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Overview

The purpose of this guide is to provide you with a walkthrough of what WildStars crafting entails. Make no mistake, crafting in WildStar has depth and can be intimidating at first and I’m certainly aware of how confusing I found it all when I first started. In total there are 9 tradeskills available in WildStar with players able to learn 2 at any one time. Fortunately it is possible to swap your tradeskills should you dislike whichever one you’ve picked :

  • Weaponsmith
  • Armorer
  • Mining
  • Outfitter
  • Survivalist
  • Technologist
  • Architect
  • Relic Hunter
  • Tailor

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In addition to these, there are also hobbies that you can undertake. These do not effect the two crafting skills which you can take. Unlike crafting skills, Hobbies cannot be leveled up nor do they have talent points associated with them. Current hobbies are:

  • Cooking
  • Farming
  • Fishing (post-launch)

Getting Started

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From level 10 onwards you’ll be able to begin crafting and as is customary in WildStar, you’ll receive a call on your Datachron summoning you to visit the Tradeskill Hub. When you manage to find it, you can speak to the Crafting Trainer (a blue weight lifting symbol above his head) who’ll provide you with a little bit of information on each tradeskill. You should be aware that certain tradeskills pair really well with others although there is no requirement for you to pursue such pairings. If you wish you can choose two totally random tradeskills if that’s your preference.

After speaking to the Crafting Trainer and choosing a tradeskill you’ll receive some Starter Schematics. These schematics allow you to craft the basic components of your chosen tradeskill and will help you out during your first crafting missions.

Besides the Crafting Trainer you’ll see another character with an orange hammer icon above his head. He and the crafting board tend to had out tradeskill specific quests: these are a great way of earning early and plentiful experience in your trade skill. It should also be noted that as you progress through your trade skill and complete crafting achievements you’ll unlock more schematics to craft with.

Choosing Your Tradeskills

As noted above there are a total of 9 Tradeskills in WildStar with the official descriptions below:

Weaponsmith

  • “Weaponsmiths forge weapons and weapon attachments and power them with microchips and power cores. This tradeskill is best paired with mining.”

Armorer

  • “The armorer forges heavy armor and combat shields, then powers them with microchips and power cores. This tradeskill is best paired with mining.”

Mining

WildStar Tradeskills and Crafting Guide

  • “The miner excavates precious ores, crystals and gems to be used by the weaponsmith, armorer and architect. Though a miner may manually attack ore nodes with their weapon, the process goes faster with a Laser Pickaxe equipped.”

Typically mining in a massively multiplayer game is a case of interacting with the object and receiving the Ore. However, in WildStar occasionally a mining node will uproot itself and attempt to run away, at which point you’ll have to chase after it. Alternatively you might uncover a Wurm Tunnel which you can enter that is filled with Ore. You’ll only have 2 minutes to mine all of it. Lastly and the rarest spawn is a Ore Wurm which will erupt and attempt to kill you. If you attack it chunks of Ore will drop to the ground that you can collect and afterwards you’ll be able to enter the Wurm Tunnel.

Outfitter

  • “The outfitter uses leather, pelts and bone to craft medium armor and support systems, then powers them with microchips and power cores. This tradeskill is best paired with the survivalist.”

Survivalist

  • “Survivalist is a gathering tradeskill. Players with this tradeskill gather leather, pelts, and meat from creatures. They also harvest wood from trees with a laser chainsaw. This tradeskill is best paired with the outfitter or architect.”

Technologist

  • “Combining mysterious omniplasm with local flora, the technologist is a master experimenter, creating powerful medical attribute enhancing potions and field technologies from combining omniplasm with herbs and produce. Best paired with Relic Hunter.”

Architects

  • “Architects shape FABkits, decor items, and warplot deployables. This tradeskill pairs well with Survivalist, and is supplemented by Miner, Farmer, and occasionally Relic Hunter.”

Architects primarily create housing items (decor) for themselves or others. At the highest levels they can craft and upgrade Warplots and due to the nature of the craft, they utilise a variety of resources: leather, cloth, lumber and omniplasm.

