Does anybody craft guns, or T3 melee weapons?

[Maharin]

6 minutes ago, Crater Creator said:

What if the game crafted a weapon of the highest quality level you can, given the number of weapon parts in your backpack at that moment?  Then you wouldn't need a one-off UI element to select the quality you want.

 

This is a MUCH better idea than what we have currently.  There are plenty of awkward situations now where I get better at a skill and am suddenly unable to craft something I could just moments ago.

[Crater Creator]

18 minutes ago, Maharin said:

 

This is a MUCH better idea than what we have currently.  There are plenty of awkward situations now where I get better at a skill and am suddenly unable to craft something I could just moments ago.

 

Yeah.  And even when I'm paying attention and weighing that before I upgrade the skill, my calculus goes like... well I don't want to use up the parts I have to make a worse weapon, if I have enough skill points that I could make a better one.  And I don't want to upgrade the skill if I won't have enough parts to make it at all anymore.  So the parts go back in the box, to be forgotten until I stumble on the same weapon in loot.

 

And somebody's going to say, "Just stop min-maxing; you'll be happier."  But I can't shake the survival mindset, where resources are precious and not to be wasted on redundant items.

[Ezed]

I'd like  to see us be able to upgrade items with weapon parts.  

 

I found a level 1 Drone in my latest world a few weeks ago.  Now, being L10 in INT and having 40 or so robotics parts in my box, I'm still stuck with my L1 Drone because the schematic is proving to be so rare.  I've got all these drone mods ready to be used but can only use one at a time so I'd very much like to be able to upgrade that L1 drone that's become my (sometimes annoying) little buddy.  

 

Same goes for that L1 pistol I found in a toilet.  It would be much more rewarding to perk into pistols if I could upgrade my pistol each time I spent a point...rather than hording those parts until I max my crafting skill (by which time, as others have mentioned, I've usually found a purple).

[bdubyah]

12 minutes ago, Ezed said:

I'd like  to see us be able to upgrade items with weapon parts. 

Being able to use specific quality level items in recipes would be good for this. Have a Q1 pistol and a couple parts for it? Craft a Q2 with it, assuming your perk level is high enough.

[Maharin]

31 minutes ago, bdubyah said:

Being able to use specific quality level items in recipes would be good for this. Have a Q1 pistol and a couple parts for it? Craft a Q2 with it, assuming your perk level is high enough.

 

If they'd let us specify a quality for crafting recipes then this could be modded in easily.

[ElDudorino]

1 hour ago, bdubyah said:

Being able to use specific quality level items in recipes would be good for this. Have a Q1 pistol and a couple parts for it? Craft a Q2 with it, assuming your perk level is high enough.

I absolutely think this should be part of the game.  Then you wouldn't end up in that situation Crater Creator was talking about.  I'm fine with there being a slight penalty on cost, too, as long as I don't feel like I've completely wasted rare resources by crafting a Q3 weapon that takes weapon parts you can't craft.

[Darklegend222]

I'm late to the party, but I just did a new playthrough and completed the first horde night on an all-intellect character with default settings. I had 3 points in electrocutioner for the longest time. I've been using a pipe baton that i keep crafting to be better with every perk.

 

I only had 4 baton parts (cool I can't even craft a baton since it takes 10 parts) so i decided to just give up putting points into the electrocutioner perk because it just makes the weapons I want to craft even harder to obtain.

 

On day 7 of getting absolutely irritated with how absolutely @%$#ty this pipe baton is and not getting any parts from my tier 3 quests, I decided to do a trader run on restock day! Rode my minibike that I crafted to trader Jen 1.4km away and what does she have? A level 4 stun baton.

 

Not only was it impossible for me to craft the weapons I perked into (and my robotic perks), but I had to wait till a trader sold me exactly what I needed. The current part system is broken for the type of game this is, and it's nothing more than a very poor "progression gate".

