Firefall Crafting Guide

This crafting guide was originally posted by Kryyss on the Firefall Forums.

Firefall Crafting Advanced Guide

Understanding Resources

All of the resources in Firefall exhibit 5 separate aspects (ASP). These are:

Conductivity	CON
Density	DEN
Malleability	MAL
Reactivity	REA
Resistance	RES

All of these aspects have a value from 0 to 1000. However each resource has special characteristics. This means some are better for crafting certain items than others. Brimstone, for example, will always have a Density between 565 to 850. Unfortunately no resource is best at everything and as such Brimstone's conductivity can only exist between 10 and 140.

On top of these resource characteristics the total quality of the material also varies. The quality is classified as the [CY-xx] isotope found next to the description. [CY-15] for example is very poor quality however [CY-700] would be amazing. These are separated into colour bands which you can see in the following table.  Sometimes you will also come across two resources with an identical [CY-xx] isotope however their ASP are totally different. This is because the [CY-xx] is a grade of the total ASP in that resource rather than a label indicating a specific isotope of that crystite that is always the same.

MIN (CY)		MAX (CY)	QUALITY-GRADE	COLOUR
1	-	167	SALVAGE / JUNK	GREY
168	-	334	COMMON	WHITE
335	-	501	UNCOMMON	GREEN
502	-	668	RARE	BLUE
669	-	835	EPIC	PURPLE
836	-	1000	LEGENDARY	ORANGE

New Eden Resources

The tables below show the minimum and maximum value possible for the resource. The ASP rank is resource specific and grades the resource on that specific aspect from 1 (best) to 5 (worst). The top 2 ASP are marked in red. In some cases two values may be so close that they are marked as sharing a rank, for example Ferrite has almost exactly the same maximum value for Density and Resistance so they are marked as joint 3rd on the table.

It also indicates the colour of the crystite so you can identify them as loot drops or from enriched rocks you find around New Eden. All resources marked with an asterisk cannot currently be gathered by any means.

Quartzite (Purple/Black)
A semi-rare form of crystite with volatile blending potential where great successes and terrible failures are possible.
Classification: Crystalline
Minimum ASP is 1687
Maximum ASP is 2742
Total ASP range is 1053

Unit ASP	Minimum	Maximum	ASP rank
CON	70	209	5
DEN	593	~900	1
MAL	159	327	4
REA	555	~800	2
RES	310	520	3

Azurite (Neon Blue)

A very rare form of crystite with significantly higher Conductivity than other Crystalline forms.
Classification: Crystalline
Minimum ASP is 1689
Maximum ASP is 2790
Total ASP range is 1101

Unit ASP	Minimum	Maximum	ASP rank
CON	245	440	4
DEN	630	~900	1
MAL	35	~100	5
REA	400	~720	2
RES	379	630	3

Bismuth (Pale Blue/Yellow)

A very common form of crystite and one of only two types with high conductivity.
Classification: Metallic
Minimum ASP is 1670
Maximum ASP is 2810
Total ASP range is 1140

Unit ASP	Minimum	Maximum	ASP rank
CON	~500	790	2
DEN	~300	~500	3
MAL	~600	~900	1
REA	180	~400	4
RES	90	229	5

Regolith*

Unit ASP	Minimum	Maximum	ASP rank
CON
DEN
MAL
REA
RES

Ferrite (Orange)

An uncommon form of crystite. Easily the most reactive and suitable for blending with many other hybrids.
Classification: Metallic
Minimum ASP is 1695
Maximum ASP is 2820
Total ASP range is 1125

Unit ASP	Minimum	Maximum	ASP rank
CON	600	~900	1
DEN	245	450	~3
MAL	455	710	2
REA	130	290	4
RES	265	470	~3

Brimstone (Yellow)

A common form of crystite with the highest value for Reactivity out of all types.
Classification: Crystalline
Minimum ASP is 1670
Maximum ASP is 2780
Total ASP range is 1110

Unit ASP	Minimum	Maximum	ASP rank
CON	10	140	5
DEN	565	~850	2
MAL	90	240	4
REA	600	~900	1
RES	405	~650	3

Coralite (Aquamarine)

A common form of crystite, often found near coastlines with the most well-rounded aspects of any hybrid.
Classification: Polymer
Minimum ASP is 1650
Maximum ASP is 2840
Total ASP range is 1190

Unit ASP	Minimum	Maximum	ASP rank
CON	420	670	~2
DEN	130	~300	~3
MAL	130	~300	~3
REA	420	670	~2
RES	~550	~900	1

Silicate (Red)

