Editing Tinker (section)

===Materials===
Returning to the above painter metaphor good materials are essential in making good tech; if you wants to mix a certain type of paint then they try to find the right base colors and paint formula, tinkers would be able to get their results with the wrong type of paint and chemistry thanks to their shard but making the shard work so hard for this will decrease the overall quality of the product which is why tinkers tend to focus on getting the best materials available.<ref>A good rule of thumb is a few hundred dollars worth of tech for a single build. $200-$400. Increase the asking price to fit mass. If it takes $300 in materials to build a gun, how much does it cost to cover yourself in that material and add some engines? Getting to the $5000, $7000 range. Chariot only built a frame, not really ''power armor'', which is lightweight and specialized and it might run closer to $2000, $3000. A megaproject, like String Theory's? Filling a whole garage or building with tech, at $100 per square foot? Hundreds of thousands, if not millions.

Now, there are variables here.

* You can cheap out, add weak points (if you get shot in the big glowing weak point on your back you'll explode and your tech stops working), leave it fragile (loses functions or risks misfire on even light bumps & falls), give it less raw power or versatility, maybe shorter battery (now you've gotta finish your mission in 30 minutes or your suit will power down and trap you inside it), less coverage, make it less pretty... you can reduce the price accordingly, to half or a quarter. Gets you started.
* Building tools and workbenches for your workshop costs a chunk of change but will speed up or reduce the prices of everything that you build in that workshop. Part of the process of building a tinker gun might involve building the tools to turn your mom's microwave into something suiting your purpose, but that's passive and minor, though it does accrue. Be mindful of the setback if you lose track - Accord hiring the Travelers to destroy Blasto's workshop would've set him back to zero in this regard.
* Getting your tech from a junkyard, rusted out and crap? That tech's only going to count for a quarter or ten percent for what the price would be if it was whole.
* Stuff isn't thematically relevant? You can't cheap out and pull cars out of a junkyard to dismantle to build your biotinker stuff. Vastly reduced efficacy, especially as you run into diminishing returns (biotinker could use some car batteries, spark plugs, raw metal for vats and general wires, but they'll hit a cap where they've got enough).
* Throw in some specific, gotta-get-out-and-face-conflict items, related thematically to the specialty? Diamonds for the cryogenic gun, space laser from the university science department for a targeting specialist? Stem cells from a secure research lab for your bio tinker? That'll take your tech up a level, and is likely to be important (if it's not one of five things you ''have'' to scrounge up) for your megaproject. Gives some value ranging from $50 to $50,000, depending. Could range higher, but keep in mind that as the number climbs you go from having a scattered few security guards with police on the way to private security firms, secure buildings, and capes that guard the institution. But in general, finding tech or resources that are directly relevant to your specialty comes with a small bonus in how much it counts.
* Double the asking price and double or quadruple the research time as you get off-spec (example: if you're a tinker dealing primarily with pyrokinesis and you want to build a tinkerized no-fire, no-heat bullet gun to use against the fireproof) ''if'' you can get off-spec. Might increase past double as you get further afield.
* Multiply it by ten if you want to make something high quality, that might hold up to being dropped or knocked around.

Generally speaking this is a pretty big hurdle tinkers have to get over. And since building gets you the ability to go out and get more money and components, '''and''' since building stuff is a fast way to figure out directions to take your work, the sooner you get over the hurdle, the better off you are.<br><br>

Keep in mind that theme & the tinker's trigger could inform this all in small ways. What was the dilemma or long term problem that drove them? Even if they aren't a resource-type tinker, there could be nuances to how they approach it all that mirror the trigger.<br><br>This is why tinkers go to the PRT. In exchange for loyalty, they cover the costs. Other big sponsoring groups (the Elite, Dark Society, even the Fallen) will often help out in a big way. Even joining a group of some sort that's willing to help you out in exchange for your talents if you can build something is pretty big. There's a reason the majority of top tier tinkers come from the PRT and groups on a similar scale.<br><br>Keep in mind also that if you're a new tinker and you're trying to find your way forward on your own, if you settle into a pattern, then that's a pattern that may be exploited. People will track you down or start to come after you. Groups will kidnap or strongarm a tinker into joining to provide them with that sheer versatility and ability to problem solve. Tinkers are powerful but they're also vulnerable.<br><br>So, to start with, going by the price of $200-$400 (NOT a hard & fast rule) to build a bog standard tinker gun that might be a bit fragile, that's going to mean dismantling your television and microwave, and where does that get you? A dip in quality of life and now you've got a gun, putting you a bit behind your average blaster. That's a steep road to climb. - [https://www.reddit.com/r/Parahumans/comments/pjvaf1/_/hbzca3i/ Wildbow in Reddit]</ref>