Invention training

Invention is an elite skill with several unique methods of gaining experience, with techniques involving both combat and non-combat activities. Players can speak with Doc in the invention guild to begin the Invention tutorial, which both outlines the skill and gets players through the first few levels of training.

Basic principles
Before the Invention skill can be unlocked, players must first have at least level 80 in Crafting, Divination, and Smithing. Players who meet these requirements should head to the Invention guild, located in the cliff-face just north-east of the Falador lodestone. Speaking to Doc begins the tutorial, in which several key concepts of training is outlined - Discovery, Materials and Manufacturing, Augmenting, and Perks.

Discovery
Before anything can be discovered, a player requires Inspiration. Inspiration is a resource which is gained in chunks every time a player reaches a new Invention level as well as by siphoning and disassembling augmented equipment. Inspiration can also strike randomly while engaging in combat or skilling, though there is a finite amount of Inspiration that can be gained at a given Invention level before reaching a cap.

Though each set of blueprints is available at a set Invention level, they need to be unlocked through the Discovery process in order to be used, which can be done at any Inventor's workbench (such as the one in the Invention Guild). Players should seek to use as little inspiration as possible during the Discovery process. The tutorial guides the player through the discovery of the charge pack, the augmentor, and the weapon gizmo shell.

Materials
Like any artisan skill, Invention requires specific materials and components in order to manufacture products. Most items that can be alchemised can be disassembled into an assortment of materials. Precisely what materials the player is likely to receive can be checked with the Analyse ability. Materials are grouped into four categories: common, uncommon, rare, and junk. Items that are considered "low-tier" tend to produce a lot of junk (a useless material), with higher-tiered items being more likely to produce desirable components (e.g., a bronze platebody has a very high junk chance while a rune platebody has a much lower one). Disassembling items that took more resources to create also tend to yield more components (i.e., even though a rune helmet and a rune platebody are the same tier of item, a rune platebody yields a larger number of materials when disassembled). While most common and uncommon materials come from a wide variety of sources, some rare components are specific to a single item or set of items (e.g., the only source of Shifting components are chaotic weapons and shields).

Generally players seek to find a balance between junk rate and cost. Mithril and adamant equipment are often a happy medium, though Sir Vyvin's shop of White equipment is a good resource for many common and uncommon components. Materials are primarily used to manufacture items, though they can also be used to add an assortment of perks to weapon and armour gizmo shells. A complete list of devices, their function, and the materials needed to make them can be found here.

The cost-effectiveness of items for gathering components can be compared with Calculator:Disassembly by category and Calculator:Disassembly by material.

Augmenting items
To augment an item, players need an augmentor, which is manufactured with a number of divine energy (the amount depends on the tier; for example, it can be 2,000 pale energy or 225 incandescent energy), 45 Base parts, 45 flexible parts, 45 tensile parts, 8 enhancing components, and 7 powerful components. The augmentor can then be used on any augmentable item in order to allow the player to level that item up in order to gain Invention experience at a later time. The player may also optionally add gizmos to it to gain perks.

Perks
Up to 5 types of materials can be exchanged for a perk. The perk received is often random, depending on the materials, with junk components giving almost useless perks. A list of perks that can be gained can be seen when adding materials to your gizmo shell. When creating the gizmo, one or more of those is selected. Some perks have ranks, from 1 to a maximum rank of 2 to 5.

Gizmos
Gizmos can only be added to augmented items. A weapon gizmo shell can be manufactured with 10 blade parts, 5 crafted parts, and 2 strong components. They can then be charged with other materials (obtained from disassembling) to create perks.

Creating gizmos gives some experience, but is not meant to be the main source of experience. Immediately after the release of the skill, creating gizmos was the most effective method to train Invention, but this has since been heavily reduced in order to be more aligned with the original intention of the skill.

Experience
After augmenting items, players are then able to level them up by using them normally. For example, an augmented weapon can be levelled up by using it in combat. Doing so drains energy from the charge pack. The rate of drain depends upon how many augmented items are being used at the same time and the tiers of the items. Higher-tiered items drain energy more quickly.

Players can disassemble augmented items for materials and experience. Beginning at level 27, players can discover and construct equipment siphons to extract experience without destroying the items. Siphons are single-use. The experience gained from siphoning an item is the same as from disassembling it two levels lower.

The experience gained from disassembling and siphoning augmented equipment is tiered.

