Artisan Archive

Okay, I got into the game about 30 minutes ago and I haven't been able to get minerals. Could someone help me here? I have no idea how much percentage of the mineral i need to find to be able to sample it. Please help. Anything on surveying/sampling would be greatly wanted.

Not sure of the exact percentage you need but aim for higher than 40% to begin sampling. Also some planets dont have the every resource or mineral. Higher the % higher the resources you'll gather.

Typically though you want to pick one resource and continue to survey until you find a high % vein and then settle in for a long time. Sampling can take a while depending on how much of that resource you want.

1st you use your Mineral detector to find minerals. A waypoint wil be created at the highest concentration found within the radius set on the detector. I'd advise moving to that point and survey again. If you can, try to get around a 60% or higher concentration. Once you are on the spot select the button on the lower left of your survey tool. (Gather sample I think its called, if the server was up I' could tell you excactly.) I hope this helps.

I generally look for something between 60-80% when I first start out as a character. You can go down to 40% with Survey IV, but at that point unless it is really something special or thatI need, I don't mess with that low of a concentration. At that point I'd rather pay maintainance on a harvester or somebody else on SWG-bay.

A little time spent surveying can save a lot of time sampling. Many times I've found a particularly rich metal spot that overlaps another mineral or a chemical that I can use. I just have to remeber to be careful running around with my survey tool screen open, I've nearly gotten myself eaten by something much meaner than me more times than I can count.

Bryan1138

At basic surveying, anything much lower than 60% is a waste of your time. Just keep running towards the higher number and hit "Survey" again - until you find the highest you can find. At the lower skill levels, even with 60% or more, you'll more often than not only get 2 or 3 samples at a time, and quite a few "you failed" messages.

As you move up the skill ladder in Surveying, this improves drastically to where you can actually sample faster than most harvesters can harvest, at least in the short term. At Survey IV on an 80% concentration you can grab 100 minerals in just a few minutes.

If you rolled a character mainly for fighting, but picked up Artesian on the side, you will have trouble surveying for any length of time. Surveying requires relatively high Mind and Action pools (the green and blue bars), and if you rolleda character that's low on mind you'll not be happy as an Artesian.

Don't forget - to get the next rank up in Surveying, you'll need 1000 credits as well as the experience points. It's not likely you'll find many players to train you this early.

One note for those starting out doing surveying. Make one of your quickslot assignments to /survey. This will allow you to survey on-the-run. It's much faster to chase down that highest percentage. Just do a manual survey once (find some resource that shows promise), and once you have that just use the keystroke while you're running to the waypoint. This really shines once you get to high surveying skills, as you hardly have to worry about running out of mind while running!

Okay thanks, but I'ma little confused. First of all, I started on Talus. It's a little hard finding any metals at all, then the ones I do find usually don't go past 40-45 percent. Is this just on Talus, is it just bad luck, or should I just start over on Tatooine? I wanted to start on Talus for a twist, so that it wouldn't be like everyone else, but I see very few people ingame, and can't get my questions answered ingame. Again, I ask if I should move to another planet.

Generally, there will be areas of the world where mineral percentages are higher than others. One qualification to this - For the rarer resources, you might never find a high or stunning percentage value. Surveying for the good spots is a matter of a whole lot of footwork. I literally spent hours on end in the beta walkign across Corellia, looking for hotspots for good metals and chemicals. Oen snag in this might be the wildlife on Talus - I'm not sure how bad the critters there are as far as aggro distance goes, but it can get tedious when you have to quickstep away from something that's tryingto turn you into lunch. Too much of that can put a damper on your gathering results. So, I guess my advice is eitehr of the following - If you're not satisfied with the planet you started on, run a mission or two, buy a ticket, and go elsewhere. This game environment is enormous. I promise you you'll find a place that'll work for you. Or, if you've just got your heart set on Talus, you can do one of a few things. Join up with a hunting party going out, and survey your way with them, if you can't make the hike solo. But however you do it, put in a little time out in the wilds. Chances are good you'll find at least one or two good spots for the mineral you're looking for. One last thing to consider - When selling your items on the bazaar, whoever buys it will have to make a trip to the terminal you posted it at to pick it up... If the population's not too terribly heavy on Talus in the early game, you might have problems moving the items you create. Trust me, it's much easier to sell stuff on the more heavily populated planets/cities. Sorry for the long post - Hope this helps some! Good luck. btw - If you're on Bloodfin, feel free to send me a tell in game with any questions you may have - char is Agitack Eilokkek.

