Chronomancer gives us details on the state of Champions Online in this latest state of the game letter posted on the official Champions Online website.

The letter focuses on a few key points: the Nemesis system, planning pre-order bonuses, crafting, and UNITY missions.

A bit on crafting:

Crafting Specializations

Heroes enter into the research and development in one of the three crafting schools by talking to a trainer. After this, they also now choose which of three specializations within that field they want to pursue. There are different items available to craft within each specialization, and even some of the items that are similar across specialization may have different visual effects that players can choose to display.

A hero can change specializations at any time. To change specializations within a school, simply talks to the trainer and choose to switch to the new specialization. Be forewarned that there is a cost, however. All accumulated skill points will be lost when switching to a different school OR a different specialization within the same school. The skill point cap will also be set back to 100 in both cases. And don’t worry, blueprints are not be lost as a result of changing schools or specializations. They can, however, become temporarily unusable if your skill points are too low. Also, you can only buy blueprints that are in your field of specialization.

You can manufacture any item that is in the same school, even if it is a different specialization, as long as you have the blueprint and you match or exceed that blueprint's minimum required school skill points. This means that you never lose the knowledge required to craft an item, but if you want to hold more than a single specialization, you will need to rebuild your overall ability to create items within that school. Dedicated crafters can learn all three specializations within a school and then be able to craft everything within that field of research and development.

For the full State of the Game letter, go here.