New Crafted Equipment Behaviour

Soaring AfterburnerYou’ll soon be able to adjust the behaviour of some of your frames’ abilities and weapons, thanks to an upcoming crafting feature. This has just hit the Public Test Server – it’s not yet live, and we don’t have an ETA for its implementation, but we can expect to see these changes in an upcoming patch. (And because this is not yet live, it’s subject to change without notice, of course. Once it goes live, we’ll post a cheatsheet for handy reference.)

These crafted item variants are created by crafting an item in the usual way, and adding an extra optional component. These optional components are dropped by different enemy types, and their quality depends on the stage of the creature that dropped them. The component quality will affect one attribute of the modified behaviour, and these components also increase the constraints cost of the item just as ordinary components do.

Adding one of these components will permanently change the behaviour of the item you’re crafting, so you’ll probably want to keep the ‘vanilla’ versions of these items around as well, to use in other situations.

The introduction of this system adds new behavioural variants for all the Accord frame primary weapons, and two abilities per Accord frame – one damaging ability and one “utility” ability. Because these are all Accord abilities and weapons, this gives the advanced frames a chance to try out these variant abilities as well.

Adding Culex Wings to an Afterburner

Crafted Item Variants

Assault

Dragonborn Plasma Cannon
Requires: Fire Gland (from Explosive Aranhas and Ash Dragons)
Quality modifies: Effect range

This replaces Scattershot Alt Fire with “Dragon’s Breath”, shooting a burst of fire forward in a cone.

Shielded Crater
Requires: Drone Module (from Chosen Drones)
Quality modifies: Effect health

This adds a Blast Shield to Crater. Blast Shield spawns centered on the impact site of Crater.

Soaring Afterburner
Requires: Wings (from Culex and Wasps)
Quality modifies: Effect duration

This adds Quick-Deploying Gliding Gear to Afterburner. Glider wings sprout from the Assault at the end of Afterburner. (Note that unlike a real glider, these wings don’t last indefinitely.)

Biotech

Noxious Needler
Requires: Poison Gland (from Toxic Aranhas and Toxic Varants)
Quality modifies: Percentage of increased damage taken

This replaces alt fire with Plague Blaster, which increases the amount of damage enemies take when hit by the alt fire. This effect also spreads to nearby targets.

Toxic Poison Trail
Requires: Ink Sac (from Nautili)
Quality modifies: Enemy accuracy reduction.

This adds Blinding Fumes to Poison Trail, decreasing enemies’ accuracy while in Poison Trail.

Ghostly Triage
Requires: Space Manipulator (from Chosen)
Quality modifies: Duration

This adds a Phase Unit to Triage, which allows the player to be able to pass through enemies/allies causing damage to enemies and healing allies.

Dreadnaught

Barrier HMG
Requires: Brontodon Ivory (from Brontodons)
Quality modifies: Shield health

This adds an Upgraded Forward Shield to the HMG alt fire, creating an improved full-body shield.

Spiny Heavy Armor
Requires: Shell Fragment (from Rageclaws, Terrorclaws and Baneclaw)
Quality modifies: Percentage of damage returned

This adds a Damage Reflector which harms enemies that hit the Dreadnaught while Heavy Armor is active.

Attracting Repulsor Blast
Requires: Space Manipulator (from Chosen)
Quality modifies: Effect range

This adds a Magnetic Repulsor to Repulsor Blast, drawing enemies in to the Dreadnaught before Repulsor Blast is fired.

Engineer

Burrowing Sticky Grenade Launcher
Requires: Brinewyrm Goo (from Brinewyrms)
Quality modifies: Damage magnitude

This adds Burrowing Explosives to Sticky Grenade Launcher, which applies a Damage over Time effect to the area that they were detonated on.

HKM Supply Station
Requires: Hypercapacitor (from Chosen)
Quality modifies: Amount of charge given

This adds High Capacity Arcfold Tech to the Supply Station, replacing health pickups with HKM powerups.

Rocket Turret
Requires: Explosive Device (from Tanken)
Quality modifies: Rocket damage

This adds Rocket Turrets to Heavy Turret, adding rockets to the projectiles fired.

Recon

Sharpeyed R36
Requires: Cornea (from Wargrim and Rimehunters)
Quality modifies: Magnification

This adds tech to increase the magnification when zooming with the R36.

Advanced Decoy
Requires: Drone Module (from Chosen Drones)
Quality modifies: Effect duration

This adds AI behavior to Decoy which allows Decoy to move and shoot before it explodes.

Burning Cryo Grenade
Requires: Fire Gland (from Explosive Aranhas and Ash Dragons)
Quality modifies: Damage

This adds a Frost Burner to Cryo Grenade, which increases Cryo Grenade damage. It applies a DoT that burns the target top on of slowing them.

