Mastering the Invention System

TL;DR

1. Open Invention panel — click the Invention icon (or press X)

2. Experiment — select items in the Experimentation tab, hit "Begin Experiments" to gain knowledge XP in categories (Tree, Wood, Flint, etc.)

3. Discover ideas — after each experiment, ideas unlock based on your knowledge XP + a random roll. Some ideas (like Create Fire) need zero knowledge

4. Prototype ideas into skills — Ideas tab, select an idea, provide materials. Success gives a skill with randomized speed/quality/success-rate. Prototype multiple times for better rolls

5. Use skills — Skills tab, pick a skill, provide materials + tools, execute. Permanent and reusable

Key tips: Experiment on diverse items (10% XP cap per category). Prototype key skills repeatedly for faster/better versions. Knowledge flows up the hierarchy (Stick XP also counts toward Wood).

Most games hand you a crafting menu and call it a day. Initium doesn't work like that. Instead of browsing a list of recipes, you have to discover them — by experimenting with the world around you, stumbling on ideas, and then refining those ideas into practical skills through trial and error. It's messy, unpredictable, and deeply satisfying when it all clicks.

This guide covers everything you need to know about how the Invention System works — from your very first experiment to mastering the art of prototyping the perfect skill.

Getting Started: Opening the Invention Panel

The Invention System is available in both the Classic UI and the Experimental View. You don't need to switch to any specific view to start experimenting, prototyping, or using skills.

To open the Invention panel, click the Invention icon in the UI (or press the X key as a keyboard shortcut). This works in any view and opens the Invention panel as a popup. You can also access experimentation through individual items — when you click on an item and open its popup, there's an "Experiment on this item" button available.

If you're in the Experimental View (the 2D grid map), you'll also find the Invention panel accessible from the bottom action bar. The grid map gives you the additional ability to select specific tiles for skills that place objects in the world (like creating a firepit at a chosen spot). But the core Invention System — experimenting, discovering ideas, and prototyping skills — works the same everywhere.

The Invention panel has three tabs that represent the three stages of the invention process:

• Experimentation — where you study items to gain knowledge
• Ideas — where your discovered ideas appear, waiting to be prototyped
• Skills — where your finished, usable skills live

Think of these as a pipeline: experimentation feeds into ideas, which feed into skills. Let's walk through each stage.

Stage 1: Experimentation — Building Your Knowledge

Experimentation is the foundation of the entire system. By studying items — examining them, taking them apart mentally, understanding their properties — your character builds up knowledge in various categories. That knowledge is what eventually unlocks new ideas.

How to Run an Experiment

Open the Invention panel and navigate to the Experimentation tab. You'll see a list of items that are available for experimentation — these include items in your inventory and items sitting on the ground nearby.

Each item has a checkbox next to it. Select one or more items you want to study, then click "Begin Experiments". Your character will spend a short period studying the selected items. When the timer completes, you gain experience points (XP) in the relevant knowledge category.

How Knowledge XP Works

Every item in Initium belongs to an item class — categories like Tree, Wood, Firewood, Flint, Iron Ore, Bone, Clay, and many others. When you experiment on an item, you gain 1-2 XP in that item's class category.

Here's where it gets interesting: item classes form a hierarchy. When you gain XP in a specific class, that knowledge also flows upward to parent categories. For example, experimenting on a stick might grant XP in "Stick," which also contributes XP to the broader "Wood" category. This means studying specific items gradually builds your understanding of entire material families.

There is a cap on how much XP you can gain in any single category from experimentation alone — roughly 10% of the category's maximum. This is intentional. The system wants you to experiment on diverse items rather than grinding the same thing over and over. If you've been studying nothing but sticks, eventually you'll stop gaining meaningful Tree knowledge from them and need to branch out (pun intended) to other item types.

