adding generic crafting -- and having it make the best items of all things -- just makes it another generic sci-fi setting rather than one with interesting lost artifacts to discover through exploration
I see your point, of course, but you seem to be ignoring mine—which is that the Underrail civilization never truly fell. Continuities to the laboratories, databases, and technologies of the past were never really severed.
Beyond that, there are two further points to make. One is that high technology as we know it in the real world breaks down constantly, requires continual maintenance, and simply doesn't last. I would never expect a suit of powered armor, a laser rifle, a supercomputer, or anything of the sort to actually be functional after two hundred years languishing in a bunker as seen in Fallout, for example. You could argue that advancements in technology might greatly increase the robustness and longevity of such things, but so far the trend has been the opposite.
The other point is that "finding lost artifacts" is just as common a sci-fi trope (and one borrowed from fantasy, at that) as any other well known trope, so your preference doesn't even hold water from a logical standpoint.
syko or whatever is right that there's no chance your character would ever produce anything on par with a master craftsman, let alone on par with a high-science industrial corponation. Duct taping things you barely understand together to make something you really barely understand? Sure.
No doubt, but some allowances must be made for the purposes of gameplay within a fantasy world. I'm not necessarily defending the fact that the protagonist can become a master pharmacist, biologist, gunsmith, armorsmith, tailor, and electronics expert, but 100% realism is rarely desirable outside of aircraft or orbital mechanics simulators.