Crafting and Improvised Devices

[derekticon]

Crafting and making improvised devices will be worth consideration. Living off the land /outdoorsman will be a critical skill necessary for survival in the post-apocalyptic world.

This was a feature of Fallout 1 & 2 with the gecko hide and was well executed in fallout 3 that included weapons and ammunition crafting. It's fun scavenging junkyards for parts for making improvised devices - whether if its a weapon, vehicle or robot.

Perhaps it will be great if higher-level characters are able to harvest body parts, hack genes and perform bio-modification on dead (or even living) foes [like a dark art necromancer?]

[oldmanpaco]

Crafting is always a bitch to balance. Make crafted items too powerful and it destroys game balance. Too weak and no one uses them.

Personally I don't mind repair skills but making items should be left to NPCs. To be honest the only crafting/Item upgrading I have ever really liked was in BG2 where you collect pieces of equipment and take them to the specialist to put together.

edit: I'm not saying I'm opposed to crafting just that it is hard to do correctly.

[talkingcrows]

I agree with you.Hard to pull off,but good if it works.Always seems like there is too much or not enough of the one thing.The nuka grenades I thought were just a little to easy to get in fallout 3,but they did come in handy.Crafting got a little better in NV,but still,I dunno,something was just a little off.

[SagaDC]

There are a couple of interesting threads on the subject over in the "What To Include" section. "A Good Crafting System" and "Economic Crafting" are two of them.

Personally, I'm all for the inclusion of a crafting/upgrade system, as long as it doesn't feel tacked on or useless. Balance can be an issue, but I've always liked the idea of higher-end recipes/schematics/blueprints being the subject of higher-difficulty quests. Or possibly requiring items to be destroyed by reverse-engineering (ie, a percentile chance to learn how to build a Laser Rifle every time you're willing to disassemble and destroy one).

[Proton Axeman]

Personally I don't mind repair skills but making items should be left to NPCs. To be honest the only crafting/Item upgrading I have ever really liked was in BG2 where you collect pieces of equipment and take them to the specialist to put together.

Witcher 2 used this mechanic (maybe also the first one; I never played it). You could brew potions yourself, but other constructions required assistance. You acquired the crafting diagram, all required components, and enough gold; brought them to a craftsman; and the craftsman would build it for you. Geralt of Rivia was a witcher, not a blacksmith or armorer.

It was also generally more balanced than, say, Skyrim-style crafting, as you weren't supposed to or even able to grind for crafting skills until you create godlike items far superior to anything you'd ever find through any other means. It was more in the way of providing an alternative to exploring everywhere and finding every item, rather than something far and away superior (although having bombs crafted /was/ quite useful).

[Inca]

+1 on Witcher 2