Weaponsmith Archive
Thread: The Slackers guide to making Master Weaponsmith by building 1,779 weapons.
The Slackers guide to making Master Weaponsmith by building 1,779 weapons*.
If you’re like me and grinding makes you sick, or if you’re just sick of grinding, this is the guide for you! Now, if you LIKE grinding 100,000 barrels* to make Master Weaponsmith by all means please do so. However if you like to have time to pet your dog and walk your wife, or maybe the other way around, then read on.
To get started let's look at the experience point (XP) layout for Weaponsmith. The total XP is 896,000, this comes from 4 rows of skills that cost 224,000 per row. Before you strat I would recommend you acquaint yourself with any of the fine Marco’s that are out there. This guide is not about making Macros EXCEPT, that to follow most of it, you will need to have your Macro set up to work near a crafting station. For most of the Marco’s all this entails is adding a third “nextcraftingstage;” statement to the command list.
What you’re going to do is make Master and never even see a barrel. To do this you start out grinding up some Metal Staves. You’re going to need 35,000 XP, since each one produces 88 XP, using practice mode, you’ll have to make a total of 398 of them. Each Metal Staff needs 42 of any metal so have 16,716 units of metal on hand to do this stage. (42*398=16,716)
Well, 35,000 XP down and only 861,000 XP to go.
Now you have your first 35,000 Weapon XP what do you do with it? I would suggest you invest it in Intermediate Munitions. This will allow you to craft Medium Warheads for 178 XP each, again in practice mode. You’ll be looking at building 49,000 XP to get to the next step, so that’s a total of 276 medium warheads. To get that 178 per, you’re going to need a bit of a laundry list, which looks like this:
20 metal any * 276 = 5,520 metal
20 Steel * 276 = 5,520 steel
30 gas any reactive * 276 = 8,280 gas
10 Radioactive * 276 = 2,760 radioactive
5 Polymer * 276 =1,380 polymer
85 total per medium warhead. 23,460 total resource units.
GREAT! 84,000 XP and 674 weapons down, only 812,000 XP and 1,105weaponsto go.
Here is how I got that 812,000 and all I had to craft were 1,105 more weapons. Frankly 100,000 clicks* to make the barrels would have killed an old man like me, so this is a much saner alternative, though it can be expensive. Hey, I said it was the slackers guide, I never mentioned anything about credits.
Invest your 49,000 XP in Advanced Munitions, so you can build Heavy Warheads. Each Heavy Warhead is worth 735 XP, using practice mode, and if you divide 812,000 by 735 you get 1,104.76 or 1, 105. Here is the load out your going to need to make Heavy Warheads.
* 160 metal any * 1,105=176,800 any metal (changed from steel to metal)
20 metal any * 1,105=22,100 metal
40 Thoranium steel * 1,105=44,200 Thoranium
80 Skevon gas * 1,105=88,400 Skevon
50 Radioactive * 1,105=55,250 Radioactive
10 Polymer * 1,105=11,050 Polymer
10 Hydron-3 Inert Gas * 1,105=11,050 Hydron-3
370 resource units * 1,105= Total 408,850 resource units.
Thisis where the one screwball thing about Heavy Warheads comes up; they only give 735XP on 370 resource units, in practice mode. They should give 777 XP, 740 + 5%, but instead they give 700 XP + 5%. My best guess is that the game is not counting the 20 any metal you have to add in. This would make it 350 resource units * 2 = 700 + 5% =735. But it could just as easily be skipping the Poly and Hydron, or who knows what. Personally I don’t care, because I can make 1,105 Heavy Warheads, I can not make around 100,000 barrels.
That's it, you have now built 1,779 weapons, and all you have to do is invest 620 apprentice points to claim your Master's title.
One last note, using the current Macro’s I’m running 8 builds per minute, times 735 XP per build is 5,880 XP per minute or 352,800 XP per hour, that’s with my Macro set to a nice leisurely slacker rate of /pause 7; . I’m sure a lot of you more ambitious types can better that. Of course you hit the cap pretty fast and fairly often so you need a Master Weaponsmith standing by to train you every 20 minutes or so. My actual rate is a good bit lower then that, as I tend to stop and pet my wife and walk my dog, or is that the other way around?
