Add circuit tools, proficiencies and practice recipes

[wapcaplet]

Summary

Content "Add circuit tools, proficiencies and practice recipes"

Purpose of change

To improve granularity in electrical skills, and expand options for training electronics skill and proficiencies.

Describe the solution

Add three new proficiencies within electronics:

• Electrical Circuits, being concerned with the basic concepts of circuit function and design, voltage, current, resistance and so on (10 hours to learn)
• Semiconductors, building on Electrical Circuits to include a working knowledge of how to use parts like diodes and transistors (12 hours to learn)
• Integrated Circuits, building on Semiconductors to include IC chips for logic and signal processing (16 hours to learn)

Add these proficiencies to many of the existing electronics recipes. There are too many to add them to all of them in this PR, but I tried to hit most of the important ones.

Add new file data/json/recipes/practice/electronics.json with some basic electronics practice recipes using the new proficiencies.

Add a new item breadboard to represent a small hobbyist version of the common prototyping board, and added it to some itemgroups so it can spawn in electronics stores and the like. This item is required for the more advanced electronics practice recipes.

Add a new item multimeter based on the voltmeter, being the more versatile modern digital meter thatn can measure voltage, current, resistance, and continuity. Make this spawn in itemgroups similar to where voltmeters formerly spawned (even being more likely in one group).

Add a new made-up book 101 Important Integrated Circuits (to fit our theme with 3 other "101" books), which does not train skill but is a reference manual on integrated circuits that would be essential for any serious IC enthusiast. Its description makes reference to some real-world popular IC models. This book is in fact required for the IC practice recipe; it should probably be a requirement for some other advanced electronics recipes as well.

Finally, add several practice recipes for electronics skill, exercising the original soldering proficiency as well as the three new electronics proficiencies. These make use of various existing electronic components, wires, and soldering tools, as well as the voltmeter (which to my knowledge had no prior function). Advanced recipes require the multimeter.

Describe alternatives you've considered

I may embellish the electronics skill tree a little more in this PR; there's a lot of room for more detailed proficiency niches, and practice recipes are a good use for all that electronics junk one finds around. Done and done and then some.

Testing

Start new character with no skills.

Acquire a copy of "Ham Radio Illustrated" or "What's a Transistor?", and check crafting Practice / Electronics - "electronics soldering" is available. Acquire the necessary tools and components (soldering iron, solder, wire, electronic scraps), and practice the recipe.

On first trial, I learned Electronics level 1 after completing only 4% of the recipe. This is too quick. At 82% completion of the recipe, my Electronics reached level 2. Again, this is too fast for less than an hour of practice. (Edit I see now similar behavior with the "computer (beginner)" recipe, teaching level 1 computer skill after only 3% of the 1-hour recipe, so this balance issue is apparently not unique to my PR).

It took many hours after that for Electronics Soldering proficiency to increase, as it should.

Additional context

Aside from the exceedingly fast increase in electronics skill from level 0-1, I am pretty happy with everything here. Final practice recipes:

Electronics Soldering:

Electrical Circuit Design:

Semiconductor Circuits:

Integrated Circuits, which this character cannot craft until they have Semiconductors proficiency:

[eltank]

I would recommend making proficiencies more about actually assembling circuits. For example, soldering the tiny contacts on modern ICs is much harder than soldering capacitors on a PCB and deserves its own proficiency.

[wapcaplet]

I would recommend making proficiencies more about actually assembling circuits. For example, soldering the tiny contacts on modern ICs is much harder than soldering capacitors on a PCB and deserves its own proficiency.

I have not attempted surface-mount (SMD) soldering but I agree it probably deserves to be a branch of the existing soldering proficiency. I realize I went in a more "concepts and theory" direction with these proficiencies, but there is such a rich and diverse world of electronic components, it felt important to start with a few of the fundamentals. My thinking was the long-term survivor will need not just the soldering and fine motor skills, but also to tell a transistor apart from a resistor, and know Ohm's law to help build a better tazer-staff.

[eltank]

I have not attempted surface-mount (SMD) soldering but I agree it probably deserves to be a branch of the existing soldering proficiency. I realize I went in a more "concepts and theory" direction with these proficiencies, but there is such a rich and diverse world of electronic components, it felt important to start with a few of the fundamentals. My thinking was the long-term survivor will need not just the soldering and fine motor skills, but also to tell a transistor apart from a resistor, and know Ohm's law to help build a better tazer-staff.

In my mind Ohm's law and other electronics theory is abstracted into your electronics skill "knowledge level".

But knowing how to apply the theory to build certain kinds of circuits (e.g. energy storage and discharge, or actuated mechanisms), being able to identify components at a glance, circuit design, knowing how to put components on a PCB without wasting space etc. are things that can be modeled using the proficiency system. Some of these can be lumped into one or more "Principles of X".