Base Parts

 * Most weapons and shields from the White Knight shop
 * All items from the Varrock sword shop
 * All weapons, excluding battleaxes from the Warriors guild armoury

Tensile Parts

 * Unstrung maple bows or better

Flexible Parts

 * Unstrung maple bows or better
 * Spirit terrorbird pouches

Enhancing

 * Ring of slaying
 * Potions
 * Empty light orb
 * Lantern lens

Powerful

 * Insulated boots
 * Polypore Dungeon Supplies
 * Spirit terrorbird pouches
 * White magic staves
 * Zaff's staff shop

Levels 1-4
Completion of the tutorial yields at least 2615 experience (a maximum of 287 experience short of level 4). If players do not have level 4 by the time they have completed the tutorial, they can quickly disassemble items to make up for any remaining experience (for instance, disassembling a Yew shieldbow gives 12 experience).

Levels 4–27
Once players reach level 4, they should immediately research the maximum equipment level 5 blueprint. Once this is done, roughly 186,000 experience is needed for level 27. The most effective way to gain this experience is by augmenting tier 70-75 equipment and training their items to level 5 (players should save higher-tiered gear until later). Disassembling a level 5 item grants 91,800/99,900 experience, for tier 70/75 respectively (see below for more details about levelling equipment). This means that disassembling two item level 5 items is enough to reach level 27. The quest Back to the Freezer gives 10,000 Invention experience, which can be very useful. However the tutorial needs to be completed to claim this reward.

Levels 27+
When the player reaches level 27, they should unlock the ability to train augmented equipment to level 10. One relatively cheap option for training these levels is by augmenting black salamanders, as they are easy to obtain, and have a lower cost than most other augmentable weapons.

Combat
One of the fastest method of training Invention is training augmented weapons and armour. If you plan to disassemble the augmented equipment, then it should be trained to level 10, as this maximises the amount of experience gained without wasting your time. However, if you plan to siphon the equipment, you should train it to level 9 or 12. As shown in the tables from Calculator:Equipment experience by tier, training to level 9 maximises invention experience per item experience (roughly 20k extra invention experience per item), at the cost of extra siphons; training to level 12 maximizes invention experience per siphon, at the cost of extra time and siphons spent levelling the item.

Recommended melee weapons for augment training include the enhanced excalibur, Balmung, and Korasi's sword. These weapons are ideal due to their low cost, ease of replacement, and immunity to price action in the Grand Exchange. Additionally, if the player has enough Commendations or Thaler, Jessika's sword is a very affordable weapon usable for augmentation and disassembly (especially since you can level the weapon during the Pest Control games, making the most of your time). Good ranged weapons to augment are black salamanders, hand cannons and the Royal crossbow. For mages, popular weapons to augment and disassemble include the Abyssal wand and abyssal orb, Crystal staff, Sunspear (magic) and staff of light. It is important to remember that the invention experience rewards scale with tier of weapon.

If using siphons, it is best to use the best gear due to the fact that it gives more experience, the gear levels faster, and with siphons you won't lose your gear. Also you can add perks to them which could increase your standard experience gain and earnings from activities such as bossing or high level slayer.

The fastest method of training Invention that involves combat is currently by using an augmented noxious scythe or augmented dragon rider lance at airuts with a dwarf multicannon in Mazcab. This method might be expensive for some players because it uses many cannonballs and other supplies such as potions and divine charges. It is recommended to use a scrimshaw of vampyrism or superior version of the scrimshaw with overloads, because airuts might hit harder and you lose as much health if you are not using any healing method. For additional accuracy you can use a blood nihil familiar or any tier of the brawler aura. The Efficient perk also helps to reduce the charge drain rate.

Another fast method of combat based invention training is using ancient magicks on Muspah at Freneskae. This method requires the completion of Fate of the Gods and can be profitable depending on how much of the drops are looted. It is recommended to either siphon an Augmented noxious staff or disassemble one of the following: Augmented polypore staff, Augmented staff of light, Augmented Sunspear (magic), or an Augmented chaotic staff if tokens are abundant. The use of Magic notepaper, revolution, and area-based looting are highly recommended to make the training less intensive. Note that with tier 75 weapons, accuracy is not 100%. In this case, the use of a Superior Scrimshaw of Magic, the Runic Accuracy aura, and possibly an Ice nihil (familiar) are advised.

Skilling
An alternative to combat is to train tools to gain Invention experience. Tools offer a less intensive method to train Invention at an overall lower Invention experience rate (mostly because only one item is trained at a time). Tools also drain charge at a much lower rate, reducing cost.

