Seek out your specialization trainer. At this point you should have decided if you're goblin or gnomish.
I suggest making mithril ammo for skillups. After that mine mithril and skillup on explosives.
Then seek out thorium and create thorium widgets and grenades and eventually thorium ammo (bought from engr vendor in IF). 250 to 280 is a rough ride and you're gonna have to pay out on the AH for new synths. At 280 learn your transporter as a reward.
Edited, Mon Feb 13 16:56:22 2006 by Ibid