If we are still going to be able to loot anything in the future (assuming a player item bank goes into existence) it would be nice to be able to like melt down things to get core resources or break down machines for parts.
So a smelter or bench that can break apart items might be nice even if we just can use it on the things we have. Just something that can get me back down to some core resources even less than it cost to make it.
Yes, please.
I don’t want gem blocks, I want gem tools/weapons!
A way to “recycle” them would be awesome.
I like this idea.
How should the system take into account degraded equipment?
Like damaged tools and worn machines? Have a % chance of failed recovery based on current durability remaining. Failed recovery = total loss of product and scraps. Additionally, perhaps, a skill that increases these odds a little to allow “salvage experts” to recover more damaged goods, or buy broken tools cheap and sell the recovered scraps?
I should ammend this to a % chance per ingredient returned, or add a prefix to the item state like “scrapped” that prevents it being re-used in mass craft recipies to infinity duplicate items.
The more I think about salvaging goods, the more potential hurdles I can think of that need to be overcome.
I don’t know if we want to recycle equipment, but if I were writing the rules, I’d give 50% materials for 100% condition, 25% for 50%-99%, and nothing below 50%.
One obvious issue with recycling is you probably don’t want to let anyone use mass craft and then recycling to create more materials than they started with, but this also makes recycling pretty bad for anyone who made just 1 of an item.
This would be pretty great since sometimes I buy bulks of weapons and on my way to my base I slip and die, normally I just throw all my inventory on the ground and go buy more if that happens since no one will buy 75% of a sling bow. In case I am this unlucky my newly acquired tools wouldn’t become garbage.
We’ve been suggesting these things earlier but the general consensus was that recycling would render crafting and selling new items useless (or at least less needed).
I like the idea and would like to see it even if recovery ratio was low. Recycling would also open door for some interesting skills.
I agree, it does cause issues with crafting. What if steer away from recycling and instead consider “disenchanting” like in WoW? You don’t get the raw ingredients back, but instead a new ingredient used in other ways? Gem dust, or scrap metal that can be used in other ways? Perhaps these can be reconstituted in some way (at an efficiency loss) to get restored goods, but not a direct item recovery ratio.
I like the idea of being able to deconstruct a broken workbench (aquired from salvaging expired builds, or purchased broken), aquire spare parts, and use that to repair another workbench.
I’ve proposed auto scaling the price on plinths by the condition.
It’s true that some players might not want a 50% gem slingbow, but if it was half price then why not? Then it makes items more affordable at the cost of inventory space.
Thank you for the suggestion Ive tried it back when everyone received their feats during the update. For example I had my copper slingbows at 10c while everyone else had there’s at 35-40c because I fell into a valley full of spitters and died. But after several months no sales, so now I avoid having less than quality items in my shops. To be fair I have avoided buying items myself because they were less than 
%.
Someone with no coin might buy it but in all honesty most folks are running around with a fat wallet.
Considering how easy it is to fix items with spanners, just require it to be 100% for now. Unless you guys have some other type of system to make worn items worse where they permanently break or something.
For tools and other stuff, you get back the % that isn’t worn and lose the rest.
I’d want the system simple for you all just to make it easier for development.
This would be a great improvement.
Just to clarify my original post. I wasn’t expecting a 1-1 type situation. But maybe we can have different types of smelters that give better % back. So if you build an expensive one with lots of ingredients it maybe does give a 1-1 situation.
I like this idea! Spanners then become “repair kits” that require spare parts to craft.
Yup, part of my solution to making repairing a fun and useful mechanic.
I think we need to break this into different tiers and types of items.
For me the original post I was thinking like iron hammers that I would want to smelt them down - (1-1 maybe if 100%, less if below 100% wear) and then take the ore and give it to @AmandaPan for the Hive.
For the machines I found I would want to just get some of the stuff back, but maybe this is where we could get new items. I only am not sure about new stuff because I don’t want another big thing the dev team has to do. I wanted this simple. But, obviously if they have something more advanced down the line that needs new items in the world then maybe this would help.
For gems and higher tier stuff, I wasn’t sure but would link it back to like the iron hammers. But since gems tools are more expensive maybe we don’t get base but something else.
I really don’t think overall this would stop anything in people being able to do crafting or selling wares. Remember we don’t have TONS of items like this floating around. Obviously there was a lot from the recent big cleanse event but going forward it would be smaller in nature. So I don’t see it needing to be too super restrictive or over burdening.
I wouldn’t want even more complexity or burden on the user. Maybe after x number of repairs we need parts but even then it feels too much. It is already bad enough we have to fix the machines every 10 uses even though most give 20 in queue. That should be fixed at least.
Yea I agree with you when it comes to how easy machines break, but what is wrong with a little bit of complexity with adding a few parts needed in repairing, maybe spare parts are need for the higher tier crafting stations, which would allow low level players the ability to get a few spare parts from breaking down old stuff and then when they get to the higher level benches, they have a few parts for use.
Or maybe spare parts are only used when the player wants them to be used and they can be used like a buff to how much gets repaired when you use a spanner.
Nothing is wrong with it. I just look at it this way – we won’t actually be coming across a lot of used or free machines. Compared to most play and not including the recent big cleanse of plots due to timer expiration, how often do you really come across expired builds or the ability to get old machines.
So spare parts from those machines would be rare. I guess we could create a recipe to create spare parts to balance the need they would create if we add it to the machine models.
Overall the reason I was trying to keep it simple was development time and not to create another thing that gets put on some list that might not be done for a very long time. I see a simple machine that returns X number of original resources to you when used as something that can be developed a whole lot faster and easier than a bit complex design with additional assets that need to be created - spare parts, buffs, dust, etc.
If the game was 1.0 I would shoot for a bigger design, but in early access, I’d just prefer a simple system to have it released so we can actually use it and not wait…
Yep agree with you there, we shouldn’t be making it to confusing for early access.