 

There has to be a better way to implement parts.. perhaps at level 4 in a perk it'll allow you to craft the parts? Or completely remove the weapon part system and use mechanical parts instead. As for the Q6 crafting, I personally don't care because I've never hit a wall where I "need" a Q6, it's just a bonus in my opinion. If your current Q5 with 3 mods isn't doing it, then change your playstyle.

Edited February 8, 2022 by Crater Creator
bypassing profanity filter (see edit history)

[Vaeliorin]

10 hours ago, Crater Creator said:

I also think it would be a really good idea if you repaired weapons with weapon parts, so there's a mechanic to consume that big box of parts.  I mean, if the idea is you amass all these parts and craft a bunch of them to roll slightly higher stats on one of them... that's just another form of spam crafting. 😕

That's great if you have tons of extra parts...and there are certainly types of parts (military armor, motor tool, steel tool) that I end up with tons of.  But other types I barely find enough to actually make anything, and it would suck to finally make a auto shotgun (or something) and then not be able to repair it because you can't find any shotgun parts.  In my current game, for example, I've found 5 steel knuckle parts in total..doesn't really matter since I'm not going brawler, but if I was, that would be an issue.

[ElDudorino]

1 hour ago, Darklegend222 said:

As for the Q6 crafting, I personally don't care because I've never hit a wall where I "need" a Q6, it's just a bonus in my opinion. If your current Q5 with 3 mods isn't doing it, then change your playstyle.

It's not about needing a Q6 per se. It's just wonky that finding the parts to craft a Q5 seems to be harder than finding a Q6, which makes the system of crafting with parts seem broken.

 

28 minutes ago, Vaeliorin said:

there are certainly types of parts (military armor, motor tool, steel tool) that I end up with tons of. 

These are the exact three parts I ended up finding a bunch of, across my last two games. So it's not just luck I guess, they really did make those three more common? I wonder why military armor parts are so much more common than steel armor parts?

[Vaeliorin]

6 minutes ago, ElDudorino said:

These are the exact three parts I ended up finding a bunch of, across my last two games. So it's not just luck I guess, they really did make those three more common? I wonder why military armor parts are so much more common than steel armor parts?

Those are the ones I have always ended up with tons of.  I'll end up having 3 or 4 stacks of military armor parts, but only like 10-15 steel armor parts.  Given that armor is the one thing I almost never craft, it's never bothered me that much.

[seagas]

I have been know to buy weapons in order to scrape them to give me the parts I need to craft one. Which is why I have no problem building tier 3 weapons as it can be sold later on or even scrapped if necessary. 

[Mday]

In my last game, I was gona craft my lv5 M60. Trader beat me to it and gave me a normal M60 bundle and tata lv6 M60.

[Crater Creator]

On 2/8/2022 at 6:42 AM, Vaeliorin said:

That's great if you have tons of extra parts...and there are certainly types of parts (military armor, motor tool, steel tool) that I end up with tons of.  But other types I barely find enough to actually make anything, and it would suck to finally make a auto shotgun (or something) and then not be able to repair it because you can't find any shotgun parts.  In my current game, for example, I've found 5 steel knuckle parts in total..doesn't really matter since I'm not going brawler, but if I was, that would be an issue.

 

That's the thing, though.  I got a level 6 machete as a quest reward. I wasn't even that far into the game yet: no crucible, no chemistry station, and just started doing Tier 5 quests.  And I'm just... done with machete parts now I guess?  Any more I accumulate are worthless to me, forever after.  And all players will reach this state if they play long enough, because unless you're spam crafting for better stats you only use the parts to craft one thing once.

 

That's why I say there should be a place to sink these resources, so that they're always good for something.  Plus, if your best gun wears out and you can't repair it until you find some more parts, you definitely have other guns by then.  A reason to not always use the same gun, and maybe use up some of that ammo type you never use, sounds good to me.

 

I modded my game over the weekend, so that all items that need unique parts to craft also need those parts to repair.  I'm still trying it out, but it already feels so right to me.  Finding non-craftable parts will, hopefully, always be valuable now, at least among the set of weapons & tools I'm interested in using.

