Training Up Chest Creation

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I won't pretend to have any absolute knowledge about chest making, since 
it's such a random skill.  But here are some thoughts on raising the 
chest creation skill. 

1) Wood works as well as anything else for raising your chest %.  
Because it's cheap, plentiful, and easy to find, I recommend that you 
make your first few chests out of wood.  Any of the basic fruit-bearing
trees yield wood logs -- pear, plum, apple, elder, etc.  Pine trees are
also a nice source of wood, often yielding 8-9 logs per tree.  A general
rule of thumb I've used through several reincs is:  about 40 logs of 
divine wood for the base and 10-15 logs of divine ebony or bamboo for
the reinforcement.  This will usually yield a 7 slot chest and an average
of 4% skill training per chest.  


2) Use a large wood skeleton rather than a small one. This doesn't affect 
the skill % you get when you complete a chest, but it does give you a 
larger product for about the same amount of material.

3) Use fully refined materials. That means divine quality wood.  Hull it 
to the max, reinforce it to the max. 


4) Ebony is good for reinforcing your first few chests. A divine quality 
wood skeleton at max hulling and max ebony reinforcing will probably 
give you a 7 slot chest.

5) The % of skill given seems to be a function of chest quality and LUCK. 
Do everything in your power to maximize your luck.  Or plan on making a 
few more chests to get your skill to 100%.  The lower your luck, the more 
chests you'll have to make.  Even with a really nicely hulled and 
reinforced skeleton, you can get a low skill increase if your luck is poor.


6) When working with wood, efficiency is key -- logs are heavy and a pain 
to tote around.  I tend to carry 1-2 boxes plus a floating disc.  I take 
the time to FW each of my logs before I store them away, so that I can 
carry a large number back to my room for refining. Before I refine my wood, 
I amalgamate 3-4 logs (or sometimes all of the logs), so that the 
refining process takes less time. 

7) Once you get your % to a certain point, you can start hulling and 
reinforcing with better materials.  You'll have to experiment to see what 
materials you can work with as your skill % progresses.  I suspect (but 
do not know for certain) that the better quality materials will allow you 
to max the skill faster. They certainly require less material for 
completion than wood does.


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Enough rambling for now. Feel free to send comments and correct errors. 

- Dryad 

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