Optional Crafting Components

The idea here is you have a pistol that takes 4 items to make (10 metal, 15 aluminum, 25 fiberplast, 10 gemstones) and it takes optional components. One of the optional components we add, for example, could be a light amplification filter. Basically this would let a player pick which color bolts their weapon will fire (red, blue, green, etc.).

To this end, it would be fantastic if we could make bolts of different types (one that's really long ----, one that's short staccato bursts - - -, one that's wider ==, etc.) then players could know what weapon is being fired and they could use color options to customize their character's weapons. Other ideas that follow along with Optional components could include similar things, perhaps an optional item that changes the sound effect your weapon makes.

Weapons aren't the only place this will work either, we might add armor buffs that increase a player's effectiveness against specific types of attacks, for instance, a hardening agent that would improve it's effectiveness against kinetic attacks, but since the hardening agent is conductive it might temporarily lower the armor's effectiveness against electricity.

We might consider doing things like fish tanks, or terrariums, letting players find components for them as loot on NPCs, especially fictionalized ones. If a player has a quest to kill one of Valarian's thugs who's on a mission to retrieve exotic fish for Valarian then they'll spawn with the fish in their inventory. Players can put the exotic fish in the fishtank in their house.