Golden Wrench

This article describes a weapon that is unreleased. Contents may change as more information becomes available.

“

Now I've seen everything! Click to listen — The Engineer on wrenches made of precious metals

”

The Golden Wrench is a currently unused Engineer weapon discovered within TF2's game files after the July 1, 2010 Patch. It has a different skin and kill icon than the regular Wrench, and enemies killed by it turn into motionless golden statues instead of normal ragdolls; in all other ways, it is identical to the standard Wrench. The weapon is coded to be acquirable through the Item drop system, though the Steam servers do not give them out (as evidenced by the fact that no one has of yet found one).

The material file containing the kill notification icon also contains an encrypted message saying,

"lek/NIxV HkQ6U RDB FXV/R s1Hefy yiY6t e76mmuL. So misJJ3k ivV9g Vy6X5 oepq sP7R/?"

This text can be unencrypted with the key "saxtonhale", revealing the message,

"Clearly here is more space than needed. I wonder what else was here?"

Such a message implies that the Golden Wrench was intended to be discovered within the game files. The message is likely referring to the large 512 × 1024 image that only contained the Golden Wrench's kill icon, the message and link to the decrypter.

A game file suggests that Golden Wrenches will be given ID numbers ("%s1 has found Golden Wrench no. %s2!"), perhaps similarly to the Gentle manne's service medal, though unlike all other weapons to date, the same game file also suggests that the weapon may be intentionally or maliciously destroyed ("%s1 has destroyed Golden Wrench no. %s2!").

The Golden Wrench can be equipped and used in an offline listen server by replacing the contents of an already-owned unlockable weapon in \tf\scripts\items\items_game.txt with those of the Golden Wrench element of the same file (items_game.txt can be extracted from game files using GCFScape). The visual effect only works in DirectX 9, and the weapon reverts to the old Wrench skin when dropped.

Kill icon

Only one version of the Golden Wrench's kill icon was released, and as such it blends into the background of the kill feed. Here is the kill icon on a dark background.

Enable in-game

If you wish to enable the Golden Wrench on a local server, download this file and place it in tf/scripts/items. This replaces the Flare Gun. Alternatively, you may use this file to replace Natascha. Bear in mind, this will ONLY work on your local server or servers that are modified in the same fashion.

Screenshots

• Golden Wrench screenshot 1.png

  First-person

• Golden Wrench screenshot 2.png

  Third-person

Trivia

• The Golden Wrench uses a killicon that isn't one of the two normal killicon colors.
• Even though the enemies turn into golden statues, they can still move their facial muscles and cry upon dying. (This is true for normal ragdolls as well)
• The Golden Wrench is a possible refference to King Midas, who gained the ability, or curse, to transform whatever he touched into solid gold.
• The Golden Wrench might be plated with Australium, a "transformative" metal mentioned in the comic "Loose Canon"

Damage

• Point Blank: 65 (59 to 72 damage)
• Mini-Crit: 88
• Critical Hit: 195
• Damage Repaired per Hit: 105
• Upgrade Amount per Hit: 25 (Corresponding loss in metal)
• Metal Cost per Repairing Stroke: 1 + Damage / 5
• Metal Cost for reloading ammo: 1 per bullet, 2 per rocket salvo

Damages are approximate and determined by community testing.

Function times

• Attack Interval: 0.8

All times are in seconds. Times are approximate and determined by community testing.

See also

• Unused content
• Currently unreleased content
• Australium

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