Concerning dust distillation ratios and fuel costs [Archive]

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Barq Bandit

04-18-2008, 12:53 AM

Concerning the dust distillation ratios and fuel costs:I'm trying these recipes out in earnest tonight, and something occurs to me. I'm spending way more than I'd like to make my Ranger's poisons! While the dust distillation recipes are a great idea, there's something a bit wrong with them. It makes no sense whatsoever to use them in practice, unless the only dusts you have were made as the result of making spells. But here I was, trying to convert ALL must old dusts up from t1 to t8. I started to realize that cost in fuel and the 2:1 production ratio makes converting dusts up from tier to tier completely pointless...The idea behind the dust conversion recipes, I thought, was to put all the lower tier dusts that just sit around in people's banks and on the broker to use. But if converting them costs more than it's worth, then what's the point?Let me explain. To make 1 Smoldering dust, you need 2 Scintillating dusts. And to make 2 Scintillating, you need 4 Lambent. And so on back to 8 Luminous, 16 Glimmering, 32 Sparkling, 64 shimmering, and a whopping 128 Flickering dusts.Okay, 128 Flickering, over 64 combines to make 64 Shimmering. 48c (for 2 paraffin candles each combine) x 64 = 30s 72c. Not too bad, right?64 Shimmering over 32 combines to make 32 Sparkling. 2s 88c (for 3 tallow candles each combine ) x 32 = 92s 16c. Still not beyond the realm of reason.32 Sparkling over 16 combines to make 16 Glimmering. 15s 36c (for 4 gel candles each combine) x 16 = 2g 45s 76c. Hrm. Okay, not liking where this is heading... Remember, this is all for ONE Smoldering dust. One.16 Glimmering over 8 combines to make 8 Luminous. 92s 16c (for 6 beeswax candles each combine) x 8 = 7g 37s 28c. What?8 Luminous over 4 combines to make 4 Lambent. 1g 84s 32c (for 8 bayberry candles each combine) x 4 = 7g 39s 28c. Oh cripes!4 Lambent over 2 combines to make 2 Scintillating. 3g 45s 60c (for 10 flamewrought candles each combine) x 2 = 6g 91s 20c. Okay, starting to level off and decline here, but...2 Scintillating over 1 combine to make 1 Smoldering dust. 5g (for 5 smoldering candles).So, what's the final cost of our 1 Smoldering dust? 22g 99s 12c. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/385970365b8ed7503b4294502a458efa.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /> Why would anyone do this? This does not save money or materials. It drains them both.Yeah, I know it's neat to have if you have some dusts that are left over from last tier that you got from making spells, but what if you have a whole bank of old dusts from all the previous tiers? Gah. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/136dd33cba83140c7ce38db096d05aed.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />I would like this system to be re-examined, please. To make it worth doing, I would increase the numbers of dusts consumed and produced, but leave the fuel costs as they are. A decrease in number of dusts as you go up is fine, but 2:1 is way too steep, especially coupled with the fuel costs. Perhaps something more like 10:8. Ten dusts consumed, and you get 8 of the next tier up. (The recipes would call for more, but the net result upon pristine would be 10 consumed.) A ratio and fuel cost per dust like this would make conversion worthwhile.Smoldering 8Scintillating 10Lambent 12.25Luminous 15.3125Glimmering 19.140625Sparkling 23.92578125Shimmering 29.90722265625Flickering 37.384029296875By my figures, it would take about 4.67 Flickering (net) per one Smoldering with this system. Also, Alchemists would be making more than one dust per combine, reducing the cost two ways. Maybe the 10:8 ratio is a bit too good? 10:7? 10:6 is too close to 10:5 (2:1), where we started, I think. Here's what the costs are in fuel with the 10:8 ratio.48c (for 2 paraffin candles) + 10 Flickering = 8 Shimmering2s 88c (for 3 tallow candles) + 10 Shimmering (48c +25%) = 8 Sparkling15s 36c (for 4 gel candles) + 10 Sparkling (2s 88c +25%) = 8 Glimmering92s 16c (for 6 beeswax candles) + 10 Glimmering (15s 36c +25%) = 8 Luminous1g 84s 32c (for 8 bayberry candles) + 10 Luminous (92s 16c +25%) = 8 Lambent3g 45s 60c (for 10 flamewrought candles) + 10 Lambent (1g 84s 32c +25%) = 8 Scintillating5g (for 5 smoldering candles) + 10 Scintillating (3g 45s 60c +25%) = 8 Smolderingcost of 8 Smoldering dusts = 60c + 3s 60c + 19s 20c + 1g 15s 20c + 2g 30s 40c + 4g 32s + 5g13g 1s / 8 dusts = 1g 62s 63c per dust.Now remember, in addition to the fuel cost seen there, we've still sacrificed dusts from other tiers to arrive at this point, and invested time in distilling all these up to t8, so this still seems very reasonable to me. Comments? Suggestions? Did I get my maths wrong? Lemme know what you think, Alchemists!