A common form of crystite that is difficult to refine but makes for an ideal catalyst for refining other types or crystite.
Classification: Polymer
Minimum ASP is 1700
Maximum ASP is 2815
Total ASP range is 1115

Unit ASP	Minimum	Maximum	ASP rank
CON	140	280	4
DEN	140	290	5
MAL	450	~750	2
REA	380	620	3
RES	590	875	1

Basalt*

Unit ASP	Minimum	Maximum	ASP rank
CON
DEN
MAL
REA
RES

The minimum and maximum ASP are values used to determine the overall potential for any resource. At the moment all types exist with the same maximum and minimum ranges although they are distributed differently. The above list has some ASP values that need improved accuracy however. Regolith and Basalt do not exist within the current world of New Eden and appear to be eventually obtained from PvP activities.

Resources themselves will commonly be found within randomly placed resource nodes under the ground. These are indicated by green areas when using the Scan-Hammer and can only be mined with use of a Thumper. Higher concentrations will fill up the thumper faster but the maximum capacity will never be exceeded, it is therefore a good idea to find high concentrations if you intend to gather resources quickly. The concentrations will change depending on player activity. Resource nodes can effectively be mined into nothingness and will require players to look elsewhere once depleted. Further to this there is also changes to the quality of materials which can be found, these will cycle periodically and the process is known as Resource Shifting.

At present a Shift is expected to change around once a week, from what developers have said. Although this may be subject to revision. At the moment any kind of server restart will also trigger a change in the resource shift. Once a Shift change takes place however it is possible for some untapped resource nodes to survive and therefore become quite valuable if they contain resources better than what is found in the current shift.

The following table looks at each ASP value and displays where every resource is ranked for that specific aspect from 1 to 7, this can be very useful when you are looking at the Refined Crafting section later in this guide.

		CON		DEN		MAL		REA		RES
1		FERRITE	900	AZURITE	900	BISMUTH	900	BRIMSTONE	900	CORALITE	900
2		BISMUTH	790	QUARTZITE	900	SILICATE	750	QUARTZITE	800	SILICATE	875
3		CORALITE	670	BRIMSTONE	850	FERRITE	710	AZURITE	720	BRIMSTONE	650
4		AZURITE	440	BISMUTH	500	QUARTZITE	320	CORALITE	670	AZURITE	630
5		SILICATE	280	FERRITE	450	CORALITE	300	SILICATE	620	QUARTZITE	520
6		QUARTZITE	202	CORALITE	300	BRIMSTONE	240	BISMUTH	400	FERRITE	470
7		BRIMSTONE	140	SILICATE	290	AZURITE	100	FERRITE	290	BISMUTH	220

As you can see, only two of the resources dominate the top 2 more than once. These are Silicate and Bismuth, however these two also end up far down the rankings for other aspects. At present maximum and minimum values are still being worked on although these figures are accurate enough to rank all of the resources.

Resource Blending

Blending is the process of combining two resources to create a unique third. It's original intention within Firefall was to clean up smaller quantities of spare crystite, however it has proven to have further uses for allowing players to control certain aspects of resources they intend to use for crafting. The blending process is very complicated and takes several factors into consideration beyond the quality of the progenitor isotopes. The process was also altered significantly in the beta patch v0.5.1432 which made blending based not just on the total ASP but has more to do with the percentage of the total possible ASP value for each resource.

Blending together resources will often require careful planning and you should never blend without the intention to craft something specific. This is also not to say that the perfect resource is purple-grade or even blue-grade, the idea is to produce specific characteristics in resources for the purposes of directly controlling the specification on items you are crafting. However by having an in-depth understanding of the blending process it is perfectly possible to produce purple-grade resources of specific resources which you didn't originally have but bear in mind that such an endeavour is extremely slow and costly if you start from low grade resources.

Here are the key points to always remember:

    1. the three key factors: ratio of resources, actual ASP value and percentage of maximum ASP.
    2. the type of crystite produced is defined by the progenitor of the largest quantity.
    3. all mixtures are unique.

Because every resource has tens of thousands of potential combinations of ASP values it is not possible to give a definitive guide on how to produce specific grades of materials every time and it takes a degree of luck to have the right combination of materials with strengths and weaknesses that will result in an overall improvement of the product when mixed.

