Corrupted weapon and armor purification is a relatively easy way to obtain normal weapons and armor of a high tier. In this short guide, I will tell you how to purify corrupted items, how to get them, and why this is important.
Video Guide
How to Purify Corrupted Items
In the current patch, I have met 3 corrupted items so far: Corrupted Weapon (ranged), Corrupted Melee Weapon, and Corrupted Armor.
These items cannot be equipped and must be purified first. For this, there is a Corruption Cleaner facility in any Ancient Temple. For example, it’s present in the very first Ancient Temple on the “Bardwell 2” planet. The temple must be activated first in order to use its facilities, though.
Place a corrupted item (weapon or armor) in the bottom slot. In the top slot, you can place up to 4 Light Shards, which can be crafted at the “Light Shards” facility (also inside the Ancient Temple).
After that, just press “Purify”, and you will get a usable item of the corresponding type.
Items Quality
The quality of the resulting item depends on the number of Light Shards you use. In my tests, armor and weapons have different tier gradations when it comes to purification.
For Armor:
- 4 Light Shards → T7 Suit (turquoise, shining one);
- 3 Light Shards → T6 Suit (turquoise);
- 2 Light Shards → T5 Suit (red);
- 1 Light Shard → T4 Suit (orange).
For Ranged Weapons:
- 4 Light Shards → random T6 Ranged Weapon (turquoise);
- 3 Light Shards → random T5 Ranged Weapon (red);
- 2 Light Shards → random T4 Ranged Weapon (orange);
- 1 Light Shard → random T3 Ranged Weapon (purple).
For Melee Weapons:
- 4 Light Shards → T6 Melee Weapon (turquoise);
- 3 Light Shards → T5 Melee Weapon (red);
- 2 Light Shards → T4 Melee Weapon (orange);
- 1 Light Shard → T3 Melee Weapon (purple).
You can leverage this opportunity to get high-tier items much earlier. All you need to do is farm corrupted items and purify them using Light Shards.
Ranged Weapon Randomness
Note that every time you purify a ranged Corrupted Weapon, you get a random ranged gun: machine gun, pistol, assault rifle, or something else. That’s why I recommend saving the game before purification. If you get an inappropriate weapon, load the saved game and try again. In this way, you can obtain a specific high-tier gun.
How to Get Corrupted Weapons and Armor
Corrupted Weapons and Armor can be randomly found after killing corrupted pirates on planet surfaces. If you use the scanner (Q), you might find unknown signals on certain corrupted planets. Sometimes such a signal indicates normal pirate outposts that can be turned into friendly ones after killing all the mobs. But more often, you will find a small corrupted Pirate Outpost at the signal location.
On certain high-level planets (e.g., Tipping 4, Fintan 1), you can find much bigger structures with corrupted pirate mobs. When you kill these mobs, they randomly drop Corrupted Weapon (ranged), Corrupted Melee Weapon, or Corrupted Armor.
If your goal is to get these items, I recommend saving the game before clearing the outpost. If you kill the mobs but don’t get the items you need, just load the saved game and try again.
Also, you can relatively cheaply buy corrupted items from merchants at space stations (for example, a Corrupted Weapon (ranged) costs about 2–3k Qbits), but they are not always present in the list of goods for sale.