I hate crafting but need help anyway.

I am still pretty new to the game but I have a character that is pretty high level but his enhancements aren't that great. I know that through the invention system I can make some better enhancements but honestly I tried the invention system and found it to be too much like work.

I had a full salvage inventory but not the right recipes like wise i had a ton of recipes but nothing I needed to make them. I made a couple of things then got sick of it and just started selling everything at Wenworths. I made some cash sure but I feel that I am missing out on the best enhancements and costume pieces.

I guess I should try again. Can I do AE to get the salvage I need quickly? Do I need to kill a bunch of mobs at various levels to get the proper salvage? After that what happens when I get a ton of salvage and dont have the correct recipes?

This can't be as hard as I am making it.

HELP!!! Please

If you really don't want to do the work you can purchase already crafted IO's at WW/BM. They will cost you more than buying the recipies, salvage and crafting your self but if you don't want to be bothered with crafting it's a good option.

You can get salvage with tickets via AE, as well as killing certain enemy types for certain salvage. You can also purchase the reciepies and salvage at WW/BM.

The Invention Enhancement system was added to the game to add a lot of complexity, giving experienced players a lot more fun stuff to do. I suggest you start with the guilds, like this one as an introduction to the Inventions sets.

The intent was to also create an economy. You can buy the recipes and salvage you need to make them, and sell the stuff you don't need. You can also earn a lot of salvage at the Mission Archetect (AE building), where you can use Tickets to buy the specific Uncommon and Rare salvage you need, and get random items within specified categories for common salvage. If I'm working on a fully IO'ed build, I get a large amount of my salvage from cashing in Tickets from AE missions if the prices are too high.

What you're going to do is get rid of what you don't need and get what you need through Wentworth's. It's not like work, it's like shopping. Some people like it and use it to make money [I've made 2b off it. *pats own back*]

1. Go to the market area of these forums and read peterpeter's WW guide.
2. Go sell everything you have, or do step three first and then step two.
3. Download Mids and figure out what you need in those powers. Recharge is great, but not if you run out of endurance since you're so much faster, etc. Make yourself powerful and balanced.
4. Buy the stuff you need. Get the recipes first and try to avoid a BUY-IT-NAO! attitude. You're going to log off for the night anyway, let the bid sit for the night. You'd be amazed what happens in 24 hrs.
5. get the salvage. Don't worry 1m isn't that much and there's no salvage that's commonly used over 2m.
6. Crafting table in the SC college. Then slot what you got.

I have plenty of money so I'll optimize my favorite toons every five or so levels. It takes a day, but they rule after that.

If you haven't slotted well, and I reccomend frankenslotting for bonus and percent improvement, you're probably playing with a toon that's about 1/3 of how powerful it can be.

And don't forget there are special enh that can give you knockback protection, or +3 to all your defenses, or, the king of overpriced enh that I lust for Luck of the Gambler +7.5% global recharge.

Remember the rules of fives. Any bonuses with the same numbers can only happen five times. So you can put in five LotG7.5, but if you have another 7.5rech bonus, from LotG or something else, one doesn't happen.

If you want real-time help, join the_market channel. There's always [mostly] someone on that will help. Though sometimes we're in battles, etc.

Good to have you.

[ETA: Holy crap, two posts while I was typing.]

When first getting into the inventions crafting, it can be a little daunting.

If you're relying strictly on what drops for you, you're going to get frustrated as you'll rarely have exactly the salvage you need for the receipes you've got and vice versa.

When working with IO sets, it really helps to plan out what you're going to need ahead of time.

That way when/if you find what you need you can keep it handy (you can store up to 30 pieces of salvage in your personal vault space) until you're ready to use it. And when you find stuff you don't need then you can sell it at the market to build up enough influence to buy whatever you happen to be missing.

It's really difficult to give specific info here, as the whole inventions system and market interactions are huge and a bit complex. But here's the main things:

1) Plan ahead for what IO sets you want/need. Keep the receipes and *expensive* salvage you happen to find that meet your needs. Sell everything else at the market.

2) Unless you just farm, farm, farm, you'll almost certainly have to buy missing receipes and salvage from the market.

3) Go over to the market forums and read up on things.

4) Unless you're specifically going for certain uber-builds, you could just use the TO/DO/SO path (with the occasional or total common IO usage).

5) Plan ahead. I can't stress this part enough. If you don't know what you want/need, then you'll certainly end up frustrated.

SO's (normally available from level 22+, you can get some earlier in special circumstances, but level 22 is the "default" for using SO's) are available in the normal stores and are perfectly acceptable for use. You won't be ultra-super-duper-uber, but you'll be more than good enough.

The nice things about TO/DO/SO's is that they are easy to acquire (just buy them from the correct origin stores), but you do have to replace them every 5 levels or so.

Common IO's are easier to acquire than Set IO's. They never expire, and at upper levels do give a better boost than plain SO's. You will need receipes (found, bought at the market, or bought from the invention workbench itself) and salvage (found, bought at market, or by spending AE tickets), and the crafting cost can be a bit steep if you haven't accumulated influence (but you only spend it once..as opposed to replacing SO's all the time).

Set IO's are the hardest to deal with. You have to be lucky to find the exact ones you want, so you'll almost certainly be buying from the market. You can also buy them with Merits (directly or from random rolls) and with AE tickets (random rolls). These REALLY need to be planned for and (usually) slowly acquired over the course of the characters lifespan.

Don't try to do it all in one sitting. Work on upgrading 1 or 2 related powers at a time. You can get by with Single Origin enhancements just fine in the mean time.

Since this is your first serious foray into using Invention Origin enhancements, I would suggest that you do not try to buy the "best" stuff. They'll cost a lot if you make a mistake, like buying and crafting something only to discover that you can't slot it because you misinterpreted its description (everyone has done that at some point). Instead, just get what is readily available at the Wentworths/Black Market at a reasonable cost.

After you've done your first IO build, play with it a while. Read up on IOs some more. Eventually, you'll get a better idea of more efficient mix and match configurations you can use to min/max your cost/benefit ratio or if you can stack enough Set Bonuses to fill a hole in your attributes. Use this time to build up your Influence/Infamy and perhaps lay down low ball bids to fish for some new IOs you're eying.