When crafting, at the reloading bench for example, some recipes, but not all, have a number beside the recipe name in parentheses. I thought perhaps that this number represents how many of that item (18 20 guage bullets for example) you currently have in your inventory, but the number is beside some things I have none of, or show a number that is different than what I have in my inventory. They're also beside some of the Breakdown recipes (or are they only beside the breakdown recipes --- I forget-- either way, I still couldn't figure out their meaning). I'm playing on PS3.

It shows how many of that item you have and how many you need.

No, it doesn't. Those are numbers next to components, not recipes.

Precisely. So, what's the numbers beside recipes?

Your current skill / skill needed to craft

I think.

I was wondering the same thing! Like for 22lr it says something like "Breakdown .22LR (3)" What the hell does (3) mean? 3 what? And its ALWAYS 3, where I have 50000 22lr bullets, or none. Doesnt matter. Anyone know this?

Oh, I guess I should read a little more closely. Perhaps it is how many you will produce? Or how many times you can prepare that recipe? I admit I haven't done much delving into the crafting system with this character but I intend to rely on it with my next.

No. That's still on the right-hand side, above the ingredients.

The number I'm referring to is in the left-hand pane, where the full list of recipes are. The number is in parentheses beside the name of some recipes, but not all.

No. No matter how many I can/do make it does not change.

No thats not it, thats shown under the Skill Requirement thingy.
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I think they literally typed that in in the geck, and so its there. It means nothing and is a leftover technical stat. I will load up the geck and see if its there.

EDIT: Nope, not in the geck. Its something the game engine adds for some reason.

Oh, Doh. Don't really recall what you're referring to, looks like I'll have to load up the game and check it out XD

Yup, that's what I'm talking about. I know it's not quantity in inventory or how many you are able to make given what's in your inventory.

I don't have FNV yet, but can you scrap items? I would say that number looks like it could be the salvage potential, or actual number of items you will salvage from it.

D.McMurry is browsing this section, maybe he will stop in and answer if were lucky.

if you're in the reloading bench screen and it says Breakdown 5.56mm (3) it means that recipe need 3 rounds of 5.56mm ammo to produce the components, Breakdown 10mm doesn't have a nunber as it's done per round, it works the opposite way for making ammo FROM the components, for every recipe you complete you get the bracketed number back.

That would actually make sense, but it doesn't match to what I tried (on PS3). The Breakdown 20 guage has (18) beside it. I only had 8 in my inventory, but that recipe was lit up. I tried it out and I could select any number from 1 to 8. I selected 1, and got the corresponding amounts of powder, etc.

I think this number might appear on some other crafting recipes as well, not just reloading (not sure).

Oh yeah, i just had another look, it seems like on most of the breakdown recipes that the number represents the amount of powders you get, as you say the (18) is the amount of pistol powders you get from that breakdown, and this works for most of them, except the 10mm breakdown, which has no bracketed number, but gives 8 pistol powders....odd.

It's also not clear why anyone would think that improves usability. Why would a player care more about powder than primers, casings, etc.?