Custom Items

Custom Item Creation There are four main steps to staff-authorized creation of a custom item here: 1) Inspiration! You need inspiration in order to design something. Most often this is some problem you want to solve, or some unfilled niche there's a need for. Describe the idea, why it's needed. Sometimes, an existing piece of equipment will fill your needs with minimum modification, and you don't need to design something from scratch. 2) The Design After you've got inspiration, it's time to actually see if it will work. Design uses the <Item> Design knowskill. Other skills such as B/R or Gunsmithing may be allowed, but at default penalties. Skills whicha re very broad (Inventing) may also suffer additional TN penalties, while skills which are very tight (Machine Pistol Design) may have a bonus. The complexity of the design is the primary determination of the TN. Simple things (a sword) will have low TNs. Complex systems, such as autonomous robots or jet fighters, will have high TNs. Things which use SOTA materials, such as nanotechnology, have additional TN penalties. Complex computer systems can help reduce the TN, along with an appropriate Design package. 3) Testing You can, of course, skip this and go right to Prototyping, step 4 - but are you sure you want to? At this point, you have three options for testing - Design analysis, Prototype testing, and Virtual testing. Of these, design is the least costly - you basically go over the design with a fine-toothed comb and look for any mistakes, using your Design skill. Virtual testing is done with a virtual environment, usually included in the same Design package that helps with the design test. Computers is used for this test. Finally, you can Prototype your design - build it using the B/R skills, and test it in everyday use. This takes no skill other than simple observation, but can be decidedly riskier than the other two options. 4) Production Once all that is done and you're happy with your prototype, you have to finalize the design, then design and build the facility that will mass-produce the item. If you just want one then follow the prototyping rules above.