wip faq

2024/crafting-beta-faq.md

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+# Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop - Crafting Beta - Forecasted and Anticipated Questions
+
+*Please note that all plans are subject to change and the information on this page is provided as a view into our development process, not as a list of promises.*
+
+### Why are item drops and crafting being added to Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop?
+
+In the past, when we added new weapons, we increased the armory access level limit. This had the unfortunate effect of increasing the grind required to promote, as well as making it harder to access each new weapon.
+
+Additionally, some players enjoy progression in games beyond leveling up or competing on a leaderboard, so crafting will be a method of obtaining stat-tracking items, which debuted with the Air Time medal currently available from an easter egg in the Operation Sandstorm mission of the Reduction campaign.
+
+### How do I get crafting materials?
+
+Each week that you play Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop, crafting materials will appear in missions. If you do not collect them all after they appear, they will remain collectable indefinitely, and the next week's materials will add to what you already have available. Additionally, if you play a lot, crafting materials may appear independently of the weekly refresh.
+
+If you find crafting materials in a mission, you can simply pick them up and they will be added to your inventory, even if you fail to complete the mission. If multiple players have crafting materials in a mission, they will appear in the same locations, but will not necessarily be the same materials. If you fail to find a crafting material in a mission, your eligibility is not consumed and the material will appear again in a future mission you play.
+
+Crafting material spawn locations are decided automatically, so if any materials spawn in an unreachable or just incorrect-looking place, be sure to take a screenshot and report the bug.
+
+Missions where crafting materials are currently available are marked in the mission chooser. Crafting materials can appear in any mission type, including custom challenges and deathmatch.
+
+There is a setting to prevent crafting materials from appearing in missions if you find them distracting. Each week you play will still count toward the amount of materials you can find once you change the setting back.
+
+### What are the different kinds of crafting materials?
+
+There are five categories of raw crafting materials that will be available during the beta:
+
+- **Industrial** materials like scrap metal are found commonly.
+- **Bulk** materials like loose wires are found commonly in large quantities.
+- **Alien** materials like claw fragments are found uncommonly.
+- **Tech** materials like data storage media are found rarely.
+- **Salvaged** materials like piles of red sand are found uncommonly, and only in certain missions.
+
+### I need a big jumble of numbers and technical details to feel happy. Can you help with that?
+
+Every week, after at least 30 minutes of playtime (playtime being defined as having the game open), you will become eligible for:
+
+- 20-50 Industrial or Bulk material pickups
+- 5-10 Alien material pickups
+- 1-5 Tech material pickups
+- 10-30 Salvaged material pickups
+
+Up to 5 materials spawn in each mission, so assuming you collect every material you can, the weekly materials will take 8 to 19 missions to collect.
+
+Additionally, every 6 hours of playime, when completing a mission, you become eligible for:
+
+- 5-10 Industrial or Bulk material pickups
+- 1-3 Alien material pickups
+- 0 (90% chance) or 1 (10% chance) Tech material pickup
+- 2-5 Salvaged material pickups
+
+Assuming you collect as many materials as possible in each mission, the bonus materials will take 2 to 4 missions to collect. (Although the Salvaged materials may not all be available in the same mission.)
+
+The materials are decided when you become eligible for them, so if new materials are added to the game, everyone will start eligible for zero of them, and if you fail to pick up a material in a mission, it won't magically turn into a different material next time you see it. Within each category, a pickup for each material is equally rare.
+
+The quantity of materials picked up at once is random and decided when you pick up the material:
+
+- 250-1500 carbon
+- 100-300 loose wires
+- 1-3 of any industrial material
+- 1 of any other material
+
+### What kinds of items can I craft?
+
+During this beta, only collecting crafting materials is possible. We want to see how players interact with the crafting materials before we decide on any recipes. After the crafting beta is over, the first craftable items will be stat-tracking versions of weapons you already have access to.
+
+### How long will crafting take?
+
+We don't have any form of microtransactions to speed up crafting or economy that requires a time commitment to make items valuable, so crafting an item will be "instant" once you have the required materials and blueprint. Since nothing in computer networking is truly instant, a better comparison would be that it will take about as long as picking up a crafting material from the floor in a mission or uploading a score to the leaderboard. Basically, there will be no artificial delay.
+
+### Will I be able to trade or sell crafting materials or crafted items?
+
+There is no player-to-player trading in Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop. However, an in-game shop may be unlockable later to convert crafting materials you have extras of into an in-game currency.
+
+### Will crafting change Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop's gameplay?
+
+The only way crafting will affect gameplay is by adding crafting materials to be found in missions. Crafted items, at least at the start of the system's full release, will only be cosmetic, and gameplay changes like equipment that differs in non-cosmetic ways will be available through other related systems.
+
+There will not be any "consumable" items like potions or boosters. Once you obtain an item, you will keep it until you intentionally destroy it or turn it into something else. Items you consume during a mission, like a box of grenades, are independent of the inventory item; for example, dropping a weapon during a mission will not remove it from your inventory.
+
+### Will there be new weapons?
+
+Yes, we have plans for several new weapons. The crafting and contract systems are a required step before we can work on adding them.
+
+### Will there be new marines?
+
+Yes, we are planning to add unlockable marines later down the road, but we can't announce any more specific plans yet.
+
+### What are "Contracts"?
+
+Contracts are persistent objectives that will exist outside of traditional missions. Think of them like Operations in Counter-Strike, the ConTracker in Team Fortress 2, the City Crawl in Dota Underlords, Nightwave in Warframe, or Assignments in Deep Rock Galactic.
+
+Contract Campaigns will be short, self-contained stories that can be played as extra objectives during normal gameplay to unlock item rewards including medals, new weapons, crafting materials, new marines, and possibly other things in the future.
+
+The first eight Contract Campaigns are planned to be (titles are placeholders):
+
+- Officers
+- Special Weapons
+- Medics
+- Techs
+- Aliens
+- Locations
+- Weapons
+- Special Requests
+
+### What's available right now?
+
+[This section is not yet true; the crafting beta has not yet begun.]
+
+In the beta branch, you can find crafting materials in missions, and completing any mission in the beta branch will grant you a one-time gift of two strange (stat-tracking) weapons of your choice.
+
+You can keep the strange weapons after the beta ends, and they will also work in the non-beta branch. Once the beta ends, the gift will no longer be available to players who have not obtained it.
+
+### What's this about cosmetics?
+
+One of the rules for the development of Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop is that we don't compete with the game's Steam Workshop. Any cosmetic mod that is currently available on the workshop will continue to work as it always has, and all missions included with the game will always be available to all players.
+
+The cosmetics being added as part of the crafting system are not model replacements, particle effects, or retextures. Those will continue to be shared on the Steam Workshop. Medals and strange weapons are examples of what we mean when we say "cosmetics".