Mining for Saltpeter... what determines the amount of saltpeter produced ?
While it is my understanding that the size of the "Deposit" of Saltpeter is detemined by Luck, worn in the suit or in real life.... go figure.... i fail totally to understand what detemines the amount of Saltpeter "produced" when mining the Saltpeter Deposit that one has found...
I get from 0 Saltpeter mined per hit, to 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 but I cannot, for the life of me, understand whether this figure is detemined by anything or whether it is pure RNG....
Anyone knows ?
Also, the changing of the Deposit size while mining, seems to vary without any predictability. From Gigantic down to Clumsy down to Huge, down to Large and down to Small, sometimes it takes a good number of mining hits, sometimes only a few.... it looks as random....
Anyone knows whether there is any possibility to influence, other then getting a given size of Deposit by Luck, the amount of Saltpeter mined by getting "more" 4 Saltpeter hits as compared to just zero (or 1 or 2 or 3) and to affect the persistance of the Larger Deposits' sizes for longer and not just go away after a few hits ?
In order to take down a Plunder Beacon with an Orc Ship, it takes 11 shots.
This means, 11 Charges+11 Fuses besides the Cannonballs... now, to make 1 Charge it takes, among others, 4 Black Powders and each Black Powder takes 6 Saltpeters... to make 1 Fuse Cord it takes, among others, 1 Black Powder which is another 6 Saltpeters...
All this, to say that, therefore, among other things and the time to make and gather the components, just to shoot once, it takes some 30 Saltpeters are needed....
Now, to take down 1 PlunderBeacon it needs 11 shots which it makes it, in Saltpeter, 11 x 30 = 330 Saltpeter....
Now, to earn 140,000 Doubloons to claim a Triton Statuette, it is necessary to take down 14 PlunderBeacons which it makes it, in Saltpeter, some 14 x 330 totallying 4,620 Saltpeter and, of course, the time to do all that....
"On average" I have heard from various players that, even with high Luck, in an hour of mining Saltpeter usually the maximum Saltpeter obtained is about 2,000 Saltpeter which it makes, only in Saltpeter, some 2+ hours of gameplay (plus all the rest that is needed....) to make it up for the necessary Saltpeter to then earn a Triton Statuette...
Just for 1 single Triton Statuette....
Considering how the spawning of the Tritons is random, and they can come out with very low stats or good ones, quite a high number of Triton Statuettes are needed to be claimed if one wants to get an above average one...
That means, a lot of time not just to find those Plunder Beacons to be taken down, but also time to mine for all that Saltpeter....
TL:DR. It would be quite beneficial if one could have a way to "increase" the amount of Saltpeter produced (i.e. get more 4 Saltpeter produced when hitting the Deposits rather then zeros...) AND if one could affect, also, the staying at bigger Saltpeter Deposits instead of seeing them shrink down to the next smaller size after just a few hits.....
Anyone knows if there are ways to increase Saltpeter production or is it all in the hands of the RNG ?
Thanks !
I get from 0 Saltpeter mined per hit, to 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 but I cannot, for the life of me, understand whether this figure is detemined by anything or whether it is pure RNG....
Anyone knows ?
Also, the changing of the Deposit size while mining, seems to vary without any predictability. From Gigantic down to Clumsy down to Huge, down to Large and down to Small, sometimes it takes a good number of mining hits, sometimes only a few.... it looks as random....
Anyone knows whether there is any possibility to influence, other then getting a given size of Deposit by Luck, the amount of Saltpeter mined by getting "more" 4 Saltpeter hits as compared to just zero (or 1 or 2 or 3) and to affect the persistance of the Larger Deposits' sizes for longer and not just go away after a few hits ?
In order to take down a Plunder Beacon with an Orc Ship, it takes 11 shots.
This means, 11 Charges+11 Fuses besides the Cannonballs... now, to make 1 Charge it takes, among others, 4 Black Powders and each Black Powder takes 6 Saltpeters... to make 1 Fuse Cord it takes, among others, 1 Black Powder which is another 6 Saltpeters...
All this, to say that, therefore, among other things and the time to make and gather the components, just to shoot once, it takes some 30 Saltpeters are needed....
Now, to take down 1 PlunderBeacon it needs 11 shots which it makes it, in Saltpeter, 11 x 30 = 330 Saltpeter....
