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 Golden Wrench is currently the only item, when found, that is announced globally to every user currently playing TF2.

The weapon is acquired through normal crafting processes, with a chance of the Golden Wrench dropping in place of the normal result (for example, smelting weapons into Scrap Metal may result in a Golden Wrench instead). The TF2 Backpack Examiner has a list detailing how many people currently have a Golden Wrench.

Only 100 Golden Wrenches are available. The players who receive a Golden Wrench are listed in the Official Wrench Log which can be accessed by clicking the To Wrench Log button on The Engineer Update page.

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 decrypted 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 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.

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.

The Initial Drops

On the night of July 4th, 2010, sixteen accounted for players received the Golden Wrench after a drop was triggered by Robin. The following is the process of events according to Nineaxis, TF2 Wiki moderator and contributor.

According to him, he queried Robin Walker about whether or not the wrench was a preorder reward for another game, which it is not. Robin then invited him to play, promising more answers. After playing, Robin told him the code had a bug. A while later, Robin invited him to a server, supposedly having fixed the bug mentioned before, and proceeded to trigger the drops, mentioning that they do not drop randomly after Nineaxis asked. Shortly after, Robin left and halted any further drops, to presumably fix a bug that affected the wrenches which had been dropped.

On July 5th, 2010, it was revealed that there is a possible limit of 100 wrenches to be dropped over the next few days. According to the page, it can be presumed that it is only found by random chance when anything is crafted. When a player receives a Golden Wrench all TF2 clients receive a broadcast message, the count on The Engineer Update page is updated, and the player's name appears in the Official Wrench Log. It is unclear whether the 100 wrenches will be the only ones of their kind, or if only the first 100 will be numbered and more are to be given out later.

There is no limit to the amount of wrenches that can be dropped per day.

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

• 

  One of the first players to find the Golden Wrench

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 enemies killed with the Golden Wrench 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"
• 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 Golden Wrench - meaning if it is added to another weapon using a server plugin, it will not cause killed enemies to turn to gold.
• It was once possible to craft the Golden Wrench using the 'Fabricate Class Weapons' blueprint. However it was impossible to create an engineer token so nobody was able to do so. Valve then fixed the Wrench so that it could not be crafted altogether.
• Valve disabled the ability to smelt metal back into scrap during this time. This was likely to stop metal craft spamming.
• The Golden Wrench contest bears a striking similarity to the "Wonka Golden Ticket Contest" as it appears in the story Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the movies based on it; in that both contests have a highly sought after and extremely rare golden colored reward that only a small number of people will aquire.

See also

• Engineer Update
• Australium

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