Probably the most frustrating thing for me after reaching Master Armorsmith was this question. How in the world are these guys coming up with these outrageously good protection percentages? I spent weeks collecting what seemed like the right materials, experimented on all different kinds of combinations of materials, different ways of expending my experimentation points and the best I could come up with was about 2/3 of the protection of the best armors I had seen elsewhere. What was I doing wrong? Well, I came to find out thru trial and error that there are a few secrets or combinations to this. But its really easy once you get the basics of what is most important, and I have listed in order of importance what has to be paid attention to if you want to produce the best possible protective armors.
#1 The Highest possible Overall Quality and Shock Resist on all materials in every phase of crafting is vital. OQ and SR determine how high you can take the experimental quality of your armor and this is the major factor in the outcome of your base and special resist percentages. You will need an average on materials used in each component and final phase of 960 or over OQ and SR to obtain the highest percentage clickover possible on experimentation.
#2 Choose your materials wisely. Perfect Armor materials would be 960 plus in all pertinent categories, OQ and SR for protection percentages, OQ and UT for Durability, OQ and MA for encumbrances. The reality however is that if you spent a year collecting materials, you probably would not find all of the materials you need with these kinds of numbers. You might find a few of them in a few months of hunting. I have found that if you keep your focus on finding that 960 plus average for OQ and SR and a general eye on getting decent numbers on your UT and MA, say an average of 500 across all materials, you will achieve good numbers on your durability and encumbrance versus other armor crafters because your Materials Overall Quality was very high and made up for low numbers in UT and MA. And you will beat them on protection which is what sells the armor.
#3 Overall Quality, the OQ of the Material is absolutely important. The OQ is balanced against all other factors, not just the SR, but the UT and the MA also. So if you find a material that has very high OQ, like 990 plus, but only 930 SR and whatever on UT and MA, go out and grab allot of it anyhow. Your protection percentage for that material is still an average of 960, what you need for maximum OQ experimentation, and even if the MA and UT were as little as 100 each, it would still be over the 500 average your looking for. What you should be thinking constantly when looking at materials to harvest or buy is that I must have around 960 or better Overall Quality = OQ, I need about 960 or better Shock Resist = SR, but I can afford to give a little on that SR if the OQ is high enough, and finally, a decent Malleability = MA and Unit Toughness = UT would be a nice bonus, but its not essential.
#4 Raise the Base Protection first on all phases of construction and as high as you get it. Next to material quality, this is the second most important thing. Allot of people follow logic and figure that if they are putting special resist into their armor, they should raise the special resist percentage first and expend the extra experimentation points on base protection. And that's why they never produce really good armor. It ends up being good in a few types of protection and mediocre on everything else. On Composite armor, special resist are a percentage factor above the base. When you raise the base protection percentage on your final phase, making the armor piece itself, the special resist go up with it. If you maximize base protection in each construction phase with expending experimentation on Quality and you use the correct combinations of special protection pieces, you will reach maximum on your special protections at the same time. Remember, always raise the base percentage first on all pieces as high as it can go before spending points elsewhere. Its not logical, but it works.
#5 Use your experimentation points wisely. Keep in mind that their are roll over spots on your experimentation where the percentage for protection clicks to the next level. It does no good to expend more points for a slight gain on the experimentation scale if the percentage doesn't go up on the piece. All you have done is blow a point or two of experimentation for no real gain that could go into another category for a real gain. First you need to play with it a little and find as close as you can to the exact spot that you get the final raise you can get. For instance, lets say I am experimenting on trying to raise the base protection on a Kinetic Resist piece that will be going into my next phase for composite armor segments. With excellent materials the Kinetic Resist plate will start off at about 26 percent experimental quality and a 2 percent base protection on the initial combine with a excellent result. Now as I add experimentation points it will gain 1 percent of base protection for approximately every 15 to 18 percent of gain in experimental quality. This is not totally exact, but it ends up being about a 5 percent base protection raise in the low 80 percent of experimental quality. The final roll over click is to 6 percent base protection raise at about 96 percent experimental quality. That is why I so strongly suggest you go for a OQ and SR average of 960 or better. It will take that high of a grade of materials to get the final clickover at about 96 percent experimental quality. The message here is to not waste points getting a higher experimental quality, unless it gets you the clickover percentage on your piece at the same time. Find the line that gets you the highest real percentage raise. Then use only as many points as it takes to hit that line and no more.
