Cosmic Tool - First Impression

[Caimie_Tsukino]

General Impression and Pointers:

Just finished 1 Cosmic Tool, and working on the 2nd one.

C and D missions are kind of silly... You can almost do whatever, and still plow through them with ease. B requires some basic knowledge. Only until reaching A missions that the crafting starts to get serious.

Honestly, I was quite entertained by those 20 durab and 25 durab items! They were quite challenging, and I did botch a few of them accidentally... They actually required me to pay a bit more attention, so that's actually a good thing!

Soul Crystal and the Specialist actions help a lot. I can see the Crafters' Delineations finally catching up on price after being on the market for 100 gil each for centuries.

Basic crafting concepts is important. E.g. everyone SHOULD know that for anything with 40 or less durability, Manipulation is a MUST, and it's to be used together with WN2. In fact, I use Manip sometimes even for 60 durab items, which is arguably not as good as using Immaculate Mend. Then of course, for anything 70 or 80 durab, it's better NOT to use Manip, but to switch to WN2 + Immaculate Mend entirely.

For timed missions, Rapid Syn is to be minimized. I do gamble it on the first time when Muscle Memory and Veneration are active. But beyond that, Rapid Syn failures will really delay your time, making it hard for you to complete the item before timer runs out. So Groundwork (GW) under Veneration and WN2 is the way to go for progress. There is, however, one A-1 mission that had crazy high progress (A-1: Key Facility Plating), and it does burn off your CP if you rely only on Vene+GW under WN2. For that, utilizing Intensive Syn to substitute some GW is quite essential.

Similarly, for quality, if the mission is timed, there's no time to slowly play with Hasty Touch > Daring Touch combos or Basic Touch > Refined Touch combos... They are supposed to be more CP-efficient than Prep Touches, but there's just not enough time. So Prep Touches under Innovation and WN2 is the way to go for quality.

Depending on the situation, some good combos after IQ10 include:
GS, Trained Perfection, Innov, Prep Touch, BasicT > StandardT > AdvancedT
GS, Innov, Observe, AdvancedT
etc.

Some of the 2-step crafts involve the 1st craft being very demanding on collectability. If you can't reach max qual on the 1st craft, it just botches! Yet, even if you reach max qual on the 1st craft, it does NOT turn into HQ item to benefit the 2nd craft! So they force you to start 2nd craft from zero qual. These missions are quite challenging, and contribute to the fun of this mini-game!

The new timed condition-changing button (Material Miracle) is pretty darn interesting too. It speeds up the pace, and makes you go faster and faster... To be frank, these timed missions and timed buttons have really turned a leisure brain-teaser mini-puzzle game into more of an adrenal one! My heart certainly beats faster when a timer is active!

For some really challenging timed missions (like A-2 or A-3), if things don't go well, sometimes it's important to GAMBLE towards the end. If you are out of time, you'd rather keep pushing and complete the item(s) at lower collectability or lower chance of HQ. If the timer reaches zero, it's a 100% failure. So you really gotta keep an eye on the timer, and make crazy moves to cut short a craft if time is running out.

Reflect vs Muscle Mem: It's not a concern for B, C, D missions. But for A's, I'd start pay more attention to "high progress crafts" vs "high quality crafts". I'd always use Muscle Mem for high progress craft with over 20,000 progress (even for any craft with over 8,500 I still prefer Muscle Mem), and I'd use Reflect for high quality crafts with over 23,000 quality if the progress bar is anything shorter than 3,000.

Let's be honest. The process of obtaining a Cosmic tool is long, but it isn't too difficult.
If I am to use 1 word to describe the whole thing, it is a GRIND... a big, big grind!
The fact that you can choose NOT to do A-3 at all (A-3 only appears as "sequential missions" or as "weather-dependent missions", available from the middle tab out of the 3 available tabs), and probably avoided most A-2 and just focus on A-1... basically means people can just macro up most of the times. So to say that "obtaining a Cosmic tool is very difficult" is not accurate... It is very tedious and long though! But if you CHOOSE to do the A-2 and A-3 missions, it can be quite difficult sometimes... which is FUN! They're here to make this less of a boring grind!

