Apu's Guide to Stonecarving
Location: At the moment, Stonecarving can only be done in the Zoluren Engineering Society Building which is located near the Crossing Bank (directions: sw, go bridge, n, n, w, nw, w, w, go building). More locations will surely be added down the road when more crafting systems are available.
Tools of the Trade:
All items will require an instruction book which you must study before you can begin carving. There are three possible choices of books to buy. The Apprentice book (1485 kronars) only has instructions for Simple and easier items - it is useful if your skill is between 0 and 150 ranks. The Journeymans book (9375 kronars) has instructions for Complicated and easier items - it is useful if your skill is between 0 and 500 ranks. Finally, the Masters book costs 25 plat and contains all instructions - this is useful for all skill levels between 0 and 1500.
All items require a Chisel Set (cost: 3125 kronars, weight: 50 stones). This tool will be used for the majority of the steps.
For optimal results, you will need a Riffler Set (8750 kronars, 85 stones), a Rasp (8750 kronars, 10 stones), and a Jar of Polish (4250 kronars, 20 stones). Note that these tools are only required if you want to make the best quality item - you can still complete your item without these tools. However, if you continue carving with your Chisel Set when the proper tool was one of the above, then that single step will only grant you half the normal experience. For the purposes of training Stonecarving skill, I recommend using the Rifflet Set and Rasp (since these take forever to damage, and are cheaply repairable) but NOT the Polish (since this runs out very quickly and costs a lot). Also, if burden is an issue for your character, you may consider not using the Riffler Set since it is extremely heavy (burden plays no role in Stonecarving though, so you could always put it in your vault afterwards).
You will need to buy a new Rock Deed for each item that you carve (or Boulder Deed for a few select items). I have not tested the differences between Alabaster, Marble and Granite rocks. I recommend using Granite rocks, and then trying Alabaster instead of Granite seems too hard for you (but in general, you will need to carve an easier item if Granite is too hard for you).
Step by Step Procedure:
The GMs went to a lot of trouble to make the syntax as obvious as they could, but still, this is DR so everyone is most likely going to get stumped on the syntax somewhere in the process. Here are all the steps you'll need to know:
Step 1: Decide what you want to carve (I'll go into great detail about this decision later)
Step 2: GET CHISEL SET (I recommend right hand, but it doesn't matter)
Step 3: In the southeastern room, BUY ROCK DEED ON GRANITE PLATFORM (boulder deed in a few cases, and you can buy alabaster or marble if you feel like it)
Step 4 (Optional): Move north to one of the workshop rooms if you want a quieter location that doesnt get spammed by the NPC Talia (note: not required, you can carve right here if you feel like it)
Step 5: GIVE DEED TO ATTENDANT this command works anywhere in the building, even though you cannot see Attendant NPCs
Step 6: GET BOOK, TURN BOOK TO CHAPTER , TURN BOOK TO PAGE - X and Y depend on what you are carving obviously
Step 7: STUDY BOOK, STOW BOOK
Step 8: CARVE ROCK WITH CHISEL SET
Step 9 (Optional): At this point you can ANALYZE
Step 10a: If you got the message "Upon completion you notice several rough, jagged edges protruding from the item." on the previous step, then you should GET RIFFLER SET, RUB - WITH RIFFLER SET
Step 10b: If you got either message "Once finished you realize the item has developed an uneven texture along its surface." or "When you have finished working, you heft the item and determine it is no longer level." then you should GET RASP, SCRAPE - WITH RASP
Step 10c: If you got the message "Upon finishing you see some discolored areas on the item's surface." then you are supposed to GET POLISH, APPLY POLISH TO
Step 10d: If none of the above, then CARVE - WITH CHISEL SET
Step 11: Repeat step 10 until done, or until you get a bright yellow message about needing to assemble your item. If this is the case, then you need to buy that item (like a Short Cord or Long Pole), and then ASSEMBLE WITH . The order of Item1 and Item2 do not matter.
Step 12 (Optional): If you want to know how your item turned out, then ANALYZE
Techniques in general:
All of the new crafting systems will have things called Techniques, which give a large bonus to crafting the items that are covered by that particular technique. You can still attempt to create something that you do not know the technique for, but knowing the appropriate technique gives a VERY large bonus. From my testing it appears to be approximately a 40% boost to your skills. The number of techniques you are allowed to learn depends on three things:
A) Your ranks in the related skill - for Stonecarving this is the Engineering skill (note: for right now the related skill for all disciplines is Mechanical Lore, until the skill is split up). From my testing it appears that the relationship between ranks and techniques granted is:
0 - 25 ranks: 0 tech
25 - 50ranks: 1 tech
50 - 75ranks: 2 techs
75 - 100 ranks: 3 techs
100 - 150 ranks: 4 techs
150 - 200 ranks: 5 techs
200 - 250 ranks: 6 techs
250 - 300 ranks: 7 techs
300 - 400 ranks: 8 techs
400 - 500 ranks: 9 techs
500 - 700 ranks: 10 techs
700 - 900 ranks: 11 techs
900+ ranks: 12 techs
Those numbers are approximate (except for 900 ranks = 12 techs which was confirmed by Kodius), but I think they are probably pretty accurate. Note: if you have 900 Engineering skill this means you get 12 techniques between Tinkering, Shaping and Stonecarving combined not 12 in each.