#6 Try for Amazing Result experimentations, especially on your main effort at raising the base protection percentage. And use all of the experimentation points you can in one shot to hit the roll over for the maximum percentage raise. It does little good to play with experimentation points 1 or 2 or 3 at a time except for finding the clickover spot. Once you find the spot, you go to trying to hit it for real with all the points you need to get it with one amazing result. What you are trying to accomplish here is to hit the highest real percentage increase on your armor piece, as close to the clickover line as you can get in the most efficient manner, leaving the most experimentation points left over to put into experimental resistance. So first you play around with points to locate your highest roll over point, whether its 82 percent experimental quality because your materials aren't good enough to hit the clickover at 96 percent, or they are good enough and your trying to hit around 96 percent, where that base protection rolls to 6 percent. Experimentations can fall in-between sometimes, especially if the materials are allot better then hitting one clickover point, but not quite good enough to make the next one. Whichever it might be, using the maximum number of experimentation points to hit your attainable goal and no more, by getting a amazing result is the most effective way of getting to the line your after. Typically, an amazing result with sufficient points put into it will either hit your goal, or you may have to go a second time with just one more point to make it. Then take what is left of your experimentation points and throw the rest, all of the rest at one time at experimental resist. Whether or not you need an amazing result also on the experimental resist primarily depends on what your armors base protection is and how many different resist layers you put into the armor. Special resist only goes up to a maximum of 80 percent. Composite Armor has a built in resist factor for Electrical already. So if you build your armor correctly, you will not need to get two amazing results in a row, which is a very hard thing to do. One Amazing result on Experimental quality followed by a Excellent result on Experimental Resist should hit the 80 percent maximum if you use one Electrical Protection Layer in addition to the built in Electrical Protection for Composite and then two layers for something else, such as two Kinetic or Stun Protection layers.
#7 One of the key factors in making the highest possible protective armor is the knowledge that Sony Developers messed up on Composite Armor potentials to begin with. This aspect maybe changed in the future. I have heard rumors that it will be, but as of yet, as far as I know, the logic of composite armor protection is still very illogical. Composite Armor has a maximum protective value. Currently it is 80 percent on Special Protections and 90 percent on base protection. You can't make it this way as an Armorsmith. It has to be effect sliced by a Smuggler to attain that 90 percent on the base. Without slicing, the highest I have ever seen for protection on Composite Armor is 80 percent for Special Protection and 74 percent on base protection. But still, the mere fact that you can slice composite so the base is more protective then the special makes no sense at all. The slicing should raise all effective categories equally, but I don't think the Sony Devs realized in their number crunching that people would raise the base protection on layers and segments as the primary thing to do. The result is that logic seems to have little to do with it to date. Smuggler Slicing has been reduced to a maximum of 30 percent on publish 10, but as far as I know, you can still reach 90 percent protection on you base if you attain 69 percent base or better before slicing.
#9 Making Encumbrance Sliced Armor. Think hard about what you are trying to attain in your armor and for what purpose. Some people like encumbrance sliced armor and some like effect sliced. If you are going after the best encumbrance sliced armor you can make, I suggest you stick with the addition of one electrical layer to boost the Composite Armors built in electrical protection and then 2 kinetic armor layers. The reason for this is that you need to focus on raising the base protection percentage as much as possible on each phase. You will need the additional electrical layer to reach the maximum of 80 percent special protection and two kinetic layers for 80 percent kinetic protection, and if your materials are good enough, 69 to 74 percent on base protection. Most players like Kinetic protection. Probably half the damage you take in SWG is kinetic. So you want it maxed out. Players do not like to see obvious vulnerabilities in very expensive armor, so a special resist on electrical of less then the 80 percent maximum does not look good. Thirty Percent Encumbrance Sliced Armor with 80 percent Kinetic, 80 percent Electrical and 69 to 74 percent base looks great and will make you a fortune.
