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Post #1Currently, the crafting system in rust functions in a linear single direction fashion. By this i mean that resources are gathered and assembled in very specific ways into end products. These products, in return, cannot be "broken down" or salvaged. iron ore becomes metal fragments, metal fragments become low quality metal, low quality metal becomes guns. Guns stay guns and represent the "end" of the chain
In most post apocalyptic scenarios, this type of vertical manufacturing scheme is non-existent. Rather, found items are salvaged, broken down, and otherwise reused for new purposes. Things are't thrown away. If something breaks, it is broken down for parts. This approach is really the hallmark of this genre and should be reflected in the design of the crafting system in rust.
System Basics:
The idea that items should be comprised from interchangeable components is one that I think could be implemented easily into rust with while adding additional dimensions crafting system. at its essence, usable items should be built 1 or more component categories. component categories would reflect the general characteristics of the specific component. [pole] [tube] [binding] [handle] [long blade] [short blade] etc are some examples of potential component categories.
a "simple knife" might require 3 specific components to craft [short blade] [handle] [binding]. multiple individual components available in game from various sources could be used to meet the requirements of each of these categories. [bone knife blade] might be craft-able from animal bone resources. [stone knife blade] might be craft-able from stone resources. [crude metal knife blade] might be craft able from metal fragment resources. all would meet the [short blade] requirement and could be used to craft a "simple knife." Choosing to use a bone blade over a stone blade would change the model of the completed item as well as its durability and other physical stats. [synthetic cord] [shoe laces] [twine] could be introduced in game as component items that would all meet the component requirement for a [binding]. [twine] might be something a player could craft using gathered resources. [shoelaces] or [synthetic cord] might only be available through salvaging other in game items.
Another feature that would be interesting would be to have various components graded. going back to the [binding] example, [twine] might meet the requirement of a level 1 [binding]. [synthetic cord] might meet three requirements of a level 2 [binding]. using higher level components would benefit a player by resulting in superior items and certain, more advanced, items might REQUIRE higher level components. For example, the "simple knife" from before could be crafted using level 1 OR level 2 components. players might also have the option of creating a "tactical knife" which might require level 2 components AT MINIMUM. The benefit to crafting a level 2 "tactical knife" might be additional stats, an alternate fire mode, or an unique model.
Durability and repairs:
a component crafting system would also allow for a more realistic durability mechanic. Currently, items degrade and are "repaired" by adding additional raw materials at a repair bench.... kinda unrealistic. with a component system, an item would damage and fail after a certain amount of use. a damaged item could be salvaged into its various [components]. players with low to medium salvage skills might be able to salvage usable [components] from a failed "item" and could then replace the broken [component] with a another suitable [component]. players with exceptionally high salvage skills might be able to salvage all components from a damageditem in tact... allowing them to essentially fix their damaged "item" by salvaging it and reassembling it from the resulting components.
Resource Gathering:
In that almost all items in rust are comprised of individual components, the question of how components are sourced is an important one. I think it is plausible that many level 1 components could be crafted from gathered raw materials. animal bones -> [bone blade] or obsidian stones -> [stone blade] etc. To me, this means that the crafting system should have at least 3 categories of inventory objects; resources, [components] and "items." Resources are raw materials that can be easily found and farmed. compare them to wood or stone or metal ore that we have in game today. [components] are something new. Player could craft many low level [components] from resources. Other, more advanced, [components] would need to either be looted or salvaged from "items". "items" are similar to crafted items today and would be similar to terminal branches of a crafting tree. a person could run around gathering wood and stone and eventually build them up into primitive, low quality "items" like they do today. In order to build more advanced "items," scavenging would become a necessity.
When looting a town (or another player's body) players might find [components] or "items." "Items" could be salvaged and would in turn yield w/e component's they were comprised of. in terms of player actions, the player would right click the "item" in their inventory and select salvage. a new window would popup of the [components] that were present. these components could then be removed and placed into the player inventory. Most "items" in the rust world would most likely be in the damaged state when found and would be immediately salvaged for components (or perhaps gathered and taken back to base to be salvaged at a "Weapons Bench" for more advanced weapons). If i find a destroyed and broken down humvee at the base of a canyon, I don't pop open the trunk to find a big pile of perfect guns waiting to be shot. Instead, I find several damaged weapons including one that has a valuable and intact level 2 [M4 Receiver] component and one that has an intact level 2 [Military rifle barrel]. These I take back to my base and combine along with a level 2 [shovel handle] for a stock and a level 1 [crude rifle clip] that I made myself. It only holds 10 rounds and is prone to getting jammed because i made it myself and it sucks. I make a mental note to keep my eyes peeled for a level 2 [military rifle clip] as those hold 24 rounds but are salvage only.
