Golden Wrench

“

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

”

The Golden Wrench is an 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, but the Steam servers currently give them out at a very slow rate.

The TF2 Backpack Examiner has a list detailing how many people currently have a Golden Wrench.

Discovery

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.

Golden Wrenches have ID numbers ("%s1 has found Golden Wrench no. %s2!"), 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 a 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) on both client and server. Only clients with it enabled will be able to use it, although all other players will see the effects. The visual effect only works in DirectX 9, and the weapon reverts to the old Wrench skin when dropped.

Enable in-game

If you wish to enable the Golden Wrench on a 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.

An alternative method, is for server owners running a copy of Sourcemod. You can assign the "turn to gold" attribute to the normal wrench, using the TF2items plugin.

Interestingly however, the attribute only works for the wrench. When assigned to any other weapon, the attribute shows, but does not take any effect.

As of July 4th 2010 the Golden Wrench started to drop. Currently the method or the reason for the drops are unknown. They are possibly random or something else.

Screenshots

• Golden Wrench screenshot 1.png

  First-person

• Golden Wrench screenshot 2.png

  Third-person

• 

  Pyro statue

• 

  Demoman statue

• 

  Engineer statue

• 

  Heavy statue

• 

  Medic statue

• 

  Scout statue

• 

  Soldier statue

• 

  Sniper statue

• 

  Spy statue

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.

Trivia

• The Golden Wrench uses a kill icon that isn't one of the two normal kill icon 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 rag-dolls as well). The sound they make when they hit the ground still sounds like flesh, despite being made of metal.
• The Golden Wrench is a possible reference 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"
• Golden Statues of defeated players reflect the world around them.
• Only one version of the Golden Wrench's kill icon was released, and as such it blends into the background of the kill feed.
• The Golden Wrench does not turn enemy Hats and Misc. items into gold.
• The Golden Wrench freezes jiggle bones.
• The "turn to gold" attribute, is hard coded to the wrench. Meaning, if it is added to another weapon using a server plugin, it will not work.
• It was once possible to craft the Golden Wrench using the 'Fabricate Class Weapons' blueprint. By smelting 3 Engineer hats to create an Engineer token. Not long after the release of the weapon, a few people had it. However, Valve have since removed the ability to craft Engineer tokens from hats and removed the owned Golden Wrenches.

See also

• Australium

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