Asking fellow player advice - new player here.

[gandalf.graycloak]

I've hit level 25 and I'm working through tier 3 in the tech tree. I'm just doing an Olympus open-world run to learn it all. As a new player I've been sort of helter-skelter on my skill choices and would like to be the first to admit I could have done MUCH better. For this post I basically have two questions:

1. I see I have re-spec points - how do I use them and how does that process work? My hope is I get to singularly "uncheck" a blueprint I either mistakenly chose or that I have moved beyond (for example in the latter case, I no longer need to EVER make a stone axe again, I don't think. In the former case, after getting the wood composter, I accidentally checked the wood farm plot (right next to it in tier 2), but I meant to get the iron one for higher strength storm resistance [found in tier 3]).

2. (Blueprints and points aside on this one): The original stone furnace was nice at the time, but I now have the concrete furnace and the forge plans. Do I need to even have the stone furnace in my building layout now? In other words is there something lower-tier it does that its big brother counterparts cannot? Same question would apply to things like the textile bench vs. the higher tier "advanced textile bench" - once I can make and deploy the latter, can I just pickup the original out of my floor space and effectively replace it with the "advanced" version?

[Raven]

To answer your 2nd question. Yes, you can remove lower-tier benches, forges etc as you move up the tec tree. The advanced versions do everything the lower level version does.

Edit: I haven't tried the re-spec thing yet, but I don't think it applies to the blueprint tree.

[Rekal]

For your first question: Your tech recipes are permanent, but you also end up with an unlimited amount of them so you can eventually pick every recipe. Just keep leveling and even when you hit max level you'll keep "leveling" and getting more tech points as you play.

The respec points are for your talents which you stop getting more of at max level. To use them you need to be in the character select screen. Head to your talents page and you'll have the option of buying more respec points there as well. To use them I'm pretty sure you simply right click on one of the latest talents you've picked in a tree and recover the talent point. It's 1 for 1 so it can get expensive if you're trying to respec your entire character but money is cheap when you know how to extract exotics.

You've probably started to hit the wall for leveling in Open World -- most of your building and crafting is done so you stopped getting as much XP from those activities since you're not doing them. You might want to boost your XP by doing a few missions which also gives you practice building and experience with the rest of the game. That's where all those older recipes will come in handy.

For your second question, no there's no absolute reason to keep an older tier of equipment. However there are some situational uses for them. Namely to increase throughput. For example when I build a base I always start with two stone furnaces - one for copper and one for iron just to smelt faster. If I plan on staying longer I build a third stone furnace for steel and I use them as a sort of storage as well. Toss the raw ore in turn it on and walk away. Also the stone furnace has a slightly smaller footprint than the concrete furnace.

When you create the concrete furnace it doesn't smelt iron, copper, or steel faster or more fuel efficiently. It only allows you to smelt new materials - Al, Au, Pt, and Ti. So there's no real reason to get rid of the old furnaces either unless you're pressed for space. The only benefit the final electric furnace gives is smelting the composites and using electricity instead of fuel - not a huge upgrade so no real reason to ditch the concrete furnace either, right?

Compared to other benches the stone furnaces are the most useful in this extent because the other benches don't always have a useful "turn it on and walk away" recipe that's effective at all tech levels. You always need iron, copper, and steel right?

Your carpentry bench could make sticks from wood for biofuel (more efficient than just using wood for biofuel) and your tailoring bench could still make rope from leather which you then destroy to make fiber for biofuel (an actual use for all that leather you end up with). However the advanced versions of those benches are probably not going to be busy all the time either so you can do the same recipes there.

The mortar and pestle is another one that you'll probably never replace. Sure the windmill and material processor are upgrades and process faster but the mortar and pestle are so small and cheap what's stopping you from having one for every recipe it makes?

Here's my mortar and pestle Epoxy, Organic Resin, Tree Sap, and Gun Powder stack/storage: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3219942755 My steel bloom mortar and pestle is stacked on my steel furnace, and I have one for flour in the kitchen and another one on the chemistry bench. You can put these things everywhere. Only reason to make a material processor is for composites.

[gandalf.graycloak]

Great replies, both!

I never knew that the character select screen represented my toon being up in the space station. I thought at some point I'd discover an outpost or some planet-side version of a typical "trader" NPC.

I looked around "up there" and if I'm picking this up right, missions earn me a given currency plus the exotics I mine serve as a cohort currency given whatever I might be after. Again I thought those would be some sort of "special sauce" material for a - you guessed it - exotic device or whatnot,

So now that launch pod calling blueprint (tier 2?) makes sense - putting one of those up allows me to call a pod which will deliver my exotics on account at the space station?

Well again thanks to you both, things are getting clearer. Looks like I've got exo-suits and backpacks et al to look at as purchases, too.

