Leveling construction the old fashion way... Tools!

[Ikfel]

I'm a self sufficiency type. So I have been doing all the construction work on the ten buildings I started on my plot. It was kind of a kick to level carpenter, enchanter, and weaver by actually doing all the tier 2 and 3 construction work on my plot. I usually level in the most efficient manner possible: making and deconstructing tools. I rarely do any actual useful work in the craft school I am advancing. But there I was leveling a few schools from 20 to 40 by actually creating the intended product: construction applied to buildings.

Well, that phase is over now. With the vault shrunk back to it's original size, every unit carried to the plot is going to have to count. No more applying below optimum for me. Wearing the best possible cargo armor is going to be important too, now that I can't just drag a huge disk full from the nearest vault. Likely I won't even belong to the construction school while applying. I'll level it up to optimum separately on tools and then switch to my highest school and best cargo before transporting units to the site.

Ah, the life of an honest construction worker. It was nice while it lasted. Time to move on and be efficient again.

[ThrellinD]

It is too bad that's it's just not feasable to level from actual construction work.

[zerbot]

It is too bad that's it's just not feasable to level from actual construction work.

Strange that I've managed to do it. I've not made a single tool as a construction crafter. My view is that every single bit that I pull out of the ground is precious, and it had better end up on a building somewhere. It's generally been possible to do fully efficient work until I reach full efficiency on the next step up, except when I started.

[Poony666]

It is too bad that's it's just not feasable to level from actual construction work.

I have made no tools leveling my construction schools either, and although they are only 50ish i cant see the way you lvl change drastically as you get higher.

[AA0]

Lets think about it...
T 1-3 is easy to level off of construction materials and installing. I did it

T4 you have to start looking at the buildings that need it. T4 is also cobalt, which means many people will not really be completing t4/t5 silos just for the cobalt. And nobody pays for it. The exp you get from making units and installing them gets close to nothing here. In t 1-3 you could see the exp you'd gain while installing units, now its just a fraction of your exp bar.

T5 area is great, because you even lose all the exp you get with t4, so now you can only build on t5 buildings to gain exp. The number of buildings is of course small, and you really can't make the resources efficiently. Installing units here means you can't even see your exp bar move. The 5k exp you get is nothing compared to an easy 50k + while smelting the materials.

Levelling construction off constructing buildings makes miner/gatherer look fun and exciting, and you'd be in shock how fast a miner can gain exp!

[Ikfel]

I see a number of people here taking pride in leveling only through construction work. Which is justifiable. I'm more of a skill collector myself, I like being able to do something, but I don't bother to do much more than cover my own needs.

It makes me wonder how many craft schools can reasonably be leveled only by doing actual work for customers. I'm sure if your were persistent and patient enough any of them could slowly be leveled doing actual work, but there is a limit to most people's patience. As AAO pointed out, even construction work gets hard to level that way beyond a certain point due you increased amounts or experience necessary from a smaller and smaller customer base.

Along with construction schools, miner and gatherer are probably also feasible. If they set a reasonable price, they may well be able sell all their output on the open market to other players. Since resources stack, they can pile up up a good deal of output on a consigner. Maybe an alchemist could level only making potions for sale too, but I doubt many other schools could. I can't imagine there is enough call for weapons or bows for a weaponsmith or fletcher to level solely off their sales.

So I think construction work is nearly unique in being able to do this, with the noted exceptions. It was a nice feeling doing it for a while, but I'll likely get back to a more efficient means of leveling since I have a good deal of 700 skill work to do on my plot.

Levelling construction off constructing buildings makes miner/gatherer look fun and exciting, and you'd be in shock how fast a miner can gain exp!

That's the first time I've heard leveling those schools described as fast! I took miner to 100 and I can assure you it was a pain. I probably made a quarter of a million marble bricks to get there (and I don't kid about figures). Now upper tier construction may be as hard or worse to level off actual construction work, but that's a choice you make not to do tools. Miner doesn't have that choice, it can't skill off tools, or construction work for that matter. Taking mason to 100 was a whole lot easier than miner, I did them both.

