Uhm, the economical and crafting sistems stil need some more loving..

[screeg]

I don't know why this is so hard for developers and players to grasp: do not introduce mechanics that act as chores in game. It's not a matter of "Maybe most of my players like chores!" or maybe they don't. There's plenty of unambiguously great content and mechanics in the game. Drop the chores.

I like managing my inventory, resources and crafting, but I don't want to spend 80% of game time doing those things. What is the game supposed to be first and foremost, a warehouse management simulator? If not, you don't include five different limitations on carrying and disposing of superfluous inventory.

[Greep]

Hey, so I'd like to start off by saying I love the game. I have to intentionally stop myself from playing every single update, I've played multiple times with a bunch of character builds (even finished all through core city with a pacifist despite people not saying it's possible). And I like most of the unique systems like oddities.

So gratz to the developer for a well made game

But I'm sorry to say I completely agree with elhazzard and screeg.  Crafting and inventory management... sucks. 

A) inventory management.  I get the idea.  The new system is supposed to encourage a playstyle where you don't just loot everything and carefully ponder what is valuable and not.

This is not what it does.  At all.  What actually happens is you loot everything, dump crap you don't like all over the place until it can be sold readily, then think aloud "okay do I make the game horridly easy by just selling all this crap to very merchant I've found or what?"  And if you don't play it like this, it's still a matter of just picking up only the valuable firearms, and going merchant to merchant selling the crap.

The problem is this system hands down does not work when you have multiple merchants all refreshing what they buy all over.  Maybe it'd work if you added even more realism: melting loot on the ground (people steal your stuff), costly transportation costs, etc.  But as is, the inventory system tries to be unique at the cost of just adding busy work.   Busy work != fun. Infinite money != fun.

B)Crafting.  Is terrible.  For multiple reasons.  Believe me, I've tried with multiple characters

Most importantly, is the attribute cost.  To make int effective, you need 7+ of it.  What bizarre build allows for this to be effective?

Heavy armor build? Nope, you need the con, strength, and one attribute for killing stuff, or fabbling in dex for things like grenadier.
Psi (non-heavy) build? Nope, you the will, agility, staying alive, and rest for feats
Any other build? Nope, you need the atts for feats and killing stuff.

Hell, I tried making a glass cannon 3 con purely stealth build with tons of int, just to see how high I could get stealth through crafting.  Result? all that int amounted to like one agility, because I could buy everything from tabi boots to padded pig leather.  It felt weird knowing an entire 6 stat points just turned out to be crap.

I tried making a heavy once with high int to see if I can make some killer gear.  It was pretty amusing making a tungsten steel armor fully loaded on plating to see how high I could get DR.  It was a while ago, but I think I got it up to 69 on just the main armor.  Then, literally, an hour later in the game, I find that exact armor on a corpse after raiding the protectorate in core city.  SO basically all that attribute amounted to being able to make better grenades... that I eventually could buy anyways.  Again, just wasted a huge investment of attribute points for literally nothing.

Just about the only build I made which utilized int somewhat effectively was a pure trapper crossbower that ended up being about as fun playing as watching paint dry.  Just about the only other int build idea I can think of is if you wanted to try a "no selling" challenge or something.

And yes, there is that mutant leather armor exception epeli mentioned earlier.  But one exception does not make a system great.

And yes you can make absurdly better shields than you can buy... if you like dying in one hit from an emp grenade.

This isn't fallout: you can't just get all the best ability scores or "good enough".  Since the game is combat heavy, and atts have no upper limit, you have to invest in only a few.  A point in int is a point lower that might cause your psi spell to fail a stun or your pistol to leave an enemy at 1 hp, or to not have enough attributes for that feat you need.

Secondly is skill cost.  To be effective (well "as effective as you can be which is not much")  you really have to max your crafting stats.  There are exceptions, e.g., biology or chemistry sometimes, or occasionally mechanics for those not using it for armor.  But otherwise it should be maxed.  There is quite simply no way to do this and make a decent character.  And if you're making a character with high int just to max two crafting skills.. that's beyond silly.  Not to mention, paradoxically the game makes some items like the (pathetic heh) health regen armor require like 3 skills.

