Fellow Tinkers,

I come before you with open arms and open log books
to report the history of my tinkering. Please
forgive my verbosity for I am a quiet tinkering
gnome wizard that spends much time muttering to
himself. :o)

I made each of the following in order until it went
trivial. Flameless Lanterns, Standard Bow Cams,
Spyglasses, and finally Stalking Probes. This of
course got me to 102 skill. At no point did I
attempt an item until every lesser item was
trivial.

On a side note, I have always sold Spyglasses for
80pp and have sold well over 100 of them but lost
count. I've sold 18 in a night before. I have
firmly established 80pp as the going rate on Povar
through endless auctioning in all manner of zones,
be it newbie, mid-level, or LGuk/SolB. Spyglasses
are a great way to help finance Aqualung attempts.

/auction Selling tinkered Spyglass with unlimited
charges of Telescope (like binoculars). Great for
pullers! 80pp. Use it to spot that rare wandering
spawn!

/auction Selling tinkered Spyglass with unlimited
charges of Telescope (like binoculars). Great for
pullers! 80pp. Use it to spot naked newbies!

etc.

Of the below Aqualungs, I painfully, over many
weeks, sold all of the first 30 I produced. I
charged 500pp for each and barely covered costs.

/auction Selling a tinkered Aqualung with 50
charges of waterbreathing (half hour RL each) for
500pp (merchant pays 190pp, so 310pp net). To
compare, 50 EB potions costs 600pp and do not
stack! Declare your independence from EB casters!
Support the trades!

/auction Selling a tinkered Aqualung with 50
charges of waterbreathing (half hour RL each) for
500pp (merchant pays 190pp, so 310pp net). To
compare, 50 EB potions costs 600pp and do not
stack! It's winter, help the fish keep their
scales!

etc.

When tinkering Aqualungs, I got a wis suit from
a plat level enchanter friend. I would get these
buffs from a 44+ enchanter (/who all enc 44 50):
wis/int/str/cha. Since I am a wizard, I could
go to them while being bound at the tinkering
merchant or the Ak'Anon bank as the mood struck.
I would replace int gear with wis gear until my
int (with buff) was 199 and my wis was 132. I
never bought or sold with a cha less than 100. By
the way, cha over 100 is the same as cha 100.
Also, pay a plat and get a SoW...speeds things up.

Tries Successes Failures Skill Increases
----- --------- -------- ---------------
6 4 2 0
10 4 6 3
20 10 10 3
30 12 18 6
38 29 9 7
24 16 8 4
16 11 5 6
52 46 6 6
40 31 9 10
10 7 3 1*
----- --------- -------- ---------------
246 170 76 46
100% 69.10% 30.89% 18.70%

* Was trivial on the 3rd try of this batch.

After the first 30 successes were sold, I sold
my Runed Cowl for fort knox to a level 50 wizard
and converted all the items into cash. Along
with what I already had, this got me a nestegg
of 17kpp. I did the last 180 tries of Aqualungs
by selling the successes back to the merchant.
This cost me 12.5kpp to reach the trivial point.
If anyone on Povar has a spare Runed Cowl, I
would be very thankful. :o)

Given that my cost-with-failures per Aqualung is
now 270pp, Rebreathers are 966pp per try. I will
now charge the public 400pp per Aqualung. The
Rebreather will cost the public 3000pp or trade
equivalent.

Given just those prices, 7.5 Aqualungs can be
bought for the price on one Rebreather. That's
187.5 RL hours under water. And that doesn't
count the fact that the Aqualung, once used, can
be sold to a merchant for some plats to help buy
even more Aqualungs for the same net cost as the
Rebreather.

There's no question in my mind that the Aqualung
is a much more economical solution and the
Rebreather is just nice for those people with too
much money. To put the final nail in the coffin,
Aqualungs can be activated from the inventory
but Rebreathers must be worn in the head slot.
For the average caster with a Runed Cowl or tank
with a massive helm, this is a real pain.

Finally, I thought I'd share my broader trade
skill experience.

Trade Skill
----- -----
Baking 142
Brewing 143
Pottery 146
Smithing 138
Tinkering 148
----- -----
Total 717
i.e. I'd be level 50 by now otherwise lol

I finally have some Brownie Parts, so Birthday
Cakes are next. And I heard fletching was easy
to master... Who needs to reach 50 anyway? lol

Flintnilf Ironori
Level 42 wizard of Solusek Ro
Master Baker/Brewer/Potter/Smith/Tinker
Squire of Dark Valor
Povar Server