Crafting Recipes - Stars Reach Deep Dive
Welcome to the third Stars Reach Deep Dive. This time we will take a closer look at some crafting recipes found in version 8.5.0.8701 of Raph Koster’s new, currently in-development MMORPG.
I say “some” - because the game has a lot of crafting recipes, and I will only take a look at those, my sole character has access to. In fact, we will be mostly looking a things that are made with either the Circuit Bench, or the Machine Shop. I have also access to Field Fabricator, Refinery and Fabrication Lathe - and will include their recipes, as far as they are needed for making components. But we will only look at items made with Circuit Bench and Machine Shop. And generate some statistics for those.
Also keep in mind, that many recipes are currently undergoing changes almost every patch update - therefore what numbers are shown here, will probably get outdated pretty soon. But while recipes might change ingredients and how much stuff they use - the basic principles of how the crafting systems works, will likely stay the same.
We’re also not gonna look into PQRV and PQRV optimisation - that’s a topic that requires it’s own Deep Dive some day. For this post, we’ll really just focus on the recipe statistics for Circuit Bench and Machine Shop.
Some Basics
Just to explain some of the terminology and methods I’ll be using through the rest of this post, let’s look at a few examples:
Refined Metal Ingot
This is a recipe that is crafted at the Refinery I. It takes 50 Any Very Common Metal and turns those into 50 Refined Metal Ingot. As the refinery is a processing stations, that also takes some time: two minutes for 50 ingots.
I will always look at the numbers for just one single product. So, in order to make 1 Refined Metal Ingot, we need 1 Very Common Metal. That means, if there is a recipe that uses 75 materials to make 50 components, one of those would require 1.5 materials. If a recipe uses 25 materials to make 50 components, that component would require 0.5 materials.
But this component - the Refined Metal Ingot - requires exactly 1 Material. This is the simplest possible thing to make - and thus I consider it to be of the lowest possible “complexity” - it gets a complexity score of 1.
Metal Plate & Metal Rod
These two recipes are crafted at the Machine Shop I and Machine Shop II respectively. Making one Plate takes 8 Refined Metal Ingot, while making one Rod takes 6 Refined Metal Ingot. That means the Plate uses a total of 8 Materials, the Rod a total of 6 Materials (since each refined ingot uses 1). Both recipes have a complexity of 2. They use one ingredient of complexity 1 - and then add 1 for this recipe itself.
Fastener Set
This is another recipe that is crafted at the Machine Shop II. Making one of these, takes 1 Metal Plate and 1 Metal Rod. That means that the Fastener Set ends up needing 14 Materials in total (8 + 6) - and with a complexity of 5 (two ingredients at 2 each make 4 - then add one for the recipe itself).
Barrel
This recipe is made at the Circuit Bench IV. It takes 2 Metal Plate and 1 Fastener Set. It ends up needing 30 materials in total: 2x 8 for the two plates, and another 14 for the Fastener Set. The complexity is 8. That’s 5 complexity from the Fastener Set plus 2 complexity for the Metal Plates (needing 2 plates does not increase complexity) plus 1 for the recipe itself.
And So On, And So Forth
You get the idea. We always add together all needed Materials - and multiply them by ingredient amount as needed. And the complexity we add together without multiplying and then add 1.
Our examples only ever used Very Common Metal - but for other recipes, for the total, I’ll just add together different materials as well. The reasoning is simple: the rarer materials are also used more rarely - so they aren’t really a bottleneck. In fact, as we’ve seen during the last weeks - the “very common” Iron will become the main bottleneck, unless they add new space zones. There’s plenty of iron around, and it’s easy to get - but it’s also needed in much higher quantity than other things.
Even rarer things like for example rare gems are not really an issue. If you don’t have them, you can always just convert Basalt to Ruby and use that. Basalt being super easy to get and evern more plentiful than iron. And there’s almost always some conversions like that. There’s only very, very few things that need special consideration - and I’ll mention those, if and when we come across them.
I think that for the most part, material rarity will be driven by PQRV stats and not by type of material. So, as long as you don’t care about the PQRV - getting any material seems pretty easy right now - and not a problem. Getting the same stuff but with exceptionally high stats on them… that’s gonna be a different topic. But general availability will vary greatly and depend on what zones and wild planets are in your vincinity. (Right now, the galaxy is still small, and everything is near - but that’s supposed to change. A lot of not-yet-implemented space gameplay does rely on greater travel distances.)
