Tinker how does it work ?

[Crysten]

I more or less know by now how the Tinker mechanic works but there is one thing I cant quite figure out. Lets take the "Steamsaw" here for an example.

To make the Steamsaw I need 2 in Smith and 1 in Mechanical.
Once I have the Skillpoints invested I can make any Steamsaw from Tier 1 to 5.

For the Steamsaw it doesnt matter if I have Smith on 5 since I only need 2.
Even if I have 5 Smith and 5 Mechanic for example and make a Steamsaw the Quality and Stats of said Steamsaw will not be any better than the Steamsaw I created with the same crafting items and Smith 2 and Mechanical 1.

So whats the point ? I made a run till lvl 22 and as far I can tell highest skill lvls for some Tinker items is 3 like "Alchemist Helper" need Chemistry 3. Since the Skilldescription for the Tinker says there might be more to discover I assume there are some Tinker schematics that need lvl 5 in the late game.

If I said something wrong at this point pls correct me.
So my problem is that I want to do a full Run with a Tinker class and before I start any run with a class I make a rough plan how I want to skill my class cause I hate waisting points for something thats not needed and I have to play with it for at least 7 hours.
As far as I can tell there is no reason to get any Tinker skill to 5 but thats only because I dont know any schematic that need lvl 5. But I cant hold on to lets say like 20 Generic points (cause I dont know the distribution of the schemaitc skills needed for late game) in case I find a late game schemaitc to Skill into the right Tinker Skilltree, cause thats a lot of point not used for a "what if scenario".
But if I spend the 20 skillpoints not on Tinkerskills and find a good late game schematic I wouldnt be able to use it and that sucks either way.

At the end its like gambling.
I either skill into Tinker and hope for the best at the endgame or I simple dont skill it. Since I dont know what this late game schematics are, if they exist or are even worth the skillpoints.
As you can see its a lot of "what ifs" for me that I dont quite understand or maybe I am completely wrong and a Tinker item that needs Mechanics 2 does get better with Mechanics 5.

P.s. English is not my mother language so dont stone me pls.

[Rainynight]

https://fastupload.io/en/dEAFzhnYFN2OxFW/file
Copy of Tinker Cheat Sheet v2.xlsx name of file

there a table with tinker craft, so u can check requirements.
maybe that will help a bit

[Crysten]

Well thx for the answer. I can assume what I wrote was right and will just for safety reason post the normal wiki page here for schematics. (nothing personal but I can not verify some random download file out of safty reasons).

https://te4.org/wiki/Tinkers

But that brings another question for me. Now that I have Iooked over the schematics on the wiki there doesnt seem to be ANY reason to get any Tinkercraft Skill up to 5 (except for Therapeutics maybe) in the "main campain". Yes for the ember of rage campain it has value cause of the "special schematics " but I dont have them in the normal campain and all schematics except for 1 cap out at skill lvl 4.

So Smith, Mechanical, Electricity, Chemistry, Explosives on Skill lvl 5 are 100% objectively speaking useless in the main campain unless I read the wiki wrong.

Isnt this a little bit to much background knowledge to play a class effectively.
I mean I could just play Sawbutcher blind and skill Smith up to 5 in the main campain just to know after an at least 7 hour run that it has no value at all.

Again if I say something wrong here pls correct me.

[Szycag]

Hmm, I never had so much headaches about this since I'm always going with the prodigy Adept for Gunslingers and Annihilators which gives you 1,5 levels on these talents for free. Remember that the "effective talent level" counts, not how many skill points you actually put into each talent. If you take Adept you need only 2 in those talents to have an effective level of 4. If you then really come across anything that has a level 5 requirement you can still equip a certain helmet that gives you yet another bonus for Steamteach/Physics and Steamtech/Chemistry. This helmet can also drop in the normal campaign.

So, for me it's always only two points each for these "knowledge skills". However, this only works with Adept. In general I'd say that the most important tinker items are the common ones, just check what you really need and don't invest more points than needed. I hope that helps you a bit.

[Crysten]

Thx for the answer. The Adept tip rly helps to avoid throwing to many points in the Tinker Skills thx.
But for me the problem is the fact you "can" skill Smith, Mechanical, Electricity, Chemistry, Explosives up Skill lvl 5 in the main campain and you get 0% out of it since there are no schematics for them on 5 (or tinker lvl 6). Its like a placeholder.

If that skills would cap out at 4 there would be no problem,
or at least 1 lvl 5 schematic for each Tinkerskill in the maincampain the 5 points would have any meaning. Again its like a placeholder, yes you can skill it but you get 0% out of it and only with the wiki page you know its worth nothing. You cant even figuere it out by just playing the game.