#10 Effect Sliced Armor. If your planning on making the very best protection you possibly can, effect sliced Composite, you can go at it from a different direction, at least for now. Add one Electrical Layer to get the 80 percent maximum. Then add 2 Stun Layers. There are two reasons for this method, useing the Stun layers instead of Kinetic. First, Composite is only vulnerable to stun and light saber. Adding 2 stun layers, still focusing on raising the base first might not get you much in the listed Stun Protection percentage, but it's a whole lot more then the apparent percentage says. It removes Stun from the vulnerable to category and puts it into the Armor Class 1 category. So you gain a 50 percent resistance to stun along with the percentage that shows up. But the main reason your using Stun Layers for effect sliced is you want Kinetic Protection to be raised also in your slicing. You are raising everything up to 90 percent except for Electrical, Stun and Lightsaber.. What you end up with as a final product for your best protective armor would be 80 percent Electrical and approximately 14 percent Stun on special resist and 90 percent on everything else except light sabers. That's some awesome armor and you can sell a single chest piece for as much as 2 million credits.
#11 Should you use or try to find Armor Experimentation tapes to help you out? What can I say but that it doesn't hurt. However, finding tapes are not necessary at this point in SWG for making Super High Quality Armor. The basic 10 points of experimentation are enough to maximize the special protection and base protection that is capable of being made. More experimentation points will not raise what is already at maximum. More experimentation can only accomplish one thing if the materials are good enough, and the special protection layers are used correctly and the base protection is raised to maximum on each phase of crafting. All you will be able to raise with the extra points is more durability, which means the armor can take more punishment before it falls apart. Focus on finding the very best materials you can find and using the right armor protection pieces and usage of your basic 10 points of experimentation correctly and you will get much better armor then trying to make up for it with more points to play around with.
#12 Don't make the mistake of making a even number of all pieces. Armor does not get damaged equally. Chest pieces take 2 or 3 times as much damage as any others. The reason is that most of the bad guys shoot at health. Health shots are primary chest impact, action shots are mainly legs and mind shots are head. So the Chest pieces go first, followed by Legs, then Head, then Boots. Gloves and Arm pieces tend to last a long time because the hits are from random shooting, not special attacks. High Level Mobs use allot of special attacks that hit chest, legs and head and do more damage. So make a whole lot more Chest Plates then anything else, and probably 2 or 3 times as many legs and helmets as you do gloves, arms, boots.
#13 I personally have two accounts because I like to rely on my own capacity to get everything I need. My Armorsmith is also a Novice Tailor. You will need Synthetic Cloth and Reinforced Fiber Panels in abundance. So you need to either know a tailor, or stock up way in advance off the bazaar as it comes, or Grind your Armorsmith up in Tailor to make those Fiber Panels. You will need a way to sell your Armor. My Master Armorsmith is also a Master Merchant. You also need to either know someone that can get your hides for you or be at least a Novice Ranger. And finally, if your doing all of this by yourself, your not going to have enough points to get it all done efficiently. Allot of the animals you will need to kill for the hides are pretty tough, so you need good combat skills. That's why I personally run two accounts. It takes all of my Armorsmith's points to be a Master Artisan, Master Armorsmith, Master Merchant, Novice Tailor. He barely has enough points left to hold a pistol, let alone be good with it. My second Character is a Master Pistoler, Master Smuggler, Novice Ranger, Novice Medic and Force Sensitive. And of course he runs around in the very best armor you can wear and the best Pistols you can fire. He has the skills to go everywhere the Armorsmith can't, kill and loot and skin pretty much any animal anywhere and Slice the Armor at the end of the day. This is my long winded way of saying either start a second account if your really serious about being the most effective you can be at Armor Smithing, or know a good Ranger for hides and a Smuggler if you want your armor sliced.
