Pilots have the ability to craft their own supplies and other items using workbenches. There are really five components to crafting:
- The workbench itself, which simply holds your supplies, toolsets, and blueprints.
- A crafting license, which gives you the ability to buy and use particular toolsets.
- The toolset, which gives you the ability to create certain items with blueprints.
- Blueprints, which list needed supplies for an item. Each toolset comes with at least one basic blueprint to start with.
- Finally, supplies to build items out of.
Workbenches, licenses, and toolsets are all sold at a store. You only need one workbench, and at first you'll only really need one toolset. You can buy as many licenses as you want, but to ensure a healthy economy, each license you buy will increase the price of the next. So it's better to pick a speciality.
Supplies, as of this writing, are gained only from destroyed starships. As a ship explodes, your own ship will pick up components ejected from it if it's close enough. These components are not useful by themselves, but if you have a workbench, you can use the
DISASSEMBLE command to take them apart.
To add toolsets, blueprints, or supplies to your workbench, you need only put the item on it.
To see what supplies your workbench has, type
LOOK WORKBENCH.
To see what you can build with your current blueprints, type
LIST WORKBENCH.
To build an item, type
USE WORKBENCH.
Further notes about licenses: The most desirable products will require multiple licenses and toolsets to build. This makes them difficult for one player to build by him- or herself. This means that some players will want to build components of products, and others will want to build the final products themselves. You should decide which you want to do. Licenses like electronics, metalworking, and plastic molding tend to only build parts of more complex components.
