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A small tutorial about crafting would be helpful. I've tried salvaging items and combining parts in the lab but not getting anywhere. The manual is vague about this aspect of the game.
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Dari just added this to his excellent tutorial thread. Check it out.
Just to be clear: the lab is for discovering "recipes for unknown effects". Salvaging items (in space, not on a planet surface) gives you the recipe for that salvaged item effect (i.e. once you have salvaged one sidearm, you have the recipe/effect for all sidearms). In the early game, salvage is much cheaper than the lab until you have lots of parts (i.e. 20+ of all 25 parts). Buy cheap weapons and suits in the early sectors and salvage them to gain parts until you have built up a stock. The "Crafting Lab Upgrade" gives a chance that lab experiments might not consume parts, but it's only a chance. But you are better off getting officer promotions to aid your crafting than worrying about the lab. Raise money, then go back to early sectors where the price is cheaper and buy the more expensive items you couldn't afford earlier to salvage for their recipes & effects. Then you can try crafting.
I wouldn't bother trying for better crafted versions until after base crafting (check the Stats Screen) has gone up 10 points from the previous version you had created.
One thing I recently discovered. Some items sold in the stations have "special abilities" that you won't see unless you hover your cursor over the item and read the description. Things like the Shovel Suit (which enables the A.T. to clear away rubble). These special abilities are NOT effects you can gain by salvaging those items, and so far I haven't gained them from crafting. So you can wind up with several suits with different capabilities in cargo. Don't skimp on cargo space. The "Cargo Containers" device adds 25 to your built-in capacity.
-Dubious-