Metroplexity

Skills 91 (Arsonist Training) and 93 (Unwavering Attention) come from the Pile of Secrets — it seems likely 92 does too. Office love letters PenguinPyro suggests?

Yet more drop data:

So it seems a reliable, but not perfect, way to get the good drops from pile of secrets, is to instantly kill it with a single Etheric attack.

So I tried sleeping in the Records Office with counterculture cyberware (cat eyes, tiger skin) and the office worker outfit equipped, and it is currently bugged (in such a way that I can't even rest), but if anyone wants to beat me to try it again after Kinak fixes things, by all means.

Yet another negative findings with Powerful cyberarms, Powerful Cyberlegs, Tiger Skin and Cat Eyes

1) Melee techniques tried: headbutt, clashing blow, integrated ram play, brace spear, punch, crushing punch, brutality, lash out, jab, ghoul bite, sword play, glass spear (sober version), ghoul bite, cruel slash
Stealth techniques tried: Sudden bash, Kidney punch, dirty pool
Ranged techniques tried: precise shot, clustered shot, single shot, shotgun blast
Etheric techniques tried: Evil eye, channel the deep, withering gaze, call to feast, serpent pattern, pyrophobia, distant claw, call the swarm, light of the eye
Evasion Techniques tried: parry, leaping dodge, glass helm (sober version), dive for cover (with and without shield), foresee, shield block (with and without shield),

2) I also tried using melee/stealth/evasion techniques while barehanded (no offhand or weapon equipped), and while drunk (Champagne Drunk) against the Drunken Tigers. Nothing for that. I also tried the mentioned evasion techniques specifically against ranged attacks to see if it would trigger Tiger Pounce, and it did not.

3) Powerful cyberarms + powerful cyberlegs did not reduce the penalty (or enhance the bonus) on the Midgard MG2 (with no offhand equipped), sadly.

4) Nothing for killing ghouls (from Stolen Artistry) and hoping I could learn Leap from them.

As an aside, I have left some clones in the waterfront with the powerful cyberarms, powerful cyberlegs, cat eyes and tiger skin equipped if you want to come at me with salvaging tools and ghoultouched!

Toxic spear now has special poisoning results for Spear Hunting, both normally and Vs. Melee / Evasion. Spear Throw and Speargun seem to be unaffected.

EDIT: Withering Gaze is enhanced with a poison apple or venomous angel equipped. Toxic crystal had no effect.

EDIT 2: poison apple and venomous angel seem to change how poison damage is calculated. Envenomed Fang changed from doing 1 to (Damage done) poison damage to (Damage done) to (2*Damage Done) poison damage. At 115 Reflexes and 10 stealth power, Inject Venom did 10-20 poison damage instead of the expected 1-10, which also fits the adjusted Envenomed Fang formula. Toxic crystal and toxic spear didn't change the damage.

Nothing special for eating a Jumbo platter immediately after Hel telling you to eat a jumbo platter.

The truffle's item description mentions cooking. Perhaps it should be able to be sauteed as well?

The bat wing could be crisped before the introduction of Cooking, so why not crisp it for real?

Pizza dough can currently only be used for a single item. Not sure if more items are planned but… I can haz pisa?

Some kind of squid stir fry would be nice for endangered squids or lake squid, analogous to the mushroom or fish stir fry.

We can make sliced bread and have access to butter, but we cannot yet combine the two to make buttered toast. Please advise.

Looking at chains from shield of scales, among the 5 known techniques that are affected, there are the following possibilities:

Serpent Strike - 1, Sudden Bash - 2, Shield Block - 3, Striking Shield - 4, Serpent Pattern - 5

Every descending chain has a unique result. I wonder if any more results on ascending chains? 4-5 is the only specific one, which is not even one of the techniques granted by the shield (not that we should necessarily rely on that). Maybe something to look into?

EDIT: other mysteries:
- The chain 4-3-2-1 giving "serpents" plural to the later parts of that chain seems like it should only work if the unknown (Serpent Venom?) condition of Striking Shield is used? What happens if you use the other forms of Striking Shield?

- the interaction with Striking Shield vs. Tome of Binding do anything else?

