Read work bonuses correctly, organise your loadouts and understand critical crafting.
Contents
Check the active activity
The Equipment panel separates work speed into Gear, Enchants and Other. Start the activity you care about to include its skill level, station bonus and skill-specific effects in the displayed total. A general idle total is not a complete prediction for every skill.
For ordinary gathering and crafting, bonuses in the work-speed formula add together. A displayed +50% means 1.5× speed; +100% means 2× speed. Doubling speed halves the time of the same base action. A bonus to Fishing applies while fishing and is not a universal work bonus.
Sources of work speed
Sailing uses a separate speed calculation, including the ship. Combat attack speed is also separate. Do not apply the ordinary work formula to a fight or assume a harvesting-only companion affects every craft.
- Each level above 1 contributes +1.2% to that skill's ordinary work speed.
- Equipment and the applicable character enchants contribute their listed bonuses.
- Work tonics provide a temporary bonus while their timer is active.
- Smithing and Cooking receive a +25% station bonus after North grove is unlocked.
- Skillcapes, permanent Settlement projects and eligible companion effects can add further bonuses.
- Ranged milestones add work speed specifically to Hunter and Trophy Hunting.
Build specialised equipment sets
There are Work, Melee, Ranged and Magic sets. Work and Melee are available from the start; the Ranged set opens with Ancient grounds, and the Magic set with Aurora basin. Wearing requirements still apply to each item.
You can preview a different set's stats without activating it. Enable Auto gearsets to switch to Work for non-combat activities and to the matching saved set for combat. The automatic switch requires an unlocked, populated set whose equipment you can wear. Shopping, stopping and browsing equipment do not themselves trigger a switch.
A two-handed weapon cannot be combined with an occupied offhand slot. Remove the conflicting item before changing that loadout.
Permanent enchants
Character enchants apply across equipment sets. For each enchant kind, only the strongest version counts; repeating an older version does not stack its work bonus. This differs from wearing several equipment pieces whose stat bonuses contribute to the active set.
Construction furniture provides the Comfort enchant, Invention mechanisms provide Precision, and Archaeology relics provide Insight XP enchants. Read the confirmation before using a permanent enchant item.
Critical crafting is an XP bonus
Critical crafting can award double XP on eligible crafts. It does not double the item output or ingredient cost. Gear, Metallurgy, Settlement projects, the Wispbound hare revenant and Lucidity infusions can contribute to the chance.
The double-XP chance caps at 35%. Bonus beyond 35% becomes a separate triple-XP chance, capped at 65%. These are alternative outcomes from the same roll, not a guarantee of both bonuses. Sailing and Mountaineering do not use this critical-crafting system.