Thoughts of a Crafter

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Let’s take a look at setting prices for two different items. With the introduction of skills, we now have to unlock the ability to make most items. Sure, most people will probably pick up a few crafting skills to make the basics, but the majority will not have the ability to create mass batches of gem grapples. This will mean more people purchasing from and selling to those of us focused on crafting. If you are a miner, you will probably have more ores than you know what to do with. If you are a hunter, you will have more meat and bone and oort shards than you know what to do with. You’ll sell those via request baskets to people who can use them. With your profits, you’ll buy a new hammer or slingbow or lance.

So what’s a fair price for that hammer? This question can be answered in one of two ways. The easiest way is by the materials it takes to make it. I’ll use the iron and gold hammers as examples here. The iron hammer takes about 8 minutes to craft from raw ore to finished product. You’ll need 2 iron ore, 2 fossil extract, a furnace w/fuel, and a workbench. You can either mine that iron and fossil yourself or purchase it. I would say, based on the commonness of iron, that it should cost about 10c per ore. This sets your material costs maybe around 30-40 coins. This will also take three skills:
Basic Crafting to make the furnace, workbench, and iron bars
Common Item to make the fossil extract
Common Tool to make the iron hammer

The other way to look at the question of price is from the direction of the buyer. What’s it worth to you? What will it get you in return for the coin you spend? Well, if I’m willing to buy iron for 10c a piece from you, and the iron hammer can break about 100 blocks (Durability of Tools (Recorded information)), if all you mine with it is iron you will get about 1000c from your investment. A price of 100c on an iron hammer gives you a 900c profit! If you are mining gold or silver, you’ll make even more.

This brings us to the gold alloy hammer. This bad boy has a material cost of 20 gold ore, 40 copper ore, 5 fossil extract, and 9360 spark! It will take about 25 minutes from raw ore to finished product. It will also require three more machines (compactor, refinery, and mixer) that take two more skills to unlock. To make that much spark would require more than 1 compact hard coal or 31 compact peat! Needless to say, this material cost is much, much higher than the iron hammer’s. Let’s say that gold is twice as rare as iron. If you are willing to sell iron ore for 10c, gold ore would be 20c at least. Let’s say 5c for copper. This makes the ore cost 600c for one hammer. I’ve purchased 1 compact hard coal for 400c. This brings our material cost to a minimum of 1000c. This is 25 times the cost of making an iron hammer!

But what’s the value of that gold hammer to you? Well according to @olliepurkiss, “Gold tools are designed to be the ‘wild card’ of the bunch with very high critical chance and critical effect making them unpredictable.” They do more damage on a normal hit and have a much higher chance of doing critical damage. This makes mining a lot faster. Since durability of a tool is based on the amount of strikes it can make, not the amount of blocks it can break, doing more damage each hit allows you to break many more blocks per hammer. Gold hammers are also the lowest tool that can break all blocks. This allows you to gather titanium and gems to sell to crafters.

If we think that 100c is a fair price for an iron hammer (with the potential of a 900c profit), and gold hammer costs 25 times more to make while giving you the ability to collect all materials in the game, a fair price for a gold hammer would be between 2000c and 2500c. You can either invest your skill points in Hammer, Power, and Agility to make you faster and more efficient at mining, or you could purchase 5 skills just to be able to craft a golden hammer an save your money. Which one sounds like a more profitable plan to you?

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I think that I would go with both options. Because I feel like you are limiting your view to the short game. Yes in the short game tools like iron and gold will be those prices (assuming they are extrapolated from fair values, not saying they aren’t). However in the long run I don’t think they will retain those values. Once a lot of people start reaching the higher levels and you essentially see saturation of gold and iron in the market, regardless of their crafting times and the magnitude of components those prices will drop a lot. I am not saying we are gonna look at 1c per iron hammer, however you could see iron hammers as low as 25c if they are even going to be in the market anymore. Yes you heard that right, after a while I would wager that iron and copper tools will either be stuff that people will give away or not bother making at all. Then focus efforts on tools silver and higher. Then after a while you probably wont see anything less than gold in the market since anything below that is just too cheap. And too basic. When the demand for gold+ tools start to rise because the market is just flooded with the materials, the price of iron tools is going to be meaningless compared to the profit that will come from gold+. I for one am currently working to be able to get the talent for common tools which I am told allows silver tools. Soon as I get that, I am not making anything less than silver tools. After all silver allows me to mine gold and titanium. Then once I can make gold, I will keep my large stockpile of silver, but make a few gold to find me some gems. At that point, to me anything less than silver tier tools is worthless and I would either give away or make at request for either nothing or fuel trade. All of this however is my opinion and how I look at game economics.