On the other hand, while I am not a big fan of the entire space-dimensional thingy for crafting, I do appreciate the change of having this special instance, as well as NOT needing to spend a dime or needing to grind purple/orange scrips for mats. The mats are all FREE, which is kind of nice, especially when you need soooooo freaking many crafts done to get 1 Cosmic tool. However, the devs should really add a RETAINER BELL there! At least give us the space one, like the one we have at Solution 9!

I did my entire 1st Cosmic tool with manual crafting. But I now understand that I should do macros whenever possible because of how long it is. So I'm on my quest of making all those different macros for different missions right now...


Cosmic tool vs Everseekers' tool:

As for the comparison of the Cosmic tools with our current Everseeker's tools, they are both i720. The Cosmic tools has no slots, but it comes with 8 CP. So stats-wise, it's equal to an Everseeker's tool adding a single CP materia. However, the Cosmic tools do have a 35% Lunar currency bonus, as well as our classic 1.75x quality multiplier on Good or Excellent conditions when dealing with Expert Crafts. I remember someone had carefully studied this multiplier back in the previous expansion, and determined that this multiplier strongly favors anyone who manually crafts Expert Recipes. Its power is NOT to be underestimated. Therefore, for someone who just crafts i740 battle gear for raids, Cosmic tools are inferior to most of your Everseeker's tools if you have melded anything more than CP. But for someone who intends to use these tools for doing more Expert Recipes (for lunar credits or whatever purposes), then the Cosmic tools will definitely be the better choice especially if one is manually crafting and utilizing the Goods and Excellents.

NOTE ABOUT BUGGED TOOL DESCRIPTION OF COSMIC TOOLS: The description text of some Cosmic tools, including Blacksmith & Weaver, currently have an issue of NOT displaying the 1.75x quality multiplier properly. We heard from people that although these tools lack the description, they DO have the multipliers. We expect S-E to fix the description text of these tools very soon.



In terms of appearance... I am sorry, but I think the Cosmic tools are kind of sucky... Well, they're of course the first step of a long journey, so we expect them to look better later. But after all that work for 1 tool, I was hoping it would look a bit better than this...

[Caimie_Tsukino]

Here is the list of things that I have attempted during my 2nd run (acquisition of my 2nd Cosmic tool).
And I have added my comments about them. I now use this list myself... to remind myself what to take, and what not to take.

RANK A MISSION LIST:

Basic Missions:

A-1: Construction Necessities (1x 80 dur, no timer, 2 tries) (Easiest!)
A-1: High-conductivity Culinary Tools (1x High-Qual/Low-Prog 60 dur, 4m timer, with Material Miracle) (Very Easy!)
A-1: Meteoric Material Testing Processing (3x different 70 dur, 15 m timer) (It's not difficult!)
A-1: Hub Furnishings and Fixtures I (3x 40 dur, 9m timer) (use Muscle Mem opener) (It's not difficult!)
A-1: Specialized Materials I (2x 20 dur, 6m timer, with Material Miracle x2) (It's not difficult!)
A-1: Rare Material Processing (3x 80 dur, 9m timer) (Not that easy... Can macro half of it, then improvise.)
A-1: Key Facility Plating (3x CrazyHigh-Prog 80 dur, 9m timer, with Material Miracle) (use Muscle Mem opener, may test luck with Rapid Syn during MusMem, substitute GW with IntSyn if possible)

A-2: Fine-grade Material Processing (1x 80 dur, 5m timer, with Material Miracle x1) (It's not so bad! Macro the beginning and improvise the 2nd half!)
A-2: Starship Building Materials (1x 35 dur, 4m timer, with Material Miracle x3... use at will!) (Don't bother macro, use Muscle Mem opener, just improvise! This one is not hard at all! Just "put all your eggs in 1 basket"! Use the 3 Material Miracles like nuts!)
A-2: Replica Incensories (3x 65 dur, 5m30s timer) (Very tight timer... This is perhaps the HARDEST mission out of all! Avoid this one if possible!)

Provisional Missions:

Time-restricted Missions:
A-1: High-performance Drone Materials I (?)

