Crafting?

This is a good question. Underlying it all is another one.

What would you be able to craft?

 

I posted an idea on this in another thread.

Let's say you do quests for some aliens. They give you a blue print to their ship.    

 

Previously, in Star Control 2, you gain alien ships that you encounter if they join your fleet and automatically got the option to build their ships using credits (from resources you turn in for credits). 

 

Well- why not in this version of the game- the ship joins you but to make more of the ship, you need to craft/build them.  Find specific parts and specific resources. 

Also- crafting new Weapons/Equipment for your Flag ship.

 

Hmm, I think I like the idea of maybe having blueprints for flagship upgrades. If it's extended to the regular ships as well though, seems like it would be possible to put players into dead ends where they're not able to fight, or explore anymore. And it would limit different play styles. If it's just for the flagship (or maybe just the higher tiers of the flagship) seems like that would make it a special goal, rather than constant maintenance.

While crafting may add a certain fun side to it the game is mostly for the storyline, atmosphere, mystery, and space combat.

 

Too much crafting would detract from the game. Then again too little crafting would make crafting meaningless. In other words crafting may not be a good fit for SC2 since getting the right balance will be quite hard and we don't want developers wasting time on getting that balance right.

 

Quest based crafting isn't really crafting as then fixing the Ultron can be considered as crafting lol .

 

One of the ways I could see crafting working is in making your own mothersip.

Afterall SC2 had a highly Precursor vessel that you could swap modules.

 

But perhaps you could develop that further and modify the actual mothership. Of course it would for the larger part be only cosmetic changes.

But you could add a TWIST. Companion ships or enemy ships can be merged or absorbed into your mothership to combine stats and features.

If it is merged then like transformers or power rangers you can disengage those ships so that they can help fight the battle.

 

Now that would be interesting. It would be like "pokemon" meets "Buu/Cell" meets "transformers" meets "SC2 Precursor ship"

I'd like to see crafting in the game, it's another great mechanic that sets my blood pumping when I find that rare ingredient to complete something valuable.

 

Great ideas!! Taking it a step further, how about crafting Power-Ups (https://forums.starcontrol.com/473610/page/1/#3604848) or other one-time use items as welll?  Or crafting commodities like fuel or rarer crafting mats?

 

A lot of this discussion of crafting reminds me of early imaginings that I had about the briefly-glimpsed Mark II flagship from the end of SC2.

Since the SC2 flagship, despite its large size, was really just a small scout ship by Precursor standards, it stood to reason that a real Precursor frigate or cruiser designed for deep space exploration (like the various Enterprises on their multi-year missions!) would probably have a means of being more self-sustaining, and I thought about how neat it would be if the Mark II had its own onboard refinery and manufacturing facilities that could perform similar operations as the Earth starbase, although perhaps on a smaller scale or slower rate (e.g. you can't just build a module immediately, you have to start building it and wait for it to complete).

Likewise, whereas the starbase could convert your entire manifest immediately into resource units for production, maybe a larger Precursor cruiser like the Mark II could only convert in small batches, or at a slower rate. You could then fabricate small upgrades (or even scrap existing ones) without having to come back home all the time, and perhaps the really big upgrades could only be done back home at the starbase's larger shipyard.

SC3 attempted (poorly) to do something like this by having outposts that you could refuel at, which took so much sense of exploration out of the game; it lacked a sense of adventure and strategy if half the places you went had fuel available, and once those outposts were fully developed, refueling was no longer a concern because it became ubiquitous.

I think it would be really intriguing if the flagship could upgrade on the move and keep exploring deeper into the galaxy without coming home.

An idea for flagship modules: self-contained refineries or factories to aid in crafting, or even perhaps are required for specific craftables...

 

I sorta see what you're getting at as far as "dead ends" where you can't progress because you're missing a certain part to craft something to fight.

