Introduction to Crafting
First look into the forthcoming Crafting Expansion of the Project Nebula NFT game.
The Project Nebula that we're currently playing has evolved quite a bit from the game that launched back in July 2021. Within the first 6 months, it has received many updates, among them also a few larger ones that have notably diversified the gameplay and introduced new ways for players to create value within our ecosystem.
We have a long way to go before Project Nebula gets close to completion and while 2 other expansions (IRC-31 and Starmapping) are set to be released first, we're particularly excited about the ones that will follow — the Crafting and PvE/P expansions because they will be the most impactful additions that Project Nebula has seen so far, both in terms of gameplay features and P2E mechanisms.
So what's the Crafting Expansion all about?
In a nutshell— crafting will enable players to start creating new NFT assets that have in game utility, using resources generated by their gameplay and existing NFTs to do that. While the crafting system is built on and utilizes all our existing NFTs and other in-game resources, it will also introduce a number of new asset types that will become a major part of the economy of Project Nebula.
If you are not yet familiar with our NFTs and have no idea what Credits are, we recommend you give our whole Medium publication a look, as well as jump into our Discord server to meet our helpful community.
The 4 steps of Crafting
Crafting will revolve around 4 types of NFTs — materials, components, blueprints and products. When you’re playing Project Nebula, you've surely encountered some of these already, perhaps even own a few.
The process of building an item that's ready for use in the game has 4 distinct steps. Below we’ll take a closer look into each of these steps and discover what role your existing arsenal of NFTs will play in the process of crafting.
Acquiring the Materials
The first step of starting to craft something is acquiring the needed Materials. Materials can be produced by extracting them from the planets, which in our game is the process of converting your Industry and/or Credits points into a material.
In order to start producing a material, you will need to build an Extractor (planetary upgrade) onto a planet that will enable production. Extractors, however, will in most cases also require you to have researched a specific technology before you actually get to build them.
Extractors can have restrictions with regards to the types of planets and/or upgrade slots they can be built into. There will be dozens of different materials in the game and the ones that you can start to produce on your planets will depend on both the planet and upgrade slot types you have at your disposal - some extractors can only be built on Lava planets, some only into Industry upgrade slots.
Materials may also have more than one processing level, in which case it can be further processed in Refineries (planetary upgrade) that increase the utility of the Material.
While extracting will be the main method for bringing materials into the game, it is not the only way for players to acquire them — both materials and neutral extractors may be found through exploration. Not all of the the materials will be extractable from the planets, there are some that can only be found through exploration.
Building Components from the Materials, using Blueprints
Components are the middle step between raw materials and ready-to-use products, they are more advanced pieces of technology that are widely used in the composition of many of the items in the game - universal in their nature as one component may be needed for crafting a variety of different products.
Similarly to materials, players first need to research the technology that allows them to construct Factories (planetary upgrade) before they can start crafting components.
To create a component you will also need to have the blueprint of what you are trying to build. Blueprints are like recipes — they define how many and what kind of materials are needed for crafting a specific component.
Discovering Blueprints
Players can discover and generate blueprints by completing Research Projects which is a new process that allows players to assign scientists to work for their cause.
To start research projects, you need to have access to scientists and the way to do that is by building various kinds of Academic upgrades into your planet's Research slots, that provide you with them. There are a number of different scientists available in the game, players can only use the scientists that they have access to through the upgrades they have built.
Scientists are not NFTs, they do not accumulate nor are they directly tradable.
In order to get a blueprint from completing a research project, the player has to assign a specific quantity and ratio of different scientists to a research project. Not all combinations of scientists reward players with blueprints, but once you discover a working combination you may produce more of the same blueprint by repeating the project.
The combinations that grant new blueprints will not be made public, players must gather this knowledge by trial and error. Better blueprints will also require more scientists to be involved in the process, making figuring out the working combinations more difficult and time consuming.
Whenever blueprints are used in the game to create new items they will be spent in the process — this helps blueprints maintain their relevance and value over time. Some of the blueprints in the game will not be available by completing research projects, these include (but are not limited to) the GEN-0 Mystery Box blueprints that are not reproducible. The team will look at balancing these in the lead up to release to ensure they remain special.
Building Products using Components, Materials and Blueprints
Creating finished products is the final step of the crafting process that ends with the player receiving an item that they can directly use in Project Nebula gameplay to their advantage. To start building products, once again an appropriate Factory needs to be constructed, after researching the technologies required to build it first.
As with components, making products requires players to have blueprints of what they are planning to build that define what materials and components are needed and in what quantities.
The main categories of products are:
- ship modules — these can be installed to spaceships to improve their stats and performance
- consumable items — single-use items with various effects
- spaceships — these enable movement and exploration in Project Nebula
- deployable structures — player-built adventure map objects with various functions that can only be deployed into Zones
- drones — player controlled units that can be used for multiple purposes in battle situations
- ammunition — weapons don’t have unlimited ammo
With some exceptions (like resources or neutral extractors and factories appearing here and there on the adventure map), every step of the crafting process in Project Nebula is handled by planetary upgrades that require certain technologies.
While it will be possible for a single player to create entry level products from start to finish all alone, making more advanced items will get increasingly difficult. This incentivises players to specialise on specific areas of the crafting process and relying on cooperation with other players to make up for the areas that are not their strongest.
