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If you're not crafting in Deadcraft, you're not playing the game right. Sure, you can hack away at zombies with an ax and speedrun the campaign, but where's the fun? Plus, mainline quests will require crafting, so there's no way to avoid it even if you wanted to.
Still, if you're interested in getting the most potent weapons and best items, crafting is essential! Furthermore, Deadcraft rewards players willing to craft with more experience (survival points), which you can use to craft new items or boost Reid's stats and abilities. So, are you ready to git gud at zombie crafts! Keep reading, and we'll teach you the basics.
How To Begin Crafting
You'll learn to craft early in the story campaign. After completing the Zombie Gramp's escort mission, "Who's That Geezer," report back to Vernon. He'll ask you to cook some roasted rats for the local children of The Slums. This request begins the mission, "Crafting Is Life," which teaches the basics of Deadcraft's crafting system.
Before you can craft an item, you need to learn its crafting skill in the Skills menu. In "Crafting Is Life," Vernon will teach you the Novice Cook skill with no cost to your SP. This skill teaches Reid to craft a fire pit, one of the first cooking facilities you'll create in Deadcraft.
Before you can craft an item, you need to gather the components required to build it. For example, the fire pit requires two pieces of flimsy wood and one torch. Vernon will provide the torch. After that, it's up to you to gather flimsy wood from the lumber shop or wood piles throughout the desert and slums.
After gathering your materials, approach the crafting table, choose "Craft Items," and then skim to the "Utilities" tab and choose to create the fire pit. And just like that, your first crafting creation will be complete!
Placeable Items, like Junk Screens, Fields, and Storage Sheds, must get placed before their crafting is complete. You can place these items anywhere, as long as the item does not glow red when hovering over the spot in question. Furthermore, you can continue repositioning a peaceable item after placing it the first time.
Breaking Down The Crafting Table Menu
Did you notice all the different tabs and sections of the crafting table menu when making your fire pit? You can make most of Deadcraft's craftable items via the crafting table, hence the detailed organization. Therefore, you should understand where everything is.
The crafting table menu has two main sections:
- Craft: These are all your everyday human items, such as fire pits, weapons, fences, etc. Anything that does not require a zombie material to create is in the Craft section.
- Zombiecraft: This section covers undead crafting creations. You can make undead energy drinks, zombie sprouts, and more! In contrast to the Craft section, Zombiecraft items have at least one zombie material in their recipes.
Additionally, both main sections have dedicated tabs depending on the item's function:
- Consumables: These items are for one-time use. After that, they get removed from your inventory. Items like handgun ammo, instant camps, and zombie energy drinks fall into this category.
- Weapons: This tab contains all your weapons, both melee and ranged. If there's a weapon you want to craft, you'll find it here.
- Placeable: These items get positioned in your surrounding area. For example, wooden fences and little boom mines are placeables.
- Utilities: This tab covers crafting, cooking, and farming facilities. If it pertains to a basic need: food, water, or shelter, you'll find it here. Some utility items have crafting menus with a similar UI to the crafting table menu.
- Other: This is the miscellaneous tab. For instance, gunpowder, which contributes to many items but has no use on its own, can get made in this section.
What Things Can I Craft?
There are so many items to craft in Deadcraft. However, if you wish to know the whole gamut of craftable items, check out the Skills menu next to your inventory. Any skill that teaches a new craftable item will display the item in blue highlight in its description.
Additionally, if a skill is unlocked, you can further investigate a skill's craftable items via the "View Craftables" option. View Craftables lets you examine each craftable item's description, recipe, status effects, the required crafting facility, and its market value in Zol. Plus, if a skill teaches you to craft a new facility, View Craftables will show you a few items that can get made in the facility and how to make them.
Why Can't I Find This Material?
Unfortunately, some craftable items have materials that are difficult to find. For instance, when crafting base-level weapons like Poor Man's Club, Worthless Sign, and Weed Whacker, there were materials that we could not find in the Slum's lumber, goods, and metal stores. Furthermore, we couldn't gather any in the desert. This scarcity left us confused. Were we missing something?
We soon discovered that the materials we needed for the weapons mentioned above, such as the Sturdy Tree, Battered Sign, and Sawblade, were in stores in the north part of town. Unfortunately, these stores were closed because the north part of town got infested with zombies. So we had to complete the "Tag Team" mission first to open up the north part of town, including the Junk Arms Weapons Store.
In short, if you're having trouble finding a craftable item's material, especially if it is very item specific, continue through the main campaign missions some more. Progressing further in the story will often give you access to new locations that offer your desired material.