Talk:Giants' Foundry/Strategies
Why is the alloy table sorted by bar 1 then bar 2 and not smithing level? This hides the steel iron alloy unless you look closely, which is better then the bronze and steel alloy. It doesn't even let me sort by that way. It's not very sightreadable.
Solrex (talk) 19:11, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
2 bar alloys
[edit source]I've calculated all metal scores with the formula given in the main article. I've tested ~ 20 random ones and most seem to be correct. For some the calculation is 1 point higher than the ingame value probably because some rounding in the ingame logic. I've corrected the mistakes I found but there are probably some more.
I've also created tables for total bar cost and cost per metal score you can see them on my sandbox. Since the tables are cluttered and the information is mostly useless I don't think we need to add it to the page. Only useful info is the cheapest alloy per metal score. SupBlub (talk) 12:48, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
Specialty Store prices: Are they needed?
[edit source]I would be remiss to not point out it took a fair bit of effort to add those to the item tables as each one had to be looked up manually, but I am wondering: How practical is it really to attempt to stock up on items to smelt via NPC vendors? I would think one has to world-hop a fair bit, banking also may be an issue. Meanwhile, GE is effortless and often instant! So, is this method really a feasible alternative, given that GE items offer comparable and sometimes superior rates? Given that specialty shops are useless beyond steel? I would like to discuss that.
Torun (talk) 12:40, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
Buying bars to smith, then smelt in the Foundry.
[edit source]I wanted to place a bit more detail here on why it doesn't work and should not be recommended.
When using items, they're worth a bar less. When buying them off GE, you're paying for just those, so you don't care, but if you decide to buy bars, smith those, and then use them in GF, that bar less is a bar that you lost. To mitigate loss, one should use three platebodies and two bars in a 14:14 alloy, but that still effectively results in a usage of 17 bars of each type, instead of just 14. That additional cost adds up to 100k per hour for mith-addy, yet, the experience gained is only 20,250 per hour. This makes GP/XP twice as bad for mith-addy. In addition, if the player smiths the items themselves, that time could have been used for just playing the Foundry. This factor isn't as bad, as XP rates from addy platebodies is actually slightly superior. In fact, GP/XP is almost the same if using HA.
Conclusion: Do not do this. Either play the Foundry, or devote yourself to smithing addy plates and HA them.
A sidenote: The two bars one needs to supply when using platebodies could be substituted with one 3-bar smithed item. That makes GP/XP even worse.
Sincerely, Torun (talk) 20:28, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for the extra detail @Torun, however, as an ironman who can't simply buy a large quantity of bars, does it become a worthwhile excersize to maximise the exp earned from raw materials that would need to be otherwise manually gathered? Or is it the case that it is still more efficient to grindingly gather more ores, earn the mining & smithing experience in doing so, rather than smithing the bars you have and then also use them in the foundry?
Should gp/hr include profit from converting rep into Kovacs Grog / Ore Sacks?
[edit source]Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think the current gp/xp rates include profit from the foundry reputation earned.