Conclusion: I know this guide is probably somewhat confusing to follow. Its allot of information, long winded for sure, and probably not one hundred percent correct, and its also just my way of doing things. I am sure other experienced Master Armorsmiths will straighten that out and add in their own insights. I will add a few more paragraphs here with a explanation of my personal armor making process and if you simply follow this procedure or something similar you will get some great results.
My personal armor making process. First I locate the very best materials I can. All materials that are used in each phase, protection layers, composite segments, final pieces must average out at better then 960 out of a possible 1000 on OQ and SR. I use a website that keeps track of all of the available materials on each planet for each server. Its a million times more efficient then tracking the materials down yourself. The website is http://swgcraft.com . If you find something really good, get all of it you can get. It may take months to get everything you need to make up a big batch of the finest armor you can make. Your going to probably get bored and want to make lesser quality stuff while you hunt for the rest. Get lots of the best materials you find so you don't run out of it while you find the rest. I personally run sixteen BER 13 and 14 harvesters at a time off my two accounts, but I sell ALLOT of resources also. You don't have to be that big of a fanatic, but you should try to pick up 200K to 300K of anything really good. That amount would take running approximately ten BER 4's for the duration of the average vein. If your really serious but not a complete loon like me, upgrade to BER 10 Harvesters when you can. They are the most cost efficient and pump out quite a bit of material. The most heavily used material in Smithing Composite Armor is Metal for the Special Protection Layers and Segments. It can be any metal, Steel, Aluminum, Copper, Iron. Its the OQ and the SR that mainly counts, not the type of metal. You will need some steel for the segments, but its mainly just metal of any type. The hardest materials to come by with with Very High OQ and SR combined are what goes into the final combine. They are Wooly Hide, Beryllius Copper and Naboian Fiberplast. Of these three very hard to get components in high quality, Wooly Hide is the very worst because you have to hunt and kill hundreds of animals to get enough of it. Plan on spending weeks hunting it when it finally shows up in high quality, which means get your Novice Ranger skills up or plan on spending tons of credits to get someone to hunt it for you.
Now that I have broke my back getting all of the best materials together, I am ready to finally go to work on making armor. First I choose which protection layers I will use. If I am going to focus on the best encumbrance sliced I choose electrical and kinetic. The ratio is one electric layer for two kinetic layers. The sliced armor that comes out as effect sliced with this combination is also very good, but has the flaw of having a higher base protection then kinetic protection. It still sells for very high credits though, a million for a single chest piece. If I want the highest effect sliced protection I can get, I make electrical and stun layers. One electrical layer for two stun layers.
After putting my materials in to make my protection layers, I play with the experimentation points on experimental quality to find the point that I get my maximum raise in base protection percentage. Once I find this spot, I put in enough experimentation points to hit this percentage with one amazing result if possible. Then I put the remainder of my points into raising special protection percentage. Once I get the best possible result, I do the schematic and start up the factory.
On the second phase, the Armor Segments, its basically a rinse and repeat. Find the hot spot on Experimental Quality, hit it with a single Amazing result, put the rest of the points into special protection. Schematic and go to the factory.
Final phase, putting together the Armor Piece is basically the same. Find the highest base protection clickover you can get, attain it with a Amazing result and the rest into Special Protection. There is one possible exception on this phase. Your special protection cannot go above 80 percent. If you can hit 80 percent special protection and have experiment points left over for whatever reason, stop when you hit 80 percent and then put the final points into Experimental Durability.
Good luck and if you happen to be on the Corbantis Server and need some additional advice on something, feel free to email Adolfis, that's my Armorsmith, or Greyhawk, my Pistoler/Smuggler.
AdofisCorbantis |
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