Salem

Hi Salemites!

I've been playing with mining for a while now, and one thing seems to be a bit awkward - I see no use for gems - I mean there are better artifacts to plug and affluence from better gems is way less than what you get from yellow easter eggs. What am I missing? Or is gemcutting pretty usless for the moment? Or am I doing it wrong? If that's the case is there any guide on gemcutting that I could use to educate myself?

Thanks!

gemcutting is useful to plug artifact gaps you have. Yes, ultimately there are better artifacts to be slotting. But any medium-tier civilian set is bound to have several gems in there. Hell, an all-gem set is not even too bad as starters.
They're practically free and you can upgrade individual pieces as you go.

Kandarim wrote:gemcutting is useful to plug artifact gaps you have. Yes, ultimately there are better artifacts to be slotting. But any medium-tier civilian set is bound to have several gems in there. Hell, an all-gem set is not even too bad as starters.
They're practically free and you can upgrade individual pieces as you go.

Thanks for response! Can you clarify what do you mean by "you can upgrade individual pieces as you go" - are gems anywhere different than other artifacts from upgrade perspective? Isn't it so that once plugged you can only scissor the item maybe aquiring your gem back, but losing the actual item? Or what do you mean by "upgrade"?

Usually, you can slot only a single artifact per piece of clothing. So you cant slot for example 4 sterling geodes in your pants.But, you can cut gems in 4 different tiers. Which effectivelly means that you can slot 4 of the same colour gems in the same piece of clothing with little to no expense.
Make cheapest 3 slot clothing in all of them, get a chantilly lace to get it +1 slots then slot 4 different tiers of green gems (woodworking) and there you go... 7x60 woodworking set is all yours.
Ofc, id recommend using a high skill tailor for both crafting close and socketing items

There is also a small chance that you find a particularly large gem which will give higher than the base affluence and finding gems is good for your mental health.

Yes, there is a small chance to get a gem with much higher affluence, whereas success in cutting it is again rare (starburst for any serious result) for a newer player.

I do see a problem here, like yesterday or so someone offered me tons of free gems because he got too much of it, but I did not take it as I have enough already myself.

There is a use when "breaking" them to get some not too bad inspirationals, which is counter intuitive as succeeding in cutting a gem should be the goal, not breaking it.



Besides the rare big gems, there is no use for them after you got a certain ammount, besides breaking them.
Gems are a waste product of sifting, and have no real value on it's own, whereas they should be at least as precious as the gold you get along with them.

I know this is difficult to balance, as sifting alone is already a good source of wealth on it's own, but as it is, it does not feel right.
There should be a better solution that making the npc stall in town accept cut gems along with cotton and charms... but I don't have any real good one right now.

A possible first step could be, to make the cut gems some GOOD inspirationals on their own, possibly one with multiple uses, and a higher value depending on their size (carat).

HenryDorsettCase wrote:Thanks for response! Can you clarify what do you mean by "you can upgrade individual pieces as you go" - are gems anywhere different than other artifacts from upgrade perspective? Isn't it so that once plugged you can only scissor the item maybe aquiring your gem back, but losing the actual item? Or what do you mean by "upgrade"?

I think Kandarim meant that you can later replace your clothes with new ones that have better artifacts slotted on them. If you use scissors on your clothes, you will recover the artifacts but lose the clothes.

In my opinion, gems are pretty good for an all-gem woodworking set. I have made mine by buying 0-difficulty clothes at the stalls and slotting laces on them (I am very far from being a tailor), then adding gems and pins. It is an easy way of making a good set without asking a tailor to do the slotting for you. If you want to use more expensive artifacts, it is better to ask a tailor ofc, unless your related skill is high enough (eg MM) to give you the same success probability as your tailor has.

What we really need is a jewelry system to add something more interesting to to with them.