Problem Gem transmutation is handy but takes way to long to get the proper gem a player wants. Tonight's Example Tonight I learned Haemetic Phylactery for the first time. I found that the debuff stacked, but purity potions could remove it. After finding a powered aluminum to make a clear vision potion (which are required to make purity potions) I started using gem transmutation (20 turn cooldown) to try and get the required aquamarine. Every 100 seconds I would also make a Haemetic Phylactery. 9 Phylacteries later I finally got the aquamarine. That is 900 turns I had to spend to do it and 45 transmutations later. Sure it was all chance, but it was still frustrating. Suggestion Give Transmutation the Shredded Cheese treatment. Allow transmutation to turn all gems into a generic 'pre-gem' that can then be made into whatever gem the player wants through the crafting window. This would alleviate alot of the tedious time spent trying to get the one gem you want for a alchemy recipe.
That may not be bad.. although I like it for a different reason. If transmutable items like gems, and fungi could be turned into a base item, it would clear up alot of your potential junk.. some builds are near unusable, since you would only get a few free slots with a pack full of crafting gear/ ammo/ etc. I just wish this could be reasonably applied to more item types without game breaking consequences.
I'd rather take gem transmutation out of alchemy. Too many recipes in the other crafting skills depend on rare gems. It's even worse for the hidden recipes - am I meant to hoard every Pyrite Sun I find just in case I happen upon the Ring of Iron Thorns recipe? Here's an idea - increase the rarity of crafting tools but give all of them a unique 0-skill purpose: n-Dimensional Lathe Gem Transmutation My Little Anvil Junior Smithing Kit Thrown Weapons (low yield) Modular Alchemy Box Basic Potions (health/mana) (low yield) Balanced because you can't distill Aqua Vitae Tinkerer Parts Bolts (low yield) Porta-Still Booze Shredding (turn any booze into a Sewer Brew) Elven Ingot Grinder Food Shredding (cheese/meat) [already in-game] Disposable Ingot Press Ore-to-Ingot conversion [already in-game] Thrown/Bolt yields should be balanced such that someone with maxed out Thrown/Alchemy would recover enough ammo to be equivalent to someone that maxed Smithing/Tinkering. I think this would be better than the current system where crafting tools are worthless to anyone without skill. --- By the way, you wouldn't need a 'pre-gem' - you could just make a chain of recipes (e.g. ruby -> emerald, emerald -> diamond, etc.)
I think that the presence of said "pre-gem" is meant to only make it possible to change gems for those who took the relevant skill. And I kind of agree with that idea, since being able to change any gem into any other gem without appropriate skill would mean many people would abuse this function just to get a quick zorkmid boost.
So make all the gem transmutation recipes require level 3 Alchemy. You still wouldn't need a 'pre-gem'. The most expensive gem sells for about ~200 zorkmids. That's barely anything in the long run. This could also be counter balanced by making the crafting tools rare and expensive. Right now they're just useless inventory fillers (e.g. the only people that can use a Porta-Still start the game one!). If a n-Dimensional lathe cost 2000 zorkmids would you buy one just to transmute your gems for money?
That could work, but actually using 'pre-gem' would be more comfortable for players, as that way they would simply change all of their gems to 'pre-gems' instead of having to cycle through the whole list. And with 'pre-gems' adding new gems for the list would only require adding 1 recipe, instead of changing 1 and adding 1. On Going Rogue, that is. On lower difficulties it's ~500 and ~700, meaning it would be possible to abuse it without limiting it. You know, scratch that one. On lower difficulties it's broken enough, so we need not worry ourselves with that. If you've got Megacrafts, you can get a +1 or +2 boost for certain crafting skills in certain areas, meaning you'll actually be able to create simple stuff with it. And it's not like most things you find aren't vendor trash either way. The last time I checked, it sold for 0, so most players wouldn't sell it if they found one, meaning they would have one then. And that can happen even on the first floor.
J-Factor: That is an interesting idea.. I think if you added relevant stat increases to the crafting trees then it wouldn't be so bad when your crafted gear became out dated. Since you could take crafting for early survivability, and use it late game for stat boosts. I just feel that the Tinkering tree is the best crafting tree, simply because it gives an extra 9 and some .. I don't think anyone would complain about the crafts getting replaced if every tree had relevant boosts. Edit : On the two easier difficulties it is not hard at all to get 50,000 gold by the third level. Honestly, you can steal the best items from the shops anyways, so who cares about other ways to break the shop system?? Edit2 : You can still transmute all your gems into diamonds atm too (or whatever gem has the highest value), you just have to alt-click out the gems you want/ need to keep, and transmute the rest repeatedly. The only difference is that this method is a bit more time consuming, and can potentially take more space.
