Crafting

Crafting is the fine art of taking a set of items and turning them into something greater than the sum of their parts.

Crafting an Item

Once everything needed is acquired, an item can be constructed out of any recipe at an Alchemy Machine. The process will expend the listed materials, Crowns, and Energy. Crafting always succeeds, and there is no concept of crafting "skill": the Alchemy Machine does all the tough work, and never fails! Technology is a wonderful thing.

Things Needed

In order to begin crafting, three things need to be located: a recipe, the materials detailed in the recipe, and an alchemy machine.

Recipe

Recipes are purchased from shops. The Bazaar in Haven has a Stranger with a small stock of basic equipment recipes. Hover over the recipes to see details on the item it will create. After a recipe is purchased it can be found in the Arsenal under Recipes. Once a recipe is learned, the associated item may be crafted as many times as desired.

Materials

Crafting materials can be found in The Clockworks. Certain recipes may also require other pieces of equipment, or even leveled up pieces of equipment. The items created by such recipes are typically very powerful. Press F5 or select Recipes from the Menu in the upper left corner to bring up the Recipe Manager. Here you can get more information on which materials are needed to create the item. Notice that the Recipe Manager can't create the item, for that you need the Alchemy Machines described below.

Alchemy Machine

Alchemy Machines are located throughout town areas. For example, Haven has an Alchemy Machine in the Bazaar, Arcade, and Main Square.

Unique Variants

When crafting an item, you will sometimes be informed that you have crafted a "unique variant." These items have a stat bonus.

The variant's bonus is described in the tooltip and marked with a star icon.

Crafting Materials

Shards

The most common crafting material found in The Clockworks, shards are tiny pieces of mineral which are too small for use in gate construction, but are well-suited to making equipment. Shards come in five colors, each corresponding to one of the common mineral types found on Cradle: Red Shards, Green Shards and Blue Shards are all readily available, while Light Shards and Dark Shards are a little rarer.

Scrap

A number of Clockworks denizens are either made of or frequently utilize machinery, and thus when they are mercilessly beaten by roving bands of Spiral Knights, they have been known to drop pieces of scrap that are usable in crafting. Types of scrap you'll most likely encounter include Scrap Metal and Bronze Bolts.

Cells

Scavenged cells from broken or discarded machines are the most common way that Spiral Knights add elemental affinities to their equipment. Cells in good working order are somewhat rare finds in The Clockworks, but the types you are most likely to come across in your travels are the fiery Fuel Canister, the chilling Cooling Cell and the rather shocking Power Cell.

Fluids

Beast

Wood

Powder

Cores

The sentient jellies that roam the Clockworks' halls are made up of a quivering material that has a few practical uses when collected. The notion may seem disgusting to you, but when you've crash landed on a strange planet, you take what you can get! The most common type is the Gel Core, ranging all the way up to the most rare Royal Core. It's said that both are rather delicious when prepared properly.

Coils

Textiles

Gears

Bone

Miscellaneous