Weather-restricted Missions:
A-3: Impact-resistant Material Processing (2 steps, with Material Miracle x1) (It's challenging, but it's not terrible! Just improvise! Watch the timer!)
A-3: High-durability Material Processing (2 step, with Material Miracle x1) (It's challenging, but it's not terrible! Just improvise! Watch the timer!)

Sequential Missions:
A-2: Hub Furnishings and Fixtures II (3x 35 dur, 5m 30s timer)
A-2: Specialized Materials II (2x,25 dur, 5m timer, with Material Miracle)
A-3: Priority Sample Storage (2x 80 dur, 5m timer, with Material Miracle)



MACROS:
And here are my current macros for the A-1 missions.

Important note: Most of the macros here DO NOT complete the craft! They only get the half the craft done! This is intentional so that players can improvise the 2nd half... Usually, some CP could be saved in the 1st half (due to Intensive Syn or Precise Touch in the macros). The extra CP can then be applied manually in the 2nd half.


A-1: Construction Necessities:

/actionerror off
/ac "Muscle Memory" <wait.3>
/ac "Waste Not II" <wait.2>
/ac "Veneration" <wait.2>
/ac "Intensive Synthesis"
/ac "Groundwork" <wait.3>
/ac "Intensive Synthesis"
/ac "Groundwork" <wait.3>
/ac "Intensive Synthesis"
/ac "Groundwork" <wait.3>
/ac "Final Appraisal" <wait.3>
/ac "Intensive Synthesis"
/ac "Groundwork" <wait.3>
/ac "Groundwork" <wait.3>
/echo A-1: Construction Necessities <se.4>
...better to improvise from here instead of using the macro's 2nd half below, since the amount of remaining durab is variable from the above.

This 2nd half only serves as a "blue print" for the rest of the rotation, but it should be tweaked according to conditions. I usually don't actually execute this macro's 2nd half... I'd manually handle this part!
/ac "Innovation" <wait.2>
/ac "Precise Touch"
/ac "Preparatory Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Prudent Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Immaculate Mend" <wait.3>
/ac "Innovation" <wait.2>
/ac "Basic Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Refined Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Great Strides" <wait.3>
/ac "Trained Perfection" <wait.3>
/ac "Innovation" <wait.2>
/ac "Preparatory Touch" <wait.3>
/echo A-1: Construction Necessities <se.6>


A-1: High-conductivity Culinary Tools

/actionerror off
/ac "Reflect" <wait.3>
/ac "Manipulation" <wait.2>
/ac "Waste Not II" <wait.2>
/ac "Innovation" <wait.2>
/ac "Precise Touch"
/ac "Preparatory Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Precise Touch"
/ac "Preparatory Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Precise Touch"
/ac "Preparatory Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Precise Touch"
/ac "Preparatory Touch" <wait.3>
/echo A-1: High-conductivity Culinary Tools <se.6>


A-1: Meteoric Material Testing Processing

/actionerror off
/ac "Muscle Memory" <wait.3>
/ac "Waste Not II" <wait.2>
/ac "Veneration" <wait.2>
/ac "Intensive Synthesis"
/ac "Groundwork" <wait.3>
/ac "Intensive Synthesis"
/ac "Groundwork" <wait.3>
/ac "Final Appraisal" <wait.3>
/ac "Intensive Synthesis"
/ac "Groundwork" <wait.3>
/ac "Intensive Synthesis"
/ac "Groundwork" <wait.3>
/echo A-1: Meteoric Material Testing Processing <se.4>

/ac "Innovation" <wait.2>
/ac "Preparatory Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Basic Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Immaculate Mend" <wait.3>
/ac "Preparatory Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Waste Not" <wait.2>
/ac "Innovation" <wait.2>
/ac "Preparatory Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Basic Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Refined Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Great Strides" <wait.3>
/ac "Trained Perfection" <wait.3>
/ac "Innovation" <wait.2>
/ac "Preparatory Touch" <wait.3>
/echo A-1: Meteoric Material Testing Processing <se.6>


A-1: Hub Furnishings and Fixtures I (This 2-step macro actually completes the 40 durab craft at 100% quality without improvising!)

