FFXIV Cosmic Exploration Macros Crafting Guide for Efficient Gameplay

Dive into the stars with Final Fantasy XIV’s Cosmic Exploration, where crafting meets the cosmos in a thrilling new way. Discover how to streamline your crafting missions with custom macros designed to tackle the unique challenges of this endgame content-boost efficiency, conquer complex recipes, and unlock stellar rewards across PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. Ready to elevate your crafting game to cosmic heights? This guide will show you how to master Cosmic Exploration macros step-by-step.

Well, I have some bad and good news for you. The bad news is that each crafting job has dozens of items to craft, each with varying durability, quality, and progress requirements – which means there’s no “one macro” for everything, as there is for Ishgard Restoration. Rather, if you want to be able to macro everything, you’ll need tons of macros set up. The good news is that you don’t really have to keep all those macros on your hotbar.

I’ll disclaim this by saying I’m not an expert crafter. I use macros and I know fundamentally what the crafting skills do, but I don’t have enough expertise yet to make my own optimal macros from scratch or anything like that. That said, my recommendation below may not be the best way to go, but it has worked fairly well for me. I’ll update this guide with better information if other strategies being to appear, though. (As of this writing, Cosmic Exploration has only been out for a day, so. y’know.)

Below we explain how you can use macros to make FFXIV’s Cosmic Exploration easier, though it won’t heavily automate the process for you the way it would have in other crafting content.

How do Cosmic Exploration crafts work in FFXIV?

Cosmic Exploration crafts in FFXIV involve crafting items with varying durability, progress, and quality requirements, making each craft unique and challenging to automate fully. Unlike previous crafting content, there is no universal macro due to the wide range of item demands, so players often create multiple specialized macros tailored to specific recipes and mission requirements. These crafts are part of missions that reward data used to upgrade Cosmic Tools, the new crafting and gathering relics introduced in the Dawntrail expansion. Progressing in Cosmic Exploration requires completing missions efficiently, often using macros generated by tools like Raphael to simplify crafting, though high-level crafts may still require manual intervention and multiple macros due to complexity and time constraints.

As mentioned above, Cosmic Exploration crafts all have varying levels of durability, required progress, and quality. You may need to craft scrambled eggs with 60 durability for one craft, but then you’ll need a solution that only has 20 durability for the next. Since these numbers fluctuate wildly, it’s impossible to make a macro that’ll work for everything.

While you can definitely make a set of macros for each individual item (especially for the lower leveled crafts), even heavily melded crafters are going to have a tough time juggling the high level stuff, most of which requires at least two macros (30 lines) to make one craft. Your macro page will fill up pretty fast. On top of that, some of the Class-A missions have time limits, so your lengthy macro that takes 80 seconds to play out might not cut it.

(For context, half my gear is pentamelded and the rest is still overmelded, and it takes anywhere from 30 to 32 lines of macros for me to complete the A-rank crafts with food and potions – and despite that, there are still a few crafts I haven’t hit gold on.)

All of that said, it can be tough to make things work in Cosmic Exploration, but I have a kind of janky solution for you!

How to make crafting macros for Cosmic Exploration in FFXIV

To make crafting macros for Cosmic Exploration in FFXIV, you need to account for the wide variation in durability, progress, and quality requirements of each craft, which makes a universal macro impossible. The recommended approach is to use a tool like Raphael, where you input your crafting stats and the specific recipe from your mission to generate tailored macros. These macros can then be copied into your User Macros menu, typically overwriting a limited number of slots to avoid clutter. Since many high-level crafts require multiple macros, managing your macro slots efficiently is crucial. Using food buffs and potions can improve success rates, and you should aim to craft with a gold rating to unlock higher-tier missions. This method helps streamline the crafting process in Cosmic Exploration, though it won’t fully automate it like older crafting content macros.

Here’s what I did to both scratch my completionist itch, completing “Stellar Successes” (achievements), and minimize the number of macros I kept around:

1. Find all your crafting stats on your character screen and plug them into Raphael, a website used to generate macros based on your stats and the item you desire.
2. Open your “Stellar Missions” (the green button on the Cosmic Exploration UI) and select your mission.
3. Input whatever recipe the mission says to craft into Raphael.
4. Copy and paste the generated macro into the User Macros menu. (I pasted it over the same two macro slots because. my macro menu is pretty full already.)
5. Use that macro to craft however many of the item you need to complete the mission.
6. Turn in the mission.

Repeat steps two through six to complete as many missions as you can with a gold rating and unlock as many higher-rank missions as you can. If your crafters aren’t maxed, you will hit a wall eventually. Once you’re done gold starring the lower-level stuff, you can wipe all those macros out, if you’ve been saving them.

