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Analysis is extremely important for making a judgement on what the material is, it’s quality and how useful the material will be to you when crafting. Using a Study action, you can analyse a material to gain multiple different attributes and understandings of what the item is.

There are normally three states to know when you’ve successfully analysed something, the Elemental State, the Quality and the Tier. This section will go in depth to explain the importance of each descriptor.

Elemental State

The Elemental State is normally the physical properties of the item, usually Solid, Liquid, Gas or Plasma. This can normally be deciphered pretty much immediately upon looking upon it, but in conversation or without the actual item, it might be a bit harder to understand.

There’s four main properties to look out for in regards to Elemental State. When crafting, you must use the elemental state of the material required to make it e.g. You cannot use liquid materials as a replacement for solid materials and vice versa.

Solid

Solid Materials are normally structurally sound and have an identifiable shape that doesn’t change without force being applied to it.

Liquid

Liquid Materials normally change their shape to match with the container that is holding them, forming to whatever it connects relatively easy.

Gas

Gas Materials are usually large and expansive, spreading out and expanding an infinitely large amount.

Plasma

Plasma Materials mimic a similar nature as to gas, also being large and expansive, the main difference between gas and plasma is that Plasma has a magnetic charge, and can generate electric currents.

Quality

The quality of the material can influence how much material you would need to craft and create an item and how effective the material’s effects are. Without any tools, harvesting any materials always results in either a mediocre or low quality material gain.

Some recipes require certain quality materials to be used.

Mediocre

Mediocre Quality materials are materials that are barely functional, present in the material received, generally unworkable, and normally are considered worth 0.25 material.

Low

Low Quality materials are materials that are generally worse for wear then it’s average counterpart, and normally are considered worth 0.5 materials

Average

Average Quality materials are materials that have a general presence and are overall okay to work with. Materials harvested with a standard tool normally come as average quality, and are considered worth 1 material

High

High Quality materials are materials that have been extracted or processed with expertise or proficiency, and are usually much easier to work with. They are considered worth 2 materials.

Perfect

Perfect Quality materials are materials that have been extracted with complete precision, expertise and knowledge of the material, and usually come from a resource node of incredible quality. They are considered worth 3 materials.

Tier

Material Tiers are used as an indicator of what materials can become through Equivalent Exchange and similar abilities, and generally indicates the general power of a metal. Some recipes may require certain tiers of metals to be used, but generally tiers do not play a role in many recipes themselves. Tiers count up as roman numerals, ranging from I onwards.

To reach a higher tier, you need 3 lower tier materials to make 1 higher tier material, for example, if you have a Perfect Quality stone (which would be Tier I), you can use it to make a Low Quality steel (which would be Tier II). To upgrade a quality through these methods, you’d need 3 materials of a lower quality to make a higher quality. Materials that have their tiers raised must lower their Quality by three steps (e.g. High becomes Mediocre) if possible. If the material’s quality is average or lower, then it automatically just becomes Mediocre.