Outriders: How crafting and upgrading gear works

Once players leave the relative comforts of Rift Town in Outriders, the crafting aspect of the game becomes available. 

After you manage to save Doctor Zahedi in the First City, he becomes your main source for crafting and upgrading gear that you either buy or loot out in the world. Of course, not every piece of gear you acquire will warrant an upgrade, which is why we delved into whether you should sell or dismantle your items. 

In regards to the gear you do want to craft or upgrade, we’ve got you covered when it comes to everything related to this area. 

The crafting system in Outriders

To access the crafting menu in Outriders, all you need to do is talk to Doctor Zahedi at your base camps and select the option to go to the menu. Once here, you can select the piece of gear that you want to work with. 

The Crafting system in Outriders. (Picture: Square Enix)

Whether it’s a weapon or piece of armour, you’re given several different options when deciding what to do.

There are five options available, and they’re as follows: 

• Improve Rarity
• Raise Attributes
• Mod Gear
• Swap Variant
• Level Up

Each is relatively self-explanatory, but we’ll go over all of them to make sure you know what you’re actually using your hard-earned resources on. 

When it comes to improving the rarity of an item, this just means you’re upgrading it to its next highest colour. So if you have a blue (rare) item and you want to make it purple (epic), use this option. This process requires some titanium though, so it’s not something to take lightly. Make sure the gear you’re upgrading is something you’ll use for a good amount of time. 

Use your resources to further improve your gear. (Picture: Square Enix)

Next on the list is raising an item’s attributes. For most gear in Outriders, there will be one or two attributes that come with it. These can be found just underneath the gear’s picture in your inventory. Raising these attributes means you’re adding to the base percentage. So if your weapon has a 2.1% Armor Piercing attribute, raising it means you’re increasing it slightly. 

Moving down the list, modding your gear is the next option in the crafting menu. Throughout Outriders, you’ll find weapons or armour with mods attached to them. By dismantling these items, you gain access to that mod in the crafting menu. If you want to add that mod to a weapon or armour piece, select it from the mod menu and use iron to attach it to a specific slot.

The maximum amount of mods an item can have is two and these mods need to be different from each other. For example, you can’t have two of the same mods on one weapon. There are also three tiers of mods, so make sure you’re using the strongest ones available to you. 

Modding is a huge part of the crafting process. (Picture: Square Enix)

Next in the crafting menu is swapping variants. Essentially, this means making your weapons have different stats. One variant will give you more damage but less RPM and critical shot chance. It’s ultimately up to you which variant you feel is best for the specific weapon you’re crafting. Each variant change takes a small amount of iron. 

• Read more: Every Legendary weapon in Outriders

Last on the list is levelling up your gear, which is fairly self-explanatory. You can raise an item’s level with some iron to increase its stats and overall rating. However, you can only go as high as your World Tier allows, so it’s wise to play on the highest tier. The process of levelling up your gear is pretty cheap compared to other options, so this is a great way to acquire better weapons and armour.