Common Knowledge Categories

Here are some of the knowledge categories you'll encounter and what they unlock:

• Tree — experiment on standing trees to unlock woodcutting and tree-harvesting skills
• Wood — gained from wooden items like branches and clubs; unlocks woodworking
• Firewood — gained from kindling and similar items; unlocks fire-related skills like turning kindling into tinder
• Flint — gained from flint items; unlocks firestarter crafting and flint processing
• Iron Ore — gained from raw ore; unlocks metalworking and smelting
• Bone — gained from harvested bones; unlocks bone hardening and bone armor crafting
• Clay — gained from raw clay; unlocks pottery (bowls, mugs, kilns)
• Bark — gained from tree bark; unlocks rope-making (twine and twisted rope)

The more categories you build knowledge in, the more ideas become available to you. A well-rounded experimenter will discover far more ideas than someone who specializes too narrowly.

Stage 2: Discovering Ideas — The Spark of Inspiration

After each experiment, something happens behind the scenes: the game checks whether your character is eligible to discover a new idea. Ideas represent those "aha!" moments — your character suddenly realizing that they could combine certain materials in a certain way to achieve something useful.

How Discovery Works

Every craftable thing in Initium exists as a potential idea in the game's database. Each idea has two gatekeeping mechanisms:

1. Knowledge requirements — most ideas require you to have accumulated a minimum amount of XP in one or more specific categories. For example, the "Tree cutting" idea requires at least 1 XP in the Tree category. The various log-bucking skills require 2 XP in Trees. More advanced ideas like "Create a Crude Firestarter" require knowledge in multiple categories (3 XP in Iron Ore and 1 XP in Flint).
2. Random chance — even after meeting the knowledge requirements, there's a probability roll. You might meet all the requirements but not discover the idea this time. Keep experimenting, and it will eventually appear.

Some ideas are especially generous: the "Create Fire" idea and "Break-down Wooden Items into Kindling" idea have no knowledge requirements at all. They can be discovered from any experimentation whatsoever — you just need luck on the probability roll. This means even a brand-new character could stumble upon these ideas while studying their first item.

After each experiment, the system shuffles all available ideas and checks them one by one. If you meet the requirements and pass the probability roll, the idea appears in your Ideas tab. You might discover multiple ideas from a single experiment session if you're lucky.

What to Do When You Get an Idea

An idea by itself doesn't let you do anything yet. It's a concept, not a capability. To turn an idea into something you can actually use, you need to prototype it — which brings us to the most interesting part of the system.

Stage 3: Prototyping — Turning Ideas into Skills

Prototyping is where the Invention System really sets itself apart from typical crafting systems. When you prototype an idea, you're not just "learning a recipe" — you're creating a unique version of that skill with randomized attributes. Two players who prototype the same idea will end up with skills that perform differently.

How to Prototype

Open the Invention panel, go to the Ideas tab, and click on a discovered idea. You'll see a prototype dialog showing:

• What materials the prototype attempt requires (these get consumed)
• What tools you'll need (these are used but not necessarily consumed)
• An estimated time for the prototype attempt

Fill in the required material and tool slots with items from your inventory, then begin the prototype. Your character works on it for a period of time, and when the timer completes, one of two things happens:

1. Success — you get a new skill in your Skills tab with randomized attributes
2. Failure — the attempt didn't work out. Your materials are consumed either way. This is normal, especially for more difficult ideas. Try again.

Randomized Attributes: Why Prototyping Multiple Times Matters

This is the key insight that makes the Invention System special. Every time you successfully prototype an idea, the resulting skill gets randomly rolled attributes:

• Construction Speed — how long the skill takes to execute. A fast skill might take 5 seconds; a slow version of the same skill might take 60 seconds. For skills you'll use repeatedly, this matters a lot.
• Item Quality — if the skill creates an item, the stats of that item (damage, durability, weight, etc.) vary based on this roll
• Success Rate — some skills aren't guaranteed to work every time. A good prototype might have 100% success; a poor one might fail occasionally.

This means you should prototype the same idea multiple times to get better rolls. Got a "Tree cutting" skill that takes 120 seconds? Prototype it again — maybe the next one takes 60 seconds, or even 15. You can keep any number of skill variants and discard the ones you don't want.

Think of it like rolling for loot, except you're rolling for the quality of your crafting abilities. Serious crafters will prototype their most-used skills dozens of times to get optimal speed and quality.

Stage 4: Using Your Skills

Once you have a prototyped skill in your Skills tab, you can use it whenever you want — provided you have the required materials and tools.