Augmenting tools requires research at level 22: augmented hatchets, pickaxes, and/or the fishing rod-o-matic. Tools benefit from having higher Woodcutting/Fishing levels to access higher experience rate methods, as the equipment experience rate is directly tied to the base skilling experience rate for that tool. Augmentable tools are dragon and crystal hatchets and pickaxes, and the crystal fishing rod; the fishing rod-o-matic functions as an augmented item but does not require an augmentor. Due to the time investment and cost to obtain it, crystal hatchets and pickaxes are generally siphoned and not disassembled.

Ideal methods for training tools include:
 * Hatchets (see also Pay-to-play Woodcutting training):
 * Crystal trees
 * Ivy
 * Teak trees
 * Golden bamboo
 * Fishing rods (see also Pay-to-play Fishing training):
 * Prifddinas Waterfall Fishing
 * Barbarian Fishing
 * Wobbegong
 * Pickaxes (see also Pay-to-play Mining training):
 * Seren stones
 * Granite rocks
 * Concentrated gold rocks
 * Alaea crablet

Levelling up combat items
Equipment experience for combat items is a function of combat experience, so you generally want to choose a monster that gives fast combat experience rates. Note that equipment experience for items is gained per hit, so other forms of damage (e.g. familiars) does not grant equipment experience. The important factor is damage dealt personally, so other means of damaging the enemies can still be used to increase combat experience rates without hurting equipment levelling too much.

Summary
There are four basic ways to train Invention to level 99, with the method of choice applied right after you complete the tutorial.


 * The slowest - skilling and disassembling or siphoning the item. This takes around 96 dragon hatchets, or 79 crystal hatchets/rods or rod-o-matics (either augmentors or siphons).
 * The least costly and next slowest - levelling top tier (Tier 90) gear through combat and applying equipment siphons to reset each item as it reaches item level 12. This requires approximately one weapon set, body armour, leg armour, 3 augmentors (4 if using dual-wielding), 67 equipment siphons, and 278 divine charges. This translates to 135 Base parts, 135 Tensile parts, 135 Flexible parts, 24 Enhancing components, 21 Powerful components, 10250 Simple parts, 335 Dextrous components, and 335 Precious components. It is recommended to obtain Ascended components or Shifting components for Efficient 3 perks.
 * Slightly costly (Low hundreds of millions coins or profitable depending on training location) - levelling lower tier (Tier 70 to 85) gear through combat and disassembling each item as it reaches item level 10. This requires approximately 28 weapon sets, 19 body armours, 18 leg armours, 65 augmentors, and 136 divine charges. This translates to 2925 Base parts, 2925 Tensile parts, 2925 Flexible parts, 520 Enhancing components, 455 Powerful components, and 2720 Simple parts. It is recommended to obtain Ascended components or Shifting components for Efficient 3 perks.
 * The most expensive and fastest (one to two billion coins) but no combat required - manufacture Weapon gizmo shells and Armour gizmo shells, fill five slots with the highest level materials you can use, create perks, and repeat. Recommended materials include Explosive components, Rumbling components, and Undead components as the supporting items provide enough components to fill a full gizmo shell.

If levelling your gear, priority unlocks are Augmented armour, Augmented leg armour, Augmented item maximum level 5/10/15, Charge drain reduction 1-8, and Junk chance reduction 1-8. If manufacturing gizmos, priority unlocks are Junk chance reduction 1-8 and unlocking the components you use to train to level 99.

To offset costs when levelling gear to disassemble, it's recommended to take advantage of any untradable items you may have in your bank, as in a sense the items are prepaid. Examples include Korasi's sword, Balmung, Enhanced excalibur, the Crystal bow from the elf quest series, Chaotic equipment, superior Player-owned port armour, and Player-owned port magic/melee weapons.

Discovery
While discovery is not the main source of experience, discovering all blueprints ranging from levels 1 to 105 yields over 4 million experience. Though the bulk of this experience comes at higher levels, players should still be careful when using up Inspiration, and try to reach the inspiration cap before gaining a level.

Experience lamps and bonus experience
After an update on 25 July 2016, experience rewards (such as lamps and stars) are able to be redeemed on the Invention skill. This includes all conventional methods of gaining extra experience, such as Tears of Guthix, quest lamps, and more. In order to gain experience in Tears of Guthix, Invention must be unlocked with the least experience out of all the skills or with a level lower than 120 when other skills (excluding Dungeoneering) are at least level 99.

Completing quests
The only quest to offer Invention experience is Back to the Freezer with 10,000 experience (which is saved if you are yet to finish the tutorial).