Crafting - Getting Started

From Vanguard WikiSpheres

Contents 1 Beginning 2 First Item 3 Quality and Complications 4 First Work Order 5 Assembly Quest 6 Learning Recipes 7 Crafter Equipment, Skills, and Attributes 8 Skill Up Advice

Beginning

To begin crafting you must first speak to a Crafting Advisor and choose one of the Crafting Professions. Once you have chosen a profession you will be sent to a Master of the Profession you have chosen.

Be sure to read all the hints that will appear. This guide is not meant to substitute for the in game tutorial but to clarify and give advice.

You will then complete a quest to receive your starter tools (non-expendable items such as shears and chisels that are put in your crafting tool belt) from a Crafting Equipment Supplier.

Next you complete a quest to receive your starter utilities (expendable items used during the crafting process such as charcoal, water, or cleaner) from a Crafting Utility Supplier.

Before going on to the next step be sure to equip your tool belt in the left most slot, right click it and fill it with the three tools you were given. Then equip your utility pouch and right click it and fill it with the three utilities you were given.

First Item

Now we are going to create our first item at a finishing station. The type of finishing station will depend on your chosen crafting profession. For artificers, it is a sculpting table; for outfitters, a fitting table; and for blacksmiths, a forge.

Double-click or right-click on the finishing station to bring up the Crafting Setup window. You will be prompted to choose the recipe you wish to use. The recipe you are going to create for the tutorial quest can be found under Unique recipes in your recipe list.

Clicking Begin after you select the recipe (Outfitting, Blacksmithing, or Artificing) will bring up your crafting inventory and table setup window.

Note: it is a good idea to make sure you still have Hints activated, as they provide good information throughout the beginning crafting process.

Table space grows as you gain finishing skill levels. Starting out, you have three available table slots. For the tutorial recipes you only need to be sure that Auto Table Setup is checked. Once you begin working on regular work orders and creating real items you will want to add extra utilities to your table. In the example below water has been added table using Other Utilities and checking the water selection.

Once you choose Begin again, click on the first step icon (leftmost icon) and then click on the action that appears below the main crafting window. This will begin the crafting process.

You continue this sequence from left to right. Be sure to pay attention to which actions increase progress and which ones increase quality; by mousing over the icons you will see a tooltip that gives information on the various crafting actions. Follow the hints that are given to you throughout the process.

The action points are listed near the top next to the quality, and the recipe must be completed before they run out. Watch your quality bar, as quality is important in work orders and regular recipes. Only certain actions will increase quality, those listed with “Quality� in their description. “Progress� actions will add towards completing the step.

Once you have completed all steps in the recipe, you will successfully create your first item and may return to your crafting Master to receive the next quest, Complications and Quality.

Quality and Complications

As mentioned above, the next tutorial quest involves handling quality and complications. The objective here is to get as much quality as possible before running out of action points. Be sure to pay attention and leave enough action points so you can progress, cause quality means nothing if you can't finish the item. For work orders the final grade of an item determines the reward and experience earned. For this quest get the item to at least Grade C.

Utility actions are where you can make the most difference in quality but they cost money. There are two utility actions available in the beginning. The Orange one progresses the item through the crafting process. The Blue one increases quality.

Stage two of the crafting process seems to be the place to increase the Grade of your item

Be aware that complications can and will pop up.

Handle them, but be sure to read what they say because some of them might be impossible to fix due to lack of tools or utilities. Also some complications are actually benefits, so helps to learn what those are.

Tool belts come in various sizes. You will soon have more tools than will fit in your beginning tool belt. You can purchase more tool belts from the Crafting Equipment Vendor (you don't need them to complete the tutorial though). During the crafting process you can switch which tool belt is currently being used by clicking on the word Toolbelt and selecting which one you want to switch to.

Now we are headed back to the Crafting Advisor to get your starter clothing. Keeping your gear current is critical to getting the best stats for quality production.

First Work Order

Your first work order is gotten from the Finishing Taskmaster. Once you get the work order - open your abilities book and look under crafting. Now check on the finishing tab and expand work order recipes. You should see the recipe for the work order you were just assigned.

Complete the work order and return to the finishing taskmaster. Click on I'm looking for work, then click Current tab, click on the work order you want to turn in and then click on complete.

You will get some assorted tool parts which you will use in the next quest.

Assembly Quest

Woot we're finally making a real item. Assembly is a bit different. Right click on an assembly station, select the Assembly tab, and then select your profession from the drop down. You should see an improved tool on the list. Click on it and then click on assemble.

Learning Recipes

The Learning Recipes quest is technically not part of the tutorial but worth doing at this point. Remember that you will want to specialize so you only need to buy recipes you are actually going to use.

Crafter Equipment, Skills, and Attributes

At this point it would be good to review where your character is at in crafting. Open up your character sheet and click on the crafting tab. You will notice that for crafting there are tabs at the bottom of the character sheet for Equipment, Skills, and Attributes. Managing these three effectively will make or break your crafting career.

This information is from the Vanguard: Saga of Heroes beta test. It has not been verified in the live release.

Note: Currently in Beta 5 (no idea if this will be the case when VSOH goes live) if you visit a Crafting Equipment Supplier you will notice several 'no sale' items available. They cost nothing and are a good way to flesh out your equipment and tools. Screenshot below shows the tool belts and tools that are available in this manner for an Outfitter.

Skill Up Advice

The primary means of advancement in the Crafting Sphere is through doing work orders. Work Orders give experience, some coin, and supply packs as rewards. You won't get rich doing them but you should do a bit better than breaking even.

Vary which work orders you work on. I usually do a refining work order (to advance my refining skills, can't make much if you can't process the materials), a work order for my main profession (Outfitter, Blacksmith, or Artificer) and a work order for my specialty (e.g., Tailor if I'm working on my Outfitter). Then I start over with a refining work order.

Remember that you will raise different skills by doing different work orders. To raise your refining skills, you must do refining work orders, etc. If you forget this and find later that even though you can do every finishing recipe without trouble, you can't refine tier 1 materials, check your skills. You may need to do some work orders to raise your refining ability.

Once you know more about the items you want to craft you can fine tune your skills to be most efficient.