TaleraRis

04-18-2008, 02:35 AM

I would have to agree. The fuel consumption and the dust output just doesn't make up for being able to distill the dusts. It costs me more to distill the dust myself than it does to just go buy a dust off the broker, at least on my server. Since I use stun poisons on my ranger quite often, I usually don't worry about distilling my own dust and just buy it much cheaper off the broker. I know we don't have to do too awfully much to get this distillation recipe, but right now it's just not really viable at all. It could definitely use some looking at to make it worthwhile to have an alchemist distill dusts without breaking the bank.

Belaythien

04-18-2008, 04:10 AM

In my experience it's only sensible to convert dust, when a new tier has just become available. When new dust isn't yet on the market in volume, you can convert old dust to keep crafting.The worst thing isn't the small profit, it's the amount of time it takes, in my opinion. Converting dust from T1 to T8 is out of the question due to the time that would take. In the time it takes to convert T1 dust into a reasonable amount of T8, you could level a new char to T8 and harvest rares to get the same amount of dust <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />.Conversion has got it's uses when a new expansion has been released or on extremely low population servers with no supply on the broker.

BigChiefJJ

04-18-2008, 11:31 AM

Going from several tiers below to T8 (or ever T7) is not very cost advantageous as you have pointed out, but going from 1 or two tiers below is defiantly worthwhile and has actually reduced the prices of dusts on my server. Prior to the dust distillation recipes each dust was going for about double what it was after the recipes, yea that was T7 dust, but introduction of the recipes put more dusts on the market and reduced the raw material cost of the potions/poisons. I like the dust distillation recipes - in my opinion it provides people the opportunity to create a raw material from something that previously would have been sold for copper and doing this creates a secondary supply of dusts that are not tied to Adept 3 generation. If we didn't have the recipes and the prices of T8 dusts were doubled on your server - would it still be more economical to buy the dusts than go though some distillations?

Mantell

04-18-2008, 01:14 PM

I agree with the OP and in fact pointed this out right when the dust distillation recipe went live.The cost might be tolerable but the number of combines required really isn't. It makes dust from the previous tier worthwhile but really nothing else. I use two dusts when making a single stack of rare potions/poisons. If I have to do two more combines for each stack that's a pain, but if I have to do four more combines for each stack I'm not going to bother.If they had a way to just say how much initial dust you wanted to convert, say start off converting 64 flickering on the first combine, that would be worthwhile. But I don't think the engine could be worked that way.The problem is that dust production peaks at the beginning of each new expansion and slowly declines as people get all their Adept IIIs. Whereas poison/potion demand is constant. So as each expansion starts out there's a lot of dust available, and as it gradually declines the price goes higher and higher. When it was about 6g on the broker I bought a lot. Now it's about 15 and I'm glad I bought it at 6.