What actually makes new items available for purchase?

[surplus_newt]

First I just want to say I'd been holding off on buying this but the recent reviews tipped the scales. I love the place the game is in (playing on Normal). Really compulsively playable. I feel like I'm being squeezed just enough that my decisions matter and I'm neither snowballing nor so obviously behind the curve that I feel like I can't do anything. Balance between both the strategic layer and the tactical layer and between stealth and combat feels pretty good (this is all under the current build).

That said, are you supposed to be able to get higher-tier items from vendors, or are you supposed to craft them all yourself? I've been selling blueprints/doing missions to raise Influence whenever I have people available; I skipped a smuggling mission at some point because my whole team was in recovery, but other than that I don't think I've turned down any missions or legwork from any of my Gun Runner contacts. But I don't think I've ever seen any new weapons or items unlock in the market.

Am I just behind the curve on Influence, or does that even determine item availability? Am I supposed to be "building up" Influence with my existing contacts or are you supposed to prioritize finding new ones and move up in Power instead?

[davea]

it is possible, but currently really hard to level up certain contacts. I have managed to get one or two contacts up to offering level 4 items, at character level 12-14 and team power level 6. I am sure some players who have hit the level cap of 32 by running hundreds of proc-gen missions have higher level contacts.

I guess you probably know that the contact has to have at least 60% influence; then they have to be chosen to get a level break dialog; and you need to have favors banked up to get additional options in the dialog. If all these things happen, one contact gets one level; then you have to start over with building influence.

For weapons, I find it's much easier to craft them than to get high level contacts. Of course you are limited by what blueprints you got. I am sure that some players who religiously hit every loot box and matrix node while running hundreds of proc-gen missions have a better variety; I have one sniper rifle, two swords, and two copies of the same revolver for my gunslinger.

[surplus_newt]

Originally posted by davea:

you need to have favors banked up to get additional options in the dialog.

Oh my God I think this is what I was missing, I've been lax about collecting favors because I didn't realize the limit breaks were related to market availability, I thought they were all of the "temporary boost of X% on sales of y%" variety.

[davea]

No, the limit break dialog is the only opportunity to level up what a contact sells. And often, that opportunity is only one of the choices, if you have favors to burn. It may not show up as an option till you burn the second or third favor.

I feel this area needs better messaging in-game, and also probably balancing so that it is easier to level contacts. For weapons, there is crafting as a backup when your contacts don't level up; but for cyberdecks in particular, there is no backup and it is easy to fall behind the power curve of matrix runs. I am personally pretty stuck there in my current game.

[surplus_newt]

Oof yeah for weapons I've been getting by with crafting and I'm saving up for another bench for armour, but I'm going to have to look more closely at my contacts and focus on that, I'm just starting to run into headaches on hacking runs and was wondering what's involved in upgrading my deck.

I'm sure this is in there somewhere and I just clicked past it but yeah it could stand to be surfaced more prominently as a system.

[davea]

Look carefully at the crafted armor stats before crafting; I haven't found any that are much better than the base level 1 market armor. Unless you don't mind 10-20% movement penalty, which I find is pretty severe. For hacking, do get the Neural Toner 2 implant if you can, but you won't be able to get much improvement till you can get the level 4 deck.
I have an active thread on discord about this:
https://discord.com/channels/354299073689419779/1325263570249842719

[Ofhorf]

Out of all contacts its wireghost (who sells decks) and gun runner would be my top priorities. Gun Runner needs to be selling lvl3 weapons to then advance into selling imported weapons (which are nice and offer some extra options). Wireghost is a bit easier to level, if you do Matrix missions you would loot accounts and legendary and rare ones can be sold to Wireghost to boost influence and force level ups.

With low level armor blueprints - Enyov (lvl2) is nice to have and lasts you well into late game. Brave Star light armor (lvl4?) is pretty good too.

Doing some extra Vulnerable hosts missions once you get second hacker is a good way to expand your blueprints collection.

