Let's try again. This is a recipe in the game, as it stands right now:
Code:
<recipe name="ammo9mmBulletBall" count="1" craft_area="workbench" tags="workbenchCrafting">
<ingredient name="resourceBulletTip" count="1"/>
<ingredient name="resourceGunPowder" count="1"/>
<ingredient name="resourceBulletCasing" count="1"/>
</recipe>
It is a recipe for 9mm bullets. It states that if you take 1 bullet tip, 1 gunpowder, and 1 bullet casing, you can make 1 9mm bullet, and it needs to be done on a workbench.
Now, here's a related recipe:
Code:
<recipe name="ammoBundle9mmBulletBall" count="1" craft_time="240" craft_area="workbench" tags="learnable,workbenchCrafting">
<ingredient name="resourceBulletTip" count="80"/>
<ingredient name="resourceGunPowder" count="80"/>
<ingredient name="resourceBulletCasing" count="80"/>
</recipe>
This is a recipe for 9mm bullet bundles. For every 80 bullet tips, 80 gunpowder, and 80 bullet casing, you craft 1 bullet bundle. Once you crafted that, you can open it to get 100 9mm bullets.
So, could TFP, as it stands right now, made it so you could craft 100 9mm bullets at 80% cost directly, once you completed the gunslinger book series? No. Because you either know how to craft 9mm bullets, or you don't. You can't learn how to craft a bunch of 9mm bullets for a smaller cost. Now, suppose these recipes were written like this:
Code:
<recipe name="ammo9mmBulletBall" craft_area="workbench" tags="workbenchCrafting">
<output name="ammo9mmBulletBall" count="1"/>
<ingredient name="resourceBulletTip" count="1"/>
<ingredient name="resourceGunPowder" count="1"/>
<ingredient name="resourceBulletCasing" count="1"/>
</recipe>
<recipe name="ammoBundle9mmBulletBall" craft_time="240" craft_area="workbench" tags="learnable,workbenchCrafting">
<output name="ammoBundle9mmBulletBall" count="1"/>
<ingredient name="resourceBulletTip" count="80"/>
<ingredient name="resourceGunPowder" count="80"/>
<ingredient name="resourceBulletCasing" count="80"/>
</recipe>
Then they
could have done it by changing the second one like this:
Code:
<recipe name="ammoBundle9mmBulletBall" craft_time="240" craft_area="workbench" tags="learnable,workbenchCrafting">
<output name="ammo9mmBulletBall" count="100"/>
<ingredient name="resourceBulletTip" count="80"/>
<ingredient name="resourceGunPowder" count="80"/>
<ingredient name="resourceBulletCasing" count="80"/>
</recipe>
And here's the thing:
no changes would be needed in any other file. And, in fact, unless they did make it so you craft 100 bullets instead of 1 bullet bundle, you wouldn't even be able to tell there's something different. But it
allows something that wasn't possible before.
Now let's go for the other example: disassembling ammunition. Say I got 100 armor piercing magnum bullets as a quest reward from the trader, but I have no magnum. I do have a hunting rifle, though, and I'd like to get those .44 magnum bullets, split them into bullet tip, bullet casing and gunpowder, and use that material to make 7.62mm bullets. There's almost no way to do that -- if you think what I suggested is complicated, you should see what people have done to make that thing possible: not only it's very complicated, but it's very complicated for the players too.
If, however, that thing above is used, then I could do this:
Code:
<recipe name="ammo44MagnumBulletAPDisassemble" craft_time="240" craft_area="workbench" tags="learnable,workbenchCrafting">
<ingredient name="ammo44MagnumBulletAP" count="100"/>
<output name="resourceBulletTip" count="80"/>
<output name="resourceGunPowder" count="400"/>
<output name="resourceBulletCasing" count="80"/>
</recipe>
So then you go to your to your workbench and use those 100 AP 44 Magnum bullets to get 80% of the bullet casing, bullet tips and gunpowder that took to make them.
So maybe that's not something that should be in 7 Days to Die as sold by TFP, and I'm fine with it. But, hey, it's also something that's not in War of the Walkers, or Darkness Falls, or Ravenhearst, or any other mod because it's just not possible, and I think it should be, and the fact that people came up with incredibly complicated schemes to do something like that shows there's a lot of interest in it, at least in the modding community.
Should TFP just go do whatever the modding community wants? Hell, no. They have a game to make and sell. But they
do want a vibrant modding community, which seems to be a central aspect of any long lived game, and they
do help out the modding community every now and then.
Do I find it absolutely necessary for them to do something like this? No. But this is a feedback forum, and while there's a lot of feedback from players, modders are also part of their public, and this is my feedback as a modder. Something that will allow a lot of different things people in the mod community
have tried to do, and spend a lot of time coming up with complex and fragile schemes to do, and which would have allowed TFP to use a simpler solution to bullet bundles -- to make the bullet bundles they had to add a whole new class of items, which is way more complex than simply adding a recipe --, but wouldn't actually change the game from a players perspective in any way, unless TFP choses to use it to accomplish one of their goals or respond to someone else's feedback.
