When should I start Fine Plate?

[FeroceFV]

Here's the situation:

I've been skilling up with Ornate Gold Chain armor since 123. I am now at 147. I burned through a stack of high quality rings last night. While my all-bard guild LOVES the ornate Gold stuff, the cost of making it is getting prohibative, especially when I give it away to my guildies.

I have almost two stacks of leather paddings sitting in my bank right now. Farming the spiderling silks and pelts is not a problem.

Is it time? Should I start working the Fine Plate now? Will I lose more plat on Fine Plate than I did on Ornate Gold? Making the Ornate Gold is great for the guild, but I think it's slowing my skill progression down unacceptably.

Feroce
29 Battle Bard of Firiona Vie.

[Morgrist]

I did fine plate-the BP's I wasn't losing much on,and no bard worth his Charisma and faction songs should either.

But -giving- away your ornate? They better be helping you out later!

[Zeralenn]

You will lose much, MUCH more plat making any of the platinum-based ornate items than you will by moving to fine plate now.

You can do ornate gold helms until 146 and then ornate gold tunics until 156, if you think you will use the tunics.

Just be sure to start out with the lowest-trivial item you can -- fine plate visors (163) and don't make anything else until you have trivialled those.

If you really want to try cheaping out, start the Shadowscream quests and make humming orbs until 148. But you may or may not be able to do that depending on your level.

...Zera

[Calabar]

I’m just about to start making gold ornate chain so I don’t have first hand experience but I’ll tell you what I plan to do and you can decide if it makes any sense.

I made banded armor to 115, embroidering needles to 122 and racial needles to 132. I wanted to put off ornate chain as long as I could and the needles were very easy to make. For the racial needles I tried buying cinnamon sticks from vendors in GFay, but I found a grand total of two. So instead I went to Ak'Anon and did some fishing. It took me almost two hours to fish up a stack of clockwork fish, but it was worth it. The racial needles cost very little to make and they sold for 9pp each to the vendors.

Now I’m looking at making gold ornate chain. I plan to farm all the bricks of high quality ore, via ore drops and fine steel weapons in Solusek's Eye, so all I’ll have to pay for are the bars of gold. I’m not sure how much these cost, I’ll price them when I log in tonight, but it has to be cheaper than making fine plate. Since I’ll be farming the ore, I plan to take gold ornate chain all the way to 155.

The problem with fine steel plate is the cost of the medium quality ore. Nothing drops it and you cannot convert weapons into it. So your only choice is to buy it. The cheapest price is just over 20pp each. So by the time your making the breastplate your spending at least 60pp per combine. And that’s assuming your farming your own padding.

All that having been said, I have no idea what the sell back price is on either gold ornate chain or on fine steel plate. Assuming they are both close to the cost of bought materials you’d be better off making gold ornate chain for as long as you can as you might even be able to make a small profit if your able to farm the ore. That is, of course, if you stop giving it away. :P I’d suggest you sit down with pencil and paper and figure out the cost of each armor based upon how you make it, farming or buying supplies, and go from there.

Best of luck.

[FeroceFV]

Cost of Ornate Gold Chain leggings and Tunic:
3 HQ Rings: 30pp
Water flask: (negligible)
Gold bar: 10pp
Pattern:8pp
Smithy Hammer: (re-usable, so negligible)

Cost: 48pp (roughly)
Sell-back price: 29pp.

Fine Plate Visor:
1 Block of MQ ore: 20pp
1 Leather Padding: (negligible, farmed myself)
1 Water Flask (negligible)
Smithy Hammer: Re-usable.
Costs about 20pp to make. Don't yet know the sell-back price.

I think it's time to move on.

[Silound]

For a bard withmax ally and 247 CHA, I make roughly 5pp profit sellign back as long as I hunt my own water, make my own padding, and...something else, but I forget what.

Silound
Minstrel of Prexus

[Reflan]

Well if you're going to give away your product, you're a nice guy, but of course that messes up your cost equation.

Let me give you an example of fine steel so you'll know what to expect. I skilled up on I think boots or bracers, then helms, then BP -- from 133 to 188.

BP ores cost 21 each x 3 for the BP; the pattern costs roughly 20pp too. Let's call it 82pp. Close enough. Now, they sell back to vendors for 82pp also!

However, the factor that makes all the difference is the one I left out -- padding. The cost of padding is your true cost of fine steel. If you make your own, FS can be almost free if you have the WIS/INT or STR to not have too many failures; if you pay minimal attention to your stats and/or buy all padding at crazy prices, it can start to really hurt.

By the way, I sold some of my fine steel BP's I still had in inventory when I hit 188 smithing in the bazaar for 100pp. Only 18pp more than the 82pp I would have gotten from vendors, but money is money. If I tried to save every one of my fine steel pieces I made, it would have taken forever to transfer my goods back and forth in and out of mules, and a long time to sell -- but anyway you can consider it.

As an aside, if a few K here and there make much difference to you, I would pass on smithing for a while in order to make smithing faster, cheaper, and easier for you in the long run -- be it leveling so you can get better gear or money, or taking up another trade to fund smithing, or whatever. And if you can't seem to scrape together enough wis/int, as some fighter classes have trouble doing, strength buffs are very easy to come by in EQ, many classes in the game can cast them, and people never seem to charge for them. My shaman casts focus and maniacal strength and primal essence all the time on smiths and has never asked money for it.

[FeroceFV]

I switched to fine plate visors today. Did about 38 combines, got from 147 to 152, at 242 STR.

I gotta say, I'm getting a lot more combines done with fine plate than I was with Ornate Gold Chain. The chain stuff kept getting given away, but this stuff is a lot easier to make in the bazaar, and since I farm the padding myself, it's pretty darn cheap. Doing it in the bazaar really helps, too, since I can get some good buffs from bored shaman in the area.