Should the rates include profit from reputation? Similar to how marks of grace have a gp value Pifty (talk) 07:55, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
Difficulty Table
[edit source]There is a difficulty table on the GF main page. Every time I come to do GF I spend a good few minutes trying to work out from the alloy table what to make for max score for a certain difficulty, then spend a while scanning the page, before I eventually end up finding it on the main page. I have no idea how to edit a wiki, can someone with more brain cells than me add this table to the strategy page near the alloy table? Gadris (talk) 21:49, 10 June 2023 (UTC)
- Is it a good idea to change the font colours of the numbers in the alloy table to correspond with the difficulty? Like red for most difficult and green for least difficult. I don't know how this will affect readability (in both the green and colourless boxes, dark theme, colourblind people etc. Is there some standard for working with coloured fonts? --Boaner (talk) 13:39, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
Sword Quality Rewards
[edit source]| Quality &
Reputation (work in progress, please add your scores) |
XP | Gold |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | ||
| 1 | ||
| 2 | ||
| 3 | ||
| 4 | ||
| 5 | ||
| 6 | 300 | 600 |
| 64 | 4590 | 9180 |
| 105 | 9270 | 18540 |
| 106 | 9390 | 18780 |
| 107 | ||
| 108 | ||
| 109 | 9780 | 19560 |
| 110 | ||
| 111 | 10050 | 20100 |
| 112 | ||
| 113 | 10320 | 20640 |
| 114 | ||
| 115 | 10620 | 21240 |
| 116 | ||
| 117 | ||
| 118 | ||
| 119 | ||
| 120 | ||
| 121 | 11460 | 22920 |
| 200 |
Feedback (Fri, 06 Sep 2024 22:31:42 GMT)
[edit source]This can be inferred from the tables, but to illustrate I added a new section (see paragraph below) about the choice of alloy. Since there are 405 posisble combinations to create alloys, I limited myself to 4 options that are possible after 85 smithing. These results can be extrapolated to some degree on mithril and adamant. It does indeed turn out that 9 rune bars and 19 adamant bars is arguably a better choice than 14 rune and 14 adamant, as it is cheaper, only sacrifices a small bit of experience per hour, and actually is less click intensive and yields more reputation per hour because of the higher throughput of swords per hour at the lower difficulty.--
Hjaldr // Germaan 17:43, 30 March 2025 (UTC)
Feedback (Mon, 02 Dec 2024 02:35:22 GMT)
[edit source]Regarding choice of alloy
[edit source]I added a section under the section metal score. I used the calculator to compare the experience and cost per sword for the listed options. I selected no unlocked moulds, and took the experience per sword as calculated, and the multiplied it by the number of swords per hour. Then, I took the 1:1 rune/adamant alloy as reference, and calculated the relative experience rates of the other alloys. The percentages listed are rounded to integers, as higher precision will likely be nullified by factors such as the specific commissions, efficiency of the player, etc. I assumed that the swords/h listed on the main article were correct, so an alloy with a 'high' quality such as the 9:19 rune/adamant alloy would yield 12 swords per hour rather than the 1:1 rune/adamant's 11 per hour, meaning that the experience per sword is lower, but the extra sword per hour boosts the hourly rate back up to 97% of the maximum. The hourly rates I got are 19.2k*11 = 211k (14:14 r/a), 17.7k*11 = 195k (10:18 r/a), 17.1k*12 = 204k (9:19 r/a) and 13.3k * 12 = 159k (14:14 a/m), or as a ratio: 100:93:97:75. I checked if unlocking all the moulds yields a different result, but the ratio then becomes 100:93:98:77, which is only up to 2% more, and assuming most players will not unlock all moulds before making these decisions, I decided to go with the default values.
Then, for the prices, I assumed the current prices (see signature for timing). I went with the bar prices instead of the item prices, and for rune/adamant alloys there is not really much of a difference when you change the ratio of bars for the alloy. I found that the price of items was 0.6797 times the price of bars for 1:1 r/a alloys, and 0.6757 for the 9:19 variant, which is negligible. This is probably because rune bar prices have been stable as they are tied to the high alch value of rune swords, and the price of adamant bars is tied to the alch value of adamant platebodies. For mithril bars versus items, the bar/item price ratio is 0.6160, so there is a bigger difference there, but to simplify I decided to ignore this, as this is only a difference that is 17% bigger than the rune/adamant price difference. The prices per sword I used as per the calculator were 198k:156k:146k:37k, yielding a ratio of 100:79:74:19, so the 17% difference applied to the 19 in this ratio would be 19*(1-0.17)=15.8, which is another 3.2% price reduction relative to the 1:1 r/a alloy, but since mithril bars are still quite volatile in price, I decided to ignore this.
