This page will have information on crafting in Mass Effect: Andromeda.
Credits: Sources for this info include:
- /u/vegna871's guide on the Mass Effect Andromeda Subreddit
- More sources to be added soon
Research/Blueprints[edit]
Before you can craft anything, you need blueprints. You get blueprints in two ways. The first is automatic, as you level up, and is for mostly common and uncommon weapons, though I believe the pre-order gear also falls into this category, and I know one set of Rare Armor (I think it's called Maverick, but I'm not in front of the game this very second) does as well. You start with Rank I weapons unlocked, unlock Rank II at level 5, Rank III at level 10, Rank IV at level 20, and Rank V at level 30.
The second method is research. Research lets you spend any research points you've collected from scanning or through AVP rewards to get new blueprints. There are three varieties of points, Milky Way, Heleus, and Remnant, that let you research weapons, armor, and augments from the factions each represent.
When you research weapons or armor, you don't automatically get that weapon. You just unlock its blueprint so that you can go craft it in the Development tab later.
As a note, when you are looking at blueprints you can buy, it lets you see the materials you need to craft the item in the development tab. You DO NOT need to have those items on you to buy the blueprint, you ONLY need the required research data. So say you have 300 Milky Way Research points and want to buy the Blueprint for the Crusader V, which costs 250 points. You don't quite have enough copper to craft it. You can still buy the blueprint so you have it ready for when you get a bit more copper.
You can also research Augmentations, which works a bit differently. Researching an Augmentation does give you a single copy of the Augmentation the instant you research it, so you can research and be ready to go. However, more importantly, it unlocks that augmentation in loot drop tables. Essentially, any augmentations in the research tab will NEVER drop in the world or in stores until after you research them. There are some augmentations that start as available drops, such as the +2 Mod Slot one.
Development[edit]
Development is where you take the blueprints you have unlocked through research or leveling up and actually make guns and armor. You need the right materials, though, but we'll cover materials a bit further down.
There are 5 tabs in the Development UI: Ready, Weapons, Armor, Nomad, and Special. Ready shows you a list of literally every single blueprint you can create with the materials you have, tiered by Rank. It's honestly pretty awful and I just ignore it, because when I craft I usually know what I'm making so I just go to the weapons and armor tabs. Weapons and Armor are pretty self explanatory. Nomad gives you upgrades to the Nomad, which I cover a bit more in depth further down. Special is where you craft quest items, of which I've only encountered one so far. I think you may also be able to craft Remnant Decryption Keys down the line, but if you can I haven't found the blueprint yet.
The draw of developing weapons is augmentations. Through Augmentations you can make MUCH better gear than you would find normally, as well as create weapons with special fire patterns, like Ricochet bullets or a constant laser stream.
You apply augments when you craft gear. How many augments you can apply depends on 3 factors. First, the rarity of the gear. Common Weapons will have fewer slots than rare ones, as a rule. The second factor is the Rank of the weapon. Rank I weapons tend to have no augment slots, but gain more as their rank increases.
The last factor is augment type. There are 5 types of augments you can use in crafting. The first four are limited to 1 of each type per gun/armor piece. They types are as follows:
- Projectile augment (1 can be used per craft)
- Behavior augment (1 can be used per craft)
- Special augment (1 can be used per craft)
- Mod slot augment (1 can be used per craft)
- Literally everything else (limited only by augment slots)
It's worth noting that 1-4 can all be used in a single craft as long as it is 1 of each. The 5th can have any number of that category, including ones of the same type. IE: You use 4x of the 5% power recharge to get 20% power recharge (Credit to /u/Justin-Dark for these augment types and this example).
Armor, for obvious reasons, can't use projectile augments and some behavior augments such as the one that gives you ME1 style reloads.
As a last point, augments and mods are different. Augments are applied at the time of crafting. You won't see them represented in little slots below the gun after you've made it, but you can see the bonus stats they've added. Augments also can't be interchanged, once they're in, they're in for good. Mods are applied to finished guns. You can see them in the little bubbles below your weapon, and switch them out any time you can change your loadout.
Also as a note, Mods take up inventory space, while Augments do not. You can carry all the augments you want, but you don't want to be hauling around too many mods.
Materials/Dismantling[edit]
Materials are what you need to craft. There are plenty of ways to come by them. Minerals are gonna make up the bulk of your crafting. You mainly get these from mining, and mining is your best bet at finding them in bulk. While you can get them from planet scanning or finding nodes around, the amount you get isn't as good. Mining seems pretty east to figure out, but if you guys are confused by it let me know and I'll edit in a guide for it as well. Lootables (Tech and Organic) are found by looting dead enemies, or in chests. Tech materials come from sentient enemies, Organics come from the various critters in Heleus.
All three types can also be bought at stores. I pretty much only use credits on materials and consumables if I'm running low, because I can craft better weapons than I buy.
The last, and IMO best, way to get materials is dismantling. You can dismantle any weapon or piece of armor you don't have equipped by finding it in your inventory and hitting X/Square/V on it (Xbox/PS4/PC).
Dismantling gives you back about 1/3 of the materials that you would need to craft the same weapon. It also gives you a window to show what you get before you dismantle anything, so you can see what you're getting before breaking it and decide if you want the materials or the credits from selling it more. I dismantle just about every weapon I find, since, like I said, I hardly use credits for anything except materials anyway.
However, the best part of dismantling is that, if you dismantle a crafted weapon, you get back any augmentations you used on it. So you don't have to worry about saving your cool Beam Emitter or Vintage Heat Sink augmentations for your Rank V weapons, just remember to dismantle the weapon you put them in when you outlevel it.
Nomad[edit]
As a final note, you can also craft various Nomad Upgrades in the development menu. They're all actually pretty honest about what they do so I'm not gonna go too in-depth on them. They pretty much exclusively use minerals, and almost always need a decent amount of either Platinum or Element Zero, so be on the lookout for those when mining.
There are a lot of upgrades that improve its survivability, which I haven't had too much trouble with since it isn't really useful in a fight (though you can use its raised doors as cover, fun fact), so I'd recommend picking up anything that increases speed and traction early on unless your Nomad is blowing up a lot.
Agility mode is also nice. It's a separate toggle from speed and all terrain mode, and it enables more drift-y controls. essentially, it lets yo make tighter turns and retain more speed through turning, but if you overdo it you'll lose the back end and spin out (which can be great fun on the ice, but generally isn't what you want). I usually leave it off but it's been a lifesaver more than a few times when I got the nomad stuck.
FAQs[edit]
- Do we ever unlock more blueprints to research?
- I haven't encountered it yet, seems like it does expand as you raise viability.
- Are there any Unique weapons that aren't craftable?
- I can confirm one: the N7 Piranha. That one only seems to come from buying it. There may be others depending on what Specialization you started with. I chose Scrapper (with Charge) so the game is giving me shotguns more often than other stuff. There is a craftable Piranha shotgun but it doesn't have the N7 designation and is a rarity tier lower than the N7 version.
This may change as you unlock more upgrades, but as I said I haven't unlocked more yet.
- Do shop augments refresh?
- Yeah, they do. I bought the 2x mod slot augmentation and it came back. However I also found a ton of those augmentations on some higher level remnant.
