• Hail Guest!
    We're looking for Community Content Contribuitors to Stratics. If you would like to write articles, fan fiction, do guild or shard event recaps, it's simple. Find out how in this thread: Community Contributions
  • Greetings Guest, Having Login Issues? Check this thread!
  • Hail Guest!,
    Please take a moment to read this post reminding you all of the importance of Account Security.
  • Hail Guest!
    Please read the new announcement concerning the upcoming addition to Stratics. You can find the announcement Here!

[Blacksmithing] Blacksmith Skill Gain Log/Training Guide, GM (100) to 120

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
This is a compilation of my other attempt to get other people to start submitting guides.

Due to the nature of how I was training my BOD runners, I did it in 4 segments - ironically, doing it sorta backwards (did 116-120 on one character, 110-116 on another, then 100-105 on a third, and 105-110 on a 4th.






Conditions:
  • Character had already gotten his Smith GGS gain before 100 skill.
  • Character was working with effective 105 mining skill, and using a Salvage Bag for maximum return.
  • Character also had sufficient tools already made and on hand, so that replacing tools did not affect the ingot totals.
  • For 100-110, Character had only spellbook, runebook, Salvage bag, Ingots (all in bag) and 1 tool at a time in his backpack. This allowed 120 items to be made per pass through the making process, for easier bookkeeping. Single tool was replaced it ran out. Smaller numbers were used for 110-120, but the same general principle applied (contents of pack made sure that all but the last cycle of each test were exactly the same size, simplifying math).
  • Also for easier math, started with 1000 ingots in bag each time, though never more than 855 were actually used in a pass (guaranteeing the 120 per pass total by making sure there were always ingots left over)
  • Item made was Royal Circlets. 6 ingots to make, and the combination of 105 mining and Salvage bag meant that each recycled back into 5 ingots, so only 1 ingot lost per item recycled.
The Reply contains the actual data for the tests.
 

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
Re: Blacksmith Training Guide, GM (100) to 120

100-105

Passes: 18 full passes, and 45 circlets (37.5%) of a 19th, to go from 100.0 to 105.0


Royal Circlets made: 2205 (consuming 13,230 ingots, returning 11,025, for a net consumption of 2205 ingots from recycling)
Ingots lost from crafting failures: 1721
Total Ingots Lost: 3926
(if items were crafted, then discarded or sold instead of reused, would have been 14,951 ingots consumed)

Gains per 120 circlets ranged from 0 (the last full pass before the partial one to get the last gain), to 7 (5th pass, which also had the most failures, and therefore, most attempts/skill checks). Mean was 2.72 gains per full pass (120 successes), or 2.27 gains per 100 successes.

Training took approximately 3 hours, and 30 exceptional crafting tools (chosen at random from a bag - some were really sucky, some had 150 uses).


105-110

Passes: 36 full passes to go from 105.0 to 110.0; 110.0 was reached on success 117 of 120 of the last pass, so I let the pass complete.


Royal Circlets made: 4320 (consuming 25,920 ingots, returning 21,600, for a net consumption of 4320 ingots from recycling)
Ingots lost from crafting failures: 2204
Total Ingots Lost: 6524
(if items were crafted, then discarded or sold instead of reused, would have been 28,124 ingots consumed)

Gains per 120 circlets ranged from 0, to 5 (the last pass, which should have the least chance). There were two stretches over 360 successes long with no gains, most likely from streaking issues (much like the unlikely high-gain passes). Mean was 1.389 gains per full pass (120 successes), or 1.157 gains per 100 successes.

Training took approximately 4 hours, and about 60 exceptional crafting tools (chosen at random from a bag - some were really sucky, some had 150 uses).

110-120

Passes: I no longer have the exact data, but the passes soon got to the point to where failures were rare.


Royal Circlets made: 8342 (consuming 50,052 ingots, returning 41,710, for a net consumption of 8342 ingots from recycling)
Ingots lost from crafting failures: 1406
Total Ingots Lost: 9748
(if items were crafted, then discarded or sold instead of reused, would have been 51,458 ingots consumed)

Training took approximately 10 hours over 3 days (110-116 on one character, 116-120 on another). Breaks between sessions for each character were short enough to prevent GGS timer from being reached.