FrameEquipmentEffectCreature DropSource
AssaultPlasma CannonTurns alt-fire into flamethrowerFire GlandExplosive Aranha, Ash Dragon
AssaultCraterAdds Blast Shield on impactDrone ModuleChosen Drone
AssaultAfterburnerAdds temporary glider wingsCulex WingsCulex, Wasp
BiotechBioNeedlerIncreases alt-fire damagePoison GlandToxic Aranha, Toxic Varant
BiotechPoison TrailReduces enemy accuracyInk SacNautilus
BiotechTriagePhasing through targets, does healing/damageSpace ManipulatorChosen
DreadnaughtHMGAlt-fire shield is improved and largerBrontodon IvoryBrontodon
DreadnaughtHeavy ArmorDamage reflectionShell FragmentTerrorclaw, Rageclaw, Baneclaw
DreadnaughtRepulsor BlastDraws enemies in before explosionSpace ManipulatorChosen
EngineerSticky Grenade LauncherAdds DoT to detonation areaBrinewyrm GooBrinewyrm
EngineerSupply StationReplaces health pack with HKM chargeupHypercapacitorChosen
EngineerHeavy TurretAdds rockets to damageExplosive DeviceTanken
ReconR36Adds zoom on scopeCorneaWargrim, Rimehunter
ReconDecoyAdds AI, can move and shootDrone ModuleChosen Drone
ReconCryo GrenadeAdds fire DoTFire GlandExplosive Aranha, Ash Dragon

About Siha

Siha is a longtime gamer and game blogger. She writes her own gaming blog at Siha Games! and has been enjoying Firefall ever since she scored a beta key.

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17 Responses to New Crafted Equipment Behaviour

  1. Nanbu September 19, 2013 at 06:57 #

    I’m a little confused. Will only these skills be modifiable or every skill? How about advanced frames’ skills? Thanks for the info. It sounds like an interesting idea.

    • Siha September 19, 2013 at 10:36 #

      At the moment, only these specific weapons and abilities are adjustable using this system, but I think it’s very likely that more variants will be introduced in future updates once Red5 has the system working the way they want it to.

      As for advanced frames, none of their specific modules have variant behaviors yet, but they can always fit Accord equipment in the meantime.

      • Nanbu September 19, 2013 at 14:07 #

        Awesome. I like the idea although I do foresee a lot of identical builds atm. Can’t wait till they implement new variants.

  2. Mecu September 20, 2013 at 04:04 #

    It seems like a great idea. I just would like to see them make 1 ability and give you 10 choices to augment it to your liking.

    • Siha September 20, 2013 at 10:46 #

      Yeah, I’m certainly looking forward to having choices for each ability.

  3. Wyntyr September 24, 2013 at 00:39 #

    I love options! Also, I believe there is a thread on the FF forums asking for testers to list some ideas for future ability change ups thru crafting.

  4. coldguy September 26, 2013 at 06:35 #

    Rocket Turret!! I can’t wait!

    I don’t recall seeing any of those item drops. I assume they will be added in the same patch. Any idea of their rarity?

    • coldguy September 26, 2013 at 06:37 #

      Side note: I’m waiting for when we’ll be able to craft armor with enhanced protection against fire/blast, toxins/acids, and power surges.

    • Siha September 26, 2013 at 22:59 #

      They are indeed new drops. At the moment they’re fairly rare on the PTS, but that may change when it goes live – Red5 has said on the forums that they’re still tweaking the rate at which they enter the economy.

  5. Anon October 9, 2013 at 07:29 #

    What exactly is blast shield on crater? Is it heavy armor, is it thunderdome, is it like electron’s bulwark?

    • Siha October 10, 2013 at 11:53 #

      No idea yet; “blast shield” is all I know. We’ll be experimenting as soon as we get some drops, though!

  6. McFini October 11, 2013 at 02:41 #

    Thinking ahead, there’ll probably be a need for a decent list/table that not only shows what abilities can be modified (and with what) but also a table that shows where you can get these components. Some might be obvious (Brontodon Ivory for example) but not everyone might think to kill Chosen for Explosive Devices.

    Plus, there’ll probably be a time where we could add, say, a Cornea and a fire gland to the R36 rifle or an Inc Sac and brinewyrm goo to the poison trail. I do hope they go down this route because then there could be some really unique combinations of items down the road. If not, even if I could use any one of the components on an item/ability, that’d be cool too. Wings on a cryo grenade for even further throwing range! :D

    • Siha October 11, 2013 at 12:32 #

      Yeah, I was thinking of tabulating the basic information – everything is there in the list but it’s not the easiest to sort through, and it’ll just get harder as they add more items like this.

      It’s a really interesting system with a lot of potential – I can’t wait til they expand on it!

    • Siha October 11, 2013 at 13:54 #

      There we go – I’ve put in a table which will serve for now; obviously it’ll need to be reformatted a bit once we get more items to add to it.

      • McFini October 11, 2013 at 23:40 #

        I understand what you mean about when they add more items… Headache city though in some respect, one could sort the table or generate it based on either class and/or dropped item so people can either find out what options exist for their class or if they picked up an inc sac randomly and have no idea what it’s good for, they could sort by that component and see what classes us it (assuming it ever gets put into anything beyond just the one ability)

        But this is an awesome start! Thanks a bunch!

        • Siha October 12, 2013 at 00:39 #

          The table is currently sortable by each column, and the table plugin we use also has advanced features for filtering, paginating and so on. They’re overkill for now, but we’ll be able to snazz it up a bit once it’s big enough to warrant it. :)

  7. josh January 23, 2014 at 07:28 #

    Nice work. I would just add a column for Quality and indicate how it affects crafting–for example, duration, radius, damage/heal, range.

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