 

But, if they balance it where the parts or items needed are in 'easy' regions, then it's just a matter of exploring and farming for them. and thus progress.  Maybe certain things can be 'bought' from traders with credits.  So if you can't find it.  You can "grind" for credits to buy it for some "price".    This is another way to allow progression. Sort of like a pity counter.  

 

What about crafting different models of planet landers? Different landers for different environments and such.

 

That's a great idea.   Crafting "Visuals".   Just different skins or looks to your ship.

Hmm, I actually see those things as the opposite of progression, honestly. 

This is just my personal view, but I often see the need for farming/grinding to be a game design failure. I know it's incredibly popular (especially in certain genres that need to extend game time to keep their audience, like MMO's, mobile games, etc), but it seems more like doing chores to me, than it does playing a game/having fun (unless the chore itself can be made incredibly fun). And I think it often discourages experimentation and encourages safe (often boring) play styles and usually requires games to lower the difficultly/challenge at various points, depending on how it's used, to prevent people simply giving up if they're defeated/get stuck.

Just as an example, I'm playing Wildstar with my partner at the moment and there's a Runecrafting system, the concept of which seems really cool. However, the drops are fairly rare and it's very time consuming to farm the materials for it. There seems to be an element of chance to the crafting itself, with little guidance on outcome/how to do it in the first place and once used, you can't recycle the runes back into materials for later levels. And we're still managing to fight through the monsters. So, when I tried to look it up, the suggestion from other players was the same conclusion I'd come to on my own; that it's not actually needed until max level and you should just keep everything that drops until then, so you don't waste it/can convert the materials to high tier runes, and roll the dice then instead.

Basically, the way it's designed discourages players from using a system that could be interesting and cool. It punishes experimentation or early use. And the monsters have lowered difficulty, so you can still survive/win, but combat feels more stagnant and generally takes longer as you slowly wittle down enemy HP.

There's a lot of easy traps to fall into, for crafting systems. Other times, like in World of Warcraft, by the time you could naturally craft something, it would be useless/you'd be many levels above it. Or, in other games like Diablo 3 (especially gems), the difference as you go up the crafted tiers is often so small it doesn't feel any different/like you've made any progress. Imagine if in Dark Souls, there were easy monsters and you had to go back and fight them every time you died to one of the difficult ones.

Basically, I'm just pointing out that you have to consider players time as part of the cost of any crafting system, especially if it might lead to dead ends or require them to redo already played content to get back to the things they actually want to be doing.

Yes crafting should not be a game advancement method or a sidetrip that ends up being useless.

Crafting if any should add to the game. But how can you implement crafting to a game like SC2 without stopping or limiting gameplay because you have to farm (although the planet lander and collecting resources is farming in a sense)?

 

The game should first be designed so that crafting is unnecessary to complete the game.

Then it should be added to increase the fun of the game. As others have mentioned for example crafting upgrades or visuals to the planet lander. You can buy the original upgrades for the lander but you can also craft your own.

 

You can complete the game normally using the standard fleets. But perhaps you could craft ships (by combining them?) to make it more interesting.

 

But if I have to spend 10 hours farming each time to be able to craft the next level mothership/spacecraft to advance the game then I'm not playing that game.

I do enough "farming" in the real world (not real farming ofcourse but boring work) that I don't want to have to spend that many more hours doing that with a game. Which is the selling point for Eve online.......

You could craft paint jobs for ships, different lenses for lasers to change the colors, maybe your flagship could be represented ingame as your main base? Like you are on the bridge when you navigate the universe, but you can go to the captain's quarters to watch your trophies (achivements) and memorabilia, or go to the bar and hang out with NPC's you've recruited to your fleet and advance story lines with them. Maybe head to the hangar bay to tinker with and upgrade your lander or modify the ships in your fleet. It would move around in first person so you don't actually move a character around, but just different screens that you can do completely optional stuff.

I figure a crafting system would be great if you had this. You could do lots of cosmetic and fun upgrades that otherwise wouldn't impact gameplay and/or you could have crafting that actually improves your ship (faster, better armor etc). Maybe for really big upgrades you'd have to go into drydock at a starbase which would give you a 3D exterior view of your ship, in the drydock, that you could rotate and add/move components to really make it your own.

