I don't know it was always this way but my memory says it was... The following is taken from UOGuide and the oldest reference I can find is: Feb 2009: http://web.archive.org/web/20090215120622/http://www.uoguide.com/Mining Gloves of Mining (Smith BOD reward, come in +1, +3 and +5 versions, depending on the BOD turned in) The one of the most useful additions for Miners are the three types of “Gloves of Mining“, which come as Blacksmith BOD rewards. They come in Leather (+1 skill), Studded Leather (+3 skill) and Ringmail (+5 skill). All of these come in the colors of the 9 ingot types, despite being made of their normal material, and retain that color when enhanced, regardless of the color of the material used to enhance them. The leather gloves do not interfere with meditation, but the other two types prevent meditation when worn. However, for maximum ingot return when smelting crafted/looted items, you need at least the +3 gloves (see below). These gloves ignore the skill cap for mining (100 skill), increasing the ingot return and (if below 99 skill) allow you to mine ores normally out of your range when worn. For smelting ore, each +1 of the Gloves is a 2% increase to the chance of success. For smelting metal items, each +1 of skill appears to give an additional 0.66% to the ingot return. As the return for Grandmaster Mining is 66%, it requires either the +3 or +5 gloves to reach 66.67%, and get back the most ingots from items made with multiples of 3 ingots. Similarly, the way the numbers factor, one gets one more ingot with the +5 gloves when smelting 25-ingot items (plate tunics, chaos shields, order shields), than with +3 or lower gloves (69.3% vs. 67.97%, with 68% needed). This is best seen in the use of the +5 gloves, where most items return 69.3% (or whatever whole ingot amount is closest yet less than this precentage). At Grandmaster real skill, There is a 1 ingot difference between +3 & +5 gloves when dealing with items requiring 25 or 28 ingots, which isn’t much an issue. However, there is 1 ingot difference between +1 gloves (or no gloves) & +3/+5 gloves, for most items, as a vast majority of items in the games require a multiple of 3 ingots to make, and 101 mining falls just short of the 66.67% target for 2/3 ingot return.
I'm not sure what you're getting at here. That is how they work and if there's some math discrepancy going on there, we'll need Dalavar. I don't care enough to figure out what it is you're seeing is not right? I dunno. In any regard, the gloves only come in 8 ore types, iron is not one of them. They only drop from the golems now as well, not BODs anymore. I have a pair of +5s I'll sell you for fair offer or trade for more ingots.
I care not for the colors of the Gloves, I am pointing out the fact that the Ingot Return on Smelted items is not as I remember it... In basic terms, Currently when you Smelt a Plate Tunic you get back 50% of the Ingots (Costs 25 to make, so you get 12 back) no matter what your Mining Skill is. What it should be (Based on how I remember it): So as you can see this would increase the ingot return.
Ah yeah, ingot return based on skill is something slated for a future patch as far as I'm aware. There was some adjustment to loss on failure (used to be 100%) but otherwise, I think this is just the way it is, for now.
I think the consensus is that this is a good idea, and will be implemented. Thanks for doing the research on this, it will be very helpful.
A a while back I suggested that we use a range of 25% ingot return (0 Mining) to 75% return (100 Mining). It seems reasonable to make this a sliding scale with no caps, so presumably you would get 77.5% ingot return at 105 Mining skill, if following this equation I proposed. The scale in Bates' link is a little more harsh, especially on Blacksmiths with no Mining skill at all. IMO, Mining shouldn't be an absolute requirement for a blacksmith who focuses on Iron... but there is something to be said for using a production formula (even if it is from 2009 and not 2000).
Telamon Asked me to post about this when I discussed it with him in IRC which is what got the ball rolling, so yes I suspect he is planning something and just wanted my details out there for the record and to judge public reaction. I do remember that even before I left which was sometime shortly after Silly Samurai expansion that returns were skill based. I also believe there was a base return of 1 Ingot for No Skill/Low Skill.