Circuit Bench
As of right now, the Circuit Bench is the crafting station for making all the tools and weapons. Given that Weaponsmith and Toolmaker are planned to be separate professions, I assume that this will get split up into two work stations at some point in the future. Newer professions like Cooking or Tailoring already use a lot more stations right now - and my guess is, that these older professions will at some point get overhauled to match that level of complexity.
I’m also going to ignore all components and pieces - and only list final, usable items. The end products only, if you want. Also, whenever there is a choice between different components that could be used as ingredients - we’re gonna use the “cheapest” one, defined as whichever uses the least materials in total. That means, that we will use Granite to make Silica Ore to turn into Glass - since 1 Granite turns into 2 Silica Ore - and nothing else comes close to that. For comparsion: 1.5 Sand turn into 1 Silica Ore - and even if you factor in, that you get raw Silica Ore on the side while mining sand - it still cannot match granite. (But it is close enough, that you might prefer it, if it has better stats, or is more easily available - and given that sand mines faster than granite, things might acutally be pretty even overall).
Circuit Bench I
| Item | Cx | VCM | Wd | Hd | CG | PF | TM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pulsar | 4 | 50 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 80 |
| Pathfinder | 2 | 30 | 10 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 50 |
| Terraformer | 2 | 35 | 10 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 55 |
| Harvester | 2 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 10 | 39 |
| Fabricator | 2 | 35 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 65 |
| Average | 2.4 | 35 | 12 | 2 | 6.8 | 2 | 57.8 |
What we see here is a bunch of tools of exceedingly low complexity - all of these are made from only raw materials, and one single component of complexity 1. And the Pulsar is ever so slightly more complex, and also needs a few more materials - but still made in very few crafting steps.
We can also see, that overall, on average, Very Common Metal makes up for nearly half of all materials used.
Circuit Bench I also makes a few fabrictor items (decoration pieces, like computers and canisters), which I ignored here - as they aren’t supposed to be as complex or expensive as tools and weapons.
Circuit Bench II
| Item | Cx | VCM | Wd | Hd | CG | Nitrogen | RG | MA | RG2 | CM | St | TM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cryostar | 4 | 40 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 72 |
| Spitfire | 4 | 40 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 72 |
| BioScanner | 2 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 50 |
| Depositor | 2 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 50 |
| Trowel | 1 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 30 |
| Paver | 5 | 45 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 20 | 90 |
| Instaformer | 2 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 25 | 20 | 60 |
| Xyloslicer | 2 | 30 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 40 |
| Average | 2.8 | 30.6 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 9.4 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 1.3 | 0.6 | 5.6 | 5 | 58 |
Despite being on Circuit Bench II now - we really don’t see any real difference in neither complexity nor total materials, compared to Circuit Bench I. What does stand out a little bit, are the Trowel (for being even more dead simple), and the Paver (for being a little bit more complex, than the other tools).
We also notice that there are more different raw Materials getting used. Despite that, half of the amount of all used materials is still made up by Very Common Metal. In other words: the items we see here need just as much iron, as they need all other things combined.
The Nitrogen we see used here, is specifically for the freeze effect in the Cryostar. It stands out, because it’s the only material called for by name - while anything else is a more general category with multiple choices of actual raw material.
Circuit Bench III
| Item | Cx | VCM | PF | CM | Wd | Granite | Nitrogen | Helium | CG | UG | TM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pruning Shears | 14 | 29 | 20 | 16 | 10 | 6.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 81.5 |
| Chronophaser | 47 | 89.7 | 40 | 19.7 | 58 | 13 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 228.3 |
| Trailblazer | 16 | 22 | 0 | 5 | 10 | 2.5 | 0 | 0 | 3.6 | 5 | 48.1 |
| Average | 25.7 | 46.9 | 20 | 13.6 | 26 | 7.3 | 1.3 | 0.7 | 1.9 | 1.7 | 119.3 |
This time we see a considerable jump in complexity. Also a bit in total materials - but that’s mostly caused by just the Chronophaser.
Initially, many tools were on that level of complexity as you see the the Chronophaser here. But between player complaints, bad reviews on Steam, and developers panicking - we quickly saw a massive nerf to complexity. Recipes were dumbed down, beyond recognition. If I remember correctly, Harvester and Terraformer used to be even more complex and material hungry than the Chronophaser. But when evertyhing got toned down in complexity - Chronophaser was the only tool that didn’t changed, and stayed as it was before. Or mostly as it was before. That might have been an oversight. Or maybe not? Anyway - as things are right now, it definitely is the odd one out, compared to the rest of Circuit Bench III.
