OP
OP
I certainly can do that.
So the actual act of crafting is really simple. In the escape pod you start off in there is a synthesizer that shows you things you can make and the materials you need to make them. It's just a list split into a few categories, it's greyed out if you don't have the materials to craft it but selectable if you do so it's pretty straight-forward there. The one thing a bit less straight-forward and the game doesn't explain but you sort of figure out is to get more blueprints to your database there's two ways. The first is to just collect materials, when you collect certain type of materials a computer AI who assists you through the game will notice a trait and automatically add a blueprint to your library of something to craft with the material you just discovered. The more common way, and for some more complex things, is using a scanner, which is actually something else you need to craft first. The scanner kind of works like how the scanning system in Metroid Prime is like if you've ever played that; You need to be of a certain distance and looking directly at it while you scan and fill it up to 100%, and when you scan the item/material/creature/whatever gets added to a growing databsse with some information on it in a description and some pictures. The added functionality is scanning certain types of things also contributes to learning certain blueprints. IE, scanning some wrecked vehicles will work towards learning the blueprint to make said vehicles, or scanning a certain type of material may let you know of a special property it has which might unlock a new blueprint. If it's a more complicated thing, after you scan it'll say you're 50% or something to learning a blueprint for it, so just need to find one other example of it, scan that and you get the blueprint. Of note none of the things you need blueprints of are limited in quantity, IE if it says you need to scan 2 of this there isn't JUST two of this in corners of the planet, but there's multiple scattered about, you just need to scan two of them.
Now for grinding most of the time I would say it's fine as materials are kind of everywhere, but then some certain rarer types of materials are in certain biomes far more likely and you need to learn how they work. So the thing I find is hardest to find at first is certain minerals, like Silver/Gold. In my second run I needed a few silver to craft some things but was having difficulty for a while finding silver. Deeper into the run though I found that there are signs in the game of where certain materials are more likely, like a light spoiler but silver and gold are more common both in deeper caves BUT there is an incredibly high chance for example they're in caves that are guarded by these jellyfish looking things because they are attracted to rich mineral deposits (which you can learn either through observation that caves with jellyfish-type things often have good results or scanning them as mentioned).
However, generally following the story events are good for getting rarer materials as the story events often lead you to interesting unique locations with good materials.
More often you may find you have too much of something, except for a few cases where you need more. The only material I had some difficulty finding were minerals until you begin learning more where you might more likely find them, as there's often a sort of environmental clue either from wildlife, plant-life, depth etc., of what might be inside of a cave.
However frankly it's not a bother too much mainly since everything is surprisingly inexpensive. Like most things to craft you'll need like, two copper ore and a fiber (which fiber is just made out of two pieces of kelp which is really easy to get as there's these huge kelp forests pretty near where you start). There's never really a huge number of anything you need to make anything, and often supplies are ind of grouped together, so usually when you find what you need you'll get more than what you need for whatever you want to make so you can store away for later.
