Crafting resource tree calculator for tiered recipes

What this calculator does

Tiered crafting hides its cost. A recipe that takes four of the thing below it looks cheap, and it is, once. Three tiers deep the same recipe wants sixty-four pieces of raw material for a single finished item, because each tier multiplies the one beneath it.

That multiplication is the whole story. Adding one tier to a four-to-one recipe does not add four to the cost, it multiplies the entire cost by four, and games use this deliberately to make the top tier feel earned.

The formula

Formulawith r inputs per craft and y outputs per craft, each tier multiplies the requirement by r ÷ y, so base material = quantity × (r ÷ y)^tiers

Each craft consumes r inputs and produces y outputs, so one tier costs r ÷ y of the tier below per item. Applying that down t tiers gives quantity × (r ÷ y)^t raw material. The number of crafting actions is the sum of the items needed at every tier above raw, each divided by the yield, which is a geometric series and is always smaller than the raw material count.

Term	Meaning
Tier	One crafting step. Raw material is the bottom tier and the finished item is the top.
r ÷ y	The multiplier per tier. A recipe taking 4 and giving 1 multiplies by 4; one taking 9 and giving 2 multiplies by 4.5.
Crafting actions	How many times you press the button, which matters when each craft has a time cost.
Drop chance	How often an attempt yields raw material, used to turn material into attempts.

The inputs explained

Field	What to enter
Final items wanted	How many finished items you want.
Inputs consumed per craft	Inputs consumed by one craft at any tier. The calculation assumes the same ratio all the way down.
Items produced per craft	Items produced by one craft. Usually 1, but recipes that return 2 or more halve the effective cost.
Tiers between final and raw	How many crafting steps separate the finished item from raw material. Capped at 12, which is already astronomical.
Raw material drop chance per attempt (%)	Chance a gathering attempt yields raw material. Leave at 100% if gathering is reliable.

When to use it

Checking whether a top-tier item is worth it

A four-to-one recipe three tiers deep costs 64 raw material and 21 crafting actions per item. At a 25 per cent gather rate that is 256 attempts. Seeing the attempt count before starting is usually enough to decide.

Comparing two recipe trees

A recipe taking 9 and giving 1 over two tiers costs 81. A recipe taking 4 and giving 1 over three tiers costs 64. Fewer, larger steps are not automatically cheaper, and the multiplier per tier is what to compare.

Valuing a recipe that returns more than one

Raise the output per craft. A four-to-two recipe has a multiplier of 2 rather than 4, which over three tiers drops the cost from 64 to 8. Yield improvements compound in exactly the way tiers do.

Worked examples

Every figure in the tables below is produced by this page’s own calculator at build time, so the numbers and the tool always agree. Select any row to load that scenario.

How fast does crafting cost compound?

Only the depth of the tree changes.

One finished item, four inputs per craft, one output

Tiers deep	Raw material needed	Crafting actions required
1	4	1
2	16	5
3	64	21
4	256	85
5	1,024	341
6	4,096	1,365

One tier costs 4, and each further tier multiplies by 4 rather than adding it: 16, 64, 256, 1,024, 4,096. Six tiers of a recipe that looks like it costs four things costs four thousand. The crafting actions lag behind at 1,365, because every tier above raw is crafted once per item rather than once per raw unit.

Does the recipe ratio matter more than the depth?

The tree depth is fixed and the inputs per craft rise.

One finished item, three tiers, one output per craft

Inputs per craft	Raw material needed	Multiplier per tier	Crafting actions required
2	8	2.000	7
3	27	3.000	13
4	64	4.000	21
6	216	6.000	43
9	729	9.000	91

Two inputs per craft over three tiers costs 8. Three costs 27, four costs 64 and nine costs 729. The cost rises with the cube of the ratio here, because the depth is the exponent, so a recipe asking for one extra input is far more expensive than it sounds. Compare the 64 at four inputs with the 81 from a nine-input recipe only two tiers deep in the scenario above.

Questions

What if the ratio changes between tiers?

This assumes one ratio throughout. For a mixed tree, work out each tier separately and multiply the results, which is what the formula is doing anyway.

Why are there fewer crafting actions than raw materials?

Because each craft consumes several inputs and produces one output, so actions shrink as you move up the tree. The total is a geometric series that always comes to less than the raw material count.

How do recipes that return more than one item change things?

They divide the multiplier. A craft taking 4 and giving 2 has a multiplier of 2, and over several tiers that difference compounds just as sharply as the input count does.

Does this handle by-products or partial refunds?

No. If a craft refunds some material on failure or produces useful by-products, the effective ratio is lower than the recipe states, and you should enter that lower figure.

Why cap the tiers at 12?

Because a four-to-one recipe twelve tiers deep already needs over sixteen million raw materials. Past that the numbers stop meaning anything.

For Minecraft inventory arithmetic there is the stack calculator, and for its experience curve Minecraft XP levels. The drop side of gathering is on the drop rate calculator.