Crafting
Learning paths through this topic
Craft ammo without wasting a batch when the pouch is almost full
Each batch gives ten bullets, but the pouch has room for fifteen more. Either the extra bullets vanish and the player paid for nothing, or the game refuses to craft at all. This entry fills the pouch exactly and charges a fair price for the last, smaller batch.
Stop a mashed craft button from crafting three times, but remember one extra press
A nervous player hammers the craft key in the middle of a fight. Either the item is built three times from one stack of ingredients, or the presses are swallowed while the bar runs and the next craft never starts. This entry builds once per press and keeps exactly one in line.
Make crafting risky, but let a failed try give something back
If every failure destroys all ingredients, players stop trying; if nothing is ever lost, the risk means nothing. A good rule loses part of the material and makes the next try a little more likely. Here is the loss rule, the odds and the limit that keeps it fair.
Craft with materials from nearby chests, nearest first
Players dislike running back and forth with armfuls of material, so the workbench should see the chests around it. But which chest gets emptied first, how far may they be, and what if the workbench itself is out of reach? This entry settles it.
Save and load the game while an item is still being crafted
The autosave fires while the forge is working. After loading, the ingredients are gone and the sword never arrives, or the sword arrives twice. This entry stores the running job with the bag in one piece, finishes a job exactly once, and refuses damaged save data without crashing.
Show how many of each recipe you can make when they share materials
Three recipes all need wood. Each one says you can make several, but together you cannot. Players queue them and the last ones fail or the numbers on screen turn out wrong. This entry counts each recipe alone and then the whole queue in order.
Let crafting go faster when crouched and slower on the move, without losing time
Crafting while running should work, but not as fast as standing still behind cover. When the player switches pose halfway through a frame, or the job ends mid-frame, time gets lost or counted twice. This entry adds up work exactly and passes leftover time to the next job.
Craft an item when the ingredients sit in several stacks
The recipe needs three wood, the bag has two stacks of wood, and the game says there is not enough. Or it takes the ingredients and then has nowhere to put the result. This entry makes crafting all-or-nothing and takes from the stacks in a sensible order.
Stop a bandage from being cancelled by every single hit
A player starts patching up while enemies are around. One scratch cancels everything and the materials are gone, or nothing ever interrupts and crafting mid-fight is a free heal. This entry finds the middle: hits slow the work down, and the last stretch is protected.
Let the quality of the crafted item depend on what went in
If the result is the plain average, one terrible ingredient hardly matters and players mix junk with gold. If it is the worst one, a good blacksmith is never rewarded. This entry blends both, adds skill and turns a number into a named tier.
Finish crafting jobs while the player was away, but not forever
A forge that works for ten minutes needs to know what is finished when the player comes back. Counting with a running timer fails when the game is closed, the clock jumps or the player waited a week. This entry works from timestamps and limits the reward.
Let the player win back the crafting materials they dropped on dying
Dying in a hard stage should hurt, but losing forty minutes of gathered ore to one mistimed jump makes people quit. A bag left where they fell gives a second chance. This entry handles the awkward cases: dying again on the way back, and dying with empty pockets.