Crafting & Gathering Overview

Your map to the entire production economy on Rookery Isles, no tools to buy, 22 vocations to learn, and one simple loop that turns a rock into a warship.

Requirements

You must be Character Level 52 to gather in the open world on Rookery Isles. Mining, Logging, Gathering, Farming, Husbandry, and Fishing are all gated at character Level 52 (the client enforces this), so you cannot mine, chop, harvest, farm, raise livestock, or fish until you reach Level 52. Bench crafting and processing have no level requirement, but their materials come from gathering. The Anya Vein adds a further gate of 50,000 Mining proficiency on top of Level 52.

Contents

• Requirements

• No Tools Required
• The Two Real Currencies: Labor & Proficiency
• The Proficiency Rank Ladder
• All 22 Vocations at a Glance
• The Raw to Refined to Crafted Flow
• Processing Stations
• The Gathering Vocations
• The Crafting Vocations
• The Misc. Vocations
• Your First Day Plan
• On Rookery Isles

This is the hub. Rookery Isles is a roleplay-focused ArcheAge private server running the ArcheAge 3.0 "Revelation" ruleset, and its production economy is the deepest sandbox in the game: every plank, ingot, potion, ship, and suit of armor is made by a player, by hand, from raw materials another player gathered. This page explains how the whole machine fits together and points you to the deep-dive guide for each piece. If you only read one crafting page first, read this one.

No Tools Required

Coming from another MMO, the first thing to unlearn is tools. You do not carry a pickaxe, an axe, a hoe, or a sickle. There is nothing to buy, equip, repair, or break.

When you walk up to a mining vein, an interact prompt appears, click it and your character mines. Walk up to a tree and an interact prompt appears, click it and you chop. The same is true for herbs, crops, livestock, and fishing spots. Gathering is a doodad interaction, not a tool action. (Verified: none of the core gathering or processing recipes list a required tool item.)

What actually gates your ability to gather and craft is two things, and only two things: Labor and Proficiency.

The Two Real Currencies: Labor & Proficiency

Every productive action, mining a vein, chopping a tree, smelting ore, weaving fabric, brewing a potion, spends Labor Points (LP) from a shared, account-wide pool.

• Labor pool (default config): free accounts cap at 2,000 Labor; Patron accounts cap at 5,000.
• Regeneration (default config): free accounts regenerate +5 Labor every 5 minutes while online (and do not regenerate offline). Patron accounts regenerate +10 every 5 minutes online and +5 every 5 minutes offline.
• New characters start with 50 Labor.

Note on labor numbers. Those are the build's default configuration values. Rookery runs local overrides for some currency drips, so the live tick rate may differ, check your Labor counter in-game rather than treating these as gospel. The cap and "online regen" structure are reliable; the exact per-tick amounts are the part to verify yourself.

Proficiency is the second currency, and it is earned by spending the first. Spending Labor on an action raises the matching vocation's proficiency 1:1: spend 10 Labor mining and you gain +10 Mining proficiency; spend 50 Labor on an Anya Vein and you gain +50 Mining. Open your proficiency window (default key K) to watch it climb. Spending Labor also grants character XP, gathering and crafting genuinely level your character, scaling with both your level and the Labor cost of the action.

Higher proficiency rank makes your actions cheaper in Labor and unlocks higher-tier recipes and resource nodes. The exact per-rank Labor discount is not something we can quote as a clean percentage from the server data, so treat it as a direction only: higher rank = cheaper actions. Anyone quoting you a precise "5%/10%/15%" reduction ladder is repeating unverified web lore.

For the full mechanical breakdown, how Labor regenerates, how proficiency is stored, the XP-from-labor formula, and the proficiency-expansion item, read the dedicated Labor & Proficiency guide.

The Proficiency Rank Ladder

Every vocation climbs the same rank ladder. There are 31 ranks; the client shows the first twelve by default. The number is the cumulative proficiency cap for that rank. Rank-up is free in this build once you hit the cap.

Memorize two numbers. Rank 1 is Amateur, not "Basic." And 50,000 = Master, that is the single most common "elite" threshold in the game, and it is the gate on the Anya Vein (see below). Authority is the 70,000 rank, one step above Master. Older guides swap Master and Authority constantly; they are wrong.

Recipes and high-tier nodes unlock at proficiency thresholds equal to these rank caps. Most recipes (about 7,900 of them) are open from the very start; the gating that matters kicks in on top-tier gear, lunagems, and a handful of elite nodes.

All 22 Vocations at a Glance

The client groups the 22 player vocations into three tabs: Harvesting, Crafting, and Misc. Spelling matters in-game, it is Metalwork and Leatherwork, never "Metalworking" or "Leatherworking."

