I am already seeing assumptions made by my previous post in a different light. But, I assumed that would happen.

"Naturally, EVERY recipe requires at least one resource, and therefore it requires at least one "noun" skill. The skill will match what type of resource is being used. A helmet made of steel and fabric will require, at minimum, metal working and textile working skills."

That combined with the assumption that Oil is a next-tier Herbs, both corresponding to the Alchemy skill, is proven wrong when oil starts showing up in armor recipes. These recipes don't require the Alchemy skill, or the table.

"Furthermore, if you have the armorer and the carpenter in the shop, adding the blacksmith would be entirely worthless."

There I failed to appreciate that recipe times vary with skill level, and that they vary a lot, and you can shave off full minutes by having the Blacksmith's extra numbers in the mix. Does that detract from the whole objective of having a versatile shop? Personally, I don't care. I go with well-rounded over specialized every time. It has practical benefits in Shop Heroes like that I can fix any quester a new piece of gear at any given time. Might change strategy later, but for exploring a mysterious game I'd still call versatility the thing to do.

Also, I described a "chain" of workers and skills, but it looks a whole lot less elegant when the higher-level workers are added to the picture. Fletcher shows up with Arts And Crafts plus Woodworking of all things. I had hopes that they would all curve back around full-circle to form like this perfect bead necklace of alternating crafter beads and skill beads. I'd wear that. But as a 4th day noob I'm still not actually clear on what the overall picture looks like.

Details are starting to fill in on the wiki. Go help out:

http://shop-heroes.wikia.com/wiki/Shop_Heroes_Wikia

Putting it all together (which crafters do I pick?)

The question of which crafters to go with got more complicated than I expected. There are materials, recipes, workstations, customers, crafters, and skills, and somehow they all relate to each other. After a couple days I this is how I would describe the relationship between the parts of the game available to a low-to-mid level.

Ignoring "mastery" which everyone seems to have, there are seven available skills in the beginning. Each skill corresponds to exactly one workstation. The skills divide into two types: basically nouns and verbs.

nouns: textile working, metal working, wood working, alchemy
verbs: arts and crafts, armor crafting, weapon crafting

I call the first group nouns because each corresponds to one category of resource. I don't know what the higher tiers hold but the pattern is already clear.

textiles: leather, fabric, ?
metal: iron, steel, ?
wood: wood, hardwood, ?
alchemy: herbs, oil, ?

(Note: resources come in bins, rares come from quests. Iron wood, moon shards, etc... those are rares and they are not what I am describing here.)

Naturally, EVERY recipe requires at least one resource, and therefore it requires at least one "noun" skill. The skill will match what type of resource is being used. A helmet made of steel and fabric will require, at minimum, metal working and textile working skills.

The verbs are things you can do with the nouns, but this time there is a standard to what constitutes "skill". For the most part, weapons require a weapon crafting skill, but the lowest level sword is a cheap hunk of metal that could have been carved by anyone. Low level armor doesn't require armor crafting skill either. And so on.

Here it gets interesting: there are six crafters and each has two skills (ignoring "mastery"). They all link together as a chain: every crafter connecting to two skills, every skill to two crafters, except for the dead ends which are arts+crafts, and alchemy.

arts + crafts
tailor
textile working
leather worker
armor crafting
armorer
metal working
blacksmith
weapon crafting
carpenter
wood working
druid
alchemy

All you need to make a recipe is that your shop contains the appropriate skills COMBINED. (Then you need the matching workstation for each skill, and the matching resource bin for each noun-skill.) You don't need a blacksmith to make swords, as you could just as easily get his two skills, metal working and weapon crafting, separately from the armorer and the carpenter, assuming their levels are sufficient. Furthermore, if you have the armorer and the carpenter in the shop, adding the blacksmith would be entirely worthless.

At level 12(?) you get three crafters, and you need to choose them wisely since you are charged money to swap them out. But it seems you can keep swapping to a minimum. Numbering the crafters for convenience:

1 = tailor
2 = leather worker
3 = armorer
4 = blacksmith
5 = carpenter
6 = druid

You can maximize versatility by taking alternating numbers: 1+3+5, vs 2+4+6.

1+3+5: you can make absolutely any low-to-mid level recipe except for the few that use the "alchemy" ingredients. That means remedies, potions, and one particular kind of dart. Like 95% of everything is doable.

2+4+6: you can do anything except when an "art and craft" is made out of the ingredient. Missing music, bows, soft armor, and most staffs and most vests. It's still nearly everything.

Since you're trying to cover all the skills, that means keeping nearly all the workstations out in the open. If there's no room, oh well! But it's best to try to make room. 1+3+5 needs every workstation except the alchemy table, and every kind of resource bin except herbs/oil/etc. 2+4+6 needs every workstation except the arts+crafts table, and it can use all of the resource bins.