Editing Crafting (section)

== Retooling Items ==
Okay, so, to some extent a shovel's a shovel. But what if you want your items to have a little extra spark or customization?

For tailoring via the tailor system, this is built in - you can define the short description of the item (how it appears in your inventory or in the room) and the long description (what you see on '''''look item''''') as part of the basic design. 

For other items, however, we have the '''retool''' system. There's a separate guide just for the [[Retooling|retooling process]], so I won't say too much here, but the essence of the idea is that you can set the short and long descriptions on items shortly after making them, for a fee that differs from item to item. To see if an item can be retooled, hold it in your hand and assess it:<blockquote>'''''assess canvas'''''

This item has the following flags: art canvas.

You can retool it for 5000 credits.

You can retool the following properties: short_description & description. You should do this soon after crafting the object. 

Warning: Restarts or crashes in the server will render the object unable to be retooled.

You look a blank art canvas carefully.</blockquote>So, if you type: 

'''''retool canvas short_description a painting of a beautiful sunset''''' 

The item's short description will become 'a painting of a beautiful sunset', and 5000 credits will be deducted from your account. 

You could then type: 

'''''retool canvas description This painting depicts a beautiful sunset on Artemis in a wash of spectacular shades, all red and gold'''''. 

Then, on typing '''''look painting''''', this is exactly what people would see.

Of course, these descriptions are short and simple, but you can feel free to say a lot more when you do real retools! Just stick to what makes sense within the original parameters of the base item. For example, don't describe a wooden object as being made of priceless gold, but you can absolutely retool a vase to be painted with colored glazes. You can use color as well to really make your retools pop. Check out the retooling guide linked above for a lot more tips on how to get the most out of your retools.

'''NOTE''': The keywords by which the item can be targeted include both its original keywords and the new short desc ones, so this painting could be seen on look painting or look canvas. However, if you put color in the short description, any words with color in them will not work as keywords. So you'd probably want to avoid putting color in the word painting to make sure people could still target it.