B) Choosing Stonecarving (or any other discipline) grants an additional 12 techniques to that discipline. Choosing it as a hobby grants 6 techniques. Important note: choose careers and hobbies wisely because you cannot change your mind later.
C) Each guild gets 3 bonus techniques which are spread out between one or more disciplines.
You can learn techniques by typing ASK TALIA ABOUT LEARN . There is no cost to learn them as long as you have an open technique slot. Right now you can unlearn techniques by typing ASK TALIA ABOUT FORGET and playing 10 plat. At some point in the future there will be limitations on how often you can forget them, but right now it is just a simple 10 plat with no cooldown.
Difficulty Tiers:
There are currently 10 tiers of difficulty when it comes to Stonecarving items that you can make. I've done a lot of testing to try to pinpoint the exact number of ranks required to reach Masterfully Crafted for each tier, but unfortunately it seems like there is a little bit of randomness in what you create, so these numbers are only approximate. I do feel fairly confident that all of these numbers are probably accurate within at least 50 ranks or so:
Tier 1 - Extremely Easy: 25 Base Ranks or ~18 with Techs
Tier 2 - Very Easy: 50 Base Ranks or ~36 with Techs
Tier 3 - Easy: 100 Base Ranks or ~71 with Techs
Tier 4 - Simple: 200 Base Ranks or ~143 with Techs
Tier 5 - Basic: 300 Base Ranks or ~214 with Techs
Tier 6 - Somewhat Challenging: 425 Base Ranks or ~304 with Techs
Tier 7 - Challenging: 550 Base Ranks or ~393 with Techs
Tier 8 - Complicated: 700 Base Ranks or ~500 with Techs
Tier 9 - Intricate: 850 Base Ranks or ~607 with Techs
Tier 10 - Difficult: 1175 Base Ranks or ~839 with Techs
As far as training purposes goes, you will learn the best by carving the hardest item that you are able to get close to Masterfully Crafted. This means you will want to carve items that you know the techniques for, and the most important numbers in this table are the bolded ones (but again, remember that they are approximate, and you may want to start checking your results on a particular tier once you are within 25-50 ranks of the value listed).
Stonecarving Techniques in particular:
For an excellent diagram of the Stonecarving Techniques showing which are required for which, along their copy/pasted in-game descriptions, see:
The Elanthipedia Stone Carving Article.
At the moment there are 4 paths you can go down - Weapons, Furniture, Likenesses, and Jewelry, plus a couple random techniques.
Required Intro Tech:
Basic Stone Splitting. This will be the first technique you want to learn, as it is required to advance into any of the technique paths. This technique alone will help you train up to 250-300 ranks.
Weapons Path:
Tier 2 - Improved Stone Cutting: This technique is required to progress down the Weapons or Furniture Paths, but it is otherwise mostly a waste. On its own it doesn't let you do anything important.
Tier 3 - Improvised Stone Weaponry and Tier 4 - Sophisticated Stone Weaponry: These help you make simple weapons like sling ammo, and complex weapons like blunts, respectively. Right now these are not very good techniques to take since masterful granite weapons are generally storebought quality at the best, and weapons are not great for training purposes (since this path requires 1 extra technique for the same skill range, and weapons tend to require additional poles or cords to create).
Furniture Path:
Tier 3 - Masonry Methods, Tier 4a - Furniture Design, and Tier 4b - Container Design: Right now none of these are supported in game. Avoid them for now until the furniture items are implemented.
Jewelry Path:
Tier 2 - Decorative Design: Right now this is the optimal technique to learn for training purposes after Basic Stone Splitting. This technique can get you up to almost 500 ranks before you need to move on to the next tier.
Tier 3 - Accessory Shaping: This is currently the optimal 3rd technique to learn for training purposes. Going down the Jewelry path, you can spend 3 techniques total on Stonecarving, in order to train to 1000+ ranks or so.
Likenesses Path:
Tier 2 - Humanoid Forms: This technique is equivalent to Decorative Design in that it trains to ~500 ranks. The only problem is that items for the successive tiers 3+4 (Animal Forms, Monstrous Forms and Likeness Carving) are not yet implemented. I could definitely see this becoming the optimal training path for Stonecarving once all items are implemented, but for now it deadends quickly so I would avoid it.
Random Techniques:
Proper Tool Care: I haven't tested this technique much, but the common assumption is that it decreases the amount of damage your tools take from stonecarving. This is not very important in my opinion since tools are easy to repair (they work similar to the new Durability 2.0 system for weapons/armor)
Material Detailing: I also have not tested this technique, but I do have a theory. My guess is that by learning this technique, you remove the randomness in your carving results and always get the best result possible. This would be somewhat valuable, but the randomness involved does seem to be very low - so I don't personally think it would be worth using 2 technique slots unless you are just really into Stonecarving and dont care much about Tinkering or Shaping (I would definitely recommend it for anyone choosing Stonecarving as a career though).
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