PC Does anybody craft guns, or T3 melee weapons?

Crater Creator said:
That's the thing, though.  I got a level 6 machete as a quest reward. I wasn't even that far into the game yet: no crucible, no chemistry station, and just started doing Tier 5 quests.  And I'm just... done with machete parts now I guess?  Any more I accumulate are worthless to me, forever after.  And all players will reach this state if they play long enough, because unless you're spam crafting for better stats you only use the parts to craft one thing once.
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Yes, and that's great, but it's also random.  My last playthrough I was going spears, and I was level 70+ and had yet to see a single steel spear drop, and I didn't have enough parts to craft one.  I ended up buying a level 1 steel spear from the trader (the first I'd seen...but I really don't like buying weapons from the trader) to scrap so I could make a Q5 one.  If I needed parts to repair it, I'd have been able to repair it once...and I was usually repairing it 3-4 times a horde night.  If parts were more evenly distributed, it might be doable, but some parts are exceptionally rare, while others are super common.

Also, if you're at the point of having T5 quests unlocked, I'd argue that you're at least deep in to mid game, and the fact that you have no crucible or chemistry station is more of a choice.  But I tend to quit a world when I get the the point that I'm basically unkillable, so my version of late game and yours may differ.

Crater Creator said:
That's why I say there should be a place to sink these resources, so that they're always good for something.  Plus, if your best gun wears out and you can't repair it until you find some more parts, you definitely have other guns by then.  A reason to not always use the same gun, and maybe use up some of that ammo type you never use, sounds good to me.
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Well and good, but personally, I rarely use guns outside of horde nights.  I'm on day 16 in my current world, have a mod that makes horde night last all night (2 hour days), and I've fired...maybe 20 rounds so far the whole game.  I'm heavily invested in bows, and it would suck if I couldn't repair my crossbow during horde night (again, 3-4 times per horde night) because bow parts aren't that common (though more than they used to be...but primarily from a very specific source.)  When I use guns, I use pretty much everything except the magnum (I just don't like it) and .44 is thus the only ammo that doesn't see much use (I will use the Desert Vulture, but I rarely find them.)

Crater Creator said:
I modded my game over the weekend, so that all items that need unique parts to craft also need those parts to repair.  I'm still trying it out, but it already feels so right to me.  Finding non-craftable parts will, hopefully, always be valuable now, at least among the set of weapons & tools I'm interested in using.
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Sure, and as long as you're using steel tools, motor tools, and military armor, you'll be absolutely fine.  But if you never happen to luck into finding a good weapon of the type that you're using and need to craft one, the likelihood that you'll be able to repair it as often as you'd need to is pretty low.

I don't object to the idea in principal, but with the way parts are distributed right now, I just don't know how feasible it is if you're not lucky enough to find/get rewarded good weapons of the type you want to use.  If the distribution of parts was more even (and maybe made slightly more common) I'd be all for the idea (well, that's not entirely true...I'd hate the added inventory clutter), but I hate the idea of being unable to use a weapon I've heavily invested in because my luck with finding parts has been terrible.

 
Crater Creator said:
[...]

I modded my game over the weekend, so that all items that need unique parts to craft also need those parts to repair.  I'm still trying it out, but it already feels so right to me.  Finding non-craftable parts will, hopefully, always be valuable now, at least among the set of weapons & tools I'm interested in using.

[...]
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I would welcome a way to use my large collection of various parts, but I'd rather not carry them with me on missions. Both armor and weapons get used heavily up during T5 quests and space is at premium as it is. Right now all we need a stack of repair kits. I do not want to replace it with three of four different piles.

 
Crater Creator said:
I feel pretty paralyzed from crafting any weapons.  It feels wasteful, because if I make what I can now, I won't be able to make a higher-quality one later, without taking even longer to find the increasing number of parts I need.  And even if I wait to make a quality 5, not wasting parts to make qualities 1 through 4 first, it still seems wasteful since there's a quality 6 out there somewhere if I loot long enough.  The end result is, I don't put points in weapon skills until I already have a high tier weapon in that class.  I have a big box of weapon parts that ultimately just get sold to the trader.

What if the game crafted a weapon of the highest quality level you can, given the number of weapon parts in your backpack at that moment?  Then you wouldn't need a one-off UI element to select the quality you want.

I also think it would be a really good idea if you repaired weapons with weapon parts, so there's a mechanic to consume that big box of parts.  I mean, if the idea is you amass all these parts and craft a bunch of them to roll slightly higher stats on one of them... that's just another form of spam crafting. 😕
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You will find better weapons than you can craft.

 
I craft them, but only when I can make level 5 T3 tools, weapons, or armor. As others said, I don't want to "waste" parts crafting  a lower level one then be stuck looking for or buying the parts to craft a better one. Even if I've found a level 6 T3 I'll still craft them. I don't use them, but they are great for loading up with all the mods I've found. I'll take most of the duplicate mods I've found, load them up in the newly crafted items, stick them in a large storage box, and when that's full sell them to the trader for lots of dukes.

