TTT 101: Crafting

Hey Howdy Hey Tappers!

Ah the long awaited, Crafting post….where I give you the how tos and break down each and every item available to craft, so you don’t miss a thing!

Love it or hate it, EA has proven over the last couple of years that crafting is here to stay.  While the prizes themselves are pretty self explanatory, collect this to earn these prizes, crafting is a whole other “animal”.  Crafting requires some self direction.  You decide what you want and collect the items to craft accordingly.  Sometimes this is successful and sometimes it’s not. And, as with all things, for some events crafting is easier than others.

Now I know some of you still have questions so, let’s take a look…

First, let me be honest.  There’s not one item in the craftables that really excites me.  Which may be why I’ve been putting off writing this post…hard to write about something that doesn’t really excite you.  I was really excited about the prospect of this event, what EA could do etc…but as we progress through it I just feel a bit let down.  Maybe i’m just getting old…maybe I’ve been hanging around Patric too much…or maybe I’ve just got summer brain and don’t want to think about much else, who knows?

Anyway, by now everyone should know how crafting works.  But for those who don’t i’ll cover the basics again.  But real quick, so I know a chunk of you won’t read what I write anyway, crafting is the key to earning more Excavation Site Prize Currency. You need to craft to level up your Panini Press, which in turn pays out more rewards at the Excavation Site.  Check out this post on the Panini Press if you’re still confused. 

It seems like the best item to craft to level up your Panini Press is the Prehistoric Fern.  It cost 250 and pays out 125 , seems like that’s the best Tachyon return for specimen spent…

And now onto the basics….

Crafting is triggered via the Springsonian Museum during the Prehistoric Era questline…

Tapping the museum will bring you to the crafting menu.  You can also access the crafting menu via the event hub menu by clicking the trophy  icon and then the crafting icon…

The Crafting Currency is Specimen, they look like this:

You can earn Crafting Currency from:
-Tapping Era Tappables (Dinos, Pharaohs etc)
-Completing Daily Challenges
-The prize track
–The dig site

Crafting consists of different levels.  Each level unlocks more items to craft.  You spend crafting currency to level up. And once again they’ve decided to stick with what’s worked in the most recent events, you do NOT have to choose between Leveling up and Crafting.  The Specimen you spend to Craft items will count towards the Specimen needed to Level up! 

What does this mean?  Well basically if it costs 1,100  to move up to the next level, and you want to craft the Prehistoric Fern  (which cost 250 each)..you don’t have to decide between Leveling up and Crafting.  Simply craft the Fern and the 250 will be deducted from the 1,100  required to Level Up.

Similarly…you DO NOT HAVE TO CRAFT ITEMS TO LEVEL UP. You can level up by simply tapping the green button next to the level up bar.

It still takes Specimen, but it prevents you from crafting a bunch of stuff you may not want in order to level up.  As some of you have been complaining…

Although in this case, crafting stuff you may not want helps earn Tachyons, which helps to upgrade the Panini Press.  So you may want to craft what you don’t want (like a whole lot of Prehistoric Ferns) till you max out your Panini Press.

So the choice is yours, you can level up as you craft items.  Or you can just level up without crafting items.

And as with previous events, crafting ends when the event is over.  So you have all 3 Eras to craft.  There’s no rush to get it done now, but crafting now will help you to Level up your Panini Press…as noted above.

And finally, there are 15 total crafting levels.  You’ll start at Level 1 so you’ll need to level up 14 times (to reach level 15), on order to unlock all of the craftable items.  Here’s the breakdown of how many Specimen are required to reach each level and unlock new items:

Level to Reach	Specimen Required to Reach
2	1,100
3	3,300
4	5,500
5	5,500
6	5,500
7	5,500
8	5,500
9	5,500
10	5,500
11	5,500
12	5,500
13	5,500
14	5,500
15	10,000

You’ll need a total of 74,900 to unlock all of the levels…

So now that we’ve gone over those basics, let’s get to why most of you are reading this post…the breakdown of each craftable item.

Let me preface this by saying, for this event most of the craftable items are decorations.  Therefore, what to craft and how many is entirely up to you…as to what you think will work best in your Springfield.  There are some great decorations that can work in a variety of ways in Springfield, but it’s up to you to determine what works best for your town.

Now here’s the breakdown:

Item: Prehistoric Fern
Required Level: 1
Specimen Cost: 250
Tachyon Payourt when Placed: 125 
Size: 1×1
Conform-O-Meter: Tree-Hugging +5
What Does it Do: It’s a plant, just sits there and looks pretty.
Unique?: No.

Item: Dinosaur Skeleton
Required Level: 2
Specimen Cost: 2500
Tachyon Payourt when Placed: 645 
Size: 3×5
Conform-O-Meter: Vanity +100
What Does it Do: Nothing, just sits in Springfield.
Unique?: No.

Item: Triceratops Statue
Required Level: 3
Specimen Cost: 5,000
Tachyon Payourt when Placed: 650 
Size: 4×6
Conform-O-Meter: Vanity +100
What Does it Do: Another one for the nothing category
Unique?: No.

