Start with what should remain in your inventory
List the finished items you want to keep after every synthesis. An ingredient that is also a final target has two jobs: some units remain in your bag and others are consumed. Keeping only one total in your head makes it easy to spend the stock intended for later.
Use Items & Recipes to inspect the target and its ingredients, then add targets to the Crafting Planner. Confirm the crafting job, unlock and equipment requirements in your Crafting Log before choosing to make an item yourself. A materials calculation does not establish that your character can complete the synthesis.
Round each synthesis to a whole batch
Consider a hypothetical recipe that produces three fittings per synthesis. You need seven fittings, so two syntheses are insufficient: plan three and obtain nine. If each synthesis consumes two ingots, the fitting stage needs six ingots.
Now suppose you also want five ingots left over as a final target:
| Requirement | Quantity |
|---|---|
| Fittings to keep | 7 |
| Fitting syntheses | 3 |
| Fittings produced | 9 |
| Ingots consumed by fittings | 6 |
| Ingots to keep | 5 |
| Ingots needed before making fittings | 11 |
The two surplus fittings are a by-product of batch rounding. They do not replace any of the five ingots you intended to keep. Apply the same whole-batch calculation to the ingot recipe if you plan to make those too.
Combine repeated materials without losing their purpose
Sum identical ingredients across the chosen recipe branches, including crystals or shards when listed. Keep a note of the branches that consume each material so you can diagnose a shortage without rebuilding the entire plan.
Check your bags and retainers. Nexus market valuation currently costs the full batch and does not subtract owned stock or search vendor prices. Maintain a separate remaining-to-buy list for materials you already have; do not mistake the full-batch market estimate for the amount you must still spend.
Decide where crafting should stop
Compare buying finished targets, buying intermediates and making them from base ingredients. An inexpensive ingot listing can make buying ingots preferable to buying ore even when you can craft both. Include the whole ingredient basket and your willingness to perform the extra syntheses.
Keep output quality in mind. This material comparison is not a high-quality success simulator. Use the in-game requirements for the finished item and check whether your chosen process can meet them.
Craft in dependency order
Make or purchase the deepest intermediates first, then work toward the finished targets. Before consuming a shared ingredient, set aside the quantity that must remain at the end. Check actual output after each stage, especially if your quantities or chosen recipe changed.
Try the concrete bronze workshop walkthrough next, or open saved projects to revisit a batch with a free Nexus account.
Sources and related reference
Materials planning with the Nexus recipe graph. Example recipes are hypothetical; check the actual Crafting Log, unlocks and output quality.