Totals for entire span, 100-120

Royal Circlets made: 2205+4320+8342 = 14,867
Ingots lost from crafting failures: 1721+2204+1406 = 4,331
Total Ingots Lost: 14,867+4331 = 19,198

If items had been discarded/sold, instead of being recycled under optimum conditions, the ingot consumption would have been: 94,533 Ingots!
 
M

Megilhir

Guest
Great guide but please elaborate a tad?

What is a pass?

How does a noob (me, who played way before such miracles) use the Recycle Bag please?

Assume zero knowledge please, because my knowledge is out of date. Remember the old top scroll across menu.? ..whoo hoo.
 
W

Walkerboh77

Guest
I assume a "pass" is simply pulling up the craft menu and selecting an item to make. then selecting the "make max" selection. which will craft endlessly until you break your tool or run out of resources or until you can't hold anymore.

so "pass"= craft max until tool breaks



and you can get a salvage bag from any provisioner...to use it efficiently(in 3D client)...

1) place your ingot stack into the bag(this makes every tool crafted appear inside the salvage bag)
2) craft your tools
3) right click the bag and select salvage(this instantly destroys any crafted item in the bag and gives you an appropriate amount of ingots in your backback)
4) place the ingot stack from salvaging back into your salvage back and simply repeat steps 1-4
 

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
Walkerboh77 is mostly correct.

A pass is crafting "make Max" with the amount of ingots put in the salvage bag. "Make Max" can be found in the 2D client by clicking on the button to the right of the name (where the difficulty, resources required, etc. appears), at the bottom.

Typically, I keep 1 crafting tool on me, have 5 or less items in my backpack, and put the raw materials for exactly 120 items (if all checks were successful) in the Salvage bag. When the tool runs out, I grab another from my box of tools I made in preparation for the training session, and complete the use of the iron.

The salvage bag recycles everything as one action - much quicker than UOAssist's Recycle Bag feature. It also USED TO return +1 ingot per item more than what is returned recycling normally, so in terms of just resources, it was much less costly to use as opposed to not using it, even before factoring in recycle time saved (compared to UOA Recycle, or a macro set up to make then automatically smelt the crafted item).

Take the salvaged ingots, add in the amount to get back to the 120 item amount, and return the pile to the bag.

Repeat as needed.

Tailor training works the same way, but you don't get bonus materials, and typically the items will weigh too much to do passes of more than 40-60 items (depending on the item).

The other crafting skills, as yet, don't recycle.

There are some SA items that are easier skill gains, but may not be worth the change. For example, Boomerangs use one less ingot per crafting than the circlet types, but you have to recycle 4 times as often, and you still lose the same number of ingots when recycling. Tailors can make Gargoyle cloth armor, but since those armors progress like smith items (start at 0% at minimum skill, instead of 50% like all other tailor armor), there will be MUCH more cloth lost to crafting failure.

Besides, as not everyone has SA, a guide that doesn't require it is more universal.
 
Last edited:

Voodoo Bad Mojo

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
wouldnt boomerangs be better to make from 100 - 120 ?
with smelting i believe the only take 2 iron per and they have a slightly higher % then royal circlets?
or..... royal circlets till 110 then boomerangs?
 

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
It depends on the definition of "Better"

There's no appreciable benefit of making boomerangs, as with max mining and gloves (or any mount that totals over 101.1) you lose the same amount of metal from both. The difference in skill gain chance is minimal (within the range of the random number generator).

The big difference is weight. You can make 120 Royal Circlets with 1 "make max" before recycling (starting with a good exceptional tool with that many uses), whereas you have to stop about every 30-40 or so boomerangs to recycle. This was covered in the post directly above yours. It will save you 5-10 minutes an hour to make the RCs instead of the same number of boomerangs, that can be used for more skill gain attempts.

