Engineering · Freegliders

Clockwork Mechanics

Clockwork Mechanics is the foundational engineering skill. Practitioners work with power cores, perpetual energy sources that drive all energized devices. A clockwork mechanic can energize fuel-powered tools and weapons - making them work with power cores instead of consuming fuel, and couple multiple power cores together to create higher-rated cores capable of driving more powerful equipment.

The signature ability of Clockwork Mechanics is Artificing: attaching clockwork modules to objects to give them persistent effects. Artificed modules draw from the object's power core and can do anything from heating a blade to keeping a compass spinning true. Higher ranks allow more modules per object and enable the creation of more complex module designs.

Automachinery

Automatons are mechanical beings built from a chassis, movement system, and modular components. The Automachinery skill covers designing and assembling these constructs - from small courier automatons to large combat units. Automatons can be equipped with weapons, tool modules, and specialist systems, and they follow orders from their builder.

At higher ranks, an engineer can build Automechs - large pilotable suits of mechanical power armour. An automech is piloted from within and acts as a vehicle in combat, dramatically increasing the pilot's reach, toughness, and offensive capability. Larger automechs require higher rank to design and build.

Augmentation

Augmentation deals with prosthetics and powered mechanical limbs. A basic prosthetic restores lost functionality; an autolimb goes further - it is powered and can accept modular upgrades that enhance strength, precision, or utility far beyond a natural limb. Autolimbs are fuelled by a power core integrated into the limb itself.

Advanced augmenters can install mechanical organs and adapt automaton components for use as limbs. At the highest ranks, an augmenter can install augmentations in themselves or others without any ranks in the medicine skill - a procedure that would normally require surgical expertise.

Gunsmithing

Gunsmiths craft and modify ranged weapons - bows, pistols, rifles, and heavy artillery. A crafted weapon is tailored to its maker's preferred specifications and typically outperforms a standard purchased weapon in reliability and performance. Gunsmiths also unlock the ability to install modifications: scopes, suppressors, extended magazines, elemental chambers, and more.

Because gunsmiths know exactly how their weapons function, they also gain combat bonuses when using weapons they built themselves - a skilled gunsmith wielding their own creation is a formidable opponent.

Tinkering

Tinkering is the support skill of engineering. Tinkerers craft parts (components needed by other engineering skills), explosives (grenades, mines, and charges of various types), and scrap useful materials from objects that would otherwise be junk.

Tinkerers also improve the craftsmanship of engineering work: a tinkerer assisting another engineer raises the quality of the finished item. At higher ranks, tinkerers can disassemble and reverse engineer devices they encounter way faster than anyone else.

Vehicle Mechanics

Vehicle Mechanics covers building and maintaining all forms of vehicle: carts, automobiles, boats, airships, and war machines. A vehicle mechanic assembles engines, frames, and components into a functional whole, and can tune an existing vehicle to improve its speed, durability, or fuel efficiency.

In the field, a vehicle mechanic is invaluable for emergency repairs - patching up a damaged hull section, restarting a stalled engine, or jury-rigging a broken steering mechanism to limp back to port. At high ranks, vehicle mechanics can design and build entirely new vehicle types from scratch.