On the Pruning Shears, we see less reliance on Very Common Metal, but overall it falls just slightly below 50%.
The Nitrogen and Helium used here, is specifically for Cryonic Fluid, only needed in the Chronophaser. The Granite is for making Silica Ore and then from that Ceramic. There are multiple other options to make Ceramic - but then the material numbers go up, as Granite is the cheapest way to do this. Plant Fiber can easily be farmed, and Uncommon Gem can also be refined from several options of cheap and widely available rock (instead of mining it directly).
We also notice, that there are very few recipes in CB3.
Circuit Bench IV
| Item | Cx | VCM | PF | CM | Granite | Wd | CG | RG | Hd | Nitrogen | Helium | Chlorine | RG | TM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arcfall | 40 | 101 | 80 | 44 | 20 | 20 | 14.8 | 10 | 10 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 305.8 |
| Verdigris | 39 | 101 | 80 | 42 | 20 | 20 | 14.8 | 10 | 10 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 305.8 |
| Linebreaker | 39 | 111 | 80 | 42 | 20 | 20 | 14.8 | 10 | 10 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 313.8 |
| Rimeburst | 39 | 101 | 80 | 42 | 20 | 20 | 14.8 | 10 | 10 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 305.8 |
| Cinderline | 39 | 101 | 80 | 42 | 20 | 20 | 14.8 | 10 | 10 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 305.8 |
| Voltstar | 38 | 67 | 120 | 65 | 30 | 10 | 17.2 | 15 | 10 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 343.2 |
| Atomizer | 37 | 67 | 120 | 63 | 30 | 10 | 17.2 | 15 | 10 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 343.2 |
| Tiller | 38 | 199 | 40 | 32 | 14.5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 290.5 |
| Healix | 38 | 100.7 | 20 | 13.7 | 5 | 58 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 215.3 |
| Average | 38.6 | 105.4 | 77.8 | 42.9 | 19.9 | 19.8 | 13.9 | 8.9 | 7.8 | 4.2 | 2 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 303.2 |
With CB4 we see big step up in complexity - and this time, the total number of required materials goes up significantly as well. Very Common Metal now is reduced to about one third of the total materials, while all of a sudden a ton of Plant Fiber is now needed as well.
For this station I again removed a number of decorative fabricator items: Lights in various colors, and Countertop Stove. Those don’t really fit in, with the rest of the stuff. Would make more sense to examine those recips in combination with the other fabricator items made on the Lathe.
The first five are all assault rifles with almost identical recipes. The next two are Pistols using elemental damage types we hadn’t covered yet. The Tiller is a farming implement that doesn’t seem to fully work yet. And the Healix is the healing beam of course.
The Chlorine used in two of the guns, is needed specifically for the Corrosion damage type. As you can see - there’s really not much rare material stuff going on at all.
Circuit Bench V
| Item | Cx | VCM | PF | CM | Granite | CG | RG | Nitrogen | Helium | Wd | Hd | RG | MA | UG | TM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Longshot | 44 | 93 | 80 | 44 | 22.5 | 18.4 | 10 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 273.9 |
| Frostline | 44 | 83 | 80 | 44 | 22.5 | 18.4 | 10 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 265.9 |
| Thunderclap | 33 | 141 | 20 | 22 | 5 | 22.8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 116 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 336.8 |
| Whiteout | 33 | 131 | 20 | 22 | 5 | 22.8 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 116 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 328.8 |
| Sunspike | 33 | 131 | 20 | 22 | 5 | 22.8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 116 | 10 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 328.8 |
| Grapple | 1 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 15 | 10 | 45 |
| Average | 31.3 | 96.5 | 36.7 | 29 | 10 | 17.5 | 3.3 | 2 | 0.7 | 58 | 5 | 0.3 | 2.5 | 1.7 | 263.2 |
Here we get two Sniper Rifles and three Grenade Launchers, as well as the Grapple. The latter stands out like a sore thumb - being almost as simple and cheap to make as a repair kit. Other than that, we really don’t much difference here, compared to the previous tier.
