Loud Guns reviews the early tech preview of Star Citizen’s crafting system, highlighting its promising features like a portable fabricator, improved UI, and a resource quality mechanic that adds depth but also complexity to resource management. While still in development with some concerns about the RNG-based quality system, crafting is viewed as a potential game-changer for the game’s industrial gameplay, with a strong call for player feedback in upcoming tests.
In this video, Loud Guns discusses the recent tech preview of crafting mechanics in Star Citizen, highlighting it as an essential and promising addition to the game’s industrial gameplay. Although the preview was brief and somewhat limited due to time constraints and restrictions on using footage, it provided a useful glimpse into what players can expect. The crafting system is still in its early stages, with further playtests anticipated, and Loud Guns hopes the development and testing cycle will be more timely compared to previous features like engineering.
The crafting setup includes a small, portable fabricator (FAB) that players can move around their hangar or place on ships. This FAB conveniently pulls resources directly from the player’s inventory and deposits crafted items back into it, streamlining the crafting process without requiring players to manually manage individual resource slots. The user interface has improved from earlier previews, now featuring a cleaner design with easy access to blueprints, search functionality, and resource tracking, making it more user-friendly.
One of the major new elements introduced is the concept of resource quality, measured numerically up to 1,000, with quality levels distributed randomly across mining locations. This system adds complexity and realism but also raises concerns about resource management and stacking, as players might accumulate materials of varying quality that do not merge easily. Loud Guns speculates that refining will help mitigate these issues by allowing players to consolidate resources, though refining itself was not part of the current test.
Loud Guns also explores the potential implications of resource quality on gameplay and the economy. Lower quality materials might be used for bulk construction or sold for credits, while higher quality mats would be reserved for crafting superior items. The system could also influence item recovery and create a market for mid-tier crafted goods. However, the presenter expresses reservations about the purely RNG-based quality system, suggesting that a skill-based approach to resource quality—where player technique affects the outcome—could be more engaging and reduce the tendency to ignore lower quality resources.
Overall, the video emphasizes the value of early player involvement in testing and providing feedback on crafting mechanics. Loud Guns encourages the community to participate actively in upcoming playtests to shape the feature’s development. Despite some concerns and the system’s current raw state, crafting is seen as a potentially game-changing addition to Star Citizen’s gameplay, promising depth and new industrial opportunities as it evolves.