Weaponsmith Archive
Thread: Weaponsmith FAQ
Page 1 of 1
ReverendReasons
Fri Aug 29, 2003 9:20 am
#1
Weaponsmith FAQ v0.1
Compiled by ReverendReasons and the Weaponsmith Profession community.
Last edited: 8/28/03 (ReverendReasons, v0.1)
---
About the FAQ:
This document is very early in it's development. I'll try to keep it up on the boards, and maybe a moderator can have it floated. Also, we should look for an offsite location that can store it so we can link to the most recent version with a URL. Ideally, the Weaponsmith Correspondent should be the de facto maintainer of this document, but our current correspondent seems to be absent.
---
How to use this document:
You best resources are fellow weaponsmiths. The knowledge contained in this FAQ is culled directly from this message board. If this FAQ doesn't answer your questions, search the weaponsmith forum and see if someone has already addressed your issue. Chances are we have, and it may be buried deep in the pile of posts. If there's something that needs to be addressed in the FAQ (no doubt many things), respond to this post, and we'll try to add it into the next revision.
---
Sections:
* 1) Weaponsmith skills and abilities
Info on the tools and talents of weaponsmiths
* 2) Crafting, Resourcing, and Experimentation (General)
Some general information about the art of smithing, and in particular, weaponsmithing
* 3) How the Heck does the Novice Smith make a living?
Some helpful information for the young smith
* 4) Current Issues, and Word from the Developers
Canonical List of Community-submitted issues, and developer responses
* 5) What non-Weaponsmiths need to know about our profession
Or, a small attempt at avoiding tell-hell
* 6) Special Thanks and Version History
-
---
SECTION 1 - WEAPONSMITH SKILLS AND ABILITIES
1.0 - Intro
This section is a complete breakdown of each skill category. For a listing of the schematics and skills visit a good character builder on the web. (I recomend swg.allakhazam.com).
1.1 Novice Weaponsmith - Your first step into a larger world...
This give you the basics: +10 to assembly and experimentation, and some basic schematics. Note: Your general crafting abilities will not help you here. You're probably used to 8 or 10 points of experimentation on your CDEF weapons. Now you need to gather Weapon Crafting XP, not General Crafting XP to excel. The slate is clean for your adventures in crafting real weapons.
1.2 The four trees in weaponsmith are divided thusly:
1.2.1 Melee Weapons Crafting Tree
Grants schematics for melee weapons and their components. No bonuses to assembly or experimentation.
1.2.2 Firearms Crafting Tree
Grants schematics for firearms and their components. No bonuses to assembly or experimentation.
1.2.3 Munitions Crafting Tree
Grants schematics for munitions (grenades, thermal detonators, minefield components, etc.). No bonuses to assembly or experimentation.
1.2.4 Weapon Crafting Techniques Tree
This is where you get all bonuses to Assembly and Experimenation.
1.3 Master Weaponsmith
Grants additional schematics, and the last 25 points to Assembly and Experimentation. Here, you can build everything, and build it well.
---
SECTION 2 - CRAFTING, RESOURCING, AND EXPERIMENTATION (GENERAL)
2.0 - Intro
By the time you've hit novice weaponsmith, you should know how to go about getting resources and using your crafting tools. These are some things that you might *not* know.
2.1 - Crafting Stations
Any draft schematic that you've been granted access to by your new skills that has a complexity of over 20 must be crafted near a *crafting station*. Your Weapon, Droid, and General Item crafting tool isn't enough to handle the construction of these complex devices.
2.2 - Experimentation
As you progress from novice weaponsmith through the Weapon Crafting Techniques Tree, you'll be granted bonuses to the weapon assembly and weapon experimentation skills. These, together with the quality of the resources you use as determined by the draft schematic, determine your success at building (weapon assembly) and experimenting (weapon experimentation) weapons. For each 10 points you have in weapon experimentation, you get an additional "experimentation point" to spend while experimenting on each weapon. It should also be noted, however, that each point spent has a greater chance and degree of success, as your weapon experimenation skill goes up. So that +15 to weapon sxperimentation may only grant you 1 addition point to spend, but that point has a better chance of succeeding, and succeeding well.
