We got some more information on special materials, so I wanna make sure I understand crafting with it now.
Using Noqual as the example, since
Raw Noqual as a trade good is 500/bulk. Crafting a Noqual weapon or armor adds 2000 to the item's cost.
By the math, if you wanted to make any item out of Noqual, you would need the item's value in UPBs, and 4 bulk of Noqual (or an additional 2000 UPBs).
Am I right on that?
Not necessarily. Part of that 2000 could be a price in special crafting techniques from a specialist (or a specifically tooled factory).
It's time & materials, not just materials.
I think I agree with Zephyr. The way the table reads its just there to break down the costs. for instance a weapon made of Abysium for instance costs 4500 additional credits to simply buy outright. with that in mind if we are purchasing a 2000 credit pistol its final cost is 6500 credits.
If we are constructing an item ourselves then I would say UPBs = cost of item, Special Material = amount of extra credits that are charged on top of the base price.
If we are having someone else craft it, following other examples in the books, it would appear that a 10% surcharge on top of the final constructed price is applied to cover the skill of the professional crafting it.
I know it doesn't make logic sense. Example, my character /did/ prior to Armory make a Noqual Dueling Sword. A light weapon. We used UPBs equal to the seord's cost, and assumed 1 bulk of Noqual equalled the amount it would be to make any item out of it. (So by our logic, 1 bulk of Adamantine ftom the CRB would have been about 2500 credits.) If you assume perhaps your Noqual sample needs some refinement to make the sword then it's viable you lose a good amount of the unusable material, and the UPBs make up the non-metal parts like the grip and other things. On a 2 bulk suit of heavy armor or something, presumably the same logic could apply.
Post armory though, we got the actual Noqual cost of 2000. From a wealth standpoint, and balance standpoint, 4 bulk of Noqual unfortunately is how it would need to work. If it didn't, you would either suffer the problem of lighter weapons and armors being more easily upgradable (in a material cost to weight scenario) or in the other case, it being significantly cheaper(ish) to make your own gear. Something they were attempting to curb in the CRB by giving no advantage to crafted gear.
Example, if you can craft using special materials based on item weight and not end-cost. That sword is a sword worth 2475 credits that I made for 975. Instead of purchasing any special material item, it woukd basically always be more cost effective to just make it by buying the raw materials. The downside to this, being that crafting is limited by dkill ranks, so where you can generally buy within 2 levels up or down of your current level depending on the settlement, you can only craft your level or less. But for upwards of 1500 credit discounts I don't think that would be a viable trade off.
I think that one of the crafting rules is that you can use 10% of an item's cost as components for crafting a similar item instead of UPBs (basically the same as just selling an item and getting 10% of the credits as a downpayment on the upgrade). I'm not sure if there is an upper limit to that process (could you dismantle fifteen 1000 credit swords to make one 1500 credit sword?).
If there is an upper limit, I'd let you spend up to that with the raw Noqual (not 10% of it since it's a trade good) and, if the end product is lighter than that much Noqual, then say that the process refined and purified the metal, effectively using a greater bulk than what actually went into the item.
There's your problem. The correct answer is: no, you cannot craft based on item weight, period. You cannot gain any price advantage by buying raw materials, since the total cost of raw materials and equipment and labor will be the same amount as the purchase price.
I know. That was the point I was trying to make with it. I realize I worded it improperly though, with the typo'd sentence "Instead of purchasing any special material item, it woukd basically always be more cost effective to just make it by buying the raw materials." An attempt to point out what you're saying that it cannot be a thing in the system.
However my follow up with what the supposed pros and cons of such a system probably derailed my meaning.
Agreed. It'd be kind of silly otherwise, since how would you even fit 4 Bulk worth of Norqual onto a 1 Bulk ( or even lighter! ) weapon or armor?
If I had to make a general rule of thumb ( to see how many weapons a manufactory or army could make with a given shipment of exotic material ),it'd be something like. . . crafting a weapon or armor of Bulk X requires Bulk X-1 in the exotic material. So, a Bulk 1 weapon would require a Bulk L amount of the substance. Bulk 3 armor would require 2 Bulk of Norqual. A Bulk L item would require only a negligible amount.
This means that for most equipment, the extra cost is primarily in the greater difficulty of manufacture. In theory, a Bulk 6 or higher item would require more mass of material than the cost would explain. . . but thankfully, anything that size is no longer "weapons and armor" and is more like "mecha and artillery", which would logically use its own rules and pricing anyway.
This is the traditional issue with adamantium as well. The cost is not just that it is rare but it is also hard as hell to work with. So most of the special materials are going to be integrated into the armor but a lot of the price is just the extra issues in working with something unusual and integrating it into the item.
