Two ideas for space saving = the 3, 4, 5, 6 number - and the junk HQ blocker.

[Maxcrafter]

As a crafter, I find that I spend an inordinate amount of time just fussing with stacks. Among the worst "stack offenders" are the lack of forced zero mod 'n' stacking, and the lack of a forced "no HQ, Please" switch.

The 3456 number would go a long way toward improving bag slot efficiency; to wit, a switch that forces any stack you place in inventory, by any method, to be zero mod 3, zero mod 4, zero mod 5, and zero mod 6. Yep, all of them simultaneously. Certainly stack sizes below a certain minimum count would be excluded, but this creates stacks that are always evenly consumed by whatever mechanism, refining ores, weaving textiles, potioneering, etc. The result is that we have considerably less oneses, twosies, and threesies stack sizes which constantly cause the same bag slot consternation as stacks that are 99 deep. Some amount of further refinement of the definition starter I've included is obviously necessary, but you get the idea. A means of getting rid of a stack of one every time it appears would be a godsend; perhaps even a switch to dump it in the bucket.

This should especially be applied to max stack sizes sold in the MB. My word, why 99? A nice juicy 3456 number such 120 would be perfect. You buy it, refine it, or mill it, or forge it.. and all of it is consumed, leaving no extra oneses around to trip over.

Another godsend, give us a switch to say "create NO HQ PERIOD, PLEASE," thus forcing all outputs into one stack instead of two. I really can live with the loss of High Quality Table Salt.

Beyond that, other sorts of stack manipulation improvements would help.. here's one.. a switch that says 'never mind asking me how many to trade; just pick up the whole stack, damnit, and trade it! Free pancakes for life, for that one.

Shooter, signing off.. having just blown his stack. :P

[One_Time]

I find your post a little confusing, however... Quick Synthesis with a "no HQ, Please" switch would be great.

[Packetdancer]

Another godsend, give us a switch to say "create NO HQ PERIOD, PLEASE," thus forcing all outputs into one stack instead of two. I really can live with the loss of High Quality Table Salt.

While I can see the first one (the stack size restriction) being a nightmare to code in a number of ways... holy sweet cheese, how many times I've lamented the lack of this feature. If I'm quick-synth'ing like 99 pieces of gaja leather, I promise you that I do not care if they're HQ or not. Really, truly, I do not care. In all likelihood, I'm going to immediately lower quality on the HQ stack to combine the two the instant I can click 'End Synthesis".

I don't even care if I can use that option anywhere else, but at least add it on quick synth. Please. As a crafter, I beg this of the dev team.

[Packetdancer]

I find your post a little confusing, however... Quick Synthesis with a "no HQ, Please" switch would be great.

Mod (or 'modulo') is a mathematical term, and in software it's usually written with a % -- functionally, it's the remainder when you divide something up. So having mod 3 be zero means that if you divide a stack evenly by 3, you have 0 left over. So, for instance, 9 % 3 (9 mod 3) is 0; nine divides into three sets of three with zero left over. 10 % 3, however, is 1; you can make three stacks of 3 (getting 9), but you have one left over that you can't put into a full stack.

Saying something should be zero for mod 3, mod 4, mod 5, and mod 6 means "items should automatically try to stack into amounts that will divide evenly by all those numbers". Because all crafting in the game consumes ingredients in sets of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6. (Everything is 0 for mod 1, and anything that's 0 for mod 4 or 6 will of necessity also be 0 for mod 2. Technically you could omit mod 3 as well, as anything that's 0 for mod 6 is also 0 for mod 3, but this is getting side-tracked.) The practical upshot of which is that if you got a stack of something and crafted a thing using that something, you could use up the entire stack without leaving any behind.

However, that gets tricky. As an example, 60 qualifies; it's 0 for mod 3, mod 4, mod 5, and mod 6. But as soon as you start consuming that stack for any craft, you now fail to meet that condition on one or more of those. If you aren't using the entire stack, you now have a thing which potentially violates the stack restriction. For instance, craft one item that uses 6 of a thing, and you now have 54 left... which is not 0 for mod 5.

I feel like I personally would get actually more frustrated if I ended up with stacks of partially-used materials that I couldn't sell (because they didn't meet the modulo restrictions) or whatnot. Plus, as mentioned, it could become a headache code-wise to try to restrict stacks to only quantities that met that rule. If you harvest 63 of a thing, what do you do with the 3 extra that are beyond what meets that stack rule? Do you just throw them out? Etc. If I use the 60 and have the 3 left over, and I need 7 -- in order to have 10 so that I can craft two more things -- I can't just buy 7 off the marketboard because that doesn't meet the requirements. If you disable the requirements for things below a certain quantity, then people will just sell in those quantities anyway to avoid having to math things, etc.

But the 'disable HQ' switch, there's no downside to that one I can see, and wow do I often wish we had that one.