The Crafting and Inventing systems of Drift enable players to craft equipment and items based on Blueprints, and invent new such Blueprints. Crafting and inventing generally requires players to have associated skills to undertake, with access to crafting and inventing therefore available to characters with Engineer, Science or Medical career ranks.

Blueprints

Crafting recipes in Drift are known as Blueprints. Blueprints will be available for a wide assortment of Items, including: 

• Medicines: drugs, herbal curatives, bandages
• Equipment: scanners, digital lock-picks, communicators, diagnostic tools 
• Weapons and Weapon Mods: powered weaponry, grenades 
• Apparel: environmental suits, armour

Blueprints are physically represented in game with a laminated card. Blueprints are acquired by players through a number of different means:

• Inherent character knowledge (Skills)
• Found, traded for, or otherwise acquired in-game
• Created through the invention system (see Inventing)

Additionally, Machines are capable of crafting based on ‘standard’ Blueprints for many common items (see Machines). 

Crafting

Undertaking the crafting recipe denoted on the Blueprint typically requires a character to have:

• A specific skill related to that Blueprint
• Input materials (item lammies)
• Specific tools or equipment 

To conduct crafting, players must first register their intent to craft with a referee who will confirm they have the appropriate Blueprint, input materials and any other pre-requisites. The referee will advise when the resulting lammie can be collected, and the player should perform some reasonable role-play based on the complexity of the item being created, unless the crafting is being performed by a Machine.

In contrast to many other systems, Drift has no concept of daily “Work” or “Study” unit resource costs built into the Crafting System. Provided a character has the necessary pre-requisite skills, resources, and conducts appropriate role play, then they can craft.

Machines

Crafting of some Blueprints can be undertaken using Machines. Generally this applies to lower-tier and ‘standard’ items where multiples of an item need to be made, and where roleplaying the creation of that item is neither fun, nor particularly mechanically interesting.

Utilising Machines for crafting allows characters to perform the crafting without the need to perform specific roleplay for the creation of the item. Players will often need to have made specific skill choices in order to be able to use Machines to craft. 

Machines ‘know’ a library of Blueprints that are available globally to anyone who knows how to use the Machine.

Presently, there are three Machines that facilitate crafting: 

• Compound Synthesiser: this Machine is used to create liquids, medicines and other substances, typically for use in medical and scientific scenarios. Consider the compound synthesiser like an automated chemical lab.
• Fabricator: this Machine allows the creation of physical items; typically consumables and materials for higher tier crafting. Consider the fabricator akin to a 3D Printer, welder and assembler in one.
• Scrapper: this Machine allows the ‘scrapping’ of items for base tier materials. Consider the Scrapper to be similar to a shredder.

Only one of each Machine is available to characters in an event. These are controlled by a referee – and interactions with those Machines (and conduct of the crafting) is done as per the normal crafting rules.