Relic Hunter

WildStar Tradeskills and Crafting Guide

  • “Relic Hunters excavate omni-plasm and Eldan relics from ancient ruins. This tradeskill pairs well with Technologist, but also supplements most other crafting professions.”

Similarly to harvesting Ore, Relic nodes have a chance to pop up out of the ground and attack you and/or run away. You can attack them with your normal skills or your harvesting tool (the Relic Blaster is much quicker than your skills I find).

Tailor

  • “Tailors fashion light armor out of cloth gathered from enemy humanoids. This tradeskill pairs well with any gathering profession.”

Choosing Your Hobbies

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I must stress that you do not have to undertake Hobbies and as mentioned above, they do not provide experience. However, they are fun allow you to gather various resources that you can utilise or sell on.

Farming

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I’ve played farming much less than I’d like but the basic principle of it is the need to collect a variety of produce (mushrooms, herbs and seeds) around Nexus to utilise in crafting or in your garden. Seeds unsurprisingly grow into plants in your garden while herbs can be used in cooking. Lastly, mushrooms when planted in your garden have a variety of effects on the nearby plantation.

Cooking

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You’ll have to visit a cooking table to undertake this hobby and unsurprisingly the idea is to turn meat and produce into items you can consume for additional benefits. You can buy and learn recipes from cooking vendors or collect plants out in the wild or kill animals for the meat. Cooking also requires the use of spices and are required to cook a dish.

Schematics, Tech Tree and Talents

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When you bring up your tradeskill window (press L) from the Codex, there are three tabs from left to right: Schematics, Tech Tree and Talents.

Schematics

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This section of the tradeskill window contains a list of known and learned schematics for the specific Tradeskills you have activated. As you will notice from the screenshot above the user interface informs you of what tradeskill you have and below that, the schematics linked it to. If you’ve taken a hobby, those will be listed here also. It’s possible to search for specific schematics and refine further to recipes you ‘have materials’ for. If you’ve the necessary materials to craft an item you simply choose it from the list and press ‘craft’.

Tech Tree

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Here’s where crafting in WildStar gets interesting. This option is where you can review your crafting progress based on the specific tradeskill you have, including your achievements and the rewards for reaching them. The basic premise of leveling up your specific tradeskill is to follow the Tech Tree all the way to the bottom, undertaking what it asks you in order to acquire experience and to unlock further advancement. In the image shown Omni-Plasmic Bioreactions is selected and you will note it is 1 of 3 (completed) with the experience bar at around 25%. The highlighted tooltip states:

“Craft 3 batches of Basic Medishots: Instant healing to learn how to make Spirovine Extract samples.”  

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Simply put, if you construct a handful of Basic Medishots you’ll complete this schematics progress which will allow you to construct Spirovine Reactions (the schematic below Omni-Bioreactions). If you level up a schematic that has a star on it (see image again) it will also provide you with a talent point when levelled. If a schematic is by itself with no links to other nodes these can be completed at any time.

Talents

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Once you’ve acquired some Talent Points you can switch over to the Talents tab. Here you can spend those talent points. As you’ll see from the picture, it looks relatively complicated at first but it’s quite simple. You spend points in each tier with each tier then providing a bonus to that craft. For the first tier it takes 4 Talent Points to unlock it, while the second tier takes 8. The known tier benefits are below for crafting only tradeskills (gathering variants are excluded):

Weaponsmith

 

  • Level 1 - XP gained from crafting successes / failures increased by 5% and charges of Special Ability Chips cost 6% less.
  • Level 2 - You're able to use all uncommon chips and your mark is affixed to all items you craft.
  • Level 3 - Combat Assist Modules have 14% less chance to fail when overcharging. / All weaponsmith outputs have 6% less chance to fail when overcharging. / Increases the number of rune slots that may appear on Combat Assist Modules. / Decreases the cost of Imbuements by 12%.
  • Level 4 - Greatswords (Warrior), Claws (Stalker) & Shock Paddles (Medic) / Pistols (Spellslinger), Psyblades (Esper) & Heavy Guns (Engineer) receive a 6% increase to base charge capacity.
  • Level 5 - You're able to use rare primary Resistor / Inductor / Capacitor chips.
  • Level 6 - You're able to use rare secondary Resistor / Inductor / Capacitor chips.
  • Level 7 - Reduces Cyclonite / Corium / Emberine / Marinax Acceleron requirements for all Weapon schematics by up to 2.

