Tanning

Tanning is the craft of turning harvested skins into useful products. These products can range from something as simple as a small pouch to items as elaborate as armor.

I will caution you now. This page and the tanning data page will give all new meaning to what I said on the front page of this site about a "work in progress". As I find new patterns and new skins to add to the charts below, I will add them. As I continue to gain skill and am able to attempt more patterns and do so with more skins, I will post that data here and on the tanning data page, as appropriate. It will quite likely never be "complete" as the game itself is always changing so there will always be something else to skin or perhaps another pattern I haven't gotten to yet. All I can promise is that I will be posting as much data as I can, and hope that it helps whoever might be reading this page.

Here I will explain the basic process and collect information on the skins used as well as the patterns available. Non-armor and non-weapon patterns have no measurable qualities of significant note, one's choice is based primarily on what sort of look they are seeking and possibly the final product's value, which is the combination of the value of the skins themselves, for the most part. Therefore, the majority of the information I collect in detail will be regarding the armor and weapon patterns. You can view that information on the tanning data page.

Each pattern requires a certain number of pieces to complete and each skin provides a certain number of pieces towards a pattern. Below, following the basic procedure for tanning, you will find tables listing the number of pieces per pattern and per skin as well as the value of pelts gained through a "skillful peel" of a creature which was not arranged for skinning first.

For armor patterns, only a "skin" or "hide" can be used and are cured using leather lotion. A skin or hide can also be used for non-armor patterns, but lotion must still be used to cure them. All other skinning products ... pelts, sheepskins, etc ... use pelt potion and cannot be used for armor patterns. Products which aren't skin-like in nature (horns, hooves, teeth, etc) can not be used for tanning at this time. Later on I may consider adding a list of shops where patterns are sold as well as a list of what patterns each shop sells and their current (at the time of publication) shelf price.

A couple of notes about this process. First, you scrape a skin with "scrape <skin> with my scraper [quick/normal/careful]". The faster you scrape (quick/normal/careful comes with a 10/20/30 second roundtime, respectively), the more difficult it is and the more likely you will make a mistake. All three speeds teach the same, the advantage of scraping quickly is in spending less time in RT and more time doing something else. Snagging the scraper doesn't mean the end of the world, additional scrapes will teach, and even failed scrapes teach mech lore although only successful ones teach skinning. But for a top-quality product, snagging the scraper does mean you may want to ditch that skin and move on to the next. Should you end up with "a ruined <skin>" the skin is now worthless and you might as well just throw it away.

Also, making mistakes while cutting, poking or stringing the set will lower the value/quality of the final product but you can always finish it unless you make a catastrophic mistake and ruin it. If you are concerned with high quality, start over as soon as a mistake is made, but this means in order to finish a product, you will either have to be very lucky or have skills WELL above the intended level for a particular pattern.

There are too many variables involved for me to even think of trying to quantify the difficulty levels involved, but as a general rule, the more features/complexity/protection (as applicable) an item has, the tougher it's pattern will be to use. For instance, a set of full leathers is tougher to tan than a breastplate. Also, a pocketed hat will be tougher than a normal hat would be.

Skin Values

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