Circuit Bench VI
| Item | Cx | VCM | PF | CM | Granite | CG | RG2 | Nitrogen | Helium | Chlorine | RG | Wd | Hd | RM | MA | AG | RGm | Chert | TM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stormsight | 45 | 83 | 80 | 46 | 22.5 | 18.4 | 10 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 265.9 |
| Venomspike | 44 | 83 | 80 | 44 | 22.5 | 18.4 | 10 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 265.9 |
| Sunlance | 44 | 83 | 80 | 44 | 22.5 | 18.4 | 10 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 265.9 |
| Stormcoil | 34 | 131 | 20 | 24 | 5 | 22.8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 116 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 328.8 |
| Green Widow | 33 | 131 | 20 | 22 | 5 | 22.8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 116 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 328.8 |
| Grav Mesh | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 15 | 15 | 10 | 7.5 | 67.5 |
| Average | 34 | 85.2 | 46.7 | 30 | 12.9 | 16.8 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 0.7 | 0.3 | 38.7 | 3.3 | 3.3 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 1.7 | 1.3 | 253.8 |
And finally, in the last and highest tier of the Circuit Bench, we get the remaining Sniper Rifles and Grenade Launchers, as well as the Grav Mesh. Not too different to the previous tiers, overall.
The Antimatter Gas and Chert are both specifically needed to make Anti-Gravium for the Grav Mesh. Other than that, all the same materials and material amounts as previously.
Machine Shop
The Machine Shop is used to make crafting benches for other crafters. Weirdly enough, Prep Tables are mostly built from Sandwiches, and the same is true for other cooking and tailoring stations: they are made from increasingly advanced cooked and tailored items.
As I have no training in Tailoring and don’t have these recipes - I have not been able to break those recipes down into their base, raw materials. That of course also means, that for those stations, the “complexity” score is wrong - because I just don’t know how many steps it takes to make a Breakfast Sandwich. So, in order to get useful averages and comparisons - I will be skipping these crafting tables at the higher tiers, and only look at the numbers of those, I have all the recipes for, through the entire crafting chain.
The game seems to be undecided whether it wants to have a “machinist” profession that creates all the crafting stations - or if it wants each profession to be able to make their own stations themselves. Right now it’s kinda a bit of both… but not really. Right now, all the more complex components needed to make a station are made by the profession itself - but the station then can only be crafted by a machinist.
Field Fabricator I
| Item | Cx | CM | Wd | CG | VCM2 | Wd2 | TM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Machine Shop I | 1 | 45 | 25 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 80 |
| Field Fabricator I | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 30 | 20 | 50 |
| Average | 1 | 22.5 | 12.3 | 5 | 15 | 10 | 65 |
I know, this is not a Machine Shop - but since requiring Machine Shop I to make Machine Shop I would be a bit of a lock-out, the Field Fabricator I stands in for that - think of it as Machine Shop 0, while also being station 0 for a few other professions as well.
I’m only showing the two Machine Shop like recipes here - but everything else on the Field Fabricator I is of complexity 1 as well. This station is also available early on with ranger camps - thus making it the most readily available station of them all.
The most interesting thing here, is that there is a category “Any Wood” and a category “Wood” - and I’m not sure they are the same. The same issue seems to also exist with “Any Plant Fiber” and “Plant Fiber”, as well as with “Any Hide” and “Hide” - and probably a few more. That should definitely get resolved to avoid confusion. And since we are already talking about confusion - the Lathe also has a recipe “Barrel” - exactly the same name as the Circuit Bench recipe, but one of these is a gun barrel, the other the cylindrical sibling of a crate. Different things shouldn’t carry the same name. Especially if that name is mainly how the player identifies what they need to craft something.
Machine Shop I
| Item | Cx | VCM | UM | CG | CM | Wd | Ro | Fungus | Any Healing Herb | Any Starter Cooked Food | Woven Plant Cloth | Knit Softcloth | Rough Hide Sheet | PF | Hd | PF2 | Hd2 | TM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Refinery I | 1 | 25 | 15 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 50 |
| Machine Shop II | 11 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 26 |
| Fabrication Lathe I | 1 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 26 |
| Circuit Bench I | 2 | 22 | 0 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 36 |
| Lab Bench I | 1 | 15 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 35 |
| Bioprocessor I | 1 | 20 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 35 |
| Apothecary Table I | 1 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 35 |
| Prep Counter I | 1 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19 |
| Oven I | 1 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19 |
| Grill I | 1 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19 |
| Fridge I | 1 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19 |
| Fermenter I | 1 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19 |
| Burner I | 1 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19 |
| Sewing Bench I | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| Pressure Forge I | 1 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 15 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 45 |
| Loom I | 1 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 45 |
| Biofiber Rig I | 1 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 8 | 26 |
| Armorer’s Bench I | 1 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 15 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 45 |
| Average | 1.6 | 12.1 | 0.8 | 2.4 | 0.8 | 4.8 | 0.9 | 0.3 | 0.6 | 1.7 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 2.2 | 1.1 | 0.7 | 0.4 | 29 |
Here you see the full list of all crafting stations. Machine Shop II through VI do offer version II through VI of all these tables - but starting with next tier, I will skip all these. You can see that it just bloats the table, with lots of weird ingredients that aren’t raw materials.
