Code Crafting is a valuable ability and most players develope this for their own use, to help others and to earn info. You can't code anything (other than abilities) until you have first learned the code of the item. So to make items, you have to find them first and then decompile them to learn their code.

You need write code and a code analyzer tool to start coding (these are given to you at the start). You need decompile item and an item decompiler tool to start decompiling (these are not given to you at the start). The abilites are in the coder tree and can be bought from a coder vendor or you can use the write code ability to craft them if you have the bits. The tools can be bought from an item vendor (1000k each). Tabor West has all vendors and is a great place to shop. (Uriah SE has all abiliity vendors but no item, weapon or clothing vendor.)

From level 1-10 on all trees, the abilties are inexpensive to buy and can all be bought from the appropriate vendor in Uriah Southwest, Tabor West and Appolyon SE. After that, you have to find specialized vendors in more dangerous districts and the cost gets high fast. I recommend buying as much as you can in abilities up to level 10 and save the crafting for higher more expensive abilites because otherwise you will burn up your bits way too fast on low level abilitites that could have been purchased.

Tip: At an ability vendor, it can be confusing finding and keeping track of what you need to buy. So look on the vendor window and click the 'abilities' button to bring up your abiliity tree while you shop

You will need to put both tools on your toolbar to use their respective abilities.

Decompiling:
 
To decompile an item select it in your inventory and click on the decompile tool in your toolbar. Failure and success will be indicated by an in screen message. All item names conn a color that is level of difficulty for decompiling. Same heirarchy as conning exiles.
The first time you decompile an item you learn its code and earn XP. After learning an item's code, decompiling that item generates codes bits, no XP. Code bits are needed for crafting so decompile everything you can't use or sell them if they're worth good info. Pills, boosters and enhanced weapons sell for good info. If an item is too high to decompile (red or purple) and you don't wan't to keep it, either sell it or recycle it. Recycling gives you half the value of selling it to a vendor (you can sell anything at ANY vendor) so you can use recycle to see what an item is worth (just hit 'no' in the confirmation window if don't want to recycle it).
 
Tip:  Need bits? Killing neighborhood and hideout exiles is a great way to fill your inventory with decompilable items. Combine this with getting the objects to trade for collector items or going into hideouts to get the nice boss drop and you will be making the most of your time. Find exiles 1-2 levels below you so you can kill them fairly easily. You'll get some info and xp too. Search out the neighborhood bosses for each mob and you can also get access keys to nodes in other neighborhoods as well as occasional enhanced items and nice info drops. All the while you will be filling your inventory with 'junk' that can be decompiled to build your code library and generate bits for crafting. And when doing missions, search everything, sure it takes a little more time but again anything that is 'worthless' (ie you won't use it and it doesn't sell for much) is perfect for decompiling.

Crafting:
 
The Write Code ability allows you to craft everything: abilities, apparel, tools, upgrades and weapons. But it caps at level 15 (the ability can be leveled up to 50 but the crafting cap is 15, after that the effects of leveling Write Code have nothing to do with crafting). So after level 15 or so you will need to go further down the coder tree to get the individual crafting abilities for each categorie and level them up.
 
Tip: There is apparel which buffs write code and the individual crafting abilites. While some of the apparel has too high of a minimum level requirement to be of use at level 15, there is stuff you can find to use (especially for female RSI's). Ask a high level apparel maker. Most of the Code Writing buffs are +1 pt so theoretically you could equip 6 items and buff Code Writing by 6 points (max level 21 code writing). After that, you need to go further down the coder tree to the individual crafting abilities and pay to level them up.
 
To craft, click on the Code Analyzer Tool on you tool bar and the crafting window will open. Crafting items is a two step process. First you must craft the template. Then you can compile copies of the item from the template. To compile in the Matrix, you will need the compile item ability and a item compiler tool or you can do it in the loading area without the tool and abiliity. I recommend doing it in the loading area for three reasons: it is faster, there is no chance of failure and you don't have to acquire and level another ability.

