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What is considered to be an Engineering Tool?

Mr. Fusion 7 years ago updated 7 years ago 5

Items like Heating Element, Large Solar Panel and Polycarbonate Solar Cell list 2x Engineering Tool in their crafting requirements. However, the Engineering Tool requirement still showed up as green when I only had the following tools available: 4x Knife (Cutting Tool), 2x Multitool (Cutting/Building Tool), 2x Scissors (Cutting Tool), 1x Soldering Iron (Engineering Tool).


Are Building and Engineering Tools interchangeable, so one of the Multitools was counted as the second Engineering Tool needed, in which case it should be noted in their description (that they are Cutting/Building/Engineering, not only the first two), or is there possibly some issue with the process that identifies the required tools that caused the 2x Engineering Tool requirement to be considered met when it actually wasn't?


Under review

I'll check. Thanks.

Okay, so I know it's been awhile since you submitted this, but I've got a possible explanation.


The tool requirements will check your personal inventory and also the tools that are currently stored in the hab you are in. This is intended to prevent you from needing to always carry the required tools around with you. It would make sense that if those tools are in the hab with you then you can use them to craft with. The other Engineering Tool is the Wiring Kit. Is it possible that you had one in your hab storage?

That possibility, having had a Wiring Kit, has also occurred to me since then, and I cannot reliably tell if I had one in Hab storage at that time. I'd like to say I did not as I think I started finding those "case" type tools only at a later point in the playthrough, but since its inventory icon differs from the rest of the tools (them being actual, easy to identify tools, while the kits are "toolboxes" of various colors) I may have overlooked it when taking a count of the available tools in a near full Hab storage.


I can try to play around with the tools to see if that may have been the case (as in, if I can craft with the tools listed in the opening post but without a Wiring Kit anywhere), but I guess looking at the requirements on code level is a more reliable way to tell if it's working as intended and you have done that.

Answered

Turns out I misremembered the Multitool functions. It does function as Cutting, Building, and Engineering. And whereas other tools can only satisfy a single required tool category, Multitools can satisfy any or all of the three it can function as.


For example, if you need 2x Cutting Tools and 2x Building Tools:


You could use a single Multitool, a Knife, and a Screwdriver to satisfy the requirements. But you could not use two Multitools and a Screwdriver. You also could not use two Knives and two Screwdrivers.


So I guess I should just change the description of some tools to make them more explicit and consistent.

While the name "Multitool" kind of hints at this, still, explicitly adding all of the tool types all the different tools can satisfy to their description (as the Multitool currently only lists Cutting and Building, but not Engineering) where applicable would help determining with certainty which can be used in which cases.