Bug - Not A Bug Create VYKEA bookshelf caused purchase of rail

edit: wait - Maybe I misunderstood - you need five of each (rail, plank, bracket) before you can even use the instructions? oops. Never mind.
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r16748. A VYKEA bookshelf companion only requires planks, but when creating from the Item Manager - Creatable list, mafia acquired one rail (I had four in inventory). So, apparently it thought five rails were needed, when it was actually none. One VYKEA instructions and ten VYKEA planks were correctly consumed.

No big deal, but I was trying to avoid rewarding whoever it was that cornered the VYKEA rail market and raised prices by a factor of 50 over the last couple of weeks.

This was also interesting since (correctly) no VYKEA companions that used rails were listed as creatable. And then after the bookshelf was created, the creatable list showed all VYKEA companions as creatable (normally it would be none since I now already had one). An inventory refresh put things back to normal.

No logs as this was unexpected and only repeatable once a d, but I can try again tomorrow if you'd like.

(Separate issue: right clicking a VYKEA companion in the creatable list and choosing "Wiki description" doesn't go to the wiki page, which is known there as "VYKEA <companion type>". And of course game description doesn't work. Understandable, given the context.)

If you try to create any companion in vanilla with only 4 rails, the instructions give you this error:

"It looks like these instructions require at least 5 planks, 5 rails, and 5 brackets."

So having 5 rails is needed to make any companion, regardless of whether those rails are consumed in its making.

ah, ninja'ed my edit ;-) thanks.

so, I wonder any companions should be listed as creatable if the prerequisites for the noncombat are not available - or, if the perquisites are buyable, then should all the companions be listed as available if their components are also buyable. is something inconsistent, or is just me? given the first post, i'd readily believe the latter.

Unless you have at least 5 each of rails, planks, and brackets, you cannot even begin to make a VYKEA creation, regardless of which of those it actually consumes.

This is not a bug.

I guess there could be two bugs here, though not the initially reported ones :

Concoction Database does check that you don't have a current companion and that you have a hex key before displaying it in the Creatables list.

However, it doesn't check that you have 5 of each component, and could/should.

The fact that all were listed after it was created suggest that Concoctions are not refreshed after creation, which they should be.

I disagree that it "could/should" not list a companion as creatable because you do not (yet) have the components that will not actually be consumed during the creation since it will acquire those for you. I guarantee that if we did that, this bug report would have been "why does it not show such-and-such a companion as creatable when I have all the components that go in to it?" and the answer "because you don't have enough of the components that will NOT be consumed" would be deemed unsatisfying.

The fact is, people don't currently have to know about that "extra" components because we automatically "acquire" them for you - as we saw when the OP considered said acquisition to be a bug. :-/

Which is to say, no matter which way it works - the current method or your "could/should" method - SOMEBODY will consider it to be a bug.

And considering that I worked hard to make it (intentionally) behave the way it does now means I resist changing the current behavior - which works exactly the way I want and expect it to behave - to something else which will, in my opinion, confuse many more people.

Could you possibly add a warning that it is about to purchase ingredients? I'm thinking along the lines of the warning when attempting to eat without Got Milk active. If the user has what will be used up in creating the companion, but doesn't have at least 5 of each item, mafia could pop up a notification window saying something like "In order to create a VYKEA companion, you must have at least 5 of each component, regardless of which components are being used. Would you like Mafia to purchase the missing components?" and then have the Yes and No buttons.

I would argue that this is desired above and beyond the preference to allow Mafia to purchase from the mall, as it is not readily apparent from the item creator that there is a minimum of 5 components necessary, only what components are necessary for the companion itself.

Yeah, it's a funny one really. I guess given the components aren't used up, you won't buy them multiple times. We're a little inconsistent in this I think.
So we will buy a hammer for smithing, range for fancy foods or cocktailcrafting kit, if character can buy from NPC and has 1000 meat (500 in BM) and hasn't got the tool.
We won't buy a tool for jewelcrafting, or mat for sushi (rightly), or Xiblaxian cache locator simcode (5D printer) - 100 meat in mall, or VYKEA hex key - 132 meat in mall.

I guess the oddity here is we check for VKYEA hex key (loads in mall for 132 meat), but not rail (at nearly 5k meat in mall). It probably wouldn't have been mentioned if the prices hadn't risen.

I'm tempted to:
Adjust tool cost check if you have Travoltan Trousers or Accordion Thief tool (or probably can look it up in another database which already accounts for this).
Allow autobuying of Jewelcrafting tools with Canadia active, on the same basis as other tools.
Add code to FiveDPrinterRequest to automatically obtain simcode and use if first if you haven't got a printer.
Check for presence of simcode or printer or CanUseMall before allowing Xiblaxian stuff to be made.
Check for hex key or CanUseMall, rather than just hex key before allowing VYKEA stuff to be made.
Check for 5 of each component or CanUseMall before allowing VYKEA stuff to be made.

Probably overkill, but I think it'd be consistent. Would not have addressed the OP issue, as they had CanUseMall true.

Thoughts?

Unless I'm mistaken, it's possible to be in a situation where you are short on one type of component but won't use it, then later on decide to make a different companion and now you're short on some other component you won't be using.
The range and cocktailcrafting kit both must be rebought per ascension, but not more than once. The hammer, pliers, printer, and hex key can all be pulled and you only ever need one of them. I feel like that should be the line on where you will automatically buy or not?

Hmm. Not sure where I was going with this, but class is starting. Hopefully I can find that train of thought later.

Mafia will rebuy crafting tools if you lose them somehow. Rebuying "will not be used up" ingredients is not that much different - you are always at most N items "ahead", binding some limited amount of meat. It shouldn't matter if N=1 and items=hammers, or N=5 and items=dowels.
(or N=1 and items=bartenders - which *do* get used up eventually if you craft fancily)

Yeah, that's how I see it, they are all tools required to make the items. So we should either check for and purchase (with appropriate settings) all or none. There is an argument that some are NPC items at a fixed cost, whereas others are Mall items at variable cost. Though given many of the mall items are at a mall minimum well below the NPC cost, I do not consider that argument important at present.

One interesting difference with VYKEA companions is that the tools are also consumables. It might be a nice option to preserve the tools when presenting creatables. Complicates things a bit.

Is there a way to tell what items would be consumed when creating a companion (or anything else, for that matter)? That would assist manual decision making.

Does Recipe work for that?

Thanks, I didn't know about that. But, for example,

So maybe not. It shows as creatable in the item manager.

That may or may not be a bug in that it's an incorrect message.

You should be able to use acquire? to check if it's officially creatable and debugcreate to get a wildly confusing breakdown of mafia's internal creation process.

hmm:
about "debugcreate" - yeah - confusing ;-)