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Alchemy Guide
tammeruwo
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Here is the alchemy guide I wrote for the netmarble ogp forums. Unfortunately I backed up only the text and not the images. It is probably outdated. It does not have any information about transmutation alchemy.
There were other leveling guides by nivlac, Montador, and Yeltdel. If I can find links to existing versions I will add them. To briefly summarize, the guide by nivlac emphasized converting ointment colors and making gold. Montador's guide was all alchemy pots and furniture. I recommend preparing for and doing alchemy experiments, mostly because I found those to be much more enjoyable.
Comments
There are many paths to Adept. With this guide, we will be stocking your alchemy bench and raising your skills along the way. This way is better than the alternatives because you will need the materials anyway to make anything, and they take a long time to prepare. You might as well make them while they give skill points. Also, experiments are much more fun then grinding furniture making!
Skills needed for this method:
1. Alchemy
2. Arabic (on an aide, preferably)
Important note: translation notes don't work for this. You or a fleet member needs to have an aide who speaks Arabic, or have the actual language skill. If you're choosing an alchemy aide, you'll want Beatrice if you need Arabic. If you have a different aide with Arabic, then you might want Nicola for his trade skills and fire prevention.
3. Medicine trading
4. Seasoning trading
5. Basic dungeon skills (at least to be able to do most of mid-Giza)
6. Handicrafts
7. Collection
Once you get in the higher levels, you'll also need
8. Casting
9. Wares trading
10. Mineral trading (maybe optional)
This guide is intended to level you up while you stock your supplies for future use. Therefore the guide is organized into `stages' instead of skill ranks, since the recipes don't match the ranks exactly.
Stage 1 - seal of sorcery (requires r1)
Each recipe takes 10 salt, 8 mandrake, and 6 silver if you use the recipe at the alchemist's daughter in Alexandria. If you have the Basic-Alchemy Secrets book, you can instead use 12 salt, 8 mandrake, and 6 silver wherever you are.
I suggest starting by getting the silver out of a dungeon if you do not have another easy method. I recommend running mid giza and saving only the silver and the saltpetre. When you have a few hundred silver bars, go to syracuse and fill up on mandrake and salt. (You can speed this up considerably with po1s and leveled trade skills!)
I don't know if you need 50 seals or 100 seals to get from r1 to r2. However, I suggest making 200 or 400 seal of sorcery anyway since they're a raw ingredient in the next step. (Or make lots more - fill that bank vault!)
Stage 2 - seal of salamander, gnome, undine, sylph (requires r2)
The recipes are also at the alchemist's daughter in Alexandria. Each takes 2 seal of sorcery, 10 salt, and one other ingredient. (12 saltpetre for salamander, 10 sand for gnome, 10 spring water for undine, 15 eagle's wings for sylph) If you use the Basic Alchemy-Secrets book the recipes are the same except take 12 salt.
Make whichever you feel like. If you have inventory space, make a mix. Otherwise concentrate on gnome or salamander for now; sylph's a bit funny to convert later so I wouldn't make too many of those at the start. Saltpetre can be obtained in upper or mid giza or purchased in Machilipatnam. Sand you get by digging in Cairo outskirts. Spring water comes from farms or bazaars. Eagle's wings can be purchased in the Cairo item shop.
Stage 3 - ointments (requires r1)
You'll need either an alchemy bench or kiln in your quarters; any of the types are fine. You can pick these up in company shops or from master alchemist friends. Once you've placed it in your quarters click on it to see the recipes. These recipes are also available either at Paracelsus (black and red) or John Dee (white) or in the Basic Alchemy-Secrets book.
(Warning! If you plan to make these at a spot where you collect colored ores, you need an aide with fire prevention skill to get the ointments back to your quarters.)
Ingredients for these recipes include colored ores. Farms and company shops are the easiest way to get them, but you can also get them from dungeons and collection.
red ore: Giza floors 1 and 2 or collect outside Dublin
black ore: Giza floors 1 and 2 or collect outside Dublin
white ore: Bordeaux dungeon or collect in newfoundland
green ore: collect at the landing north of Tumbes
If you're running dungeons, see the next step on what to do with glassware and crystal that you find. Also, you'll need
sulphur: Giza floors 1 and 2 or buy in Stockholm/Riga
mercury: buy in Seville
Different seals take different materials to convert. The details are below; see the next stage for your sylph seals.