For our main tables, we are back to Very Common Metal making up 50% of all materials needed. The only item that stands out here, is of course Machine Shop II - that is one tier ahead of the others, but again, if you needed Machine Shop II to craft Machine Shop II, that would be a deadlock. So these stations always have to come one tier early.
Machine Shop II
| Item | Cx | VCM | CM | CG | TM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Refinery II | 9 | 25 | 3 | 0 | 28 |
| Machine Shop III | 15 | 28 | 12 | 0 | 40 |
| Field Fabricator II | 2 | 10 | 10 | 14 | 34 |
| Fabrication Lathe II | 6 | 25 | 10 | 0 | 35 |
| Circuit Bench II | 2 | 10 | 10 | 14 | 34 |
| Average | 6.8 | 19.6 | 9 | 5.6 | 34.2 |
Now, this is a lot easier to digest. And I feel more useful too, as it now only contains more strictly comparable items.
Of note here is, that Refinery and Fabrication Lathe seem a step up compared to tier I - while Field Fabricator II and Circuit Bench II differ very little from their previous tier.
Also the materials are all very generic, very easily obtainable so far.
Machine Shop III
| Item | Cx | VCM | CM | CG | TM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Refinery III | 12 | 18.7 | 10.7 | 0 | 29.3 |
| Machine Shop IV | 11 | 36 | 9 | 10 | 55 |
| Field Fabricator III | 9 | 45 | 4 | 10 | 59 |
| Fabrication Lathe III | 12 | 34 | 8 | 0 | 42 |
| Circuit Bench III | 9 | 33 | 7 | 23.2 | 63.2 |
| Average | 10.6 | 33.3 | 7.7 | 8.6 | 49.7 |
Another step up, in both complexit and material usage. Noteable here seems, that the Machine Shop IV no longer stands out - despite being one tier ahead of the rest. Now Refinery stands out a little, for it’s lower total materials cost.
Machine Shop IV
| Item | Cx | VCM | CM | CG | Wd | Carnotite | TM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Refinery IV | 15 | 25 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 37 |
| Machine Shop V | 11 | 56 | 10 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 86 |
| Field Fabricator IV | 10 | 55 | 4 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 73 |
| Fabrication Lathe IV | 13 | 27 | 12 | 0 | 48 | 0 | 87 |
| Circuit Bench IV | 5 | 50 | 0 | 28.3 | 0 | 2 | 80.3 |
| Average | 10.8 | 42.6 | 7.6 | 12.5 | 9.6 | 0.4 | 72.7 |
Far less of step up in complexity this time - but what really stands out, is that the Circuit Bench IV is actually less complex than it’s tier III counterpart. Material usage is going up though - except for Refinery, which is falling behind in terms of costs.
And we have Carnotite make an appearance. This is the one Material that’s actually rare, and hard to get, and probably wrong to just mix in with all the rest. Carnotite is explicitly needed to make Stabilized Exotic Matter - and it cannot be refined or made in any way or form - at least not in the current version of the game. I believe the only way to get it, is as a mining byproduct, while mining something else (Sandstone I believe?). This is truly a special material. A lot more so than Antimatter Gas (which can be farmed) or Chert (which is available aplenty on some planets at least). So if there is any material that should be worth more than other material types - regardless of PQRV - this one is it.
Machine Shop V
| Item | Cx | Wd | VCM | CG | CM | Granite | Carnotite | PF | Nitrogen | Helium | TM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Refinery V | 12 | 21.3 | 21 | 10 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 58.3 |
| Machine Shop VI | 15 | 0 | 70 | 21 | 12 | 12 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 121 |
| Fabrication Lathe V | 16 | 42.7 | 29 | 0 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 85.7 |
| Circuit Bench V | 17 | 0 | 38 | 20.6 | 20 | 15 | 4 | 60 | 4 | 2 | 163.6 |
| Average | 15 | 16 | 39.5 | 12.9 | 13 | 6.8 | 2.5 | 15 | 1 | 0.5 | 107.2 |
Complexity seems fairly similar to last tier for all tables - except for Circuit Bench, which jumps up massively, going from least complex to most complex of all tables. And it still needs Carnotite. And it’s also the most expensive in amount of Materials. Refinery meanwhile falls further behind - now in complexity as well as in material cost.
