best way to level crafting?

[EvilNecroid]

^

[TGC> The Games Collector]

By crafting. Really, it's as simple as that.

For armor crafting, you can tan leather or even make clothes, don't even need to waste much on armor right away.
I think bandanas are cheap to make.

For weapons, just keep making katanas. They're pretty cheap to make too.

And just making the bolts is enough for crossbow crafting.

It might take a few (ingame) weeks of dedication to master, but then you'll have a pretty decent smith.

[bunny de fluff]

by beating armor plate, that way you won't waste resource making crap armors

[Xalaron]

For weapons I would suggest keeping the basic weapon smith 1 bench and spamming Iron clubs, they are fast to make and require only 2 iron plates.

[Bedelguese]

Armour: Make headbands
Weapons: iron clubs

[SmallGespenst]

Originally posted by Hellinghof:

Armour: Make headbands
Weapons: iron clubs

not really, making as many things as possible isn't really what you want to do, the faster you make something, the less time is spent crafting, therefore: less experience. what you want is to maximise time crafting against ingredients consumed, with armour you get started with basic ingredients: leather, chainmail and armour plates.

[Zee_]

Quick armor crafting:
Go out and collect as many animal skins as you can, 200+ will do. Build as many hide and leather barrels as you need. Then have your armorsmith tan those hides to make leather. By the time you're done the armorsmith should be in the 60-70 skill range. After that, have them make chain, then work the metal beating station. By the time you have a couple chain and armour plate storages full your smith should be in the 80-85 range, and you'll be building up the resources you need to make armor at the same time. After that have them craft armour, make sure to give your armorsmith jobs for tanning leather, making armour plate and chain so they'll replenish the mats as needed (put these at the bottom of their jobs list so they'll only do it after they're done crafting armor or if they run out of materials).

Quick weapon crafting:
Make low grade wakizashis by the boatload, they're a quick and easy craft that uses few materials and have a high value, sell the crap you make or melt em down in the item furnace to get some iron ore back.

As your character's skill improves upgrade the forge (if you haven't already upgraded it), you can stick with the 3rd tier weapons (I think kits 3rd, can't remember atm... make the highest tier that uses iron plates for materials at any rate) and ride the train to the mid to upper 80 skill range.

Make sure to build a steel furnace asap, once you start making high end weapons you'll be burning through steel like crazy, the earlier you build up a good supply the better. Its a good idea to set up a runner with jobs of delivering iron plates and making/delivering steel to storage. Do the same for a cloth loom, you can use the same runner for this job and delivering the plates and steel, have working the cloth loom be the lowest on their job list, autolooms sound like a good idea but the AI is a bit buggy with them and won't gather the finished cloth half the time. Or have your armorsmith set to work the loom, it will increase their armorsmith skill, like making leather, put the skill low on their priorities and build up a supply ahead of time for best results. Your armorsmith and weaponsmith will work much slower if they have to run for mats themselves.

Both armorsmithing and weaponsmithing use cloth, but you don't need as much of it as you items like steel, armour plate and leather.

[Faerador]

Actually, DON'T upgrade your weapons forge until you're ready to begin crafting weapons you want to use. The Weaponsmith I will only use iron plates, but the Weaponsmith II and III both use cloth in addition to their primary ingredients (the tier III uses steel instead of iron), which make them more costly for merely ranking up your skill.

Otherwise, as other people have said, grinding animal skins into leather, raw iron into armor plates, and steel into chainmail will all level armorsmithing for you and give you the ingredients necessary for that armor when you begin making it.

Edit: When forging weapons on the tier III at least, you also use cloth in a 1:1 ratio with the metal, so it can definitely add up when you're looking to equip your entire party with Falling Suns. That's 14 steel and 14 cloth per sword!

[Zee_]

IMO, you should upgrade the forge as your character's skill improves. Yes a rank 1 forge uses the least amount of materials, but it'll hit a soft cap somewhere between the 30-50 skill range (its been a while so I can't give an exact number).

Basically, once your skill gains start to level out and your gains slow to a crawl, its time to upgrade the weaponsmith's forge.

I stuck with a rank 2 forge until the upper 60s range then upgraded and shot to 85+ within an hour (rl hour). Thats why I suggest building up your supplies and setting up a good supply chain ahead of time. When its needed, you're gonna burn through steel like a madman.

