Okay, I'm planning on putting more info into this post, but as a preliminary to clarify something I clearly took for granted as a definition:
A tradeskill is a skill that is learned for providing a service or creating something (i.e. crafting), generally with the intention of providing for oneself, whether through self-sustaining means or through trade. This is what is meant when it is said that someone 'has a trade', they utilize a specific skill in this manner.
I'm not referring to mercantile, the skill speaks for itself in usefulness.
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They actually do allow you to make a significant amount of extra money; f.Ex. having a decent tailoring skill allows you to turn the rathound hides you "find" early on into leather armours that you can sell for far more money.
Yes, I didn't add this in my earlier post (I should have) but the hides from Rathounds are the only reliable drop used in simplistic crafting. 20-30-40 tailoring actually does make some extra cash.
Raw materials are indeed incredibly rare, and it's not worth the money nor the skillpoints to try and create knives or hypos.
I'm glad someone agrees with me
The items required just don't seem to drop reliably... I guess if I got enough of a certain crafting material I could buy the recipe then just buy the OTHER ingredients which might allow me to craft them at a fraction of the price... though I don't even know if that would be worthwhile.
But the more you want of an item slot, the more attractive crafting becomes. Metal Armours, for example, offer three support slots you can fill, and to my knowledge crafting is the only way to create a chemical pistol, for all the good it will do ya.
Right, when I made the original post I hadn't gotten to the point of really looking into Metal Armor... but now I see how ridiculously useful it would be to have it custom-made with melee-boosting enhancements. This and rare items definitely seem like they'd benefit from the ability to craft them. (not to mention crafting metal armor seems to be way cheaper than buying it)
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I never thought of crafting as a trade skill, although late in the game you make more money, if instead of selling some gun frames and barrels you could (if you have the blueprints and skill) sell guns instead and make more credits than selling those parts one by one.
Not to make any judgments of anyone else's playstyle, but- I really prefer not to horde items over long periods of time in the hope that they may become useful at some later date. I don't mean to say I won't hold onto items I intend to use but CAN'T use at the time. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't want to use tradeskills just to make a little extra cash way late game.
With my sneaky character, i craft my own traps and it is a very nice useful thing to have. I can decide
on the spot if i want one big dangerous mine or instead, lot of weak mines to place around. I also have access to better traps earlier on the game.
Yes! This actually seems to be by far the most useful function of tradeskills (as I refer to them), that is: grenades and mines. It seems to be relatively easy to get some ingredients and create explosives of a higher level than are even available otherwise.
With my Sledgehammer guy, i craft my own electroshock Sledgehammer that's usually much better than the ones for sale, specially with the power management feat that's always nice to have, and cheaper to get.
Yeah, specialized enhanced item types seem to be one of the main reasons to use tradeskills.
Crafting Health Hypos is hard because of the many components required and the rarity of some of them, yet
i find it quite useful to have. But much more useful is being to able psy boosters. Back when the recipe was only 3 psy mushrooms and a syringe i had my psy meter always full but now that you need 5 psy mushrooms i have much less psy boosters but i still find the ability of crafting them quite useful since syringes are cheap and psy mushrooms are free.
Yeah, I was hard on health hypos at first but it doesn't seem that bad presently. I'm actually coming across the materials as I play now. The jump from the demo on psi hypos (1 mindshroom -> 5 mindshrooms) made me flinch at first but with the respawning shrooms it seems totally viable.
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Sorry for the long post, I was trying to find a way to collapse my responses using spoiler tags or something but I didn't find anything.
My conclusions are that tradeskills (once again, as I refer to them as) are good for:
- Creating items in short supply (Grenades, Traps, Psi-Hypos... potentially Health Hypos/Crossbow Bolts)
- Creating specialized gear (Shock-Sledgehammers, Enhanced Armor, etc.)
- Getting SOME extra money (Tailoring rathound hides)
A last note I have to add, it pays to only really start tradeskilling after you're a bit into the game, it's too expensive at the beginning.
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