The burning question...

[Unapuma]

...what happens to the items if you fail a combine? Assuming no salvage aa, often only the tools are returned. So the rest of the stuff go poof?

Such as for example you fail at brewing KC, what happens to them all? I would have expected a pool of unknown fluid back on fail.

Or in baking, get back anything you failed as overdone pile of charcoals.

Alchemy and poison making: you fail you get mystery substance with a random chance it'd explode in your face.

Yet aside from salvage aa, usually failed stuff are not returned, they just poof.

[Angelsyn]

It's a game... the results of a failed combine are "useless items that are wasted/destroyed in the process."

You try to make Ale... you get bad tasting whatever that you rightly throw out. Or perhaps you just spill it while you're working. Or whatever.

You try making a Leather Bracer... and while you're cutting the Hide to match the Pattern... you cut too far. Now both pattern and hide are useless.

You try to make a Mistletoe Sickle... and you hammer too hard while fitting the Hilt, Blade and Pommel together. The result is bent or broken and would require way too much effort to get anything out of... unless you've trained in Salvage! Then, perhaps, if you're lucky, you might be able to preserve some of the parts so you can try again.

Does that help?

[Heynanni]

That would make sense for smaller items like a bracer, but what if cutting for a tunic and you cut it wrong, more than likely you'd have enough leather from that to try something smaller like a cracer or sleeves. Just playing devil's advocate here

Also from RL bartending experience, if you mix a drink wrong that initially tastes awful, adding both or either of rum and simple syrup you can salvage it

[Scuzz Zilla]

Also from RL bartending experience, if you mix a drink wrong that initially tastes awful, adding both or either of rum and simple syrup you can salvage it

and I bet you had to grind out 15 AA's at work to learn that too /nod

[Dutchy]

You should be able to create bracers from a failed tunic hehe, sleeves are a different story though. If a Tunic pattern is complex there might not be a large enough part of leather left to make a nice pair of sleeves from.
But... tailors can always use their patterns again if they fail in creating the item. If you fail in creating something you just ruin your materials, but since you normally draw the pattern onto your material or stitch around it (and not cut the pattern with the material lol) you should be able to use 1 pattern at least several times from a real life perspective.
I like how they did that with the DoN cultural armor book, use it untill it falls apart

[Ngreth Thergn]

You should be able to create bracers from a failed tunic hehe, sleeves are a different story though. If a Tunic pattern is complex there might not be a large enough part of leather left to make a nice pair of sleeves from.
But... tailors can always use their patterns again if they fail in creating the item. If you fail in creating something you just ruin your materials, but since you normally draw the pattern onto your material or stitch around it (and not cut the pattern with the material lol) you should be able to use 1 pattern at least several times from a real life perspective.
I like how they did that with the DoN cultural armor book, use it untill it falls apart

One of the things we want is a "charges" system for tradeskill combines.

The cultural books are a total hack and NOT appropriator for use in a wide range. as it is there are problems with it.
#1 no counter for users... so difficult to tell how "damaged" the book is and when it will fall apart.
#2 it is not tied to the book item itself, but the character. And in the current system... there is no way to know if that exact item is the one it has been "counting" for (there is a counter for each item #, just not that specific particular item) So say you use 9 of 10 charges then make a mistake and delete it. You say "no problem, I will just do the quest..." you do the quest and get a new book... use it once and "Poof" item gone after just one use.

Now since these are given via a quest I can probably (and may have already... but don't go testing it...) fix #2. I might even be able to do something about #1... but buying something from a vendor... I don't have any way to "track" or "hook into" the receiving of the item, and alter the flag on the character. And being a total hack... I do not want to use it long term.

Then comes the problem with Items with charges. They cannot stack.
At some point I may increase the stack-ability of patterns (makes some sense), but I can't see giving a "pattern" more than say 10 charges. They really do get damaged in use. So you would actually take up more character space with them.

[Aina5]

Could a possible fix for this problem of increased single item stacks be to introduce special tradeskill bags, which could house perhaps 20 or 30 slots; although the coding may be difficult to utilize since they are probably by item i.d. (such as bank bag 1; slot 8, or something simple as that) it is an idea. Although a third tier of bank bags could perhaps be introduced which would simply be for tradskill flagged items; I'm not sure if that would be a viable solution though.

