CraftGuard

An Ashita v4 addon for CatsEyeXI (a Final Fantasy XI private server) that tracks your effective crafting skill and actively protects you from wasting materials on synthesis attempts that can't come out High Quality.

What it does

CraftGuard shows a small on-screen window with your effective skill for all 8 standard crafts (Woodworking, Smithing, Goldsmithing, Clothcraft, Leathercraft, Bonecraft, Alchemy, Cooking), broken down into:

• Base — your raw in-game skill.
• KI — the flat bonus from holding that craft's "Mega Moglification" guild-rank key item. This is tracked by reading the game's own key item packet (0x055) directly, rather than relying on Ashita's HasKeyItem(), which has historically been unreliable after client updates. The KI packet only arrives on login/zone-in or when a key item changes, so zone once after loading the addon for this column to populate.
• Gear — bonuses from equipped crafting gear (guild aprons, GP-shop items, all-craft items like Kupo Shield / Artisan's Torque).
• Support — the bonus from an active Guild Synthesis Support buff, with a live countdown.
• Effective — the total, with a marker if you're skill-capped.

It also shows:

• Whether High Quality synthesis is currently disabled (you're wearing a guild ring or Artisan's Ring that blocks HQ), and any HQ% chance bonus from Craftmaster's Ring(s).
• Whether food is currently active (a simple yes/no — it doesn't try to track which food or its specific bonus).

Blocklist protection

CraftGuard can actively block outgoing synthesis attempts that use a crystal or ingredient on your personal blocklist, but only while HQ is currently disabled (i.e. you're wearing a ring that prevents HQ results). This is meant to stop you from accidentally burning valuable materials on a synth that can never come out HQ.

It works by intercepting the client's outgoing "Synth" packet (0x096) before it's sent to the server and cancelling it if a match is found — confirmed against CatsEyeXI via a real packet capture, not just assumed from generic FFXI packet docs. If it ever misbehaves, /cg blocklist off disables the blocking instantly without losing your saved list.

Your blocklist is stored per-character in Ashita's settings and persists across sessions.

Installation

1. Download/clone this repo.
2. Copy the craftguard folder into your Ashita/addons/ directory, so you end up with Ashita/addons/craftguard/craftguard.lua and Ashita/addons/craftguard/data.lua.
3. In-game (or in a .txt script/default.txt), load it:

   /addon load craftguard
   

4. Zone once so key item detection can populate.

Commands

Trigger with either /craftguard or the short alias /cg.

Command	Description
/cg	Toggle the window.
/cg show	Show the window.
/cg hide	Hide the window.
/cg reload	Reload data.lua and settings from disk (after editing data.lua).
/cg itemfind <text>	Searches all item names for <text> — useful if data.lua fails to resolve an item name on this server.
/cg blocklist add <item>	Adds an ingredient/crystal to your blocklist.
/cg blocklist remove <item>	Removes an item from your blocklist.
/cg blocklist list	Lists your current blocklist and whether blocking is on/off.
/cg blocklist on / off	Enables/disables blocklist enforcement without clearing your saved list.
/cg help	Shows the in-game command list.

A couple of extra diagnostic commands exist but are intentionally left out of /cg help since they're rarely needed day-to-day:

• /cg buffscan — lists your currently active buffs with their id/name.
• /cg bufffind <text> — searches all buff names for <text>, active or not.

Both are handy if you ever need to find a new buff id to add to data.lua.

Configuration

All server-specific data — item names, key item ids, gear bonus values, HQ-blocking items, and Synthesis Support buff ids — lives in data.lua, kept separate from the addon logic so it can be edited without touching craftguard.lua. Item names must match exactly what CatsEyeXI calls them in-game (server-side names can differ from retail, e.g. abbreviated item names); after editing, run /cg reload and check the chat log for any "could not resolve" warnings.

Requirements

• Ashita v4
• Built and tested against CatsEyeXI. Item ids, key item ids, and packet structures may need adjusting for other private servers or retail — check data.lua and the SYNTH_PACKET_* constants near the top of craftguard.lua.

Disclaimer

This addon reads and cancels outgoing game packets to implement the blocklist feature. It has been tested via a real packet capture against CatsEyeXI, but as with any third-party addon, use at your own risk. /cg blocklist off is always available as an immediate kill-switch if something looks wrong.