Armorer

  • Level 1 - Chest & glove / Legs & boots / Head & shoulder designs receive a 5% increase to base charge capacity.
  • Level 2 - You're able to use all uncommon chips and your mark is affixed to all items you craft.
  • Level 3 - Special Ability Chips cost 8% less overcharge. / Imbuements cost 12% less overcharge. / Increases the overcharge capacities of shields by 10%.
  • Level 4 - Increases the overcharge capacities of chest, head and gloves / shoulder, legs and boots by 10%.
  • Level 5 - You're able to use rare primary Resistor / Inductor / Capacitor chips.
  • Level 6 - You're able to use rare secondary Resistor / Inductor / Capacitor chips.
  • Level 7 - Reduces Vitalium / Neurocite Ingot requirements for all Armorer designs by up to 2.

Outfitter

  • Level 1 - XP gained from crafting failures increased by 8% / successes increased by 5%.
  • Level 2 - You're able to use all uncommon chips and your mark is affixed to all items you craft.
  • Level 3 - Adds a chance to increase the number of rune slots that may appear on crafted Support Systems. / Support Systems receive an 8% increase to base charge capacity. / Reduces charge penalty for mis-matching microchips by 10%.
  • Level 4 - Chest & leg / Glove & boots / Head & shoulder guides receive a 5% increase to base charge capacity.
  • Level 5 - You're able to use rare primary Resistor / Inductor / Capacitor chips.
  • Level 6 - You're able to use rare secondary Resistor / Inductor / Capacitor chips.
  • Level 7 - Reduces Tech / Sacred Leather requirements for all Outfitter guides by up to 2.

Technologist

 

  • Level 1 - The cost to apply elemental water additives is reduced by 15%. / The cost to apply elemental earth additives is reduced by 15%. / When crafting medishots and boosts, targets are 10% easier to hit.
  • Level 2 - The cost to apply elemental fire additives is reduced by 15%. / The cost to apply elemental air additives is reduced by 15%. / Medishots and Boosts have a 5% chance to reduce omniplasm costs to zero.
  • Level 3 - You are now able to use an additional catalyst in your crafts.
  • Level 4 - Discoveries are 20% easier to hit. / The number of Eldan relics required to create gadget reagents is reduced by 1. / The required omniplasm for extracting reagents from herbs is reduced by 1.
  • Level 5 - Water / earth / air / fire additives are now 25% more powerful.
  • Level 6 - Reagent outputs are increased by 50%. / The omniplasm cost of crafting Relic Parts is significantly lowered.

Architect

  • Level 1 - Improves your ability to create Functional / Organic / Aesthetic / Synthetic designs.
  • Level 2 - Discover schematics easier, and you can use an additional Catalyst. / Craft targets are easier to hit, and you can use an additional Catalyst. / Chance to return materials when crafting, and you can use an additional Catalyst.
  • Level 3 - Chance to return ore and bonus experience when crafting Decor. / Chance to return ore and bonus experience when crafting FABkits. / Chance to return wood when crafting Decor and FABkits.
  • Level 4 - Schematics require less wood / metal / cloth to craft. You may use an additional Catalyst.
  • Level 5 - Functional / Organic / Aesthetic / Synthetic craft targets are easier to hit, and Functional / Organic / Aesthetic / Synthetic additives cost less.

Tailoring

  • Level 1 - XP gained from crafting failures increased by 8% / successes increased by 5%.
  • Level 2 - You're able to use all uncommon chips and your mark is affixed to all items you craft. (No choice of talents, and no I don't know what the mark thing means, sorry.)
  • Level 3 - Special Ability Chips cause 8% less overcharge. / Mis-matching microchips cause 10% less overcharge. / Imbuements cause 13% less overcharge.
  • Level 4 - Chest & glove / Leg & boots / Head & shoulder patterns receive a 5% increase to base charge capacity.
  • Level 5 - You're able to use rare primary Resistor / Inductor / Capacitor chips.
  • Level 6 - You're able to use rare secondary Resistor / Inductor / Capacitor chips.
  • Level 7 - Reduces Smart / Glamer Cloth requirements for all Tailoring patterns by up to 2.