Civilization was built by some guy just trying to get out of doing so much work. (A paraphrase of a saying by Lazarus Long)
* Edits:
Actually it's mostly sub-components as is pointed out else where.
OK, so it's 9,531.91 barrels,but it FEELS like 100,000 to me.
Barrels require about 20,000 cilcks total.
Changed 160 steel to 160 metal anyto correct this error on my part. I did not combine it with the following 20 any metal simply to minimize the actually number of changes to the guide and hopefully avoid confusion.
Thank you to everyone for pointing out these corrections!
I'm very gratified to see how many people this has helped, so thank you to everyone for the, mostly, wonderful feedback.
Message Edited by VaMage on 06-30-2004 05:01 AM
Message Edited by VaMage on 07-31-2004 01:00 AM
Forgot one other thing, to go into total slack mode set your Mouse, I use MS Mouse, so that the left button is double-click, put click on a side button. Now start your Macros, all you have to do is click each resource and it's loaded.
For Heavy Warheads this is a total of 7 click per warhead, a total of 7,735 clicks for 812,000 XP, or a PCXP, per click XP, rate of 105.
I'm sorry but if this is what you call "slacking" you're welcome to come work for me anytime.
The pain of accumulating the skevon gas alone (80K units? 
) is immeasurable compared to 185,000 doubleclicks. Likewise with Thoranium steel. Both of these are relatively rare shifts and may not have popped on some servers for a fairly long time.
The metal staves weren't about when I was levelling to Intermed FA craft, but they are about the only thing I would do here. The added stress in having to doubleclick FIVE different resources for heavy warhead definitely leaves the Pro Rifle Barrel as the clear winner. Two doubleclicks on the same steel container wins there for mouse movement alone. I've seen people here who got their cordless mouse and started their macro, then sat watching TV while clicking twice every 8 seconds, without ever having to look at the screen.
Your way may well be quicker and less likely to induce RSI or carpal tunnel but it is expensive and time consuming in looking for those rarer resources. In hindsight I would still do it the old fashioned way. I never actually timed myself on any but the last box of munitions (this took me just under 3hrs looping my 5 tools) but I've heard of the whole grind being done in 2-3 days (granted that that is by clinically insane)...
I have to second this. A better title might be the "Ambitious Crafter's Guide to Making Master Weaponsmith".
WerrtZer wrote:
I'm sorry but if this is what you call "slacking" you're welcome to come work for me anytime.
VaMage wrote:
Forgot one other thing, to go into total slack mode set your Mouse, I use MS Mouse, so that the left button is double-click, put click on a side button. Now start your Macros, all you have to do is click each resource and it's loaded.
For Heavy Warheads this is a total of 7 click per warhead, a total of 7,735 clicks for 812,000 XP, or a PCXP, per click XP, rate of 105.
Ok I feel like a real winner here.... How do you do this? I tried in the mouse settings in windows, and I looked at all the keybindings area inside SWG options... Where can you change this option??? Please let me know cause this would be a great asset!
I never actually timed myself on any but the last box of munitions (this took me just under 3hrs looping my 5 tools) but I've heard of the whole grind being done in 2-3 days (granted that that is by clinically insane)...
Today is day #3..no im not clinically insane!!! 
Hey Johnny, I think we're resource neighbors!
Thanks so much,really nice post.I'm about to start the climb to Master WS and had to believe there was a better way to go then the 100Kbarrel grind. You just confirmed it.
I'll need to pick up a few extra resources but I'm gonna give this method a try. Will report back anything interesting.
Best!
BPM ... of Paradigm Productions :-)
Look for the Microsoft Mouse program, the select Enable Program Specific Settings check box. After that go into the Settings button, next to the check box, and add SwgClient_r, by browsing using the add button. From there just change the buttons on the right side of the screen.
Merry Christmas
I know we are, cause I see the Paradigm Productions name on a lot of mines sitting next to TCPA Johnny-Umah Weapons Division mines!
Merry Christmas
I did mention it wasn't cheap just quick and easy. I'm grinding up my second master at the moment so I have been pulling resources for awhile now.
IF someone is thinking of going Master at some point, all they have to do is start building the supplies I detailed now, then when they want to do it they can finish in an evening.
I also didn't make it clear but grinding give me a sick headache. I can run harvestors all day for weeks if needs be to avoid that.
Merry Christmas.