The art of parts

I'm overdue a breakdown of the appliance parts which are in and out of fashion, so here's a bonus post addressing that!

First up a brief summary of the findings when I last poured over the numbers in February. That occasion was the first in which a new part with every cooker was the norm, and it meant only a small pool of parts featured more than once. However they did so heavily, with the Mallet popping up on more than half of all new appliances. The Iron Press and Brass Diverter were also in high demand, making these three the unofficially most useful part to gift.

But that was then, and this is now. The following analysis takes in every new appliance introduced since the start of March this year, and so accounts for over seven months of data. Note that any re-released appliances (such as those included as part of the Halloween goals re-release recently) are not included - we're looking purely at completely new appliances.

There have been 19 appliances added during the period in question, with 14 of these in goal sets. This is a much lower rate of release than previously, and that's down to the lack of non-goal cookers introduced. They dried up just after this study period began, and appear to have just came back into the fold in the last fortnight with the unveiling of the Hot Air Stove and Skillet Stove.

Meanwhile 17 of these appliances have required construction. The last two quests have had a slight tinkering of the format, and a part of that has been the immediate availability of the first appliance without any need to build it. And across those 17 which do come with the hammer icon, there are 17 totally new parts which have been introduced. You guessed it - one for every cooker.

So that's a pattern observed last time which still stands. The result of this is that the number of parts to have appeared multiple times is again low. Indeed, there were six parts which were called for more than once, which matches the February analysis. But they weren't the same six:

Part	Number of appliances	Number required
Brass Diverter	4	23
Screw	3	18
Yellow Steel	3	12
Sturdy Wood	2	12
Steel	2	11
Iron Press	2	11

The Brass Diverter and Iron Press both appeared on the equivalent list in the last analysis post. They've managed to maintain their place whilst being joined by the Screw, Yellow Steel, Sturdy Wood and Steel.

Most commonly required parts over the last seven months

In terms of the number of parts required, these six together make up 96 of the 266 parts which have been demanded - that's 36%. That's not particularly high, and reflects a greater variety of parts utilised. This is illustrated by comparison to the last report, where the top six parts accounted for 63% of the parts required. Clearly Storm8 are spreading things around much more.

As already mentioned, the Mallet was the dominant part previously. In stark contrast, it has featured just once since, with that being with the Honey Oven in March's bee themed goals. This just goes to show that any recommendations in these posts do depend highly on the parts landscape not changing drastically!

In fact, the top part this time - the Brass Diverter - follows a pattern akin to the Mallet. It may come out at the head of the field, but it has also fallen into disuse of late. It's four appearances in this round were all by mid-May, meaning that it isn't actually that 'topical' of a part right now.

It's interesting that the Screw makes the big six list. It is one of the 10 so called 'basic' parts which were the first utilised in the game back in the day. For a long time these parts were undoubtedly the most viable options to gift, but have slowly been phased out.

 Previous parts information posts

 29/02/16 The latest parts perusal
 08/08/15 Picking apart the parts
 17/01/15 Another parts lowdown
 03/05/14 The changing parts landscape
 14/09/13 Gifting advice (part 2)

This is pointedly demonstrated by the Fuse, Motor and Paint - all are among the originals, but have not been called for at all in the past seven months. Furthermore, since the standard formula of adding new parts with every appliance came to prominence at the end of 2014, only the Fuse of these three has appeared, and even that was just once.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't hoard a few of each though. Because only in the past two weeks we've seen what could be the early days of another fresh trend. The Picnic Basket, Black Kettle and Pastels have all presented themselves for the first time in a very long while, indicating that we could be about to see the resurgence of some of the parts we've all grown tired of scrolling past in the gift list.

So in summary, forecasting which parts are going to be prominent is becoming harder and harder. The new part with every appliance had already reduced the capacity for existing parts to feature heavily, and the game's developers have made a concerted effort this year to vary those which do pop up that bit more. Adding in my feeling that we may be on the cusp of another evolution in the parts story, with some long lost parts possibly being dusted off, and stocking up on the right parts is now a tough task indeed.