2.3 Materials
Pay attention to what qualities you'll need according to the draft schematic you're using. This will determine not only the "starting point" for the stats on your soon-to-be built weapon, but also will modify your ability to successfully experiment. Materials that are poorly suited for the construction of a weapon are also poorly suited for experimentation, and you will not be as successful.
---
SECTION 3 - HOW THE HECK DOES A NOVICE SMITH MAKE A LIVING
3.0 Intro
This is probably the most repeated question on this message board. Please search through the postings for various ideas, but the general consensus is along the lines of the following...
3.1 "No One Wants to Buy my D-18 pistols"
This is true. Most Mark get certified very early for weapons better than this, and the market is flooded with D-18's from young smiths who didn't have the sense to read this FAQ. :-) So how *does* a young smith make money or get XP?
3.1.1 Artisan Mission Terminals
Take missions that ask for surveys of resources that you already know the locations of. If you have harvestors up in certain locations, then as you make your resource runs from harv to harv, just hit the survey button for that particular resource. Viola! Instant cash. This helps teh cash flow, but does nothing for Weapon Crafting XP.
3.1.2 Weapon Upgrade Kits
Crafting these by hand will get you decent levels of XP from the very start, and will also make you the best friend of any local smugglers. Smugglers need these to slice weapons, and will pay decent money for them.
3.1.3 The Projectile Pistol/Rifle Barrel - Grind, Grind, Grind.
If you can harvest enough steel, and you've progressed far enough up the firearms crafting tree, you can get almost 3 xp per unit of resource off these two items. Only two double-clicks to build!
---
SECTION 4 - CURRENT ISSUES AND WORD FROM THE DEVELOPERS
4.0 Intro
This section alone should keep us updating the fact at least once a month. Each profession's message board has a "correspondent". This person is a player, just like you, and will submit the week's most pressing issues for his professional community to the developers for consideration. This person will also, hopefully, maintain and update this FAQ. Below is the canonical list of the developers responses to these issues, listed most recent, first.
4.1 - Most recent information.
Issue Batch #1 - 8/15/03
Submitted by Diabalo, addressed by Q-3PO
--- Quoted from Post---
Big thanks to Diabalo for compiling these issues. Here are the designers’ responses to the top 5 issues (optional 6th is the Correspondent’s pet issue). Our next publish focuses heavily on overall profession issues. We also should be hiring an assistant community manager soon to be in more frequent and direct contact with you.
1) Resources
- Diabalo:
Higher end weapons require resources that rarely, if ever, spawn. There should be a higher rate of spawning for those specific resources.
- Q-3PO:
We’re in the process of nailing this one down. We’re going to need to do a little more research before we have any answers.
2) Experimentation
- D: Efficiency experiments do not seem to affect the final product. Higher-level characters use special moves, so HAM experimentation would be very useful.
- Q: You should see more options from the last monthly update.
3) Blaster Power Handlers
- D:
Weapons that require multiple blaster power handlers seem to ignore the bonuses on the extra power handlers. For example, there would appear to be no difference between using 2 x +2/+3/-0.06 power handlers and ones with stats of +6/+13/-0.34. Overall this is causing the lower tiered weapons to be more effective than the higher tiered.
- Q:
We’re going to look into this. There might be some good changes we can make, but we’ll have research more.
4) Schematics
- D:
Some schematics are listing the resources required incorrectly. An Advanced Vibro Unit says it requires "solid_petrochem_type3" instead of "Solid petro fuel class 3". The icon displayed is also incorrect.
- Q:
What others are you finding that have the same problem? They are all bugs that we can fix. Use /bug as you locate them.
