ALTERNATE SMITHING XP FORMULA
Complete Crafting Overhaul provides an alternate method for calculating Smithing experience. The goal of this new formula is to emphasize experimentation and crafting a wide variety of different items, as opposed to the vanilla method which rewards repeatedly crafting the same item.

In the vanilla game, the most effective way to level smithing is to focus on a handful of items with the best ratio of material cost to gold value. This system emphasizes and rewards the mass-production of cheap items. Personally, I feel that crafting different and more difficult items should result in higher XP gains. This is what CCOR's alternate Smithing formula seeks to achieve.

With the new XP formula, the most effective way to level Smithing is to craft a variety of different items. The more expensive the items are, the better. You'll receive the greatest amount of experience the first time you craft an item. The amount of XP you receive will decrease each time you craft that same item. After you've crafted the item three times, the XP you get from crafting further copies of that item won't decrease further, but instead it will remain at a baseline reduced amount.

A QUICK COMPARISON
Let's look at some actual numbers. With the vanilla system, if you gain 100 XP for crafting an item, you'll always gain 100 XP for every copy of that item you craft. The XP gain for creating four copies of that item will look like this:
Vanilla XP = 100 + 100 + 100 + 100 = 400 XP
With the new formula, the amount of XP points you get for crafting that same item four times will look more like this:
New Alt XP = 200 + 150 + 100 + 50 = 500 XP

As you can see, you'll gain more XP faster with the new formula. However, let's see what happens when you continue crafting the exact same item 10 times:
Vanilla XP = 100 + 100 + 100 + 100 + 100 + 100 + 100 + 100 + 100 + 100 = 1000 XP
New Alt XP = 200 + 150 + 100 + 50 + 50 + 50 + 50 + 50 + 50 + 50 = 800 XP

The first time you craft the item, you'll receive double the XP points that you would have from the vanilla system, and it only takes crafting the item 4 times to get the same amount of XP that you would have received from crafting the item 5 times in the vanilla game. After you've crafted the item three times, from there on, you'll only receive half of the vanilla XP for each additional copy of that item you craft.

The actual amount of XP will vary depending on the gold value of the item.


THE MATH
The formula is composed of two parts. The first is a multiple of the vanilla XP (calculated using the vanilla formula), and the second is the amount of "bonus" XP (calculated by the new formula), which depends on the number of times you've crafted the item.

New XP Gain = Part 1 + Part 2

Part 1 = (VanillaXP * VanillaXPModifier)
Part 2 = ((ItemValue/3*BonusMult)^BonusExp)*NumCrafted

Vanilla XP Modifier = default is 0.50. It can be customized between 0.1 and 1.
Bonus Multiplier = default is 53. It can be customized between 0 and 100.
Bonus Exponent = default is 0.50. It can be customized between 0.1 and 0.5.
NumCrafted = 3, 2, or 1 depending on the number of times you've previously crafted that same item. Once you've crafted the item three times, further copies will result in an XP gain equal to just the "Part 1" value.

You can easily use this formula to increase or decrease the overall progression rate for the Smithing skill, so that you are receiving significantly more or less than the standard vanilla XP.  However, the default values have been based around the vanilla skill progression rate and are recommended for games balanced around the vanilla skill rates.


CUSTOMIZING THE FORMULA
Complete Crafting Overhaul allows you to further customize this formula and tailor it to fit your preferences. You can adjust this system so that it's only providing a small, supplemental bonus to the vanilla XP, or you can change it to more severely nerf the XP gained from crafting multiple copies.

There are three variables you can adjust, as listed above. If you're interested in experimenting with these values, I recommend you download the Smithing XP Worksheet included under Optional Files. This spreadsheet will allow you to play with the values and quickly see the results.

Vanilla XP Modifier = This value controls the base XP amount, which is also the amount of XP you'll receive after you have crafted the item more than three times.  If you wish to mostly keep the vanilla XP rates, but just add a small extra bonus for creating new items, then you can increase this value to 0.8 to 1.0, and decrease either the Bonus Exponent or Bonus Multiplier.  If you wish to nerf the XP amounts, then you can decrease this value further.

Bonus Multiplier = This value increases or decreases the bonus XP amount.  The default value of 53 will result in bonus amounts of +150/+100/+50 for an item with a value of 142 (which would give 100 XP in vanilla).

Bonus Exponent = Used to calculate the bonus amount.  Lower numbers will flatten the curve; higher numbers steepen the curve.  Unless you are wanting to reduce the bonus amount so that you only receive a very small added XP bonus, I recommend leaving this value at 0.5.

An example of a custom setting might be to increase the Bonus Multiplier to 100 and lower the Vanilla XP Modifier to 0.3.  This results in the XP being even more heavily weighted toward the first three items crafted.  Compared to the values at the top of this article, these settings would give you following XP:
Custom XP = 236 + 168 + 99 + 30 + 30 + 30 + 30 + 30 + 30 + 30 = 713 XP
As you can see, by creating just 3 items, you will get slightly more XP than you would have received for creating 5 items under the vanilla system.  However, after creating 3 identical items, the XP amounts will fall off sharply, so you will definitely want to focus on creating lots of different items in order to advance your smithing skill.


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