Ok, so how does crafting work?

[Detective Costeau]

So, if I'm understanding right, I'm supposed to test combinations of items I have as cargo to try and find recipes I can craft, but.... how do I actually *do* that? There's nothing to do in the crafting or slavage tabs, and the science tab tells me I need to put at least four components in to run a test, but... I can't figure out how to do that. Clicking on stuff in my ship's cargo does nothing, trying to drag cargo does nothing, clicking on the empty boxes does nothing.... how do I actually do this?

[Ryan Dorkoski]

Yeah I'm struggling with this, too. I'm also curious of the value of crafting. Is it to make items to sell?

[Detective Costeau]

Okay, so still flailing at it, but it looks like the normal cargo you get doesn't go into research. I've been picking up random technical doodads from... honestly I'm not sure exactly how I got them, but they appear to be a different 'kind' of item than the goods you carry in your ship's cargo.
I still haven't found four of them to do anything with, though.
Pity, I really want to figure out how to make better spacesuits for my away teams- the starting 63 oxygen limit ends up making planetary exploration unnecessarily tedious, and I'd *really* like to be able to explore a planet without making 15 trips back to the shuttle.

[Ryan Dorkoski]

Well, its the functional parts you break down. So if you get a new gun for your ship (or crew), you break it down. You then get the recipe for that item plus the parts that made it up.

I guess my question is why would I want to make that thing again.

[Ryan Dorkoski]

Also, do you know that if the atmosphere has oxygen you can explore as much as you want? It'll still run out, but then your crew will be fine.

[Detective Costeau]

I do know, but the last time I did that the whole away team died of a horrible disease. I suppose I should just start channeling Star Trek and start treating the away teams as expendable, it's not like crew is that expensive to replace, and there doesn't appear to be crew morale to worry about yet. :P

[Ryan Dorkoski]

Well maybe you were just unlucky. That doesn't happen to me often.

Oh, I think I'm closer to figuring out crafting. It seems the blueprint you get is maybe for a generic 'side arm', say, and now I'm try to craft that to see if it ends up being something snazzy.

[Axeking]

You can get crafting parts in 3 ways that I know of:
- salvaging components (ship or away team equipment). This will get you the schematic and some parts, or just parts if you already have the schematic
- find them on ship wrecks. They are fairly common here. Rarely on the surface of planets
- in caves, also fairly common.

To use them to discover schematics:
-On the lab tab you will have a list of all the parts you currently have in inventory, plus quantity (the number after the part name) .
- beside this list you have 5 test patterns available. One will have a green light beside it - this is the currently selected one.
-you select parts to try in a test by clicking on the circle beside the part letter. It will go green, and the part will show in the test pattern.
-once you have selected 6 parts to test, you click the test button. This will consume one of each of the 6 parts.
- the results will show either red or green marks for each part. Green ones go together, red ones don't. Remove the red ones and add something else. Test again. Repeat until you run out f parts or get all green = find a new schematic.

Note that parts for each schematic change every time you start a new game...
(continued)

[Axeking]

Normal crafting (which yields actual components) is done on the crafting tab.

Here you see the schematics you know, and the list of parts required. If you have all the required parts, you will see a "build" button. Click it to consume the indicated quantity of parts and produce 1 of the selected component.

Crew skills affect both the quantity of each part needed, and the quality of the product made.

Possibly the crafting lab and artifacts might also modify the requirements and/or results.

And remember that the schematic part requirements change every new game...

[Ryan Dorkoski]

Originally posted by Axeking:

You can get crafting parts in 3 ways that I know of:
- salvaging components (ship or away team equipment). This will get you the schematic and some parts, or just parts if you already have the schematic
- find them on ship wrecks. They are fairly common here. Rarely on the surface of planets
- in caves, also fairly common.

To use them to discover schematics:
-On the lab tab you will have a list of all the parts you currently have in inventory, plus quantity (the number after the part name) .
- beside this list you have 5 test patterns available. One will have a green light beside it - this is the currently selected one.
-you select parts to try in a test by clicking on the circle beside the part letter. It will go green, and the part will show in the test pattern.
-once you have selected 6 parts to test, you click the test button. This will consume one of each of the 6 parts.
- the results will show either red or green marks for each part. Green ones go together, red ones don't. Remove the red ones and add something else. Test again. Repeat until you run out f parts or get all green = find a new schematic.

