Skills/Tinkering

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Tinkering is the craft of small machines and metal goods. Tinkers make the tools every other crafter depends on, along with clocks, sextants, jewelry, lockpicks, kitchenware and trapped chests. If a crafter's tool breaks, a tinker can make another.

At a glance

Skill cap	100 (Grandmaster)
Tool	tinker's tools (7 gold at tinkers)
Materials	iron ingots, boards or logs, gems, potions
Main uses	Tools, parts and assemblies, jewelry, traps
Stats it trains	Strength, Intelligence and Dexterity

How to tinker

Double-click a pair of tinker's tools to open the tinkering menu. Choose a category, then an item. You don't need a forge or an anvil. Your chance starts at 0% at the bottom of an item's range and rises to 100% at the top. Tinkers can add their maker's mark to what they make, and can repair tinkered items.

You can work coloured ingots once your skill is high enough:

Ingot	Tinkering needed
Dull copper	65
Shadow iron	70
Copper	75
Bronze	80
Gold	85
Agapite	90
Verite	95
Valorite	99

Wooden items

	Item	Skill range	Materials	Chance at 50	Chance at 80
	Jointing plane	0–50	4 boards or logs	100%	100%
	Moulding plane	0–50	4 boards or logs	100%	100%
	Smoothing plane	0–50	4 boards or logs	100%	100%
	Clock frame	0–50	6 boards or logs	100%	100%
	Axle	0–25	2 boards or logs	100%	100%
	Rolling pin	0–50	5 boards or logs	100%	100%

Tools

	Item	Skill range	Materials	Chance at 50	Chance at 80
	Scissors	5–55	2 iron ingots	90%	100%
	Mortar and pestle	20–70	3 iron ingots	60%	100%
	Scorp	30–80	2 iron ingots	40%	100%
	Tinker's tools	10–60	2 iron ingots	80%	100%
	Hatchet	30–80	4 iron ingots	40%	100%
	Draw knife	30–80	2 iron ingots	40%	100%
	Sewing kit	10–70	2 iron ingots	67%	100%
	Saw	30–80	4 iron ingots	40%	100%
	Dovetail saw	30–80	4 iron ingots	40%	100%
	Froe	30–80	2 iron ingots	40%	100%
	Shovel	40–90	4 iron ingots	20%	80%
	Hammer	30–80	1 iron ingot	40%	100%
	Tongs	35–85	1 iron ingot	30%	90%
	Smith's hammer	40–90	4 iron ingots	20%	80%
	Sledge hammer	40–90	4 iron ingots	20%	80%
	Inshave	30–80	2 iron ingots	40%	100%
	Pickaxe	40–90	4 iron ingots	20%	80%
	Lockpick	45–95	1 iron ingot	10%	70%
	Skillet	30–80	4 iron ingots	40%	100%
	Flour sifter	50–100	3 iron ingots	0%	60%
	Fletcher's tools	35–85	3 iron ingots	30%	90%
	Mapmaker's pen	25–75	1 iron ingot	50%	100%
	Scribe's pen	25–75	1 iron ingot	50%	100%

Parts

	Item	Skill range	Materials	Chance at 50	Chance at 80
	Gears	5–55	2 iron ingots	90%	100%
	Clock parts	25–75	1 iron ingot	50%	100%
	Barrel tap	35–85	2 iron ingots	30%	90%
	Springs	5–55	2 iron ingots	90%	100%
	Sextant parts	30–80	4 iron ingots	40%	100%
	Barrel hoops	0–35	5 iron ingots	100%	100%
	Hinge	5–55	2 iron ingots	90%	100%
	Bola balls	45–95	10 iron ingots	10%	70%

Utensils

	Item	Skill range	Materials	Chance at 50	Chance at 80
	Butcher knife	25–75	2 iron ingots	50%	100%
	Spoon	0–50	1 iron ingot	100%	100%
	Plate	0–50	2 iron ingots	100%	100%
	Fork	0–50	1 iron ingot	100%	100%
	Cleaver	20–70	3 iron ingots	60%	100%
	Knife	0–50	1 iron ingot	100%	100%
	Goblet	10–60	2 iron ingots	80%	100%
	Pewter mug	10–60	2 iron ingots	80%	100%
	Skinning knife	25–75	2 iron ingots	50%	100%

