Armor & Production: Barter Armor   If you're either a Trader or an Agent in disguise, the obscure Barter armor might be a fetish just for you. Besides looking rather neat, and with some OK bonuses, it caters only to the few.           Before starting this process, read through and note that the ingredients needed are the same for that of the CAS Symbiotic Armor - so be sure you know what you are doing as there's a no-refund policy in effect here. Also note that when done, this armor can only be worn by Traders, or Agents using False Profession, Assume, or Mimic: Trader. It can still be traded to said professions though. Aside from the above, it is a rather nice looking armor, and due to lack of use will certainly give you that flare of uniqueness many are looking for. Anyway, down to basics. The template for this armor is the Nano Armor, or Augmented Nano Armor (higher quality). The easiest way to get either of these are mission rewards, or just looking on the open market. A thing to note with Nano Armor is that it starts appearing at quality level 75 and above. In this case we started with a 200 Augmented Nano Helmet that was collecting dust in an old bank-box.   Augmented Nano Armor Helmet The Nano Armor is designed by and for Nano Technicians. It is very lightweight, as it relies on nanobots to provide most of the protection. The armor is plugged directly into the user’s nervous system, and uses it for information-gathering and data transfer. Next we need to pick up a Nano Programming Interface and some Inactive OT Metamorphing Liquid Nanobots.     Nano Programming Interface     Inactive OT Metamorphing Liquid Nanobots   You can get the Inactive OT Metamorphing Liquid Nanobots from the Armor and Clothing Components and the Pharmacy and Chemistry Components booths and the Nano Programming Interface from the Tools booth. The Nanobots are a bit expensive, so you might have to fork up quite a lot of cash, if you intend to make a whole set. The QL of the Nanobots must be at least 90% of that of the armor base, in our case, QL180 Nanobots will do the trick for our QL200 soon-to-be-boosted Head armor although higher is never wrong. For every part of the Barter armor you intend to create you will also need two Notum Fragments or Notum Chips, or one of each. These must be at least 90% in QL of the Nanobots we only just now purchased, or the procedure won't work. I.E., if you obtained QL190 nanobots, you will have to find two QL171 notum chips (90% of 190 = 171).     Notum Chip     Notum Fragment   These drop from pretty much any mob now and then. Yes - it can be a regular pain to get them, but it will be worth it. For really nice pieces, you should try hitting some high level mobs in places like Eastern Foul Plains, Deep Artery Valley, Belial Forest or Central Artery Valley, but they can also be found on bodies in missions. A popular spot for finding low-level chips is the Foremans Dungeon in the Longest Road, but you will need to hit the mobs at the very end to get high enough quality notum for Barter armor. With the chips in store, the first step is to combine the Inactive OT Metamorphing Liquid Nanobots with the Nano Programming Interface. This requires exactly four times the QL of the Nanobots amount of Nanoprogramming and 2.5 times the QL of Computer Literacy to achieve. In our case with the QL180 nanobots, it would require 720 Nanoprogramming and 450 Complit.   + =   Activated OT Metamorphing Liquid Nanobots Metamorphing nanobots are used to change the look of things - and sometimes also the properties and abilities of those things. To utilize this brew you need to stabilize it first with notum. We now have some Activated OT Metamorphing Liquid Nanobots. The next step is to actually stabilize these nanobots. To do this, we need to combine the nanobots with both of the Notum Chips/Fragments to make the finished item. This step also requires four times the amount of the QL of nanobots in Nanoprogramming and one times the QL Chemistry to complete. Again, in our case, 720 nanoprogramming and 180 Chemistry.   + =   Super-Stabilized OT Metamorphing Liquid Nanobots This solution can be used to change both the looks and properties of certain items, like e.g. Organic armor, Graft armor and Nano armor. Now we are the proud owners of some Super-Stabilized OT Metamorphing Liquid Nanobots. All you have to do now, is apply this liquid on the wanted piece of Nano Armor and you will produce the finished item. This step requires, as the previous ones, four times the QL amount of the Helmet in Nanoprogramming to do and 4.5 times the QL of Chemistry. For our QL200 helmet, 800 Nanoprogramming and 900 Chemistry would be needed.   + =   Barter Armor Helmet The Barter Nano Armor is a modification of the original nano armor. It relies on a principle of trade, where the armor exchanges augmenting nanobots against building material for new bots. Don't worry about the icons being the exact same - the armor will still look different when worn. The stats for a full suit are rather OK, armor-wise, but seeing as there are better ways to use your notum chips, they would mostly be for rare cases. Let's look it over anyway for quality level 200:     Barter Armor Helmet +90 Max Nano +90 Max Health +5 Psy Mod +18 Nano resist     Barter Armor Gloves +10 Electrical Engineering +10 Quantum Physics +10 Chemistry +6 Nanoresist +30 Max Nano +30 Max Health       Barter Body Armor +10 Computer Literacy +120 Max Nano +120 Max Health +24 Nanoresist     Barter Armor Sleeves +20 Nano Init. +20 Ranged Init. +30 Max Nano +30 Max Health +10 Pharmatech +6 Nanoresist       Barter Armor Pants +20 Vehicle Air +20 Vehicle Ground +15 Nanoresist +75 Max Nano +75 Max Health     Barter Armor Boots +30 Duck Explosives +45 Max Nano +45 Max Health +30 Runspeed   Once upon a time this part of the guide was bashing the Barter armor for having very few bonuses to compare it to CAS (seeing as how they were released at the same time) but with the significant boost to the armor, most notably the increased HP and Max Nano, this armor is definitely not just a toy anymore, in fact, its quite nice if you can put up with the incredibly low Chemical AC (which you will see below where we present a full QL200 set).     AC Statistics of a full set Chemical AC 1050 Melee AC 4200 Radiation AC 3153 Projectile AC 3153 Energy AC 4200 Cold AC 3153 Fire AC 3153 Poison AC 4200 Requirements Intelligence 541 Psychic 521   Effects Max Health +420 Max Nano +420 Nano Init. +40 Ranged Init. +40 Duck Explosives +30 Vehicle Air +20 Vehicle Ground +20 Runspeed +20 Computer Literacy +10 Nanoprogramming +10 Pharmatech +20 Electrical Engineering +10 Quantum Physics +10 Chemistry +10 Psy Mod +5 Nano Resist +75   Final word Overall, this armor gives you a lot of varied bonuses and whereas the strength really lies in the tradeskill bonuses to Chemistry and Pharmatech, the max HP and max nanopool are very handy as well. Complete the armor with some Chemical AC implants and you cant get far wrong (and admit that the helmet is dead sexy, Nano Armor has always been one of our personal favorites when it comes to the looks-department). Last updated 07. May 2003 Contributors Xrogue, Atlantean See what others have said about this article, or post your own comments regarding this in our forums.