Crafting will be a key feature of Earthrise, as the game will focus heavily on a player-driven economy, with most of the best wares and gear produced by the fine workmanship of the player populace. Naturally then, many fans are curious about the nuances of the crafting system, and in this week's entry to the Question of the Week series we learn about the mass production of rare or elite level items.

Community Manager Moll answers this week's question:

Q: Will there be ways to mass produce off schematics to make replicas of the rare, elite item? If so, what would be the limit? If not, what is in place to make crafting, not less time consuming, but less tedious?"

A: What makes an item extremely rare or "elite" could be one of many factors - Quality of used ingredients or Designs used along with the manufacturing Technology. Crafters can mass produce items that are "elite" due to their powerful Designs as long as they don't "wear off" their Designs. Each Design, upon creation either by a crafter or receiving it as a reputation reward from an Organization, comes with an Edge property. Once placed in a Technology, each time the attached Technology is used to manufacture an item, Design's Edge will drop. If Design's Edge reaches zero, the Design is no more usable and vacants its slot in the Technology. This limitation requires crafters to stock in Designs and limits the mass production of excess of powerful items. Access to "elite" items is constrained by the availability of Designs on the market. While Crafters will always keep the demand for Designs high, it depends on players who either provide resources for the Blueprinting process (the way Designs are created) or those who trade their reputation with Organizations to gain Designs as reward and sell it on the market, to support the economy with the means to create so called "Designer Items".

QOTW: Mass Production, Crafting.