Executing a Skill

Open the Invention panel, go to the Skills tab, and select the skill you want to use. You'll see the material and tool requirements displayed. Fill in the slots with appropriate items from your inventory, then execute.

Your character performs the action for the skill's construction time (determined by the prototype roll), and when it completes, the result appears — whether that's a crafted item in your inventory, a modification to an existing object in the world, or some other effect.

Skills are permanent and reusable. Once you've prototyped a skill, it's yours forever. The only ongoing cost is the materials you consume each time you use it. Some skills also have a repeat option that lets you queue up multiple executions back-to-back, which is handy for batch processing (like turning a pile of kindling into tinder).

Skills That Modify vs. Skills That Create

Not all skills produce new items. Some skills modify existing objects in the world. For example:

• Tree cutting doesn't produce a new item — it transforms a standing tree into a felled tree right where it stands
• Log Bucking skills strip resources from a felled tree, gradually changing its appearance until it becomes a stump
• Relighting a fire modifies an existing firepit to reignite it

Other skills create brand-new items:

• Create Fire produces a new Dug Firepit at the selected map tile
• Turn Kindling into Tinder converts kindling into tinder
• Create a Crude Firestarter produces a Crude Iron Flint from raw materials

Putting It All Together: An Example Workflow

Let's say you've just arrived in an area with Birch Trees and you want to eventually build a campfire. Here's how the Invention System flow would look:

1. You switch to Experimental View and open the Invention panel
2. You experiment on a Birch Tree, gaining 1-2 XP in the "Tree" category
3. The system checks available ideas. With 1 XP in Trees, you now qualify for "Tree cutting". If the probability roll succeeds, the idea appears in your Ideas tab
4. You prototype "Tree cutting", providing the required materials. On success, you get a "Tree cutting" skill with a randomized speed (maybe 90 seconds this time)
5. You use the skill on the Birch Tree with an axe, and the tree falls over
6. You experiment on the felled tree, gaining more Tree XP (now at 2+)
7. New ideas appear: Log Bucking: Kindling, Log Bucking: Bark Stripping, and others
8. You prototype and use those skills to harvest resources from the tree
9. Along the way, you discover "Turn Kindling into Tinder" (requires 1 Firewood XP) and "Create Fire" (requires nothing)
10. You prototype and use those skills to build your first campfire

The beauty of this system is that each experiment could surprise you with an unexpected idea. You might set out to chop trees and accidentally discover a skill for crafting rope from bark, or breaking down wooden weapons into useful kindling. Exploration and serendipity are baked into the experience.

Tips and Tricks

• Experiment on everything you find. Different item types grant XP in different categories, and some of the most useful ideas (like Create Fire and Break-down Wooden Items) have no knowledge requirements — they can pop up from any experiment. The more you experiment, the more you discover.
• Don't settle for the first prototype. If your skill is slow or produces low-quality results, prototype the same idea again. The randomization means your next attempt could be dramatically better. Serious crafters prototype their key skills many times over to get optimal versions.
• Diversify your experiments. The 10% XP cap per category means you'll hit diminishing returns quickly if you only study one type of item. Experiment on wood, then stone, then bone, then metal — broad knowledge unlocks more ideas than deep knowledge in one area.
• Stock up on materials before a prototype session. Prototyping consumes materials whether it succeeds or fails. If you're planning to prototype an idea multiple times for better rolls, make sure you have plenty of materials on hand.
• Check the Ideas tab after every experiment. New ideas appear silently — there's no big popup announcing them. Get in the habit of glancing at your Ideas tab regularly so you don't miss newly discovered ideas.
• Some skills work on existing items in the world. Tree cutting, relighting fires, and similar skills target objects that already exist on the map rather than creating something new. When using these skills, make sure you've selected the right target on the grid map.
• Keep multiple versions of the same skill. You might want a fast version for everyday use and a high-quality version for when results matter. The system lets you maintain as many skill variants as you like.

The Invention System is how you interact with the world of Initium beyond just combat. Whether you're chopping trees, smelting ore, crafting weapons, or building fires, it all starts with curiosity — selecting an item and wondering what you could learn from it. For a practical walkthrough of the system in action, check out our How to Create Fires in Initium guide, which takes you through the full invention pipeline step by step.