5) Factories
- D:
Factories appear to be stopping for unknown reasons. Possibly when crates of resources have been partially used previously? Also, more information would be nice about structures, such as when they’re out of power, or running low on maintenance fees.
- Q:
We have some factory fixes as of the last update. Factories are something we will definitely keep focused on for the future.
6) Factory Speed
- D:
Factories for Master Weaponsmiths should be faster. Once you reach Master level, experience is no longer a factor.
- Q:
Well, we realize that the novice weaponsmiths still need a market, so we wanted to leave the higher weapons to the Master Weaponsmith and keep production speed the same. We’re going to keep an eye on the this for the future.
Kevin "Q-3PO" O'Hara
SWG Community Relations Manager
---End Quoting from Post---
---
SECTION 5 - WHAT NON-WEAPONSMITHS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT OUR PROFESSION
5.0 Intro
This section is intended to provide information that educates the novice smith, as well as non-smiths, about issues that are of concern to us.
5.1 Tell-Hell
If you are a customer, looking to have a weapon made, please send e-mail instead of a tell. When we are crafting, our chat window is full of information regarding the curernt process, and we may miss your tell completely. It is a polite consideration to have any inquiries regarding business handled through e-mail. This goes for all the crafting professions, not just weaponsmiths.
5.2 Resources
Many of our best weapons require specialized resources that aren't available, or nto available in sufficiently high qualities to make them worth building. Develop a close relationship with the weaponsmith of your choice, and help him/her learn what works best for you. Most of us use our own products, so we may be able to offer insight. Also note that as of this writing, almost every firearm has stats that rely on the conductivity of the materials used to build them. This, we weaponsmiths believe, is a bug, as many of our weapons require materials that have low or no conductivity, making an otherwise usefull weapon, useless.
---
SECTION 6 - SPECIAL THANKS and VERSION HISTORY
Thanks to the weaponsmith community for providing these questions and answers. Thanks to Jaegen88, pistoleer correspondent, for providing the inspiration and format to build this.
Keep track of who edited this here:
8/27/03 | v0.0 | ReverendReasons
8/28/03 | v0.1 | ReverendReasons
------------------------
Weaponsmith FAQ v0.1 : authored by ReverendReasons and the Weaponsmith Community
Last edited: 8/28/03 by ReverendReasons
Compiled by ReverendReasons and the Weaponsmith Profession community.
Last edited: 8/28/03 (ReverendReasons, v0.1)
---
About the FAQ:
This document is very early in it's development. I'll try to keep it up on the boards, and maybe a moderator can have it floated. Also, we should look for an offsite location that can store it so we can link to the most recent version with a URL. Ideally, the Weaponsmith Correspondent should be the de facto maintainer of this document, but our current correspondent seems to be absent.
---
How to use this document:
You best resources are fellow weaponsmiths. The knowledge contained in this FAQ is culled directly from this message board. If this FAQ doesn't answer your questions, search the weaponsmith forum and see if someone has already addressed your issue. Chances are we have, and it may be buried deep in the pile of posts. If there's something that needs to be addressed in the FAQ (no doubt many things), respond to this post, and we'll try to add it into the next revision.
---
Sections:
* 1) Weaponsmith skills and abilities
Info on the tools and talents of weaponsmiths
* 2) Crafting, Resourcing, and Experimentation (General)
Some general information about the art of smithing, and in particular, weaponsmithing
* 3) How the Heck does the Novice Smith make a living?
Some helpful information for the young smith
* 4) Current Issues, and Word from the Developers
Canonical List of Community-submitted issues, and developer responses
* 5) What non-Weaponsmiths need to know about our profession
Or, a small attempt at avoiding tell-hell
* 6) Special Thanks and Version History
-
---
SECTION 1 - WEAPONSMITH SKILLS AND ABILITIES
1.0 - Intro
This section is a complete breakdown of each skill category. For a listing of the schematics and skills visit a good character builder on the web. (I recomend swg.allakhazam.com).
