Circuit-Board Crafting System
Players create an item using a "circuit board," a grid which players are able to manipulate on an item-to-item basis. For examples sake, let's take 3 separate items: a helmet, curiass, and greaves. A new UI is upon hitting the "Crafting Menu" button. The player would be able to modify the helmet by placing it within the "currently crafting" slot of the new UI. A 5x5 grid would appear with a "core" in the center, representing the core of the helmet. It would look akin to the following:
However, the depending on the quality of the item, specific portions of the grid might be damaged. For example, in a low-quality item, 7 random slots would be randomly destroyed, becoming completely inaccessible. It might look like the following (damaged parts are red 4-sided stars):
However, players might not be satisfied with damaged circuits. They can then sacrifice other items of the same type (another helmet that is slightly damaged to repair those same circuits. For example, if he had another helmet with some damaged slots, he would be able to "maintain" his first helmet by combining the two. The end result would be a slightly less damaged helmet circuit which the player could use, having repaired a few (in this case, 2) of the damaged spots on the circuit:
The player would then be able to use "wires," "connectors," and "parts" collected from the endeavors throughout the game to add on to this grid. The player would place these pieces on the grid in order to affect the items attributes. For example, let's say for example we had a part which allowed the helmet to add 2 power to your shields (effectively increasing your shields by 2). You would attach the part to the grid like so (the part is the brown triangle):
These parts would have no effect on the item until they were attached to one of the 4 sides the core (top, right, bottom, or left). If the part were placed adjacent to the core, then you would be able to have the effect immediately. However, in this item, it is not the case. For this specific helmet, you would have to attach it using a wire in order to obtain the +2 shields effect. The end product would look like so (wire is the blue line):
[CURRENTLY: +2 SHIELDS]
Now, this is not quite the final result. Let's say we wanted to add another part and connect it to the right side of the core. For example, let's have a part that adds +4 attack damage to the helmet. It would look like the following:
[CURRENTLY: +4 ATTACK, +2 SHIELDS]
Finally, let's add a connector. Connectors allow the circuit to flow into different sections, but cut the bonus of any circuit flowing through it by half. If any part has its effect travelling through more than 1 connector, the current is nullified and the part has no effect on the item. However, for examples sake, we'll use it in a practical way that will only enhance the items effect. Take the connector in the following spot (connector displayed by green lines):
[CURRENTLY: +6 ATTACK, +3 SHIELDS]
With this effective connector, you're causing the effect of both parts to be multiplied by 1.5. The reason why is because of the way the connector is placed. For the +2 shields part (at the top of the grid), you're allowing uninterrupted flow into the core from the top. This causes an initial +2 shields. However, it also travels to the right, through the connector (getting halved), and then into the right side of the core. This adds another +1 shields. The same thing occurs with the +4 attack part. It travels unhindered to the right side of the core, then also has a separate flow through the connector to give the extra +2 Attack on the top side of the connector.
However, this isn't all there is to it. Connecters will attach to the core and parts which are adjacent to them, but not diagonally. They will, however, connect to wires which are diagonal to them. Take this addition of a +4 energy part for example:
[CURRENTLY: +6 ATTACK, +3 SHIELDS, +12 ENERGY]
Now, this is perhaps one of the strongest ways a connector is used. From just the part, the +4 energy is divided into +2 by the connector. The connector then sends it into both the top and right slots of the circuit, adding +2 and +2. This is currently a total of +4. The wire extending upwards from the energy part also contains the +4 advantage. It is then split by the connector into +2, then sent into two different sides of the core. The same goes for the wire above the connector, adding to a total of +12 energy from a +4 energy part, effectively tripling the amount of bonus that the energy part gives.
Of course, numbers are definitely way off. I can already envision a scenario where people would loop wires around a single connector and force massive amounts of bonuses out of it. There are also some conceptual checks I'm throwing around, where a connector cannot connect to more than 2 points where a part is flowing a bonus. For example, the wire above the connector in the previous example wouldn't work because the connector is already attached to 2 other sections of the +4 energy part. This would effectively make it +8 energy instead, but I'm not sure if it's a good change. Please give me your input on the idea and let me know of any ideas that could help with balance, creativity, or anything.