I'm pretty sure you can be self sufficient in/around your base with blue level gear... There really isn't one ounce of "must" related to the aquiring of purple. It is great when you get it but self-sufficiency is attained by blue--possibly even green-- but blue for sure. So stay at home is still a choice if it means that much to you.
This is all part and parcel of experimental. It isn't personal. Nobody is trying jerk the rug out from under anyone. It is just the way re-balancing goes. They knew shortly after A18 dropped that they had gone too far to the looting side of things and unintentionally devalued crafting-- much like A17 devalued exploration and looting. So they made a pendulum swing change but realized they went too far by opening up the purples to crafting. I can tell you that the reason for the update after only 4 days was precisely because they didn't want people getting too married to purple crafting. Their vision for the game is that the top tier is non-craftable. I think they are getting closer to a good balance where crafting and looting both feel important and an integral part of the game.
People who never opt in to experimental and who only start playing when it goes stable will never know about this back and forth on the balance. We are choosing to experience it and we have to remember that our desire for a personal stable play experience has to come second to what the devs need to do to get the game ready for the real public release of A18.
Nope sorry to burst your bubble. Gear damage to entity and blocks is directly proportionate to xp received per minute, aka how fast you can level, which is important because A: ALL CRAFTING BENCHES SUCH AS FORGES AND WORKBENCH ARE GATED BEHIND 16 LEVELS WORTH OF POINTS. Meaning as a solo player you MUST achieve level 16-20 in under 1-2 hours of game time, while also making sure you have enough food/water/shelter and materials to support repairs on any and all salvaged gear. A brown t1 and a blue t5 may do exactly the same damage do to rng stats, but the t1 90% of the time will have lower durability therefore maintaining it's upkeep requires more materials.
Then there is the addition of parts, now scaling with QL. This means before the builder/gatherer guy has to now be proficient in combat as he needs to be a looter/quest guy in order to be builder/gatherer. DO you see why this is bad design? Before the builder/gatherer guy would dig up some iron, rock etc make a forge and then build the tools he needed to do that same task more efficiently. Sure he might have looted 1-2 houses for pipes, or cloth to get started, but after that he is digging holes for mats, planting cotton crops for cloth, using the iron and coal he mined to make springs or mechanical parts etc. Now he has no choice as those same tools he would have made from scratch now require him to wander out and raid every building he can find as those parts became prohibitively expensive to make, require bones, plots can't just be hoe ground plots that have to be crafted and he receives about half the mats he needs to be self sufficient without looting. This is why he can't just hang around his base and be that way anymore.
Quality of gear has nothing to do with it, QL5-QL6 who cares? It's the fact that without looting, questing and combat perks that gatherer can't gather enough, and that same builder can't build fast enough because massing the quantity of materials needed to do so in a timely fashion can't happen with blueprints, tool parts etc which means he has no choice but to go looting.
Everyone in a bunch over crafting QL6 I'm like why do i need plots for farming? Wasn't the hoe good enough? Cool to have a planter for a balcony i'll never ever build because no point when screamers are popping up every 2 minutes, wires hanging all over like a electric rats nest is tacky af, and it's not defensible with zeds that stack up and chew through reinforced (now double to cost to craft) concrete blocks.
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