Another possibility would be to have Component Caches spawn throughout the world. These would be immovable objects that players could salvage resources from on site. Broken down cars, junk piles, old refrigerators, airplane frames, etc. Think of the woodpiles or mine-able rocks that are currently in game. same basic principle but applied to [component]s. When attempting to salvage one of these caches, the player would see the components present. Some of these components might not be available to the player until they meet certain requirements. In order to strip certain parts from an old motor, a player might need special tools present in their inventory. If a player came across an abandoned vehicle, they still might be able to take out [seat cushions] or [seat belts] but wouldn't be able to get the [steering wheel] without the proper tools. Alternatively, if the developer wished to introduce a "leveling" system, a minimum salvage skill might be required to gather certain components on top of any tool requirements
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Learning Recipies and leveling up:
In the last Devblog, the specific need to address "Blueprints" was mentioned. And so, with blueprints being a focus of a considerable amount of developer focus at this time I want to contribute my thoughts on the topic.
The presence of recipes in the game can essentially be considered a "gating" mechanic. the scarcity of specific item blue prints means that players by default won't load into the game and immediately begin building the best items. I think this is a valuable game dynamic in that it contributes to the pacing and sense of accomplishment one has when playing rust. It is also important in the current crafting environment because the best items are crafted from the same basic ingredients as everything else (just in larger quantities). Finally being able to craft an M4 or make a full set of Kevlar feels like a pretty significant benchmark when I play on legacy! Clearly something is required to preserve this sense of progression in rust. Are blue prints the best way to go about it? I would be inclined to say no. Let me explain why.
First, the idea that blueprints are widely scattered around a post apocalyptic world waiting to be picked up and learned is unrealistic. From an immersion standpoint, blue prints are undesirable to me. I don't think they fit and their implementation is anything but organic.
Second, the function of blue prints to gate players and create item scarcity is an important characteristic. However, If a component crafting system were implemented, the necessity of and artificial "recipe" gate will be lessened. crafting an "M4", for example, might require the several components such as [M4 receiver] [rifle stock] [rifle barrel][rifle magazine]. Of these, the [rifle stock] [rifle barrel] [rifle magazine] might exist in game as a variety of components - both salvaged or crafted. (a player might use a salvaged level 2 [military rifle barrel] or a crafted level 1 [crude metal pipe] as the [rifle barrel] of his "M4") The [M4 receiver] would be a difficult to acquire item that would essentially serve as a "choke point" in the manufacture of "M4" rifles. [M4 receiver] is a pretty prime example of an item component that would ONLY be salvageable -- not crafted. A new player might, within several minutes of launching rust, have already located items applicable for the other components of the "M4." Until he can locate a relatively rare [M4 receiver], he can't actually make the gun.
By using the individual components of items themselves to control the relative scarcity of various items, traditional recipes can be eliminated. I personally favor a system where a player can "make" any item they want right out of the gate. the only thing keeping a person from crafting an item should be their ability to locate the appropriate components.
If the developers wish to include individual recipes as a way to measure player progression, several options exist even without the inclusion of world recipe drops.
One such was would be to learn a recipe upon salvaging an example of the "item". (Find an M4 -> salvage an M4 -> have a chance to learn the M4 recipie)This could be tied to a Salvaging Skill by allowing players with a higher skill a greater chance of learning how to make an item when they salvage it. this salvage skill could also be tied to a players ability to gather [components] from found "items." If a player with a low salvage skill attempted to salvage a complex "item" it might result in them generating a number of broken [components]. If a player with a higher salvage skill attempted to salvage the same "item" they might wind up with several usable [components] and only 1 or 2 broken [components]. Each time a player salvaged an item, their salvage score would increase. If a player salvaged a specific item they might be able to learn it's recipe at any time even with a low salvage skill -- they'd just have to be really lucky for certain, more advanced, items.
If a skill up system were introduced based on player actions (salvaging or building items) and a "salvage to learn" system was not desired, a player might also be able to learn how to craft items simply via leveling up over time. With each level gained in salvaging, a player could either learn a number of random recipes or gain access to a new pre-set "chapter" in a crafting index.