Although would it be possible to 'reclaim' your items into your inventory, and reorganize the entire bank set up based around that; I've seen recently how don crystals , or more recently with the Orux and different things of that sort are reclaimed into your chars inventory to not take up space, in fact making your bank more like the guildhall bank; which would be much better in the long run anyway, as opposed to simple bags. Just an idea which could utilize already created code with a simple modification; I don't know if you'd have control over something of this sort with the other dev's but it does have tradeskill relativity, so they may perhaps see the light of it.

Arina~

[Qaladar Bragollach]

One of the things we want is a "charges" system for tradeskill combines.

The cultural books are a total hack and NOT appropriator for use in a wide range. as it is there are problems with it.
#1 no counter for users... so difficult to tell how "damaged" the book is and when it will fall apart.
#2 it is not tied to the book item itself, but the character. And in the current system... there is no way to know if that exact item is the one it has been "counting" for (there is a counter for each item #, just not that specific particular item) So say you use 9 of 10 charges then make a mistake and delete it. You say "no problem, I will just do the quest..." you do the quest and get a new book... use it once and "Poof" item gone after just one use.

Now since these are given via a quest I can probably (and may have already... but don't go testing it...) fix #2. I might even be able to do something about #1... but buying something from a vendor... I don't have any way to "track" or "hook into" the receiving of the item, and alter the flag on the character. And being a total hack... I do not want to use it long term.

Then comes the problem with Items with charges. They cannot stack.
At some point I may increase the stack-ability of patterns (makes some sense), but I can't see giving a "pattern" more than say 10 charges. They really do get damaged in use. So you would actually take up more character space with them.

Crap... so keeping 2 of them in the bank is pointless then? Well... I guess I get to free up one more bank space.

I wish that had information had been given to us in some manner before.

[JonzeGirl]

Could a possible fix for this problem of increased single item stacks be to introduce special tradeskill bags, which could house perhaps 20 or 30 slots;

Can't be done, well at least easily/safely - see http://mboards.eqtraders.com/eq/showthread.php?t=28613

~Clio

[Maevenniia]

Bags > 10 slots?

*bangs head against her desk*

*sees Jonzegirl has already pointed to the FAQ*

*banging noise ceases*

MEDIC!

[Ngreth Thergn]

Crap... so keeping 2 of them in the bank is pointless then? Well... I guess I get to free up one more bank space.

I wish that had information had been given to us in some manner before.

(Note I am still on vacation, sot his is an educated guess and from some memory of looking at the scripts)
well. the one in the bank is probably safe.
I doubt the script that deletes the item
#1 deletes more than 1 item
#2 looks beyond "what you have"

Plus I THINK that what really happens is:
The script for the combine to make the patterns interrupts the "reward" step of the tradeskill combine.
The script checks to see if you have used the book 10 times.
If not, Give player Bag with patterns, Give player normal reward (the book)
If yes, Give player bag with patterns, reset counter, Do NOT give player normal reward (the book)

So I do not believe that the quest does the counter part.
I would have to check to be sure of course

But yes, there are all sorts of problems with it and your second book may be wasted.

In the end I may totally kill this script and just go to "one combine - 200 patterns" Which has its own issues for players, but is less prone to the problems with this hack.

[Twistagain]

In the end I may totally kill this script and just go to "one combine - 200 patterns" Which has its own issues for players, but is less prone to the problems with this hack.

Heh...I would have liked this recently. I'm sure others would like it as well. Doubtful I'll ever need it again, though.

[Liwsa]

I need it constantly and would really like 1 combine 200 patterns/molds. WOOT oh please oh please oh pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

[Qaladar Bragollach]

Personally, I rarely combine this stuff and I don't have the bank space to spare. My usual MO is to make a set of patterns only when I need to do a combine and then delete everything. So that would force me to either redo the quest EVERY time I need to do a combine, or consume an entire container in the bank.

Why not just kill the script and leave the combine as is but return the book every time so it never gets used up. Having to farm n00b zones to do such a lame quest is a major triviality anyway.

[Eggborn]

As soon as I make a book, I use it up and store the items. Then I get the quest again, finish the next book and begin to collect the items for a third without finishing the quest.