This week we focused on adding new craftable items to the game, particularly in the metal casting crafting tree.
New Machines
Molding Bench
Patterns can be turned into sand molds using this machine.
Casting Bench
Molten metal can be poured into molds in this machine, leaving you with a strong cast component.
Recycling Bench
Scavenged metal and electronic scrap is broken down to components using this bench. The addition of the proper tools can increase the amount of items you receive when breaking things down.
Because of the sheer number of items we will have in the game, it became clear that some basic validation of the item data was needed so that we don't inadvertently allow mistakes to creep in as we create items for the game. To that end, some very basic sanity checks were added to the item library that should alert us if we make mistakes when adding new items to the game.
In addition, we can now generate some basic reports about what items are craftable in-game, and which machine blocks are required to do so. This will eventually be presented to the player by way of a browse-able crafting tree, so now we have the foundation for that in-place. Originally, we were tracking this by hand in spreadsheets, but that method is prone to error and gets out of date quickly. This way, there's only one true representation that is guaranteed to be up-to-date.
-Trev