Also I forgot to mention in my earlier post, in the end making items with longer craft time is better than pumping out lots of quick to craft items. Making wakizashis is great for starting out and for making a ton of cats when you need some cash (they are worth a decent amount and you can fit a ton of them in a medium sized pack). But once your skills get up a bit, making longer to craft items can save alot of materials. The time spent crafting is what counts when you're skilling up, not how many items you pump out.

[EvilNecroid]

ok so upgrade crafting thingys and make fast cheap thingys :)
thanx

[SmallGespenst]

Originally posted by EvilNecroid:

ok so upgrade crafting thingys and make fast cheap thingys :)
thanx

exactly don't do that. at least the fast part, the quicker you make the thing, the less time spent crafting, the less time gaining experience. this isn't rocket surgery. leave your weapon smith at the second tier so you have access to the advanced recipes (double the crafting time = double the experience, at the cost of some cloth, it's pretty worthwhile) but don't upgrade to third tier because steel is a pain.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by EvilNecroid:

^

The absolute best way to level any crafting is to pick an item that uses the least expensive resources but has the longest crafting time.

Time > Number of items crafted

That's it. Unlike some games that include a Crafting skill, the experience that a Crafter in Kenshi gets is over time while they are crafting an item and not when the item is completed. That is very different from many games. Don't forget it, else you'll end up with lots of crafted items in a short time, but with little experience to show for it and empty raw-material inventories...

So, for instance, making a Leather Shirt can take all darn day, but the crafter will be there crafting it all day and earning experience all day and only using up a comparably small amount of resources to gain an entire day's worth of crafting experience.

The same mechanic works across all Crafting forms, AFAIK.

[Bedelguese]

Originally posted by awhurley:

Originally posted by Hellinghof:

Armour: Make headbands
Weapons: iron clubs

not really, making as many things as possible isn't really what you want to do, the faster you make something, the less time is spent crafting, therefore: less experience. what you want is to maximise time crafting against ingredients consumed, with armour you get started with basic ingredients: leather, chainmail and armour plates.

The amount of cats you get for the amount of headbands you can make with just fabric is what makes it worth it, chainmail is super expensive starting out and leather can be hard to get large amounts of, fabric is cheap to buy en masse if you're living in a city and by the time you're making standard headbands (which only require the tech for the buildings and no item blueprints) you no longer have to supplement your income with mining. Then you can move on to any clothes that require leather and any kind of weapons while also having something to make with just fabric when you run out of supplies.

[EvilNecroid]

ok thanx every1 :)

[SmallGespenst]

Originally posted by Hellinghof:

Originally posted by awhurley:

not really, making as many things as possible isn't really what you want to do, the faster you make something, the less time is spent crafting, therefore: less experience. what you want is to maximise time crafting against ingredients consumed, with armour you get started with basic ingredients: leather, chainmail and armour plates.

The amount of cats you get for the amount of headbands you can make with just fabric is what makes it worth it, chainmail is super expensive starting out and leather can be hard to get large amounts of, fabric is cheap to buy en masse if you're living in a city and by the time you're making standard headbands (which only require the tech for the buildings and no item blueprints) you no longer have to supplement your income with mining. Then you can move on to any clothes that require leather and any kind of weapons while also having something to make with just fabric when you run out of supplies.

what I was referring to in terms of leather and chainmail was the ingredients, processing the raw materials lets you build the crafting stat without expending any resources, while also preparing for crafting actual gear at the same time.

[Peaceful Panda]

Originally posted by awhurley:

Originally posted by Hellinghof:

The amount of cats you get for the amount of headbands you can make with just fabric is what makes it worth it, chainmail is super expensive starting out and leather can be hard to get large amounts of, fabric is cheap to buy en masse if you're living in a city and by the time you're making standard headbands (which only require the tech for the buildings and no item blueprints) you no longer have to supplement your income with mining. Then you can move on to any clothes that require leather and any kind of weapons while also having something to make with just fabric when you run out of supplies.

what I was referring to in terms of leather and chainmail was the ingredients, processing the raw materials lets you build the crafting stat without expending any resources, while also preparing for crafting actual gear at the same time.

This is what I do. The fighters can be out gathering raw materials for the smith to process afk. For weapons, I only use the level 1 bench. Upgrading will make items use fabric/steel bars instead of just iron plates.