I am really torn on this.
On one hand i completely agree with you that putting ingredients in the crafting grid in MC is garbage and a real annoyance at times. Especially with regular crafting tables.
But on the other hand, having items “magically assemble” from resources in your inventory or likewise sounds rather boring too.
I really should make this into a thread of it’s own but here goes…
Crafting things is a skill in my eyes. I know many MC recipes (including GT ones) off the top of my head. The problem is when i have to make the same thing over and over again, but not actually batching them.
I mean, i can make 500 torches in a row no problem. But when i have to make a few chests here, a few planks there, a few sticks there, a new wrench, a couple of soft hammers etc etc etc. All on a “need basis”. Crafting does become annoying.
How about you take advantage of the “skill” part of crafting. Make the first crafting attempts be really difficult/technical/precise. As you’ve crafted one item a few times, your innate skill at crafting said item increases and you can start letting the game skip the process for you.
The higher your skill, the less resources you waste in doing that one thing and the better the resulting quality of the item you craft becomes.
As you progress in the game, you might wanna revisit the crafting process, refine your skills with new and improved tools so to speak to gain even higher efficiency and quality of your handywork.
The same goes for assembling (and possibly servicing?) machines, your hand crafting abilities lets you make better tools, which makes you more proficient at using tools, which makes you better at assembling machines, which makes better machines, which produce better tools etc.
Thus, it doesn’t become a “point and click adventure” but it also removes the tedium of crafting the same item over and over again in a crafting grid. You spend a few attempts at getting it right and then you just remember how to do it so you can “summon” a new item from the search bar at will.
And while i am at it, say the recipe is for a hammer. So you are going to need a hammer head, a handle, some kind of tool for assembly, perhaps some string etc.
As long as you have the RAW materials needed, it should be able to autocraft the necessary stuff before the hammer is crafted in one click.
What the user sees is the step by step process of things to be crafted in what order. A summary of all the necessary materials.
In summary, i am imagining a crafting system that is highly involved for the first couple of items. But as time moves on, it’s finally worth it to just say “i want this item now, using the skills i’ve learned in the past” which does remove tedium.
What i am not imagining is something where you practically spawn an item in exchange for some materials from the very start. It’s going to feel cheap IMHO.
After all, most of the manufacturing is going to be automated later on anyways. Not wanting to return to the crafting grid in MC is one of the driving forces for making an auto crafting table. If i can make pretty much everything by simply saying “gimme” then where’s the drive? Where’s the sense of having learned something?
One of the best features of GT6 is the crucible molds and learning to use the crucible before you even have a thermometer. It takes skill to set that up early on.
But as time moves on, one grows tired of watching metals melt so one sets up more and more automation and strives to leave the tedium behind.
Isn’t that as good for crafting as it is for smelting?