Difference between revisions of "Crafting Tutorial"

Latest revision as of 08:04, 21 May 2020

Crafting items is a reasonably complex system with many moving parts, so here's a guide to going about it!

The Basics - What you need to make items

Crafting uses several resources when making items. The most obvious is freecreds and salvage. You will also need builder nanites. Now, what's what and where do you lay your greedy little hands (or paws) on them?

• Freecred: Can be gained in multiple ways. RP, Social Actions, combat, quests, missions... you name it!
• Builder Nanites: This is a resource that is dropped from ferals you defeat in combat. You will (probably) need a collector or some way to increase your NaniteCollectRate to score vast amounts of it.
  • Collectors: Two items spring to mind when increasing your NaniteCollectRate. The Improved Nanite Collector and Ultimate Nanite Collector. The Basic Nanite Collector does not increase this stat.
• Salvage: This is most likely the resource that will dictate how awesome an item you can make is. There are quite a few ways to gain salvage luckily!
  • RPing near a salvage source is perhaps the easiest way to do so. They can be found all over the world. Try venturing outside of the Lobby once in awhile! Drag some friends along with you to a source and RP away!
  • Mining an area, using either patrol points or builder nanites can be quite effective.
  • Fighting difficult monsters have a higher chance of dropping a lot of salvage
  • Increase Proficiencies that increase your chance of finding salvage!
    • Examples of what skills might do this is: Design, Installation, Survival, Computer and Research
• Schematics: You will need knowledge of how you actually make the thing you need to make! These are available in various shops, in the elite store, in the token store as well as a few from a quest or two.
• Skills: Lastly, you will also need the skills to make the items. These can be trained once you hit level 15, and improved on with perks as well.

Nanite Collector Comparison

Tips for getting started

• Read +help Getting Started/Salvage for how to increase the salvage drops, and how to obtain rarer types of Electronic, Chemical, Edible, Mechanical, and Energy salvage.
• Pack Rat class, for Scavenger 2, from the Mall (at least outside of combat if you're an RP focused player)
• The Basic Nanite Collector is the worst in all dimensions, and submitting a web-crafting request to get it upgraded can help if you're not getting the full drop rate or need a lighter load-out. Or jumping up to the Ultimate Nanite Collector (40 mako + crafting, decide on route).
• What worked best for me (but there are less costly options if you don't care about loadout / want to save on other options): Improved Nanite Collector, Heavy, Narrow, Miniaturized, Overwhelming, Nanite Magnetic.
• The Science and Newbie chat channels can also help you talk it out.
• If you're already boosting the collection rate then other parts of your character sheet might be the limiting factor. As I update this I've still not figured out which part of my sheet / skills / etc is the issue for my own character.

Schematics: Items and Modifiers

There are two types of schematics. Items and modifiers. Let's have a look at what's what!

• Items: These are the actual items you want to make. Guns, armour, shields, grenades, clothes etc.
• Modifiers: These are ways to improve upon said items! Making them more deadly, smaller and in general more awesome.

What does this mean? Well, say you want to make a light melee weapon. Perhaps a dagger? To make it hit harder, tack on a nice modifier to that item, such as extra lethal!

Crafting

Crafting is currently done entirely on the Web Crafting Interface. It also allows you to commission other crafters for a fee. While this allows you to access recipes and skill levels that you may not have, you also need to bring more salvages, Freecreds and builder nanites to fulfil the order. In extension, you can rent your skills as well by setting a tax percentage. That way, other players on the Web Crafting Interface will be able to see and use your skills and receipts for their own use.

Another advantage of the Web Crafting Interface is hat if you don't have the required salvage to build your new Portable Death Ray, it will offer you to buy them for a Freecred fee. Given you've got the bling, your Death Ray is as good as yours. Happy Crafting!

Test Crafting

You can preview any possible recipe and get a ROUGH ESTIMATE of costs by using the Test Crafting link. This is useful for figuring out if you can craft something, or if you have to get someone else to craft it. One way of getting someone else to craft it is via the Crafting link under your character.

Crafting

Under your Character is a link to Craft. It is important to note that this process is the reverse of Test Crafting, in that rather than specifying what you want and then seeing who can make it...

• If you're using someone else to craft, Open the dropdown list in the bottom of the center area, between the Clear Data and Preview buttons.
• Select either empty (yourself) or someone to craft the item, the character name has a dash and then the % commission fee.
• Next select the Current Project recipe, and then the mods you want from dropdowns.
• While the Preview button can give you an idea of what it costs, you'll have to actually try crafting the item first.
• On the error page you'll see the costs as seen on the server.
• If you're short of Salvage then go to the Salvage Exchange and use the Buy button to open a tool at the top. Enter the missing quantity and the purchase price (whatever's in the Buy column will probably work).
• You should now be able to craft the item.

Crafting (mostly) in the MUD / MUCK

As an example, I noticed today's bounty might be craft-able by mortals. A Shield with Covered. After search the stores and learning the recipes...

test
test Shield=Covered
If you can't make it yourself, this could list who can.
test Shield=Covered #makers

make Shield=Covered
Follow the directions to create.  If you lack the salvage follow the steps above for the Salvage Exchange

Improving on already made items

Don't be afraid of making items for yourself as soon as you can. You can always improve upon them later once you level up your skills a bit or when you finally find that dropmod that you want to add!

You can also remove most modifiers from items if you want to remove one to add another more powerful modifier. (Some modifiers can never be removed, such as cheap)

But how do you add more modifiers to an already made item? Well, keep on reading! You'll need either a craftmod or a dropmod to do so!

Craftmods and Dropmods

There are two different (yet similar..) ways to add modifiers to an already made item. Let's start with the one that's easiest to get and make.

