Im assuming this is a stupid question

[Kublia]

i decided to give Horizons a try after 5 long years of playing UO. well my first problem is i cant seem to figure out how to smelt or into bars. i saw it come uo in the tutorial, but i inadvertantly closed it and i cant get it to come back up. so if someone would be willing to give me an answer to this basic question id appreciate it.

[Lumineux]

The first thing you need to do is equip the proper tool (smelting tongs, I think). Tool in hand, find a Smelter. Since you're just starting out, you will need at least 5 Copper and Tin ore to make a bronze bar. I believe when you joined the crafting school, you should have been given some basic formulas, probibly "Training Bronze Bar" or some such. If that is still in your inventory, right click it and scribe it. Now press the anvil shaped button in the main toolbar. (called Craft or Create, something like that) This will bring up a window with the items that you can make. It should be a pretty short list at this point, so just find the Training Bronze Bar and hit create. Slide the Batches bar up to maximum or however many you want to make, and leave the Success bar alone. Hit create and you are done.


*If you are already off of the tutorial area of the game, replace everywhere I said "training bronze bar" with bronze bar.

[Varangaard]

Let me expand upon that a bit, to guide you to basic crafting.


The Basics

Generally speaking, you need three things to do crafting: resources, tools, and scribed formulas. Let's say you have just acquired a formula for a beginner ringmail boots. You go to the formulas window, look for that formula in the list and doubleclick on it (there are some selectable filters on the left side to help you find the right type of form). You see that the form lets you create bronze and iron items, you select bronze as your skill on low levels is not enough yet for iron stuff (200 in craft skill minimum, in case you are curious). Alternatively you can turn on the individual item list mode at the bottom and have the formulas 'expanded' for you.This lets you browse through all the items straight. Once you have chosen the bronze boots and opened the craft window, you can see from the list at the bottom that it requires bronze bars to craft, a smithing hammer for a tool and an anvil for a machine - the last two mentioned on the left side. On the right you can see the statistics of the finished item.

If you wish, you can ascertain from the bronze bar formula - open it in the same manner as the boots form above - that it requires copper&tin ore to create, smelting tongs to smelt and a smelter for a machine.


Getting the resources

Now you know what stuff you need to create the item. So, grab your mining pick and head for the copper&tin fields, choose a node and start gathering the resource (default keybind is backspace, or use the action in the actions window). At level 1 you will probably gather 1 unit of ore per swing, but as the relevant skill goes up - mining in this case - you gather more.

Gathering any other type of resource works in the same manner. Find a resource field, equip the proper gathering tool and off you go.

Once your inventory is full, you head for a smelter, usually located close to the ore fields, grab the smelting tongs (you didn't forget it to the vault, right?), open the bronze bar formula and turn the ore into bronze bars. You can return to the field for some more ore, and if you have parked a cargo disk at the smelter, chug the ready bars there first.

As a rule of thumb, basic processing machines are located in the immediate vicinity of a resource field. In case of large fields, you mey need to search a bit or ask around. Cities generally do not have basic processing machines.Player-built settlements may have, in case someone has decided to build one. Crafting has been made in several outlying parts of Istaria largely dependant on player will to build the necessary machines onto their plots.


Creating the item

The boots formula will tell you how many bronze bars you need. This amount decreases as your skill - in this case armorcraft - goes up, until it reaches the optimal skill level noted on the window (the colored gauge has reached the maximum). When you have enough bronze bars for whatever amount of boots you are going to create, head back for the city. The finishing machine you need to craft the item, an anvil in this case, is there.

Once at the anvil, you equip the tool the form requests - a smithing hammer in case of bronze boots - open the item's form, set the slider to the amount of items you are going to make, and craft the finished item. Et voila, bronze boots ready to be equipped, pawned, given away, sold or consigned... or deconstructed.

Different items require different tools, resources and machines. Always when you scribe a new formula, have a look at what it needs. Soon enough you will understand the patterns: metalworking tools, smelter and anvil for metal items; harvest knife, scissors, needle, loom and distaff for cloth items, and so forth.

Again, as with the basic processing machines, there may be finishing machines available in close proximity to the resource field if a player has build one onto their plot. One of the best examples is the mithril fields; all the machines are a goodly distance away, but there are plots for sale practically next door. Once the machines have been allocated and built by players, processing mithril items will be a very fast process.


Deconstructing

You can deconstruct the items you have built. This process earns you some craft experience. Part of the 'exp grind' for crafters is in fact to continuously deconstruct what you are crafting. There is even a swicth to autodeconstruct what you are crafting, at the bottom of the craft interface. At optimal skill level, you will be getting 50% of the resources back that went into the construction, but never any of the special stuff that went into teching the item (see below). Going through multiple deconstruction cycles until you run out of recources is at optimal skill level roughly half of the experience you amass.

Items created by other players can be deconstructed as well, provided you have a skill high enough to craft the said item.


About craft classes

Your craft class determines what stuff you can build. When you join and get the base tools, they are for everything the class is capable of producing, and you gain the craft skills associated with the class. You will also get several formulas - scribe them lest you forget. You cannot craft an item before you have scribed the associated formula. Skills go up with levels, in accordance to skill gain per level for that craft class. Familiarize yourself with these numbers to optimize your performance, different classes go up in skills at different speeds. Most are no-brainers though - armorcrafter gets the best progress in metal armor for instance.

You can multiclass in craft with no penalties, and since class skills may overlap, you can exploit high skills already gained elsewhere to quickly rise in another class. For example, both outfitter and blacksmith progress in several metalworking skills. If you have levelled outfitter, your high mining, smelting and metalworking skills help gain quick experience in blacksmith, doing metal tools. It pays to look at what various classes learn and plan ahead a bit.

