VG crafting system has a lot of details so below is a compiled FAQ. All answers were given by official sources on the development team.

Q. In reference to the list of classes, are those the names of just the base classes or both the base and specialization classes?
A. Those are the 5 trades for Vanguard, each one of those has 2 specialty trades within it that can be chosen.

Q. Does primary/secondary refer to the specializations? Or does primary/secondary refer to two different professions?
A. Two different professions

Q. Is the crafting system difficult?
A. Crafting has three stages: refining, finishing and assembly.
Crafting recipes are each made up of a different set of actions you have to perform in a particular order. Each of these actions cost and take from a pool that is known as the action pool. The max amount of action points available vary with each recipe. While your are crafting and performing these actions you will have problems arise that can affect many aspects of the process. You can have up to three of these on you at a time and which ones will occur is based on the crafting station you are using, its quality, the recipe and the material you are using.

Q. Will our chosen class, race have any impact on our crafting abilities?
A. No.

Q. Will you have to be a certain level in combat to achieve certain levels in crafting?
A. No, each sphere of game play in Vanguard exists on its own. Adventurers are not required to craft to excel and crafters are not required to adventure or harvest to excel.

Q. How does gear affect the crafting?
A. Crafters will use almost as many equipment slots as adventurers. This gear will grant bonuses much like adventuring. The tool belt will determine how many tools the crafter can have ready during a crafting process.

Q. If I am making a piece of armor that is a fine piece of very expensive platemail, will the successful end result always yield the same piece of armor?
A. You control how well you do. Producing a superior piece of equipment is based on the decisions you made during the process and how well you managed the problems that appeared. You make the decisions when you craft and produce an item based on how good or bad you did.

Q. How does the shape/look of a piece of armor/weaponry occur?
A. Based off of actions you decide to use during the shaping process.

Q. Will there be critical fails on assembly of an item?
A. Right now assembly is a guaranteed combine as long as the recipe exists. We believe in the idea of time vested. If you invested the time it took to get to that point then we will give you an item that is equal to that amount of time with no chance of losing it.

Q. Will there be a way for crafters to customize finished items they have created?
A. Yes this will be possible, through something you actively decide to do during the process (decide to shape your sword blade like a katana instead of a long sword) or as a part of experimentation.

Q. Will there be craftable items that require the aid of a magic user to imbue the item?
A. There will be aspects of this, but most imbuing will be done through the crafting trades that specialize in doing that like the imbuer specialist that is a branch off of the herbalist tree.

Q. How are you eliminating the monotonous task of crafting the same item over and over?
A. Crafting recipes are each made up of a different set of actions you have to perform in a particular order. Each of these actions cost and take from a pool that is known as the action pool. The max amount of action points available vary with each recipe. While your are crafting and performing these actions you will have problems arise that can affect many aspects of the process. You can have up to three of these on you at a time and which ones will occur is based on the crafting station you are using, its quality, the recipe and the material you are using.

Q. What is the “work order system”?
A. Work orders will produce items in the abstract. The city has a set of basic needs to keep things flowing and you the crafter will support this by using the cities stock to support it. Affecting one need will in turn affecting another, opening up and changing the work orders that are available to other players. You are actively affecting the city you are seeing the affect you have through what work orders are available.

Q. Are work orders a risk free way to make money?
A. Work orders could possibly grant a money reward but it will not be a significant one, work orders are mean to provide a way to raise skill, level and faction. You never know what dues you will ah veto pay as a crafter, using the forge of the city guildmaster may cost or you may have some city dues in general that you ah veto pay. The cash rewards for work orders will not be a way to get rich. Yes you can fail at completing a work order much like you can fail at any crafting process. How well you do determines how good your reward.

Q. Where do recipes come from?
A. You will be able to gain recipes through discovery, experimentation, dropped items and through NPC/trainers.

Q. Could you explain experimentation more?
A. Recipes discovered through experimentation are not going to be found dropped somewhere else. Recipes that are dropped may be able to be experimented on to produce more powerful items. If you don¡¯t have the recipe you can¡¯t make the item.
Once you choose to experiment you are choosing to forfeit the item you want to experiment on. Whether you are successful or not you lose the item. A successful result of experimentation is a recipe and based on the rarity of the item it is meant to produce getting the proper materials to make that item may be just as difficult as discovering the recipe itself.
If you want to spend time experimenting remember that it will not be a requirement to excel it is merely another path of progression for you but it is not something you should expect to be successful at constantly, as has been stated some recipes will not be discovered more then once every 6 months or so and there is no road map to discovering these things.

