A practical study on Craft Level Grinding w/ Figures

[Suppenkelle]

I’d still stick with T-Lynxes for leveling a crafting account because there are none AI in the open world and there is a constant demand for them. 

 

Haven’t looked into the details yet, maybe tonight. I’m a big fan of number crunching, good job Coco! 

[Coco]

4 hours ago, Vizzini said:

Good post. My own research , although not nearly as extensive was from a solo players perspective. What I couldn't seem to grasp was the labour costs that people incur that they don't seem to pass on to the customers.

 

For example labour contracts being exchanged at the shop for 2500 dubs for 500 hours. Thus an hour to be billed has a price of 5 dubs per hour , where a dub = x .. it's quite a % to add on

 

not sure about other ways to craft labour contracts and whether they are cheaper

So you can craft them from provisions and tools. They cost 500 labor hours. So as a solo you likely wouldn't use them unless buying from the admiralty store for 2500 doubloons. Otherwise you are spending provisions and tools to bank 500 labor hours.

 

In a clan setting they could get more creative. If all the resources needed we're already collected for example. Then contracts could speed things up.

The fact though is crafting labor contacts only transfers 500 hours, it doesn't create them.

[Vizzini]

Just now, Coco said:

So you can craft them from provisions and tools. They cost 500 labor hours. So as a solo you likely wouldn't use them unless buying from the admiralty store for 2500 doubloons. Otherwise you are spending provisions and tools to bank 500 labor hours.

 

In a clan setting they could get more creative. If all the resources needed we're already collected for example. Then contracts could speed things up.

The fact though is crafting labor contacts only transfers 500 hours, it doesn't create them.

yes I had thought it looked like a way of saving your own hours for selling or using at a later time

thanks great post

[Sir Texas Sir]

2 hours ago, Teutonic said:

Some of us are already getting ready for oak ships. But woods need a balance pass I think.

Then again We have been able to secure enough doubloons to extract from forests, So I'm not sure many people will have to worry as much as they worry right now.

From the limited scouting and info I have gotten, we actually have a good spread of woods everywhere - but I think we could expand on clan delivery mission and make it more dense for both woods and mod resources.

It's a good thing to scout, that was how BLACK had 4th rates in a week or two of the first wipe  and SOL's shortly after that.  We didn't rush to grab land all over the place on GLOBAL we just took what we needed the most for resources and built built built.  We pooled every thing we could and this is the plan for a few of us when the release happens.  I'm hoping they mix up all the ports so that they aren't the same as before release wipe so we have to all go looking to find which ports will have these resources and not.    If a small clan is smart or even small nation they will rush to get one of these side ports with the resources over going over a major port that others might be fighting over.  

2 hours ago, Teutonic said:

I think the fight between Alt abuse and players getting shafted due to mechanics to fight alts is hard to decide. I don't want to go back to little RvR because "we just can have the alt get it." there are a heck of a lot of groups who have alts in other clans in other nations for the exact purpose of not having to fight the entities instead. It's a shame.

I think further thoughts on the matter is we could split the clan delivery mission.

instead of 1 mission with 1 million logs. why not have a public mission for the nation and a private mission for clan/friendly list. I hesitate to say that the clan would have control over it.

A smart clan would take those resources and after getting a good chunk for the clan they will set up contracts and sale them on the market to make even more profits.  Remember if it's a clan owned port the tax's goes right back to the clan coffer.  I think the clan control is the right path to keep the alts off certain resources and the clan in control of them if they own the port.  Hopefully folks allow others to get the resources instead of trying to hog them all. My biggest worry is big powerful clans will bully smaller clans/nations and not allow them any resources at all.

[DeRuyter]

Thanks for the post and guide @Coco well done. It took me far longer to get to lvl 50 and that was when we had xp for intermediate parts also! Now that I'll need to think about leveling up again this is a big help!