[Trese Brothers]

Originally posted by surplus_newt:

Originally posted by davea:

you need to have favors banked up to get additional options in the dialog.

Oh my God I think this is what I was missing, I've been lax about collecting favors because I didn't realize the limit breaks were related to market availability, I thought they were all of the "temporary boost of X% on sales of y%" variety.

Favors are really key to make every Limit Break count - you don't want to waste Limit Breaks on basic things like Trait upgrades if you can avoid it. or worse, have a negative Limit Break, drive a Contact into hiding. Once you have a Favor or two, it's worth selling them everything you can to get them over 80% Influence repeatedly.

This thread is a wakeup call that we've missed a key part of game tutorial and signposting (a lot of new players have been discussing this) and can improve.

Glad the recent reviews got you on board!

[davea]

Is the contact influence breakpoint 60 or 80? How about merc hype and stress breaks? I thought they were all 60.

[Trese Brothers]

All are 80% ... all are stated in hovers ("As Stress reaches 80%+...")

Maybe that's why you never get Limit Breaks?

[davea]

The wiki has at least one references to breaks at 60%.

Influence is rated on a 100% scale in 10% increments; so one contact may have 60% influence and another may have 90%. The in-game effect of this is not known. However, when a contact has high influence, over 60%, they may randomly be chosen for an "influence break" which is a promotion.

I do get limit breaks. I do increase influence to 80%. I don't loot-goblin every mission and every matrix node, so my problem is finding accounts/blueprints that particular contacts actually want.

[Trese Brothers]

Ok, wasn't sure where the 60% confusion came in! Glad its figured! let the Limit Breaks flow :D

[uncus2]

How are limit breaks calculated? I have 5-6 people at 100% for a month game time and none of them has hit a break. Am I missing something or is RNGus just not a fan of me?

Suggestion: Add a corporate gun runner/Ares sales rep and wireghost/corp programmer so that tokens can be used to get favor from them. The gun runner Diego buys only Fenian files [1 mission in 20? 30?] and the wireghost only buys a few account types also. I have not yet found a Fenian account worth enough for favor [though I have gotten Epic and Lgnd ones to bump him to 100% for a limit break which hasn't happened yet].
The wireghost is easier, but he wants 67k+ files for a favor - quite high for a low level team

Edit: You can't type F e n i a n?
Edit 2: I see the wireghost [Potato] now buys all files - I guess I missed that update! - THANKS!

[Trese Brothers]

Thanks for the great, specific feedback.

The Token-for-Favor room rules will be rewritten when the Face class tree is released. It is one of the places the Face will have tight integrations with rooms.

As to Limit Breaks it is bad RNG and a throttle at the moment. A Contact will only Limit Break every 8-12 days, so it's too easy to get into a traffic jam and they don't always go in order (though we've tried to get that right, it still isn't right!).

We're looking at a new system to keep their order near FIFO and also at ways to unclog the traffic jams.

[Detective Costeau]

One suggestion if I may- it would be really nice to be able to just exchange Favors for a specific benefit during limit breaks instead of re-rolling your options.

Spending the effort to get a contact to a Limit Break, burning all your favors on re-rolls, and still getting nothing useful to you at that moment feels extremely bad.
I'd be willing to pay 4 favors to definitely get something I actually want instead of having to keep rolling and hoping the RNG will be kind.

[davea]

Originally posted by Detective Costeau:

I'd be willing to pay 4 favors to definitely get something I actually want instead of having to keep rolling and hoping the RNG will be kind.

+1.
I was actually thinking of a dialog box almost like the merc hype break dialog, which lists all the possible choices. But, some of them could have a favor cost, where the radio button for that choice is only lit up if you have that many favors. Selecting an option with a favor cost would then automatically deduct that number of favors.

Putting this together with an earlier mention of enhanced "tokens for favors", it would be even cooler if this dialog allowed you to step out to that dialog, in case you have tokens and not favors.