Remember that there is a 5% loss in the overall yield due to blending so heavy refinement will have growing losses. This gradual process of refining is called chain-blending and is recommended only for advanced users who have a specific type of crystite that they want to develop. The 3 key factors are easy to understand but is the main reason why it can be difficult to get the results you want even when you understand the basics. The ratio of resources define how much of each progenitors ASP values is put into the product. A 1:1 ratio of resources will be the best place to start if you want to hit an average. The raw ASP value is very important because the larger the difference between the progenitors the less of their stats will be put into the product. Finally you have the system considering how the raw ASP relates to the maximum and minimum possible values for that type of resource. To understand this look at the image below of the resource information panel found in-game:

The two dots along each of the bars indicate the minimum possible value and the maximum value for each ASP. For this Quartzite you can see that Conductivity is near the maximum value but if you look at Density it is near to its minimum value. Malleability is a little under half-way and Resistance is well over half-way. You could therefore compare Malleability to around 30-40% and resistance to 70-80%. Assuming that you blend resources with a 1:1 ratio exactly half of these percentages will contribute towards the final product.

Understanding Crafting

Once you start to unlock Tier-2 frame upgrades you be given the option to craft weapons and gear you have licences for as an alternative to using the default ones provided to you. Always remember though that any licence which says it is for an Accord item does not grant you any nano-prints.

Crafted items are almost always superior to the ones which come free with each licence. The drawback is that with increased power and bonuses comes increased Mass, CPU and Power requirements. This means that there is a limitation on how far you can enhance your battleframe and you will find it hard to equip yourself with all purple-grade items due to these MCP limitations.

You may then wonder, what is the point of crafting if you simply over-burden the battleframe?

The simple fact is that it gives you even more control over tweaking your load-out to favour of your preferred playing style and weapons. Not to mention that sometimes the default weapons and upgrades you get with each licence will rarely use all of your maximum Mass, CPU and Power. Ideally you want to squeeze as much out of those limitations as possible to get an edge over your opponent.

Crafting is done at Molecular Printer terminals often found around outposts and other facilities. Most Tier-2 items will typically require around 500 units of any kind of resource. These new nano-prints will also have a sub-section called 'Crafting Attributes' which define how certain features of the crafted item will be affected by the material used.

For example, the Engineer's Boomerang Shot will have 3 distinct features which will alter final the specification will be influenced. These are Shot Damage, Velocity and Recharge. Under each category will be percentages which total 100% but are split between different aspects of the materials being used. In this example 70% of the damage on Shot Damage is taken from Density and the remaining 30% is from Malleability. Depending on the quality of the material used the item will be either White, Green, Blue or Purple much like the resource colour-grades which indicate quality.

The result of the crafting process is so closely tied to the crafting attributes that a perfect match can result in Green-grade resources producing a Blue-grade item however a very poor match can cause Purple-grade resources to produce a blue or even green-grade item. It is up to the operator to use the right resources for the job. One of the other factors to be aware of with crafting is that certain items have caps in place which can be hit even without resources that are at their maximum value, however this varies from nano-print to nano-print.

Refined Crafting

The following section will explain, in detail, how to refine resources to give you maximum control over the product and therefore have tighter control over MCP costs. The blending process can be used to enhance, refine or ruin resources depending on what you blend together and as mentioned in the last section it is not always desirable to maximize all features of an item since it causes the MCP costs to also increase. The key to refining is a process called chain-blending, which involves blending resources together that were also created through blending.

ENHANCEMENT
The goal of enhancement is to blend resources together to create an overall increase to the isotope number of the crystite. One of the issues with this process is that any nano-prints used with this type of resource will have increases to stats across the board and therefore cause the largest MPC increase. It is generally achieved through the blending of resources which compliment each other.

SPECIALISATION
This form of refinement is used to cause the smallest MPC increase possible while maximising a specific feature within the nano-print. It is best used for nano-prints where the bulk of a feature is made up by one or two ASP such as the Engineers Boomerang mentioned earlier which used Density and Malleability. This can be the most advanced form of refinement as you need to weaken the ASP you don't want while carefully managing the values you want to keep.

RUINATION
Sometimes it is better to have access to an ability for the sake of diversity even if it isn't as good as it can be. In this case you can create items with really poor resources but are exceptionally light on MCP requirements. This would be useful for abilities such as Missleshot if you only want it for sniping with a plasma-cannon but the full version is simply too demanding on your MCP with your current load out.

This can be quite confusing so lets illustrate with two resources and look at just the Density ASP, for now we will not consider the percentage of the total possible ASP these values represent.

Cy-A DEN 500
Cy-B DEN 100

If these two resources are blended with a 1:1 ratio you will suffer penalties when it comes to blending the percentages of their total ASP that these two resources have. In fact you would see a result that is significantly less than an average of the two ASP. Ideally you want two resources where the raw ASP is similar but the percentage of their total possible ASP is very, very different. Consider these two ideal resources:

Cy-A DEN 100 / 10% of max ASP
Cy-B DEN 100 / 90% max ASP

Disregard the actual Density value for the moment, that is only used to compare the resources what we want to look at here is the percentage of total possible ASP for this resource on Density.

