Research and Development

Since Brainiac's arrival, scientists and engineers have been working tirelessly to learn everything possible about the Exobytes Future Lex Luthor released into the atmosphere.

Though many of the Exobytes have found their way to human hosts, more have gone dormant and begun to decay; turning into Exobits. Research and Development is a new system, brought on by breakthroughs in nanite technology, that will allow Heroes and Villains to find and utilize these unclaimed Exobytes and create powerful Equipment Mods and Consumables.

Exobits
In Gotham City and Metropolis, players can find Exobits laying around rooftops, on streets, and on beaches. Collecting 8 of an Exobit of a certain type will allow the player to create an Exobyte of that category.

R&D Stations
An R&D station is used to modify items, salvage items out of old items, and create new improved items, through the use of Exobytes.

In order to create new items and modifiers, players need to obtain Research and Development Plans from R&D Vendors. Some end of level villains will also drop plans amongst their loot.

R&D Vendors
R&D Vendors are special NPC that can be found in each of the three wings (Meta/Meta, Tech/Tech and Magic/Magic) of the Watchtower and the Hall of Doom.

They allow players to purchase essential parts for creating items:
 * basic plans
 * Equipment Interfaces of all levels, which are the basic elements to mix with Exobytes to obtain Equipment Mods

Sockets
Each gear, or armor, features a socket that can incorporate a modification item (equipment mod) to boost the gear's stats.

In addition, if the modification item matches the color of the socket, a bonus stat boost will also occur. The bonus stat boost is listed on the gear.

The mod color and the socket color do not need to be a perfect match (E.g. Placing a Red Mod in a Yellow Socket) but matching allows an extra affinity bonus to be achieved as described in the armor. The mod color is based on the types of exobits used in its construction.

Salvaging items
Characters cannot salvage drops until level 30.

The R&D Station menu displays two distinct tabs. The first one to be displayed (Assembly) relates to plan usage and exobyte creation. The second tab can be selected by clicking Salvaging at the top of the menu, and the items of the player's inventory are displayed in a list at the left section of the menu. Items that cannot be salvaged won't appear in the list, as well as the items that are currently equipped by the player.

To salvage an item simply click on the item you wish to salvage and click the salvage button. When you do this, the item will disappear from your inventory and you will receive a new item, such as a simple material, that can be used to assemble Equipment Mods I and above (plans that can be purchased at the vendor with prices above $3150, using Marks of Triumph, but could also be obtained from certain bosses).

Salvaging certain types of items (such as green colored ones), usually do not produce any useful items to use in the assembly of Equipment Mods. Their value is much lower than the original item (over 10 times lower) and no profit can be made from salvaging them. It can be highly profitable to salvage blue and purple items if they produce items used in assembly.

Levels of plans
Alpha - Level 1-19 plans dropped by bosses in level 1-19 content.

Beta - Level 19-30 plans dropped by bosses in level 19-30 content.

I - Tier 1 plans dropped by bosses in Tier 1 alerts and duos

II - Tier 2 plans dropped by bosses in Tier 2 raids and alerts.

III - Tier 3 plans dropped by bosses in Tier 3 raids, alerts and duo.

IV - Tier 4 plans dropped by bosses in the Themyscira:Gates of Tartarus raid.

Trivia

 * Research and Development was introduced in Game Update 8.
 * Research and Development becomes available to players once they reach level 10.
 * Game Update 9 added two new Soder Cola recipes that are superior to Soder Cola Extreme. The recipes are purchasable on the Research and Development vendors.
 * High level and wealthy players are usually willing to trade large amounts of cash or valuable items for exobits.