And when you think about it, this is bizarre... in the game this was inspired from, int gave you more skill points so int heavy builds just drowned you in skill points.  In this game?  Int heavy builds are the ONLY builds where you are lacking in skill points.  Quite the head scratcher.

Here's the irony about all this:  The game is less strategic using these two systems in an attempt to add strategy.  By making crafting crappy, you remove it as an option to consider.  By adding infinite wealth and busy work through the inventory system refreshing, you lose strategy in considering what items to keep and what to sell.

[captainmeow]

The problem is this system hands down does not work when you have multiple merchants all refreshing what they buy all over.  Maybe it'd work if you added even more realism: melting loot on the ground (people steal your stuff), costly transportation costs, etc.  But as is, the inventory system tries to be unique at the cost of just adding busy work.   Busy work != fun. Infinite money != fun.

This is actually a very good point. If the mercantile skill had a lot more impact on the amount of money you could make, it wouldn't be possible for every build to be swimming in charons just by selling what you find. I think back when styg reduced the merchant price modifier it was a bit too much, or could even have done with being slightly increased. The melting loot would also stop people being pigeonholed into a 'back and forth' play style, because there'd be nothing to go back to!

This isn't fallout: you can't just get all the best ability scores or "good enough".  Since the game is combat heavy, and atts have no upper limit, you have to invest in only a few.  A point in int is a point lower that might cause your psi spell to fail a stun or your pistol to leave an enemy at 1 hp, or to not have enough attributes for that feat you need.

Styg has actually talked about this before. He doesn't want the game to be like fallout, he doesn't want people to get 'all the best ability scores' or all the best items. He wants build diversity, so some items and feats should be off limits to different builds. although I agree that high INT builds are pretty lacking right now - even in terms of feats, 5 is the max INT you'll need and both of the feats that require it are for melee builds. So some skill bonuses (not much though) for investing in it would be nice.  That said, you also shouldn't be going for a pure crafting build. Just 1 or 2 crafting disciplines to augment your existing skills.

[Greep]

I think the main problem has more to do with int than crafting in particular.  Medium/high int is weird for a number of reasons:

A)Like, no good feats.  Bizarrely the only crafting feat so far, which is quite good, requires no int.

B)Can  generally only be used on low con characters, and only very specific glass cannons.  The only builds I've seen that use it well like I've said are pure perception light armor builds.  That's it really. 

C)Insufficient skill points.  Here's the weird part:  Only "glass cannons" can afford the high int, but glass cannons can't afford the skill points!  It's one very bizarre dilemma.  See here's the thing, glass cannons basically "need"

-stealth (duh)
-lockpicking (to deal with bots)
-hacking (to deal with bots)
-evasion (although probably not dodge)
-whatever they're killing things with
-potentially a second killing skill
-some throwing or psi for cc and backup, preferably both
-whatever other nice to haves you want, like traps for a certain quest or two that fragile characters have problems with,
or communication skills to deal with hard stuff
...

which leaves what.. 0 to 2 skills for crafting?  Tanks can afford the skills by skipping stealth, lockpicking, hacking, and evasion, but then they can't afford the int because they need the 10 con, 8-9 strength, and 10 whatever.  I guess pure hammer builds can use a decent int, but then you have the problem of finding better stuff lying around, as mentioned earlier with the armor I just found on a corpse in core city.

I think it'd be nice if int gave more skill points as in fallout, although perhaps in a more underrailish way:  5 extra skill points for every point of int above 5, like how dex favors the very high dexterity.  It wouldn't even be a big buff, since skills are capped anyways, and some builds don't even do much better with more than 8-10 skills you get normally.

Edit: Incidentally, while crafting is still very meh, you can do some fun stuff with it   just made a 3 piece metal suit with 91% mechanical resistance.  There's currently no dr limit, so it's fun when you see "Ghost takes 31 damage (resists 307)"  I've got thicker skin than a dreadnaught   Not the best suit of armor since it's a one trick pony, but it makes some battles a joke.