Transmutation · cross-family conversion
Transmutation — cross-convert, fracture, and the rules
The other side of the material economy. Where the Workshop refines within a family, Transmutation crosses between them. Four tabs, one auto-rule system, and a recurring confusion with the Workshop that this guide is here to clear up.
TL;DR
The TitanSaga transmutation guide in one paragraph — four surfaces (Upgrade, Cross-Convert, Fracture, Auto-rules) that collectively move materials between tiers and between families. Cross-Convert is the headline feature; Fracture is the rare escape hatch when you over-refine. Auto-rules sweep the inventory every idle tick at thresholds from 10 to 5000. Don't confuse any of this with the Workshop's auto-refine — same UI vocabulary, different system.
The four surfaces
The Transmutation screen has three operation tabs and a configuration panel for the auto-rules:
Upgrade
What it does: Move materials one tier up. The first tab of the screen. Works within a category by default; some recipes are gated to specific families.
When to use: When you're sitting on a stockpile of T1 you can't realistically spend and want T2 inventory. Mirrors the Workshop's auto-refine flow with a manual trigger.
Cross-Convert
What it does: Swap between resource families at the current tier — logs ↔ stone, ore ↔ hide, and the other cross-family pairs. Each row has ×1 / ×10 / ×100 / Max buttons for batch quantities.
When to use: When your warehouse is full of one family and your active build needs another. The Cross-Convert UI was redesigned May 2026 — destination rows are now full-width with readable names, replacing the old chip layout that clipped to 'Topa' / 'Sandsto' / 'Wolf'.
Fracture
What it does: Move materials one tier down. The third tab. Yields multiple lower-tier units per fractured higher-tier unit.
When to use: When a build calls for T2 and you over-refined to T3 by mistake, or when you need a cheap source of T1 dust for a low-tier recipe. Rare but a real escape hatch.
Auto-rules
What it does: Per-rule automated conversion that runs every idle tick. Each rule specifies: which category, which mode (upgrade or fracture), and a threshold of N units above which the rule fires.
When to use: When you want a particular category drained automatically without manual taps. Set the threshold to your reserve floor; everything above it gets converted on the tick.
The Auto-transmute threshold cycle
Each Auto-rule has a single threshold — when your stockpile of the rule's category exceeds N, the rule fires on the next idle tick. The threshold chip cycles through ten values:
The cycle starts at 10, not 0. A transmutation rule with threshold 0 would fire constantly on any stockpile, which isn't a useful behaviour — the auto-rule's job is "drain the excess," not "drain everything." If you want full drain, the Workshop auto-refine cycle includes 0 because the use case there is different.
The same threshold ladder appears in two places (transmutation Auto-rules and Workshop auto-refine) but they're not the same system. Read which screen you're in before you set the chip.
Workshop vs Transmutation — the recurring confusion
Two systems use a similar > N chip and the same threshold ladder. The systems do different things. Setting an Auto-transmute rule expecting Auto-refine behaviour is the single most common mistake players make in this part of the game.
Workshop auto-refine
- · Cycle includes 0: [0, 10, …, 5000]
- · Within a family (T1 → T2 of the same category)
- · Per-category reserve floor
- · Lives in the Workshop / refinement timeline
Transmutation Auto-rules
- · Cycle starts at 10: [10, …, 5000] (no zero)
- · Cross-family conversion or in-place upgrade/fracture
- · Per-rule, not per-category — multiple rules can target the same category
- · Lives in the Transmutation screen's fourth panel
The workshop guide covers the family-internal refinement loop in full. Read that first if you haven't — it's the system you'll interact with more frequently.
When transmutation matters (and when it doesn't)
Transmutation has a smaller footprint than the Workshop. Most progression doesn't require it. But three situations make transmutation the right answer:
- Warehouse heavily skewed toward one family. Cross-Convert with the Max button drains the excess into a family you'll actually use. Particularly common when your starting region's dominant resource piles up faster than you build.
- Accidentally over-refined. You meant T2, the workshop pushed T3, your build needs T2. Fracture moves you back down. It's a tax — you lose units in the round-trip — but it beats waiting for organic T2 production to refill.
- Hands-off long-session play. A single Auto-rule that fractures anything above a generous threshold keeps your warehouse usable across a multi-day session without you opening the Transmutation screen at all.
Common mistakes
- Setting an Auto-transmute rule and expecting auto-refine behaviour. The UI cues are similar but they're separate screens with separate behaviours. The workshop-vs-transmutation panels above are the clearest read.
- Cross-Converting at the wrong tier. Conversion happens at the source tier — converting at T1 gives you T1 in the new family, not T0 or T2. Picking the right tier before you tap Max saves a follow-up trip to the Workshop.
- Fracturing as a regular workflow. The yield is below 1:1 by design — Fracture exists as an escape hatch, not a strategy. If you're using it weekly, dial down your refinement rate at the source.
- Setting threshold too low on a high-volume category. At
> 10the rule fires nearly every tick on a category you generate at any reasonable rate. Most players want thresholds in the 200-1000 range; lower values are for genuinely scarce categories you want to drain aggressively.
FAQ
What's the difference between Transmutation and the Workshop?
Workshop refines within a material family — three T1 logs become one T2 log. Transmutation works across families — logs ↔ stone, ore ↔ hide. Different UI, different math, different intended use. The workshop guide covers the family-internal path; this page covers the cross-family one.
What are the three tabs in the Transmutation screen?
Upgrade (move materials one tier up, similar to workshop refinement but with cross-family options), Cross-Convert (swap between families at the current tier), and Fracture (move one tier down, useful when you've accidentally over-refined). A fourth panel — Auto-rules — automates these operations on a per-category threshold.
How do the ×1 / ×10 / ×100 / Max buttons work?
Quantity selectors on every Cross-Convert row. Tapping ×10 runs the conversion ten times in one transaction; Max runs as many times as your stockpile supports. The buttons were added so a stockpile cleanup doesn't take fifty taps; functionality is unchanged from single-step conversion.
What threshold values are on the Auto-transmute cycle?
Ten through 5000 in the same shape as the workshop's auto-refine: 10, 20, 40, 80, 100, 200, 500, 1000, 2500, 5000. The transmutation cycle starts at 10 (no zero option) because a rule needs at least some stockpile to act against. The workshop auto-refine cycle includes 0 because zero means 'drain everything' there.
Do Auto-transmute rules fire instantly or on a tick?
Every idle tick. Rules don't react to single inventory events — they sweep the inventory on the system's regular cadence. So if you cross a threshold mid-session, the rule waits for the next tick rather than firing the moment you crossed. Predictable, doesn't flicker.