The next step in open-ended character growth, and an more immersive world is here! With the last major update, we introduced sixty chips which when combined in a motherboard, determine your RIG's attributes.
With this update, the megacorps will be churning out new tech on a daily basis. Everyday, one of the corporations will announce an upcoming chip, which you can read about in the new Shadow.Net news feed on your desktop. One week later the chip will be released and become available for purchase. Older versions of the chips will stay on the market.
These chips are dynamically generated, with no upper limits. Currently there are 3 chip evolutions: Generation Increase, Overclocking, or Nano.
- Generation Increase leaves the size and power drain of the chip the same, while increasing the base rating for that series of chips. This accumulates over time. For example : Monarch's Excalibur would become Excalibur Mk2, with a rating jump from 80 Thz to 104 Thz. The next Generation Increase would see be the Excalibur Mk3 sporting 128 Thz of processing power.
- Overclocking doesn't increase the current generation, but will instead increase the current rating by 50%, while doubling the power drain. For example, the Excalibur Mk2-OC would have a rating of 156 Thz, but a steep power drain.
- Nano doesn't change affect the generation, drain, or rating, but decreases the size of the chip by 1 space. For example the Twitch Nano would only take a single slot instead of 1x2.
The Shadow.Net news feed currently only serves as a medium for chip announcements, but will be utilized to a greater degree in future updates to display the repercussions of certain actions, quests, or story events.
This update was originally supposed to include the ability to raid 'corp systems, pilfer blueprints for upcoming chips, and get knock-off's printed for cheap. However I was delayed, and didn't want to rush it. That aspect will be rolling out later in the week.