[azhockeynut]

My fav thing to do with the stone furnace and mortar is to place them in a cave I want to clean out and make steel while I am there.

The other benches I will sometimes add to a forward base as I begin to explore another biome. The Herbalist can come in handy to make quick meds, Anvil can make quick tools, etc. When I cannot repair my higher tier stuff without having a higher tier bench, I sometimes have to resort to lower tier in a forward area for a bit. Still better than stone. Beyond that some of the benches can store quite a bit.... lol
so the crafting bench you are gifted in the S1mpl3 missions of finding abandoned bases, with the chests and the drying rack... if you have room you can put them just inside the next biome for a small base. Tis better to sleep in a nice bed even if you have them all over the map! Dried meats are goof for quite a while and, the rotted stuff can be used in meds or to make charcoal which can be used in meds.
worst case you can always destroy them for the resources. Once you get up to the higher levels, that can be a better idea.
Ofc, if you play with a lot of workshop stuff, much of what I have said is not going to matter. If you challenge yourself with no workshop stuff (not as easy as it sounds) then yeah, you maximize your bases and available hiding spots IMO

[gandalf.graycloak]

Agreed I think the stone, concrete and forge "furnaces" are worth the extra floor space given you can smelt multiple ores at one time with a sort of fire-and-forget approach if there's fuel enough in the furnaces - just pop in the ore and move on. Each unit will process and store the ingots whenever you're ready for them.

So to be sure I'm being concise, I think I'm collecting the idea here that at the specific-recipe tables, like textile vs. advanced textile benches where one has to do intentional crafting at -those do all the recipes of their junior brother plus the advanced, right?

So could I do away with a workbench in a given space if I have the machinist table in there?

[azhockeynut]

Originally posted by gandalf.graycloak:

Agreed I think the stone, concrete and forge "furnaces" are worth the extra floor space given you can smelt multiple ores at one time with a sort of fire-and-forget approach if there's fuel enough in the furnaces - just pop in the ore and move on. Each unit will process and store the ingots whenever you're ready for them.

So to be sure I'm being concise, I think I'm collecting the idea here that at the specific-recipe tables, like textile vs. advanced textile benches where one has to do intentional crafting at -those do all the recipes of their junior brother plus the advanced, right?

So could I do away with a workbench in a given space if I have the machinist table in there?

correct

[Raven]

Originally posted by gandalf.graycloak:

...snip[...

So to be sure I'm being concise, I think I'm collecting the idea here that at the specific-recipe tables, like textile vs. advanced textile benches where one has to do intentional crafting at -those do all the recipes of their junior brother plus the advanced, right?

So could I do away with a workbench in a given space if I have the machinist table in there?

Yes, you are correct, the machinist table will do everything the workbench does, plus.

Edit: Ninjaed by azhockeynut.

[Rekal]

Here's the infographic from the update (around W123 I think?) that shows the workbench progression - IE Which bench replaces what.

https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/38036764/7e6d60f5b8d736c80c95f0769767f71e0f287b7b.png

[azhockeynut]

Originally posted by Raven:

Originally posted by gandalf.graycloak:

...snip[...

So to be sure I'm being concise, I think I'm collecting the idea here that at the specific-recipe tables, like textile vs. advanced textile benches where one has to do intentional crafting at -those do all the recipes of their junior brother plus the advanced, right?

So could I do away with a workbench in a given space if I have the machinist table in there?

Yes, you are correct, the machinist table will do everything the workbench does, plus.

Edit: Ninjaed by azhockeynut.

He said "concise" so I went with that lol

[william_es]

As others have said, you get an unlimited number of tech points. Don't sweat those at all. I think I have every blueprint unlocked with the exception of the paid DLC ones, and I STILL have over 250 unused tech points.

As for older blueprints, don't discount them out of hand. I still make a stone axe on every mission I start (non-open world missions). I haven't unlocked a lot of workshop axes, and I wouldn't even bother bringing one down in the first pod anyways. I bring a workshop mining pickaxe, which gives me stone instantly. I use that to make a stone axe. Works well enough until I replace it with iron/steel/platnium axes later on. Since the workshop pickaxe can mine all tiers of ores, I normally leapfrog straight to platinum.

Also, the lower tier crafting stations are cheap to make. Which means you make em and leave em. No sweat to abandon them.

[Raven]

Originally posted by azhockeynut:

Originally posted by Raven:

Yes, you are correct, the machinist table will do everything the workbench does, plus.

Edit: Ninjaed by azhockeynut.

He said "concise" so I went with that lol

[gandalf.graycloak]

I just get confused sometimes what resources I left where, etc. so having one "go to" bench for a specific line of crafting keeps my brain clear.