NEURAL VISOR

BASE ITEM
HEAD
LEVEL 12

REQUIRES LEVEL 12

NEURAL VISOR is headgear, wielded from level 12.

The requirement cuts both ways: nothing below level 12 ever drops one, and a hero below it banks the find rather than wearing it.

It is a pool base, so it climbs: the same shape returns later in the campaign as SYNAPTIC VISOR and CORTEX VISOR, at requirements the endgame can actually meet.

A fembot-line diagnostic visor that reads intent off the wearer's synapses. It was built to make the colony's machines more attentive. It listens very well.

What it does

MATERIALCLOTH, which turns 1× what the same piece would in cloth.
WEARS OUT110 hits taken before it falls silent. It is never destroyed — a worn-out piece still hangs on you contributing nothing until a repair kit brings it back.

A fresh find in the hands of a hero who has spent no stat points — the piece itself, with nothing of the wielder in it. Your own STRENGTH, DEXTERITY or INTELLECT lifts these from there, as does an item level found deeper than the requirement.

Make quality

Every plain drop of this base rolls a make quality on top of the numbers above — the craftsmanship of that particular copy, stamped at the moment it drops and frozen for life. It scales the armor and the wear budget together, and it leads the name: a BROKEN NEURAL VISOR and a PERFECT NEURAL VISOR are the same base item and not the same find.

The bands overlap on purpose, so a good CRUDE can out-swing a poor NORMAL while a PERFECT always clears a NORMAL. Which one you get depends on the level of whatever dropped it: the two odds columns below are a level-1 killer and a level-60 one, and everything between is interpolated. Craftsmanship and magic are exclusive — a magic-or-better find is always normal make.

MAKE	ARMOR	SCALE	ODDS AT MLVL 1	ODDS AT MLVL 60
BROKEN	12–16	0.58–0.82×	20%	0%
CRUDE	15–19	0.73–0.97×	25%	6%
NORMAL	18–22	0.90–1.10×	52%	54%
SUPERIOR	21–25	1.03–1.27×	3%	28%
PERFECT	23–29	1.16–1.44×	0%	12%

What it becomes

The same shape comes back twice more, further down the campaign: an EXCEPTIONAL version and an ELITE one, generated from this base rather than authored beside it. They keep its look, its cadence, its reach and its arc; what changes is the level they ask for and the numbers priced onto the curve at it. A venue that pays this base pays its whole ladder, so a first-map find keeps dropping — as something else — into the endgame.

GRADE	REQUIRES	ARMOR	WEARS	MATERIAL
NEURAL VISOR (normal)	12	20	110	CLOTH
SYNAPTIC VISOR	38	56	138	CLOTH
CORTEX VISOR	72	110	165	CLOTH

Named items built on it

These relics wear this shape, with an authored block of bonuses on top — each on the rung of the ladder it names.

TARNHELMCORTEX VISOR
THE PANOPTICON
OMENSIGHTSYNAPTIC VISOR
THE LAST WORDCORTEX VISOR

NEURAL VISOR, a base item head in Ada's Trail, shown on the map of MARS where it drops — NEURAL VISOR — where it drops, in MARS.

Where it comes from

MARS carries it in its drop pool.
THE RIFT carries it in its drop pool.
BOOT HILL carries it in its drop pool.
THE GARAGE carries it in its drop pool.

Every one of those pools carries SYNAPTIC VISOR and CORTEX VISOR along with it — the game expands a pool entry into its whole grade family at roll time — so the same venues keep paying this shape out at requirements 72 deep.