In conclusion, I applied some assumptions, rounding of values and simplifications, but I think that the logic checks out well enough to illustrate the benefits and downsides of the choices of alloy here. Feel free to improve, rectify, expand or discuss the matter in the article or on this talk page.-- Hjaldr // Germaan 20:38, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
- Feedback below rightful points out that the base score of 14m/14a is not 110 but 95. Because I based my other calculations on the wiki calc results, this did not skew the other figures. I did add a column to display the reputation per hour, and interestingly enough, found out that 9/16 r/a yields 1-2% more rep/hr, making it arguably the most cost-effective and efficient alloy choice. Without the unlocked moulds the expected scores I found were 168/160/156/133, yielding 1848/1760/1872/1596 (11/11/12/12 swords per hour) rep/hr for the four options, resulting in the 100/95.2/101.3/86.4 percentages (rounded) for rep/h. With unlocked moulds the figures are 188/180/176/153 > 2068/1980/2112/1836 or 100/95.7/102.1/88.8. --
Hjaldr // Germaan 17:39, 30 March 2025 (UTC)
- I also added a row for the 18:10 mithril adamant alloy, which is surprisingly viable. The same logic as above was applied. The assumed rating per sword is 124 without moulds, the reputation per hour is 1736, the cost per hour is 470k and the cost per xp is 2.7gp based on bars, which can be lowered ever further by using items instead. -- Hjaldr // Germaan 15:40, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
- I significantly reworked the choice of Alloy section made by @Germaan:, it now uses calculations based on the price of items. Importantly it now takes into account the money awards, and this seems to greatly affect the relative values. I tried to slightly rework your explanations below, but this might need a total rework. --Gar onn1 (talk) 21:34, 12 November 2025 (UTC)
- @Gar onn1: I welcome additions to the section but I am not sure about switching from bars to items without leaving the infomation about bars, as it is relevant for ironmen. I would ask you to reimplement the info about bars, as this method will likely be highly relevant to ironmen who tend to have very limited access to smithing products as opposed to bars. The money awards are interesting to include for sure. The issue with having just items is also that item prices for mithril and adamant fluctuate far more than rune percentage-wise than bars of any type. Typed on mobile, excuse any mistakes. -- Hjaldr // Germaan 08:58, 13 November 2025 (UTC)
- @Gar onn1: I welcome additions to the section but I am not sure about switching from bars to items without leaving the infomation about bars, as it is relevant for ironmen. I would ask you to reimplement the info about bars, as this method will likely be highly relevant to ironmen who tend to have very limited access to smithing products as opposed to bars. The money awards are interesting to include for sure. The issue with having just items is also that item prices for mithril and adamant fluctuate far more than rune percentage-wise than bars of any type. Typed on mobile, excuse any mistakes. --
- I made a tabber tab to give info when buying items from shops for Ironmen, I am however not used to how Ironmen handle obtaining bars/items, so feel free to change the value of the used variables to more appropriate values (i.e. RuneItembarIron) since i understand that some items might differ due to shop availability. When using bars there is the whole issue of the value of a bar (i.e. Ore seller's prices). I assume that this is something to be changed by an actual ironman. Gar onn1 (talk) 09:27, 17 November 2025 (UTC)
Feedback (Thu, 27 Mar 2025 01:39:02 UTC)
[edit source]The Choice of Alloys section below that states the base quality for Addy/Mith is 110.
The paragraph below that then gives analysis based off of the 110 base quality instead of the 95 listed in the chart. Unsure if it's 95 or 110, but the discrepancy should be fixed! Thanks- Good shout! The base score was incorrect, but the calculations were based on the Wiki calculator, so while I incorrectly listed the base score, the other figures were unaffected. I corrected the mistake and added another column. Indeed, when using mithril and adamant, you lose out on a good portion of hourly reputation, more that was possibly suggested by the figures I put in the table. An interesting finding while correcting and recalculating the figures however, is that 9rune/19addy turns out to be the best reputation per hour, even beating 14/14 alloys. So your shout both lead to the fixing of an error as well as the conclusion that 9/19 r/a is possibly the most overpowered option for cost/reward if you don't mind losing a very small portion of your hourly experience rates! -- Hjaldr // Germaan 17:35, 30 March 2025 (UTC)
Feedback (Thu, 15 May 2025 19:52:57 UTC)
[edit source]Feedback (Wed, 25 Jun 2025 22:47:23 UTC)
[edit source]I agree that this is an issue with this page, but it is difficult to determine what should be part of the strategy page and what shouldn't. The main article should contain all factual information, whereas the strategy page should outline how to play the game effectively. If all nuances of the underlying factual information would have to be repeated on the strategy page, it would become unreadable. If specific sections are to be moved, it should be suggested on either page with a reasoning behind it, in my opinion. The section about the best moulds is already present on both pages for example. Perhaps it should be removed form the main article as it is about strategy. For other aspects I am not sure. -- Hjaldr // Germaan 16:58, 3 July 2025 (UTC)
Feedback (Sun, 27 Jul 2025 05:02:49 UTC)
[edit source]Mithril/Adamant alloy XP rates
[edit source]The page lists a 18/10 mithril/adamant alloy as being the fastest xp at its level, however this does not match my testing. At level 78 smithing, the 18/10 alloy resulted in 205k xp/hr, whereas a 14/14 alloy gives 245k xp/hr at level 79. The one level does not explain this difference.