Because the ASP value is identical there is no penalty for blending these together, so the percentages are averaged perfectly resulting in a product will be 50% of the maximum ASP. Since Cy-A is 10% of its maximum at 100 that means at 100% it is 1000. So 50% of that 1000 is 500, this means if the product of this blending is type Cy-A you have successfully enhanced the Density ASP. On the other hand, if the product is Cy-B you will have ruined the resource as 50% of its maximum will be less than what you started with.

Having three factors which influence blending can be confusing. So to explain how to do chain-blending for refining purposes the next examples will make the assumption that the ratio of materials is always 1:1 and that the actual ASP values involved are similar enough to suffer no penalties. What we want to pay attention to is the percentage of maximum possible ASP the resource has for Conductivity and Density.

Here are 4 theoretical resources.

Cy-A	CON	10%	DEN	20%
Cy-B	CON	30%	DEN	50%
Cy-C	CON	50%	DEN	70%
Cy-D	CON	80%	DEN	60%

How you chain-blend these resources is critical to getting the best results, you cannot simply throw them together and get the same outcome. Lets assume that we want some Cy-A crystite for an item which needs Conductivity and Density for its Damage feature. At the moment our Cy-A isotope is very weak on these two stats but has a high maximum possible value for us to develop it towards. How you combine these resources will determine how much you will enhance Cy-A. Here are all of the possible products you can make from these four resources. The first column indicates how they were blended. ABCD means A and B were blended together first, C and D were blended next. The final step was then to combine AB and CD.

ABCD	CON	42%	DEN	50%
ACBD	CON	45%	DEN	50%
ADBC	CON	42%	DEN	55%

If you total the percentages here you will notice that the lowest is 92% and the highest is 97%. What this means is that when chain blending the maximum possible outcome is achieved through blending the highest and lowest ASP values or the highest and lowest [Cy-xx] isotopes. The thing to keep in mind that the chain-blending process is slow and gradual, you won't be suddenly turning a low grade resource into a high-grade one within a few blending generations. Even if we were to take the Cy-ADBC isotope and combine it with more of Cy-A we would still end up with 61% CON and 57% DEN on the product not to mention that the need to match the raw ASP values makes perfect blending as much luck as it is wisdom.

The final point here is how to perform ruination, which is aiming to create as close to the [CY-1] isotope as possible for the sake of getting MCP demands to the minimum. To perform this you simply blend resources which are so utterly different in their raw ASP that you suffer significant penalties, you would also ensure that you start blending the poorest resources together rather than combining the lowest to the highest.

Nanoprint Suggestions

The following section of the guide is to make suggestions for resources to be used with each Nano-print. This is by no means a definitive suggestion as the characteristics of resources vary widely and sometimes you may want to get the most of out specific feature of the item and will therefore choose to focus totally on that at the cost of being less than optimal in other areas.

These tables are an incredibly simplified summary of the information most users will want. However if you want to see the details and breakdowns on how these results were created you can find more information on this GoogleDoc spreadsheet.

While this is an itemized list of all nano-prints there are some general commonalities between their crafting attributes. Jets and Rifles typically work best with Metallic resources such as Bismuth for example, once more nano-prints are added to the guide there will be a separate table for easy reference.

