Gaining skills in Crafting / Manufacturing

First things First

If you’ve been around awhile you know that every click costs money. It’s a matter of making those clicks productive in the future. As with real life, items will always be modular in the sense of what people are buying. If you see 1000 people globalling on Ore Amp 101(L)’s then chances are they already have some significant investment in crafting. As with all items the more that are out there the cheaper they become. Eventually Mindark will realize that the 101 will need to be adjusted to bring down the level of globals and hof’s. Personally I believe it is the item of the month, Id like to think that in an effort to keep things flowing and fair that every item has the chance to become the item of the month. A rotation if you will, of item types i.e. armor, weapons, etc. Who knows what’s next in the grand scheme of a global friendly EU.

You must plan out your time crafting. And by this I mean how much you are willing to lose while crafting. If its 250 peds that you’re willing to lose on a weekly basis then budget for 250 ped and keep it at that rate. If you are willing to lose more then by all means budget accordingly. The common mistake I have made, and I’m sure some of you have made is trying to craft those 101’s to get a global or hof out of it like everyone else has. What has that done for me? Not a thing. In some cases its crippled me to the point where I can’t craft for a while. Do yourself a favor and please make sure you stick to your budgets.

Terms

These are some terms and acronyms you need to know if you’re going to be a crafter. It’s not really a long list but can keep the confusion down when you hear it in chat.

BP = Blueprint
TT = Trade terminal
QR = Quality Rating
AU = auctioneer
+100 = 100 ped over tt value
+110% = if an item is worth 1 ped you can possibly sell it on the au for 1.10 ped.

These are the main acronyms you will want to know as a crafter.

Auctioneer

The auctioneer can be a confusing component to the game, as the prices, and markups are dictated by the user base. First thing you should become acquainted with is the Offers and Orders buttons. A lot of new and long time players are unaware of this nifty feature.

Offers – This is where you can sell your items, residues, extra resources for normal time lengths and normal mark-ups.

Orders – This is a nifty little section that to my knowledge no other MMO has. This feature allows you to find buyers and sell your items, residues, and extra resources instantly. For an example we will use Basic Sheet Metal. Click on Browse>Items>Equipment>Metal Components. Now click on the orders button in the bottom right hand corner just below the items viewer. Here is an example of what that item will look like.

Item Units Markup
Basic Sheet Metal 10,000 +190%

After you see what the markup is on what people are willing to pay, click back on the orders button and click sell. The offers section only works on buyout. So when you add that Basic Sheet Metal you will need to put a buyout, otherwise you have to start over or wait for the auction to end. And no you do not get your deposit back.

Another thing to be aware of with the auctioneer is watching what you spend on resources. You don’t want to pay 200% for 1000 units of lysterium when there’s an auction on the next page for 120%. Make sure you research all the pages before you go blowing 200% on something you can get a lot cheaper a few pages over, it only takes a few minutes.

Preperation

Before I begin to get into the meat of this guide, be aware that crafting is expensive, tedious, boring, and very time consuming. Don’t think for a minute that you can just hit a crafting machine and hit a huge hof and be on your way. It doesn’t work that way, so in the interest of keeping you focused, I suggest you buy yourself a cheap rifle/pistol and some ammo. You will also need to buy an equipment volume 1 book and a basic filter blueprint. Then make your way to an auctioneer and buy 1000 units of lysterium ingots and 1000 units of oil. After this make your way to any crafting terminal, the resources you just bought will give you 1000 clicks.

The best suggestion I can give you is to be patient. There is very little return from crafting basic filters, and even less satisfaction in the early stages of your crafting legacy. You must avoid the temptation to try to craft what everyone else is globalling on, because at this point you will unlikely get anywhere near globalling and closer to losing your bankroll. One thing you will want to be consistent about is your machine settings. Always craft with the slider bar to the left.
Expect to lose your first few resource investments, as you will be in the earliest stages of filter domination. At some point you are bound to get bored clicking the manufacture button. The next phase of your development is about to begin.

Offtime

Some of us can't bare the length of time it takes to fill that skill meter, so we must manage and understand when it's time to get out and do something else for awhile. Remember the cheap gun you were suppose to buy? We're now going to put it to use (if you've been playing awhile and have the skills to do so, go elsewhere.) out in the big world of Calypso. You'll want to hunt creatures like cambibo, daikiba, exorasaur, and berycled. Above all you are looking to loot animal eye oil, and animal muscle oil. Those two oils will become required loots over the next few weeks, you will want to put the muscle and eye oil into storage for the time being.

Anything else you can sell at auction, or sell it to the trade terminal. Some folks contend that selling to the tt is detrimental to player progress. Some contend that selling to the tt puts the items back into the loot pool. I don't know if either is true, but if I need PEDS right now I won't hesitate to use the tt.
For the next step in free education keep reading.

Advancing to the next level

When you get your filters blueprint to 100 QR you can move on to the next blueprint, and Hopefully by now you have looted it otherwise you’ll need to buy it from somewhere. The bp itself is not really rare but it can be difficult to find. If you haven't looted a Standard damper blueprint, then that will be your next acquisition. When I bought mine it cost me 29 PED with a .01 Quality Rating on the auctioneer.

This blueprint will require 1 lysterium ingot and 2 oil ingots per craft. You will want to make sure that you have enough to keep you going for awhile, as it can get annoying going back and forth between the crafting terminal and the trade terminal and the auctioneer.

Once you have Standard Dampers to a QR of 100 you can move on to Simple I plastic springs. This blueprint is not a hard blueprint to find, and usually runs around 5 ped or lower, unless it has a full QR rating.

Keeping you afloat -

Your main goal is to keep your costs down, and skill up for as long as you can without making any unnecessary deposits. Your secondary goal with crafting these Mechanical Blueprints is to hit Level 10.

Level 10

Level 10 is probably the most important level you can obtain in crafting. Simply because at level 10 you acquire Blueprint Comprehension skill points. This goes a long way in your success rates on any blueprint you craft out of. It’s important to note that this skill is very important to the success of your crafting career, especially if you get into crafting limited use blueprints.

In review

Level up your Basic Filters blueprint to 100 QR, then make the transition to Standard dampers. Once your standard dampers blueprint is at 100 QR then you can make the transition to Simple I Plastic Springs.

Resource Requirements for stated Blueprints

Basic Filters – 1 Lysterium Ingot, 1 Oil
Standard Dampers – 1 Lysterium Ingot, 2 Oil
Simple I Plastic Springs – 14 Animal Eye Oil, 7 Animal Muscle oil