Note that parts for each schematic change every time you start a new game...
(continued)

But the guess work feels very random, right? Like it'll take a ton of time and luck, right?

[Ryan Dorkoski]

Originally posted by Axeking:

Normal crafting (which yields actual components) is done on the crafting tab.

Here you see the schematics you know, and the list of parts required. If you have all the required parts, you will see a "build" button. Click it to consume the indicated quantity of parts and produce 1 of the selected component.

Crew skills affect both the quantity of each part needed, and the quality of the product made.

Possibly the crafting lab and artifacts might also modify the requirements and/or results.

And remember that the schematic part requirements change every new game...

So this is the problem. I don't see a 'build' button. I do have all the required parts.

EDIT: Oh wait, I need 7/7 for example. Not just one. This is very helpful. Thank you for taking the time!!!

[Detective Costeau]

Hey, thanks for that, that's a very detailed and helpful breakdown of it.

[Axeking]

Originally posted by Ryan Dorkoski:

Yeah I'm struggling with this, too. I'm also curious of the value of crafting. Is it to make items to sell?

You can craft items far better than those you can buy (eventually). And anything you craft that isn't good enough can either be sold, or salvaged to get some of the parts back.

If your crew is good enough at crafting, certain items can provide good income by crafting and selling...

[Ryan Dorkoski]

Perfect. Thank you!!

[Misery]

Okay, I'll try to explain how crafting works. Key word here is "try", I'm not always so good at explanations.

First, you need recipes. Duh. Sometimes you can just find these lying around (rare), and sometimes you might get one from salvaging. When you're on the salvage screen, it hints to whether or not you can learn anything from salvaging any given equipment.

While that's all well and good, what you're really after is components. LOTS of them. As many as you can conceivably get. I tend to salvage instead of sell things, rarely ever using the pawn shop at stations. It can also be worth buying low-cost things purely to salvage them. Also, stations start selling them, which you can see on the first screen. They only sell one type at a time but you can buy as many as you want and they usually dont cost much.

"components" are never things in your cargo. They dont even count towards your cargo limit. They're held in a seperate inventory, which can be seen in the lab screen. You get components either from salvaging equipment, or from stations. Only equipment or trade items ever go into your cargo.

When you go to craft something, you cant really know *exactly* what you'll get in advance. There are skills that your captain or officers can get that drastically improve the results of any crafting. Look for the skill "Build It Better" for this. It's always one of the first things I go for, and I usually choose that specific profession for my captain when starting a new game (I *think* it's engineering). There's another skill that also lowers the number of components needed for crafting in general. Sometimes you can also find ship devices that enhance crafting results as well (cant remember what it's called).

The lab is where you can get alot more schematics. In the "pattern" thing, there's 6 slots for components. Choose 6... it doesnt really matter which 6, and I think it can be a couple less than 6 also (I always just put 6 in). Hit test. Green components are "correct", red are "incorrect". After a test, turn off the red ones by clicking their names. The green ones will stay lit. Add new other ones to replace the red ones you just removed, and test again (which will use more of the original green ones as well). Get enough greens and BAM, you've got a new recipe.

The nice thing is, you dont have to do all of the testing at once. Notice that there are like 5 or so of those "pattern" bits in the lab. Whatever they're called. I call them testing stations. On the right side of the screen, those things. If you're doing testing, you've got a few lit up as green in one of the patterns, but maybe the components marked as green are specifically getting low (from all the testing) and you want to get more before you continue down that line of testing, you can go click on one of the other patterns, and start a new set of tests using entirely different components. The pattern you were working on before will remember everything you'd done with it, so you can go back to that testing station whenever you want. Even if you leave the crafting screen entirely and come back later.



There's probably a couple of details I've forgotten, I've got a memory like a cheese grater.

Hopefully that helps though.

For what it's worth, it took me bloody ages to figure out how it works. The whole system is great once you get the hang of it, but it really could use with a detailed tutorial. Originally (when playing the Shrapnel version), I tried to look it up online and see if anyone had written a guide explaining it anywhere, since I couldnt tell what in the world was happening, but.... it's kinda telling that I couldnt find one, yet DID find people going "what the heck is this, how does it work".

[Misery]

Well, dang, got ninja'd there.