Weekly Update (11/10/17) -- The Big Crafting Overhaul

Hello babes, and a happy Friday to you all!

Please say hello to our newest Patrons:

• Andrew L Butula
• Rob Jacobson
• Steven "HotwheelzMcG" McGuire

First: HUGE thanks to everyone who attended the first Goodie Bag stream and provided feedback on further improving the experience. It was tremendous fun, and I can't wait to make the next one even better!

Now, onto the update!

My original goal for this week was to integrate Hunterborn, but HB's emphasis on craftables forced me to tackle a different project first: the Big Crafting Overhaul.

The BCO is one of 4.0's core mechanic changes, and addresses one of US's most significant problems: inconsistent crafting mechanics/rules.

As you all know, Ultimate Skyrim utilizes over 300 different mods. Many of these mods introduce their own craftables, which -- while awesome -- causes some pretty wild inconsistencies in crafting behavior. After all, every Mod Author has their own philosophy on how crafting should behave, and naturally their implementations do not always follow the same rules.

The goal of the BCO is to address these inconsistencies by unifying crafting mechanics and recipes, so that all craftables play by the same rules. This makes crafting much easier to understand and utilize, which in turn allows for some very fun emergent gameplay opportunities.

To implement these changes, we must tackle several different tasks.

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The first task is clearly defining the purpose of each crafting station. In the current state of US, it's very unclear what each station is for. Some items are created at the Forge, others at the Tanning Rack, others at the Smelter, and the distinctions are often arbitrary and confusing.

With the BCO, each crafting station has a clearly defined role:

• The "Create Item" Ability has been greatly expanded, allowing players to craft many items on the spot. This includes Hunterborn items, tents, backpacks/bandoliers, survival tools, crude weapons/armors, and pretty much anything that should be craftable anywhere. All you need are the materials and the right perks.
  
  
•  The Grindstone and Workbench function as they always have: tempering weapons and armor respectively.
  
  
• The Tanning Rack and Smelter are both for breaking down equipment and creating raw materials required by crafting recipes. The only difference is that the Tanning Rack handles soft materials like Hide & Leather, while the Smelter handles metal materials like Iron, Steel, etc.
  
  
• The Forge allows you to craft almost every recipe in the game, including recipes from the "Create Item" ability. The goal here is to prevent players from tediously hopping between crafting stations. Think of it as the final step in your crafting process, where you end up with your finished product.

After testing, I feel these changes greatly enhance the fun and accessibility of item crafting.

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The second BCO task is making all craftable recipes visible to the player. Basically: if you can craft it, you can see it in your crafting menu -- whether or not you have the materials. (This excludes breakdown recipes, of course.)

As we've previously discussed, many modders avoid cluttering the crafting menu by hiding recipes unless the player has one or more required materials. This is quite considerate of them, but it can also prevent the player from seeing all the cool things they're able to craft.

Luckily, SkyUI eliminates this problem with its wonderful search and filter functions, which make it easy to sort even the largest crafting lists.

Now, players can easily search for cool things to create. If you want to make a Backpack, simply search "backpack" and you'll see everything you need to create it. If you need a warm cloak for the snow, search "cloak" to see all the different varieties of cloaks you can make (and their required materials).

If you have a penchant for Elven aesthetics, simply search "elven", or sort by the Elven material, and you'll have tons of options for filling out your cool Elven look.

Maybe you're a swordsman looking to branch out into other weapons? In that case, you could search for new weapons by name ("hammer", "maul", "glaive", etc.), or simply sort by the weapon class itself. Experiment with different playstyles and weapon types to find one that works for you!

If your character is an aspiring cook, pop by a cooking pot to see all the wonderful meals you can create! Maybe some delicious pies will entice you to build an oven or two, or maybe that beer-battered chicken will spur that brewery you've been considering.

These are only a few examples of course, but my hope is to encourage players to go on their own little adventures for crafting materials, or keep players on the lookout for certain items while accomplishing other tasks. I find this really connects players to the world around them, and further personalizes the player experience.

(If you're not a crafting character, remember that you can also commission most items from Skyrim's various smiths and craftsmen!)

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That pretty much wraps up this week's update! I'll likely have more to say about the BCO and Hunterborn soon, along with some other surprises I'm saving for next week's update.

As always, I hope this post was to your liking, and thank you all for your continued support. Please believe me when I say I couldn't do this without you all!

Much love, and until next week,

BB