I presented this idea in the idiots thread about forging, and thought I would throw it out here.

Perhaps, to give forgers a way to make money, would be to make metal commodities unusable until a forger smelts it down, and presses it into an ingot.

You could also do a similar thing with artisan's... wood and marble commodities need to be shaped into planks/blocks before the rest of the population can use them?


This would make sense as this how jewelers already work... It would be nice if all tradeskills had a skill to convert a base commodities to useful commodities.

What will that exactly do? Force artisan to use more wood and marble, which are their main commodities already, and force forgers to use metal commodities, which are their main commodities already. The only overlap is slight metal designs in Jewelry and Artisan, it will give forgers a bit more work, but beyond that it's not really fixing anything.

A lot of tailoring designs use metal. Almost ALL jewelery designs use metal.

This means people will need to hire a forger/artisan to buy the needed comms to ply their own trade. And it is a low cost item, to an extent, allowing them to much more easily slip a labor charge in and still have a workable price.

I like.

I like it. would love it even more if somewhere there was a possibility to get more comms from this (Arti upgrade, skill whatev) either doubling or the far more likely option of allowing groups of (say) lumber to be cut into planks at a time skill in artisan and/or the artifact could at a decimal to a multiplier so 1.0 at inept plus 0.02 every rank so about 1.2 at trans giving an extra plank for every 5 pieces of lumber cut at the same time or other unrefined comm.

An artifact could add to the multiplier, if it were just another 0.02 it would mean every fifty nets you another one at trans a higher multiplier though 0.1 might be better

I was actually thinking about this. Here is a more complete idea:

New Artisan Skills:

Lumberwork: Takes raw lumber and turns it into usable timber. *Must be done at a sawmill. Perhaps adding sawmills as like an artisan workshop to the communes/cities. (Would be a 1:1 ratio at inept, slowly increasing to a 1:5 ration at transcendent.)

Stonecutter: Using a hammer and chisel, the artisan can work stone into usable bricks or blocks. (Would be a 1:1 ratio at inept, slowly increasing to a 1:5 ration at transcendent.)

Backstrap Loom: Can create the portable loom used in the creation of bolts of cloth.

Spinning Wheel: Create a spinning wheel so as to allow the spinning of raw wool and silk into usable thread.

Vials: Wooden vials. (Remove vials and pipes from arts as well.)

Forging Skills:

Nails: A new artisan commodity. Up to 20 nails can be used to reduce the amount of wood needed to build furniture by .05% per nail.

Ingots: Convert raw metal into usable ingots. (Would be a 1:1 ratio at inept, slowly increasing to a 1:5 ration at transcendent.)

Crafting Hammer: A general hammer meant to be used with a chisel.

Stone Chisel: A chisel designed to chip away stone.

Jewelers Chisel: A more delicate chisel used to cut gemstones.


Tailoring Skills:

Weave: Using a backstrap loom, the tailor can turn thread into a bolt of cloth. (Ratio: 5:1 at inept, becoming 1:2 at Transcendent.)

Spinning: Spin raw wool and silk into usable thread. (Would be a 1:1 ratio at inept, slowly increasing to a 1:5 ration at transcendent.)

Forging Gloves: Thick leather gloves that allow the forger to stand the heat of the forge better, and thus forge faster.


Update to Jewelery:

Gemcutting now requires a jewelers chisel.

Enchanters also use metals for sigils.

While we're on the subject, I think it would be better if Bookbinders were the ones who made cards and sketch papers. Or maybe at least be the ones that make ebtter-quality versions of the above, maybe with longer decay times or whatever. 'Binders need some love. We should be able to make the best paper - we spend to most time with it, really.

That would be really irritating. Having to find a tradesman to use your guild skills is rather meh. Having to find a tradesman every time you want to go sketch something is even worse to me (uncrowned sad smilie). Sketching is something I do when I want to capture something to show to someone else - sketch sheets don't last very long, and keeping a supply is kinda silly when it's a spur of the moment thing. Meh.

At the very least, I think Bookbinders should be able to make sketchpads, either everlasting or with long decay times, that can either just be kept and drawn in with all the pages intact, or they could be ripped out to act as normal sketch papers.

Now THAT is a great idea (insert old smile smilie here). It has been suggested many times as an artifact too.

Who else except for tailors use cloth? (Artisans might for furniture. I really don't know though.) This would make tailoring less profitable as you would need to pay for a loom and a wheel.

The whole Idea seems unbalanced though. Some of the new creations would become an improvement while others become necessity's. I.E. The hammer and chisels compared to the nails.

I think requiring forgers to process metal comms is a little questionable. Ok, actually, I think it's a horrible idea and I wanted to be polite.

What's the average labor cost on vials? Depends on the price of cut gems, really. Usually zero, unless you're a jeweler.
What's the average labor cost on pipes? Zero, unless you're making artisan pipes.
What's the average labor cost on cutting gems if raw gems are brought to the jeweler? Usually zero.
What will be the average labor cost on anything that produces an intermediate necessity? Nearly zero.

Honestly, I can't see this adding anything except a time cost.

Also if everyone is making usable comms for others wouldn't that be slightly counter productive or at the least null productive. Assuming that the price of each made comm is similar you would be spending about the same amount of money you get from making comms as you would buying other comms.

Who uses metals besides forgers?

Artisans and enchanters

Hi! I'm a post from earlier in the thread, pleasure to make your acquaintance.

Artisans, Enchanters, Jewellers, someone said Tailors?

Tailors use metal in small amounts, little gold here, little silver there. (Although I have a design waiting for approval with a LOT of silver in it.)

As the the cloth thing, drying clothes for herbalists, cloth is used in a lot of forging designs that I have seen, same for artisan. (Lumping in silk with cloth for the point here.)

The affected comms from above would become the component comms. IE: Steel becomes Un-purified Nikilized Iron, or whatever it will end up being called, cloth becomes wool/hemp/flax, silk becomes raw silk, etc etc...

And an inept, in most cases, will take one raw and create one 'purified' product. Higher level tradesmen will produce more 'purified' comms from the base comm. Simulating more efficient skill knowledge. Thus in the long run, it may even 'save' people money.

And the point of the chisels and spinning wheels, etc is to give these rarely sought out crafters more work. If you want to tailor, you either need to buy your comms from another tailor, or get a spinning wheel and loom. If you want to make rings with gems, get a chisel and hammer, or bug a jeweler who already has these items.

Except people are no always buying commodities at the exact same time. This also develops a commodity trade system that is player dependent, and also influenced with villages. (As you still need the raw resource.) You could very well end up with players who specialize in creating the base comms and trading those, which would be a great way for this to work out.