Crafting Recipes

A recipe turns ingredients into an item at a crafting station. Each ingredient is either an exact item ("3 Iron Ore") or any item carrying a key ("any 2 different red herbs, 1 of each") — so a potion can accept whichever herbs the player happens to hold.

Each recipe also has a Mode — how the player makes it. One station can mix all three:

Where to Author It#

Setting Up a Recipe#

1. Open Recipes and press + New.
2. Pick the Station it's made at and the Required Skill and level.
3. On Mode, Inputs & Output, leave Mode on Recipe list (or see Crafting Modes below).
4. Add each ingredient with + Add Input, choosing Exact item or Any with key for each row.
5. Set the Output Item and how many it makes.
6. Save.

Recipe Fields#

Gating a profession: give higher-tier recipes a higher Required Level — for example ingots at Smelting 1 / 10 / 25 by ore, and swords at Weaponsmithing 1 / 10 / 25 by metal. The crafting window greys out a recipe the player's level is too low for and shows the level it needs; the server refuses it too.

What the player sees. The window opens beside the character rather than over it, has no backdrop, and moves when the player drags its header. Inside:

• Every recipe carries a ×N badge — how many times it can be made right now — and a recipe the player's skill is too low for shows its level in red.
• Search, Can craft now and a category filter sit above the list.
• Every ingredient reads have / need, in a different colour when it is short, with Need 2 more under it. An Any with key ingredient also lists which of the player's items count toward it.
• Produces shows the output and how many the player already owns, and under Item details the same card the bag shows for that item — its quality, tier and type, your description, every stat, how it compares with what they have equipped, durability and weight — so they can judge the item before spending the materials. Write a description and fill in Base Stats on the output item and they appear here with no extra setup.
• Craft ×N. Beside Craft the player picks how many to make — −, +, or Max for as many as the bag covers — and the button reads Craft ×5. The game makes them one after another, each taking its own materials as it starts, and the bar reads 2 / 5. If the materials, the bag room or the station's fuel run out part-way, or the player walks away from the station, the queue stops there and says how many were made. Cancel the rest stops it: the one being made finishes, and the ones not started cost nothing.
• A progress bar counts the craft down. It uses the craft's real time, after craft-speed events and passives. While the craft runs, a progress bar also sits above the character's head, like a cast bar, whether the window is open or closed — so the player can close the window and the craft keeps going in plain sight.

Which tier it crafts at. The window offers the tiers the output item exists at (its tier band), within what the crafter may attempt, and opens on the best tier the player holds the materials for. An item whose band is a single tier shows no tier buttons. Without a craft tier ladder nothing limits the crafter, so the buttons cover the item's whole band.

Exact and Keyed Ingredients#

Every input row starts with a choice:

So a Lesser Health Potion set to Any with key → RH, 2 different, 1 of each takes any two different red herbs — one Pinkerton and one Wild Rye, say. Two Pinkertons don't count: the rule is two kinds.

When a player crafts, the game picks which of their items to use:

• It uses the stacks they hold most of first, so common herbs go before rare ones.
• An item that could fill two inputs of the same recipe is counted for both — it has to cover both amounts.
• The crafting window lists the exact items it will use under Will use, before the player commits.

Giving Items Their Keys#

Open an item and fill in Ingredient Keys — a comma-separated list, like RH, Herb. Every item that lists a key can be used wherever a recipe asks for that key.

• Case and spacing are ignored. RH, rh and Rh are the same key.
• An item can carry several keys — a Fire Berry can be both RH and Berry.
• Keys are just names you choose. The recipe editor offers every key that at least one item carries.

Crafting Modes#

Set Mode on a recipe's Mode, Inputs & Output tab. Modes are per recipe, so a Workbench can offer ordinary list recipes, a few shaped-grid recipes and a secret or two at once. The crafting window shows a Recipes, Grid and Experiment tab for whichever modes the station actually has — a station with only list recipes looks exactly as it always did.

Shaped Grid Recipes#

1. Open the recipe and set Mode to Shaped grid. A blank 3 × 3 pattern appears.
2. Pick the Grid width and Grid height your pattern needs (1 to 5 each).
3. Click a cell, set Cell contents to Exact item or Any with key, and choose the item or key. Repeat for each cell of the pattern; leave the rest Empty.
4. Tick Shapeless, Allow mirrored or Exact position if you want them (below).
5. Set the Output Item and save.

In game the player picks an item from Your items, clicks cells to place it (or drags it on), and the window shows what the arrangement makes as they go. Selecting a grid recipe in the list shows its pattern faintly on the bench, and Fill from bag lays it out for them.

A filled bench has the same − / + / Max control as the list: it repeats the arrangement that many times.

Bench Size#

Out of the box each kind of station gets a bench just large enough for its largest shaped-grid recipe (3 × 3 at least). To set it yourself:

1. Open Combat → Tuning → Itemization and scroll to Crafting rules.
2. Under Grid bench size per station, pick a Width and Height (1 to 5) for the station. Automatic goes back to the sized-from-recipes bench.
3. Save.

