Hey everyone!
If you've been following our development, you may have read that we're currently reworking the crafting system to simplify it and make it less painful to use overall. We'll be launching this update alongside with Level Streaming and the massive Nirvana expansion before the end of the year. This is a pretty large change to the game so we wanted to get your opinions on it before we just launched it silently and hoped for the best.
Overview Of The New Crafting System
- In order to streamline crafting resources the base elements such as carbon have been removed and are no longer needed to create crafting components. Components can now be found and looted directly from the world.
- Components have also been streamlined by removing their upgraded versions and simplifying their names. Can’t remember if you needed Dymop-something or Alumino-etc glass? It’s just “Glass” now.
- With the removal of upgraded components, a few leftover junk items have been converted to be extra crafting components to keep some variety in crafting recipes. Our new total for crafting components is 11, where it used to be almost 30.
- To free up inventory space Components now deposit directly into the Engineering menu and can be seen on the right panel (where the Elements used to be displayed) and each component has its own individual cap (99) instead of the shared cap that elements used.
- If a component in the menu is at its cap the component will be deposited into the inventory for storage or to feed to the recycler.
- All crafting recipes have been updated to only use components, with more and rarer components required for rare and powerful items as well as upgrades.
What does this achieve?
What all of this does is remove all those extra steps we used to have where you would have to check the requirements, go and craft the required components from elements (probably stop to check the recipe again, make sure all the items were still in your inventory and not dropped on the ground if your inventory was full), and finally craft the item. Now, you can clearly see if you have the required items or not, and if you do, it’s one button click and the item is yours.
Removing Harvesting
While the effect was pretty cool looking, harvesting elements from world items has been removed since elements are no longer part of the crafting process. That lamp on the table is now just a lamp, and not a random object that you hoped contained Silica. This also lets us dramatically reduce the number of things that need to be saved, loaded and monitored, improving performance.
Being able to harvest everything right from the beginning of the game also allowed the player to create a really strong base immediately without having to explore or work much for it. Changing over to predictable component drops would fix this.
Component Drops
Components will continue to spawn randomly in the world but now containers and enemies will have a chance to spawn components based on predetermined lists allowing for predictable and in some cases challenging drops. These lists are based on location or enemy type so if you need a Defense Module, for instance, Garrison may have what you are looking for, or maybe “ask” your nearest Seeker.
Salvage
When Salvaging buildable items or equipment roughly 1/3 of the total components used to craft the item will be randomly returned. Each component is capped to the items total crafting/upgrading cost so you may get lucky and have your rare items returned, but you won’t get more than went into the item in the first place.
To address a long running sustainability issue with hydroponics, food and drink items can now be Salvaged into Fertilizer with a chance to upgrade to a + or ++ version.
Other items have had their ability to be salvaged removed.
Repair
Removed the Solder item in favor of just using Repair Kits for all your damaged item needs. Repair Kits remain inventory items that will be consumed when used from the Engineering -> Repair menu. Repair Kits will automatically repair a defined percentage when used based on the items rarity, with rare items recovering less health per use than their more common counterparts.
To reflect the new importance of Repair Kits they are now craftable using a few base components, they're also more common to find in the world.
Conclusion
We hope that this new way of crafting fixes the issues that the previous system had while at the same time dramatically simplifying it and making it more enjoyable to use. Please comment below about your personal thoughts about this new system, you might think the old system was fine as it was, maybe you love the new idea or maybe you're somewhere in-between.
Thanks everyone! We look forward to your feedback.