Now, to earn 140,000 Doubloons to claim a Triton Statuette, it is necessary to take down 14 PlunderBeacons which it makes it, in Saltpeter, some 14 x 330 totallying 4,620 Saltpeter and, of course, the time to do all that....
"On average" I have heard from various players that, even with high Luck, in an hour of mining Saltpeter usually the maximum Saltpeter obtained is about 2,000 Saltpeter which it makes, only in Saltpeter, some 2+ hours of gameplay (plus all the rest that is needed....) to make it up for the necessary Saltpeter to then earn a Triton Statuette...
Just for 1 single Triton Statuette....
Considering how the spawning of the Tritons is random, and they can come out with very low stats or good ones, quite a high number of Triton Statuettes are needed to be claimed if one wants to get an above average one...
That means, a lot of time not just to find those Plunder Beacons to be taken down, but also time to mine for all that Saltpeter....
TL:DR. It would be quite beneficial if one could have a way to "increase" the amount of Saltpeter produced (i.e. get more 4 Saltpeter produced when hitting the Deposits rather then zeros...) AND if one could affect, also, the staying at bigger Saltpeter Deposits instead of seeing them shrink down to the next smaller size after just a few hits.....
Anyone knows if there are ways to increase Saltpeter production or is it all in the hands of the RNG ?
Thanks !
Comments
You can buy it now. The price is higher now on LS than I showed before.
And didnt you make a thread about how saltpeter should cost more from that vendor?
I take my Giant Beetle and just buy buy buy and put the ones I cant carry on the bug.
I can do 7 Beacons a Night when I decide to do them. So two nights on my ship and the passengers have a new Statue and it cost them nothing but time.
It is comparing Apples and Oranges, to my viewing....
While I can accept the RNG for items "potentially" earning a huge amount of worth, in-game, I cannot accept it for ordinary, low value items...
Take for example returning lost items to NPCs (to build the Honesty Virtue...).
To my viewing, it is RIDICOLOUSLY time consuming and for what benefit in the end ?
Even at Knight of Honesty a miniscule 30% savings of ONE single purchase from a NPC....
Save a few thousands of gps from that purchase but then have to spend HOURS of gameplay to build the Honesty Virtue back to Knight because that single one purchase dropped it so much that the time spent to then search for the NPCs to return the lost items to is so much time consuming that it ain't worth it and that time be much better spent doing else in the game, more rewarding ?
If at least Tracking had a much larger search Range, like capable of covering an entire Town or at least half of it, then the investment in the Skill points for GM Tracking would be worth it as one could track the NPC to return the items to throughout the entire Town.... but as of now ? It is pointless given how short the Tracking Range is, even at 100.0 skill.... it is much faster to just run around the town fast spamming ALLNAMES and look for the name of that NPC....
It is all a matter of BALANCE, I think.... in where the benefit is an item drop worth LOTS or some ordinary, low level benefit....
Yes, I DO am convinced that Saltpeter on NPCs is WAY cheap, considering how much time consuming it is to mine it....
The current "balance" in between extended time to mine Saltpeter and cheap NPCs' prices for Saltpeter currently largely benefit, to my opinion, wealthy players in UO who have gold to burn and disadvantages poor players in the game (usually new or returning players) having to mine for their Saltpeter because they do not have that much gold to burn, yet...
The 4,620 Saltpeter needed to earn 1 Triton statuette (aside the other ingredients and time, of course), even at 300 gps per, is some 1,386,000 gps which a wealthy player can easily afford and burn to purchase Saltpeter but a new or returning player ?
They "usually" cannot burn that much in-game gold like that and, so, they need to mine for their Saltpeter.... only, as it currently plays out, it take an extensive time to mine it up...
So, I think, either the yield of mined Saltpeter should be higher, to better reflect the time spent to mine it, or the price of Saltpeter on NPCs should be higher, to more reflect the extended time worth to mine it...
I think there should be more balance in how and where the RNG hits a player....
When it is for items drops which are potentially of a high value, then it is welcome.
But for Low, ordinary items like mining for Saltpeter ?
It should not be so much influential...
At least, that is how I see it.
Or, they could also increase the price of it on NPCs so as to "more reflect" the extensive time it takes to mine it up....