Only your active craft class, the one you have last switched to, gains experience, and only from using the skills - crafting the items - associated with the class. For example, scholar gets no experience when using armorcraft to create metal armor, as that skill is not taught to scholars.


Dragon crafting

Most of what I've said above equally applies to dragon crafters. However, dragons are not a tool-using race. They have a set of dragon crafting abilities instead. These can be browsed in your character window, abilities tab, craft selection. Drag them to your hotkey bar for easy access. When a biped would need to equip a tool, a dragon simply activates a crafting ability instead, and the rest goes as before.

The unique dragon craft skill, scalecrafting, is used in the same manner as any other craft skill, to produce various dragon scales.

Also, dragons have only one craft school, the dragon crafter, so multiclassing is not an option to them.


Getting new formulas

So you have gone past the optimal skill level on the item and want craft something else for better experience, or you want to craft some other item to be equipped or sold. Where to?

Your craft trainer sells new forms. Their inventory consists of all the formulas the craft class is capable of learning. Outfitter trainer sells, for example, every type of armor under the moon as outfitters are able to craft them.

The forms are not traded for money. What you need are beginner lore tokens to trade for the formulas (there exists journeyman tokens as well, they equal to five beginner tokens). The most reliable way for a crafter to acquire these is to run tasks for the craft trainer. At craft levels 1-10 you will gain 1 token upon completion of the task (and some craft experience), at levels 11-20 two, and so on. Past level 40 you will start gaining those journeyman tokens, first one token, etc.

The beginner formulas cover the first two tiers of the item. For metal armor, that would be bronze and iron. Journeyman formulas - generally scribable starting at skill 400 and above - cover the next two tiers. Again for metal armor, this is steel and cobalt. The expert forms are the fifth tier - for metal armor, mithril. As of writing this, the sixth-tier forms are not in game yet.


Spicing up bulk items.

To add a little bit of variety to your items, two means exist. First of all you can change their visual appearance. This currently works for weapons only. Click that small icon in the lower left corner of the items statistics window in the crafting interface, and it switches to tricking window. Here you can choose between available visual looks for the item. Higher tier items have a larger variety of visual choices to choose from, and many first-tier items have just the default look to choose from.

The more complex form of variety is to tech your item, that is, add a technique to it. What are techniques? They allow for a multitude of bonuses to be applied to the item, from statistic and skill boosts to extra damage, armor, and effect. In this case I am using the word 'item' loosely; I mean armor, swords, spells, anything you can craft can be teched.

Just like items, techniques are arrayed by tier. A higher tier effect is a multiple or more powered version of the lower tier effect. The tier of the item decides the maximum tier of tech that can be applied. Thus, bronze accepts only first-tier techs, iron takes first- and second-tier techs, and so forth. Also, the item's tier divided by two is the number of techs that can be applied. Thus, tier three and four items can bear two techs, tier five and six items three.

Note that color is a tech, not item tricking, and can be applied to armor only. An armor dye tech takes up no tech slots and is essentially a free addition to any armor. Similarly, a slot you can put a crystal into, is a tech taking one tech slot.

Techniques can be bought from imperial quartermasters, stationed in major cities. Like trainers, they do not accept money, but trade techs for imperial bounty markers. For a crafter, the most consistent source is - you guessed it - run tasks for the quartermaster. Not all 'masters sell all techs, they are arrayed as follows:

Aughundell: harvest & base processing skill techniques
Dalimond: spell techniques
Kion: armor dye techniques
Mahagra: attribute, ward and resist techniques
New Rachival: finishing craft skill techniques
Tazoon: adventure, defense and socketing techniques

So you have the tech now, and you have it scribed. Now it can be applied to an item in the crafting interface's center window. Use the arrows to pull down the selected tech into the item, or away from it. Technique's effect can be observed on the item statistics window.

Not all items accept all techniques. Spells accept only the techs related to their type (fire, nature, blight...) and the variety of armor pieces a certain tech goes may be limited. So before you go out and get a tech, try asking if item 'X' accepts tech 'Y' - of course, if you own for example all the armor forms, this is not such a big deal.

Now, before the tech can be finally applied to an item, it requires special resources. These almost invariably are monster loot. The required resources can be observed at the lower part of the crafting interface when you use the arrows to apply a tech.

Pure crafters needs to rely on consigners, server's market channels and / or guild help to acquire the necessary special loot. Adventuring crafters can try out their luck and go for the kill themselves. As an added bonus, you may stumble on loot that is formulas or techniques you don't yet possess.

Once everything is in place, the item can be crafted and teched. Congratulations, you have just created an item that is special, and its name reflects it!


(this article has been edited for clarity)

[Barbie]

Nice explanation Varangaard. May I use some or all of it in our newby guide? It's a great start on crafting basics.

[Kublia]

tx for the replies, im thinking i didnt script the bronze bar. ill give it another try when i get home from work.

[Varangaard]

Nice explanation Varangaard. May I use some or all of it in our newby guide? It's a great start on crafting basics.

Certainly. If you quote substantial portions or the whoel thing, just give credit to original author and you are set to go. Let me go through it this evening and fix & expand a bit; I want to add a bit about getting more forms and adding techs to items. I'll write "edited for clarity" at the bottom once I'm done.[:)]

[Lockwood]

tx for the replies, im thinking i didnt script the bronze bar. ill give it another try when i get home from work.

I've done that more than a few times, don't feel bad and good luck