Miscellaneous

	Item	Skill range	Materials	Chance at 50	Chance at 80
	Key ring	10–60	2 iron ingots	80%	100%
	Candelabra	55–105	4 iron ingots	0%	50%
	Scales	60–110	4 iron ingots	0%	40%
	Iron key	20–70	3 iron ingots	60%	100%
	Globe	55–105	4 iron ingots	0%	50%
	Spyglass	60–110	4 iron ingots	0%	40%
	Lantern	30–80	2 iron ingots	40%	100%
	Heating stand	60–110	4 iron ingots	0%	40%

Jewelry

Each piece of jewelry takes 2 iron ingots and 1 gem and needs 40 to 90 Tinkering. Every piece comes in nine gem styles:

Pieces	Ring, silver bead necklace, gold necklace, earrings, gold bead necklace and bracelet
Gems	Star sapphire  Emerald  Sapphire  Ruby  Citrine  Amethyst  Tourmaline  Amber  Diamond

Assemblies

Assemblies combine parts you've already made. Most always succeed.

	Item	Skill range	Parts
	Axle with gears	Always	Axle, Gears
	Clock parts	Always	Axle with gears, Springs
	Sextant parts	Always	Axle with gears, Hinge
	Clock	Always	Clock frame, Clock parts
	Sextant	Always	Sextant parts
	Bola	60–80	4 bola balls, 3 leather or hides
	Potion keg	75–100 (50% at 75)	Empty keg, 10 empty bottles, Barrel lid, Barrel tap

Building a clock: axle + gears → axle with gears; axle with gears + springs → clock parts; clock frame + clock parts → clock. Building a sextant: axle with gears + hinge → sextant parts → sextant.

Traps

Tinkers can rig a trap on a lockable chest they own. Make the trap, then target an unlocked chest within 2 tiles. The trap stays harmless until you lock the chest (Trap is disabled until you lock the chest.), then it goes off on the next person who opens it or picks its lock. The trap level is your Tinkering divided by 10 (level 10 at 100 skill).

Trap	Skill range	Materials	Effect
Dart trap	30–80	1 iron ingot + 1 crossbow bolt	Darts hit anyone within 3 tiles of the chest for 5–15 damage per trap level.
Poison trap	30–80	1 iron ingot + 1 poison potion	Poisons anyone within 3 tiles. The poison is stronger the higher the trap level, up to Lethal.
Explosion trap	55–105	1 iron ingot + 1 explosion potion	Fire damage of 10–30 per trap level to anyone within 3 tiles.

Training Tinkering

• Every item you attempt inside its range is a chance to gain. Pick cheap items near the bottom of your range.
• Iron ingots are the main cost, so a miner friend helps.
• Below 10.0 you gain on every attempt, sometimes several tenths at once. Above that, each attempt has a chance to gain 0.1.
• The harder the attempt is for your skill level, the better your chance to gain. Your chance also drops as you get closer to your Tinkering cap and to your total skill cap of 700.
• If you've set Tinkering to go down (the arrow in your skills list), gains elsewhere can lower it to make room under your total cap. Lock skills you want to keep.
• Reaching 100.0 adds Tinkering to the Skills Mastered count on your achievements.
• Tinkers, tinker guildmasters and golem crafters will train you for gold: up to a third of their own skill, at most 42.0, for 1 gold per 0.1 points. Ask them (or use their context menu) to train the skill, then drop the gold on them.

Stats: each successful use has about a 2% chance to raise Strength, a smaller chance (under 1%) to raise Dexterity and a smaller chance (under 1%) to raise Intelligence by 1 point. Each stat can rise at most once every 10 minutes, and only if it's set to rise.

Suggested path

Tinkering	How to train
0 to about 33	Buy it from a tinker.
33 to 45	Clock parts, scissors or tinker's tools.
45 to 60	Tongs or fletcher's tools.
60 to 75	Lockpicks (also useful for training Lockpicking).
75 to 90	Candelabras or globes.
90 to 100	Spyglasses, scales or heating stands.

Messages

Message	What it means
You have worn out your tool!	Your tools broke. Make or buy another pair.
You can only trap lockable chests.	Traps only go on lockable chests.
You can only trap an unlocked object.	Unlock the chest before trapping it.
You can only place one trap on an object at a time.	The chest already has a trap.
That belongs to someone else.	It isn't your chest.

Tips

• Make your own tinker's tools (10 Tinkering, 2 ingots) so you never run out.
• Supply other crafters. Saws, smith's hammers, sewing kits and pens are always in demand.
• New characters who pick Tinkering start with tinker's tools and spare parts.

See also

• Blacksmithy · Mining · Carpentry · Lockpicking · Remove Trap