Craftmods

A craftmod is simply a modifier made by another crafter, using their skills. You can then use this item to add the modifier onto an item.

Say you still have that extra lethal dagger we made earlier in the tutorial. It's good but you want to add the Improved modifier to it. But you don't have that modifer! And you certanly don't have the skill to add it yourself.

Asking around, you find a crafter who can make a craftmod for you. Actually making a craftmod is very simple. You do, however, need to be mindful of what level of craftmod you will need. Now, our dagger already has a modifier on it. So in this instance, we need at least a level 2 craftmod. If we had 2 modifiers on it, we would need a level 3 craftmod. And so on.

If you want to make the craft mod yourself, here's the command

 Craftmod <modifier>=<tier> 

Hence, if you wish to craft a level 1 Insulating mod, type as follow

 Craftmod Insulating=1

As stated previously, a craftmod adds modifier with the skills of the maker of the craftmod. This means you can actually make items that you perhaps don't have the skills for to make. The actual formula for how difficult items you can make is: (max(Item's crafting-level, your crafting level) + max(modifier's crafting-level, your crafting level)) / 2

The cost of adding a craftmod is modular. That is to say, you pay for what it would have cost you to have added the modifier when creating the item in the first place.

With our level 2 improved craftmod in hand, we simply use it from our inventory, and the game will ask what item you want it applied to. Enter that item's number in your inventory. And that's it! One light melee with extra lethal and improved! The ferals won't know what hit 'em!

Dropmods

Dropmods are basically craftmods except they have the DROPPED property (Hence why most call them dropmods). They come in a two different Tiers as well (Not to be confused with levels as in craftmods)

A dropmod usually has significantly higher skills attributed to them then a craftmod. Infact, a dropmod can have skill levels of 100 or more, making them quite valuable. Most importantly, this allows us to add modifiers to item well beyond the skills of a crafter, enabling us to make 5-modded items or even 6-modded items.

They also come in different tiers. A Tier 1 dropmod simply has those higher skills to it's advantage. A Tier 2 dropmod however also conveys a 5% bonus, making items with a T2 dropmod even more effective. There are even T3 dropmods that convey a 10% bonus. You can even use two T2 dropmods on the same item for a higher bonus.

You can find dropmods most commonly from rewards. You can also actually buy these from the token or mako store. However, keep in mind, if you apply a purchased modifier, note that it will charge you the cost of a fully new item, not the modular cost. The game will notify you of this, though.

Recipes and Recipe Modifiers

See Recipes and Recipe Modifiers. Note that not all recipes and recipe modifiers listed are actually available in the game yet.

Newbie friendly items

Here are a few examples to make your life beating up ferals a bit easier. They aren't terribly costly (around 1-2 uncommon bits of salvage each) but as stated earlier, you can start with one or two of the modifiers and add more yourself as you become more of an expert crafter!

Heavy Melee=basic spread,extra lethal,miniaturized,heavy - Hard hitting, hits multiple targets as well!

Physical Armor=heavy,improved,miniaturized,overwhelming - More HP and a whole heap of PhysicalDamageResist. All around a good bit of armour!

Module=Cool,Heavy,Modular,Overwhelming - More Accuracy, Haste and Recharge for a very small loadout and upkeep.

Continuous Costs

After an item is made, it has to be maintained. It costs a number of cred and salvage to keep an item functioning. This cost is based on how much it cost to make, how easy it is to maintain, how much you have to maintain, how much you use it, and how good you are at maintaining your gear.

First off, this value is based entirely off of the base costs. It doesn't care how deep into overcrafting you go. Next, it doesn't require builder nanites either to maintain, only to initially craft.

Here are some of the numbers!

• All items get a bonus self repair of 3 per point of technical you have.
• All items get a bonus self repair of 3 per point of Upkeep not in use.
• All items get a bonus self repair of 1 per 2 points of Installation until 30. 1 per 4 points after that.
• Each item gets 135 Self Repair for Nanite Shielded, and/or 100 Self Repair for Durable, if placed on the item.
• Some items have Self Repair already applied to them.
• Efficient Tinkering reduces the Freecred cost by 25%, flat value.
• Expert Repair reduces the salvage cost by 25%, flat value.
• Turning on the Cred Repair option reduces the salvage cost by 40%, while increasing the Freecred costs by 100%, flat values.
• If the item has the expiring flag, it will multiply the costs by 12, making these extremely expensive, in terms of your costs.

Now for the actual math. Take costs of item, multiply by 1 - total self repair / 100 + total self repair. Apply Efficient Tinkering and Expert Repair. Apply Cred Repair option if turned on. Then, take this number in salvage and divide by 3600 for your cost per hour of use in salvage. Take this number in cred and divide by 2160 for your cost per hour of use in freecred. Let's look at an example.

• I have 3 technical, 20 Installation, 10 points of Upkeep not in use, and my item has Nanite Shielded on it. Its Self Repair value is 184. So its total cost is multiplied by 1 - (184/284), or .647 (A reduction of 64.7%).

Removing modifiers

Did you add the wrong mod, or want to swap one for another (such as replacing Modular for Miniaturized)? Not to worry. While there are certain limitations (you cannot remove the mods Cheap, Zealously Conserved, or Intricately Wrought), mods can be removed from items should the need arise. Bear in mind that you will not get the mod back. If you wish to do this, head over to the Nanite Workshop on the second floor of RSX headquarters in Woodfield. Type atrace rsx if you're not sure how to get there. Once there, you can either talk to the Old Soldier, or type craft and follow the instructions. Be sure to look up the inventory number of the item beforehand.