Cassiopeia: The workshop

How to create and customize your equipment

Space is large, huge really, and adventurers exploring the deep dark nothingness will frequently find themselves alone and without access to supplies. Weapons will become worn out, equipment will break due to frequent use and enemy attacks will tax their medical and ammunition supplies. The adventureres may be able to find ample supplies of raw materials on undiscovered planets, but without equipment to refine those materials they are largely useless.

All adventurers will want a workshop! A place where they can fix their equipment, either by repairing, modifying or creating it. Of course, such processes are complex and will require a person specialized in them. The engineer is an integral part of any adventuring party. Any exploration attempt will soon grind to a halt without her efforts. The workshop is the engineer's second home. 

So let us actually talk about the workshop for a while.

The workshop is nothing but an empty room at first. The players will need to find, purchase and install whatever machinery and/or tools they deem fit for their adventures. Each piece of workshop equipment serves a unique purpose and differs in complexity.

An adventurer with the correct knowledge will be able to successfully use the workshop to modify, create or break down equipment.

I follow the same reasoning when developing this crafting system as I do when I designed the diplomacy system, which I mentioned in this post. Playing a skilled engineer must involve more than simply rolling a few dice, adding a skill bonus and creating stuff based on that result. It must involve some thinking on the player's part and also give a chance for character improvement and a sense of achievement.

Modifying

The current modification design is based on grids. Each item has a number on customization grids and each modification also has a grid. Both also have a shape. The trick is to fit the modification grid inside the item grid, successfully doing so means that the engineer managed to customize the item. I suppose the crafting in Cassiopeia is quite similar to Tetris in a way. Meaning that modifying equipment is a form of puzzle.

Creating

Creating equipment works slightly differently. This is actually based on a series of dice rolls that determine how well you manufacture an item. Each item can be created from different materials and patterns. Materials and patterns determine the quality, attributes and abilites of the item. It is up to the engineer to design and gather the required materials for the creation. The difficulty and number of rolls depend on how advanced the item is to create. Rolling badly on the creation rolls can apply negative effects to the item, quirks so to speak. These quirks are never obscenely bad but they do give some flavor to the item as well as a sense of its quality.

Breaking

Breaking down items into their component parts is simple enough, just roll a die and the result determine how large a percentage you manage to recover.

Summary

This crafting system is, in my humble opinion, rather complex and awards a thinking player. It is a game of resource management mixed with Tetris, creativity and offers room for growth, both on a personal player level and for the character itself. The key to creating good game mechanics is to allow the player to learn and feel that they improve, I talked about this in one of my earlier posts that you can find here.

Crafting in Cassiopeia is a valid alternative to diplomacy and combat, it is designed to cater to the people who just love to modify and create equipment for their characters.

I hope you will enjoy this crafting system, stay tuned for more Cassiopeia in the future!