Two common mix-ups to fix in your head now: Log → Lumber is Carpentry, not Logging (Logging is the chopping/gathering half). And ships, cars, and gliders are Machining, not Carpentry, Carpentry only supplies the Lumber that Machining uses.

The Raw to Refined to Crafted Flow

Almost everything you make follows the same three-step pipeline. Gather a raw material from the world, refine it into a base material at a processing station, then craft the refined material into a finished good.

The verified base-processing recipes (each also costs 1 Coin):

Two ratios to get right. Smelting and most refining is 3 raw → 1 refined. But Fabric has two recipes: the cheap route is 3 Wool → 1 Fabric, while the cotton route is 10 Cotton → 1 Fabric. Cotton is not 3:1. And Log → Lumber happens at the Sawmill Station, not the Carpentry Workbench, the Carpentry Workbench is for the furniture and vehicles you build from Lumber.

Bulk variants (×10 and ×100 output) exist at the same stations and at multi-material shelves, but they give no efficiency gain, ×10 yield costs ×10 Labor. Bulk recipes only save clicks, and some require Carpentry/processing proficiency milestones to unlock.

After the refined step, the finished-goods crafts get deep. The crafted-gear path is a linear upgrade chain, each tier consumes the previous-tier item plus escalating Archeum (Dust → Shard → Crystal) plus refined material and coin: Apprentice's → Craftsman's → Artificer's → Artisan's → Conqueror's, then a "reforge" synthesis stage at a Salvage Forge for Illustrious → Magnificent → Epherium → Delphinad → Ayanad. Ayanad is the top crafted gear tier on this server, there is no Erenor or Hiram gear (Erenor was the 3.5 patch, after our client). See the Gear & Grades guide for the full ladder.

Processing Stations

Stations are placeable doodads you craft at. The base-material stations are the ones you will visit daily; finished-goods stations gate the heavier recipes. A required-station value of "none" means the recipe is portable (done from the proficiency window or on Mirage Isle).

Many towns have public stations; for serious volume, players craft their own and place them on housing land. A "Complex Processing Shelf" / "Multipurpose Workbench" can do several refining jobs at one station.

The Gathering Vocations

These six live in the Harvesting tab. They pull raw materials straight from the world.

Mining turns veins into ore, stone, and gems, the feedstock for Metalwork, Weaponry, plate armor, and Masonry. The basic "Mine Ore" action costs about 5 Labor (mid-tier veins cost more). The elite node is the Anya Vein in Auroria, which requires 50,000 Mining proficiency (Master rank), costs 50 Labor, and drops the Anya Pebble (item #8080). Full ore catalog, node spawns by zone, and smelt chains are in the Mining & Ore guide.

Logging is felling wild trees for Logs (#8017). The standard chop costs 15 Labor; player-planted woodlots cost more (35 LP small, 200 LP large). Cedar is by far the most abundant overworld tree and the best all-round Log source, common in every starter zone. Exact logs-per-chop is not something we can pull cleanly from the server data, so ignore guides that quote precise per-tree yields. Tree catalog, spawn census, and growth times are in the Logging & Lumber guide.

Gathering picks wild flowers, herbs, spices, cotton, and mushrooms (available once you reach Character Level 52, like all world gathering). The cheapest gathers in the game are 1 Labor (Clover, Cotton, Azalea, Thistle, Mushroom, and friends), making this the gentlest proficiency grind once the Level 52 gate opens. These feed Alchemy, Cooking, Tailoring (Cotton → Fabric), Handicrafts, and Commerce. See the Gathering & Herbs guide.

Farming is planting and harvesting crops, the vegetables and grains (Potato, Wheat, Carrot, Corn, Peanut, etc.) that wild Gathering does not cover. Crops feed Cooking, Alchemy, and Commerce specialties. Planting in a matching climate zone makes a crop grow about 27% faster. See the Farming & Crops guide.

The Gathering-vs-Farming rule trips everyone up, so learn it once: wild flowers/herbs/spices/cotton/mushrooms = Gathering; vegetables and grains = Farming; and the "Wilted" (over-mature) phase of any plant gives Farming, not Gathering. The in-game prompt tells you which proficiency a node will grant before you click.

Husbandry raises livestock and collects milk, wool, eggs, down, and meat (and produces the Pelts that Leatherwork tans). See the Husbandry & Livestock guide.

Fishing uses proficiency-gated rods to catch fish for Cooking and sport. See the Fishing guide.

The Crafting Vocations

These eleven live in the Crafting tab and turn raw and refined materials into finished goods.

