How To Use The Tinkering Skill In Caves Of Qud

There are a lot of skills for you to learn in Caves of Qud. By a lot, we mean more than you can even manage. Many of these skills will need to be learned by spending skill points, but with Tinkering, you can also learn it from an NPC in the world.

Caves Of Qud: AV And DV, Explained

AV and DV are two important stats that you can increase in Caves of Qud. Here, you can learn the differences between the two.

In this guide, we are going to take a look at everything you should know about the Tinkering skill in Caves of Qud. This will include how you can learn the base skill for the first time, as well as what exactly Tinkering entails and what you can do with this skill.

How To Learn The Tinkering Skill

A player standing in Grit Gate for a featured image.

There are two main ways to learn the Tinkering skill, which you can find below.

Method	Cost
Unlock From ‘Skills’ Menu	100 SP
Ask a Barathrumite to teach Tinkering during the Water Ritual	100 Reputation with the Barathrumites

Once learned, you’ll be able to spend SP on the other sub-skills related to Tinkering. At this point, you won’t be able to actually do any crafting, but you’ll be a bit more successful at examining artifacts that you find.

All Tinkering Skills

A player looking at the learnable tinkering skill.

If you want to process forward in the Tinkering skill, you’ll need to unlock the sub-skills, which are found under the Tinkering dropdown in the ‘Skills’ menu. Below, you can find each one of these skills and what it does.

Skill	Description	Cost	Requirements To Unlock
Gadget Inspector	You’re more successful at examining artifacts. You can now deploy wiring.	0 SP	This will unlock automatically when you learn Tinkering.
Disassemble	You can disassemble scraps and artifacts to get Bits.	100 SP	15 Intelligence
Reverse Engineer	When you disassemble something, you have a 25% chance to learn how to make it.	100 SP	25 Intelligence Disassemble unlocked
Scavenger	When you walk over garbage, you will occasionally pick up scrap. When destroying robots, you harvest extra scrap.	100 SP	15 Intelligence
Repair	You can repair broken things with Bits.	100 SP	17 Intelligence
Deploy Turret	You can deploy missile weapons as stationary turrets.	100 SP	17 Intelligence
Lay Mine/Set Bomb	You can use grenades as mines or bombs.	50 SP	17 Intelligence
Tinker I	You can build low-tier schematics. This comes with one free schematic. You can also recharge energy cells and capacitors now.	100 SP	19 Intelligence
Tinker II	You can build mid-tier schematics. This comes with one free schematic.	200 SP	Tinker I unlocked 23 Intelligence
Tinker III	You can build high-tier schematics. This comes with one free schematic.	300 SP	Tinker II unlocked 29 Intelligence

As you can see, you will first need to unlock Tinker I if you want to actually start building things. Because of this, we recommend saving your SP to unlock this skill.

How To Get Schematics

Schematics are called Data Disks in the game too. This is the actual item that holds the schematic.

There are a few ways to learn schematics. Firstly, with the Reverse Engineer skill, you may learn a schematic when disassembling something. This isn’t guaranteed, but it’s a great way to learn passively without actively seeking out a Data Disk.

The other way to obtain schematics is to either buy or loot them. Vendors around the world may sell Data Disks for you to learn. Below, you can check out some of these vendors.

Vendor	Location
Argyve	Joppa
Jacobo	Grit Gate
Sparafucile	Grit Gate
Yla Haj	Ezra
Tinkerers	This is a vendor type that appears in randomly generated villages.
Schematic Drafter	Stiltgrounds (this vendor has its own tent)

During a Water Ritual, Legendary Barathrumites can also teach you schematics. By speaking with Q Girl in Grit Gate, we learned the recipe for Leyline Puppeteers.

What Are Schematic Tiers?

All schematics are split into three tiers. There are a lot of schematics in the game so the list is quite long, but when you do learn a new schematic, you’ll be able to see what Tinker level you need. For example, after unlocking the schematic for Leyline Puppeteers and clicking on it, a box appeared saying that we need Tinker III in order to craft it.

When you get a new schematic, be sure to look at it in the ‘Tinkering’ tab of the menu. If you happen to have too many schematics to keep track of, you can sort through them at the top of this screen.

How To Craft Schematics

A player looking at the leyline puppeteers schematic.

You can get Bits by disassembling artifacts and scraps.

Schematics require Bits to craft, with the following Bit types in Caves of Qud.

Bit Type	Designator
Scrap Power Systems	A
Scrap Crystal	B
Scrap Metal	C
Scrap Electronics	D
Phasic Power Systems	1
Flawless Crystal	2
Pure Alloy	3
Pristine Electronics	4
Nanomaterials	5
Photonics	6
AI Microcontrollers	7
Metacrystal	8

Each one of these materials has a designated letter/number, along with a color. Let’s continue with our Leyline Puppeteers as an example. This has a Bit cost of D2358. So, in order to craft this, you’ll need the following.

Scrap Electronics
Flawless Crystal
Pristine Electronics
Nanomaterials
Metacrystal

Each schematic has the materials listed like this. No need to remember the letter/number designator; this is displayed to the right of the schematic description.

Schematics can be used to craft weapons, armor, various items (like injectors and recoilers), as well as mods.