Crafting is underwhelming in F-NV. Seems like Obsidian spent all the love on ammo crafting (yawn) and the "nifty keen-o" survival & campfires, and ignored workbenches. Ammo crafting isn't that thrilling, and survival/campfires are only really useful in hardcoe Survival mode where you need food and water/healing constantly.

All formulas available at the stations is another disappointment, as finding them in the exploration of the wastelands, or through quests, was half the fun. I'm all for skill requirements for recipes, but the formulas should be counted as loot, too, and you should have to search for them or earn them, like it was in Fallout 3.

Also, not having formulae in the Pip Boy means you have to either write down the ingredients manually, try to memorize them or guess, or ferry ingredients back and forth from stash to stations until you get it right. Components you find in the wastelands might be valuable or useful . . or might not . . no way to tell without treking all the way back to a crafting station to access the recipes there.

I've looked through the two dozen or so crafting mods on Nexus and none really seem to fit the bill. Too many either concerned with new ammo recipes, give you uber item recipes for stuff you shouldn't be able to craft anyway, or address one issue only (like the lack of cherry bombs, or gaining empty syringes after using Med-X).

Lastly, I can't believe some of the great craftable weapons they left out of F-NV, like the Shishkebob, and especially one of the funnest weapons of all, the Rock-It Launcher.

An ideal crafting mod:

1. Removes all formulas (except for a few basic ones for starters) from the Workbench and the Campfire (ammo is ammo, can't see removing those recipes).
2. Places those formulas in loot drops (I think easier than static locations, which changes areas?)
3. Restores/imports Deathclaw gauntlets, Shishkebob, Rock-It Launcher, and other weapons they left out of F-NV. If proprietary assets are an issue, rename and/or retexture . Nobody has a copyright on flaming swords, after all.
4. Keep skill requirements for recipes.
5. Found formulas are placed in the Pipboy for easy reference when exploring and finding potential ingredients, and updated at the crafting stations.

Of course if I had any skill with the G.E.C.K this would be a [WIP] and not a [REQ]. I just really dislike what they did to crafting in F-NV. This is more of a wishlist than a serious request, I suppose, as it likely entails a good amount of work.

Of course, the chemistry set and chem manufacture is yet another thing to be addressed . . . . .

I'm using http://newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35919 and it seems pretty good. It doesn't revert everything to schematics or put the items in your inventory, but it does add the Deathclaw gauntlet (also a mantis gauntlet) and Shishkebab (As well as weapons, armors, and even turns all of the 'chemistry sets' in the game into usable items for making chems). IIRC, the rock-it-launcher is much more difficult to recreate, so that one may be a lost cause.

Also, I don't know if it's the component items that mod chooses or if it's just my vastly superior memory (doubtful) but I have no problems remembering the items I want to look out for. As an explosives character it's usually detergent/soap/empty soda bottles/tin cans/sensor modules/scrap metal/scrap electronics/fusion batteries/etc, and I don't even need to have survival to know the armor crafts mostly require various animal skins, detergent, turpentine, scrap metal, letaher belts, etc.

Nonetheless, we can always use another crafting mod. The schematics angle is worth it and I don't believe they're very hard. The only thing I would suggest is also adding some to merchants. Dunno if the big ones like the gun runners and van graffs would want people building their own stuff, but maybe the gun runners weapon mod merchant at the 188 would be good? Just some way for the player to get what they want with an expenditure of effort, because it's really annoying when you're playing a specific kind of character but have to rely on purely random chance to make it work.

Yeah, schematics at the merchants wouldn't be a bad idea, although the mod would then possibly conflict any other mod altering that area or merchant. I'm not sure; while I've modded other games, I haven't yet used the G.E.C.K. or modded Fallout.

I looked at Craft Overhaul but wasn't fond of the fact you could create every weapon in the game (or nearly?) as well as advanced items like stealth armor or energy weapons. Where's the fun in finding such items, hmmm. Well, I guess if your repair and/or science is high enough . . . . *shrug* . I might have to look at it again. Has he fixed the helmet bug yet?

I still can't believe they left out the Rock-It Launcher. For sheer hilarity, nothing beats killing a Super Mutant with a teddy bear. That was an item that found a REAL use for all the junk in the wastelands.

I understand where you are coming from on this. With all of the crafting mods available, and all the power of the new crafting system, I have not found one I like. I am working on a crafting mod, but I don't know if I will release it, mostly because there are so many out there. Mine does focus a lot on chems and ammo though , so I don't know if it would be much use to you. I just want a system that would allow someone to craft basic things with materials that would be available in the wasteland. Why buy jars of powder when gunpowder and even smokeless powder and primers are so easy to make. With chems I was going to take a few more reality bending liberties, mostly because they are not real drugs, but similar drugs do exist and there is even a cannon source for Jet. I planned on having a fews items on the workbench that seemed reasonable, like leather armor and and bumper swords, I just don't have the experience to to make any meshes or textures, so I am limited to already existing resources. If you think this might be of interest to you (or anybody does) I could post it sometime between Monday and Wednesday.