To convert seal of salamander:
1 seal, 10 red ore, 3 mercury makes 1-2 red alchemy ointment
To convert seal of gnome:
1 seal, 10 black ore, 5 sulphur makes 1-2 black alchemy ointment
To convert seal of undine:
1 seal, 10 white ore, 10 salt makes 1-2 white alchemy ointment
Make as much as you can and store everything you have room for. You can keep one color ointment and turn the rest into reagents following the next step. If you store hundreds of each type in your quarters now, though, you'll be happy later.
Stage 4 - reagents (requires r3)
You'll need a book to prep for these recipes - Expert craftman's training book, from investing 300k in Jaffa. You need handicrafts r10 and alchemy r3 to use it.
There are four kinds of reagents. Three are made from the ointments in stage 3, the other uses the sylph seals. To convert seal of sylph:
1 seal, 10 green ore, 1 flask makes 1-2 gaseous drug
The flask is made from crystal using the expert craftman's training book. Crystal can be obtained in luxor or bordeaux dungeons, or made with the stone quarry book. You'll also need to make distillers and test tubes from the expert craftman's training book, using glassware. Glassware can be purchased in Venice, obtained in Giza 1-3, or made from crystal using the same book. The recipe `make clear potion' on your kiln or bench in your quarters is this recipe for gaseous drug.
To make reagents:
1 red ointment, 1 distiller, 1 test tube makes 1-3 ignis solution
1 white ointment, 1 distiller, 1 test tube makes 1-3 aqua concentrate
1 black ointment, 1 distiller, 1 test tube makes 1-3 terra extract
1 gaseous drug, 1 distiller, 1 test tube makes 1-3 ventus reduction.
The recipes are in your quarters with the lab bench or kiln. Convert all your gaseous drug, since this is the only recipe it's used for. You can convert all your ointments or save some for other recipes. You'll use the reagents for r10+ alchemy experiments. You can store 999 of each type in your vault, and another 999 in your quarters if you're dedicated. (Remember, you're preparing for the future, not just wasting time grinding recipes!)
Stage 5 - power leveling (requires r3)
The goal in this stage is to get yourself to r10, including boosts. For example, with an aide, the academic tarn, the emerald tablet, and the master alchemist job shared by a friend, you should work to r6+4. With astro items you might only need r5+5 or r4+6.
The method is to get clay; thousands and thousands of clay. It comes from farms, the Syracuse dungeon, and the Rome dungeon. The recipe you want is Make Alchemy Pots in your quarters, which turns 2 clay into 0-2 alchemy pots. You'll want to save as many of these as you reasonably can for later furniture grinding. This method was part of Montador's guide.
If you're stuck getting to r10 with boosts there are three more options. First, you could make gold in London using John Dee's r6 recipe (5 rare books, 5 sulphur, 10 copper - you can make the rare books there with the memorial album book if you bring paper or are English). The other two options are to try to improve fool's hands with John Dee's r6 recipe, or to convert ointments using the color wheel. This last option might be the best since it expands your ointment supply through great successes. However, make sure you're sailing with fire prevention!
The one thing I definitely recommend against is wasting your ointment to grind skills on recipes like the one for Asclepius' elixir.
Stage 6 - r10 experiments
At this level the grind method is to make furniture (see below), but since you stocked your bench you have some other options open to you. If you haven't gotten it yet, pick up the Craftsman's training book by investing 300k in Candia.
The experiments are done in your quarters. Some of them use the kiln and others use the bench, depending on the type of labware you want to use. You'll see more recipes as you rank up alchemy.
Logwood experiments: (good for dungeoners) Get some copper and lumber in Beiruit / Famagusta and make a few hundred scales with the Craftsman's training book. Then go run the Palenque dungeon, storing up the logwood you find and selling the jade. When you have 500 logwood or so, go back to your quarters and start experimenting!
Alternatively, collect bark outside Vera Cruz or Pernambuco and convert it to logwood with the Dyeing secret book from Merida. Requires r8 collection to get the bark and r11 storage to convert it.