Notably, I had 3 pieces of the uniform during this testing which may help the 14/14 alloy be much faster as it can allow skipping heating/cooling the sword in the middle of some phases (guaranteed with a sweetspot, of which there are 3) - maybe which option is better depends on how many pieces of the outfit are owned (if any)?.
Would be great to have some additional data points, otherwise I'll just edit the page to suggest a 14/14 alloy instead of the 18/10 one as an xp rate difference of 20% is too big to ignore. -- 19:37, 30 September 2025 (UTC)
- Another data point: at 82 smithing with the full outfit I get a bit more than 255k xp/hr using a 14/14 alloy. Hammer and grindstone can now always be done without ever needing to re-heat or cool down the preform regardless of sweetspots, only polishing requires one still. -- 20:35, 2 October 2025 (UTC)
- Did another test with 9 rune / 19 addy alloy and got 302k xp/hr at lvl 85 (9 swords made, and a 10th started to measure start of sword to start of sword). Interestingly, I was not able to guarantee completion of segments with this alloy despite it also only having 6 sections like the 14/14 mith/addy one. -- 09:17, 1 February 2026 (UTC)
- Adding another data point: I've reproduced what you've said, albeit without a particularly large sample size. Using all moulds and the full outfit I was getting around 225k xp/hr with 18:10 mith/addy and around 260k xp/hr with 14:14 mith/addy. I tested 14:14 mith/addy with and without the outfit and using 0 pieces did slow things down a bit (more finicky heat management being the main culprit), but even then it seems about the same as 18:10 mith/addy was with the outfit - somewhere around 225k xp/hr or so. I'd need to get a larger sample size to be sure. In any case it seems that the likelihood (essentially guaranteed on hammer/grindstone with outfit and good heat management) of not having to readjust heat mid-section is a bigger time save than prior estimates thought. Does this just mean that 5 section swords are actually 13-14.5 swords/hr and 6 section swords are actually 13.5-15 swords/hr? That seems to line up with the results we're getting. iAreNubcake (talk) 13:59, 6 October 2025 (UTC)
Feedback (Fri, 14 Nov 2025 03:51:24 UTC)
[edit source]This is suggests that 9/19 rune/addy split gives 250k/hr, and the note suggests that this is only 3% worse than a 14/14 split for xp - which would put a 14/14 at 258k xp/h, which is wrong.
I am using a using a 14/14 rune/addy split and getting 260kxp/hr (Before xp drop from handing in) / 280k xp/hr (Post hand in, unsure which value you'd consider the actual 'rate').
I am newish to this minigame (~1m xp in) so by no means playing perfectly. I have one piece of smithing outfit, and the top 8 moulds on the "Over 79 smiting" priority list unlocked. I imagine my rates will only get higher as I acquire the outfit and get more moulds. I am also using two different sources of rune to get the 14 which loses a few ticks each round - probably not a significant loss.
Appreciate the work on this wiki, it's super helpfulFeedback (Mon, 01 Dec 2025 07:00:36 UTC)
[edit source]rune claws
[edit source]rune claws are more viable since the release of shellbane gryphon, which drops them commonly. The section on obtaining materials could perhaps be updates since they are by faar the cheapest option for runite bars.