General Crafting: Jewelry & Gem Refining   There are literally tons of gems and various jewelry hoarded around Rubi-Ka, by monsters or bandits, or hidden in chests. The craft of refining these items for a living is however a sadly forgotten craft. Perhaps our new guide on gems & jewelry will shed some light on things?           When the creation of jewelry first appeared as a craft on Rubi-Ka from the old world, it was quickly written off as an obsolete line of work. Most believed it was too much work, for too little gain, and that easier living could be made elsewhere. Our latest research however suggest that the initial perception might have been flawed. Jewelry crafting requires a love for the handcraft, dedication and creativity. There's still time to produce a couple Faberges of our own, so read on. Let's begin with the native gems most commonly found on Rubi-Ka, and move on to the rarer ones and even the crudely pre-refined ones. Note that they come with various names, even within the same type, only distinguished by the most skilled of gemcutters. Take the ruby as an example - a highly valuable gem used only in the most magnificent of creations. Now, to the untrained eye however, a "Rubi-Ka Ruby" might look like a ruby, and feel like a ruby - it is even called a ruby for it's similar appearance, but in reality is just a piece of hardened terraforming residue most crafters would snort at. Know your gems is our only advice, as throwing away a Ruby thinking it's a Rubi-Ka Ruby is just as embarrassing as trying to sell a piece of glass to a jeweler.     - Ruby - Rubi-Ka Ruby     - Ember       - Gem     - Silver Onyx - High Quality Silver Onyx       - Spring Crystal - Flawless Spring Crystal     - Rubi-Ka Pearl       - Silver Pearl - Blue Pearl by Conner - Soul Sphere by Divaad     - Crystal Sphere       - Cold Stone - Dull Pearl of Silver   by Omni-Med     - Ember Sphere       - Hot Stone     - Soul Fragment       - Gold 2 Sphere Pearl by   Peters & Tool     - Shining 2 Sphere by Pearl,   Peters & Tool   Some of these are quite common, while others are processed and rare - the Dull Pearl of Silver by Omni-Med is rare, while the Soul Sphere by Divaad is extremely rare. They are all classified as gems though. Free market value also play in here, so be careful. High quality Soul Fragments are used in the production of Virral Eggs, and will definitely catch a much better price as a component than processed into generic jewelry. Well, that was the gems. Let's move on to the next part - all the common pre-produced jewelry floating around. Although most of this is good jewelry in itself and is priced proportionately to stores, most true crafters will simply see these mass-produced items as building material for their own creations. We'll also include building materials themselves here, as these can be found naturally on Rubi-Ka. These first types can all be melted down to Gold, the second most valuable material. More on the melting process below.     - Marriage Ring     - Golden Ring       - Golden Bracer     - Bracelet of Ka       - Golden Sphere     - Golden Nugget   These things all melt down to Silver, the least valuable material.     - Engagement Ring     - Flower Ring       - Snake Ring     - Pink Ring       - Ring of Zern     - Ring of Suffering       - OT Ring     - Toe-ring       - Silver Nugget     - Ring of Power, all types (Yes, you can melt these down, so be careful)   There is also a third material, by far the most valuable - platinum - but for some strange reason nothing found on Rubi-Ka will actually melt down to this. You can still find pre-melted platinum ingots though, so my only guess is that it's shipped in from off-planet. There are also a few other gadgets found on Rubi-Ka that would appear to be useful, but it seems some of them have nano-inhibitors preventing them from being destroyed. A list for this further down. Now, all materials and bases covered, let's get down to trying to make something out of all of this. We'll start by refining the gems. For this you need a Jensen Gem Cutter, bought from the Tools for Electrical and Mechanical Engineering booth. Use this tool on the gem to cut it into a sparkly nice "Perfectly Cut" counterpart. For an example, using the Jensen Gem Cutter on a Ruby will make a Perfectly Cut Ruby, whereas an Ember Sphere would turn into a Perfectly Cut Ember Sphere. This process requires Mechanical Engineering, in the scale of 5 points of ME skill per quality of the gem. For example, making a Q100 Perfectly Cut Ruby from a Q100 Ruby requires 500 Mechanical Engineering skill.   + =   A Jensen Gem Cutter used on a Spring Crystal makes a Perfectly Cut Spring Crystal Already into the whole refinement process here and increasing value and quality as we go, let's look at this a bit closer. There are outside factors that play in here, but we'll try and explain what happens as best we can value-wise. It appears the gems are grouped into various "value-groups", where some gems are more expensive than others. Explaining the exact value of a gem in it's various stages and the value increase is close to impossible as the base values for the various gems and their quality level is exponential. In addition, your Computer Literacy skill plays in here, and so does your faction-affiliation and even the type of shop you sell to. We'll try to break it down to basics anyway. First, the gems are split into different levels of value. A Rubi-Ka Ruby as mentioned is virtually just a piece of glass compared to a pure Ruby. Since we are going to refine these though, and ultimately raise their value by a solid percentage, listing the basic value indication of the various gems should give you a good pointer on where to start. Again, these are perceived values - meant only to give you an idea. If cutting a gem increases the value by 50%, you are better off cutting a Q100 valuable gem over a Q100 cheap gem - the more expensive the gem, the better the return.   Base Value Gem type (refer to list above for pictures)   800 Rubi-Ka Ruby   1200 Spring Crystal   1500 Blue Pearl by Conner, Dull Pearl of Silver by Omni-Med   2000 Silver Onyx   4000 Soul Fragment, Cold Stone, Ember, Gem, Silver Pearl, Crystal Sphere, Hot Stone, Ember Sphere, Pearl of Rubi-Ka, Ruby   700000 Gold 2 Sphere (Starts at QL200)   2500000 Shining 2 Sphere (Starts at QL250) You are obviously better off cutting the gems found in the fifth value group. Still, disregarding the other factors that play in, cutting a gem will increase it's value by 240%. An example with perceived numbers, let's say you buy a Q1 Rubi-Ka Ruby for 800 credits and then cut it. The value of the gem would now be 1920 credits, a 1120 credit profit when sold back to a store. Let's do the same with a Q1 Ruby - we buy it for 4000 credits. Cut it and turn into a Perfectly Cut Ruby worth 9600 credits. Sold back to a store, our profit is 5600 credits. The skill required, and quality of the gem was the same, but the difference in profit was several hundred percent for this particular example. That is, if all we wanted to do was sell cut gems to stores. We don't however, so let's continue. With a good cache of expensive cut gems hidden in the forest and guarded by mechdogs, we'll move on to the materials we need to turn all this into even more expensive jewelry. The first we need to do is make the bases for the jewelry. This is done by either using preprocessed materials (ingots), or creating our own materials from the jewelry listed above. For this process we need a Precious Metal Reclaimer from the Tools for Electrical and Mechanical Engineering booth. The same formula applies with the melting of jewelry. It takes 3.2 times the skill in Mechanical Engineering per quality level of the jewelry to melt it down.   + =   A Precious Metal Reclaimer used on a Golden Bracer makes Small Gold Ingot This process actually decreases the value a bit, which is natural I guess, but we're not done yet, so carry on. Next we need a Personal Furnace, also gotten from the Tools for Electrical and Mechanical Engineering booth. The Personal Furnaces are used up in the process of melting the gold, but they are fairly cheap so no worries. This step takes 3.4 times the QL of the ingot in Mechanical Engineering skills to achieve.   + =   A Personal Furnace used on a Small Gold Ingot makes Liquid Gold Still not entirely done though. Next we need a Wire Drawing Machine, again from the Tools for Electrical and Mechanical Engineering booth, if you don't have these tools from before. Using the Wire Drawing Machine on the Liquid Gold, we spin it into Gold Filigree Wire. This step of preparation takes 4.8 times the QL of the Liquid Gold in your Mechanical Engineering skills.   + =   The Wire Drawing Machine used on Liquid Gold makes Gold Filigree Wire And there is our prepped gold to be used in the ring bases. The process works exactly the same up until now for both Silver and Platinum, but for the Platinum you probably already have the Ingot so go straight to melting it down. This entire process requires Mechanical Engineering all the way, 5 times the quality of the item you're working with. Or easier said, if you get past the first step of melting it down, you should be able to make the final filigree just fine. Next we need some bases to twine the filigree wire around to make real rings. These are called Generic Ring Template, always of Quality level 10, and can be bought from - yes, again, the Electrical and Mechanical Engineering booth. The Quality level of Filigree decides the final output, so don't worry about it. In addition your skill can also slightly affect the final ring by about 3% (Q100 Filigree applied to a Q10 Ring Template, can produce a Q103 Ring, if your skill is high enough in relation to the skills needed, just like with implants).   + =   Platinum Filigree Ring   + =   Gold Filigree Ring   + =   Silver Filigree Ring Now, almost done. We're already at a point of the process where the rings are highly refined. Although the original material used to end up here doesn't have different value groups, the increase in value is still at 280% or more. For example, a Q79 Golden Bracer - let's say worth 1000 credits when sold to a shop. Melted down and processed into a Gold Filigree Ring, it would now be worth at least 2800 credits, even more if the Quality level increased due to your skills. You also have to deduct the materials used in the process of course, but still quite the hefty value increase. The next step however, is where the fruits of our labor finally come to show, and where you'll have room to get the maximum profit. Let's run out in the woods again, follow our map (you did make a map, didn't you?), kick some mechdog butt, and dig up our secret cache of perfectly cut gems. Now all we have to do is combine the cut gems with the filigree rings and voila, our very own rings worthy of Fabergé! The Quality of the Filigree Ring decides the final quality of the ring, and the Gem has to be of a quality within 20% of the quality of the Ring. Decided by how you mix them, they will be named [type of ring] set with a [type of gem] - example, "Silver Filigree Ring set with a Perfectly Cut Ember Sphere" or "Gold Filigree Ring set with a Perfectly Cut Rubi-Ka Ruby" In addition, a small increase in Quality level might happen here based on your skills (again, similar to implants) No matter what gem you use, how the final ring looks is decided by the filigree used.   Silver Filigree based All silver rings will end up looking like this.   Gold Filigree Based All gold rings will end up looking like this.   Platinum Filigree Based All platinum rings will end up looking like this. But ah, what about the value increase here? Why would we make the final rings when both the gems and filigree rings already have a pretty solid profit base? That's where the tools of the craft come in. Let's look at some examples. We have a quality 10 Ruby, and a quality 10 Golden Bracer in our first example. Let's say the Ruby is worth 1000 credits, and the Bracer also 1000 credits. Prepping them, we have the Ruby at 2400 credits and the Golden Filigree Ring at 2800 credits. Combined into a ring with a gem, the end product will be worth 5200 credits. But hey, that's no profit at all compared to selling them separately! Yes, quite correct. But now we have some space to work in, using all we learned previously. Let's do another example with a bit higher numbers (still example numbers! - more on this at the end) and different bases. We have a quality 150 Ruby and a quality 178 Golden Bracer to work with. Let's say the 150 Ruby is worth 30.000 credits and that the 178 Golden Bracer is worth 50.000 credits. Preparing both the pieces, we end up with a Q150 Cut Ruby at roughly 72.000 credits and, relying on the golden filigree ring picking up a couple quality levels in the process, a Q180 Golden Filigree Ring at 145.000 credits (140.000 credits if at same quality, but ours jumped a bit). Already, the profits here are starting to show. Now, seeing as we have two different quality items, and that the higher quality ring decides the final quality of the combined ring, we just have to be sure the quality of the gem is within 20% of ring base. Combine these two items and we end up with, let's say a Q182 final ring as the quality picked up yet a bit in this process. Breaking the numbers down now, the final ring should be roughly 300.000 credits. Hey, not bad since we started out with items worth 80.000 credits to a shop, but how? It should be obvious, by relying on the filigree ring quality to set the precedent for the final ring, we forced the actual gem quality to jump the 20% to match the ring, and in doing so also increased it's part of the combined value. Not to mention the couple of quality levels picked up along the way. Breaking it apart backwards, it would be the equivalent of starting out with a 178 gem and a 178 golden bracer. Might seem like a lot of work to you? Yes, it is. As stated previously, best catered to those with a true love of the craft, but still in our opinion a craft not properly investigated before dismissing it as "useless". But then again, how long until jewelers around Rubi-Ka discover how to make expensive rings that also make use of nano technology to boost our skills? The Virral Egg is a good example of good crafting currently available. The reason we couldn't use real credit values here - if it would seem our example values were a bit low as far as fast profits on Rubi-Ka goes - is because of all the multipliers that affect the price once the base calculations are in place, and will wildly change the sum you as a player will get when selling to a store. Computer Literacy will greatly affect price - imagine having a high gem that for you sells for 200k to a store? Combined with a Bracer that sells for 150k? And a 300% profit when crafted? There's also a few items that would appear to be usable in the crafting process, but which have nano-inhibitors preventing melting. Some obviously not suitable, and some that seem to be but are not.     - Ring of Thorns     - Bracers of Growing   & Shrinking       - Cracked Monarch Gems     - Various unique rings like   the profession rings       - Failed Ring of Flying     - Soul Globe   There, now shoo! Go make some jewelry to give to your ladyfriend. =) Last updated 14.February 2004 Contributors Dumble, Atlantean See what others have said about this article, or post your own comments regarding this in our forums.