Okay I know there have been many complaints about the crafting system. I’ve made some myself.

Now working on my 4th character and am starting to think that crafting is actually useful and fun. When I say crafting, I mean anything you can make at an ammo bench, work bench, and campfire.

I’ll skip the part where I tell you how my “crafting character” utilizes things. If you've really experimented with craftables, you know how powerful/useful they can be. Many chems give better bonuses than perks. I’ll use Slasher (+25 DR +25% damage) Party Time Mentats (+5 cha +2 int +2 per) (Rocket AP+30) and that fabulous .44 swc (1.20 x Dam -6DT) as some examples.

Gameplay wise it really opened up New Vegas, giving me different reasons to explore, collect, do certain missions etc. It stopped being a pain to collect things and actually started to become very fun to amass large quantities of crafting materials.

Though there are still some problems. For me, these are:

It takes to long to get a grasp on how to craft things, and how to craft thing efficiently. You can easily say “well you’re dumb, I got it right off the bat.” or “learn how to play noob.”

But I’d argue it takes a lot of game experience/attention to really utilize everything in an efficient manner. What grows wear, what kind of junk is useful to my character, who sells what junk, what ammo components make what ammo types. Basically, how to farm things efficiently. Only a lot of game time will teach you this. Like I said I’m on my fourth play through and now realize that breaking down .308 rounds gives me the materials for GOVT' rounds minus the casing. .

Without this experience crafting can be frustrating and useless. You fall into the “it is easier to for me to buy X than to make X ” syndrome.

Improved recipe list (the patch did help! ) and the ability to browse them easier would be a much needed fix as well.

And please don’t get me started on craftable unique weapons. :cryvaultboy: Damn it, vault boy is crying. Again. It is a sensitive topic.

In short, crafting is much more useful, fun, and much easier than I originally had thought. I believe it takes a little too much game time experience to really utilize, which can put of new players. Also the crafting system suffers from a bit of clunky-ness and can be some what overpowered when heavily exploited. Maybe not pre-patch sniper rifle overpowered, but maybe a little bit much. :hubbahubba:

So now that everyone has a bit more experience in New Vegas, how do you feel about crafting. Love it? Hate it? Don’t touch it? Still broken? What’s your opinion?

I had the same problem trying to figure out what was useful and what I needed and how different ammunition could make other ammo types. Once you get teh hang of it it is not really hard. But it can be hard to first grasp.

It's definitely not broken, more like it has a learning curve much more complex than what we had in FO3, I'm on my second go around and I have just started to collect things to craft with and DL'ed some mods that add more cool stuff to craft.

bigcrazewolf

Its useful, but atm I have no need due to having plenty of caps. But if that ever changes easy fallback.

My character has plenty of caps as well, but I feel a little more in character buying and trading for items used for crafting. Gives me a reason to participate in the (slightly flimsy) economy. You can't take your caps with you.

Very much agree that you need a lot of time spent actually playing game (rather than just reading about it in a guide/wiki) to get a feel for what is actually useful and how to best acquire the needed components. The patch certainly helped with the moving of "actually usable with your current in-inventory components" recipes to the top of the list and the tweaking Obsidian did to some of them to make them require fewer items or be actually usable at all as some were broken pre-patch due to outright errors or by component scarcity.

I'm going to be starting a new game soon and I'm thinking of making a list of my most used and most useful crafting items and formulas from my current game to keep by my side as a play again to eliminate some of the tedium of collecting the necessary parts. Use of a labeling mod (if on PC of course) is highly recommended as well, as it can place text labels in front of usable items (ex-> PART: Tin Can) so they stick out when looting a location.

The only gripe with crafting I have is that it's not imo fully implemented, it's wonderfully done but misses out quite a few ammo types and recipies tend to just be the same but with different ingredients.

Then again;
I rarely have caps, as soon as I get to vegas the 20'000 at most I scrimp by collecting everything south of vegas in all areas gets blown on buying up all ammo types for my current guns, then what's left on implants that suit my build.
After which money looses the rest of the appeal I don't see my stash go back up and I really don't need it for anything else for it to do so.
That said I rarely use repair kits, I rarely use armour I only buy those one - three weapons I can't kill, steal or loot in game;
I never sell any gun that I have skill points in even if my role forbids its use, and rarely sell any other form of currency.