Machine Shop VI
| Item | Cx | Wd | VCM | CM | Granite | Carnotite | CG | Limestone | PF | Nitrogen | Helium | TM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Refinery VI | 20 | 42.7 | 20 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 0.8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 80.5 |
| Fabrication Lathe VI | 16 | 352 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 388 |
| Circuit Bench VI | 17 | 0 | 57 | 30 | 22.5 | 5 | 30.8 | 0 | 90 | 6 | 3 | 244.3 |
| Average | 17.7 | 131.6 | 29 | 15.3 | 9.5 | 3.3 | 10.5 | 5.3 | 30 | 2 | 1 | 237.6 |
And this is the last and final tier. Circuit Bench becomes more expensive but not more complex. Refinery makes a huge jump up in complexity - but stays far, far behind in material cost. And there is of course no more Machine Shop - that had already reached it’s max tier in the previous table above.
There’s also Limestone showing up here… that’s used to make Flourine, which can also be farmed and harvested directly. So that’s definitely not a bottleneck or special/rare case. It’s just that my little script that’s doing the heavy lifting of calculting all the numbers, doesn’t know you can harvest it - it only sees that there is a recipe to make it, so it ends up using that.
Conclusion
We’ve seen a bunch of data for most the end-products made with the Machine Shop and the Circuit Bench. That includes crafting stations, weapons and tools. We see that higher tiers of crafting recipes typically do grow more complex (more sub-recipes required) and more expensive (in terms of total materials needed). We’ve also seen that a few recipes stand out and don’t seem to really fit in, with the rest in their tier.
Regaring types of materials used, it’s all mostly of the generic category variety - but there are a few named materials that are explicitly needed, strewn in as well. Most of those can be refined from more than one base material, and aren’t difficult to get overall. Carnotite may be the one and only exception to that.
We’ve also seen that Chronophaser seemingly got overlooked, when the crafting recipes were toned down in complexity, making it now the most complex recipe we’ve examined in this post. It’s of course easily beaten in complexity by the infamous “Dr. Drake’s Coat”. That one’s a monster!
Overall, I hope you’ve learned something, and got a better feel and understanding of how crafting looks across the different tiers. In some ways, these could also be used, to roughly estimate a price floor for what items should be sold at. Right now, the minimum price for anything, is 10klaatus. And given how quick and easy you can grind missions to earn lots and lots of Klaatus - a price of 10 Klaatu per material might not even be that far off - although most testers seem to agree, that they would want to sell and buy common, low-PQRV, mass-mined materials at lower prices, and that 1Klaatu should be the minimum.
But if we assume 10 Klaatus on average - then the absolute minimum price floor of each item, should be at least Total Materials times 10. But then, complexity directly relates to how much time the crafter has to spend to make this - and if their work has a value too, then maybe you should add Complexity times 10 - or even times 20 - on top of that. The most expensive item would then be a “Fabrication Lathe VI” at 4000 Klaatus - but remember, that’s absolutely rock bottom minimum price. Any less than that, would be just unfair. Next in line would be the top tier Grenade Launchers, coming in at 3600-ish Klaatus. A Chronophaser would bottom out at 2750 Klaatus. And at the current recipes, the price floor for something like a Terraformer would lie at just 600 Klaatus. Definitely not it’s previous recipe though. And yes, those prices are still in line with materials costing 10 Klaatus per unit. If you say that 1 unit of a common raw material should be only 1 single Klaatu - then the rock bottom price of that Terraformer would drop down to just 60 Klaatus. If you think that’s crazy - I agree. This is probably a sign, that the new recipe for the Terraformer has maybe been dumbed down a little too far.
But with the current recipes being what they are - I think 10 Klaatus per raw Material and something like 750 for a Terraformer, maybe even 1000 if the stats are fine, would be okay-ish prices. For now. Until the next update changes all the recipes again. Of course all the crafters who made Terraformers using the previous 50-ish complecity, 300+ materials recipe, have to now sell those way below cost.
That’s it for today’s Deep Dive. See you again, next time!