/ac "Muscle Memory" <wait.3>
/ac "Manipulation" <wait.2>
/ac "Veneration" <wait.2>
/ac "Waste Not II" <wait.2>
/ac "Groundwork" <wait.3>
/ac "Final Appraisal" <wait.3>
/ac "Groundwork" <wait.3>
/ac "Groundwork" <wait.3>
/ac "Innovation" <wait.2>
/ac "Preparatory Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Preparatory Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Basic Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Refined Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Manipulation" <wait.2>
/echo A-1: Hub Furnishings and Fixtures I (740 CP) <se.4>

/ac "Observe" <wait.3>
/ac "Innovation" <wait.2>
/ac "Basic Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Refined Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Great Strides" <wait.2>
/ac "Trained Perfection" <wait.3>
/ac "Innovation" <wait.2>
/ac "Preparatory Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Basic Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Great Strides" <wait.2>
/ac "Byregot's Blessing" <wait.3>
/ac "Basic Synthesis"
/echo A-1: Hub Furnishings and Fixtures I (740 CP) <se.6>


A-1: Specialized Materials I

/actionerror off
/ac "Muscle Memory" <wait.3>
/ac "Manipulation" <wait.2>
/ac "Veneration" <wait.2>
/ac "Waste Not II" <wait.2>
/ac "Final Appraisal" <wait.3>
/ac "Intensive Synthesis"
/ac "Groundwork" <wait.3>
/ac "Innovation" <wait.2>
/ac "Precise Touch"
/ac "Preparatory Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Precise Touch"
/ac "Preparatory Touch" <wait.3>


A-1: Rare Material Processing:

/actionerror off
/ac "Muscle Memory" <wait.3>
/ac "Waste Not II" <wait.2>
/ac "Veneration" <wait.2>
/ac "Intensive Synthesis"
/ac "Groundwork" <wait.3>
/ac "Intensive Synthesis"
/ac "Groundwork" <wait.3>
/ac "Final Appraisal" <wait.3>
/ac "Intensive Synthesis"
/ac "Groundwork" <wait.3>
/ac "Intensive Synthesis"
/ac "Groundwork" <wait.3>
/echo A-1: Rare Material Processing <se.4>

[Depending on CP and durab, the 2nd half of this craft may go as:]
/ac "Innovation" <wait.2>
/ac "Preparatory Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Basic Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Refined Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Immaculate Mend" <wait.3>
/ac "Waste Not" <wait.2>
/ac "Innovation" <wait.2>
/ac "Preparatory Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Basic Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Refined Touch" <wait.3>
...again, this one really depends on how much CP and durab was saved in 1st half. This only serves as a "blue print", but I execute the 2nd half according to conditions that jump at me!

[Caimie_Tsukino]

Oh, and for those who have better macros than mine, pleeeeease feel free to put them up here! I am well-known for NOT having the best macros in town! So do not feel rude to barge in with better ones! Heck, I can use those better macros too if you can help me out, and I'm always ready to learn from somebody!

[Caimie_Tsukino]

Some requested me to put up my stats here, so here it is.

This is me before food & med:


These are the food & med I use:

(NOTE: both are NOT optimal! The current best food & med are Rroneek Steak HQ, adding 92 CP & 97 Control; and Cunning Craftsman's Tisane HQ, adding 27 CP. I have a habit of using old, sub-optimal food unless facing something very difficult, and this seems to do fine for me most of the times.)

My final stats after food & med are:


The above stats is what I use for most of the A-mission. But when I intend to take on the "Provisional Missions" (mostly A-2 and A-3), then I'll substitute my Jhinga Biryani HQ with a Rroneek Steak HQ:


Although I have all my LEFT gear and RIGHT gear pentamelded, I DO NOT pentameld my mainhand/offhand tools (MH/OH). Here are my MH & OH for every class:


Yeah, so even with my sub-optimal stats, I'm doing just fine with everything.