Edited February 14, 2022 by Crater Creator
clarity (see edit history)

[Jason83380]

15 minutes ago, Crater Creator said:

 

That's the thing, though.  I got a level 6 machete as a quest reward. I wasn't even that far into the game yet: no crucible, no chemistry station, and just started doing Tier 5's.  And I'm just... done with machete parts now I guess?  Any more I accumulate are worthless to me, forever after.  And all players will reach this state if they play long enough, because unless you're spam crafting for better stats you only use the parts to craft one thing once.

 

That's why I say there should be a place to sink these resources, so that they're always good for something.  Plus, if your best gun wears out and you can't repair it until you find some more parts, you definitely have other guns by then.  A reason to not always use the same gun, and maybe use up some of that ammo type you never use, sounds good to me.

 

I modded my game over the weekend, so that all items that need unique parts to craft also need those parts to repair.  I'm still trying it out, but it already feels so right to me.  Finding non-craftable parts will, hopefully, always be valuable now, at least among the set of weapons & tools I'm interested in using.

I really like the idea that you need weapon parts to repair a weapon.

[ElDudorino]

1 hour ago, Jason83380 said:

I really like the idea that you need weapon parts to repair a weapon.

I'd be OK with that change *if* parts could be crafted and T1 guns didn't require parts. The way it is now you can go really long stretches of time never finding any parts other than military armor, steel tool, and motor tool. People with steel knuckles and steel armor would be screwed.

 

Also, I can create a vehicle capable of flight out of random junk I found in a dumpster. I think I can create a new corkscrew to weld onto my steel knuckles.

Edited February 14, 2022 by ElDudorino (see edit history)

[Vaeliorin]

3 hours ago, Crater Creator said:

That's the thing, though.  I got a level 6 machete as a quest reward. I wasn't even that far into the game yet: no crucible, no chemistry station, and just started doing Tier 5 quests.  And I'm just... done with machete parts now I guess?  Any more I accumulate are worthless to me, forever after.  And all players will reach this state if they play long enough, because unless you're spam crafting for better stats you only use the parts to craft one thing once.

Yes, and that's great, but it's also random.  My last playthrough I was going spears, and I was level 70+ and had yet to see a single steel spear drop, and I didn't have enough parts to craft one.  I ended up buying a level 1 steel spear from the trader (the first I'd seen...but I really don't like buying weapons from the trader) to scrap so I could make a Q5 one.  If I needed parts to repair it, I'd have been able to repair it once...and I was usually repairing it 3-4 times a horde night.  If parts were more evenly distributed, it might be doable, but some parts are exceptionally rare, while others are super common.

 

Also, if you're at the point of having T5 quests unlocked, I'd argue that you're at least deep in to mid game, and the fact that you have no crucible or chemistry station is more of a choice.  But I tend to quit a world when I get the the point that I'm basically unkillable, so my version of late game and yours may differ.

 

3 hours ago, Crater Creator said:

That's why I say there should be a place to sink these resources, so that they're always good for something.  Plus, if your best gun wears out and you can't repair it until you find some more parts, you definitely have other guns by then.  A reason to not always use the same gun, and maybe use up some of that ammo type you never use, sounds good to me.

Well and good, but personally, I rarely use guns outside of horde nights.  I'm on day 16 in my current world, have a mod that makes horde night last all night (2 hour days), and I've fired...maybe 20 rounds so far the whole game.  I'm heavily invested in bows, and it would suck if I couldn't repair my crossbow during horde night (again, 3-4 times per horde night) because bow parts aren't that common (though more than they used to be...but primarily from a very specific source.)  When I use guns, I use pretty much everything except the magnum (I just don't like it) and .44 is thus the only ammo that doesn't see much use (I will use the Desert Vulture, but I rarely find them.)

 

3 hours ago, Crater Creator said:

I modded my game over the weekend, so that all items that need unique parts to craft also need those parts to repair.  I'm still trying it out, but it already feels so right to me.  Finding non-craftable parts will, hopefully, always be valuable now, at least among the set of weapons & tools I'm interested in using.