A recipe whose pattern does not fit the bench you set cannot be made. The editor tells you in both places: in red on the station's row under Crafting rules, and on the recipe itself under Mode, Inputs & Output. A pattern that may sit anywhere only needs room for its filled cells; one with Exact position needs its whole grid; a Shapeless one only needs enough cells.

Discovery Recipes#

1. Open the recipe and set Mode to Discovery.
2. Add its Inputs as usual — exact items, keyed rows, or both.
3. Set the Output Item and save.

Players don't see the recipe. At a station of its type they open Experiment, put ingredients on the table and press Try it. Offering exactly the recipe's inputs — nothing missing, nothing extra — crafts it, and when the craft finishes the recipe joins that character's Recipes list for good, where it is made like any other. A wrong guess takes nothing. The tab shows how many of the station's secrets the player has found and how many are still hidden, without naming them.

Should a wrong guess cost something? By default it costs nothing. To make experimenting a real gamble, open Combat → Tuning → Itemization → Crafting rules and tick A wrong guess uses up the ingredients, then save. From then on a combination that makes nothing takes everything the player put on the table. The Experiment tab warns them up front, and the button has to be pressed twice — the second press reads Risk these ingredients. A right guess is an ordinary craft either way. An experiment is always a single attempt; it has no ×N.

Restyling the Crafting Window#

The crafting window is a customizable panel like the Upgrade window. Open UI Editor → Panels → Crafting.

1. Window & header — header style, title alignment, a custom header icon, width, density, button style, premium chrome and entrance motion.
2. Item slots in this window — give the crafting window's item cells (ingredient icons, bench cells and the output) their own shape, border, fill, background and frame image, or leave them on the world's Item slots style.
3. Sections — hide or reorder the window's blocks: Station strip, Craft progress, Mode tabs, Search & filters, Recipe list, Recipe detail and Grid bench / experiment table. Put Recipe detail before Recipe list to swap their sides.
4. Appearance — the knobs below, plus accent colour, corner radius, opacity, a background image and a 9-slice frame.
5. Window placement — where the window opens.
6. Body — switch to Widgets to rebuild the window from your own layout. Bind a Repeat List to Recipes at this station (name, icon, times craftable, required level, category) or Ingredients (selected recipe) (name, icon, have, need, have / need), and drop in a Stock Body widget to keep the built-in crafting controls.

These change how the window looks, never what a craft costs or makes — the game server checks every craft the same way whatever the window shows.

Gotchas#

• A queue only ever pays for the craft it is on. Asking for ×10 with materials for 4 makes 4 and stops; nothing is held back or lost. A unit that fails an over-tier roll doesn't stop the queue — the next one still starts.
• The queue belongs to the game server. Closing the window or the crafting panel doesn't stop it; logging out does, and hands back the materials of the craft in progress.
• Editing a discovery recipe reaches the players who found it straight away. They don't have to log out to see its new name or ingredients.
• A shaped-grid recipe has no input rows. It takes what is on its pattern, one of each item per filled cell. To need three of something, fill three cells.
• Two grid recipes that match the same arrangement. The pickier one wins: a shaped pattern beats a shapeless one, and exact items beat keys — so "any two planks" never swallows the recipe that names oak planks.
• Grid and discovery crafts spend one tier of materials. In a world with item tiers, everything placed on the bench or the table has to be the same tier; other tiers grey out once the first item is down.
• A discovery is per character, and it is learned when the craft finishes — a craft that fails or is interrupted teaches nothing.
• Changing a recipe to Discovery hides it from players who haven't found it. Changing it back to Recipe list shows it to everyone again.
• A recipe can only be made the way its mode says. A grid recipe can't be crafted from the list, and a discovery recipe can't be crafted by a player who hasn't found it.
• Feature flags. Grid Crafting and Recipe Discovery in Feature Flags switch the two modes off for the whole world; both are on by default and do nothing until a recipe uses the mode. Crafting off turns all of it off.
• New modes need an up-to-date game server and the database update that comes with it. Managed servers pick up the new version automatically the next time they restart while empty.
• A key no item carries can never be crafted. The crafting window shows it unmet, and the recipe editor keeps the key so you can fix the items rather than lose the recipe.
• "Different items" means different kinds. Asking for 2 different items when only one item carries the key makes the recipe impossible.
• A higher quality can make extra copies. A quality's Stat multiplier (see Items & Equipment) also multiplies the recipe's Quantity, rounded — a ×1.5 Masterpiece of a 1-item recipe makes 2. The bag only needs room for the recipe's own Quantity: a bonus copy that does not fit is not made, and the craft still succeeds.
• A craft needs bag room when it starts and when it finishes. Room is judged for the item at the tier being crafted — the same item at another tier is a different stack. With no room the player sees "Not enough inventory space" and nothing is taken: no materials and no station fee. If the bag fills while the craft is running, the materials are handed back, by mail if the bag cannot take them either.
• Keyed crafting needs an up-to-date game server. Managed servers pick up the new version automatically the next time they restart while empty.