RuneScape Tetracompass guide: What they do and how to farm them

Jagex added the new Archaeology skill to RuneScape last year. Archaeology is a lore-focused gathering skill that details the history of the gods, ancient societies, and Gielinor’s past. Alongside Archaeology, Jagex also introduced a new artifact into RuneScape called the Tetracompass.

There are several reasons a player may want to farm Tetracompasses. From the allure of earning valuable rewards to the consistent experience earned, completing Tetracompasses offers an alternative method of training Archaeology. These are an excellent method of breaking up the grind since Archaeology is one of RuneScape‘s slowest skills to train.

What is a Tetracompass?

A Tetracompass is an Archaeology artifact that can be created with four separate pieces and 30 of every colored material: malachite green, cadmium red, cobalt blue, armadylean yellow, and tyrian purple. After combining these materials, the Tetracompass can then be charged at the Mysterious Monolith.

A charged tetracompass can be used in RuneScape to track down the location of an ancient casket. This is done through a short mini-game similar to the scan steps found within elite clue scrolls. Similar to scan steps, ALT1’s puzzle solver app can be used to complete this. Alternatively, triangulation is a viable method of figuring out where the arrow is pointing to.

Triangulation works as follows. Teleport to a location and track where the arrow leads to. Then teleport to another area and track that arrow. Wherever the resulting lines cross is where your dig spot is.

When opened, an ancient casket will provide a variety of rewards. Every casket contains hundreds of useful materials, a handful of skill-related boosts, and at least one complete tome. Tomes are incredibly useful since these provide experience points that scale with your Archaeology level. It is also possible to receive multiple tomes in a single casket.

Lucky individuals may even earn one of five valuable rare items. In order of least to most valuable, these are onyx dust, god pages, hydrix bolt tips, dragon mattock, and the shadowy key. Although extremely rare (1/10000), the shadowy key allows players to receive Guildmaster Tony’s mattock. This is a hero item and the best in slot mattock with a current street price of over 4 billion gold.

How to farm them

Each Tetracompass is made up of four separate parts. These parts can be found while excavating any Archaeology site or material cache from level 12 onward. The odds of receiving a piece are 1/1500 per successful excavation. A successful excavation will be signaled by either a material or artifact being received. Wearing a tier 3 luck item or better like the Ring of Fortune will slightly increase the chance of receiving Tetracompass pieces.

However, this is not an effective way to farm Tetracompass pieces in RuneScape. Instead, players should complete specific collections. Collections are an integral part of Archaeology. Several NPCs request these and Collection can be completed for various rewards.

The best Collections for farming Tetracompass pieces are given by the goblin generals: Bentzone and Wartface. These can be found in Goblin Village just north of Falador. The two Collections that are best for farming Tetracompass pieces are Red Rum Relics I and Green Gobbo Goodies I.

What makes these Collections so good is that Red Rum Relics I only requires four artifacts while Green Gobbo Goodies I requires five. Furthermore, all of the artifacts for the Collections can be gathered at just two different hotspots. For the Red Rum Relics I Collection, the two hotspots are the Crucible stands debris and Yu-biask animal pen. For the Green Gobbo Goodies I Collection, excavate the Gladitorial goblin remains and Goblin dorm debris. All four hotspots are found at the Warforge Dig Site.

Quality of life items like the Grace of the Elves and Auto Screener are recommended. When combined, these make training Archaeology less click intensive. The Auto Screener requires Level 67 Invention while the Grace of the Elves can be purchased from the Grand Exchange.

The profit made per Tetracompass varies based on luck, but a typical casket is usually worth between 1.5 million and 4 million GP. Tetracompass farming is also one of the best ways in RuneScape to earn master clue scrolls. These can be completed for even more valuable rewards like the Blood Dye, which is valued at around 6 billion gold.