The one advantage of compiling in the Matrix with the ability and tool is the purity will be better. With tool and ability the item will have one dot of purity (two dots is possible but rare). In the loading area, the item will always have no purity and so can't be repaired when it breaks. If you are going to sell items on the marketplace, compiling with the ability to give it purity will make the item worth more.
 
Crafting abilities is a one step process. Craft it and you're done. Upload it to your code archive and you can load it and use it.
 
If the item you want to craft has fragments you can't make, then you don't have enough bits to make the fragments. When you select the item in your Code Analyzer Tool menu, the system chat window will either tell you the bit set is complete or it will list the bits you don't have. To find out how many bits you have in your code archive, you can go to the loading area and look (pain in the a55) or use the /bits command to list your bit inventory in the system chat box.
 
All fragments are green except the last fragment on items and abilities of level 20 or higher. The green fragments can be coded from bits and acquired as drops. Bits can be generated by decompiling items and also be looted from exiles and found in mission areas. The red fragments can only be gotten as drops from exile mobs, archive exiles and archive bosses. There are plenty of lists available to tell you where to go to get each fragment.
 
Tip: There is a fragment vendor at Apollyon SE. (You can take the subway to get there. It is the place in Appolyon that has a whole bunch of vendors showing on your map.) This vendor sells the first two fragments for everything you can code, each for 1000k info. This becomes useful when you are low on bits and the ability or item you are trying to craft is getting too expensive to buy or is not available at a vendor. Since you cannot buy bits, the next best thing is to buy the first two fragments for what you want to craft at this fragment vendor, thus reducing how many bits you need to code stuff. So when an ability costs 40K and you don't quite have enough bits to craft it, go buy the first two frags for 2k and see if you then have enough bits to craft the ability. At this vendor with write code loaded you can open the vendor window, the ability tree and the code analyzer menu. It's a little confusing at first so take your time looking at what the vendor sells and how the frags are laid out in the code analyzer tool menu. This frag vendor has been one of the most useful resources for me as a low level coder when code bits are not abundant.
 
Buffing Coding and Decompiling:
 
Signal boosters buff coding and decompiling. And there is a control box on the ground for uploading and viewing your ability trees. There is a signal booster on top of the building to the right as you come out of the Tabor East hardline (use the ladder if you don't have hyperjump). This is the closest booster to any hardline in Richland. There is also one close to the hardline at Mara C but Tabot East is still the closest.
 
Without buffing, decompiling a blue item will fail occasionally. With the sig booster buff you can decompile orange items regularly with an occasional fail and occasionally you will succeed at decompiling a red item. I have even  succeeded in decompiling purple items but don't usually bother trying unless it has no sell value.
 
Finally, you can burn a fragment to generate a temporary buff for coding. To do this, put your Code Crafter ability on your toolbar and select a fragment in your inventory (you may have to go to the Loading Area to get a fragment out of your code archive). Then click the crafter ability. The fragment will burn/disappear from your inventory and the buff will appear under your toolbar. You cannot do this with the code analyzer tool open which is a pain and means you'll have to open the analyzer tool menu and find the item you want to craft after burning the frag.

On higher level items, the time to craft the entire bit set gets rather long and will exceed the duration of the crafting buff from burning a red frag. In this case, craft all the green frags first, then move forward or backwards to interrupt the crafting process. Now burn the red frag and start the final stage of crafting with the buff on.

I've tried to make this as informative and helpful as possible to both the nOOb and experienced coder. This is all based on my personal knowledge and experience and so I welcome any suggestions, comments or criticism that may help improve/refine this. I know of no other guide to coding and hope this will fill in the blank for the many curious minds as well as encourage those who otherwise might not consider coding because it is confusing and esoteric on first impression (yet in the end it is not so complex and intimidating and the investment in the coder tree is minimal compared to other trees).

 

Message Edited by r3spon5e on 05-19-2006 06:31 AM

I edit everything

Message Edited by r3spon5e on 05-19-2006 06:34 AM