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also the fact that ys miners NEED at least gold hammers to mine your gems - i think as long as it can be proven that i am a miner the gold hammers should be sold for cheaper or w/e i understand the labor and machine and spark cost variation ofc - but if we are mining your gems how about something like 1 free gold hammer per 20 gems mined or something?

As an example ofc

Added note - i beleive you are wrong about the truth of the gold hammer - i have used gold myself since the updates (broke about 5) and have broke at least that many iron and copper hammers - apart from Gold being the base hammer which can break all blocks it actually has a VERY SLOW mining speed - copper being the fastest mining hammer (beyond stone) iron being slower with gold being the slowest of the 3 (4 if you count stone) so by the sounds of it you need very high crit skills to actually make it worth while utilizing a gold hammer (for speed) just my oppinion from personal experimentation

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From my experience if I use only gold hammers to mine everything, the value of that hammer drops significantly. I can mine iron with a wooden hammer if I want. To use a gold hammer is a waste. I typically have both iron and gold/gem on me when mining. I’ll use the gold/gem hammers to get hard coal and gems and the iron hammers for anything else. Sure, I can increase my speed by using the gold hammer on everything, but I also would significantly decrease my profit.

What your analysis doesn’t take into account is the Invisible Hand. People are motivated to take certain actions based on the profit of those actions (and, yes, that profit can be in enjoyment). Currently, there is a lot of profit to be found in gaining the crafting skills for those who find enjoyment in doing crafting. You’re right. As more people become crafters, the profit margins will drop. This will also increase demand for ores as more people are using those supplies. This increase in demand for ores will result in higher prices for ores which will result in more profitability for miners. The lower profits of crafting will discourage people from becoming crafters, and the higher profits of mining will encourage more people to become miners. With the increase in miners, there will be an increase in the demand for tools. With this increase in demand, the price of tools will go up. The increase in miners will also increase the supply of ores bringing down the price of ores. This higher profitability of tools will result in more crafters, and the lower profitability of ore will result in less miners. I think you see the cycle.

It is the ebb and flow of supply and demand that will keep the iron hammer on the market. It is the value of iron ores and the use of that iron hammer that will govern its price. Because iron and gold leave the game in the form of the durability of tools and weapons, and more players will increase both the supply of these ores as well as the demand for them, there will not be the saturation that you think there will. In game design, this is referred to as a “sink”. Sinks are balanced by the “faucets”, the way in which materials enter the game. As long as the rarity of the materials balances against the durability of the tools made with them, there will not be the economic deflation that you expect.

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Gems are at least half as common as gold. I would probably argue that they are a quarter as common, but I’ll say half for the sake of argument. This would put their price at 40c. (I’ve never found anyone willing to sell for this price.) This would mean that you could mine 100 gems with one gold hammer, resulting in 4000c in sales. Buying a gold hammer for 2000c and getting a 2000c profit sounds pretty good to me.

Copper swings faster but does less damage. I would love to see a study done on the speed of hammers.

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There’s already a study out there. Gradation of Нammers | LIVE 167 | upd

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cheers but as i was saying - that is at max crit etc skills just saying it is not true at lower levels :wink: - ah but now we are way off topic so

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There’s not maxed crit involved, there’s maxed hammer mastery, dexterity and power.

Lower tier tools max out at lower hammer mastery and power, dexterity just affects swing speed, and there’s a little crit affecting the test, but the overall result of hammer vs hammer stays relevant.

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I think that for overall use (everything under iron level) a stone hammer is gonna be used, since using an iron hammer is a waste. and stone hammer is inexpensive, that and can easily be attained after a day of mining in mas bulk. Which is why I think it is entirely possible that the iron hammer can be phased out from the market. But you are right, people will always sell everything, I was giving my opinion on how I see things. I think that after a while the sale of iron tools would be fruitless because the capacity to make gold tools will be just as accessible if not more so.

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Looking at the graduation info, it stands that maxing hammer mastery, power and dexterity.
Results in many hammers maxing out, and the core difference between them results in what they can and can’t mine.

Remember how in old times many skipped over titanium and did gem tools? It was because the use of titanium was so useless when compared to gems, which seemed like less work and more fruitful to make. Just from looking at the data, stone will be better in most cases than iron. Being easier to craft (most players should be able to craft them), and taking the same ammount of hits and being faster. Iron will just be better at mining what stone can’t mine. And at that point, you’ll be using better hammers for those. Reaching an appropriate tool for the needed resource.

