One of the problems so far with the crafting system, is that it is not innovative at all. It's just a copy paste of minecraft/terraria crafting systems, and that's not a good thing. What i propose is a system that lets you use the old materials to make higher tier armor/weapons, but don't let you rush it. The idea is for you develop the weapon you want to craft and then just use whatever materials you have avaliable to make it. However not all metals work on all items, and they also affect them differently. I will give two examples of finished products, and them explain them. Power 3, Speed 3, Energy 4 |Total level 10 Type: Gun (One handed) Damage: 33 Attack speed: 1 Energy cost: 20 Iron x10 (+10% damage) Power 5, Speed 2, Energy 3 |Total level 10 Type: Gun (One handed) Damage: 55 Attack speed: .66 Energy cost: 52 Iron x10 (+10% damage) These are two examples of one handed guns, they use different levels of technology but the same material. Power increases the weapon damage and increase energy cost. Speed increases the weapon attack speed and decrease energy cost. Energy decreases the weapon energy cost per second. As long as you have developed the technology level for power, speed and energy, you can pick any level for each. You develop those at the ship panel spending pixels, and there is no cap on how high you can go on them, however the pixel cost increase each time they level up. However, the crafting station you use to craft the weapon will cap how many levels you can pump into the weapon. For instance, the normal crafting table lets you put up to 10 poins in the weapon, where the robot table lets you put 20. For the metals, each of them gives some sort of bonus to the weapon. For instance: Iron: 1% damage/piece Steel: 1.5% Titanium: 1.25% damage/-0.5% energy cost Gold/Silver/Platinum can't be used for bullet based guns, but can be used on beam guns. As for the development of the technology, each technology type have to be developed independently. If you want a gun and a sword, you need to spend twice the pixels to get both, each craftable will use different technology types, with some types of weapons sharing some types of technologies, for instance: Sword: Polish, Weight, Strength (as in game) Beam Sword: Power, Weight, Energy (deal more damage, but use energy to attack) Gun: Polish, Mechanism, Clip (as in game, but instead of energy, can only shot so much before it needs to reload) Beam Gun: Power, Mechanism, Energy (as in game) Armor: Polish, Weight, Strength (as in game, but the weight decreases your movespeed, Strength decreases pushback) Shield Generator: Power, Energy, Strength (as in game, but costs energy to block damage, if there is not enough energy, armor is reduced, but not much, otherwise you will just get one-shotted). Each of these Polish, Power, Weight, Strength, Mechanism, etc... need to be developed independently. I assume that this was worded terribly and it is very hard to understand, but i hope i managed to get my idea explained TLDR: You can craft anything with any material, each material gives a different bonus, how good the item you craft is depends on your technology level, you use pixel to increase technology level, the item is capped by the crafting table you are using so you can't grind and oneshot the next boss.
Sounds like a great system. I especially like the fact that no material would be obsolete, and that crafting allows flexibility for player preference. 'Technology level' and crafting table are very effective methods for balancing it out too.