• Metalwork, smelts ore into ingots and crafts plate armor. The largest vocation by recipe count.
• Weaponry, crafts weapons and shields at the Anvil, following the same Apprentice's → Ayanad upgrade chain as armor.
• Tailoring, weaves Fabric (the base cloth material) and crafts cloth armor and sails.
• Leatherwork, tans Pelts into Leather and crafts leather armor.
• Carpentry, saws Log → Lumber at the Sawmill, and builds furniture and vehicle parts.
• Masonry, processes Raw Stone into Stone Brick for housing and construction.
• Machining, builds ships, vehicles, gliders, and tools (the "Assemble" skill), and runs the gear Reforge stage at the Salvage Forges.
• Alchemy, brews potions and runs the signature Archeum extraction chain (Essence → Crystal → Shard → Dust, ×4 each step, at the Archeum Workbench).
• Cooking, makes stat-buff food and Labor-regen meals from crops, fish, and livestock products. Entry recipes cost as little as 2 Labor and need no station.
• Handicrafts, crafts jewelry, lunagems (the gems you socket into gear), musical instruments, and house decorations.
• Printing, makes paper, books, and the faction-language tomes that let you read enemy chat.

The Misc. Vocations

These five live in the Misc. tab.

• Construction, a building-speed vocation, not the brick-maker (that is Masonry). It governs how fast structures go up.
• Commerce, crafts and runs specialty/trade packs: bundle regional produce into a heavy pack, haul it to a distant buyer, and pocket the spread. Crafting a pack costs about 50 Labor. See Trade Packs & Commerce.
• Larceny, the thieving vocation: opening coinpurses, bags, and crates, plus identifying gear. (Stealing an open-world crop grants Larceny too, but there is no dedicated "steal crops" gathering skill, the proficiency comes from the bag/crate-opening skill set.)
• Artistry, crafts decorative and themed items.
• Exploration, a small set of high-tier expedition crafts.

Your First Day Plan

A logical order of operations for a new crafter on Rookery. World gathering (Steps 2 to 4) is locked until Character Level 52, so until then focus on leveling your character and on bench crafting from materials you buy or trade for.

• Step 1. Press K and open your proficiency window. This is your crafting home screen, and you can read it from Level 1.
• Step 2. Once you reach Level 52, pick up every wild plant you pass. Many cost just 1 Labor and start building Gathering (or Farming) proficiency for almost nothing.
• Step 3. At Level 52, hit mining veins on rocky terrain to start Mining and feed Metalwork. The basic mine action is around 5 Labor.
• Step 4. At Level 52, chop trees when you find them, Cedar is everywhere and Logs are always in demand. Standard chop is 15 Labor.
• Step 5. Take ore to a Smelter in town and make Iron Ingots (3 ore → 1 ingot, 5 Labor). Smelting has no level requirement, so you can refine at any level once you have the ore.
• Step 6. Take Logs to a Sawmill Station and make Lumber (3 Log → 1 Lumber, 5 Labor), Carpentry proficiency. (Not the Carpentry Workbench; that is for furniture.) Like smelting, this bench step is ungated by level.
• Step 7. Once you are gathering at Level 52, split your Labor between gathering raws and refining them. Both raise proficiency, both produce sellable goods, and both level your character.

Bench crafting and processing have no level requirement, so you can refine and craft from Level 1 if you have the materials. But those materials come from world gathering, which needs Level 52, so before then your crafting depends on bought or traded raws. For the broader leveling roadmap, see the New Player Guide.

On Rookery Isles

A few places where this server differs from canonical ArcheAge, and from older guides:

• World gathering requires Character Level 52. Mining, Logging, Gathering, Farming, Husbandry, and Fishing all carry a character Level 52 gate that the client enforces, so you cannot gather in the open world until Level 52. Bench crafting and processing have no level requirement, but their raw materials come from gathering, so the Level 52 gate effectively sets the floor for the whole production loop.
• The Anya Vein gate is preserved. It is a proficiency gate (50,000 Mining = Master rank) stacked on top of the Level 52 baseline, not a character level by itself, and not "Authority" (Authority is 70,000).
• No physical tools. No pickaxe, axe, hoe, or sickle exists or is needed, gathering is a doodad interaction.
• Ayanad is the top crafted gear tier. This is the 3.0 (Revelation) ruleset; there is no Erenor or Hiram gear.
• Labor tick rates are configurable. The default numbers above (free +5/5min cap 2,000; Patron +10/5min cap 5,000) are the build defaults; Rookery may override them, so confirm your Labor regen in-game.
• The exact Labor-cost reduction per proficiency rank, Fortuna/bonus proc rates, and precise per-node yields are not server-confirmed and are deliberately left out here. If a guide quotes them as hard numbers, it is repeating web lore.

See also

Labor & Proficiency · Mining & Ore · Metalwork & Smithing · Alchemy · Gear Progression · Trade Packs & Commerce · Currencies & Vendors · New Player Guide · Gearing Supply Chain