A practical study on Craft Level Grinding w/ Figures

[Coco]

Ahoy. I was bored so I messed around with excel. 

Introduction: There is a lot of information out there regarding this game. Much of it is outdated since we are in a constant process of tweaking and testing. I have been playing for a couple weeks, and have just finished grinding myself up to 50 craft. I wanted to see if I did it efficiently (I didn't), or if there were better ways.  What I intend to demonstrate with this study is a data-backed guide to grinding a new player to max crafting level as quickly, and as cheaply, as possible.

Methods: Data compiled for this study was:

1. Ship resource requirements (fir/crew space - reason below)
2. Ship Xp gained from crafting
3. Labor Hours for crafting the ship
4. Total Labor Hour Wallet size of the ship crafter
5. Total number of ships crafter can craft with a full wallet (Ships/Day)
6. Real cost of producing resources necessary to max Ships/Day 
7. Labor cost of producing resources necessary to max Ships/Day

Data was compiled in excel.

Results: These figures are based on ship crafter having perks: Light Ship Shipmaster, Royal Shipbuilder, and Overseer

Ship Requirements and XP

Ship	Oak	Fir	Hemp	Iron	Lig	Stone	Coal	Prov	Hours	XP
TCutter	14	35	9	3	1	2	3	20	43	202
TLynx	14	35	9	3	1	2	3	20	29	362
Pickle	16	41	11	4	1	2	3	55	48	598
Priv	42	8	10	3	1	2	3	60	39	480
Tsnow	26	65	13	6	2	3	4	65	125	944
Brig	33	84	22	7	2	4	6	110	66	826
Tbrig	33	84	25	7	2	4	6	60	66	826

Resource Real and Labor Cost

Resource:	Real/1 unit
Oak		10
Fir		4
Hemp		58
Iron		62
Lig		36
Stone		14
Coal		4
Prov		15

Labor for all resource production is approx 0.8 hours if producing at least 10. Under 10 and the unit:labor appears to be 1:1

Fir/Crew used because Fir costs much less than oak.

Then we find the total number of ships one can produce/day based on their wallet size and the hours required for the construction. This number is not constant, so I'm not including the figures. For this example, assume a wallet size of 1240 hours. From this, we figure the amount of each resource needed to make n number of ships/day and sum the cost of all the resources, the labor hours/day required to produce the resources, and the amount of xp/day. We can then figure the Real/Xp, or the real cost for 1 xp. 

1. Ships/Day = crafterWalletSize/shipLaborCost
2. Real/Day = sum(nResource/ship*costResource*Ships/Day)
3. Labor/Day = sum(nResource/Ship*0.8*Ships/Day)
4. Xp/Day = xp/Ship*Ships/Day
5. Real/Xp = (Real/Day)/(Xp/Day) * this figure is = (costResouces/ship)/(xp/ship) -> A constant, regardless of wallet size

Ship	Ships/Day	Real/Day	Labor/Day	Xp/Day			Real/Xp		1/Log(Real/Xp)
Cutter	29		39334		2007		5825			6.75		1.21
Lynx	43		58323		2976		15479			3.77		1.74
Pickle	26		54534		2749		15448			3.53		1.83
Priv	32		69758		3281		15262			4.57		1.52
Tsnow	10		27290		1460		9364			2.91		2.15
Brig	19		78496		4028		15519			5.06		1.42
Tbrig	19		67674		3322		15519			4.36		1.56
LGV	? 		31470		1753		5399			5.83		1.31
* Note the Labor/Day refers to labour needed to produce the resources, not the labor required to craft the ship. These are all based off the labor hours wallet of 1240.

LGV was included to see how crafting a ship outside of the 6-7 rank worked. I removed some of the data when I realized it was not efficient in grinding XP. Then I realized that some people might want to see.

I included the inverse log because I think it makes it slightly easier to visualize the relationship: X-axis refers only to the name of the ship, and not to a quantitative value. The Trader Snow has the best Real/XP with the Pickle as a close second. *Greater inverse log = less real cost per 1 xp*

For a visualization of XP vs Cost, an additional chart. Again, the xp/day and cost/day is assuming you craft the maximum amount of ships you can afford with your ship crafter's labor wallet size. For example, with a wallet of 1240 one can make ~43 Trader Lynx or ~26 Pickles. 