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You pointed out some valuable ideas, you can easily see that you gave them some thought in order to improve the game Rust but I am sorry to tell you that no dev will even give you the fair response that I think your effort deserve and of course dont expect any of this in the game. For what it's worth I think it would improve gameplay and give the players the feel of being in a post apocalyptic environment. I liked most the improvement in resource gathering, I think too that being able to gather only rocks or trees its kind of a little poor for a survival game. I want to be able to collect straw, herbs, sticks and, if this is really a post apocalyptic game, plastics and all sources of junk spammed all around the map.
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Five hours ahead of you:
https://twitter.com/RustUpdates/stat...61729036271617
Enforced skill progression systems aren't likely to be added to Rust, with "levelling up" and such.
I'm not sure that I agree with your idea, but it's interesting nonetheless.
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I agree with the first couple sentences, but thats as far as I'm gonna read. I got shit to do.
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...Yeah I meant not eatable crafting basic materials. Berries and such was kind of annouced a long time ago, it was one of the first items in that item database that no one seems to be using anymore.
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Thanks for that. Its difficult to know how best to bring up the topic of the underlying mechanics of the crafting system on the forums in such a way as to foster productive discussion. Obviously "WORDS WORDS WORDS" is not always the most effective way to engage people and probably scares a lot of folks off. At the time time, crafting is a pretty critical aspect of rust and deserves, in my opinion, a fairly complex and layered system.
Beginning to think maybe I should have titled this post "Keys and Locks, Fuck"
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After giving it some more thought, I'm inclined to suggest against the salvaging "skill" system i previously proposed. While it certainly is still an option, I think rust would be better served by a having various "abilities" tied directly to the items you poses.
Already rust has a system like this in place. Essentially, there are three "levels" of resource gathering: stone, stone hatchet and metal hatchet. players don't need to hit an arbitrary number of trees in order to become better at gathering wood; they only need the proper tools.
Similarly for crafting items, you need a furnace before you can craft items requiring metal fragments just like you need a workbench before you can craft a variety of other more advanced items.
The problem with this model as it is currently implemented in rust is that these "gathering" or "crafting" levels are too condensed into the early game. When i start a new game in rust, immediately after building a shelter, I install a furnace and a workbench and then immediately get to work making my axe. all of this takes place within... the first 5 minutes of loading the game. essentially, these "player upgrades" are too easy to accomplish and feel like "baseline" benchmarks.
In rust, I think that specialized tools or equipment should be required to perform medium to advanced crafting/gathering abilities. These tools or the [components] that comprise them would be DIFFICULT to acquire or put together. When a player is able to assemble a [weapon smith's bench] or something similar, this should be considered a major milestone in the progression of their character/base. If a player wants to make a gun in the game, he should have to overcome 2 separate hurdles: locating the [components] and locating the "tools" to manufacture the weapon. Currently, if players want to craft a gun, the major obstacles are finding the blue print and gathering a tediously large number of relatively common materials. Of these, the blue print hurdle is comparable to the "tools" hurdle of the proposed system as they are both somewhat "one and done" barriers. The major difference between the two is that as a physical item in game, "tools" can be stolen and therefore must be protected continuously. Blueprints, once learned.. not so much. Rare [components] are comparable to "piles of raw materials" in that both are the resources that are consumed during construction of the item itself. For reason already explained elsewhere, I prefer rare [components].
Tying a player's character advancement to their items would have several interesting implications on rust gameplay. To me, there is no question to me that it would add to the brutality of the game. Currently, if you are killed in rust, you drop the items you have on you but you retain the blue print knowledge you previously learned. This makes "getting back on your feet" considerably easier. Even if you have your base raided and EVERYTHING stolen, its relatively easy to get up and running with a shiny new M4 when you already have the M4 learned.
With the majority of the crafting barriers tied to ingame items rather than "blue prints" the relative value of these items increases tremendously. Tools become more valuable than weapons. if you lose your base and the tools in it, you are literally no different than a newspawn. I think this would be a VERY interesting direction for Rust to pursue: make the MEANS to create "items" more valuable and elusive than the "items" themselves. "Oh shit, you have a "reloading press" in your base? where the fuck did you find that? in the basement of the old mill in little rad town? fucking sick. now we can finally make bullets and use that old rifle we salvaged from the wrecked Humvee yesterday. I knew it would come in handy one day. Those arrow shooting assholes over the hill aren't gonna know what hit them."
