Select item level to craft?

[SiEgE]

Why should I pay extra, when all I need is level 1 item? It is especially funny when I've finally managed to collect all parts for a gun, only to make myself unable to craft it once I put a skill point into the weapon skill branch.

[[STD]Random Lead]

Personally would love this option but I just cheat in the item I could have made and throw parts on ground. Meaning if I just got the parts for the level 1 and I am on level 3. I would just give myself a level 1 and toss the parts I would have legitimately used up away on the ground.

[ElDudorino]

Yeah this is one of those absurd things in the game. Getting better with a weapon can make you suddenly unable to craft it. You absolutely should be able to choose weapon quality, and the part requirements shouldn't go up nearly as steeply for higher quality. +50% parts per level is insane.

If anything, I think I should require fewer parts for lower-quality weapons each time I level up and then I can pay 'full price' to build whatever the highest level I'm capable of is.

You usually find a Q6 version of an item before you would have enough parts to craft a Q5 version anyway.

[Shurenai]

Originally posted by ElDudorino:

Yeah this is one of those absurd things in the game. Getting better with a weapon can make you suddenly unable to craft it. You absolutely should be able to choose weapon quality, and the part requirements shouldn't go up nearly as steeply for higher quality. +50% parts per level is insane.

If anything, I think I should require fewer parts for lower-quality weapons each time I level up and then I can pay 'full price' to build whatever the highest level I'm capable of is.

You usually find a Q6 version of an item before you would have enough parts to craft a Q5 version anyway.

It's not +50% parts per level except the first level (Q1->Q2). It's always the initial parts x quality level.

So if Q1 takes 3 parts, Q2 takes 6, Q3 takes 9, Q4 takes 12, Q5 takes 15.

Ultimately, the increasing costs are the price of game balance. If you could craft a Q5 for the price of what currently is a Q1, then the market values for any crafted item would have to be dramatically adjusted, as would the availability of materials.

Also of import is that higher quality weapons cost more, yes- But you also can more easily get materials for them by the time you can craft them if you aren't exclusively dumping points into getting higher quality weapons; the exception there being weapon parts since they're dubious to obtain..either get a lot of them or basically none.


In regards to the OP, While I get where you're coming from, I think the better choice would be for the player to consider their skill point allocation a bit more carefully. Do you want to craft that weapon when you get home; Or do you want the boost in damage now at the cost of not having enough to craft the weapon without more looting? You make that choice yourself. You could get home, craft the weapon, then spend the skill point; but instead choose to spend the skill point and cant craft the weapon.

I do think that items used in crafting should either have a selectable level or that they should swap those out for alternative items because it is a bit daft to 'waste' so much more material on a hammer/wrench than needed EG: The wrench and Hammer; But at the same time, You could also source your wrenches and hammers from loot or barter instead of crafting, so.. Mixed feelings i guess. I usually find more than enough wrenches and hammers that I can use for crafting that I never have to craft one myself for that purpose.

[...👑 JOST AMMAN 👑...]

@OP: I support this change (+1)

That being said, I think the problem is it would force the devs to rethink the crafting AI. Seems easy to us players, but I think it would entail lots of changes to the current inventory and crafting just to support this.

[RayTcharlze | #FreeTheWorkshop!]

Yeah, you should be able to craft a lower quality, but with somehow guaranteed stats.
supposed you have the ability to craft lvl 5 of something +/- 15% on each stats, you could craft a lvl 4 "0 up to +15%", or a maxed out lvl 3 at +15% on every stat.
when requiring items to craft other things, like a claw hammer/wrench for the workstation, it makes no difference what level the items are, but it make a noticeable difference in crafting cost. Most player try to go around this and use the lower quality drops they set aside for that purpose, but not everyone specialize in gathering...
The problem also exist with those you cannot craft by yourself (some lvl 6) and even worse, you can't find them after a certain point in your loot level (lvl 6 stone hatchet, extremely useful even for being a tier 1, yet not spawning after some lvl up...)

Should there be a chance to get a lvl 6 when crafting a lvl 5 ? how about it taking some more time to "refine" the craft, with a slight risk of breaking the item, a decent risk of not getting it better, and a little chance of gaining a level ?
The same could work on the other end, as you could "stop early" during a craft, for a lower quality item.
Or be able to do this on workstation only, with a "limiter" mod (just like anvil/crucible in forges) craftable from a few stones and wood...

[Borthol1224]

some devs keep changing whats is not broken

[Khissi]

It would be nice to just have a pull-down letting you choose which level weapon/tool/armor whatever you wish to make depending on your level ability. Not sure how hard that would be to implement, but it would make all these things a lot simpler for we players.

[ElDudorino]

It would be super easy to implement. Small tweak to the UI to add a quality selector that caps at your skill level and then in the crafting function they point it to that value instead of to your skill level value. Most of the code is already done. Just a matter of them actually choosing to add the option.

[...👑 JOST AMMAN 👑...]

Originally posted by ElDudorino:

It would be super easy to implement. Small tweak to the UI to add a quality selector that caps at your skill level and then in the crafting function they point it to that value instead of to your skill level value. Most of the code is already done. Just a matter of them actually choosing to add the option.