Man, I really went off topic here, but this is the kinda stuff that I would really like to see and a crafting system would tie nicely into it.

Crafting seems like a very natural fit for SC... The player should be rewarded for combat and exploration (2 major mechanics in the game), and should be encouraged to do these activities more often with the premise of better loot depending on the difficulty of the battle or the survivability of the planet.  Loot needs to be varied beyond simple monetary gain to keep combat and exploration interesting, but not necessarily immediately usable.  The gratification comes when you are able to create something you cannot obtain by any other means other than crafting.

I'm not sure I agree with this... Putting the Precursor Bomb together in SC2 could be considered crafting (albeit a very unique case).  I think SCR could get away with a minimum amount of required crafting, ie you must build at a heat resistant lander to explore a planet that critical to the storyline.  You don't need to do this but you'll have a much better chance of navigating the planet.

I agree here.  Mindless farming sucks, but if you're having fun fighting and exploring then there shouldn't be a problem.

Well the old sc2 had farming already.   You had to farm for credits to buy ships and fuel.    the only excitement was finding the rare ores and minerals.  and occasional unique encounter like a ship part.    Adding crafting allows more interesting search for items and loot.  killing ships and getting loot drop would be fun.   who doesn't like loot?  and progression towards an upgrade?  what are we exploring the galaxy for ?   just minerals ?  kind of boring if you ask me. 

New idea re: crafting:

 

What if, say, halfway through the single player content, you discovered that, through mechanism/race/other xyz, you could build yourself a new capital ship entirely?

 

Perhaps you find an underground factory that builds starships?  (Unzervalt, is that you?)

Perhaps you meet and greatly help a very ancient alien race that has first-class engineers that offer to create a new starship class for you?  As you explore the galaxy while they are creating your new ship, you continue to find odds and ends here and there, bring them back and it unlocks new possibilities for your future ship. Maybe they'll need your old starship's parts to finalize the new ship.

 

To me, that would be a crafting that could work within SCR.

Opinions?

If I could craft a solar body, would it be called starcraft?

 

(I'll show myself out now.)

 

No, of course not. We're exploring the galaxy for space gas and midichlorians, duh

 

However...iirc, Star Control 1 was literally so full of Precursor artifacts that you couldn't go a few parsecs without stubbing your thruster on one. What if, not only could we find these, we could scrap them for parts, reverse engineer tech from them, and use those parts to craft new technologies entirely based on Precursor tech? Eh? Eh?

This is game is suppose to be Sandbox,  so if crafting is optional, it adds fun to the game for those who enjoy it.

 

I've come to enjoy crafting in a lot of games that have included them. 

 

Yes literally speaking that is crafting, just like the Ultron. But I consider those quest elements (like finding the 3 keys that open a safe) that you are told you need to complete. Which is different from the open nature of some games where you cannot continue further because you are too weak and not because of some uncompleted quest. In those games you literally spend your time farming to become strong enough to reach the next level and then farm again to reach the next level... Rinse and repeat a gazillion times. No one is telling you to do that but you are compelled to. The game then ends up being a farming game.

 

Quest elements in the form of crafting is okay since its a straightforward quest. And it is an old age tradition to send the hero looking for A, B, C, in opposite directions to obtain/create D which is needed to defeat the evil boss.

 

You do realize that crafting or no crafting,  It's always a farming game either way.     At least with crafting the loot drops and farming is more interesting.

 

Look at it this way, you're farming for resources/minerals to get credit to upgrade your ship.  You repeat that from planet to planet just to get credits to buy all the ships and modules and landers and fuel.      Isn't that farming until you're strong enough to move on?  

However you slice and dice it, there is ALWAYS some level of farming and grinding in every game.   It's just a matter of designing it to be interesting and compelling enough.  I'd rather be farming and getting some chance at getting something interesting than mundane tedious farming for just credits only.