The ammo I then convert or hoard to convert, leaving me with a ton that I keep roughly 100 - 200 at most rounds for up to four weapons I lug around the rest stays at home.
If I play a survivalist character I make food and use it, but never to sell.

So is it perfect no, but as it is I see little wrong that needs fixing.

As much as I'm enjoying my crafting character it is set up that way. I guess the way that it is set up is that you can take it or leave it, which is always a good way to set things up. Similar to gambling. Do you like to? Go ahead. If not, you're not missing everything.

It still can be a bit tedious and can slow down gameplay, but some times you wanna kick back, relax, and cook up some slasher in a moblie home. Also fun to pile up those big horner steaks.

Crafting can be complex and daunting, like playing Fallout. It can also be very rewarding, like playing Fallout.

Games that tells you how to farm effectively? Even WoW or CoD don't do that

Anyways, since this is your 4th character, I would imagine you should have know where all the common "junk" are.......or was it too long for a RPG that ask you to remember anything?

I don't particularly think there was anything necessarily "broken" with the crafting system (it works like it's supposed to, in my experience, and gives random items a certain usefulness.)

For me, I've just found that I don't really make all that much use of it. It never really takes me very long to get all the stimpaks, food, and water that I'm going to need; my character doesn't have very much in the way of Survival skill, etc. I do make use of the Reloading Bench on occaison (I haven't found all much that I even wanted to make with the Workbench - but then again, I'm not using a Energy Weapons character, either...)

But I do think it would be nice - in the future, if there was slightly better... integration into the UI, for crafting items. I don't generally play my games with a piece of notebook paper handy, so it would be nice if (at least, once you've already made an item or learned the recipe) if crafting items could tell you, in their own description, which recipes they could be used for. I do remember at least a couple of times that I'd try to remember to keep an eye out for a particular item for something I wanted to make - only to later forget why I was collecting them (and ending up either selling or just dumping them to make more room in my inventory.)

That's the only real problem I ran into, and what kind of kept me from getting too far into the crafting system, really. Was that the only times I knew what I was going to need to collect for the things I wanted to make, was when I was actually in the recipe menus. Which doesn't do me a whole lot of good when I was out in the Wastes, actually in a position to find that kind of stuff. (For example, I've only recently remembered that it'd be worth keeping some surgical tubing around, just so I can purify my dirty water...)

Good post. For me, it was difficult coming into this game because I had all this knowledge of Fallout 3 that I had to unlearn. There were dozens of items that used to be valuable for various reasons, that now aren't or are now merely worth their bottle cap value.

To remedy this I looked at the crafting menus and jotted down ingredients on a piece of paper, that way when I stumbled across various odds and ends, I knew what I needed to take with me and what I could leave behind.

Another thing to note is, just because you can craft something doesn't mean you need to or should. Some craftables are best suited for different play styles, like poison for example. Sometimes it can be easier to just have the bare necessities.

What your sarcastic whit is failing to realize is Im talking about accessibility. It is not "I'm upset because i have to remember stuff."

Just because it is complex does not make it have to be a pain to use. I think the system alienates new players. The learning curve for efficiently crafting is much higher than other things in the game like using vats, picking locks, repair, etc. At times the cost / reward isn't enough to lure in some players and in turn, I think people miss out on a cool part of the game. This is what I mean when I say the system is a bit clunky.

For example: alchemy in oblivion. very complex, but still easy to pick up and use, at least IMO. As a new player to Oblivion I wasn't overwhelmed by the system. I can't say I felt the same way trying to figure out the ammo bench my first time through.

I enjoy the system now, but I know alot of people don't. So I wondered what others thought.

Did you actually want to share your experience w/ the crafting system?