Sure, and as long as you're using steel tools, motor tools, and military armor, you'll be absolutely fine.  But if you never happen to luck into finding a good weapon of the type that you're using and need to craft one, the likelihood that you'll be able to repair it as often as you'd need to is pretty low.

 

I don't object to the idea in principal, but with the way parts are distributed right now, I just don't know how feasible it is if you're not lucky enough to find/get rewarded good weapons of the type you want to use.  If the distribution of parts was more even (and maybe made slightly more common) I'd be all for the idea (well, that's not entirely true...I'd hate the added inventory clutter), but I hate the idea of being unable to use a weapon I've heavily invested in because my luck with finding parts has been terrible.

[Reth]

5 hours ago, Crater Creator said:

[...]

I modded my game over the weekend, so that all items that need unique parts to craft also need those parts to repair.  I'm still trying it out, but it already feels so right to me.  Finding non-craftable parts will, hopefully, always be valuable now, at least among the set of weapons & tools I'm interested in using.

[...]

I would welcome a way to use my large collection of various parts, but I'd rather not carry them with me on missions. Both armor and weapons get used heavily up during T5 quests and space is at premium as it is. Right now all we need a stack of repair kits. I do not want to replace it with three of four different piles.

[Musicianized]

On 2/7/2022 at 8:45 PM, Crater Creator said:

I feel pretty paralyzed from crafting any weapons.  It feels wasteful, because if I make what I can now, I won't be able to make a higher-quality one later, without taking even longer to find the increasing number of parts I need.  And even if I wait to make a quality 5, not wasting parts to make qualities 1 through 4 first, it still seems wasteful since there's a quality 6 out there somewhere if I loot long enough.  The end result is, I don't put points in weapon skills until I already have a high tier weapon in that class.  I have a big box of weapon parts that ultimately just get sold to the trader.

 

What if the game crafted a weapon of the highest quality level you can, given the number of weapon parts in your backpack at that moment?  Then you wouldn't need a one-off UI element to select the quality you want.

 

I also think it would be a really good idea if you repaired weapons with weapon parts, so there's a mechanic to consume that big box of parts.  I mean, if the idea is you amass all these parts and craft a bunch of them to roll slightly higher stats on one of them... that's just another form of spam crafting. 😕

You will find better weapons than you can craft.

[Fenris]

I craft them, but only when I can make level 5 T3 tools, weapons, or armor. As others said, I don't want to "waste" parts crafting  a lower level one then be stuck looking for or buying the parts to craft a better one. Even if I've found a level 6 T3 I'll still craft them. I don't use them, but they are great for loading up with all the mods I've found. I'll take most of the duplicate mods I've found, load them up in the newly crafted items, stick them in a large storage box, and when that's full sell them to the trader for lots of dukes.

[Crater Creator]

It's always interesting to read about how others are playing and progressing in the game.  Me, I played a lot of A20.0, with its high quantities of ammo (despite playing with reduced loot abundance).  For one thing, that meant not worrying about using guns liberally during horde night.  For another, it meant the need to dig a mine never came up, which is part of why I didn't feel like I was that far into the game.

 

One thing that surprises me about Vaeliorin's experience is how many repairs they're making.  For several horde nights now I've been using a machine gun, and a shotgun when I run out of rifle ammo: all quality 5 or less.  Also, my base is designed to slow and funnel zombies rather than kill them, so my guns (and molotovs) do most of the damage.  With this setup, I've never had to repair a weapon more than once during horde night.  If a weapon needed 3-4 repairs in a night, I might be more reluctant to make the repairs require parts.  Perhaps there's a bigger gap between the durability of melee and ranged weapons than either of us realized, since Vaeliorin says they've only fired maybe 20 rounds.

 

If the distribution of parts for different classes of weapons isn't even, I'm all for balancing that better.  As for the issue of clutter, I would argue that what we have now is clutter.  E.g. I have a storage box filling up with miscellaneous parts that don't get used.  Making the parts a consumable repair item would be something to counteract the unlimited growth of that clutter.  True, it means a lot more different kinds of repair items.  But it's not like I carry around 10 different weapons that need repairs.  A couple of good ones is plenty, and again, they don't wear out that fast.  I haven't needed to repair a gun more than once when doing a Tier 5 quest, either.  Just as it may be worth carrying a certain type of candy, food, or clothing that complements my character build, play style, or local environment; so too may it be worth carrying a certain type of parts, so that I can use my favorite weapon for longer.