It looks like something that could be patched out with not much effort.
Of course only under the assumptionI I see the problem right.

[Rainynight]

Also, there an achievement which require u to max all talents >_>

[Szycag]

Originally posted by Crysten:

Thx for the answer. The Adept tip rly helps to avoid throwing to many points in the Tinker Skills thx.
But for me the problem is the fact you "can" skill Smith, Mechanical, Electricity, Chemistry, Explosives up Skill lvl 5 in the main campain and you get 0% out of it since there are no schematics for them on 5 (or tinker lvl 6). Its like a placeholder.

If that skills would cap out at 4 there would be no problem,
or at least 1 lvl 5 schematic for each Tinkerskill in the maincampain the 5 points would have any meaning. Again its like a placeholder, yes you can skill it but you get 0% out of it and only with the wiki page you know its worth nothing. You cant even figuere it out by just playing the game.

It looks like something that could be patched out with not much effort.
Of course only under the assumptionI I see the problem right.

You are right, technically. There's no reason for a Tinker class to invest actual 5 generic points into any of these skills (yet). But the whole skill tree structure in this game is build in a way that not only the "original classes" (Tinkerer in this case) can use these talents, but other classes as well (e. g. Adventurer or modded classes). These other classes then might have different skill modifiers. Adventurers have a modifier of 1.0, so you get one effective skill level per generic point, but another class might have a modifier of 0.8, which means you would then require 5 actual generic points to get an effective level of 4 (to build a Brain Cap for example). With this whole system in mind, it does make sense to keep the current structure, it's all relative to the skill modifier. A new player won't really understand that in the beginning, of course, it comes with knowing the game well.

That being said, as a general rule for new players: Don't just max out talents because you can, like you would do in Diablo II or other games. Really understand the mechanics and the benefits you get from investing all your points. If by level 50 there's no schematic in your posession that justifies a third point in Explosives, then simply don't go for it.

[Crysten]

Originally posted by Szycag:

Originally posted by Crysten:

Thx for the answer. The Adept tip rly helps to avoid throwing to many points in the Tinker Skills thx.
But for me the problem is the fact you "can" skill Smith, Mechanical, Electricity, Chemistry, Explosives up Skill lvl 5 in the main campain and you get 0% out of it since there are no schematics for them on 5 (or tinker lvl 6). Its like a placeholder.

If that skills would cap out at 4 there would be no problem,
or at least 1 lvl 5 schematic for each Tinkerskill in the maincampain the 5 points would have any meaning. Again its like a placeholder, yes you can skill it but you get 0% out of it and only with the wiki page you know its worth nothing. You cant even figuere it out by just playing the game.

It looks like something that could be patched out with not much effort.
Of course only under the assumptionI I see the problem right.

You are right, technically. There's no reason for a Tinker class to invest actual 5 generic points into any of these skills (yet). But the whole skill tree structure in this game is build in a way that not only the "original classes" (Tinkerer in this case) can use these talents, but other classes as well (e. g. Adventurer or modded classes). These other classes then might have different skill modifiers. Adventurers have a modifier of 1.0, so you get one effective skill level per generic point, but another class might have a modifier of 0.8, which means you would then require 5 actual generic points to get an effective level of 4 (to build a Brain Cap for example). With this whole system in mind, it does make sense to keep the current structure, it's all relative to the skill modifier. A new player won't really understand that in the beginning, of course, it comes with knowing the game well.

That being said, as a general rule for new players: Don't just max out talents because you can, like you would do in Diablo II or other games. Really understand the mechanics and the benefits you get from investing all your points. If by level 50 there's no schematic in your posession that justifies a third point in Explosives, then simply don't go for it.

I am 1000% on your side what you are writing.
But for me its a question about value.
Lets take an example.
Thick Skin gives you a certain amout of resistance. The higher you skill it the less return you get out of it.
So lets assume Thick Skin lvl 5 gives you 1 % more resisnace. Is it worth it to use 1 generic point for it ? Well probably not but it still has some sort of value.

Lets take the example with Smith now.( and Yes I get the moddifier you mean)
Has smith 4 value, well yes under normal circumstances you make Tinker items of lvl 5.
Has Smith lvl 5 any value ? Well no.

Skilling in smith 5 = You didnt get a generic point in the first place.
Its like a trap for throwing a generic point away for 0 return not even 1% value.

The point for me is that it looks like the tinker skills I mentioned are the only ones where you can lose generic points by not knowing the wiki. I played a lot of the other classes ( not all) but so far I didnt find a single skill that gives 0% value to skill up, there is always some sort of return howerver small it might look.

