Posted on 09 April 2006 at 03:59:55 by Magi. |

Crafting Guide

My take on crafting for the beginner, probably a repeat of thefirst post in many cases. Also please excuse any typos, I did notproofread.

Crafting – What do I need to stick in this thing?

Crafting in AA was a mystery to me the first time I tried tofigure it out. I am by no means a master and I still have a lotto learn but I think I can help the beginner get his feet wet. Asa mek I taught myself, painfully. As a human there was a quest Igot that walked me through it. As a mutant I used what I learnedin the first two. These instructions will ignore any quest youhave that "walks" you through crafting.

Please note I'm making numbers and components up and these mostlikely will not reflect what is actually needed in game. Also Imay be a little off on what skills do.

Skills:
Reverse Engineering – Make a working item broken, or destroyit and make it vanish.
Experimentation – Add components to an item and potentiallyadd enhancements to it.
Memorization – The ability to remember how to make somethingso you don't need a broken version.
Tinkering – Increase chance to successfully open gadgetslots, I think. I haven't used this, so tinkering will not bediscussed here.

Basic must haves:
A broken item – example Aged Basic Power Plant
Training in the skill to fix said broken item – listed onthe item description along with the skill level required to fixsaid item Salvaged components to fix broken item – These mayneed to be refined to fit the broken item requirements, alsolisted on the broken item.

What am I looking at?
Coils, Salvaged Nanites, Salvaged Wiring, Plating, Broken armorpiece, Brokent Power Plant

The broken items can be repaired using your salvaged items.Sometimes it is required that these salvaged be refined to theitem you need. This is performed as a service for a small fee atthe refinery. I will get into this in more detailed with thecrafting example.

How do I know what I need?
Hover your arrow over the broken item and the details of it willpop up. You will see a list of components needed to fix it andalso the skill used and the level needed in that skill to fix it.For this example we'll skip the power plant and use armor. I havea Broken Nanoplasteel Armor. On scroll it says I need PatchedNanites, Plating, Armor crafting-9, and a Fabrication Plant. Thismeans I need the broken item, Salvaged Nanites that have beenrefined into one patched nanite and one plating. Also, I need tohave an armor crafting skill of 9 in order to succeed and I needto be standing somewhat close to the fabrication plant.

If you simply right click on the broken item it will bring up thecrafting screen with that item highlighted. The screen basicallygive you an inventory of everything you have that's broken on thetop left, the item on the right and on the bottome what you needto fix it and if you have it or not. If you have all you need thelittle pictures of the components will not be red. If you passall necessary criteria – I'm at the Fabrication Plant, Ihave my broken item, I have my plating, I refined my salvagedNanites into a Patched Nanite, I have worked on the skill toadvance myself to 9 – the Assemble button will be enabledand I click it to make the item.

You will succeed it you have all components and you haven't triedto add any enhancements. Some broken items have enhancementsalready. This just means you will have a longer list ofcomponents required to fix the item. That's it, you crafted theitem, hopefully got a skill increase and you can move on to thenext item. For example the cool gun you found that's broken,you'll just need to head over to the control shop after refiningany required materials.

Things that can alter your results or happen upon completion.
The luck of the draw was with you and you memorized what wasneeded to make this. You get asked if you would like to committhis recipe to memory. You start with 3 available memory slots soyou click yes I want to memorize this. Now in your craftingscreen you with see (M) and the name of this item. Now with onlythe components you can make this item appear out of thin air. Youdon't need a broken version in order to make it, just thecomponents and you can sell all of these for a profit and to workyour skill.

You tried to add some items to potentially enhance this piece ofarmor. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't, it's a random occurrenceof what will happen. Well you failed and all you got was thegeneric item, or you succeeded and now the item has the originalstats along with some bonus statistics. I haven't succeeded withan enhancement yet so I can't tell you what happens when it doeswork.

My recommendations:
These are based on the in game quests as they are a good idea.Pickup the skills for armor, projectile weapons, and powerplants. Go to the junk vendor, you're soon to be good buddy for acheap upgrade piece, and buy one of each training kit. Check thekit to see what components you need and go to the correct area toput the kit together. Magically on 2 out of 3 you got asked tomemorize the item. I recommend memorizing it for skill gainingsake. You can now make them without having to buy the kit. Orsomeone in AA really liked you and you got to memorize all 3. Wayto go, you have some easy skill gains until the items goes easyon you an getting the skill gain points becomes more difficult.

Now my 3 memory slots are full and I've worked a couple items togain skill points in each. What does the junk vendor have for me?He's got a broken Power Plant that far exceeds the current heapyour towing around in your care and all for a mere 30 clink. Afixed one half as nice was selling for 90 on a vendor. You checkout the item and see that your 5 skill is what you need to fixthis and you don't need to go out smashing building and carsbecause you've got the wiring and radioactive material you need.You buy the broken junk, refine your radioactive stuff to patchedalong with the wiring and head to the Power Plant craftingstation. You hit assemble and it's made, plus you happened tomemorize it – oh no your slots are full! No worries, it'stime to move on. Hit accept and replace that power plant trainingkit that went trivial on you with this new very hard to createpower plant. Now you've got a new item to skill up on and also tosell for some cold hard clink.

Perhaps you want to skill up on guns and the junk vendor hasnone. Well you can take a gun you looted from some piker buggyand reverse engineer it. This will either destroy it or simplybreak it. If it breaks you can repair it for a skill up andhopeful memorize hit so you don't need to keep breaking it,risking the loss of the item. Reverse engineering can takespoints like the other 4 skills as detailed in game. I found ithelpful when trying to experiment on a saved item.

That's it for now. I found knowing this much pretty much was thebackbone for crafting and I am now no longer confused as to whatthe heck is going on.

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Grimluk