Of course, the Salvage Bag nerf (where it lost the +1 ingot per item bonus on the return) makes the original numbers a bit off. Boomerangs used to return return 80% and royal circlets returned 83.3%, and now the numbers are 60% and 66.67% respectively.
 

Voodoo Bad Mojo

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
ah i see

i work my training a little different, i make a uoassits macro to make last, then smelt item type
so it makes the item and smelts it
rinse, repeat.
 

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
Given the age of UOAssist, and the number of people that use the EC, few people still use the craft/smelt macros for training. It's a viable option, but not available to everyone (and I really don't like the accidents that can occur with a macro to automatically recycle stuff - hit that macro accidentally right after spending a fortune reforging, imbuing and enhancing (with no ingots left to craft with), and you might find yourself tossing your computer across the room).
 
Last edited:

Voodoo Bad Mojo

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
a little fore-site can save you with this.
set a bag to be your recycle bag and only put stuff in there that you want recycled.
then you wont have to worry about accidental hits of the recycle key (same as your salvage bag)
are there more people using EC client now then CC?
i honestly don't know anyone that uses the EC so i just assumed that no one was using it.
 

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
You know what they say about assuming

What few new players we get tend to be EC players. Probably about 20% of the players use the EC some of the time.

And, the macro you described didn't use a recycle bag. As you stated it, it would just recycle the last item type targeted - which would result in a crafting fail plus the destruction of the item you just reforged, imbued or enhanced (aka last targeted), if triggered with insufficient ingots to craft the last item type you made. Having it trigger the recycle agent or salvage bag would be safer, but that's not what you initially described.

Lastly, a Salvage bag is MUCH faster than the UOA recycle agent. A "Craft/recycle" macro will take 2-3 times as long to run as a "craft till salvage bag is full/use bag" macro for the same number of items, which is another type of inefficiency.
 
Last edited:

Botak

Visitor
Stratics Veteran
Basara thanks for the guide. I follow your guide from 94-95 using a talisman. I was using platemail gorget from 90and. I take off my talisman when I'm near 104 105
I reach 120 very fast with your guide.

Now I'm going to level my imbue.

Thanks!
 

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
And, an update in 2016... I decided to finish training my last two BOD runners up to 120.

One, I got from 117 to 120 by filling a lot of Plate armor smalls that were too expensive to bribe up to being anything worth doing (and getting new BODs from them).

The other was at 113.3

The next day, I decided to use a Scroll of Alacrity for Blacksmithing. Just ONE scroll.

In the scroll's 15 minutes, making Royal Circlets, I progressed from 113.3 to 119.3 in less than 1000 ingots total (reusing some of the ingots over and over). I was able to get another 0.5 one gain at a time with another 500 ingots or so, then used a 0.2 SOT to finish it off.

It exceeded even my wildest expectations.
 

Telraseth

Visitor
Basara is this still valid i follow your guide reached 110 Will i continue to make royal circlets from 110 to 120 Although it says very easy
 

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
yes - one of the throwing weapons (boomerang) might be a little better on skill gains (at 5 ingots instead of 6), but the royal circlets are slightly more efficient on ingot return at 101.2 or higher mining, AND with item weight (so that you can make 3x to 4x more items between uses of a salvage bag). So it comes down to preferences (make max and salvage bag use with royal circlets involves the least clicking, reloading, etc. of all the options - just remember to move the salvaged ingots back to the salvage bag). Other options people have suggested work, but involve more clicks, and more time from more frequent refill stops (boomerang with salvage bag) or macro running delays (make 1/recycle macro).
 

Telraseth

Visitor
I was doing platemails before and I lost a lot of material. After i saw your guide it really made my progress so easy. Thank you very much for the information
 

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
Heh - out of boredom, I actually got my last BOD runner to 120, by using it just to fill Platemail BODs for the yearly artisan festival christmas trees.

but, that was a long slog based on "I might as well use filling the BODs to train, because I have the ingots, the BODs, and a way to use them". It's not a recommended method, but you can still technically get gains that way if below your scrolled amount in real skill, but are 100% to craft/craft exceptionally from using an Ancient Smith Hammer. So, why not?
 
Top