1.1 Novice Weaponsmith - Your first step into a larger world...
This give you the basics: +10 to assembly and experimentation, and some basic schematics. Note: Your general crafting abilities will not help you here. You're probably used to 8 or 10 points of experimentation on your CDEF weapons. Now you need to gather Weapon Crafting XP, not General Crafting XP to excel. The slate is clean for your adventures in crafting real weapons.
1.2 The four trees in weaponsmith are divided thusly:
1.2.1 Melee Weapons Crafting Tree
Grants schematics for melee weapons and their components. No bonuses to assembly or experimentation.
1.2.2 Firearms Crafting Tree
Grants schematics for firearms and their components. No bonuses to assembly or experimentation.
1.2.3 Munitions Crafting Tree
Grants schematics for munitions (grenades, thermal detonators, minefield components, etc.). No bonuses to assembly or experimentation.
1.2.4 Weapon Crafting Techniques Tree
This is where you get all bonuses to Assembly and Experimenation.
1.3 Master Weaponsmith
Grants additional schematics, and the last 25 points to Assembly and Experimentation. Here, you can build everything, and build it well.
---
SECTION 2 - CRAFTING, RESOURCING, AND EXPERIMENTATION (GENERAL)
2.0 - Intro
By the time you've hit novice weaponsmith, you should know how to go about getting resources and using your crafting tools. These are some things that you might *not* know.
2.1 - Crafting Stations
Any draft schematic that you've been granted access to by your new skills that has a complexity of over 20 must be crafted near a *crafting station*. Your Weapon, Droid, and General Item crafting tool isn't enough to handle the construction of these complex devices.
2.2 - Experimentation
As you progress from novice weaponsmith through the Weapon Crafting Techniques Tree, you'll be granted bonuses to the weapon assembly and weapon experimentation skills. These, together with the quality of the resources you use as determined by the draft schematic, determine your success at building (weapon assembly) and experimenting (weapon experimentation) weapons. For each 10 points you have in weapon experimentation, you get an additional "experimentation point" to spend while experimenting on each weapon. It should also be noted, however, that each point spent has a greater chance and degree of success, as your weapon experimenation skill goes up. So that +15 to weapon sxperimentation may only grant you 1 addition point to spend, but that point has a better chance of succeeding, and succeeding well.
2.3 Materials
Pay attention to what qualities you'll need according to the draft schematic you're using. This will determine not only the "starting point" for the stats on your soon-to-be built weapon, but also will modify your ability to successfully experiment. Materials that are poorly suited for the construction of a weapon are also poorly suited for experimentation, and you will not be as successful.
---
SECTION 3 - HOW THE HECK DOES A NOVICE SMITH MAKE A LIVING
3.0 Intro
This is probably the most repeated question on this message board. Please search through the postings for various ideas, but the general consensus is along the lines of the following...
3.1 "No One Wants to Buy my D-18 pistols"
This is true. Most Mark get certified very early for weapons better than this, and the market is flooded with D-18's from young smiths who didn't have the sense to read this FAQ. :-) So how *does* a young smith make money or get XP?
3.1.1 Artisan Mission Terminals
Take missions that ask for surveys of resources that you already know the locations of. If you have harvestors up in certain locations, then as you make your resource runs from harv to harv, just hit the survey button for that particular resource. Viola! Instant cash. This helps teh cash flow, but does nothing for Weapon Crafting XP.
3.1.2 Weapon Upgrade Kits
Crafting these by hand will get you decent levels of XP from the very start, and will also make you the best friend of any local smugglers. Smugglers need these to slice weapons, and will pay decent money for them.
3.1.3 The Projectile Pistol/Rifle Barrel - Grind, Grind, Grind.
If you can harvest enough steel, and you've progressed far enough up the firearms crafting tree, you can get almost 3 xp per unit of resource off these two items. Only two double-clicks to build!