Conclusion: From the data provided, it would appear that grinding Trader Snows a day is the most cost-efficient way to grind crafting to the max. At the lower craft levels you are capped by the surprisingly high labor hour cost for the ship construction. I'm not sure if this is deliberate, as all ships had labor hour costs reduced recently, and it seems odd that a Trader Snow takes more hours to craft than a Trader Brig. If cost is slightly less of an issue and gaining XP quicker is more of a concern then it would appear that the Pickle or Trader Lynx is the way to go (unless the resale value is higher on the lynx I would probably grind pickles because clicking all the prompts 43 times would be annoying.)  I have done some ballpark figures with higher ranked ships, but the trend of Real/XP increase occurs. Additionally, even with large labor wallets, the number of ships decreases significantly - so even with the higher XP/ship you end up making less XP/day. This makes sense, as the higher ranked ships are more useable. Personally, grinding Trader Snows has been somewhat useful. You have an increased chance of crafting high end TSnows with speed perks, which make a useful addition to your fleet. I would grind TSnows until you have a good amount of fast trader vessels and then switch to something more XP/Day efficient. An additional note, crafting trading vessels is usually cheaper because they use less provisions than the non-trader version. All data on ships that have a trader version (tCutter, tSnow, tLynx, tBrig) are the data from the trader version. 

How can you use this data? I think this information can be useful for clans wanting to train new people or also for solo players that want to sponsor or shadow a newcomer. If you are using alts, this is helpful information as well, although limiting factors will be access to all resources necessary. As the crafter's wallet increases these costs will change, but the rates will not. The Real/XP is a constant, as these divide down to a per ship basis. Same with the inverse log, as this is just another way to assess the Real/XP figure.

Next: The next obvious step is to craft one of each and sell them (with the perk that give +15% profit) and then figure which offsets the cost best. I have a feeling that making 43 Trader Lynxes would generate more income than 26 Pickles, but I haven't tested that yet. I do know that selling Trader Brigs nets ~1700/ship, for a total of ~31K if crafting the max number of TBrigs. That nearly cuts the cost of resources in half. I assume the same will go for all of the ships in this study - but I haven't tested it yet. 

To the team: Game-labs, are the labor hours for Trader Snows how they should be or did they get missed in the patch?

 

Thanks everyone.

 

Edit:

If you want to know how many resources/reals/hours are needed to go from 0-50 crafting nothing but Pickles (208 of them)

0-50	Amount	Reals	Labor
Oak	3328	33280	2662
Fir	8528	34112	6822
Hemp	5588	324104	4470
Iron	832	51584	665
Lig	208	7488	166
Stone	1016	14224	812
Coal	624	2496	499
Prov	11440	171600	9152
Totals		638888	25248

Or you could craft 505 Trader Snows over two weeks and pay~363,000 reals instead.

Edited March 14, 2019 by Coco

[Macjimm]

Can you elaborate and explain what the "wallet size" is?

[Coco]

4 minutes ago, Macjimm said:

Can you elaborate and explain what the "wallet size" is?

Labor Hour Wallet. How many labor hours the crafter has. You can see it by hovering over your name when in port. You will see your craft level followed by two numbers. Labor hours that you have/Labor Hour Wallet Size. It increases as you level up. I forget how much it restores by. Some % of total/per hours. I craft once a day, so every day when I come to craft my wallet is full again. 

 

You can use the overseer perk to increase wallet capacity by 25% and there is another perk that makes it refill 20% faster, but since I only craft once a day, it refilling faster doesn't matter to me.

Edited March 14, 2019 by Coco

[Teutonic]

so to get the most XP quickest, it's trader snows. got it

[Coco]

9 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

Can you make an accurate calculation of the actual price of the lineships?

Sure. But, I don't think anyone would want to make a line ship Fir/Crew Space. Additional factors such as doubloon cost, permit cost and rare woods would have to be factored in. I will calculate costs of just the produceable resources needed to make the bulk of the ship and then list the number of materials (doesn't matter what materials, same amount) for frame and trim - but they will not be factored into cost. These values assume you have the Line Ship Master perk for a 20% reduction in labor cost for the crafting of the ship.

