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I'm trying to develop an Excel spreadsheet to get a ballpark price for a skillup run. This is designed to calculate the cost of long runs, like when doing acrylia arrows from 202 to 250 or fish rolls from 0 to 135.
The current version can be found here. It's about 21K zipped, 105K expanded or so.
http://www.gamesnet.org/KyrosKrane/calculator.zip
To use it, unzip the file and open it in Excel. Change the numbers in the yellow cells in the top left corner. Leave everything else alone; it updates itself.
A couple of things bear explanation. The Cost per Attempt is the total amount you have to pay for one combine. This is the raw cost, not taking into account sellback or what components you get back on success or fail.
The Sellback on success is the total amount you can get back on a successful combine. This can be what the vendor pays you or what you can sell it for in the bazaar; your choice. If the combine yields multiple amounts, remember that you have to enter the total sellback. So, if your combine yields ten items and you can sell each one for 2pp, you'd enter 20pp in here.
The recovery per failure is a bit funky. Some combines will give back an item on fail, but consume it on success. An example is planing tools with most pre-PoP bows; it's used up on success but returned on fail. Another example (though not really relevant to skillups) is the emblems on PoP armor. Enter in the cost of such items for one combine here. So, if a planing tool costs you 1pp to buy, enter 1 here. If an emblem costs you 2K to make, enter 2000 here.
The calculator poses some interesting dilemmas. Here are some of my concerns.
1) According to the success formula found in the FAQ, it's possible to have a >100% chance of success with a geerlok equipped, which is of course impossible in real terms. Previously, the caps had been at 5% minimum success rate and 5% minimum fail rate. We know the minimum fail rate was removed for trivial combines. Does the minimum rate still apply to non-trivial combines? That is, when doing a run of some non-trivial item, do I always have a 5% chance to fail?
2) Do we know if anything was changed with the success rate cap? Or do you always have a minimum 5% chance to succeed? In other words, if I have zero skill and I make some item with trivial >250, do I have a 5% chance to succeed?
3) For the purposes of the calculator, I assumed that on non-trivial combines, you have a minimum 5% chance to succeed and maximum 95% chance. Based on your personal experience, does this seem probable? Would you suggest other rates? (Note that you can change these by fiddling with the yellow cells at the bottom of the left column.)
4) As far as I can tell, the calculator is spitting out reasonable numbers. Do you see any bugs? Any suggestions for improvements or additional features?
Let me know what you think.
Side note: Since the calculator isn't a tradeskill guide or UI mod, I put this in General rather than the UI forum. Feel free to move it if you think it would be better there.
The current version can be found here. It's about 21K zipped, 105K expanded or so.
http://www.gamesnet.org/KyrosKrane/calculator.zip
To use it, unzip the file and open it in Excel. Change the numbers in the yellow cells in the top left corner. Leave everything else alone; it updates itself.
A couple of things bear explanation. The Cost per Attempt is the total amount you have to pay for one combine. This is the raw cost, not taking into account sellback or what components you get back on success or fail.
The Sellback on success is the total amount you can get back on a successful combine. This can be what the vendor pays you or what you can sell it for in the bazaar; your choice. If the combine yields multiple amounts, remember that you have to enter the total sellback. So, if your combine yields ten items and you can sell each one for 2pp, you'd enter 20pp in here.
The recovery per failure is a bit funky. Some combines will give back an item on fail, but consume it on success. An example is planing tools with most pre-PoP bows; it's used up on success but returned on fail. Another example (though not really relevant to skillups) is the emblems on PoP armor. Enter in the cost of such items for one combine here. So, if a planing tool costs you 1pp to buy, enter 1 here. If an emblem costs you 2K to make, enter 2000 here.
The calculator poses some interesting dilemmas. Here are some of my concerns.
1) According to the success formula found in the FAQ, it's possible to have a >100% chance of success with a geerlok equipped, which is of course impossible in real terms. Previously, the caps had been at 5% minimum success rate and 5% minimum fail rate. We know the minimum fail rate was removed for trivial combines. Does the minimum rate still apply to non-trivial combines? That is, when doing a run of some non-trivial item, do I always have a 5% chance to fail?
2) Do we know if anything was changed with the success rate cap? Or do you always have a minimum 5% chance to succeed? In other words, if I have zero skill and I make some item with trivial >250, do I have a 5% chance to succeed?
3) For the purposes of the calculator, I assumed that on non-trivial combines, you have a minimum 5% chance to succeed and maximum 95% chance. Based on your personal experience, does this seem probable? Would you suggest other rates? (Note that you can change these by fiddling with the yellow cells at the bottom of the left column.)
4) As far as I can tell, the calculator is spitting out reasonable numbers. Do you see any bugs? Any suggestions for improvements or additional features?
Let me know what you think.
Side note: Since the calculator isn't a tradeskill guide or UI mod, I put this in General rather than the UI forum. Feel free to move it if you think it would be better there.
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