While weapons are the core component, items are just as vital a part of your arsenal in SYNTHETIK. There are many different kinds of items waiting to be found during your mission in the Legion Headquarter. These complement your class, perks, and weapon selection and each has their own unique effects and properties.
Items in SYNTHETIK include: flasks, grenades, traps, remote explosives, sentry bots, heat seeking missiles, and much more!
There are many strong weapon-item synergies to be discovered throughout your run and we encourage you to experiment as much as you can using the 8 active item slots in your inventory.
Aside from the class starting loadout, items can be discovered through chests scattered throughout the levels, or bought in shop terminals. As with weapons, items exist in 4 rarities relating to their drop chance and power, and are lost on mission failure for a fresh experience every run.
UPGRADING ITEMS
As we’ve discussed in our weapons article, upgrades and experimentation are key characteristics of SYNTHETIK and this extends also to the items. Each item has an Item Power Level, usually starting at 100%, which then can be upgraded at “Pandora’s Box” - the item upgrade shrine.
Each upgrade grants 25% improved item power, up to a maximum of 300%, but the cost for each upgrade increases incrementally.
The power level increases several properties such as:
- Item active duration
- Item cooldown speed
- Item main effect trigger chance
- Item rare bonus trigger chance
Depending on the item, often the damage, range, or other item effects can be increased!
Items sometimes come in variants, such as Superior, Cursed and Master Crafted, granting altered stats and improved starting power level.
The standout feature of the item power system is that you can set your own focus and make any item extremely powerful, if desired. You can even build a strategy around them - choose to upgrade minimally, pour everything into your favourite item, spread upgrades out evenly, or spend all of your credits elsewhere! The choice is yours.
RECYCLING
Lastly, you can recycle any item at any time by dragging it into your recycling slot at the top of the item inventory. Recycling destroys the item and grants a considerable amount of credits based on the item’s rarity and item power. This gives even more freedom and potential strategies.
Find something that doesn’t fit your loadout? Recycle and save towards something new. Shy of 500 Credits to afford that crazy legendary weapon in the terminal shop, but you’ve nothing else to loot on that level? You might want to recycle one of your dear items for that.
ITEM EXAMPLES
Here's a short selection of the many items available in-game.
Plasma Grenade - Throws a highly explosive fluid charge to the targeted area
Reverbing Blade - Commando Class Item, a short range melee strike, empowered by kills
Auto Taser - Guardian Class Item, fires a taser on weapon firing, stunning and dealing damage
Stinger Jet Glider - Summoned to fight on your side, has a shield and double fusion rifles
C4 Plastic Explosives - Place a C4 explosive charge which can be remotely detonated
Flare Gun - Fires a flare, lightening up the area, revealing invisible units and granting +accuracy
Fire Prism - Weapon Shots have a chance to unleash a burst of high energy laser shots
LMG Sentry Turret - Place a stationary automatic turret, firing high powered bullets
We hope you enjoyed learning more about SYNTHETIK, coming to Steam and itch.io March 15th, 2018.
As always, be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook, as well as joining us on Discord for some friendly banter and development updates.
- Eric & Alex