 

Ship	Oak	Fir	Hemp	Iron	Lig	Stone	Coal	Prov	Hours	XP	Frame	Trim
L'Ocean	1490	800	459	305	66	165	230	1100	2936	4694	2985	655
Santi	1421	762	438	291	63	158	219	1050	2880	4694	2847	625
Victory	1266	680	391	260	56	141	195	850	2562	4100	2537	557

L'Ocean
Cost:	Real	Real/Ship	Labor/Ship
Oak	10	14900		1192
Fir	4	3200		640
Hemp	58	26622		367
Iron	62	18910		244
Lig	36	2376		53
Stone	14	2310		132
Coal	4	920		184
Prov	15	16500		880
Total		Reals:85738		Labor Hours:4615

Santi
Cost:	Real	Real/Ship	Labor/Ship
Oak	10	14210		1137
Fir	4	3048		610
Hemp	58	25404		350
Iron	62	18042		233
Lig	36	2268		50
Stone	14	2212		126
Coal	4	876		175
Prov	15	15750		840
Total		Reals:81810		Labor Hours:4488

Victory
Cost:	Real	Real/Ship	Labor/Ship
Oak	10	12660		1013
Fir	4	2720		544
Hemp	58	22678		313
Iron	62	16120		208
Lig	36	2016		45
Stone	14	1974		113
Coal	4	780		156
Prov	15	12750		680
Total		Reals:71698		Labor Hours:4399

 

[Coco]

18 minutes ago, Teutonic said:

so to get the most XP quickest, it's trader snows. got it

tSnows would be the cheapest. tBrigs would be fastest, technically, but Pickles have a similar amount of XP/day for less production cost.

[Teutonic]

12 minutes ago, Coco said:

tSnows would be the cheapest. tBrigs would be fastest, technically, but Pickles have a similar amount of XP/day for less production cost.

thank you for the clarification, I will keep it in mind.

[Guest]

the crafting makes no sense what so ever, IMO it should give xp for certain ship up to a certain level in crafting so you would have craft bigger ships to reach a higher skill, and ships like sols shouldnt be available to craft until 30+

[Guest]

Also i would love if a player could affect the rng for the quality of ships. Lets say i craft 100 Surprise's, i get the title Experienced light frigate crafter which gives 50% increase of making 4 upgrade slot ships and 20% increase of making 5 upgrade slots ships. I craft 200 more Surps and gain the title Exceptional Light Frigate crafter which almost guarantees 4 upgrade slots on every ligth frigate you're crafting and give 50% chance of crafting a 5 upgrade slot one.

 

Edited March 14, 2019 by Guest

[Norfolk nChance]

@Coco

Well done nice work and glad to see an updated craft guide. This was my first guide I wrote for NA and is a tad out dated to say the leased...

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=821902779

This is the problem with any sort of guide. However, as I keep pointing out try to show the method or strategy behind the tactics. This way the player can use the idea and develop his own route even if the game mechanics have changed. This includes PvP guides as well...

 

My Crafting Experience

Understand the build mechanics before embarking on any build. Piss Poor Planning Pisses off Norfolk.

In my day the Trader Lynx had no guns therefore no carriages needed building. Its Labor from basic parts and CREW space made it the easiest and cheapest to do.

The fact that Oak Log was used in several first stage construction to second and final means this was the ideal main source material. All base materials should easily be found in all the adjacent ports to a Capital PORT. Build an oak farm.

NEXT, is set the warehouse up logically to build T-Lynx’s in sets of 20x. Estimate production costs. With your perks, an old perk not sure if it still exists was called Shipyard Connections. This added 15% to the AI bid price of your ship.  Using excel, workout the actual cost of the build to then hit the AI bid. I had it down to 100Gold only.

This method, is so much more convenient than trying to sell the ships to players. Analyze the break-up prediction cost as well. I found selling into the AI worked the best.

 

Planning...

The problem comes to money. Early on you simply don’t have the resources to do something like this. Later on, yes and training up a CRAFTer ALT as a Clan ruler is vital to free up other players. This ALT would then build and store the clan FLEETs not the individuals unless passing over a time zone. The Clan ALT would then be the focus for the resources in order to build much larger ship fleets with specialist woods etc...