One of the occurrences in rust that makes my heart beat faster than just about anything is when I stumble across a satchel charge while farming resource spawns. The reason for this is because I am keenly aware of the value of the item in my inventory and the potential loss I will incur If i am killed with it in my possession. I feel this level of excitement could be a more common occurrence if crafting/gathering abilities are tied to valuable or rare tools
For example, while exploring an area of the map remote from my base, i come across a broken down car [component] node. I strip the car of its [seat belts]. Doing so requires me to have a "knife" item in my inventory, which I do at all times (knives being relatively common). While salvaging the car I also notice a set of undamaged [disc brakes] on the rear axle. Unfortunately, I dont have the proper tools to remove them at this time.... but i really want those [disc brakes]. I return to base and drop off the [seat belts]. From a secure back room, i retrieve my "plasma torch" I feel anxious as I exit and close the door to my base, "plasma torch" in tow. It took me three days of farming to find all the components to make my "plasma torch" and it is by far the most valuable item I have as it is required for crafting a number of other advanced items. It is certainly worth more than the [disc brakes] I'll be using it to acquire, but without it, i cannot remove the [disc brakes] from the car. Leaving my base with an item like my "plasma torch" is a HUGE risk, but its one that there's really no way around. that's the kind of game rust should be.
I think this would benefit gameplay in rust. There should be a risk involved with gathering more advanced resources. Currently, once you have all the blue prints in rust, it becomes a trivial matter to start shitting out advanced items. drop everything but your hatchet off at your base and head on down to resource valley for a couple of hours of pounding on rocks in 30 minute increments. If you get killed in the process, who cares. all you lost were some rocks and a hatchet: easily replaced. As players get more advanced in rust, they SHOULD attempt to gather/craft more advanced items. the process of gathering "end game" reagents should be compressed into a "high risk, high reward" activity rather than the "low risk, low reward" endeavor stretched over a painfully long period of time.
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Dear Facepunch,
Please hire this OP as a consultant. Thank you for your immediate compliance.
-Sincerely
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Tools, great concept, specific tools + blueprint (you just need it once) + needed resources= desired item. And this combined with a difficulty curve for item tier increment. Definitely should be added.
In your idea are tools items included in the crafting system as the rest of the items? are the tools uncraftable or just very hard to craft? Cause if like any other item to craft them you just need another tool, the concrete blueprint and some gathered resource then tools are just a way to make as expensive and hard as we want it to be the crafting system. It can be balancing, I like it.
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I would be inclined to treat "tools" as any other item in the game in terms of crafting. In my first post, I used a "basic knife" as an example to demonstrate how a simple weapon might be crafted from components. Later, I suggested that this same "simple knife" might also be used as a tool in order to meet the requirements of salvaging [seat belts] from a car.
similarly, I imagine something like a "plasma torch" being created form several fairly rare components. one or more of these components might be unique to the "plasma torch" item in much the same way an [M4 receiver] is the distinguishing component that separates an "M4" item from a "sniper rifle" item (both would require a generic [rifle barrel] [rifle stock] and [rifle magazine] in addition to the item specific [receiver])
I suppose something like a "plasma torch" could be used as a sortof... ineffective blowtorch weapon? It would be poor idea to do so, however, as the "plasma torch" would have far more value as a tool than a weapon. Unless it had the ability to cut through metal doors on bases... then it might be worth bringing to your raid!
A person might be able to find certain tools, such as a "wrench" in the world that would not be salvageable. If this were the case, i'm not sure if these would be better categorized as "items" or [components]. it's certainly something that i could see going either way.
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Regarding new "global blueprint implementation"
It has been suggested that the "global" blue prints would be used to create alternate versions of existing items. you know how to make cloth pants -> you get a special global recipe to allow you to make stripped purple pants. This system could work, but it kind of requires that blueprints and by association crafting be a kind of 1:1 inflexible process. "white t shirt" has a different recipe from "blue t shirt" I don't like this. They types of items that a player can make should primarily reflect the types of resources available to them in the game they are playing rather than a recipe they bought on the steam store 4 weeks ago.
Operate under the assumption for a minute that all of Rust's various baseline recipes are already programmed into your player's recipe book. The factors limiting a player being able to build whatever they want is their character having access to specific tools or workbenches as well as possessing [components] appropriate to the pattern they want to make.
