I've started into the crafting system and I have to say, it's remarkably
simple in its operation: 5 stats (conductivity, density, malleability, reactivity, and resistance) from each resource contribute some percentage to each of three item stats. Density is great for things like damage reduction and bonus HP on plating, but not relevant to the reload speed of a gun.
Resources can also be blended with each other* to tweak the 5 stats, in a kind of averaging out. 50 con + 550 con => 300 con. The material type is also whatever resource you put on the right (unless it's azurite, as anything blended with azurite is itself, which is probably intentional, as azurite is very hard to come by).
Only it's more complicated than that. I haven't worked out the exact formula yet, as it's based on several values, but basically each resource has a minimum and maximum value for each of the five stats. In the above example, if the result was brimstone, it'd have a con of 140 (it's maximum), but if it was ferrite, it'd end up as 600 (ferite's minimum).
It's also based on
percentages. So if you start with brimstone with a con of 140 (max), and blend it with ferrite with a con of 600 (min), you're going to get ferrite with a con of about 750 (halfway between ferrite's min and max). I say "about" as all of that math assumes that you're blending an equal amount of each resource, and typically you aren't.
How the quantities effect the outcome, I don't know yet. Suffice to say that more of one pushes the result in that direction, while more of the other pushes it in the other direction. So in the above example, if you had more ferrite than brimstone, you're going to end up with a value less than 750. More brimstone? Value will move upwards.
More info on resources and blending.
I've been working on determining the precise math used to arrive at "4 HP regenerated per second" from "0.1*CON+0.4*DEN+0.5*MAL = 423.6" (easy one) and have formulas for the three pieces of equipment I can make currently.
If you're a dreadnaught and have a mammoth frame, blending Brimstone and Bismuth makes the best Kisuton Plate IMO: 9.43% damage reduction (medium), +39 health (lowish), +6 HP/sec regen (very high). Takes a near 1-1 ratio of Bri to Bis to arrive at those values (my resulting bismuth has 564, 362, 799, 233, 112 in its stats, just enough to qualify for 6 hp regen per second; two points less MAL or DEN and it'd have been 5/sec, or about 2% less brimstone than I had).
Bonus HP is largely meaningless when you have health regen (it takes me what, 7 seconds to get that 39 health?) as is damage reduction (0.4% one way or the other works out to about 6 hitpoints after taking my health in damage).
*WARNING: If you blend, it will consume
all of the two resource types you have in your inventory, you can't say "oh, I only need 500."
*WARNING: Blending resources will often require careful planning and you should never blend without the intent to craft something specific.