Looks like you're an expert... would it be possible for you to write a mod that deos that instead? (I'm not confident the devs will have time for this)

[Crater Creator]

It is an odd mechanic. In other parts of the game you don’t ‘price yourself out’ of the ability to do or get something. It fights against the idea of progressing: of your character’s permanent qualities only getting better if anything. Everywhere else, the answer to, “do you want higher skills” is yes. I agree with others that this could be forgiven if, one way or another, the parts you do have were still usable.

Proposal requiring minimal UI changes: your character crafts the highest quality item they can with what they have in their inventory. Then players can choose the quality they want.

Most of the time, I predict, people will want the highest quality possible for which they have the skill and parts. So they won’t even have to think about controlling how many parts are in their backpack. But maybe you’re in multiplayer, and you want to divvy up your parts to make axes for everyone on the team. Whatever. The choice would be in the player’s hands, and you’d never again be ‘priced out’ due to your skill level.

The UI/text impact for implementing this design would likely be A) colorizing the parts count in the crafting interface, e.g. if “7/5” is in yellow, it means you could craft a higher quality if you had more parts; and B) updating/adding the journal entry for parts explaining this new design.

[ElDudorino]

Yeah, I don't know how the UI part works. Seems like this could all be done as an XML modlet but I'm not sure where the buttons/counter live. XUi/controls.xml houses all the other UI elements making up the crafting window but I didn't notice anything that looked like the buttons. This is where it helps to be the one who wrote the code in the first place.

What I was able to do is create a modlet that makes every quality level cost the same as quality 1 so there's no penalty for going higher. I also made it so you can craft up to quality 6 because I really dislike the decision to make Q6 uncraftable. I can share the modlet if anyone wants to use it.

[8_Hussars]

Originally posted by ElDudorino:

It would be super easy to implement. Small tweak to the UI to add a quality selector that caps at your skill level and then in the crafting function they point it to that value instead of to your skill level value. Most of the code is already done. Just a matter of them actually choosing to add the option.

Not a modder,

but was thinking just add the recipe/schematics for Item level X, and have them unlock via dominate skill level.

[ElDudorino]

Originally posted by 8_Hussars:

Not a modder,

but was thinking just add the recipe/schematics for Item level X, and have them unlock via dominate skill level.

I mean, you COULD do that. Two thoughts, though:

1) I would hate to create that mod because it would entail a bunch of ultra-repetitive copy, paste, paste, paste, paste, paste, then replace the damage bonus for entity and block damage on each individual tier, manually replace each tier's name, and add each new item to the perk itself, then do it all over again for every T1-3 weapon, armor, and tool in the game. Maybe somebody else could think of a quick way to automate the repetitive parts but I'm not that clever.

2) Once created, you'd have a cluttered crafting menu showing 5-6 of every weapon, tool, and armor, which is just really ugly when you think about it. Armor in particular would just be awful to look at and sort through because if you searched for "Military" for example you would see 6 helmets, 6 body armors, 6 pairs of gloves, etc.

Maybe an interesting middle ground would be to have two variants of every non-T0 weapon, armor, and tool. Make one "basic" version that's always Q1 and then a "quality" version that goes from Q2 to Q6. That way you always have the choice of crafting a cheap version of something, and I don't think it would introduce TOO much clutter to the crafting menu.

Of course if I made it I would probably have the "basic" item go up to like Q3 or something but never go up in material cost because I just don't like that increased cost mechanic.

[Uncle Al]

Madmole has commented in the dev diary that he's been working on a crafting revamp. Not certain if it'll make it into the next alpha though.

Basically he wants to make crafting an entirely separate skill from weapon skills. One of his design goals is the quality you can make depends on both your skill and the item tier - so his example was if you're skilled enough to make a Q4 stone axe you might only be able to manage a Q2 iron axe.

I'm very hopeful this revamp will address a lot of crafting issues including making being more skilled always a benefit, the fact that iron tools are almost always worse than stone ones and the issue that crafted gear nearly always comes too late to be useful because you get a high quality item as loot or a quest reward long before you find enough parts to make one.

I've no idea if he'll manage to hit all those goals, not sure he knows yet, but I think it's safe to say we're not going to see minor tweaks to the existing system because a total overhaul is in the pipeline.

[FT]

Originally posted by Uncle Al:

Madmole has commented in the dev diary that he's been working on a crafting revamp.
so his example was if you're skilled enough to make a Q4 stone axe you might only be able to manage a Q2 iron axe.

I'm very hopeful this revamp will address a lot of crafting issues including making being more skilled always a benefit, the fact that iron tools are almost always worse than stone ones and the issue that crafted gear nearly always comes too late to be useful because you get a high quality item as loot or a quest reward long before you find enough parts to make one.

That's going to be a pain to explain to the player via the small text window/explanation for skills/crafting. I mean compared to the current "you can craft LVL4 items now" VS "you can craft lvl4 of this but only lvl3 of this and only lvl2 of this nicer one"...if that makes sense.
Just seems a little clumsy to explain even in that super simplified way.


Wouldn't a revamp like this make crafting higher-tier items even slower (more levels/points needed before you can craft high-lvl high-tier stuff)...so there's an even greater chance you'll just find or buy an equal/better one before you can craft it?

Might be knee-jerk, but I don't like the sound of what Madmole's explaining in that example.
I like OP's suggestion of having an option to craft lower-level stuff when desired though.
I purposely didn't level Robo-engineering because I wasn't sure how many MotionDetectors I'd need for a higher-lvl drone (until I later tested it in a junk/tester world to make sure).