SURVEY: When do you craft your own gear? (Excludes stone)

[RhinoW]

I'm making an overhaul mod, and I got some doubts on some changes I'm thinking of making. I would like to know when you guys usually craft your gear, and what drives you to that decision.

[Riamus]

None of the choices really reflect what I do so I'll just comment on it.  I craft early stuff as soon as I can.  Later gear gets crafted usually only around quality levels 5 depending on the cost involved.  If the cost is low enough, I'll craft intermediate quality levels.  For things that have a very high cost at higher tiers, like the drone, I will craft tier 1 to have it but refuse to craft higher tiers and will wait until I can loot or buy a better one.  Even if I can afford to make all that duct tape, I won't build something with ridiculous costs.

 

Now, if the costs for everything was the same as in A20, I'd probably craft every quality level or every other quality level if I don't find better first.  I almost never buy from the trader.

[Rince]

If I have the resources, I craft. Except when I almost on the next tier, like if I missing a few magazines to unlock a better one.

That's with the new rebalance of weapons.

 

With armors usually wait to lvl 3 and then jump to lvl 5.

[theFlu]

Sorta along with Riamus in games this far, mostly limited by steel as I haven't really taken it from quest rewards. Stone tier upgraded asap of course, Iron whenever I happen to get to it - the fixes to the scaling of mods/damage might entice me more, but I won't have the forged iron either and I won't see me bothering to harvest for it. Easier to eventually just pull apart a couple gas pumps for the steel for the top tier Q1 version.

 

Then again, after my current run is thru, I won't be surprised if I never read another magazine again (outside a few cookbooks). Doesn't really feel worth the hassle for a temporary upgrade..

[Abusimplea]

The reasoning is a bit more complex than just "make it quality X" as higher tier melee tools/weapons generally require more stamina to use while higher quality on the same tier doesn't. So it can happen that i craft a quality 5 despite already having a quality 3. It can also happen, that i craft a quality 1 because it is my main weapon or tool and i can handle the stamina and resource costs of going up a tier.

[Skullfracture]

In A21 I've more or less given up on crafting gear and tools altogether. It's not necessary with the loot and rewards, and the random nature of the crafting mags makes it poor investment of resources (assuming you can craft what you want to begin with). Haven't had a problem so far.

 

So far I think the only gear/tools I've crafted (not counting stone and the occasional pipe weapon) have been a bunch of wrenches and 1 T2 or 3 Double Barrel.

[Roland]

I craft when I have the materials even if I'm close to the next quality tier. I don't craft every tier but probably every other or maybe every third tier so it doesn't really matter to me if I craft an orange just before I find the mags for yellow. I'll just stay on orange until green. I could wait until I find that one last mag for yellow but then I'd stay on yellow anyway until blue. The main thing I don't do is craft gear to try and hit each and every quality step. There's no need since we don't remain at any one quality level for very long anyway.

[RipClaw]

I actually always waited until Q3 before recrafting an item and then again at Q5 because of the mod slots. But since that has changed with the A21 stable, I recraft my gear when I have either reached a new technology tier or when a mod slot is added.

 

[RhinoW]

So from what I've read so far, on average, people don't really care for intermediary quality, and will mostly craft every 2 qualities at minimum, rendering q2 and q4 useless most of the time. 

 

Alrighty, so this has also been my experience, as most of the damage comes from mod amount multiplier and perks, crafting mid qualities for Tier 3 tools is mostly useless, as they now have the same amount of slots. And as for Tier 2, so far I've only crafted a Q4 Pistol and a Q5 Magnum (pistol from looted q2 to crafted q4 and magnum from looted q4 to crafted q5).

 

[BFT2020]

I answered #1 but should be taken with a grain of salt as I also mod the game to remove the ability to repair.  I have to craft in order to keep working gear to use, so that is where my priority comes from in regards to crafting gear.

[FramFramson]

I avoided choosing but in general it's going to revolve around gamestage - earlier on if I can craft any sort of upgrade I probably will, but later in the game, I'll wait for quality 5, as I just can't be fussed for a modest upgrade to a lightly higher level of mediocrity and might find something better in the meantime.

 

Certainly crafting less in general in A21, but at the same time I like it that Q6 is lootable only, as Q6 items are great rewards for getting through strong POIs, and I feel like T6 POIs are now the real endgame rather than horde night. 

[Fox]

With the way things are level gated now, I never get an opportunity to make my own armor anymore as I always end up finding what I want in loot long before the crafting option is given to me (usually in airdrops, but not always). As for tools and weapons, it's kind of back and forth. I sometimes end up giving up on finding decent tools in loot when the quality 5 iron tools crafting becomes available, otherwise I'm fine with level 6 stone tools till then because it requires basically nothing to fix (rocks are everywhere) and works almost as fast at iron tools when also considering stamina getting in the way and mods being used, so the benefits are minimal IMO. As for melee weapons, I usually find better quality knuckles in loot long before I can make them myself.

Edited July 14, 2023 by Fox (see edit history)

[Vaeliorin]

I generally don't craft until Q5, mainly because it seems such a waste to me to craft something I'm only going to use for a day or so.  Steel tools I definitely don't craft until Q5 because steel tool parts are valuable as gold, given how rare they are (which oddly seems like it should be the other way around, seeing as you need 20 steel tool parts to craft pick, shovel, axe, ratchet, while you only need 5 for a weapon.)

[Silverjohn]

Up to Alpha 20 it was 50/50 whether I'd craft weapons and armor past the obvious first tier gear.  With, so far, limited experience with Alpha 21 and the read to learn system I've usually been getting the gear sooner from drops and quest rewards than I've been able to make it.

[OneManStanding]

I made two level-2 iron picks and 2 level-2 pump shotguns because we needed them specifically. We relied on pipe machine guns for a lot longer than we maybe should have. But equal or better stuff turned up in loot and quest rewards whilst we were holding out for level 5. If we did get to level 5 and didn't have an equal or equivalent yet, that's when we committed. If I had level 3 or 4 iron, I wouldn't make a level 5 iron and just hold out for level 5 steel. The quantity of glue and duct tape, and even special parts, required as the quality increased put us off making a lot of intermediate stuff.

[AtomicUs5000]

I chose the last one because that just how it has gone for me, for the most part. I would love to craft more though if it had some kind of significance. Not finding things would be significant, but hasn't really happened to where I'm concerned enough to craft. I just store parts for after quality 5 as my last resort.