---
SECTION 4 - CURRENT ISSUES AND WORD FROM THE DEVELOPERS
4.0 Intro
This section alone should keep us updating the fact at least once a month. Each profession's message board has a "correspondent". This person is a player, just like you, and will submit the week's most pressing issues for his professional community to the developers for consideration. This person will also, hopefully, maintain and update this FAQ. Below is the canonical list of the developers responses to these issues, listed most recent, first.
4.1 - Most recent information.
Issue Batch #1 - 8/15/03
Submitted by Diabalo, addressed by Q-3PO
--- Quoted from Post---
Big thanks to Diabalo for compiling these issues. Here are the designers’ responses to the top 5 issues (optional 6th is the Correspondent’s pet issue). Our next publish focuses heavily on overall profession issues. We also should be hiring an assistant community manager soon to be in more frequent and direct contact with you.
1) Resources
- Diabalo:
Higher end weapons require resources that rarely, if ever, spawn. There should be a higher rate of spawning for those specific resources.
- Q-3PO:
We’re in the process of nailing this one down. We’re going to need to do a little more research before we have any answers.
2) Experimentation
- D: Efficiency experiments do not seem to affect the final product. Higher-level characters use special moves, so HAM experimentation would be very useful.
- Q: You should see more options from the last monthly update.
3) Blaster Power Handlers
- D:
Weapons that require multiple blaster power handlers seem to ignore the bonuses on the extra power handlers. For example, there would appear to be no difference between using 2 x +2/+3/-0.06 power handlers and ones with stats of +6/+13/-0.34. Overall this is causing the lower tiered weapons to be more effective than the higher tiered.
- Q:
We’re going to look into this. There might be some good changes we can make, but we’ll have research more.
4) Schematics
- D:
Some schematics are listing the resources required incorrectly. An Advanced Vibro Unit says it requires "solid_petrochem_type3" instead of "Solid petro fuel class 3". The icon displayed is also incorrect.
- Q:
What others are you finding that have the same problem? They are all bugs that we can fix. Use /bug as you locate them.
5) Factories
- D:
Factories appear to be stopping for unknown reasons. Possibly when crates of resources have been partially used previously? Also, more information would be nice about structures, such as when they’re out of power, or running low on maintenance fees.
- Q:
We have some factory fixes as of the last update. Factories are something we will definitely keep focused on for the future.
6) Factory Speed
- D:
Factories for Master Weaponsmiths should be faster. Once you reach Master level, experience is no longer a factor.
- Q:
Well, we realize that the novice weaponsmiths still need a market, so we wanted to leave the higher weapons to the Master Weaponsmith and keep production speed the same. We’re going to keep an eye on the this for the future.
Kevin "Q-3PO" O'Hara
SWG Community Relations Manager
---End Quoting from Post---
---
SECTION 5 - WHAT NON-WEAPONSMITHS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT OUR PROFESSION
5.0 Intro
This section is intended to provide information that educates the novice smith, as well as non-smiths, about issues that are of concern to us.
5.1 Tell-Hell
If you are a customer, looking to have a weapon made, please send e-mail instead of a tell. When we are crafting, our chat window is full of information regarding the curernt process, and we may miss your tell completely. It is a polite consideration to have any inquiries regarding business handled through e-mail. This goes for all the crafting professions, not just weaponsmiths.
5.2 Resources
Many of our best weapons require specialized resources that aren't available, or nto available in sufficiently high qualities to make them worth building. Develop a close relationship with the weaponsmith of your choice, and help him/her learn what works best for you. Most of us use our own products, so we may be able to offer insight. Also note that as of this writing, almost every firearm has stats that rely on the conductivity of the materials used to build them. This, we weaponsmiths believe, is a bug, as many of our weapons require materials that have low or no conductivity, making an otherwise usefull weapon, useless.
---
SECTION 6 - SPECIAL THANKS and VERSION HISTORY
Thanks to the weaponsmith community for providing these questions and answers. Thanks to Jaegen88, pistoleer correspondent, for providing the inspiration and format to build this.
