Crafting is a very big element of The Division, which borrows a variety of elements from RPGs besides leveling up and outfitting.
Players who aren’t familiar with RPG systems may make the mistake of crafting items every time they have the opportunity to do so. Instead, you should conserve all of your materials and not spend any of them on crafting early on in the game. As a rule of thumb, you should not craft any items until you reach level 30.
The reason for this is simple: a level 10 gun has the same material costs as a level 30 gun. So don’t waste your materials by crafting easy-to-replace low-level items. Just wait until you hit 30 and start crafting then. It’s far more important to invest your resources in weapons and armor that will last you much longer.
Furthermore, you should never sell your weapons and armor to the vendor because they’ll pay you’ll get piss-poor returns for anything you sell. Simply dismantle the gear you intend to sell and use it for crafting later.
Likewise, when crafting an item, you should take into consideration the material investment. Every five green-tier weapons you create could be a single blue-tier weapon because of the resource exchange rates. Every five blue-tier weapons you craft could be a golden weapon.
For crafting, there are three simple rules to follow to maximize your resources:
- Do not craft until level 30
- Do not sell your gear. Dismantle them.
- Save your materials for Gold items.
Crafting Costs
Green weapons and equipment: 5 green resources
Blue weapons and equipment: 3 primary blue resources, 1 secondary blue resource.
Gold weapons and equipment: 5 primary gold resources, 3 secondary gold resources, 3 “division tech.”
Acquiring and Unlocking Blueprints
For the most part, you can acquire blueprints to build new items by completing sidequests. The mission rewards on the map will indicate this.
Acquiring gold blueprints will require you to head into the Dark Zone. You can purchase them from Dark Zone vendors using Dark Zone Currency or Phoenix Currency depending on the vendor. With the right tech upgrade unlocked, you will even be able to make these purchases from the safety of the base.
You can acquire Phoenix Currency by completing incursions and challenge mode missions.
