Armor & Production: Metallic Mantis Armor   Soldiers! Agents! Other gun-toting loons! Are you in need of some extra damage? Can't get that special look going? Feel like doing an extra bit of damage while shooting wildly at things? Well, if the answer is yes and providing you don't mind killing some stuff to get there, this is for you!           Smugglers Den. Again. You might recognize this place from the guide on Mantis weaponry called the Queen Blade and the Mantis Scissors. But more secrets await in the depths of the dark dungeon, one of these being the Metallic Mantis armor. The Metallic Mantis armor is an armor that adds to Energy/Projectile damage and First Aid mostly, making this an ideal armor of choice for soldiers and agents. The armor itself sports an interesting look, however - there is a small catch - you can't obtain it up to quality level 200. So far, the highest piece of armor that we have managed to obtain is QL132, which was a gloves-piece, so if you are looking for some armor to get onto your level 170 enforcer, this is unfortunately not the place to look for you. Now - about the dungeon... to keep you from running too far into the dungeon and getting yourself killed, I will say a few things here on where to go inside. The first S-corridor has a door in the middle of it - don't enter here - this is the path to the Mantis Queen and if you're allergic to dying we highly recommend that you don't visit there but instead follow the snakelike path downwards, hitting the lower mantises. There is a larger room up ahead, with an overhead path, a small bridge and a lot of low-level mantises - going from the snakepath to this "Big room" and back again killing mantises will reward you soon enough. Be patient young grasshopper, and good things will come to you...   Den Mantis Digger Den Mantis Drone Den Mantis Earthmelder Den Mantis Forager Den Mantis Runner Den Mantis Scout Den Mantis Burrower Den Mantis Worker These all drop the parts that we are interested in - the higher the mob is - the less likely it is to drop anything. To have the biggest chance of getting some really nice loot, we recommend that you try to stay inside the snake-path and the "big room" as these are the primary drop-sites. The Den mantises have a lot of new drops as you might notice after a while. Be careful not to pick up just "any" drop since some of it it profession-specific and nodrop. See more on this in the upcoming Smuggler's Den guide. The pieces we want to make into armor are not however. The various items that the Den mantises drop range in general from quality level 70 (which seems to the the absolute lowest) up to around quality level 150 (which seems to be the absolute highest - highest we have confirmed so far is 146) with the most common quality in drops ranging from 80 to 110. Unlike some other armors out there, most notably the Dragon Armor, the Metallic Mantis armor has a full set. The most common drops are the pieces that make the helmet and the arms, and the least likely drops are the parts that make feet and legs. With that in mind, treasure any feet and legs that you might find in here - those are the rare ones.     Deformed Mantidae Abdomen - Used in the creation of Metallic Mantis Body Armor     Deformed Mantidae Tarsus - Used in the creation of Metallic Mantis Boots Armor       Deformed Mantidae Femur - Used in the creation of Metallic Mantis Sleeve Armor     Deformed Mantidae Tibia - Used in the creation of Metallic Mantis Leg Armor       Deformed Mantidae Head - Used in the creation of Metallic Mantis Helmet Armor     Deformed Mantidae Wing - Used in the creation of Metallic Mantis Gloves Armor   After spending enough time here to get all the parts or until you are too bored, it's time to put all the pieces through the process of making them actually wearable. To do this, you will need a Mass Relocating Robot (Shape Soft Armor) which can be rather hard to come by - we present you with a way of getting this in our Bronto Armor guide but if you don't feel like doing a lot of missions, you could always hunt down a tradeskills-interested engineer to help you out.   + =   This example demonstrates how to use your MRR to create the Metallic Mantis Body Armor. Using the Mass Relocation Robot (Shape Soft Armor) on the pieces (no other preparation is required, which is rather nice, since getting hold of the MRR and the parts can be tricky enough) takes exactly 3.5 times the piece's QL in Mechanical Engineering skill to achieve, 2.5 times the QL in Intelligence and 2 times the QL in Agility. That's all there is to it - now you should have your very own set of mantiscolor-tinted kevlar armor to strut around in and show off to the general public. The helmet might not be much to look at in our opinion but it's nevertheless a nice armor. We decided to let our chief armorsmith take a look at the armor and see what he could come up with, and the results, just fresh from the labs are as follows. Please do note that since its not possible to acquire a QL200 version of the Metallic Mantis armor, we decided to do a quality level 100 version instead.     Metallic Mantis Helmet Max Nano +124 First Aid +4 Energy Damage +4 Projectile Damage +4     Metallic Mantis Armor Gloves Swimming +33 First Aid +4 Energy Damage +4 Projectile Damage +4       Metallic Mantis Body Armor Max Health +201 First Aid +4 Energy Damage +4 Projectile Damage +4     Metallic Mantis Armor Sleeve Ranged Init +16 First Aid +4 Energy Damage +4 Projectile Damage +4       Metallic Mantis Armor Legs Dodge Ranged +22 First Aid +4 Energy Damage +4 Projectile Damage +4     Metallic Mantis Armor Boots Runspeed +22 First Aid +4 Energy Damage +4 Projectile Damage +4   Those are the individual bonuses and icons for each part of the set - don't worry if you think it looks suspiciously close to kevlar armor, the ingame armor is indeed much more colorful than the icons suggest.     AC Statistics of a full set Chemical AC 1468 Melee AC 2111 Radiation AC 993 Projectile AC 2111 Energy AC 2111 Cold AC 1468 Fire AC 993 Poison AC 1468 Requirements Agility 267 Strength 241   Effects Max Health +201 Max Nano +124 First Aid +28 Energy Damage +28 Projectile Damage +28 Swimming +33 Ranged Init +32 Dodge Ranged +22 Runspeed +22   Final word The best thing about this armor has to be the added damage. A full QL100 set will give you an extra damage output of 24 if you are using weapons that do projectile or energy damage - so we can really recommend this to all you soldiers out there. Unfortunately the armor has a short "lifespan" since it only ranges from quality level 70 - 130, but during that time, you will be a drop-dead sexy hunk/babe of a damagedealer. Last updated 05.January 2003 Contributors Lakrits, Atlantean See what others have said about this article, or post your own comments regarding this in our forums.