Crafting

Within the Hive Cataclysm
system crafting fills the same place as it does within most systems across all settings e.g. providing a route for crafting upgrades, consumables and other supplies useful to the player and their various skills. On top of this within the system the crafting skill also provides an addition investigative route via attached abilities or calls for the players to use, allowing them to look further into one of the 3 main technological areas within the system with the goals of eventually developing their own new items or consumables, as well as helping to resolve issues other players may be facing. For example a team of purely combat orientated players brings back with them a slain unknown mutant after a nasty encounter on a skirmish, a Bio tech crafter sets to work conducting an analysis upon to find out more about the creature in case it becomes a commonly faced enemy, whilst at the same time the players arms tech sets to work repairing shattered equipment whilst conducting their own analysis in turn into the effects on the players gear, all whilst a cyber tech gets busy hacking into the lock box alongside a couple of other cyber techs as one of the combat players managed to recover and haul it back with them since it was their original objective.

As stated above the crafting
skill allows players access to one of 3 areas with the skill upon selecting the skill, the first of these being ‘Arms Tech’ which is predominantly focussed on upgrades for weapons, shields & armour, alongside the production of all things explosive and allowing the refurbishment of equipment i.e. the repairing of shattered gear and equipment otherwise effected in such a manner. According Arms tech crafters will find themselves the go to suppliers for front line combatants across any faction within Cataclysm. The second of the techs is ‘Bio Tech’; this area focusses heavily into the production of consumable medical supplies such as salves, stims, healing unguents and the like which are needed on a round the clock basis alongside the more long term production of bio-augments and the analysis of all biological entities on the macro and micro scale encountered by the player basis. As such the tech is the main support tech area for any medic or doctor within the system as those with the ability to craft biotech supplies will help to keep players alive with what they can make when blades clash and bullets start flying, as well as leading the way forward through research when looking to augment the human genome. The third and final tech area is that of ‘Cyber Tech’, this tech is very much based in the virtual world and is the support pairing to those Net divers swimming the depths of the neural network. Cyber tech crafters produce the physical hardware and software packages that help to physically augment a net divers capabilities by producing preloaded attack virus packages for their use, quick burn data drives filled with defensive software or the ever needed single burn PDC’s utilised by net divers everywhere when conducting large scale enclaves or looking to stock up on simple but crucial abilities. Aside from this the humble cyber tech is also a master at hacking into old systems and electronically sealed systems, be they servers or simple lock boxes the cyber tech can gain access one way or another before prizing apart their prize to reveal its secrets through their own analyses.

Accordingly with their own abilities each area of crafting has their additional uses beyond just the ability to produce their chosen areas technology, and to top this all off collectively those with the crafting skill also have the ability to produce their own experimental technologies in the long term. Each faction will have their own little hidden secrets that help to make them who they are even on the crafting front, but the single most unifying factor of crafters as said is the want to innovate and develop their own items. As such the final part of the crafting skill is that of ‘Prototyping’, the ability to conduct research in existing technologies, plan out new ideas and invest into trials with the aim of producing a single end schematic that can be then sent into the refs and GOD for evaluation, and if GOD agrees with the new schematic confirming it and entering it into the system wide pool, with the developer/developers being awarded the new recipe into their existing pool.

On the OOC front Prototyping isn’t meant to be a quick or cheap matter, however it’s meant to let the players create ideas and test them through their own role play and investigations e.g. run with the ‘rule of cool’, before coming to the system team at GOD, letting us sit down together with the players and go over the idea they’ve had for an item they’d love to see enter the system that we the system team agree would be a great addition.

Below are a series of links to the various Item recipes, listings and augments currently within the cataclysm system that players are more than welcome to utilise as reference guides.

To Recipes

To Item listing

To Augments

## **Rule of Cool**

If a crafter attempts to build something that the refs think logically should work, this will be allowed into the system and likely added to the tech tree at the relevant level after discussion. This is to encourage people to try to attempt at building something outside what is already established. Sometimes however the crafter endeavours may not be successful; however they will have a chance to recover some of the components from their tinkering. This is to represent IC a crafters knowledge of what they are using and that they are cleverer enough to know how to rescue parts from a failed experiment.

This rule also applies to roleplay conducted by the player as well with regards to the neural network, every faction and player within those factions will have their own way of ‘jacking in’ or communicating with the VI’s & AI’s of the neural network. As such the more effort the player puts into it through roleplay during this communication through embracing their faction’s style of approach as an example, the more GOD has to respond to and so give good feedback to player actions and effort.

## Items & Consumables

For the purposes of simplicity OOC and for logical reasons IC Items within the system can be split down into two distinct categories e.g. that of Consumables and Attachments. In this consumables are craft-able items that can be made on site at events with just a straight component cost required for their construction by the crafter. These items are one shot use items that are consumed as soon as the item is used by a player, and this category contains a large combination of Bio-tech and Cyber-tech items alongside some Arms tech Items. On the flipside to this there are attachments which have a component cost requirement just like consumables however these items have a tangible effect that provides additional calls, stat bonuses or certain effects that have cumulative functions that lasts as long as the item does. These items usually have a **life span of 1 IC year (4 events)** before they break down due to the nature of the components involved in their construction e.g. some key part will eventually fail and take the attachment with it due to the substandard nature of the components used to make it. There are ways of making items permanent beyond this 1 IC year lifespan; however this always requires the use of the very limited specialised materials. Accordingly this category of items holds a lot of Arms tech items, alongside a selection of Bio tech and Cyber tech items as well.

## Component Materials and Techs

As with other systems when it comes to crafting within Hive Cataclysm there is a requirement for the correct supplies to be available for the crafter to be able to carry out their work. In this regards; as with the techs, the component materials are split down accordingly into their areas of use e.g. whether they are applicable to either Arms tech, Bio tech or Cyber tech. Any of these supplies can be located within the system through a variety of ways, be that scavenging & trading in downtime, purchasing them from traders that visit the player factions or looting them from slain enemies on skirmishes to name but a few. Conquered & settled territories also provide an allotment of these supplies in varying quantities in relation to their role in the form of an annual tithe to their owning faction, helping to keep their controlling faction well supplied and giving an increased incentive to keep hold of them e.g. as an example an old research outpost once reactivated and staffed may provide an output of Bio-tech and Cyber tech component materials, whilst an old military foundry once brought back online would provide a cache of arms tech supplies respectively.  The various Component materials have been listed below with their parent tech for ease of reference for players.

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