[Coco]

6 hours ago, admin said:

thanks for the thoughtful post. 

indeed the level thresholds for crafting and xp for ships should be adjusted to motivate the player to build useful ships. 
we will do it soon.

I pulled some more data, specifically I pulled the crafting requirements for 3 ships from each rank above my original data. Specifically, Cerb, Endy, LGV, Agamemnon, Indefatigueable, Wapen, 3rd Rate, Constitution, Wasa, Buc, St. Pavel, L'ocean, Santi and Victory. I didn't account for costs of permits or special materials for frame/trim. These are all based on basic Fir/Crew space.

Rank	Ship	Hours	XP	Reals/Ship	Real/Xp		1/log(r/x)	Xp/Hour		log(X/H)
7	TCutter	43	202	1364		6.75		1.21		4.70		0.67
7	TLynx	29	362	1364		3.77		1.74		12.48		1.10
7	Pickle	48	598	2111		3.53		1.83		12.46		1.10
7	Priv	39	480	2194		4.57		1.52		12.31		1.09
6	Tsnow	125	944	2751		2.91		2.15		7.55		0.88
6	Brig	66	826	4178		5.06		1.42		12.52		1.10
6	Tbrig	66	826	3602		4.36		1.56		12.52		1.10
5	Cerb	259	1234	7753		6.28		1.25		4.76		0.68
5	Endy	686	2356	19006		8.07		1.10		3.43		0.54
5	lgv	480	2090	12182		5.83		1.31		4.35		0.64
4	Aga	992	3180	24590		7.73		1.13		3.21		0.51
4	Inde	825	2832	21312		7.53		1.14		3.43		0.54
4	Wapen	843	2722	22974		8.44		1.08		3.23		0.51
3	3rd	1099	3512	35882		10.22		0.99		3.20		0.50
3	Consti	1222	2942	30942		10.52		0.98		2.41		0.38
3	Wasa	992	3180	25878		8.14		1.10		3.21		0.51
2	Buc	1367	3650	52038		14.26		0.87		2.67		0.43
2	Pavel	1176	3296	43940		13.33		0.89		2.80		0.45
1	L'Ocean	2349	4694	85738		18.27		0.79		2.00		0.30
1	Santi	2304	4694	81810		17.43		0.81		2.04		0.31
1	Victory	2050	4100	71698		17.49		0.80		2.00		0.30

What I want to draw attention to is the following. The amount of XP needed to advance a level seems to be =n(55)+n(n-1)=(n^2-n)+55n where n is the level you are advancing into. It resembles a parabolic function that increases as you gain levels. The amount of XP to be gained per day, if you craft within the rank of ships available at your crafting level bracket, though, does not follow that trend. In the following chart I took the data of the ship from each rank that showed the best log(XP/Hours). This refers to the ship for each bracket, that you get the best amount of XP for labor hours spent crafting the ship (not the resources). Then I took the average labor hours for all levels able to craft that ship and divided that by the labor hours to produce that ship to get the total number of ships craftable in one day. That was multiplied by the xp for crafting that ship and then plotted.

Example: For rank 7 ships, minimum crafting level is 1. At rank 5 you can begin crafting the 6th ranks. I took the average of labour hour wallet size for levels 1-5, divided that by labor needed to craft a pickle, and then multiplied that by the xp for a pickle. For rank 6, I took the trader brig. Averaged labor hour wallet size for levels 6-15 (because after 15 you would move into the next rank of ships) and then divided that average by the labor hours to craft a trader brig, then multiplied that by the xp for a trader brig.

 

 

As you can see on this chart, no matter where you are with crafting level, the 6th and 7th rates have the best return on XP. From my original study, you see that the 7th ranks are the most cost-efficient way to level. 

I think we would want to see all of the 5-1th rates move to the right with regard to labor efficiency while keeping them low in cost efficiency. I think that the 5th rates specifically should be much closer to the labor efficiency as the 6th and 7th rates, if not equal. 