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Agreed, I think the only time iron tools will be super valuable is early when the game goes live. Since making iron tools will be necessary to mine silver and gold. But once the market is saturated with gold and silver, I think iron will quickly become obsolete. UNLESS they make it so gold tools are not part of the common tool recipe (which I think they should) they should add it to advanced, and move gems to expert (if not already). Reason I think this is because as it stands iron, silver, and gold are all made with the same skill set. Which means all someone needs to do is make maybe 1 smart stack of iron tools, or if they have mined silver with the stone hammer go straight to it to get titanium. I think that the only way that irons life can be extended is by moving gold to a higher skill tier. Otherwise will likely be phased out. Again this is my opinion.

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IMO it is way too early to speculate on these things, I’m planning on being a master craftsman when the game comes out which means everyone is forgetting something. The FORGE is going to play a large part in the value of tools, we all have to wait and see its capabilities and how certain materials benefit compared to others before we cast tool judgement.

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Of course, the only way to stock a shop in the long term is to purchase the materials from other specialists. As my store becomes more popular, it will become more and more impossible for me to mine enough to keep enough inventory. So, if a person wants to keep very low prices, say 25c for an iron hammer, they will only be able to spend maybe 5c per iron ore. If miners are willing to be paid that little on their time and can’t find any higher offers, this store owner may manage. But my suspicion is that miners will either not accept such a low offer. Those miners will either use the iron themselves or stop mining iron. This drop in supply will increase the price. At 100c for an iron hammer, I can comfortably pay 10c per iron and push it up to 15-20c if that’s what the market demands. I believe that I can find miners willing to take the price of 10c, but I may be wrong. I’d like to see a post from a miner with ideas of what they would be willing to take for each block they mine. Since the easiest way to sell is via plinths, the lowest price on an item is going to be 1c. Ideas?

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copper: 2-3c
iron: 5-10c
silver: 15c ish
gold: 20-30c
titanium: 30-40c
gem: 50-100c (depending how common a gem)

these are prices I would expect from the market in coming weeks (thats rough ores);

tools:
copper: 50-100c
iron: 100-150c
(remember fossil goes into it that is not as common as ore and iron itself; so price is not just 15 copper/iron x ore price, but also fossil mining and smelting copper/iron meaning using coal)
silver: 500c ish
gold: 750c ish
titanium: 1500-2000c
gem: 3000-5000c

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Yikes, those seem high although the science behind it does make sense. I’m gonna be restocking my shop shortly with tons of iron hammers going for 35c each and diamond hammers going for 2000c each

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Yeah very curious why you are expecting such price hikes, have you found an influx of coin on this patch. I just started playing on it about a day ago only lvl 15 so far.

Edit~ Also who is selling Titanium at 30-40c ?, I’ll go buy it all lmao

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Honestly, the question here isn’t entirely covered.

There are two halves to this equation. One half is how hard it is to acquire (find/mine/buy) resources, and the other half is how hard it is to acquire coin. Right now, coin is easy to come by (particularly for new players who have all the objectives to fulfill) so prices will likely be very high (5,000c for a hammer that can mine hard coal and gems and will last a while? Peanuts).

However, we’re still in an effectively limited economy. There are no contracts, dailies, or weeklies, so there comes a point pretty fast where you basically stop getting coin (footfall works now, but it is LOW income compared to any of these other sources). In addition, taxation (that no one collects yet) is still sucking money out of the economy on all purchases made in plinths/baskets. Prices are going to steadily drop, probably, as more money is drained from the economy for taxes/warps than is generated by footfall (for the average player). Effectively, all resources except for some of the rarer gems are going to be easier to get than coin is for most players.

Eventually, when we get dailies/weeklies/contracts, THAT’S when we’ll actually see how the economy turns out… but I suspect that 5,000 will be on the very cheap side for a gem hammer, because coin will be plentiful.

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There might currently be too many sinks in the game through taxation and warps. I suspect the same as you that contracts, dailies, and weeklies will add enough faucets to counter that. I’m not sure that the sinks will affect prices that drastically. As long as players are both buying and selling, the money that is in the system will circulate enough.

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If these prices seem steep it’s mostly because I was exactly thinking about how much money will be in market through progression, including incoming contracts and general post 50 features.

Next thing is how many players will invest enough in crafting to produce staff themselves? How many will be able to be provided with enough fuel to produce all the time even if they have needed crafting skills? How rare gem tools will become when old stock runs out? Etc etc. Im half guessing just like everybody else but for sure I respect time I spend on gathering resources and putting my crafts together. From point of view of active miner and crafter these prices look steep. From point of view of someone who doesn’t want to constantly run after coal to keep production up these prices may seem fair.

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From point of view of someone who hasn’t gotten off a starter planet yet, 10,000 coin for a gem hammer the minute they get off will probably be a no-brainer, especially considering they haven’t much else to spend it on there.

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