[AA0]

yes, but picture it ikfel... a fitter forced to do cobalt sheets and joints. Their mining skill is alright, but not good, their smelting is decent but not like a miner. 75% of their exp comes from smelting but they need to work with cobalt and its horribly slow. Where a miner can work gems.
The amount of exp you gain for making units and installing is tiny. Even if it was something like mithril, the amount of time you spend recalling and installing the units, you'd get far more exp from sitting and just making bars. Just imagine doing miner off of cobalt instead of obsidian or gems and see how things go :)

Once you allow a fitter to do tools, they can grind with platinum for a while until they do mithril, but construction alone is extremely slow at upper levels.

[Ikfel]

I agree, "construction alone is extremely slow at upper levels", but that's a choice you make, you're not forced to ignore tools. I prefer to make all my own equipment, I make exceptions because it's too expensive to get all the expert tool forms I need, but I'm still putting off using a marble cargo disk until I can make one myself. This starts to get into the area of artificial difficulty one-upmanship: " I get by without using any cargo armor", "Oh yeah! Well I craft using only training tools", "I gather by touch alone with my eyes closed".

I will give you that fitter has a tough patch getting through cobalt. I avoided skilling off cobalt by making a run around it with other schools like miner and blacksmith that would get my smelting and metalworking up to mithril levels without doing cobalt work. I'm only doing cobalt fitting work now because I was silly enogh to put seven shops on my plot that need it. I managed to apply a whole 60 cobalt sheets last night. It this rate it's going to take a while.

The point of my last post was that it's rather amazing construction schools can get as far as they can doing useful work. Not many schools can do that. I assume you didn't make it to 100 fitter on construction alone, you've practically proved it impossible. I certainly didn't get any of my 100's that way.

[Bori Grimbattle]

I levelled my construction classes (between 2 toons I can cover all of them) through actual construction. From the burnt out machines and buildings to the Satyr mines on Spirit to the Bridge of Hues,etc. I plugged away at it, many times far from being efficient. However it was the projects that counted and as long as there was the reward of accomplishing something at the end I just kept on going.

Now it is Tier 4 to finish our Guild buildings. After they are done I may be at a loss! [;)]

[Levity]

Well, I'm sure Sinistre would happily level a building or two to make you rebuild them ;). Or you could check in with WorldProjects for ongoing projects. Or just announce in the Market that you would like to apply Tier 4 for free .. you'll get work to do, lol.

Me, I went the tools route, seeing as how Ikfel is my mentor in these things. My goal is to get the work done. Last week I spent a few hours learning masonry via granite glassblowing rods, on the theory that as a Smith I know stone pretty well and it *shouldn't* take that long for me to pick up stone construction techniques. So I got to optimum on slate keys and *then* went to make the gazillions of ss and slate stuff for my walkways. I did not want to make others do all that work for me even metal is so much more fun to work, or I'd have stuck with Fitting.

But I do purely admire those who stick it out the hard way.

-Levity Merrel, Crai Aisling, Sans AoP by Aiya's Pad
88 Blacksmith/63 Fitter/45 Mason/70 Reaver

[Robert Quicksilver]

I was under the impression that the devs increased the amount of xp you get from applying construction units to buildings, perhaps it needs to be increased again?

[Korial]

Construction is still a tedious timesink. In fact, compared to other crafts, it's got a double timesink. The first is the sheer amount of resources you need to achieve anything (5600 maple boards on an Journeyman Expert Workshop, 13 maple boards on a T4 longbow), and the second is the sheer number of ports and journeys you need to make to achieve anything.

And by far the most efficient way to earn xp as a builder is, er, well, not to build anything, but to make tools. Weavers I believe can make sacks and satchels, and Enchanters are just out of luck.

Construction still needs a look-at. The XP for building needs looking at, and the double-timesink-feature needs looking at.