If we want to encourage people not to grind 6th and 7th rank ships to get to 50, here are some broad suggestions. I don't think they all need to be utilized, I think some combination of them may work:

1. As you advance in level:rank brackets, the xp gained for lower tiered ships reduces. Eg. When you hit the bracket for 6th ranked ships, the xp for 7th rank is reduced by 25%. When you reach the bracket for 5th rate ships, the xp for 7th rates is reduced by another 25%, and the xp for 6th rates is reduced by an initial 25%. And so on.
2. Labor hours for 5th rate ships need to be reduced so that they are more worthwhile to grind out. The cost in resources for them should remain as the main restriction on them, as this encourages active play to gain coin, trade resources, enlist help from other players. 
3. 5th rates should be the area where the bulk of leveling takes places. Permits, doubloons, and the inclination to use rare woods on ships ranked 4-1 limit the ability to grind on these.
4. Wallet size should increase by percentage of wallet size, and not by a constant of +20hours/level. The huge dip in XP/day between levels 15-50 is mainly due to being able to craft less ships/day due to high labor cost of ship and limited wallet increase.
5. Xp for higher ranked ships should increase dramatically.
6. Get rid of crafting level entirely. It encourages a grind, and I'm not entirely sure what the purpose is since maxing the level is fairly easily achieved.
   1. Hike up resource prices 
   2. Hike up shipyard upgrade prices 
   3. Install shipyard upgrade restrictions based on commander level or clan influence 
   4. The restriction on what one crafts could be entirely based on cost. This could encourage crafting ships that are in demand so there may be more player-player economy. Or there will just be wealthy clans/players pumping out Victories. I don't know.
7. Ship crafting missions. A certain port needs a fleet of 10 Cerb's to increase security and are willing to pay Xreals and Ydoubloons. Or are willing to pay in dropped resources, or rare woods. I don't know. It could add some flavor and motivation to craft ships that aren't the most grind/efficient.
8. Player-player ship trades. I don't think there is a function for this besides auction. There should be if there isn't. It would be nice if you can dock a ship at a port someone has a dock at and leave it for them and collect your pay. Dock-contracts.
9. Increase XP to craft other things besides just ships. I can see why this would be difficult since the resouce cost for crafting other items compared to ships is fairly low, so it would make grinding craft level xp even easier - but as it stands, there is little to no reason to be a crafter who doesn't also make ships. 
   1. On this note, maybe separate crafting skills? Guns/Ships/Mods. Tier the guns and mods. More crafting specialization means that there are more niches for players to fill and encourage more player-player economy.
   2. Include a %mod on batches of guns. So if I craft a batch of 100 18pd longs, there is a 2% chance that this batch have a 5% penetration upgrade. They would sit in a separate stack in my warehouse than basic 18pd longs, and the same rules for equipping remain. If my ship can hold 24 18pd guns, then I can equip 4 ships with the upgraded cannons, with 4 left over. They can't be mixed and matched.

Edited March 14, 2019 by Coco

[admin]

13 hours ago, Coco said:

 

1. Xp for higher ranked ships should increase dramatically.
2.  

yep already started to work on this. 

Its an old oversight. It is really really an oversight that currently is taking longer to level building second rates now (if you take into account LH) 

[LIONOFWALES]

On 3/14/2019 at 1:59 AM, Wyy said:

Also i would love if a player could affect the rng for the quality of ships

I am also a crafter... and I agree whole heartily with this... I really feel that something like this should be implemented... please lets get rid of crafting RNG.

[LIONOFWALES]

On 3/15/2019 at 12:29 AM, admin said:

On 3/14/2019 at 11:26 AM, Coco said:

1. Xp for higher ranked ships should increase dramatically.
2.  

yep already started to work on this. 

Its an old oversight. It is really really an oversight that currently is taking longer to level building second rates now (if you take into account LH) 

awesome... nice , excellent.