It's not that bad if you don't want to pay for saltpeter. If it's so ridiculously time consuming for you, just buy it. Can you please stop making pointless complaints about every aspect of the game that is not an issue?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QjOKLZDayaJ2K4e7x5Q12FcrZ2w0_6UuWXicsWArvl0/edit?usp=sharing ;
Not doubled in Fel.
Its costs near 200k for 500 saltpeter on LS! that is already too much!
Like I said in another post. When you have collected over 5M than come back and complain.
The ones that have done over 5M are not complaining.
The Scales of Ultima Online
I am not sure how you can get 3,000 Saltpeter in 45 minutes....
To earn 5,000,000 Doubloons' points, it means some 500 Plunder Beacons to take down (5,000,000 / 10,000) ....
Aside from the time to search and take down 500 Plunder Beacons, in Saltpeter alone needed for that many points, it would be at 330 Saltpeter per Plunder Beacon some 330 x 500 totallying 165,000 Saltpeter needed....
At an average of 2,000 Saltpeter mined in an hour of gameplay, it means, ONLY for Saltpeter, some 82.5 hours of gameplay just to get the Saltpeter, "if" mined up....
Then add the time to search for 500 Plunder Beacons and take them down....
Maybe, just maybe, those having those many points rather then "wasting" time in mining it up are buying it and using that time "freed up" to hunt the Plunder Beacons, instead ?
And if my assumption was to be correct, wouldn't this bring one to conclude that the current Design of this particular content is UO wealthy players' friendly and hostile to UO less wealthy players who need to mine for their Saltpeter ?
That is why I am keeping saying that either Slatpeter on NPCs is darn CHEAP, or the yields for mining it, are too conservative....
Either way, to my viewing, it hurts less in-game wealthy players who need to mine for their Saltpeter....
The price for Saltpeter should go way higher..... or the yields for mining for Saltpeter, be increased.
At least, to my viewing.
That's even less as compared to my indication of 2,000 Saltpeter per hour that I mentioned in my posts...
If you use an orc ship, you fire the cannon at it 10 times. That means you need 10 cannonballs, 10 fuse cords, and 10 powder charges.
For each fuse cord, you need 1 black powder, which was made from 6 saltpeter. So that's 6 saltpeter per fuse cord and for 10 of them you need 60.
For each powder charge, you need 4 black powder, each of which was made from 6 saltpeter. So that's 24 saltpeter per powder charge and for 10 you need 240.
So, if you use an orc ship and have to make both your fuse cords and your powder charges, you need 300 saltpeter. HOWEVER, if you're doing High Seas content, you should have one of the ship paintings that gives powder charges. And if you haven't been regularly going out and hunting down merchant or pirate ships or doing ship PvP, you are more than likely sitting on a big stockpile of powder charges and don't need any for this event.
If you're using a Tokuno or gargoyle ship, you fire the cannon at plunder beacons 14 times, so you need 84 saltpeter for the fuse cords and 336 for the powder charges (assuming you don't get them from the painting), for a total of 420.
Popps, if you have a ship's painting and a stockpile of powder charges from it and are using an orc ship, you shouldn't need to use more than 60 saltpeter per plunder beacon. Or 84 if you're using a gargoyle or Tokuno ship.
Do you have a ship's painting? I've seen people with a whole wall of them.
Never be afraid to challenge the status quo
Never be afraid to challenge the status quo
You are getting 1000 an hour? Thats over 200k in gold when buying it. Sounds like the ratio is fine to me. The NPC price is too high.
LMAO You people are assuming that the OP is even doing stuff in UO. He has no clue where to mine saltpeter or how to effectively mine it. Now you are all assuming he is even doing these beacons but has zero clue about the resources needed to do them. Alls he does is read what others post and then comes up with these I really do not know what to call them posts and no matter what you say you are always questioned as to why you are lying. When asked a direct question he NEVER gives an answer but will always question your responses.
Sir if you know so damn much then why are you even doing this, you act like you already know the answer and your responses are nothing more the appearing to call people lyers. Anybody that plays UO knows that the RNG has always determined every thing in UO and you come on here, like a i do not know what to call it, with a whaa why do I get different amounts every time I hit a saltpeter deposit and then question the person that says RNG. You are worse than a valley girl saying the word "like" with your "I think" what are you trying to make us believe that you can think.
WE ARE NOT LYERS SO PLEASE STOP CALLING US ALL LYERS. TYVM