Ok, yet another question about crafting.

[Gold♥Shield]

So, I finally leveled up a companion to 50 Smithing so I could get the smelting perk since I've been stuck on Tier 1 materials for a very long time, but when she just smelted a Tier 4 one-handed axe (of which I ONLY have Tier 1 parts unlocked), no new parts were unlocked. I then smelted six Tier 5 one-handed swords (again, only Tier 1 parts with various higher tier pommels) and out of the six swords I smelted, I only unlocked two new Tier 1 handles... I should also note that the swords were all identical as they were in the same stack. They weren't different swords.

Is this bugged or am I missing something obvious here? I've been saving up a metric ton of weapons to smelt in order to fast-track some of my smithing but I'm hardly unlocking anything new and when I do unlock a new part, it's a low tier part even if I smelt a high tier weapon.

[Teralitha]

You want to craft/smelt the highest damage weapons you can. Not the highest tier. You can smelt a tier 5 weapons, but if it has ♥♥♥♥ damage you wont learn anything. Damage of the weapon is all that matters. So, if you want to unlock lots of parts quickly, craft the best/highest damage weapons that you possibly can, then smelt them. You also get more crafting exp from this too. More damage = more exp.

[chris.mcgrory1]

to unlock smith parts get the smithing perk for it that unlocks parts quicker, for example if your focusing on two handed swords, you need to unlock all two handed tier 1 parts before youl get any tier 2 parts, and then 3 and so on, it takes a few hours of grinding but you can do it, also go around all the citys and buy pugios and tribesman throwing daggers, smelt them as they give the best materials for later smithing good weapons to sell

[Teralitha]

Originally posted by chris.mcgrory1:

to unlock smith parts get the smithing perk for it that unlocks parts quicker, for example if your focusing on two handed swords, you need to unlock all two handed tier 1 parts before youl get any tier 2 parts, and then 3 and so on, it takes a few hours of grinding but you can do it, also go around all the citys and buy pugios and tribesman throwing daggers, smelt them as they give the best materials for later smithing good weapons to sell

This is not true. You can learn parts that are a few teirs higher, its mostly random, but the chances are probably lower. All that really matters is having high damage.

[go vegan]

i recommend bannerlord xp tweaks mod (it's available in the workshop), it lets you decrease the amount of grind needed

[Azunai]

you get lots of smithing XP and also part unlocks from doing high reward orders.

in my experience the easiest way to break into smithing is to go for twohanded sword parts. they unlock much faster than onehanded and you don't start with complete trash like in the other twohanded categories so you can jump in and make a profit right away. once your skill is high enough to enable the highest paying crafting orders (100k region) you'll unlock the missing parts very quickly. and you'll be rich,

backfilling the other categories is a pain in the rear. your best bet is to use your wealth and buy up good weapons to smelt down. you'll sink lots of money into categories such as onehanded words or maces until you finally get some half decent parts that make it feasible you to unlock the rest of the missing parts in a simple crafting & smelting loop.

in my experience the curved scimitar type blades usually make the best XP fodder in both the 1 and 2 handed sword categories. they tend to have high slashing damage and low pierce, but i think the game doesn't really care about secondary damage types when calculating the value.


if you just want a good onehanded sword, you may be better off simply unlocking all the twohanded stuff and then crafting a twohanded weapon with one of the bastard sword hilts that enable onehanded use of the weapon when you hold a shield in the left hand.

[Kernest]

Originally posted by Teralitha:

This is not true. You can learn parts that are a few teirs higher, its mostly random, but the chances are probably lower. All that really matters is having high damage.

No, they changed that ages ago, you only unlock stuff in order.

The exceptions to this are stuff that have shared parts, like two-handed polearms and pikes have a shared tier 4 shaft.

As for @OP, you are using the companion to actually smelt the things, correct? You can change it from the bottom left corner.

[Sabaithal]

New to the smithing system since it was updated:
- Smelting down/crafting weapons to unlock parts only unlocks parts for that weapon type. No more smelting axes and getting pike pommels.
- When crafting/smelting to get new recipes quality DOES matter. Tier 1 parts will unlock tier 2, but you won't get much of anything higher. You get a bunch of tier 2 parts however and you will almost certainly unlock a bunch of tier-3 stuff quickly. And so on.
- Added to the previous, when grinding for part recipes use the highest tier possible with the lowest material tier possible. Most tier-4 parts for weapons will have one part for each catagory that uses iron and wrought iron, so you won't need to waste a bunch of valuable steel to get tier-5 parts unlocked.
- Smithing orders gives you much more smithing EXP (and money) than just smithing weapons at random, though I'm not sure if it affects recipe discovery or not.
- If you don't want to get the perks for making steel/fine/thamaskene then you need to acquire those materials instead by buying weapons of specific types and smelting them. One particular imperial dagger can be found in high quantities for cheap and breaks down to all but thamaskene (they have two daggers, forgot which it was).

[Gold♥Shield]

Does overall smithing skill have any effect on which parts you unlock from smelting?

[Sabaithal]

Originally posted by Gold♥Shield:

Does overall smithing skill have any effect on which parts you unlock from smelting?

Not certain of this, but I don't think it does. Smithing skill as far as I can tell mostly seems to affect whether or not you get good outcomes in terms of stats when crafting weapons.

[MΛRCUS HΞLIUS]

Sounds like your game is bugged.

[Kernest]

Originally posted by Gold♥Shield:

Does overall smithing skill have any effect on which parts you unlock from smelting?

No, because you unlock every tier in order, tier 1s first, then tier 2s and so forth.

With the (very) few exceptions of shared parts, which can already be unlocked if they were unlocked somewhere else.

[Gold♥Shield]

Ok, I think I get it now since I occasionally unlock a Tier 4 part while fulfilling orders but the smelting process has only been giving me Tier 1 parts which as I've already stated, I don't have all of them unlocked yet.

So it seems I should stick to just smelting the lower-tier stuff for now until I get it all filled out and then move up the ranks. I just smelted five Black Heart two-handed axes and only unlocked two pommels so that feels like a massive waste when finding two-handed axes in the first place is pretty rare.

I just wish they would have explained things better or at least provided an in-depth smithing entry in the Encyclopedia.

[Azunai]

i've had good results wtith a pretty simple onehanded sword with t2 parts qith 79 slashing damage that fetches about 1400 denars and unlocks new parts with almost every craft.

you can copy & paste the definition of the sword in the smithing screen to see/use it in game.

as a general rule, i always try to find one design that has low material cost and good value. i think the XP and part unlocks are based on the trade value of the weapon.

i would simply craft that same thing over and over and then smelt them down to regain part of the mats and get even more part unlocks. if you're strapped for cash, you can of course also sell them and break down cheaper bought weapons for new mats.

the same principle works for all categories, basically. find a cheap design that has high trade value then craft & smelt that thing over and over to unlock stuff. once you have lots of new toys unlocked, see if you can make a new weapon that is better XP fodder.

here's the definition code for the t1/2 onehand sword i used to break into higher tiers of onehand sword parts:

<CraftedItem id="729CB0BDE2D5E947996330AC4C1039D1"
name="Crafted One Handed Sword"
crafting_template="OneHandedSword">
<Pieces>
<Piece id="aserai_blade_19"
Type="Blade"
scale_factor="110"/>
<Piece id="aserai_guard_4"
Type="Guard"
scale_factor="108"/>
<Piece id="vlandian_grip_13"
Type="Handle"
scale_factor="108"/>
<Piece id="aserai_pommel_4"
Type="Pommel"
scale_factor="110"/>
</Pieces>
<!-- Length: 93 Weight: 1.55 -->
</CraftedItem>