NANO-PRINT	TIER	BATTLEFRAME	ATTRIBUTES	OPTIMUM RESOURCE
KISUTON ASSAULT RIFLE	TIER 2	RECON	RATE OF FIRE	BISMUTH (55%)
KISUTON ASSAULT RIFLE	TIER 2	RECON	RELOAD SPEED	BISMUTH (82%)
KISUTON ASSAULT RIFLE	TIER 2	RECON	ACCURACY	SILICATE (56%)
KISUTON ASSAULT RIFLE	TIER 2	RECON	OVERALL	BISMUTH (193%)
ACCORD SNIPER RIFLE	TIER 2	RECON	RATE OF FIRE	BISMUTH (55%)
ACCORD SNIPER RIFLE	TIER 2	RECON	RELOAD SPEED	BISMUTH (82%)
ACCORD SNIPER RIFLE	TIER 2	RECON	HEADSHOT DMG.	SILICATE (70%)
ACCORD SNIPER RIFLE	TIER 2	RECON	OVERALL	BISMUTH (151%)
OMNIDYNE-M SERVOS	TIER 2	RECON	RUN SPEED	CORALITE (59%)
OMNIDYNE-M SERVOS	TIER 2	RECON	SPRINT SPEED	SILICATE (37%)
OMNIDYNE-M SERVOS	TIER 2	RECON	JUMP HEIGHT	SILICATE (92%)
OMNIDYNE-M SERVOS	TIER 2	RECON	OVERALL	SILICATE (188%)
KISUTON L.RANGE CHARGE	TIER 2	RECON	CHARGE DMG.	QUARTZITE (85%)
KISUTON LONG RANGE CHARGE	TIER 2	RECON	CHARGE RADIUS	BISMUTH (84%)
KISUTON LONG RANGE CHARGE	TIER 2	RECON	CHARGE RECH.	BISMUTH (75%)
KISUTON LONG RANGE CHARGE	TIER 2	RECON	OVERALL	BISMUTH (174%)
KISUTON JUMPJET	TIER 2	RECON	ENERGY COST	QUARTZITE (75%)
KISUTON JUMPJET	TIER 2	RECON	THRUST	BISMUTH (82%)
KISUTON JUMPJET	TIER 2	RECON	ENERGY RECH.	BISMUTH (65%)
KISUTON JUMPJET	TIER 2	RECON	OVERALL	BISMUTH (172%)
OMNIDYNE-M L.RANGE CHARGE	TIER 2	RECON	CHARGE DMG.	QUARTZITE (85%)
OMNIDYNE-M L.RANGE CHARGE	TIER 2	RECON	CHARGE RADIUS	BISMUTH (84%)
OMNIDYNE-M L.RANGE CHARGE	TIER 2	RECON	CHARGE RECH.	BISMUTH (75%)
OMNIDYNE-M L.RANGE CHARGE	TIER 2	RECON	OVERALL	BISMUTH (174%)
ASTREK EXECUTE SHOT	TIER 2	RECON	SHOT DAMAGE	QUARTZITE (85%)
ASTREK EXECUTE SHOT	TIER 2	RECON	EXPLOSION RADIUS	BISMUTH (84%)
ASTREK EXECUTE SHOT	TIER 2	RECON	SHOT RECH.	BISMUTH (75%)
ASTREK EXECUTE SHOT	TIER 2	RECON	OVERALL	BISMUTH (174%)
ASTREK L.RANGE CHARGE	TIER 2	RECON	CHARGE DMG.	QUARTZITE (85%)
ASTREK L.RANGE CHARGE	TIER 2	RECON	CHARGE RADIUS	BISMUTH (84%)
ASTREK L.RANGE CHARGE	TIER 2	RECON	CHARGE RECH.	BISMUTH (75%)
ASTREK L.RANGE CHARGE	TIER 2	RECON	OVERALL	BISMUTH (174%)
KISUTON RESONATING BOLTS	TIER 2	RECON	BOLTS DMG	QUARTZITE (85%)
KISUTON RESONATING BOLTS	TIER 2	RECON	BOLTS DURATION	QUARTZITE (45%)
KISUTON RESONATING BOLTS	TIER 2	RECON	BOLTS RECH.	BISMUTH (75%)
KISUTON RESONATING BOLTS	TIER 2	RECON	OVERALL	QUARTZITE (155%)

Resource Gathering Tips

- Azurite can only be typically found near the edge of the Melding if you want to mine it
- Sifted-earth will give you resources for the current shift, stockpile it and wait for a good cycle
- It is easier to defend Thumpers on the edge of cliffs or with a cliff-face behind it
- Remember that scan-hammers only scan an arc in front of you, turn around to scan as well
- Test a dig site with a small thumper to see how hard it is to defend before using a larger Thumper

Credits

In alphabetical order...
Actionman - tips on Azurite mining
Bolverker - blending R&D and continued R&D
Cruzze - for corrections
ChojinMD - for the (yet to used) Dreadnaught nanoprints
Dethbringa - general R&D
Draco18s - lots of hard work on the maths used in crafting
Fippe - tips on Azurite mining
jams - Quartzite min/max corrections and generally productive criticism
Mavoc - for the more precise quality-grades
McWaffle - for the (yet to be used) Biotech nanoprints
Nerfbane - tons of spreadsheets and the man who cracked the blending formula
Jerry Thomas - additional Bismuth data
KarbonKitsune - Recon nano-prints and general support
KingBradley - Quartzite min/max corrections
Sayan - proof of Azurite blending
Starlightgamer - general R&D
Zprotoss2 - work-around for splitting stacks in beta milestone 1

And of course, the folks at Red5 who designed and built the crafting system. A huge thanks to Imbalanced, Virgil, Nic and UltimaSage for their hard work and support of RAWR.