Tinkering Research Page

By Surge of Morningthaw

UPDATED 7/23!

I've created this page to present analytical data regarding Tinkering Skills in Asheron's Call. If you're not familiar with the basics of tinkering, a lot of the data won't be very clear to you (it will probably be a little confusing to people who have a grasp, too). The following brief description of the process may help clear up some of the complexities of tinkering:

1) Purpose of Tinkering:

Tinkering is a skill that allows a player to change the characteristics of loot generated items. The following are a couple of examples of what characteristics can be tinkered (exhaustive lists, including what materials can be found at any popular AC site, such as Maggie the Jackcat's Tinkering Page )

Item Tinkering effects: Value (raise/lower); Burden (lower)
Weapon Tinkering effects: Speed; Damage; Att/Def Mods; Variance
Armor Tinkering effects: AL, Resistance levels to damage types

2) How to tinker:

Tinkering is a simple process:

Buy an Ust. This is a tool used to salvage raw materials for tinkering. Available at starter towns and racial capitals.
Collect material (gold, steel, iron, velvet, etc, again, see the link above for specfics).
Double-click the Ust and drag loot to be salvaged into the window and click "Salvage". You will reclaim some units of the raw material to use for tinkering. Keep collecting and salvaging until you have 100 units of the material you want.
Once you have 100 units, double-click the salvage and target the item you want to tinker. If your skill is high enough, you will alter the item based on the type of salvage you apply. Choose wisely, as you can only tinker any given item 10 times, and it gets more difficult with each attempt! **It doesn't matter what you tinker each time, you can't tinker value 10 times and then burden 10 times**

Now that I've explained the basic process, let's look at the factors affecting tinker success:

Target Workmanship: Every loot item in the game has a workmanship. Previously, this was expressed using descriptions such as "poor" "magnificent" "flawless", etc. Now each workmanship shows a numerical value between 1 and 10. Workmanship is the primary factor in determining the difficulty of tinkering. LOWER QUALITY items are EASIER to tinker!!!
Salvage Quality: When you salvage material, the bar of salvage will have a quality that is the average of the materials used to make the bar. Salvage quality is expressed as a numerical value between 1.00 and 10.00. HIGHER QUALITY salvage is EASIER to tinker with!
Number of times an object has been tinkered: Simply put, the more times you tinker an item, the harder each attempt gets. Preliminary data seems to indicate that the rate at which the difficulty increases is a fixed aspect of tinkering.

The Data

The following chart displays the results of applying PURE (x.00) quality salvage to various quality items. This data is all from using GOLD with the ITEM TINKERING Skill. (**Early data indicates each tinkering skill may have slightly different difficulties. i.e. it is easier to raise the value of an item using gold than it is to raise the AL of a piece of armor with Steel.)

TABLE 1

First Tinker Attempt		SALVAGE QUALITY
First Tinker Attempt		1.00	2.00	3.00	4.00	5.00	6.00	7.00	8.00	9.00	10.00
Item Work- manship	1	58	56	54	52	50	50	50(42)	50(38)	50(34)	50(30)
	2	88	76	74	72	70	66	62	58	54	50
	3	108	106	94	92	90	86	82	78	74	70
	4	128	126	124	112	110	106	102	98	94	90
	5	148	146	144	142	130	126	122	118	114	110
	6	168	166	164	162	160	146	162	138	134	130
	7	188	186	184	182	180	176	162	158	154	150
	8	208	206	204	202	200	196	192	178	174	170
	9	228	226	224	222	220	218	212	208	194	190
	10	248	246	244	242	240	238	232	228	224	210

Here are charts of the Workmanship VS Salvage Quality for the first and 10th tinker: (the legend isn't quite clear: the lines represent the salvage quality):

Next, I applied the same quality of gold salvage (5.00) to a workmanship 1 (poor) item 10 times to observe the progression of the difficulty:

TABLE 2

Workmanship 1		Salvage Quality 5.00
Workmanship 1		Difficulty	Increase in Diff	% of 1st Tinker	Increment
ATTEMPT #	1	50	-	1.0 (100%)	-
	2	55	5	1.1 (110%)	10
	3	65	10	1.3 (130%)	20
	4	80	15	1.6 (160%)	30
	5	100	20	2.0 (200%)	40
	6	125	25	2.5 (250%)	50
	7	150	25	3.0 (300%)	50
	8	175	25	3.5 (350%)	50
	9	200	25	4.0 (400%)	50
	10	225	25	4.5 (450%)	50

INTERPRETATION

You're probably thinking, "These are some interesting tables, and pretty graphs, but how does this all help me make better tinkering decisions?"

Gouru of Morningthaw has put together this formula to estimate the difficulty of a given tinker (with an Dei Ray of Harvestgrain tagging on the multiplier from the 2nd table above!)

This proto-type formula has been presented that will give an approximate skill for any quality material and workmanship item and times tinkered.

difficulty = (B + (20*Q) - (M * S)) * P

B = Base Diff (50 for Gold and may vary for different materials)
Q = Item Quality (Workmanship)
M = Multiplier. 2 if the salvage quality is less than the workmanship. 4 if it is greater or equal to the workmanship. (this is updated!!!)
S = Salvage Quality
P = Tinker attempt value
1st 1
2nd 1.1
3rd 1.3
4th 1.6
5th 2.0
6th 2.5
7th 3.0
8th 3.5
9th 4.0
10th 4.5

NOTE on M or the Multiplier – the value 4 is actually a bonus if the material quality is greater than the item workmanship.

For example: An item with a Workmanship of 5 that has been tinkered twice already. A material of workmanship of 4.53 is applied.

(50 + (20*5) – (2*4.53)) * 1.3

(50 + (100) – (9.06)) * 1.3

140.94 * 1.3

So a skill of 183 would be required.

Base Difficulty (preliminary estimates - very few samples to date!):

Gold: 50

Iron: 70

Steel: 70

Velvet: 65

Brass: 57

Bronze: 57

A web calculator for some materials can be found here, courtesy of Caerthalion!

Special thanks to everyone who contributed data/materials/formula/research/vault bumps/compilations/comments and encouragement on this project!

Please send any data/comments/corrections/donation information to acsurge@optonline.net