My advice to New players is split the goals up. Aim for Rank 20 then do something else. Comeback aim for 30 and then 40 and finally 50. Its logarithmic scale will have players not sticking with the original plan, deviation is the killer. It took three days to train Norfolk nWay my ALT to level50. That’s with resources and planning from my MPC. On its own an MPC must plan realistically.

 

Really like the work you’ve put in. Well done

Norfolk nChance [ELITE].

[Angus MacDuff]

1 hour ago, Wyy said:

Also i would love if a player could affect the rng for the quality of ships. Lets say i craft 100 Surprise's, i get the title Experienced light frigate crafter which gives 50% increase of making 4 upgrade slot ships and 20% increase of making 5 upgrade slots ships. I craft 200 more Surps and gain the title Exceptional Light Frigate crafter which almost guarantees 4 upgrade slots on every ligth frigate you're crafting and give 50% chance of crafting a 5 upgrade slot one.

 

This is an attractive idea, but we all know what would happen.  The ultra-gamers would run with this and within a few weeks (or less) they would be pumping out gold ships and flooding the market with them.  But only at ridiculously high prices that the poorer folks cant handle.  there would be untouchable players all gold all the time.  No, I think ship quality must remain low percentage and random.

[Meraun]

1 hour ago, Wyy said:

Also i would love if a player could affect the rng for the quality of ships. Lets say i craft 100 Surprise's, i get the title Experienced light frigate crafter which gives 50% increase of making 4 upgrade slot ships and 20% increase of making 5 upgrade slots ships. I craft 200 more Surps and gain the title Exceptional Light Frigate crafter which almost guarantees 4 upgrade slots on every ligth frigate you're crafting and give 50% chance of crafting a 5 upgrade slot one.

 

+1

[Vizzini]

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

[Aerospace]

1 hour ago, Angus MacDuff said:

This is an attractive idea, but we all know what would happen.  The ultra-gamers would run with this and within a few weeks (or less) they would be pumping out gold ships and flooding the market with them.  But only at ridiculously high prices that the poorer folks cant handle.  there would be untouchable players all gold all the time.  No, I think ship quality must remain low percentage and random.

Disagree but why ?

"Also i would love if a player could affect the rng for the quality of ships. Lets say i craft 100 Surprise's, i get the title Experienced light frigate crafter which gives 5% increase of making 4 upgrade slot ships and 2% increase of making 5 upgrade slots ships. I craft 200 more Surps and gain the title Exceptional Light Frigate crafter which almost guarantees %15 chance  of 4 upgrade slots on every ligth frigate you're crafting and give 5% chance of crafting a 5 upgrade slot one."

Something like above , you still have to craft lots of ships to get lucky, but you pump lots of ships into economy and you are still  rewarded for dedication.

I still do not understand, the new guy becomes lvl 50, craft a gold Victory few days later, while the other guy having crafted hundreds of ships has stil equal chance to craft good ships compared to the new guy .

 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Angus MacDuff said:

This is an attractive idea, but we all know what would happen.  The ultra-gamers would run with this and within a few weeks (or less) they would be pumping out gold ships and flooding the market with them.  But only at ridiculously high prices that the poorer folks cant handle.  there would be untouchable players all gold all the time.  No, I think ship quality must remain low percentage and random.

what about you can specialize within one type of ship? so one guy that knows how to craft and exceptional victory, doesent have the knowledge to craft an exceptional trincomalee this would even it out and people would specialize in certain ships

[Angus MacDuff]

5 minutes ago, Aerospace said:

Disagree but why ?

"Also i would love if a player could affect the rng for the quality of ships. Lets say i craft 100 Surprise's, i get the title Experienced light frigate crafter which gives 5% increase of making 4 upgrade slot ships and 2% increase of making 5 upgrade slots ships. I craft 200 more Surps and gain the title Exceptional Light Frigate crafter which almost guarantees %15 chance  of 4 upgrade slots on every ligth frigate you're crafting and give 5% chance of crafting a 5 upgrade slot one."

Something like above , you still have to craft lots of ships to get lucky, but you pump lots of ships into economy and you are still  rewarded for dedication.

I still do not understand, the new guy becomes lvl 50, craft a gold Victory few days later, while the other guy having crafted hundreds of ships has stil equal chance to craft good ships compared to the new guy .

