Celer's Keep Door Guide (v0.4)
Also check out my Keep Door Calculator!

I'm new at this, how do I get started?
Repairing and upgrading keep doors requires Woodworking skill. So to get started, join any crafting order and skill up. If you can, skill up on things that also raise your woodworking. If not, use trinkets to raise it. Remember that it can't go higher than your primary skill level.

How high does my woodworking need to be?
Figure at least 50 skill for each door level, though you'll fail almost every time at this minimum. You start to get reliable after another 50-100 skill. So to upgrade to or repair a level 2 door, 100 woodworking will work, but it'd be best to let someone above 150 handle it. Relic doors (level 8) can be done at 500 in a pinch.

Does woodworking affect speed or amount of wood used?
Nope. A level 1000 woodworker will repair/upgrade at the same speed and use the same amount of wood as a level 50 woodworker. The difference is, the higher level woodworker will fail much less, thus taking less time overall.

Can I lose wood on a failure?
Nope, you only waste time.

How much wood do I need?
Each upgrade/repair requires a specific number of Wood Units (WU). More expensive wood is worth more WU but is less cost-efficient. So use as cheap a wood as you can stand to buy and transport... if you can't carry a lot, you'd save a lot of cash by finding a strong friend to shuttle wood to you. Oh, mixing and matching woods is fine.

What's the best kind of wood to use?
The cheapest you can. When in doubt, bring ironwood. It can upgrade as low as to level 2 without wasting too much money, and can help repair up to a level 10. Plus it can be used in siege weapons. Try not to enter the frontier without at LEAST 100 ironwood on you, ya never know when it could be useful.

Should I upgrade straight to the desired level, or do it in steps?
Always upgrade in steps. From 1 to 3, upgrade to 2 first, repair it to 100%, THEN upgrade to 3 and repair to 100% again. It's much more cost-efficient.

What are the commands?
"/upgrade" will show you the current level of the door. "/upgrade 3" will upgrade to level 3, etc. If you don't have enough WU, it says how much you currently have (which is a good reason to macro "/upgrade 10"). To repair, use "/repair". It will repair about 5% max, but might do a little less (it reports you make "some repairs").

I have many different kinds of wood, which kind will get used on a repair/upgrade?
It starts at the top. It's probably best to put the cheapest wood stacks above your expensive ones, as they will get used first. So bring a stack of oak to go from 1 to 2 and a stack of iron to go from 2 to 3 if you really want to.

How strong is each level of door?
A level 4 door can be taken down without a ram in under 10 minutes (around 5 minutes depending how many tanks are bashing). But if you can repair as it's being bashed on, you can usually keep it up until you run out of cash, die, or they bring a ram. This tactic can be used with a level 1 door as well, for a very cheap barricade. A level 10 door can hold out about 10 minutes even against one ram.

My guild is going to claim a supply/enemy keep, how high should we upgrade?
Since these keeps will probably be retaken pretty soon, use judgement on how much to spend. If you plan on repairing as the doors are getting knocked down (good for supply keeps), keep the inner door under 4 (level 5 doors are much more difficult to keep repaired). If you have a plat to spare, upgrade as much as possible and force them to bring rams.

My guild is going to claim a home keep, how high should we upgrade?
Level 10. You want these keeps to hold out as long as possible. If your guild can't afford to upgrade to 10, you better be keeping a very close eye on it or letting someone else claim. Of course, repairing those buggers are no fun, but that's the price you pay for keeping your relic.

How much time/gold does it take to go from 1 to 10?
If you've got a full group with speed to make runs for you, figure about 2 hours and 3.5 plat. Getting to level 8 should be about a plat, those last 2 levels should be about a plat each.

We just retook a keep, doors are level 1... what should we do?
Upgrading to level 4 is cheap... I use Elm, it's 6.5 gold and weighs about 266. It should only take 2-3 trips with a strong carrier. Rowan can save 4 gold, but that's hardly worth the hassle. Oak costs twice as much for half the weight, and with Ironwood it's 20 gold for only 67 weight.

The doors are level 4, what wood should we use to go higher?
Depends on how many runners you have. Going from 4-5 takes more than it did to go from 1-4 combined. Here you should start using Oak at the cheapest (21 gold @ 219 weight) with maybe a little Elm to offset costs. Ironwood is 10 gold more for half the weight, and Heartwood is 48 gold for 55 weight.

What wood should we use to repair the relic door?
Relic doors are level 8. Do NOT give in to the temptation to run inside and use Dyr/Duskwood. Get a few groups to run and get ironwood. You can make the repair with 17 stacks of 100 ironwood, it costs 123 gold, or 9 stacks of Heartwood for 190 gold. In contrast, using Dyrwood costs 409 gold. If you're still in danger, ask the first couple groups to bring Runewood, even that is 100 gold cheaper than Dyrwood. Here is where it really pays to put your expensive stacks on the bottom of your inventory... save those big WUs for later or to top off your cheaper woods. If you're feeling REALLY thrifty, the repair CAN be done with 34 stacks of 100 Oak, so ask your low-level, cheap, or poor runners to bring that.

http://daoc.djswifty.com