Circuit Board Crafting and Coordinate Crafting

I freely admit that when I first began to craft in WildStar, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing but it transpires there’s two types of crafting: Circuit Board and Coordinate Crafting. Both on face value look incredibly complicated and yet their functionality is relatively simple but with a great deal of depth. It must be noted that utilising both methods, dependant on your trade skill choice, results in some RNG (random number generation). For the most part you’ll be able to guarantee your items creation (unless you push their creation too far) you can’t always guarantee their attributes.

Circuit Board Crafting

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Circuit Board Crafting is primarily used for items that have attributes, whether it’s armor or weapons. The reason behind this is that during the course of construction you can choose which additional attributes you want to bestow onto an item. After choosing an item to construct (whether it be a weapon or piece of armor) you’ll be presented with the following screen:

On the right hand side is the name of the weapon, it’s requirements and durability as well as its two primary attributes. On the left you’ll see 3 empty spaces for ‘Chips’ and at the bottom an empty Power Bar. The premise is as follows:

  • In the top ‘Chip’ you add Power Cores to increase your maximum Power on your Power Bar.
  • In the left and right ‘Chip’ you add Inductors and Capacitors which improve attributes.

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In either the left or right chip you’re free to choose which attribute you want to add to the weapon. Once chosen, it’s then up to you to tweak your creation to squeeze out as much potency as possible. You can adjust the numerical values of each chips attributes by selecting left or right (see image below) but this will cause your Power Bar to increase or decrease based on how far you push the weapon. The higher you increase one attribute from a chip the greater the cost on the Power Bar. If you push it too far, you risk upsetting the balance of your creation and thus risk it failing. It’s down to you just how much you want to squeeze out of the items you’re making.

Lastly, Power Cores, Inductors and Capacitors can be traded, purchased or salvaged from any items you find in the game world. As you can imagine, a rare or high level Power Core that allows players to squeeze out even more attributes on their weapons is going to be a very valuable thing.

Coordinate Crafting

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Coordinate Crafting is very different to Circuit Board Crafting and probably has more in common with Battleships than it does anything else. For everything other than attribute based items you’ll need to utilise Coordinate Crafting so you should be prepared for a little bit of randomness and tweaking to get the items you need.

Simply put, Coordinate Crafting involves you having to move a crosshair across an X and Y axis in order to pinpoint an item on the board. To move the crosshair you have to utilise elements available to you which will nudge your crosshair left, right up or down. The idea is that you mix a variety of elements to eventually land your crosshair on the item you wish to craft, before pressing the craft button. Sounds bonkers? It is a bit.

To move your crosshair you can only add a maximum of 3 additives and once added they cannot be removed while cancelling the craft entirely before you have completed may result in item loss. It should be noted that some basic items do not require you to add additives to construct it (you can simply press craft) while others will require significant finesse in order to aim them.

Anything Else?

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There are a couple of things!

  • Make sure you interact with and accept the quests from the tradeskill boards in villages and towns as these give excellent experience points.
  • Remember you can only pick one talent per talent tier, so choose wisely as to how you craft and what will benefit you the most.
  • Salvaging items you don’t need is a great way of obtaining items you can use in crafting.
  • Remember that you can have 2 crafts at any one time but can also take up hobbies!
  • Using your harvesting tool is much faster than attacking them with your weapons (Laser Pickaxe, Laser Chainsaw or Relic Blaster for Relic Hunters).
  • There is Rune Crafting (available at level 15) which allows you to tweak your equipment even further, but we’ll cover that in a separate guide!

 

Thanks must go to Dealspwn for allowing me to use their image of Coordinate Crafting


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our WildStar Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

About The Author

Lewis is a long standing journalist, who freelances to a variety of outlets.

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