R&D Gear

This subject has been replaced or otherwise rendered obsolete by various updates, downloadable content packages, or general system upgrades.

Overview

This subject has been replaced or otherwise rendered obsolete by various updates, downloadable content packages, or general system upgrades.
R&D Gear are armor pieces which can be produced through the process of research and development.
R&D plans and R&D parts needed to assemble gear are bound to episode cycles, e.g episode 18, 19 and 20, and will only produce gear dropping from those specific episodes.
Every episode cycle will have items which do not drop from playing content and thus exclusively are available as R&D Gear.
Introduced with game update 54 R&D Gear is primarily meant as a last resort to obtain gear not dropping as loot from doing content. It is not meant to replace the need to play content to get gear, thus its assembly costs and parts gathering time have been made quite expensive.

The R&D plans needed to produce R&D Gear are episode specific and can be bought from the episode vendors.
Episodes 15, 16 and 17: Equipment Supplier 151617 (Style: Energy Armor)
Episodes 18, 19 and 20: Equipment Supplier 181920 (Style: Herald of the Black)
Episodes 21, 22 and 23: Equipment Supplier 212223 (Style: Quickstryke)
Episodes 24, 25 and 26: Equipment Supplier 242526 (Style: Nuclear)
Plans become available at the vendor alongside the episode cycle's release scheme for regular gear.
Episode 1/3: Fused Scraps, Chest, Back, Legs and Waist
Episode 2/3: Head, Hands, Feet and Shoulders, Face
Episode 3/3: Neck, Trinket, Utility Belt, Weapon Box, Ring

Scraps are the remainders of salvaging unneeded gear at an R&D Station. They are the raw materials for producing R&D gear.
Depending on its rarity, salvaged gear will produce a guaranteed minimum number of scraps and might in very rare cases produce up to 396.
Uncommon: 2, 5, 12 or 132 scraps
Rare: 4, 10, 24 or 264 scraps
Epic: 6, 15, 36 or 396 scraps
Every episode cycle has its own unique kind of scraps, meaning to produce gear from e.g. episodes 18, 19 and 20 you will need to also salvage gear from those episodes.
Episodes 15, 16 and 17: Lochelite Scraps
Episodes 18, 19 and 20: Metalloid Scraps
Episodes 21, 22 and 23: Spordium Scraps
Episodes 24, 25 and 26: Drenzium Scraps

Fused Scraps can be made at an R&D Station from Scraps previously salvaged. 100 Scraps will provide 1 Fused Scrap. The R&D plan for the Fused Scraps is available at the episode vendor.
Episodes 15, 16 and 17: Fused Lochelite Scraps
Episodes 18, 19 and 20: Fused Metalloid Scraps
Episodes 21, 22 and 23: Fused Spordium Scraps
Episodes 24, 25 and 26: Fused Drenzium Scraps

Matter Enhancers are R&D Parts used to assemble R&D Gear. They are available from R&D Vendors and cost 5 Marks of Victory.

Play content from the episodes in question and salvage unneeded gear at an R&D Station to produce the episodes specific scraps, for episodes 18, 19 and 20 that would be Metalloid Scraps.
Visit the episode vendor for the episodes you are missing gear from, e.g. Equipment Supplier 181920.
Buy the plan to produce Fused Scraps for that episode cycle, for episodes 18, 19 and 20 that would be Plans: Fused Metalloid Scraps. 100 scraps from salvaged gear will allow you to assemble 1 Fused Scrap.
Buy the plan for the gear piece you want to assemble, e.g. chest, trinket or rings. Use it and go to an R&D Station to check out the number of parts you will need. Plans for R&D Gear will appear below all other plans in the Assembly tab of the R&D Station.
Buy the number of Matter Enhancers needed to assemble the wanted gear piece from a R&D vendor.
If you have gathered the required amount of scraps to produce the Fused Scraps needed and have bought the required number of Matter Enhancers, you are ready to assemble the wanted gear piece at a R&D Station.

Related article links (60)

Originally released for episodes 18, 19 and 20 with game update 54 the R&D Gear system was made available for episodes 15, 16 and 17 with hotfix 11/12/15.
Hotfix 02/08/16 reduced the number of Fused Scraps necessary to build each armor piece.
The concept of R&D Gear was discontinued with the return to large content releases ( Amazon Fury Part III), though it remained in place for content from episode 15 to episode 26.
R&D Gear was removed from the game with game update 85.