 
It's always interesting to read about how others are playing and progressing in the game.  Me, I played a lot of A20.0, with its high quantities of ammo (despite playing with reduced loot abundance).  For one thing, that meant not worrying about using guns liberally during horde night.  For another, it meant the need to dig a mine never came up, which is part of why I didn't feel like I was that far into the game.

One thing that surprises me about Vaeliorin's experience is how many repairs they're making.  For several horde nights now I've been using a machine gun, and a shotgun when I run out of rifle ammo: all quality 5 or less.  Also, my base is designed to slow and funnel zombies rather than kill them, so my guns (and molotovs) do most of the damage.  With this setup, I've never had to repair a weapon more than once during horde night.  If a weapon needed 3-4 repairs in a night, I might be more reluctant to make the repairs require parts.  Perhaps there's a bigger gap between the durability of melee and ranged weapons than either of us realized, since Vaeliorin says they've only fired maybe 20 rounds.

If the distribution of parts for different classes of weapons isn't even, I'm all for balancing that better.  As for the issue of clutter, I would argue that what we have now is clutter.  E.g. I have a storage box filling up with miscellaneous parts that don't get used.  Making the parts a consumable repair item would be something to counteract the unlimited growth of that clutter.  True, it means a lot more different kinds of repair items.  But it's not like I carry around 10 different weapons that need repairs.  A couple of good ones is plenty, and again, they don't wear out that fast.  I haven't needed to repair a gun more than once when doing a Tier 5 quest, either.  Just as it may be worth carrying a certain type of candy, food, or clothing that complements my character build, play style, or local environment; so too may it be worth carrying a certain type of parts, so that I can use my favorite weapon for longer.

 
Crater Creator said:
If a weapon needed 3-4 repairs in a night, I might be more reluctant to make the repairs require parts.  Perhaps there's a bigger gap between the durability of melee and ranged weapons than either of us realized, since Vaeliorin says they've only fired maybe 20 rounds.
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You're missing 2 hour days (so horde nights are twice as long) and a mod that makes horde night last all night (mentioned a bit later in my post, admittedly.)  I'm killing ~1000 zombies on horde night day 7 and day 14.  Mostly just using electric fences (I'd set up some blade traps or turrets on switches that I'd turn on if things got too crowded.)

And that was two different games.  The one where I only fired maybe 20 rounds (to kill cops, since the first one blew up before I could get another bolt into it) I was repairing a Q5 Iron Crossbow 3 or 4 times.  Was mostly getting 1-shot kills, but some zombies were taking 2, and then partway through horde night (day 14) it got really dark for some reason, and I was just shooting at silhouettes, so fewer head shots. 

The one with the spear was on day 7 I had to keep repairing it, and day 14 I was using guns...lots of guns.  I built that horde base just on the ground, so zombies were  showing up incredibly fast, and the only way I could clear them out at a reasonable speed was with the q6 auto shotgun I got for completing Tier 4 of quests.

Crater Creator said:
As for the issue of clutter, I would argue that what we have now is clutter.
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Clutter in chests is no big deal (for me.)  Clutter in my inventory is something else.  Maybe it's just me, but I hate repairing something before it breaks (feels like a waste of a repair kit) so I'm always using things as long as I can before repairing.  I normally carry 3 weapons: a melee weapon, a bow/crossbow, and an "Oh Sh!t!" gun (usually a shotgun of some type.)  But I'd also need parts for tools and (maybe) armor.

 
Crater Creator said:
I modded my game over the weekend, so that all items that need unique parts to craft also need those parts to repair.  I'm still trying it out, but it already feels so right to me.  Finding non-craftable parts will, hopefully, always be valuable now, at least among the set of weapons & tools I'm interested in using.
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I'm going a different route, at least trying to see how it works in game.  First, I changed the loot probability of equipment drops of Q3 or higher to 0.05.  I then removed all Q5 and less weapons from the traders, and jacked up the mod price increase for Q6.  Currently, I am removing all loot items as quest rewards (but for now, keeping in Tier loot rewards - I may modify the groups though).  Weapon parts drops are increased though.  Q6 crafting is also implemented but behind a perk gate (new perk to unlock).

I haven't looked at the repair function though - right now, you still can repair T1 or higher equipment with a repair kit (T0 equipment you can't repair and will break if you use up all the durability).  I been floating around the idea of not allowing any equipment to be repaired.  This does the same thing as your route is doing, making parts more valuable now.

I always found it weird that the traders give you equipment as rewards as they should be wanting you to buy that stuff from them.  Hard for them to make a living if they hand out the good stuff willy-nilly  😉

 
Personally I think that repair kits should have tiers, with the higher tier ones requiring rarer ingredients but being able to repair anything of their own tier or lower.  I'd support upgrading items as well but with durability lost each time.  I think I saw this in another game years ago.

 
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