New crafting/recipe handling system (status: In Progress)

Game Talk The Lab
1

So I’m working on some new additions to our crafting system. This primarily takes the form of three new attributes for items, and a slight change to crafting recipe requirement.

Quality
First up is the ability for items to have a “Tool Quality”. An example of tool quality would be “Cutting: 3”, indicating a given item can be used for cutting recipes and is more effective than an item with Cutting: 2 or Cutting: 1. Some recipes may require tools to have at least a certain quality level.

This may end up playing a role in the quality of the resulting item, but for now the primary purpose is to adjust how long it takes a recipe to be completed. With the details of my current implementation, you can complete a basic recipe more than six times faster by using the best tools available.

Components
The second part of the new system will be the introduction of tracked “components”. Every item that spawns can have a list of components referring to other items, and when disassembled it will break down into those components. However, that list of components is dynamic - crafted versions of the items may have different components completely, and breaking them down will return the items that went into it. Recipes will be tweaked to have two types of what used to be components - Components, and Consumables. Components will occupy the component list of the new item, and consumables will be destroyed as ALL components are now.

Durability
The final part of this change will involve adding a “durability” rating to items. When using an item as a tool (and presumably, in the future, as a weapon) there is a chance the item will take damage based on it’s durability. When an item takes damage, it may become broken or unusable or may experience a decrease in effectiveness. I haven’t worked out the exact details of the durability system yet, and I expect the initial system to be far more simplified than the ultimate destination. But my initial plan at the moment calls for something like this:

When an item is used as a tool for a basic recipe, there is a 1 in Current Durability chance of the item suffering damage, and the item suffers between 1 and Current Durability in damage. When it reaches zero durability, the item breaks, and some components may break with it. A broken item can either be repaired (assuming no components have broken, and is basically just a new crafting check) or disassembled (and potentially re-crafted).

2

Interesting.

Would there be methods of maintaining said items, once it is implemented for weapons, based on what they are? For instance, a simple rag and alcohol can be used to “repair” a lightly damaged gun, but a lightly damaged melee weapon might need a sharpening stone/ duct tape for a new grip.

Also, are you guys going to add in the ability to set the quantity of an item made from a recipe in the recipe file? I saw it as a possibility on the issues page, but recent personal issues have been getting in the way of me contributing to that myself, despite my challenge to Soron.

3

No plans at the current time.

4

How would the IT fit into that? It is currently super powerful as it is, and having it count as the best tools would make it even more powerful. Maybe split it up into something like:

Consumer Grade Integrated Toolset - low quality tools, highest power drain, most common
Commercial Grade Integrated Toolset - greater quality tools, lower power drain, uncommon, will replace consumer grade if installed already
Industrial Grade Integrated Toolset - even higher quality tools, even lower power drain, fairly rare, will replace commercial or consumer grade
Military Grade Integrated Toolset - highest quality tools, lowest power drain, extremely rare, will replace any other installed toolset

Or split the tools into separate ITs based on professions (mechanics IT, woodcrafting IT, etc)?

I think this would make the crafting system a little more complicated, especially when you factor power drain into it, and you have recipes with requirements like: (consumer IT: 10 charges) OR (commercial IT: 5 charges) OR (industrial IT: 2 charges) OR (military IT: 1 charge).

5

[quote=“vache, post:4, topic:1346”]How would the IT fit into that? It is currently super powerful as it is, and having it count as the best tools would make it even more powerful. Maybe split it up into something like:

Consumer Grade Integrated Toolset - low quality tools, highest power drain, most common
Commercial Grade Integrated Toolset - greater quality tools, lower power drain, uncommon, will replace consumer grade if installed already
Industrial Grade Integrated Toolset - even higher quality tools, even lower power drain, fairly rare, will replace commercial or consumer grade
Military Grade Integrated Toolset - highest quality tools, lowest power drain, extremely rare, will replace any other installed toolset

Or split the tools into separate ITs based on professions (mechanics IT, woodcrafting IT, etc)?

I think this would make the crafting system a little more complicated, especially when you factor power drain into it, and you have recipes with requirements like: (consumer IT: 10 charges) OR (commercial IT: 5 charges) OR (industrial IT: 2 charges) OR (military IT: 1 charge).[/quote]

While I think that as tool quality improves, so should the power cost, lower costs could be simulated by adding a “buffer power” to more efficient toolsets. They would get a set chunk of power (or a multiple) to make up for the difference between their draw, and the greatest common denominator.

6

Y’know, I don’t bother with handloading in-game due to all the fiddly part-requirements (lead, gunpowder, right size primer, etc).

I’d really really hate for that sort of maintenance requirement to apply to everything in-game; it’s one of the reasons I can’t be arsed to play NetHack.

“Sorry, you can’t butcher this $ZED because your Combat Knife is too dull. Sorry, you can’t sharpen your Combat Knife because your Sharpening Kit is out of Oil. Sorry, you can’t get more Oil because the $ZED just reanimated and is attacking you. Sorry, you can’t stab the $ZED because your Combat Knife is too dull. Game Over! Press spacebar…”

7

Personally, I’d like to keep it well away from that level of stuff. I think some people may want something of the sort, but that’s not the gameplay I’m trying to promote here. Almost any commercial grade stuff will be pretty durable, and it breaking is mostly an incentive to go back to scavenging. It’s also a reason TO scavenge instead of just using crappy primitive tools, since they are so easy to make.

