Armor & Production: CAS Symbiotic Armor   Are you experiencing that you get laughed at because you are wearing Graft armor? Are you tired of being called a fishface? Fear not! That Graft armor of yours is the base in the making of the absolutely sexiest armor on Rubi-Ka! And we are going to show you exactly how to make it.           The CAS Symbiotic armor is really a story about an armor undergoing the Cinderella process. To begin with, when the Graft and the Organic Armor was introduced a long time ago, noone was really sure what it was supposed to be - some called it the fishscale armor, and others the rainbow armor, it all depended on which mood you were in, but the new and improved CAS Symbiotic armor? Its drop dead sexy, baby. It is, in fact, the only armor for which I would seriously consider getting down on my knees and ask it to marry me. Okay, enough of that! Before we go through the process - a small warning. The procedure you are about to read now, is identical to the one for another piece of armor, called the Barter Armor. The Barter Armor is Trader-only, and involves the same items to obtain. You can read about the Barter-Armor in our Barter-Armor guide if you are a trader wanting to pursuit that instead. The base ingredient you will need is the graft/organic armor. The easiest way to get either of these are of course missions - excepting the low ones in the superior stores - but you might be lucky enough to find them outside while hunting as well, however - missioning for them is a lot faster. So in our case we went and missioned us a QL200 Graft Armor Helmet.   Graft Armor Helmet The Graft Armor is quite spectacular. When you wear it, it grafts itself onto your body, sending tendrils deep into your body that link up the armor with major organs. Next, we need to visit the store, in order to pick up our next two items we will need, namely the Nano Programming Interface and the 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 booth and the Pharmacy and Chemistry Components booth and the Nano Programming Interface from the Tools booth. The Nanobots are quite expensive, at least at higher levels, so you might have to fork up quite a lot of cash if you intend to make a whole CAS 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 CAS 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 wont work. IE, if you obtained a QL180 nanobot, you will have to find two QL162 or higher notum chips (90% of 180 = 162). We strongly suggest that you get higher notum chips though, since cutting it this close can be quite the task.     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. We managed to be lucky enough to find two QL170 fragments in our banks for this particular job. Now that we have obtained the pieces for our head armor, what we need is to combine them all so we can go to the nearest mirror and admire ourselves for a couple of weeks. 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 so they don't explode in our face when they are used on the Graft Armor. 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. Don't drink. Don't shake heavily. Don't even think about feeding this to your dog. What we are going to do is to gently pour them onto the Graft Armor Helmet, and watch it transform from the fishy looking thing it is, into something completely different, namely the CAS Armor Helmet. By applying the nanobots on the helmet, 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.   + =   CAS Symbiotic Armor Helmet Symbiotic armor is a further improvement of the spectacular organic- and graft armors. It was made using liquid nanobots - following a procedure devised by the Clan Anarchist Syndicate. Sexy, isn't it? Lets take a look at the stats for it as well, since those are quite interesting. The head we made adds some NCU and perception, but the other parts of the armor all adds a small amount of bonuses as well, as you can see here, which makes this armor interesting indeed.     CAS Symbiotic Armor Helmet +10 Max NCU +40 Max Nano Energy +10 Perception     CAS Symbiotic Armor Gloves +15 Firstaid       CAS Symbiotic Body Armor +100 MaxHealth     CAS Symbiotic Armor Sleeves +15 Melee Init. +15 Ranged Init. +15 Physical Init.       CAS Symbiotic Armor Pants +15 Evade ClsC +15 Dodge Ranged     CAS Symbiotic Armor Boots +30 Runspeed   Don't worry about the over-use of existing icons either, the "real" version looks nothing like what you would expect from the icons. Stats listed in the table above are for Q200 versions.     AC Statistics of a full set Chemical AC 3153 Melee AC 4200 Radiation AC 3153 Projectile AC 3153 Energy AC 4200 Cold AC 1050 Fire AC 4200 Poison AC 3153 Requirements Stamina 550 Strength 510   Effects Max Health +100 Melee Init. +30 Ranged Init. +30 Physical Init. +30 Evade ClsC +15 Dodge Ranged +15 NCU +10 Max Nano +40 Perception +10 First Aid +15 RunSpeed +30   Final word If you are looking for something to keep you warm during long winternights, you would be better off looking someplace else since the armor has feeble protection against Cold. Anything chillier than a lukewarm cup of coffee and you might keel over and visit the reclaim. However - in combination with other armors, it can be quite an amazing one, especially given its looks. Last updated 28.November 2002 Contributors Caleena, Atlantean Korghul, Atlantean See what others have said about this article, or post your own comments regarding this in our forums.