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THINGS I WISH I'D KNOWN EARLIER - Tradeskilling

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* When tradeskilling, the primary component (which is the first component listed when creating a recipe) determines the maximum quality of your result. If your primary component is shaped, the best you will be able to produce for your final combine is shaped quality. This means if you want a pristine result, you must use a pristine primary component. All of the other components can be any quality. As a side note, this means when creating items for secondary components, you may be able to save time by stopping the process after your item reaches the crude level.

* You get a crafting exp bonus for crafting new recipes for the first time. When leveling your crafting skills up, it is worth it to see what items have similar components and create one of each. Creating pristine items also grants more exp than other quality levels.

* Similar to your adventure class, you must specialize in a tradeskill at level 10. Do to so, you must find the appropriate NPC to speak to. Note that currently, you will not level up to 10 until you have done one more combine for exp. Once you reach level 10, you should join a 2nd tradeskill society. Each starting zone has a secondary tradeskill society for each of the 3 specialties (outfitter, craftsman, scholar).

* The wholesaler tradeskill instances have a merchant who sells recipe books for tradeskill levels 4-9 and some basic components. In some instances he is hiding downstairs near the base of the stairs -- in other instances, that's where the broker is found. In theory, he is supposed to carry more items when the tradeskill instances level up (though this does not seem to be working at the moment). To see what level your tradeskill instance is, press the EQII button, choose societies, and find yours on the list (it should be highlighted in green).

* Tradeskill recipes can be made into hot keys by dragging the icon to your hotkey bar. This may save you lots of time if there are subcombines that you find yourself doing repeatedly.

* If you want to know which tradeskill recipe books you have already scribed, here is how you do that. Click the EQII button and go to recipes. Press the edit button at the top. Use the big scroll bar on the far right to view the last window. This window contains the titles of all the recipe books you have scribed in the order you have scribed them (not alphabetically).

* You can check the stats on an item before you actually craft it. To do so, examine the recipe, then examine the icon of the end result in the recipe window. If I'm not mistaken, this is the stats for the shaped quality level of the item. Stats on other quality levels may vary.

* In crafting a recipe that can use multiple components for an ingredient (eg. a stroma wash can use a raw tuber or a maple), the game will default to using the smaller stack of components you have in your inventory. If you are making a bunch of items, it might be worth your time to split a large stack into two smaller stacks so it will default to using the component you want.

* In crafting a recipe for which you have multiple qualities of an ingredient (eg. you have a crude tin bar and a shaped tin bar), the game will default to using the worst quality one first.

* You can change which components are being used in a recipe by clicking the "change" button, removing the currently selected items, and adding the ones you want. As of the 1/6/05 patch, the game WILL remember your change when creating multiple items from the same recipe so long as you do not close the recipe.

If you are crafting multiple containers (eg. elm strongboxes, or backpacks), you can put more than one at a time into your overflow (note: it is unconfirmed if you have to create them sequentially without closing the recipe). This is convenient for taking multiple containers to the bank. If you get an error, make sure you have at least one inventory spot open (even if it's inside a bag).

* If you forget which tradeskill society you belong to, click the EQII button and choose societies. Use the scroll list on the left, and find the one that is highlighted. That is the one you belong to. Actually finding it in the city can be a tougher problem. You can also use this list to check the level of the society you belong to, as well as to figure out how many society points you have accumulated through doing tradeskill tasks.

* You can right click on your exp bar to swap between showing adventuring exp and tradeskilling exp. Alternatively, you can download a UI modification to show both simultaneously.

* You can start crafting by double clicking on the icon of the recipe instead of clicking "Create". You still need to click on begin to actually start the crafting. If you find out that you are missing a sub-component for a recipe, you can double click on the icon of the component to bring up the recipe for it.

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