Recently while I was trying to mega-rune weapon encrust my Monofilament sword I ran out of Dark Orbs. I pop into my pocket dimension ready to crack all the orbs I own open to make new ones. While doing so, I realized that only 4 orbs (Nature, Dark, Starry, and Magma) can be cracked, while the Cybernetic, Clockwork, and Nothing orbs can not. Is this intentional, or just an oversight since these are newer orbs and the smithing just never got updated?
I think it's semi-intentional, seeing as the lower level orbs are really common and the higher level ones are something you wouldn't want to lose by accident. That being said, I think it's more along the lines of "oh, we forgot to add these recipes but it's ok because people wouldn't want to do that anyway" rather than a completely deliberate action.
I can understand how it's not high on a priority list, but I would like to be able to crack any orb so that I can make crust runes upon runes upon runes.
Basically, the orbs that can be cracked are the four original orbs (other than orb of nothing) that can all be crafted using Alchemy. I'm assuming they never added one for the Orb of Nothing either because a. it can't be crafted, b. it's literally made of nothingness, how do you crack something like that?, or c. it's the most powerful orb so they didn't expect anyone to ever want to crack one. But the cybernetic and clockwork orbs were added in later expansions and I'm guessing they just forgot about them.
I also think that there should be a recipe to break cybernetic and clockwork orbs, but not orb of nothing.
Cracking an Orb of Nothing is what The Bomb is all about. That's why there are explosives and Vodka involved. I think you should be able to crack it in your inventory but doing so should create The Bomb's effect centered on yourself. For Hilarity's sake of course.