Q. Will there be strong interdependency between crafters?
A. If all I am asking you to do is be a crafter and I am telling you that it will be as involved as adventuring then interdependence has to exist. At some point the adventuring warrior is going to need his friends to help him do something same goes for crafting.
Excelling at crafting will be possible through the work order system where you will not be required to be interdependent and you are not filling your inventory with a bunch of useless items that you end up giving away ruining the market for a lower level crafter who just learned how to make that item and is interested in selling it.

Q. Will crafted items be on par with the looted items?
A. The best items in game will require all three spheres to participate. Can a crafter make an item that is on par with the looted sword from Nagafen¡¯s long lost cousin. Possibly but it will take as much effort to get that sword crafted as it does to defeat that dragon. I will not allow crafting to be some back way for players to get epic items with minimal effort.

Q. Will crafters be able to create their own workstations or will players be using stationary crafting sites?
A. Both

Q. What are the chances of two blacksmiths having significantly different recipe books?
A.The chances are good. There will be multiple points where you decide the path to take as far as recipe acquirement. There will still be a set of recipes that are a part of the crafting trade no matter which path you take.

Q. Are tools above the beginning levels crafted?
A. There will be tools that can be crafted and much like other items tools can be enhanced, but not all tools will be acquired in this way.

Q. Will tools degrade with use and need to be repaired?
A. Tools do have a nothing of degrading. It is actually more like having charges. Some tool actions will take 3 charges from the tool where as others may take only one. If you deplete this tool you can still use it at a penalty that gets worse and worse every time.

Q. Can we expect to see different looks with different tools?
A. Tools will have different looks where it is appropriate much like adventuring.

Q. Can tools have imbued effects, I.E. as in bronze axe of foresting?
A. Yes

Q. Will different tools give me better items?
A. Yes the apprentice hammer and the mighty hammer of shaping are both hammers but the hammer of shaping is more effective and could possibly be required to execute a particular action.

Q. What are the effects of a higher quality forge? Do they simply allow more to be done on that forge, or do they have actual effects on the final product?
A. Forges affect how well you can execute actions, the severity and chance of complications, the quantity of an item you can work per process (yes you can throw more then on piece of ore in at a time) and they can possibly affect how many slots are available on your crafting inventory.

Q. Will a majority of components needed for recipes be from gathered resources of will merchants carry the bulk of the common components?
A. Expendables will be something you purchase (flux, and charcoal). Harvested resources will make up the rest of it.

Q. How are the item names determines?
A. Items will receive their names from their parts.

Q. Will there be titles for crafting?
A. Yes there will be multiple ways to get crafting titles.

Q. How will recipe books be organized?
A. There should be plenty of filters for recipe books that will allow you to organize it in many ways.

Q. Will we be seeing tier resources?
A. Resources will have upgrades and increase in number as you enter higher level areas. Resources themselves do not have a set of statistics, but there is a relationship of what a resource adds to an item based on different item types.

Q. Will there be any types of crafting raids in the game?
A. There may be a situation where you have to go to the bottom of the dungeon in order to forge a powerful blade. While this is happening spirits spawn to stop you so your adventuring friends must hold them off while you try to complete the recipe.

Q. Will there be item wear/degradation?
A. No item degradation will exist in Vanguard.

Q. Will we see crafting groups in terms of item creation (such as creating a boat or a house)?
A. Yes you will.

Q. How exactly does harvesting fit in?
A. Harvesting is available to all characters and is linked more to adventuring. It is not attached to the crafting sphere.

Q. Will players be able to produce any resources of their own, or will resource collection be only from the environment?
A. Only from environment at the moment.

Q. Will crafted items have different styles based on location?
A. Yes there will be differing styles, and there will be some recipes that you can only execute on a particular continent, town or dungeon. Recipes are a set of action families. It is what action in this family you decide to do that determines the outcome, if you decide to make something that is on Qalia specific then that action won?t be available to you during your process on another continent.

Q. Can we customize items?
A. Customizing items will be a part of the process through actions you have earned. You want to make scimitar blades go to Qalia and learn how to make them, now you can use this action during your blade crafting process and possibly make an old blade look different. Doing things this way make actions mean more and make you feel like you are actually crafting something , not just selecting a look at the end of the process.