Asymptotic Reduction in Crafting Times with Higher Skill

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

As of now, there isn’t much, if any, benefit to exceptionally high crafting skills, outside of Bionics. I propose that the following formula be used for crafting times so that higher skill can pay off in getting more done each day.

Global constants, or different constant associated with each skill.
M=Minimum fraction of crafting time for nigh-infinite skill. I imagine a value of .25 would be good.
O=Offset. Needs to be at least 1 to prevent a 0 divided by 0 error. Can be made higher to reduce payoff of each level, particularly for lower level recipes.

Already defined in JSON.
R=Required skill level to attempt crafting.
B=Base crafting time for when L=R.

Variable accessed from player.
L=Level in crafting skill.

Formula for crafting time.
T=MB+B(1-M)(R+O)/(L+O)

Here’s a table of example values, as fractions of B, if we set M=.25 and O=3.
[table]
[tr]
[td]L=[/td]
[td]0 [/td]
[td]1 [/td]
[td]2 [/td]
[td]3 [/td]
[td]4 [/td]
[td]5 [/td]
[td]6 [/td]
[td]7 [/td]
[td]8 [/td]
[td]9 [/td]
[td]10 [/td]
[td]11 [/td]
[td]12 [/td]
[td]13 [/td]
[td]14 [/td]
[td]15 [/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]R=0[/td]
[td]1[/td]
[td].8125[/td]
[td].7[/td]
[td].625[/td]
[td].57143[/td]
[td].53125[/td]
[td].5[/td]
[td].475[/td]
[td].45455[/td]
[td].4375[/td]
[td].42308[/td]
[td].41071[/td]
[td].4[/td]
[td].39063[/td]
[td].38235[/td]
[td].375[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]R=3[/td]
[td]N/A[/td]
[td]N/A[/td]
[td]N/A[/td]
[td]1[/td]
[td].89286[/td]
[td].8125[/td]
[td].75[/td]
[td].7[/td]
[td].65909[/td]
[td].625[/td]
[td].59615[/td]
[td].57143[/td]
[td].55[/td]
[td].53125[/td]
[td].51471[/td]
[td].5[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]R=5[/td]
[td]N/A[/td]
[td]N/A[/td]
[td]N/A[/td]
[td]N/A[/td]
[td]N/A[/td]
[td]1[/td]
[td].91667[/td]
[td].85[/td]
[td].79545[/td]
[td].75[/td]
[td].71154[/td]
[td].67857[/td]
[td].65[/td]
[td].625[/td]
[td].60294[/td]
[td].58333[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]R=7[/td]
[td]N/A[/td]
[td]N/A[/td]
[td]N/A[/td]
[td]N/A[/td]
[td]N/A[/td]
[td]N/A[/td]
[td]N/A[/td]
[td]1[/td]
[td].93182[/td]
[td].875[/td]
[td].82692[/td]
[td].78571[/td]
[td].75[/td]
[td].71875[/td]
[td].69118[/td]
[td].66667[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

I’m sure there’s some value of O and M that would work for game balance.

2

The big thing I see with this is that a lot of crafting times aren’t the length they are because of some “bad skill” modifier, they are that long because that’s about how long it would take in real life. Just because you are a master cook doesn’t mean you can get water to boil any faster, and while being a master craftsman could provide some small speedups in production, it’s still going to take you relatively the same amount of time to forge that hammer.

3

Well, having different default values of M and O for each skill, and a line that can be added in JSON to override the default on individual recipes, would take care of that quite nicely. Cooking/Chemistry would default to rather low speed boosts, owed to proper kitchen preparation and multi-tasking, but boiling water would be non-default with no speed boost. When it comes to forging, I disagree that the boosts would be small. I imagine that a lot of the work involves making multiple passes over the material until its shape is satisfactory. Getting it right in fewer passes would save loads of time. Now things like soldering and assembly of delicate parts by hand, or tailoring, that would get significant speed boosts as your muscle memory allows you to place everything just right. At level 1, you waste the first 3 minutes threading the needle. At level 8, you’ve stitched your way down half a pant leg in that time.

4

I completely agree that higher crafting levels need more meaning, although I feel that a quick fix would be to spread the recipes out further, so you’d need about double the skill points as currently. I also think it’s fine to bend the rules of reality a little bit (as long as it’s not ‘house autobuild’ at level 20) so as to give a sense of progression. Possibly tying failure rate to skill more could be a better way?