(Edit: I typed Expert, I meant Journeyman)

[Ikfel]

You've got a good point there, Korial. Some people say that all the porting is necessary in construction or it would be too easy. Let's have a look at what goes into a journeyman shop (forget about the expert you mentioned, that's for people that really want a challenge).

Kenaf: 50 bolt + 50 tapestries = 3500 spools
Silk: 100 bolts + 100 tapestries = 7000 spools
Iron: 30 joints + 30 sheets = 2100 bars
Cobalt: 60 joints + 60 sheets = 4200 bars
Elm: 40 timbers + 40 braces = 2800 boards
Maple: 80 timbers + 80 braces = 5600 boards
Slate: 30 blocks + 30 keystones = 2100 bricks
Obsidian: 60 blocks + 60 keystones = 4200 bricks
Pale: 35 spheres + 40 sources = 2650 orbs
Bright: 70 spheres + 80 sources = 5300 orbs

Total: 39,450 units of processed resources

Collecting nearly 80 thousand raw resources and processing them is going to take a team of people a good deal of time as it is. Is it really necessary to force them to make 70 some trips out to the site in order to apply? I spent days roaming the countryside south of Dalimond collecting elm to get the 16,800 boards I needed for my shops. That was tedious enough as it was, even with the huge vaults to transport things to my plot. I do not look forward to collecting those 5600 boards per shop and having to spread the application out over a eight or nine trips per shop just for the maple.

[Korial]

Oops, when I was typing that "5600 boards" I meant in regard to the Journeyman Workshops, as they're of a similar tier to the longbow I mentioned, and not Expert.

See what the damage of harvesting 5600 maple boards does to my brain? [;)]

[Ikfel]

Actually expert workshops require the exact same 5600 maple boards as a journeyman shop. They just need 7840 thornword boards as well (at optimum, anyone optimum on master construction forms?). Currently that thornwood would need to be transmuted from at least 78,400 yew boards. How's that for a challenge? Is your brain bleeding yet? I haven't decided if I'm insane enough to tackle an expert shop yet. My six journeyman shops may well be the end of me.

[Aleks_Leafwatcher]

[Charlson]

Well, I for one made levels 1-82 fitter and counting on tools and am proud of my work. I rarely do construction just because it's too tedious for me, but that's just me [H]

[zerbot]

I've got 20,471 units remaining to apply to my plot to "finish" it. I haven't separated that out into the 15/unit of the lower unit and the 20/unit of the higher, but do the math, and you can see that I've got a ton of work ahead of me. A plot *should* be a big project, and I've got a big plot, so that's even more. Rejoice that you have a plot large enough for six shops.

[Vanaondo]

We have another issue to think of and it is that we dont have much T3 to do at many structures it seems. A journyman shop need only T2 and T4 and for me that passed T3 at 3 schools must start making tools to get to T4. I dislike toolmaking as a structure builder but do I have a choice?? A JM shop should consist of T3 and T4 resources, not T2 and T4.

[Poony666]

We have another issue to think of and it is that we dont have much T3 to do at many structures it seems. A journyman shop need only T2 and T4 and for me that passed T3 at 3 schools must start making tools to get to T4. I dislike toolmaking as a structure builder but do I have a choice?? A JM shop should consist of T3 and T4 resources, not T2 and T4.

I agree journeyman shops should take "journeyman resources".

There is always a choice, no one is forcing you or anyone to make tools, you can always find buildings that need building especially recently, even T3, hell vaults take T3 and it seems everyone wants one these days.

If you dont want to make tools you can still make the building materials without placing, hell its not like the placement brings the majority of the exp, infact if you made the materials and deleted them, stayed in the field and made more, you would probably get more exp than if you were to go and place (over the same period of time)

There is always the greater choice that you have made aswell, and that is to have worked a building school atall, it was a choice you made to work the school, no one is making you do it....atleast i hope no one is.

Because i quoted Vanaondo it seems like im picking him/her out, thats not my intention, i only quoted for the first point about the J shops, please dont take it as though im picking on anyone in particular! I pick on everyone the same!