[Kaurhz]

Uh so I can take a proper look at these over the weekend but for the time being I can add:

A-2: Power Transmission Shafts II (7500/15400/75)
This macro only requires Rroneek Steak @ 5380/5071/630... On your stats would need to swap Rroneek Steak with Ceviche though, or you can use any scuffed Cunning Tea/Syrup/Tisane

/ac Reflect <wait.3>
/ac "Trained Perfection" <wait.3>
/ac Veneration <wait.2>
/ac Groundwork <wait.3>
/ac Groundwork <wait.3>
/ac Groundwork <wait.3>
/ac Groundwork <wait.3>
/ac "Immaculate Mend" <wait.3>
/ac "Delicate Synthesis" <wait.3>
/ac Innovation <wait.2>
/ac "Preparatory Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Basic Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Standard Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Advanced Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Immaculate Mend" <wait.3>

/ac Innovation <wait.2>
/ac "Basic Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Standard Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Advanced Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Great Strides" <wait.2>
/ac Innovation <wait.2>
/ac "Preparatory Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Delicate Synthesis" <wait.3>
/ac "Great Strides" <wait.2>
/ac "Byregot's Blessing" <wait.3>
/ac "Careful Synthesis" <wait.3>

I have also made a variant of this which works on around 5380/4700/722, which uses Rroneek Steak and & HQ Tisane...:
/ac Reflect <wait.3>
/ac "Delicate Synthesis" <wait.3>
/ac Innovation <wait.2>
/ac "Preparatory Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Basic Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Standard Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Advanced Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Immaculate Mend" <wait.3>
/ac "Delicate Synthesis" <wait.3>
/ac "Trained Perfection" <wait.3>
/ac Veneration <wait.2>
/ac Groundwork <wait.3>
/ac Groundwork <wait.3>
/ac Groundwork <wait.3>
/ac Groundwork <wait.3>

/ac "Immaculate Mend" <wait.3>
/ac Innovation <wait.2>
/ac "Basic Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Standard Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Advanced Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Great Strides" <wait.2>
/ac Innovation <wait.2>
/ac "Preparatory Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Basic Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Great Strides" <wait.2>
/ac "Byregot's Blessing" <wait.3>
/ac "Careful Synthesis" <wait.3>

If there is a high enough demand then I can look more at low stat macros for A-1 / A-2

----------------------------------------------------
I do actually have an additional scuffed macro which combines A-2: Power Transmission Shafts II & A-2: Test Material Final Processing (Basically: 7800/15400/65).... This takes the highest progress from Test Material, the highest quality from Power Transmission, and then the lowest durability from this one too. I can post this over the weekend too.

[Supersnow845]

^id be very careful about macros that fill progress to 99% before filling quality then finishing them off, malleable condition can mess those macros up

I can’t remember off the top of my head exactly which crafts have malleable but I’d honestly suggest if you are generating macros to tell Raphael it’s an expert so Raphael will always fill quality first

[Caimie_Tsukino]

SNIP

Hi Kaurhz (Asuka)! Thanks for your contribution! These look like very carefully crafted rotations that fit very specific stats! I remember using one of your rotations back in one of the previous expansions, and it was awesome! I'll try these out soon!

^id be very careful about macros that fill progress to 99% before filling quality then finishing them off, malleable condition can mess those macros up

I can’t remember off the top of my head exactly which crafts have malleable but I’d honestly suggest if you are generating macros to tell Raphael it’s an expert so Raphael will always fill quality first

You have a good point, Supersnow (Andreas)! I do have "Final Appraisal" in most of my macros, so it's not a problem for me
But it also used a line, lengthening the macros.

[Kaurhz]

Hi Kaurhz (Asuka)! Thanks for your contribution! These look like very carefully crafted rotations that fit very specific stats! I remember using one of your rotations back in one of the previous expansions, and it was awesome! I'll try these out soon!

Thank you, your guide was really great way back in the day when I was first getting into crafting. - I will try and share more over the weekend when I next login. Hopefully they will be useful to yourself or other people on lower stats.

^id be very careful about macros that fill progress to 99% before filling quality then finishing them off, malleable condition can mess those macros up

I can’t remember off the top of my head exactly which crafts have malleable but I’d honestly suggest if you are generating macros to tell Raphael it’s an expert so Raphael will always fill quality first

This is a good point although Malleable is not a present material condition in this recipe, so it's OK... If Malleable is a present material condition then I will backload the progress instead of frontloading, or mid-loading it... I also do this on recipes where I have merged multiple different missions under one recipe. I personally don't like using Raphael though I know it is really good, I am a bit legacy like that.

Quite a few of these aren't actually expert recipes, which is good.