Under such a system, there would be no need for "special" blue prints in order to generate "special" items. The existence of many different [components] all appropriate to the same category would allow many different types of pants to be built. The pants you make would be as special or plain as the [components] a you have on hand to make them.
under a component crafting system, "long pants" might require [Fabric] component x 5. A player might use [deer hide] to make run of the mill "deer hide pants" Given the relative abundance of Deer in rust, you could expect the majority of players to be running around in "deer hide pants" or "deer hide shorts" or "deer hide assless chaps" On the other hand, a more particular player might salvage a number of flags from an abandoned buildings spread across the map and use the [flag]s to make a pair of garish "Patriotic Pants" If they collected enough flags, maybe they'd even create a complete wardrobe of "patriotic shorts" and "patriotic assless chaps"
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Issues with implementation:
I was kinda hoping people would pick apart and point of flaws with this proposed system. I realize that there are problems with my ideas, the biggest of which is probably the practical implementation of the vast number of combinations of components available.
For example, guns would require multiple iterations of essentially the same gun in-order to account for the multiple ways the same gun could be build. I'm sure there are ways to program this so that it would work (consider different components as a"attachments" to the given basemodel -- similar to how silencers and scopes are applied) but it would still be more work than the current system in which every base M4 looks the same.
One way to address this issue would be to cheat a little bit in terms of what the actual model looks like. In an ideal world, a knife make with a [synthetic cord] binding would look different than a knife with a [shoelaces] binding. In order to cut down on the work required to make a system like this run, the same model could be use for two different builds if the [components] were judged to be similar enough as well as how much benefit would be derived from having a "unique" model for the specific item. "long pants" made out of [deer hide] and [bear hide] might share the same model (perhaps with a recolored texture?) while a "cap" made out of the same materials might be more unique (Model for a "cap" made from [deer hide] might incorporate antlers, for example)
Also, and related to the above issues, would be the difficulty in adding additional components at a later date. For example, if a new [fabric] component as added to the game, after release, would it be necessary to go back and create new versions of all the existing "clothing" models? If a new new [rifle stock] were put into the game with a new type of gun in mind, it would likely mean tweaking all the existing rifle models in order to accommodate weapons made with the new component. This is a pretty big issue... an ideal crafting system should be easily expandable. If the crafting system is too interconnected, making one minor change could create a tremendous amount of developer work in order to make everything "mesh" with the new addition.
The easiest way around this issue would be to introduce "artificial" differences between components in order to intentionally limit the flexibility of the crafting system. for example, if the patterns the launch at release are considered (alpha) patterns then their various applicable cloth [components] are (alpha) components. additional cloth items added to the game later might be tagged as (beta) patterns and their introduction would coincide with new (beta) components. In an ideal world, (alpha) and (beta) components would be interchangeable and could be used for either (alpha) or (beta) components. for the sake simplicity, they might have to be kept separate.
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Thread NECROMANCY!!
The most recent dev blog mentions blueprints and "REALLY cool stuff regarding radtowns" as an upcoming topic for future postings. Although this indicates to me that the crafting system will be getting some developmental attention, the specific mention of blueprints and rad-towns also suggests that what is coming may not be a "major overhaul"
I've put forward several suggestions regarding how the crafting system could be altered in hopes of facilitating discussion on what to me is one of Rust's critical gameplay components. Much of the official concept art for rust that I have seen presents the rust world as post apocalyptic -- one in which advanced technology has come and gone. The technology for tools, weapons and the like exists... but the means for producing these items has become difficult. Those items from the past that can be found are broken most likely old and must be altered or repurposed before being able to be used.
Player characters and the crafting system they employ should be tailored to support the image of "survivors" rather than "primitives" When i think of all the post apocalyptic movies or television shows i've ever seen, i can think of very few that involve characters mining ore and smelting steel in order to build guns from scratch. it just doesn't' happen and feels out of place.
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I agree 100% with OP, I've been thinking about this exact thing for a while now, when i go out and kill a bunch of monkeys and pick up their stupid eoka pistols, or useless clothes, i just wanna tear them up for cloth which is useful to me, and wood and metal and what not.
I wish there was a way to make this thread flagged for devs. Best way i can think is to post and bump. God speed OP
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I really like the component category concept. NEO Scavenger has a crafting system like that if someone wants to see an example.
Winner x 3
Informative x 2
Agree x 1
Artistic x 2
Disagree x 1
Useful x 1
Funny x 1