Keep track of who edited this here:
8/27/03 | v0.0 | ReverendReasons
8/28/03 | v0.1 | ReverendReasons
------------------------
Weaponsmith FAQ v0.1 : authored by ReverendReasons and the Weaponsmith Community
Last edited: 8/28/03 by ReverendReasons
GameBOFH
Fri Aug 29, 2003 9:34 am
#2
Great idea! Thank you for taking the time to get this started.
Other items:
What are the best items to "grind" on?
Projectile pistol barrels->Projectile Rifle Barrels -> some discussion of 2h axes to rykk blades
How can I macro the grind?
Pull the instructions, from one of the many posts, indicate that there is currently no way in game to
eliminate the double click.
Hey, I'm selling X or looking for a WS!
Ask on your server specific board.
What can I expect X to cost?
Depends on the market and the smith. Between 0 and a lot.
What are the rare resources?
See the two posts from today already.
again, thanks a bunch.
Other items:
What are the best items to "grind" on?
Projectile pistol barrels->Projectile Rifle Barrels -> some discussion of 2h axes to rykk blades
How can I macro the grind?
Pull the instructions, from one of the many posts, indicate that there is currently no way in game to
eliminate the double click.
Hey, I'm selling X or looking for a WS!
Ask on your server specific board.
What can I expect X to cost?
Depends on the market and the smith. Between 0 and a lot.
What are the rare resources?
See the two posts from today already.
again, thanks a bunch.
ReverendReasons
Fri Aug 29, 2003 9:38 am
#3
GameBOFH-
Thanks! Just what I was looking for. I'll add that in sometime this weekend, along with the numerous other suggestions that will, no doubt, show up shortly.
Can we get a dev or moderator to float this thread? I want lots of feedback from all the weaponsmiths from master to novice.
I guess I'll maintain this beasty until a real correspondant shows up.
Keep suggestions coming.
-Rev
BinaryT
Fri Aug 29, 2003 9:45 am
#6
Another addition:
I just looted X off a corpse, can a weaponsmith use it?
Explain the difference between looted components (which suck) and looted component powerups (which we actually want) and how to tell one from the other.
Eyndd
Fri Aug 29, 2003 9:50 am
#8
heh, my bad. 3xp per unit resource for rifle barrel i meant. I think Rev understood my meaning.
off the top of my head, crafting a projectile rifle barrel takes 31 steel and 15 metal for 46 total resources.
by practicing i believe i net around 93 or 94 xp for each barrel which equals just slightly higher than 2xp per unit resource.
-Eyndd
ReverendReasons
Fri Aug 29, 2003 9:50 am
#9
Ambival-
I did, but of course, we only get around 2 per resource unit.
I'm getting 90 or so per barrel, qhich requires 42(?) 45(?) resources.
-Rev
ReverendReasons
Fri Aug 29, 2003 9:52 am
#10
BinaryT wrote:
Another addition:
I just looted X off a corpse, can a weaponsmith use it?
Explain the difference between looted components (which suck) and looted component powerups (which we actually want) and how to tell one from the other.
BinaryT-
I'll add that under the section "What non-weaponsmiths need to know"
-Rev
ReverendReasons
Sat Aug 30, 2003 5:22 am
#11
Eyndd wrote:
heh, my bad. 3xp per unit resource for rifle barrel i meant. I think Rev understood my meaning.
off the top of my head, crafting a projectile rifle barrel takes 31 steel and 15 metal for 46 total resources.
by practicing i believe i net around 93 or 94 xp for each barrel which equals just slightly higher than 2xp per unit resource.
-Eyndd
E-
Thanks for correcting me. It's 46 resources, and 90Xp, when not practicing. (So I'm assuming 94.5 xp when parcticing).
-Rev
JediBohemian
Fri Oct 24, 2003 6:47 am
#12
Is there a weaponsmith FAQ? I don't see it stickied at the top...
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