Item: Tar Field
Required Level: 4
Specimen Cost: 2,500
Tachyon Payourt when Placed: 645 
Size: 6×6
Conform-O-Meter: Tree-Hugging +100
What Does it Do: Animated, comes with dialgoue..
Rich Texan: Yeehaw!  We struck oil! Texas tea! Black gold!
Lisa: Actually, it’s…never mind.  If it’ll keep you from fracking, then go for it.
Unique?: No.

Item: Homer Lizard
Required Level: 5
Specimen Cost: 10,000
Tachyon Payourt when Placed: 1,300 
What Does it Do: NPC..animated when tapped.  Very small. Comes with dialgoue..
Lisa: Dad, this lizard looks suspiciously like you.
Homer: I may have sneezed on an iguana while i was back there.
Unique?: Yes

Item: Egyptian Column
Required Level: 6
Specimen Cost: 1,500
Tachyon Payourt when Placed: 390 
Size: 1×1
Conform-O-Meter: Vanity +5
What Does it Do: Another one that does nothing.
Unique?: No.

Item: Egyptian Outhouse
Required Level: 7
Specimen Cost: 800
Tachyon Payourt when Placed: 310 
Size: 2×2
Conform-O-Meter: Vanity +100
What Does it Do: Animated when tapped. “door” rolls down for privacy…
Unique?: No.

Item: Egyptian Tent
Required Level: 8
Specimen Cost: 900
Tachyon Payourt when Placed: 355 
Size: 5×4
Conform-O-Meter: Indolence +10
What Does it Do: Nada
Unique?: No.

Camel -10,000 (Level 9)
Item: Camel
Required Level: 8
Specimen Cost: 10,000
Tachyon Payourt when Placed: 1,300 
Size: 2×3
Conform-O-Meter: Vanity +100
What Does it Do: Always animated…eyes and mouth move.  Does not walk around, stationary.
Unique?: No.

Item: Bart Sphinx
Required Level: 10
Specimen Cost: 5,750
Tachyon Payourt when Placed: 750 
Size: 7×4
Conform-O-Meter: Vanity +100
What Does it Do: Nothing.  Dialogue when placed..
Bart: I deserve this.
Milhouse: This and so much more, Bart.  This and so much more.
Unique?: Yes

Item: Skeleton Pile
Required Level: 11
Specimen Cost: 1,000
Tachyon Payourt when Placed: 385 
Size: 2×2
Conform-O-Meter: Vanity +5
What Does it Do: Nothing
Unique?: No.

Item: Pirate Canon
Required Level: 12
Specimen Cost: 2,150
Tachyon Payourt when Placed: 555 
Size: 3×3
Conform-O-Meter: Obedience +5
What Does it Do: Nothing.
Unique?: No.

Item: Row Boat
Required Level: 13
Specimen Cost: 6,000
Tachyon Payourt when Placed: 780 
Size: 3×2, can only go in the ocean
Conform-O-Meter: Vanity +100
What Does it Do: Nothing, bobs in the water.
Unique?: No.

Item: Siren Masthead
Required Level: 14
Specimen Cost: 7,000
Tachyon Payourt when Placed: 910 
Size: 4×6, can only go in water
Conform-O-Meter: Vanity +100
What Does it Do: Nothing. Dialogue…
Lisa: Why is it that mastheads were so often scantily-clad women?
Homer: It’s too hot at sea for heavy clothing, sweetheart.  You want the sexy lady to be comfortable, right?
Lisa:…
Homer: I lie because I love.
Unique?: No.

Item: Mermaid Petting Zoo
Required Level: 15
Specimen Cost: 10,000
Tachyon Payourt when Placed: 1,300 
Size: 5×5
Conform-O-Meter: Consumerism +5
What Does it Do: Animated when tapped. Mermaid plays with her hair.  Some level of animation always (water moving, fin moving). Dialogue..
Marge: Look, Maggie: a mermaid petting zoo.
Sea Captain: Treacherous creatures, they be.  Beautiful, to be sure. But they’ll lure you to your death upon the docks.  And feast upon your salty corpse.
Marge: On second though, let’s walk far away from the nice nautical man.
Unique?: No.

There are a few more items listed…

Prehistoric Foliage- 700

Dragonfly Rock- 2,200

Egyptian Pillar- 1,500

Egyptian Sundial- 1,500

Pirate Treasure- 1,500

Grog Barrel- 700

This WILL NOT unlock for crafting until you’ve unlocked them at the Excavation site (i.e. they’re Excavation Site prizes which you can craft more of once they’re unlocked).  They’re broken down in each Era’s Excavation Site post…obviously the Pirate Treasure and Grog Barrel are associated with the 3rd Era, Pirates, and won’t be available until the Pirate Era Unlocks.

My Personal Opinion on Craftables…
Don’t kill yourself.  Most of this stuff is just decorations and really unimpressive.  Craft what you like/think you can use in your town…but really nothing is worth kill yourself over.

And like I stated at the start of this post, i’m really not excited about any of these items…so my opinion would likely be biased in the “meh” category.

So again…don’t kill yourself trying to get all this stuff.  Sometimes less is more. Craft what you have use for in Springfield….

Hope that helps some of you who have been stressing out over crafting!

And there you have it my friends…the details behind Time Travel Crafting!

What are your thoughts on crafting for the Time Travel Event?  Which items are you digging?  Which would you pass on?  Sound off in the comments below, you know we love hearing from you!