 

That's a little more reasonable than 50% chance.  As someone who crafts my own ships (and have never crafted a Gold) that would be a nice bonus.  I still fear an over abundance of premium ships.  The big clan guys can pump out 200 surprises in very little time, whereas I would take a while to do that.  Worth it in the long run I guess (and If I wanted all the benefits of a big clan I could join one......Nah!)

[admin]

13 hours ago, Coco said:

 

To the team: Game-labs, are the labor hours for Trader Snows how they should be or did they get missed in the patch?

 

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.

[Sir Texas Sir]

18 minutes 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.

Yall really need to revampt the crafting perks.  Maybe make the Master perks tied to you rank now your perks.  Like when you can craft Frigates you gain the Light ship Mastery ablitity and get a labor dsicounts on light ships.  You get the SOL's discounts when you make rank 50.  This way ranking up means something. In the past we ranked up cause we wanted to craft Master Craft items.  Now there is really no reason to level up once you get the rank of the ships you want to build.  A level 50 crafter should be crafting better ships than say a level 10 crafter.

[Vernon Merrill]

I think people better get used to oak/oak ships....  

My personal opinion (hope) is that they slightly decrease the deltas between "average" and "AWESOME!!!!!"......

[Steele OooOoOOoOOOooooOOOO]

34 minutes ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

Yall really need to revampt the crafting perks.  Maybe make the Master perks tied to you rank now your perks.  Like when you can craft Frigates you gain the Light ship Mastery ablitity and get a labor dsicounts on light ships.  You get the SOL's discounts when you make rank 50.  This way ranking up means something. In the past we ranked up cause we wanted to craft Master Craft items.  Now there is really no reason to level up once you get the rank of the ships you want to build.  A level 50 crafter should be crafting better ships than say a level 10 crafter.

Perks are not enough and need more,you need to be a shipbuilder and make money and even with a really good ship be able to go up against a PVP specced player,I have fishing and fleet 1 and prepared and double Shot and Charge ,I cannot survive without these , im sure down the road I could flip Perks ,but you gain one to lose another ,I guess all in how you stack them together and when you use them , CvT=/t-T,And losing ships are never factored in because you just don't know and I lost all the ships I ever built,Only time I have a Point for PVP is when we took Ports.If we are going to lose ships we need more,if we lose ammo we can run or fight for another day,I guess why navies never ran out of ships.

[Steele OooOoOOoOOOooooOOOO]

1 hour ago, Angus MacDuff said:

That's a little more reasonable than 50% chance.  As someone who crafts my own ships (and have never crafted a Gold) that would be a nice bonus.  I still fear an over abundance of premium ships.  The big clan guys can pump out 200 surprises in very little time, whereas I would take a while to do that.  Worth it in the long run I guess (and If I wanted all the benefits of a big clan I could join one......Nah!)

yeah like 50 I 50II 50III  time...

[Teutonic]

17 minutes ago, Vernon Merrill said:

I think people better get used to oak/oak ships....  

My personal opinion (hope) is that they slightly decrease the deltas between "average" and "AWESOME!!!!!"......

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.

[Angus MacDuff]

3 minutes ago, Teutonic said:

Some of us are already getting ready for oak ships

That's like saying that we are getting ready for the drought. Why does there have to be a drought?  What does it bring to the game when a percentage of the player base is forced to sail in ships that they are not happy with (regardless of whether that thinking is justified)?  I'm not saying there should be no effort involved, but everyone should have access to all wood types. 

[Teutonic]

5 minutes ago, Angus MacDuff said:

That's like saying that we are getting ready for the drought. Why does there have to be a drought?  What does it bring to the game when a percentage of the player base is forced to sail in ships that they are not happy with (regardless of whether that thinking is justified)?  I'm not saying there should be no effort involved, but everyone should have access to all wood types. 

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.

Edited March 14, 2019 by Teutonic

[Vizzini]

1 minute 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.

You could argue that it's futile having it as nation only with the large numbers of alts having access to a nations resources. A much smaller amount dotted around the map that can be fought over and a huge amount ( forest ) which could be restricted by who owns the port , but could also be fought over. The same for all the rarer more sought after woods and upgrade resources.