After you hit that wall (whether it’s from needing to grind out more levels or from just hitting the end), you’ll need to figure out which set of missions you can complete conveniently, taking your personal and differing factors into account. Do you want to deal with food/potions? How long does it take to complete one craft? Are you able to clear is consistently with a silver or gold rank? From there, use Raphael to make yourself a set of three to five macros for that tier of crafts.

For example, if you’re max level, but you’re struggling to complete the Class-A missions, you can just opt to do the Class-B ones instead, ideally hitting gold for each one you complete. I have macros for the culinarian recipes “Stable Jelly Drink,” “Stable Ration,” and a few others and I just purposely make sure to select missions that I know I have macros set up for.

Notably, if you do have the space for lots of macros, you will technically only need one macro for each mission across every crafting job. For example, Culinarian has an A-1 mission that requires you to craft an item with 7500 progress, 15000 quality, and 70 durability – but so does every other job. The macro that fulfills this for your Culinarian should be able to fulfill this for all your other jobs as well (so long as they are leveled and geared equally). So you can keep a bunch of macros on deck, simply named with the progress/quality/durability requirements, using them as necessary across all your jobs.

Unfortunately, this specific strategy really only works efficiently on PC. While you can type out macros on PlayStation and Xbox, since you can’t paste them directly, it may be annoying to make new macros for each craft. That said, you can just literally use the skills that Raphael shows you in order, and then manually type up the few macros for the missions you plan on grinding.

Also, don’t forget to enlist into Critical Missions as they pop up to get more loot and EXP. Ideally, you should just be crafting to pass the time and get EXP/loot between these events.

Of course, you will ultimately need to figure out how to get the Class-A crafts done, if you want to make a coveted Cosmic Tool (the relic tool for Dawntrail). However, if you’re just looking to farm currency and EXP, crafting the easier stuff will get the job done.

How can I efficiently create Cosmic Exploration macros for different FFXIV platforms

To efficiently create Cosmic Exploration macros for different FFXIV platforms (PC, PlayStation, Xbox), follow these key steps:

• Use a crafting solver website like raphael-xiv.com, which allows you to input your crafting stats and the specific recipe from your mission to generate optimized macros tailored to your gear and stats.

• Because Cosmic Exploration recipes vary widely in durability, progress, and quality requirements, a universal macro is not feasible. Instead, create multiple macros for different mission types and item tiers, focusing on the specific requirements of each craft.

• Overwrite a few macro slots with these generated macros to avoid cluttering your hotbar, and delete macros for lower-tier crafts once you have completed those missions.

• Ensure your crafting gear is fully melded and use food and potions like Rroneek Steak (HQ) or Cunning Craftsman’s Tisane (HQ) to boost your Crafting Points (CP), which helps macros succeed more consistently.

• For advanced users, tools like the open-source ffxiv-craft on GitHub use Monte Carlo simulations to generate and test macros before using them in-game, improving macro efficiency and success rates.

• Keep in mind that macros might not fully automate expert crafts, and some manual intervention or crafting multiple items may be necessary to achieve gold ratings.

This approach works across PC, PlayStation, and Xbox since macros and crafting mechanics are consistent across platforms in FFXIV.

How do I adapt macros for different FFXIV platforms’ controls and interfaces

To adapt macros for different FFXIV platforms’ controls and interfaces (PC, PlayStation, Xbox), consider these key points:

• Macro commands themselves are platform-independent since FFXIV’s macro system uses text commands that work uniformly across all platforms.

• Adjust hotbar and HUD layouts to fit each platform’s control scheme:

  • On PC, players often use keyboard and mouse with multiple hotbars visible and keybinds mapped to keys.

  • On consoles (PlayStation, Xbox), use the cross hotbar system and customize cross hotbar pages and shared hotbars to optimize access via controller buttons and triggers.

  • You can create macros to toggle or switch hotbars and cross hotbars, allowing quick access to different sets of macros depending on the platform’s input style.

• Use macros to switch hotbars or HUD elements dynamically: For example, macros can toggle visibility of hotbars or switch between shared and class-specific hotbars, which is helpful to manage limited controller buttons on consoles.

• Customize keybinds and HUD settings per platform: Use the in-game configuration menus to tailor controls and HUD elements to your preferences on each platform, ensuring your macros are accessible and your interface is comfortable.

• Backup and transfer macros and UI settings: When switching between platforms or reinstalling, export/import your macro and UI settings to avoid rebuilding them manually.

In summary, while the macro text commands remain the same, adapting macros for different platforms involves customizing your hotbar layouts, HUD visibility, and keybinds to match each platform’s input method and interface style. Macros that toggle or switch hotbars and use shared hotbars are particularly effective for bridging the differences between keyboard/mouse and controller setups.