Hi there, all my reading states in the beginning to only sample at spots that are higher than 75% for first surveying level.

I was also planning to go to Talus to start but it seems that that may be premature if i dony have the skills to sample any minerals on that planet, keep me posted if you get back in to the server.

Of course, the higher the percentage you're reading, the better your yield will be for sampling at low levels, but I've found anything above 50-55% to be worthwhile, even just starting out. Especially considering that you may not be able to find a 75% vein of a good resource anywhere near a city.The handiest thing to do, imho, is to survey around the city you start in, find a good mineral to sample, and start harvesting away. That way, when youearn enough experience, you're right there where people can train you, and also where you can sell the products of your crafting. This is alot harder to do if you're out in the middle of absolute nowhere, and have to dodge all sorts ofbelligerent critters on your way back to civilization.

Here is my basic process:

1. Survey for resource and go to the waypoint created.


2. If the concentration is <35%, survey again. Repeat steps 1 and 2 until I hit a 35% strain.


3. Once I am on 35%, I sample for 1 unit. As soon as I get that I stop sampling.


4. I examine that 1 unit to see if it has good stats like conductivity or overall quality (since I am initially building guns, powerups, survey tools, and crafting units). If the stats aren't so good, I pick a new resource and go back to step 1.


5. If I am happy with the resource, I keep surveying until I find the highest concentration I can. I try to get at least 70%. But some resources, like ores, I have only ever been able to find in concentrations of 45%.


6. Once I am satisfied that I have found the best concentration of the resource I want, I waypoint it and sample away. Whenever I need more of it, I return to the waypoint.

Has anyone noticed if the resource distribution is completely random or if the developers intentionally kept decent concentrations of the good resources away from the cities? I'm having a tough time finding a decent metal in a city and I'm terrified to go outside until I build up some defensive skills. Has anyone found a good metal insidea city?

I tried posting something similar to this last night, but the dreaded forum monster that Q supposedly had slain returned and ate my post.

Anyway,when the galaxies were first created yesterday all of the resources were created along with them and randomly distributed to all the planets. So, theoretically, the resources should be different and in different locations on each galaxy.

Each specific resource is tied to a galaxy-wide pool, rergardless of location. This means that if Ironium is a specific Iron (say the only cold iron type of iron)and has70 trillion unitsleft in the galaxy and is foundin high concentration onRori and Talus, whether you mine it on Rori or Talus the amount you mine is subtracted from the galaxy-wide 70 trillion units. When Ironium is completly mined out, regardless of where it is mined out, it disappears from the galaxy forever, leaving only the units dug out of the ground behind. As a side note: Artisans can created custom schematics for factoriesthat use specific resources in order to make a large number of identical copies of a crafted item (rather than just a prototype). If the schematic calls for Ironium and it is mined out and all the mined resources are used, that schematic would then be useless. Don't confuse these factory schematicswith the schematics in your datapad - same name, but different critter - these work forever.

After a resource typeis mined out, a new resource is generated and randomly distributedthroughout the galaxy. In the example above,the last remaining cold iron type of iron, Ironium was mined out of the galaxy. Now, a new type of cold iron, Newronium wouldbe produced. The stats and locations of Newronium would be completly different from Ironium. Maybe this time you findNewroniumin high concentrations on Tatooine and Correllia.

Thus, we have a dynamic resource system as illustrated above (clearly I hope). The devs put in some controls to make sure that artisans are never completely gated from crafting on a planet. I think this is mostlyby making sure that low level schematics call for very general materials (like any mineraland/or anychemical). Only time will tell how "dynamic" the system really is. So, as resources are mined out expect them to change. I wouldn't expect too much change until a bunch of Artisans manage to grind their way into the upper Engineering levels and on to Architect. When a bunch of harvesters start going in the game, resources will start to drain more quickly and disappear, with new resources "popping up".