The old game also had it where you had to 'farm so much bio data just so you can buy everything from the Trader.   That's farming as well.

 

 

The only way to escape Farming is establishing OutPosts, and visiting/revisiting them to harvest the resources.  Or have some way to auto harvest them.   But I believe they said they're not planning to do planet management.      I believe Sins of Solar Empire does this already where you auto harvest resources.

 

I just want to make exploring the Galaxy more interesting.

 

 

 

 

Yes I already mentioned the planet lander resource gathering as a form of farming, and I have made a distinction between crafting as a quest and just crafting.

We already farm for minerals for money for fuel etc.

On top of that should we be farming parts or whatever for crafting as well?

Then we need to collect crafted material to create an upgraded item?

Where does it all end? When do we play the story for the sake of the story and not as an excuse to farm mindlessly and craft mindlessly like techno-wh4 space zombies?

 

If you (referring to all readers) prefer crafting over storyline then you can play Eve Online or Diablo or any other MMORPG.

 

The point is that I hope any crafting implemented serves to improve the game and not as a bottleneck for the game or as a way to make the game last hours.

 

Also in SC2 close to the end of the game they made it so that you did not have to concern yourself with crew or money and could focus on exploring and enjoy the rest of the game with the storyline.

 

I too reject this premise.  Farming is generally a failure of game design (whether it's by design or not), not a requirement for an interesting crafting system.  I'd also add that too many crafting systems aren't interesting (see TheEchoInside's comment listing examples).

The trick is to ensure the player can generally get everything they need during the course of normal gameplay, including loot via drops as mentioned.  It doesn't have to be gated by rare materials as mentioned previously, and even if that's helpful for the crafting system, alternative methods of acquiring these can be established via quests/trading to lessen RNG dependence and farming tedium.  In Fallout 4 Bethesda added a really neat feature in its crafting system with the "Scrapper II" perk , which helps a player find this kind of needed item without resorting to farming (I just started using it and it's great).

Let's not forget how "farming" was implemented in SC2.  It was not just a rational story element but was also completely consistent with the exploratory nature of the game.  And it wasn't something you had to spend hours doing before getting started, but rather an integral part of traveling around space (going to visit the Arilou but the 17th is a week away?  Go mine the Chandrasekhar systems- there's some great minerals and biounits there).  The biggest problem I had with it was the lack of choice of which technology you could buy (which would pose a balance issue itself).  Let's also remember the original reasons for crafting systems- adding customization and reducing the need to grind for a specific drop.  While Googling for background on the subject I ran across this thread from RPG Maker which I'll be reading later, but wanted to share because I noticed the OP wisely asks "should I have one" and "Curia Chasea" delved into their nature.

I love Volusianus' point about SC1 and the random Precursor finds and think that's a great method of providing customization without the need for a full-blown "crafting" system.  It also seems to make far more sense story-wise (that we need a technological boost), unless we're specifically looking for elements rare to Earth.  I'd prefer to see no crafting/customization feature if it's required for gameplay or if it's badly implemented such that it requires "grinding".  As much as I loved the rest of it, the system implemented in Assassin's Creed 3 was a pointless box they checked just to say the game "had crafting".

I'm against items crafting. I'd rather explore and find/trade/complete quest/kick ass for that "plasmotronic rail gun" than grind and farm for numerous hours to craft it.

 

Okay.  Then they will need to add a lot more items to the game to make this interesting.   Ala  Diablo  ?

 

The game NDA file does say this will be "Sandbox".

 

 

 

"a. An open sandbox like galaxy exploration game "

"The biggest change, however, is that it'll be set up as an open universe. That is, even after the main story of Star Control concludes, players will be able to continue on exploring the universe, finding new aliens, and going on new adventures to build up their flagship."

 

I guess so long as crafting is not required to progress the story, perhaps after the storyline is complete, the crafting exploring aspect is something players can enjoy.