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Recipes: Medicine, Explosives, Tools

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When the group comes back from a route, loot turns into a set of choices: what to make right now, what to save for a serious recipe, and what still needs to be bought. In this article we break down three practical crafting tracks — medicine, explosives and tools: what can actually be made today, and which materials, skills and workstations you’ll need.

How crafting works (in brief)

Crafting runs over time and has no luck roll. If the check passed before you started, materials are spent only at the moment the work completes successfully — on cancel or interruption, the resources for the failed iteration aren’t lost. Moving while the work is in progress interrupts it, so batch crafting is best started somewhere you won’t have to pull your character away in a hurry.

A recipe may demand several conditions at once: a learned recipe, a skill threshold, an unlocked ability, consumable materials, a tool in your inventory (not consumed), and a workstation nearby on the map — you need to walk up to it. Basic recipes are available right away; the rest must first be learned from a recipe item.

Medicine

The most accessible branch: most medical recipes need no station and rely on simple raw materials. This is the first thing you close out after an outing.

  • Bandages — made from rags. A basic consumable made from a material that’s easy to mistake for junk.
  • Sterile bandage — rags + Alcohol.
  • Healing bandage — a sterile base + healing ointment.
  • Antidote bandage — a sterile base + antidote ointment.
  • “Alma” solutions — saline plus 1, 2 or 3 “Alma” concentrates. The more of the rare concentrate you put in, the stronger the solution.
  • Dex-Mini — a small syringe + saline + a medicinal leaf; requires the Medicine skill at 25 or higher and a learned recipe.

Explosives

A branch for sappers — a steady source of mines and charges. Every recipe requires the Explosives skill, at least one sapper ability, materials, a tool and time. The branch’s base raw material is sulfur; complex charges add metal, cable, chips and batteries.

The early entry point is your first sapper ability: with it, the Pressure mine (Explosives 10+) and the Remote charge (from 18) become available. Beyond that, fragmentation, chain, toxic, incendiary, EMP, flash and breaching charges open up — each behind its own ability and skill threshold. A few examples:

  • Fragmentation mine — the Shrapnel load ability, Explosives 18+.
  • Toxic charge — made from sulfur, fertilizer and vita-toxin; the Toxic compound ability, Explosives 44+.
  • Incendiary charge — Explosives 48+.
  • Breach charge — a directional blast; Explosives 52+, requires a Tool set.
  • EMP charge — Explosives 65+; Flash charge — Explosives 66+.

Remote versions of charges cost more: electronic parts are added to the recipe. You don’t need to craft a separate detonator — it appears when you plant the charge. Most charges are single-use and don’t wear down.

Tools

This branch produces the working tools themselves. The base requirement is the Mechanics skill at 25 and an unlocked tool-making ability; not every recipe needs a workplace (station).

  • Tool set — assembled from a Small wrench, a file and tape; needs a station — a Stove. It itself serves as the tool for many complex recipes.
  • Knife — from a pin, cloth and a sharpening stone; requires a Hammer and a learned recipe. This recipe needs no station.
  • Universal tool — from a broken sample, cable and a drill; needs a station (a Stove) and a learned recipe.

A useful detail: one of the technical abilities lets you deploy a field workshop — it stands in for a missing station while you are on a location. There are no stations on the global map, so recipes that require a workplace can’t be assembled on the road.

What to keep in mind

Completed crafting grants experience, and non-stackable items remember their author — a complex thing becomes the result of specific preparation rather than an impersonal find. The everyday core of crafting is medicine, processing and purification; explosives and tools complement it and cover the group’s specialized tasks.