If they ever change hardcoe a bit (make certian things toggle on/off) then I think crafting would gain popularity, its mainly food/ammo, food is only good in HC. If I could play HC without having to worry about boone dying I would just go into the wastes with a little ammo, a few stims, and the weapons/clothes on my back, leaving all my caps at home. But on normal mode creating ammo just dosent seem worth it when your overflowing with cash and a constant supply, and you can carry as many as you want. I cleared out sloan it took over 500 5mm AP rounds and about 100 AP 5.56 rounds. If that were HC it would have been great because then I would have to run around and scavenge, because I had so little ammo left.


I gamble in the strip 11,500 in ultra lux, 7500 gimmorah, about the same for the tops (just under the limit so I can gamble in future) then collect every snow globe 2000 each and there are 7, then sell the combat armour I got in the casino for about 3000, then get 5000 in the wrangler. That is a hell of alot, now my character dosent use energy weapons sell those too, along with other things I dont want.
I only keep repair items, unique/rare items, and crafting items. Recently after ciggarette cartons/packets for madre chips, easy items from there. I am going to lvl up survival too, turn all the meat into steaks, increasing value, and tanning gecko hides. Money is easy to get imo. I just wish I had a place to spend it all. Dont see the point in spending it all at casinos.

I play HC/Very Hard and never have to craft anything. I have like 70k caps surplus after having riot shotgun, minigun, LMG, AMR, this machine, hunting shotgun, and pretty much everything that costs anything including after 5 implants. I think I have like 150-170 stims, 50 water of both, and plenty of food.

I just don't see the need to make anything.

I only use the reloader bench. I don't like not being able to craft ammo like ap and hp rounds. Also, why can't we breakdown surplus and bulk ammo? Silly imo. I had also took the handloader perk thinking it would somehow be worth it... I was worng.

You're right in the sense caps are available, I was wrong saying they're not but for me they tend to be.

I often gamble too, but if I have 7 luck I win quickly, if I have 5 or under loose slowly making it less about skill for me, more about the build.
If it was not a minigame but a FO2 stat check that would be fine, but as it is it just holds little interest for me, I don't always play a role that gambles either tbh.
My current character is a med head descended from a M.A.S.H unit turned tribal so I'm keeping any pre war money, NCR / legion dosh, and every carton / pack of cigarettes.
Making doctors bags and stimpacks, as well as repair kits, going to make nuka recipies later but as I have yet to try out the perk have no clue what to expect nor do I wish to know before hand.

Then even if I were to save money by selling everything I collected what would I spend it on, a AMR is not my thing.
PA even on characters I play that could wear it and do, I find it to be worthless for my playstyle, more ammo I already buy new ammo every merchant has just to stock pile it.
New weapons for some builds yes but only as repairs.

Crafting for me has always been about the role, apart from gun builds and reload benches, and EW's builds and work benches and survivalist builds and camp fires..
The two good uses I've found is for an explosive build, I must say once you get the powder charge schematic the role and tactics really increase. the other is the Med head / doctor role.

I did play a trader once, buying at one town selling to another but the difference in caps to "balance" the game can at best get a one - one sell for a faction that Idolizes you.

Agreed.

There's a difference between "complex" and "accessible" after all - and they're not necessarily mutually exclusive. I liked that there were now tons of items that could be of use to me. What I had trouble with, however, was that I'd be stashing all of these items in various places all over the Wasteland. Unless I had Veronica with me, I needed to be at a crafting station of some sort to even find out what was going to be useful for what.

So I had to go to a crafting station (of any sort,) just to find out what I wanted to/could build - then go back to where I'd stashed all these "junk" items, and then head back to try and craft them. Sure, once I got set up in a nice place with crafting areas nearby, it wasn't as much of a pain - but it was still kind of a hassle, I found.

Certainly could have been made a bit more easier. And like has been said - the immediate reward isn't necessarily enough to entice players, I think. There's a certain initial investment that the system requires for you to learn and become familiar with before you start getting anything terribly useful out of it. And you're not really missing out on that much if you completely ignore it, either. For example, you can make some really cool food from the campfires - but (in HC, at least) there's little point in having something that drops your Food requirement by, say, 300 or so - because if you're really using the system and keeping well-fed, etc - you're not letting yourself get that hungry in the first place.