I imagine very few recipes will be limited by quality level - maybe gun pieces will require some higher level carving ability to craft, and I could see requiring different heat levels of fire being a thing for various recipes. Advanced electronics may require some precision tools. But the better tools will almost always be the more durable ones anyway.

8

Might be a good idea to add in lots (and I do mean lots) of new tool and raw material objects.
Yes it’s a pipe, but what size of pipe? Hand drill or power drill? Nail or screw or glue? Beaker or flask or test tube?

I think a good way to know how complete the system is, would be to look at how much material and what type of tools you use to create a pipe rifle, which is hopefully much more than the 2 tools and 2 materials it takes now. Then of course create alternate building plans that incorporate the new items. Hardware store with a tool-repair or custom workshop back room; a pharmacy that’s able to synthesize simple chemicals instead of just being a drug-based retail store; a gun store that has a room where the gun range would be, which refills spent casings and repairs guns.
A list of some possible “tool” objects:

Large movable or almost impossible to carry objects, like the steel compactor behind hardware stores:

  • Powered… Lathe, Drill Press, Planer, Circular Saw Table, Band Saw, Jig Saw, Industrial Laser/Water cutting machine, industrial sand blaster, 3D Printing/CAD milling machine, Power sheet metal press/roller
  • Hand (or rather, Foot) operated… Drill press, jig saw, band saw, etc

Smaller objects that can or must be “attached” to something like a table to work properly, but can be carried with some difficulty:

  • Hand metal C-Vise, hand-operated bullet press/pull, hand-operated casing primer punch-out, powered automatic casing reloading machine, Hand saw cutting jig

Hand tools that can be used by themselves, without furniture, and can be carried easily:

  • Power/hand drill, power/hand grinder/sander, sand/bb blaster, chisels, files, power circular saw, square and normal ruler, measuring tape, plumb bob, hand clamps, caulking gun, glue gun, socket wrenches, torque wrenches, monkey wrenches…
  • Tool “resources” like drill bits, grinding discs, glue sticks, caulk, sand paper, replacement blades, and the long awaited “screws” and “solder” (and flux) which seem to be missing despite screw drivers and soldering irons being everywhere. Tool resources like drill bits would act like attachments to guns do; each use and the attachments also suffer wear+tear.
  • Most of the tools we have now already, but altered: Robertson, Philips, Hexagonal screw drivers and experiencing real life frustrations about the wrong type/size!

Only joking on that last one.
Something that should [I]NOT[/I] happen is a “too detailed” situation, where the player cannot continue because “oops I grabbed the wrong set” and then returns to town to find no matching item, and then searches the surrounding area only to discover there isn’t any matching item for the next 2-5 towns. Granted you could get away with it on something like screw drivers if you had another tool like a grinder, “You grind the Octagonal screwdriver into a Philips head” but getting into things like specific sizes (screws are size 5 and you have size 7) or hilarious things like “security screws” is putting too much reliance on the rand-dumb number god to give you something reliably often (you don’t spend 3 days looking for a new sheet of sand paper for your power/hand sander) that you cannot make yourself. If you do, you really have to make sure there’s overlay between items, and that a character who’s “smart” enough can know that “Yeah you can use silicone instead of rubber there” and do new things like cutting up rubber gloves for rubber chunks (which can be melted and poured into a mold) or even actually be able to chop up wool clothing and re-knit themselves wool clothes.

In fact, do that last one as a test of the system you’re working on. Do it now, I need my wool socks and knit wool hat.
Then slowly add in everything until you get the whole system working in v1.0

Edit - Oh, and how do you expect to handle chemistry under the system? I would prevent players attempting to manually mix chemicals, and to avoid uh “Legal issues” with the more explosive chemicals, work the system so it’s based off of a “This is an explosives manual, it can teach your character how to make TNT” and then the player collects sealed jars of chemical elements and chem-lab type tools, and goes directly from raw material to finished product without any in-between states. Last thing anyone wants is for some dumbass to actually attempt to create nitro-whatever and blow themselves up, or worse (succeed, and blow something else up) because, who knows how many times the “Grow awesome crystals!” image macro of “pouring ammonia and bleach together while blowing into the mixture with a straw” has actually hurt or killed someone stupid enough to trust the internet; since it produces chlorine gas. (and I wish DDA would be leveled on that officially, too; not “tear gas” but “toxic gas that will kill you”)

9
Quality First up is the ability for items to have a "Tool Quality". An example of tool quality would be "Cutting: 3", indicating a given item can be used for cutting recipes and is more effective than an item with Cutting: 2 or Cutting: 1. Some recipes may require tools to have at least a certain quality level.

I don’t see where the real fuss is, the item usage expansion is OK, though.
There is a set of tools for almost everything. If you wanted to connect (idea!) to a secret military telephone network, you’d need a :
Telephone (page me if you need the recipe)
2xcopper wire (6 ft)
string (6 ft)
some plastic wrap, maybe wire wrapping
two small RJs

…and that is if you don’t do the shielding on a wire. Tools are in the CHM set, that stands for computer/hardware maintenance. If you apply quality inquiries on per-tool basis, you get 200 uses. Or fifty. The reason behind this would be - if someone did find a cutting implement and tried to do electronics (much alike scraping pressed wiring on a motherboard) he’d suffer great penalties, and/or its usage would be limited. Needless to say, miscellania does have severe uses, but it’s usage span is short.

So far as the durability issue alone, hand-made stuff should be initially treated as used.