[Vaeliorin]

2 minutes ago, Crater Creator said:

If a weapon needed 3-4 repairs in a night, I might be more reluctant to make the repairs require parts.  Perhaps there's a bigger gap between the durability of melee and ranged weapons than either of us realized, since Vaeliorin says they've only fired maybe 20 rounds.

You're missing 2 hour days (so horde nights are twice as long) and a mod that makes horde night last all night (mentioned a bit later in my post, admittedly.)  I'm killing ~1000 zombies on horde night day 7 and day 14.  Mostly just using electric fences (I'd set up some blade traps or turrets on switches that I'd turn on if things got too crowded.)

 

And that was two different games.  The one where I only fired maybe 20 rounds (to kill cops, since the first one blew up before I could get another bolt into it) I was repairing a Q5 Iron Crossbow 3 or 4 times.  Was mostly getting 1-shot kills, but some zombies were taking 2, and then partway through horde night (day 14) it got really dark for some reason, and I was just shooting at silhouettes, so fewer head shots. 

 

The one with the spear was on day 7 I had to keep repairing it, and day 14 I was using guns...lots of guns.  I built that horde base just on the ground, so zombies were  showing up incredibly fast, and the only way I could clear them out at a reasonable speed was with the q6 auto shotgun I got for completing Tier 4 of quests.

 

6 minutes ago, Crater Creator said:

As for the issue of clutter, I would argue that what we have now is clutter.

Clutter in chests is no big deal (for me.)  Clutter in my inventory is something else.  Maybe it's just me, but I hate repairing something before it breaks (feels like a waste of a repair kit) so I'm always using things as long as I can before repairing.  I normally carry 3 weapons: a melee weapon, a bow/crossbow, and an "Oh Sh!t!" gun (usually a shotgun of some type.)  But I'd also need parts for tools and (maybe) armor.

[BFT2020]

On 2/14/2022 at 7:04 AM, Crater Creator said:

I modded my game over the weekend, so that all items that need unique parts to craft also need those parts to repair.  I'm still trying it out, but it already feels so right to me.  Finding non-craftable parts will, hopefully, always be valuable now, at least among the set of weapons & tools I'm interested in using.

 

I'm going a different route, at least trying to see how it works in game.  First, I changed the loot probability of equipment drops of Q3 or higher to 0.05.  I then removed all Q5 and less weapons from the traders, and jacked up the mod price increase for Q6.  Currently, I am removing all loot items as quest rewards (but for now, keeping in Tier loot rewards - I may modify the groups though).  Weapon parts drops are increased though.  Q6 crafting is also implemented but behind a perk gate (new perk to unlock).

 

I haven't looked at the repair function though - right now, you still can repair T1 or higher equipment with a repair kit (T0 equipment you can't repair and will break if you use up all the durability).  I been floating around the idea of not allowing any equipment to be repaired.  This does the same thing as your route is doing, making parts more valuable now.

 

I always found it weird that the traders give you equipment as rewards as they should be wanting you to buy that stuff from them.  Hard for them to make a living if they hand out the good stuff willy-nilly  😉

 

[bandersnatch]

Personally I think that repair kits should have tiers, with the higher tier ones requiring rarer ingredients but being able to repair anything of their own tier or lower.  I'd support upgrading items as well but with durability lost each time.  I think I saw this in another game years ago.

[ElDudorino]

1 hour ago, bandersnatch said:

I'd support upgrading items as well but with durability lost each time.  I think I saw this in another game years ago.

Darkstone had this, although I'm not sure anybody but me played that game.

[bandersnatch]

28 minutes ago, ElDudorino said:

Darkstone had this, although I'm not sure anybody but me played that game.

I did   So that might well be it.