Hey everyone!
In this part of our development blog, we wanted to share some details about the crafting system and various professions in Ars Notoria.
There are various crafting professions available in the game, which characters can learn to create new items and make them stronger. Each one focuses on a specific area of crafting and unlocks unique item recipes. The professions include the following types:
- Alchemist - scholar that studies minerals and elements to combine them into dangerous explosives, acids, powders, or to create protective barriers.
- Weaponsmith - craftsman that can create all kinds of weapons from swords and polearms, to pistols and rifles.
- Armorer - artisan that specializes in crafting different types of armor (light, medium, and heavy) and defensive equipment like shields.
- Jeweler - master of producing magical accessories that can be used to cast spells and improve the strength of the user’s magic.
- Apothecary - healer that brews various potions, tinctures, elixirs, and also specialize in poisons and ways to neutralize them.
- Carpenter - expert in building any types of wooden constructions, equipment, and devices.
- Engineer - inventor that is able to build unique upgrades for existing equipment and tools to greatly improve their efficiency.
- Mason - builder that can create stone constructions of any complexity, raise stone walls, towers, and fortify the settlements.
- Merchant - tradesman who can bring exotic items and resources from different remote regions and also sell goods there.
Each of the professions has its own crafting tools and equipment that are necessary to create items. For example, Weaposmith has access to Hammer, Bellows, Anvil, Rifling Machine, Polishing Wheel, and Forge. These tools allow to craft additional types of weapons and improve their quality. By using these crafting tools, Weaponsmiths are able to create Swords, Blunt Weapons, Polearms, Pistol, Rifles, and Hand Mortars.
Each piece of crafting equipment has three levels, and every level allows working with higher quality materials and unlocks more advanced items. It can be upgraded by using better resources that you can find while exploring the region’s territories. You can create new equipment from the building menu and place it anywhere you want: inside the houses that you’ve built, in dedicated workshops, or just outside in the temporary camp.
Resources that are used for crafting can be divided into two main categories: basic and special. Basic resources include common materials like wood, stone, iron, leather, fabric, glass, and other types. They can be used in construction and also serve as a base ingredient for most of the craftable equipment. These materials are abundant throughout the region and are relatively easy to find. Raw materials that you find can also be processed into more advanced ones by using corresponding tools. For example, Iron Ore can be processed into Iron Ingots, Logs of Wood into Lumber, and Clay into Bricks or Ceramics.
Special resources include minerals, gemstones, elements, metal shards, rare types of wood and herbs, etc. They can be used to craft equipment and items with unique properties. For example, some uncommon materials can grant additional fire resistance to armor parts or can be used to add burning effects to weapons. Special resources are typically harder to find than basic ones, and they require expeditions to dungeon depths or remote deposits.
Apart from the crafting equipment, another important feature of professions is Skills. Each profession has two related skill trees that can you can develop to make craftable items more powerful and grant them additional properties. By creating new items and using them in combat, you can level up the corresponding skills and unlock new abilities.
The skill trees for each profession are the following:
- Alchemy and Explosives for Alchemists
- Armament and Ballistics for Weaponsmiths
- Light Armor and Heavy Armor for Armorers
- Relics and Inlay for Jewelers
- Medicine and Toxicology for Apothecaries
- Supply and Coordination for Carpenters
- Engineering and Technology for Engineers
- Fortification and Organization for Masons
- Logistics and Navigation for Merchants
You can build your own workshops or acquire existing ones for all professions and use them to organize the production of items and their trade. It’s up to you if you prefer to craft everything yourself or entrust it to your faction members instead. They can be assigned to work in workshops and complete tasks like collecting and processing resources, crafting items, and either leaving them for you to use in combat or selling to the inhabitants of the region, providing an additional source of income for your faction. As time passes, the assigned craftsmen will perfect their skills and become able to craft higher-quality items with unique properties.
Thank you for checking out this development blog post! The crafting system in the game is quite complex, and it’s hard to explain all the details about it in a single article. We will continue to cover crafting in future articles, focusing more on individual professions, their crafting tools, resources, skills, and what types of items they produce.