Greetings!

This week and most likely next week, we're going to talk about crafting.

You can find the question of the week in its original form here:
http://forums.play-earthrise.com/index.php?topic=4322.msg78118#msg78118

Q: Will there be ways to mass produce off schematics to make replicas of the rare, elite item? If so, what would be the limit? If not, what is in place to make crafting, not less time consuming, but less tedious?"
 
A: What makes an item extremely rare or "elite" could be one of many factors - Quality of used ingredients or Designs used along with the manufacturing Technology. Crafters can mass produce items that are "elite" due to their powerful Designs as long as they don't "wear off" their Designs. Each Design, upon creation either by a crafter or receiving it as a reputation reward from an Organization, comes with an Edge property. Once placed in a Technology, each time the attached Technology is used to manufacture an item, Design's Edge will drop. If Design's Edge reaches zero, the Design is no more usable and vacants its slot in the Technology. This limitation requires crafters to stock in Designs and limits the mass production of excess of powerful items. Access to "elite" items is constrained by the availability of Designs on the market. While Crafters will always keep the demand for Designs high, it depends on players who either provide resources for the Blueprinting process (the way Designs are created) or those who trade their reputation with Organizations to gain Designs as reward and sell it on the market, to support the economy with the means to create so called "Designer Items".

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And now, time for our Earthrise Fun Fact:
All shaders in ER are created from one uber-shader called Amber.

Amber is called that because all object shaders in Earthrise are but a shadow of the true capabilities of this one proto shader. The system that determines the correct 'shadow of Amber' that has to be compiled for some object is called Dworkin. This is a tribute to Roger Zelazny.

Tune in this Wednesday - we've got another Earthrise Fun Fact for you. Come follow us on Twitter to get the exclusive Fun Fact before it appears in the forums, but be sure to read QOTW to get more information.

Coming up next week, a little more about crafting. See you then!

~ m.

 

So blue print crafting, is a type of crafting then? Interesting.... Any lore reason why a design would cease to work? (maybe I'm just reading it wrong)

Each design comes with with its "Edge" upon creation or upon getting it as a reward.

Ya, I think "edge" is like durability for weapons.

That's a beautiful idea, it fixes several things that are wrong with a lot of other implemented crafting systems. 

It sounds like a 50/50 split to me.  Both the designs and the rare resources to produce the products will be of value and consumed to create a constant demand for both.  At any given moment it could be either the designs or the resources that present the obstacle.

This should be good for really integrating many play styles, giving every approach something of value to everyone else.

What does this term "elite" encompass? Is it just any item with a design attached to it? Or is it items with the maximum number of designs attached?

The latter having the highest and rarest material requirements and burning Edge of multiple designs simultaneously.

And wouldn't elite items require elite components - exasperating the edge consumption?

In theory I guess such items could be mass produceable but one would need a hell of a stockpile of designs and rare mats along with a heady influx of the same to maintain the rate of production. A large guild might accomplish it but I doubt an individual would be able to produce more than a few one offs.

In practice, a 50/50 split is really hard to do.  You have to balance supply of both items to within a tiny tolerance.
If, for example you outproduce material compared to designs, then the materials will build up, further preventing a "50/50" split.  You then have to really boost design creation in order to absorb the extra material.