Corepunk gear progression: Rarities, Tiers, and Upgrades explained
In Corepunk, items currently have three simultaneous stages of empowerment:
Item Rarity
All permanent items in Corepunk can possess genre-typical rarities, regardless of their tier or upgrade level. These rarities are Common, Uncommon, Rare, and Epic.
Depending on an item's rarity, it gains additional bonuses, such as secondary stats, extra chip slots, or enhanced main stat values. Specifically, weapons receive extra chip slots, implants gain additional secondary stats, and runes/chips benefit from increased values of their core stats. Items can drop at higher rarities, "proc" during crafting, or be increased using the Synthesis Machine.
Item Tier
Items in Corepunk are categorized into different Tiers, with each Tier representing a significant power increase. However, higher Tiers also require characters to reach specific levels to equip them. The higher the Tier, the stronger the item's core stats will be. Unlike item rarity, which adds bonus features to an existing item, a higher Tier signifies a completely different item. Currently, there are three Tiers:
- Tier 1: Usable by characters at level 1 or higher.
- Tier 2: Usable by characters at level 10 or higher.
- Tier 3: Usable by characters at level 20 or higher.
Each Tier comes with a progressively higher base value for core stats, making items more powerful as their Tier increases.
Item Upgrade
All permanent items in Corepunk can possess different upgrade stages, regardless of their tier or rarity. These upgrade stages are no upgrade, Upgraded and Overclocked. Upgrades enhance items in a manner similar to item rarity.
Depending on an item's upgrade stage, it gains additional bonuses, such as secondary stats, extra chip slots, or enhanced main stat values. Specifically, weapons receive extra chip slots, implants gain additional secondary stats, and runes/chips benefit from increased values of their core stats. Items can gain higher upgrade stages by using the Synthesis Machine.
Min/Maxing
All these methods of increasing an item's power can be fully combined. This means an item can have a higher Tier, higher rarity, and upgrades simultaneously, ultimately resulting in the most powerful items available. To achieve this, the use of the Synthesis Machine is required.