10 logwood + 1 scale + 1 any reagent can give fine dye. I usually use terra extract to maximize the fine dye output. If you use ignis solution, you can also get sail paint type 2 (stripy) and special sail paint 9 (red with socks). You'll want the fine dye later for experiments using Alchemist's clothes.
Alchemist's tarot experiments: (good for wares trading experts) Make some experiment lamps using the Craftsman's training book; each takes glasswork, copper, and vegetable oil. You can use that book to make the oil out of grass. Then get some graphite from plymouth (if you don't have it on your farm), and go load up on paper in Beruit. Paracelsus has the recipe for Alchemist's tarot in Venice - takes 22 paper and 1 graphite each, or it is in the Basic Alchemy-Secrets book.
3 alchemist's tarot + 1 lamp + 1 terra extract can give 3 gold tarots with a huge success. Unfortunately they're not as valuable now that silver tarots are easily available from dungeons, but they're still useful.
Stomach medicine experiments: (good for afk collectors) Find a spot to sit at sea outside Athens / Salonika and collect lots of seaweed. When you've got a good supply, get some grass and make stomach medicine with the shipwright basics craft book. Then make some funnels using the Expert craftsman's training book. You can also get stomach meds as a reward for beating the boss on level 2 in the bordeaux dungeon.
6 stomach medicine + 1 funnel + 1 ventus reduction can give 3 headache meds with a huge success.
Stage 7 - r11 experiments
Processed lumber experiments: If you don't have the book, make as many as you can hold going between Bahia and Pernambuco. Make some hammers and files in Beirut, with the craftsman's training book and Making experimental apparatus (from Cairo item shop).
1 processed lumber + 1 hammer + 1 aqua concentrate can give trained rosewood plating with a huge success (+11 -8 plating)
1 processed lumber + 1 file + terra extract can give maple violins and 6-string guitars. The 6-string guitars are a contribution good item in Lima.
I haven't found the other recipes to be useful for skill grinding. However, you can now make yourself a Bellow blower's hat and robe (using all that fine dye you made), or an indigo ring (+2 fabric trading, +1 seasoning trading, +1 medicine trading).
Stage 8 - r12 experiments
Metal work experiments: The best recipe for skill grinding is metalwork, hammer, and any reagent. You'll make alot of iron plating and light iron plating, which I just sell at the shipyard. If you use terra extract, you can also get a huge success of 3 improved steel sheets. Terra extract also gives the most skill points of any color, since you don't get suspicious lumps using it. The iron plating and light iron plating give more points than the suspicious lumps. Using an alchemy pot and ventus reduction, you can make trained iron plating (+14 - 13) with a huge success, although you get less skill points with this recipe and the success rate is low.
The other recipes are difficult to use for skill grinding, but you can now make some nice helmets, gold swords, and war god amulets.
Stage 9 - grinding to adept
At some point, you're bound to run out of reagents or want to save them to make rare items. To grind skill points, you can make alchemy benches in Venice or alchemy kilns in London. Give them to friends, sell them cheap, or just dump them in the ocean - you're probably going to be making many of these. This was also part of the method in Montador's guide.
Bench grinding: This works best with the processed lumber book. If you don't have it you can try to make do with shared storage or multiboxing; I used to buy lumber in Bahia and make processed lumber in Pernambuco to fill my shared storage. Paracelsus in Venice has the recipes.
r10: 30 Master craftsman's carpentry tools, 40 experiment files, 1 processed lumber.
r11: 35 Master craftsman's carpentry tools, 45 beakers, 1 processed lumber.
r12: 40 Master craftsman's carpentry tools, 50 alchemy pots, 1 processed lumber.
If you make your MCCTs in Newfoundland, you can save the boulders you collect to make caustic lime in The Azores for...
Kiln grinding: John Dee in London has the recipes. The closest place to London to dig sand is the landing south of Malaga.
r10: 50 sand, 30 clay, 1 caustic lime.
r11: 70 sand, 45 clay, 1 caustic lime.
r12: 90 sand, 60 clay, 1 caustic lime.
When you reach rank 13 you'll be finished and have earned the Adept title. May the grind be challenging but satisfying for you, with many Huge Successes! You can continue to grind alchemy to r14 now (or maybe higher with later updates.)