The latest patch adds the first pass at the crafting and salvaging system. The crafting system lets you craft almost every item that can be equipped in the game other than faction armor, ammo, grenades, and devices.
Crafting requires the disassembly of items you find in your travels. When salvaging, you learn about the items you are disassembling and eventually, you earn a schematic so you can craft that item.
Salvaging – process items found in your travels into component parts for crafting.
- You must mark items in your inventories (CTRL-Click – General/Stash/Cargo Hold).
- Once items are marked, you can access the salvage toolbox from the inventory menu via a new icon above the general inventory.
- Junk items generate finishing materials used in the crafting finish process.
- Weapons, armor and other items that can be equipped generate primary crafting components.
- Salvaged items are placed in a separate infinite inventory. This inventory feeds the crafting bench and parts are automatically placed on the crafting table.
- As you salvage items, you will earn experience towards unlocking a schematic for that item. At times you may even gain experience towards the next tier schematic.
Crafting – Once you unlock a schematic, you can craft the item. All schematics come in various quality tiers that need to be unlocked. Schematics are also a very rare drop from loot crates, cargo containers, enemy packs, and lockers.
Crafting requires a number of items:
- (Required) Base item components of the same quality tier salvaged from a similar item
- (Required – In cargo hold or station storage) Refined ore. You can mine ore and refine the ore, or purchase from the Trade-Net
- (Optional – In cargo hold or station storage) Rare earth minerals to clear conditions. You can mine ore or purchase from the Trade-Net
- (Optional – In cargo hold or station storage) Finishing items salvaged from junk and rewarded during salvaging of equipment
Rare earth minerals and finishing items are optional, however, they are very important and you could end up with a sub-par item if you do not have any on hand when crafting.
To craft an item:
- Travel to any trade station and look for a crafting station. Crafting stations have a unique icon on the radar and map.
- Select the crew member you want to craft and select the crafting station. The crafting table will be shown.
- On the top left is a list of unlocked schematics (if any are unlocked). Choose one.
- You may need to adjust a few initial values before you start crafting. For example, when crafting a weapon, make sure to set the correct weapon skill level before selecting the begin crafting button. When crafting an item for your ship, make sure the correct ship is selected.
- All items except for weapons can be “re-rolled” That is, you can re-roll a number of base equipment stats.
- When you are ready, select the processing button and start crafting.
Processing:
- Each process step will expend AP
- If successful, the quality of the item will improve.
- At various stages, negative and positive “conditions” may arise. You can select a condition to expend a single unit of rare earth for that step to clear negative conditions and activate positive conditions.
Finishing:
- Once all AP is expended, the item is ready for finishing.
- Select your finishing options if any. The higher the quality, the more options.
- Select the “Finish Crafting” button and the item will be placed in your inventory or cargo hold.
About progression:
- Primary crafting components cannot be purchased. They can only be gained by salvaging equipment.
- Occasionally you are rewarded crafting components for next tier items when salvaging as a bonus
- The higher your skill in salvaging, the more components you get when salvaging an item. In some cases, you may be able to salvage enough components to build several items of a similar type.
- The value of crafted items of high quality exceeds the value of any similar items you might loot.
- Occasionally you are rewarded experience towards the next tier schematic when salvaging a lower tier item
- Higher tier schematics require more disassembly than lower-tier schematics. Bonus experience offsets the number of items you need to disassemble to unlock that next tier.
- You can find schematics when looting ship containers and gear in ground missions. These are extremely rare.
- You are rewarded experience regardless of failures when salvaging.
- Schematic experience is rewarded for every component that is disassembled. It is best to use the third salvaging option initially that rewards additional schematic unlock EXP.
Grenades and ammo will have a separate utility device that will let you break down these objects and craft other ammo types. That will come in a future patch.
The patch includes entries in the in-game guide for salvaging and crafting for reference.
Armor visual types are random for now until I can get more sets in the game. I’ll also likely add an “appearance” slot in the future that lets you equip a visual appearance of your choice. The faction armor set appearances are reserved for faction armor.
Perks are not available for Salvaging and Crafting at this time. As usual, I’ll add those after I gather more feedback on the system.
Note: Salvaging has been moved to the general skill area. It is no longer a space specific skill.
There are a few other things I’d like to do with salvaging – salvaging enemy ship wreckage and various items found in ground exploration locations.
I hope you enjoy the crafting system. I’ll be reading feedback on the forums and will make adjustments over time.
So, what’s next? I’ll be updating the ground combat animations and adding weapon-specific special attacks. I’ve gathered a lot of feedback from the community and there will be a few new options for targeting enemies and displaying target information. In general, I’ll be taking a deep dive into the combat system and adding a new pass at polishing the ground combat system.
After that, boarding. I have everything I need for this now including all the ship interiors. I know many of you have been waiting for this and I’m eager to get started.
General patch notes and fixes:
FIXED: A rare case where ship cargo could not be looted
FIXED: A rare case where incursions would not trigger
FIXED: Duplicate stats on high-quality armor
FIXED: Map, load/save and cargo storage screens close with the ESC key
FIXED: A few UI font scale issues
FIXED: A few typos
FIXED: A bug related to the correct rollover info displayed for equipped devices
UPDATED: FTL Drives and refineries are now dropped as loot in ship containers
UPDATED: Stun grenade effect reduced from three to two combat rounds
UPDATED: Frag grenade damage increased
UPDATED: Gas grenade damage increased per round of damage
As always, thanks for supporting Stellar Tactics.