For new players to know they could have spend the points better true but losing points for skilling into something just seems wrong and its only tinker as far as I can tell. (yeah the class was made in the first place for embers of rage but hey its useable in the maincampain)

Everything works so perfect in this game (yes I rly mean it) and than there is this, it just rubs me the wrong way I guess^^

[Szycag]

Ye, I totally can see why. The fix I would personally like to see for this would be more useful schematics that make use of level 5 knowledges. I would like ALL of the unique Steamtech gear only to be craftable for example. That would be also thematically in line with those classes.

[Crysten]

Originally posted by Szycag:

Ye, I totally can see why. The fix I would personally like to see for this would be more useful schematics that make use of level 5 knowledges. I would like ALL of the unique Steamtech gear only to be craftable for example. That would be also thematically in line with those classes.

agreed

[mk11]

You do potentially get something from the levels in that you may get a schematic. However, that is usually very minor.

I'ld like to see actual level drive what tinkers you can use and effective level have a small effect on the quality of the tinkered object (so 7.5 levels would be roughly equivalent to +2 in materials content).

[Crysten]

Originally posted by mk11:

You do potentially get something from the levels in that you may get a schematic. However, that is usually very minor.

I'ld like to see actual level drive what tinkers you can use and effective level have a small effect on the quality of the tinkered object (so 7.5 levels would be roughly equivalent to +2 in materials content).

I like this answer even more. If ok with you I would like to make an example how I think it could look and if you would agreee with that.

"Crystal Plating" is an Armor tinker that gives depending on Tier lvl +(2, 4, 6, 8, 10) to all Stats. In order to make it you need Smith 3.

Lets just change that and say you can do any Smith based schematic already with an active Tinker lvl 1 in Smith but you can only do Tier 1 versions of the Smith Tinkers. You want Tier 2 ? Well get an active Tinker lvl 2 in Smith to do so.

1 Tier Crystal Plating = 1 active Smith and Tier 1 materials
2 Tier Crystal Plating = 2 active Smith and Tier 2 materials
3 Tier Crystal Plating = 3 active Smith and Tier 3 materials
4 Tier Crystal Plating = 4 active Smith and Tier 4 materials
5 Tier Crystal Plating = 5 active Smith and Tier 5 materials
6 Tier Crystal Plating = 6 active Smith and 200% Tier 5 materials that you would need for Tier 5 Crystal Plating since we dont have Tier 6 mats.

And so on...
It sounds good to me. With that the Tinkers scale with your active Tinker lvl. Of course the value return for the higher Tiers is lower like for all other skills in this game. So Tier 6 Crystal Plating might only give you +11 on all stats. Well this example might be a bit bad and we could still go with +12 all stats but you get what I mean ^^

[voronin_mike]

And now all you need is to mode this in. I think it may even be doable. ;)
PS. I personally find it more problematic that many tinker slots have just 1 variant that's clearly the best. For cloaks that's the stun resistance, for boots it's rockets, for gloves - mostly pull if you're melee or blinding powder otherwise, for helms - light radius unless you get one for your lamp, Weapons ones are better rounded up, while body and belt slots are inbetween I think.

[Crysten]

Well I am not that confident in my moding abilities anymore but thx ^^
I know what you mean with the Tinker choice. I went with the same tinkers you mentioned during my run.
But I think its more or less fine how the schematics work. Not because I think its that well balanced but if you made other tinkers more useable it would make the Tinker Talent just mandatory to pick during your run because you get so much variety with differnt Tinkers.
So 1 Talent category point might be locked up just for Tinker cause its that good compared to other Talent trees like...I dont know Antimagic maybe.
But again that would be a very difficult balance question and I would lie if I knew the answer for this one ^^

[mk11]

Originally posted by voronin_mike:

And now all you need is to mode this in. I think it may even be doable. ;)
PS. I personally find it more problematic that many tinker slots have just 1 variant that's clearly the best. For cloaks that's the stun resistance, for boots it's rockets, for gloves - mostly pull if you're melee or blinding powder otherwise, for helms - light radius unless you get one for your lamp, Weapons ones are better rounded up, while body and belt slots are inbetween I think.

No.

Depends on race, class, and other gear. If you are a ghoul you may well have 100% stun resistance without cloak so take all three tinkers and use as you need electric, fire, or nature resistance.

For boots I like Moss Treads but Kinetic Stabilizer for 100% teleport immunity is a close second.

Gloves I usually use Iron Grip but most of the ones that deploy devices are good,

Head, Air Recycler, Focus Lens, Mental Simulator, Brain Cap can all be good.

It would be nice if there were a couple more cloak and foot tinkers for variety.