Failed attempts at getting this technique, after getting the fanmod idoru message from the Common TV Programs:

• Using Hex with the fanmod idoru equipped.
• Using Call to Feast with the fanmod idoru equipped (With and without a mask)
• Gaing a large amount of Etheric wtih a fanmod idoru equipped
• Fighting a ghoul with the fanmod idoru equipped.
• Doing all of the above with and without Channeling Matsuo active.

EDIT: Found it! You need to salvage My Little Idoru dolls with the fanmod idoru equipped.

EDIT 2: festival doll, hungry doll, limited edition Idoru, Idoru nurse, My Little Idoru, twisted voodoo doll, whispering doll produce the default message.

An interesting thing about these techniques is that the technique you learn is usually in the same chain number or within 1 chain number of the technique that taught it. There are only a few exceptions:

Backstab (chain 0)-> Cyberblade (chain 4)
Brutality (chain 2)-> Generated Gaze (chain 4)
Brutality (2) -> Rhythmic Chopping (4)
Brutality (2) -> nailbeating (4)
Flying Teeth (5) -> Skeletal Burst (8)
Bloodied Dodge (5)-> Bloody Draw (7)
Release the Hounds (5)-> Hunting Command (7)

So if you're hunting after a specific NPC technique, it may help to try techniques in the same or adjacent chain numbers first.

I had a podcast question that got completely out of control and rampaged its way into Kinak's inbox before I could stop it.

Kinak's reply:

I think the main thing you would have noticed in there is pretty subtle. There are some other interactions you've gotten close to (some of which are so long undiscovered even I'd forgotten them).

But there definitely should have been some more in there. Added some new stuff to techniques, including a toxic spear one with hunting spear that you definitely would have discovered. The others aren't directly on that list, so I'll leave them unspoken for now.

So I'm sending up the spade-signal. There's new things to find and also some super obscure old ones, apparently.

Similarities between this technique and the Third Eye Seer's Blank Gaze?

Another set of negative findings with the Muscular Cyberarms, Corroded Dermal Plates, Hooked Cyberlegs, and Analyzing Cybereye

1) Melee techniques tried: cruel slash, headbutt, punch, crushing punch, brutality, swordplay, jab, lash out, improvisation
Stealth techniques tried: kidney punch, sudden bash,
ranged techniques tried: single shot, shotgun blast
Evasion techniques tried: parry, shield block, dive for cover, leaping dodge
Etheric techniques used: Starry gaze, evil eye, light of the eye, foresee
2) With the full set of cyberware, I fought Midgard Heavy Guards (both gatling and unarmed) with various melee techs, dive for cover, shield block and parry. The entire time I wore the midgard heavy outfit (helmet, vest, pants) and sometimes the midgard heavy gauntlets. I tried dive for cover and shield block with and without a shield, and with positive evasion power. Killed a LOT of them.

Just a reminder that I am taking suggestions. See the (updated) original post to see what I'm going to install next!

No apparent difference in any of the choices with a simple blindfold equipped, and Foresee, Light of the Eye, Channel the Deep and Evil Eye in my deck.

More drop data:

I suspect there is a threshold of either hitting it more than twice or dealing overkill damage that causes paper mache to drop instead of the actual papers. Simply killing it in one or two hits doesn't seem to harm the drop rate otherwise.

There was an old chemistry recipe that was apparently removed for combining this with powerful acid. Since acid is mentioned in the trauma reference result, maybe getting that unlocks the ability to do the acid experiment? Might be worth trying, but might also just be a hint that acid is especially effective vs. opponents with Writhing Flesh.

I've repeatedly got it without Expensive Smoke or High Brow. Wielded a cane (golden cane) and repeatedly used Punch / Crushing Punch / Knife followed by Swordplay. I think they key here is using the Melee-following variant of Swordplay with a cane equipped.

I managed to get two copies of this. I was wielding a classy cane and fighting enemies in the Cellar Door.

I had both High Brow and Expensive Smoke active when I learned the technique, but Al had previously tried High Brow without finding anything. My deck was Ghoul Bite, Brutality, Punch, Swordplay and Leaping Dodge, but one of the two instances I learned was after just Punch and Swordplay used in the fight.

At least with a cane equipped, combat message does not seem to change following another melee tech. And the message was with both High Brow and Expensive Smoke still active.

I noticed that even at Just Starting rank I wasn't getting better at bughunting for catching certain bugs. I thought maybe it was because I didn't have a cage, but according to Kinak "some of them are easy enough to catch you don't get better at it."