This is somewhat a continuation from
https://forum.oortonline.com/t/world-specific-materials-weapons-equipment-items/1086/
this will have problems but i think it would simply be an amazing system and it is a great way to maximize gain while minimizing effort.
so customizeable crafting… if we look at 2 normal swords, namely these
fundamentally these 2 swords are vey much alike, these 2 swords can be broken down to 4 parts.
Blade
Protection
Handle
Knob
for lack of better words. let me illustrate.
I hope you get my point, now if the handle on those 2 swords were switched around then you would get 2 new swords.
The cool thing, even from here, if we say we can mix and match these as we want. just these items from these 2 swords. we could make 16 different swords. if we added 1 more item for each category we would be able to make 81 unique swords. so if the devs made 3 handles, 3 blades, 3 protection and 3 knobs, meaning 12 different things, we could make 81 different swords. that is not counting color. now you should have gotten the point.
If we use this system and say for swords they would make 10 knobs, 10 handles, 10 protections and 10 blades . and we can combine as we want, we can make 10 000 unique swords. which means that they could make 10 unique swords, or allow us to use each part and then make 10 000 unique swords.
if we then up it a little and say we get 3 colors on each of these 3 items. we would be able to make a stunning amount of 120 000 unique swords. so 10 times 4 items in 3 colors each. allows us to make 120 000 different swords
then from here the materials you put in only change the stats, but you can choose the looks as you want. a way to add some sort of uniqueness would be that you start with a standard looking sword and then you got some more looks as you became a better crafter, and that most of the looks would be recipe drops from the worlds. so you have recipes that only drop on those worlds. meaning that there might be an insanely cool looking sword hilt on a tier 1 world, that would make a tier 5 smith go back down to try and find the drop.
this can be done to certain degrees with other weapons. but i doubt there would be 4 things for every weapon. but it would allow the reuse of a ton of textures. im no master of game programming so i dont know if it is possible though.
This is an idea i like that came up in a discussion with my older brother about crafting in games, so the basic idea is his 
@ben @james what do you think? you always ask for the best possible result from the least amount of work, and this is the best possible way i can imagine doing it, and also kinda what i imagined you have already thought of 
Maybe every part has its own modifier slot or some parts add an additional one.
Basically attaching different Oort Shards to weapons to give them a stat boost / elemental effect / etc. Better weapons have more slots. Etc.
