SYN City: Explorer Field Guide

Physical fabric and rooftop traversal

Towers are solid world geometry: use streets and alleys, take cover behind buildings, and plan routes instead of passing through server blocks. Traversable towers expose data lifts and purposeful rooftop destinations. Press I near a lift to reach a roof; shared player-built fabric bridges provide optional rooftop-to-rooftop routes. Generic stepping platforms were retired because lifts were clearer and the decks cluttered safehouse approaches.

Rooftops contain encrypted caches, relay antennas, timed route trials and maintenance systems. RSS, Fortune and Operator archive towers are dedicated reading sites: open their transmission from the street-level facade terminal, and expect no unrelated rooftop service on the same tower. Falling returns you to the last authoritative safe surface and may cause packet loss when a data void is active.

IDS scans, signature and trace

Scanner and Rogue/Botnet patrol units correlate visible activity. ICMP sweeps, weapons, loud repairs, data lifts and construction increase your signature. Their scan cones require line of sight, so opaque towers and service structures provide real concealment.

The trace ladder is unseen → fingerprint → correlated → traced. A traced packet can be marked for interception. Break line of sight, stop broadcasting, enter Packet Hold, route through a safehouse, deploy a scanner decoy, jam a patrol, or spoof your fingerprint with V. Destroying a scanner is possible, but gunfire creates another signature burst.

Multi-stage live operations and Route Trials

Ordinary repairs still keep the city healthy, but larger operations unfold across multiple locations. Follow the active stage marker, investigate the source, retrieve or protect evidence, and make a final operational choice.

Delivering operation payloads

1. Recover the operation key package at its marked stage, then decrypt it through a safehouse, Package Cache, encrypted relay or brute force.
2. Once plaintext is recovered, Field Guidance shows the delivery terminal’s distance and compass heading.
3. Follow the tall amber beam and floating beacon, or press M for the amber route on the city map.
4. Enter the orange landing ring beside the terminal and press I. Delivery has priority over nearby RSS, archives and other interactions.
5. Encrypted key material is not accepted: the operation payload must be decrypted first.

Running a rooftop Route Trial

1. Use a data lift to reach a marker labelled ROUTE TRIAL · I START, then press I.
2. The trial lasts 150 seconds. Field Guidance shows the active checkpoint number, remaining time, distance and compass direction. Press M for a pulsing gold minimap target and route line.
3. Travel to the tall gold beam and floating diamond, then land inside the large gold pad. Checkpoint roofs are exclusive while your trial is active: their ordinary rooftop service is suspended, and RSS, Fortune or Operator archive towers are never selected.
4. Press I inside the pad to confirm it. The active checkpoint always has priority over every other interaction. Confirm all checkpoints to earn 2 bandwidth, 1 compute and 1 trust.
5. An expired attempt may be restarted immediately; a completed terminal replenishes after 15 minutes.

Autonomous faction units also fight, patrol, steal payloads, damage infrastructure and contest sectors while players are elsewhere.

Build connected infrastructure

Repairs, rooftop work, route trials and combat salvage yield a compact resource set: compute, bandwidth, trust and components. Press O to deploy operational nodes, then B to open the Network Builder.

• Link a Looking Glass to a Route Collector for early scanner warnings.
• Link a Package Cache to an NTP Source for trusted, quieter repairs.
• Link other compatible nodes as encrypted relays.
• Build temporary rooftop bridges, deploy scanner decoys, or establish a Quantum-Secured Channel.

Links, bridges and channels are visible shared-world objects. Hostile Mirai drones can corrupt nodes, and players must maintain valuable routes.

Encryption Caches and Recovered Intel

Recover, decrypt and archive intelligence

1. Stand beside a rooftop marker labelled ENCRYPTION CACHE · I RECOVER and press I. A packet can carry one encrypted payload for 30 minutes.
2. For trusted decryption, Field Guidance points to the nearest usable destination with distance and compass direction. Follow the tall cyan beacon or press M for the cyan map target.
3. Enter your faction safehouse, or stand beside the marked Package Cache or encrypted-relay endpoint. Press B and choose Trusted decrypt. Brute force is available anywhere for 2 compute, but creates a large IDS signature.
4. Read the recovered record. Payloads have different titles, sources, categories and rarity. They may contain operational evidence, incident fragments, faction intelligence, Operator history, or one part of a longer message thread.
5. Choose Archive and release payload. The plaintext is stored permanently in Recovered Intel, thread progress is updated, and your one-payload custody slot is cleared.
6. Some records contain an actionable field lead. Archiving activates a tall violet beacon, route line, map target, distance and compass heading. Reach the marked rooftop and press I to recover the evidence before the lead expires.
7. The catalogue prefers intelligence you have never archived. An exact record is not repeated while another eligible unseen record remains.

Recovered Intel archive

Open the Network Builder with B to review every archived plaintext, filter it by category, and inspect multi-part thread progress. Ordinary cache payloads finish by being archived. Operation key material instead remains in custody: decrypt it, follow the tall amber delivery beacon or amber M-map route, enter the orange ring, and press I.

Connected relay nodes can host a Quantum-Secured Channel. Observation does not reveal plaintext, but it alerts the endpoints and can collapse the route. Participants then decide whether to revoke, reroute or transmit a decoy.

Factions and ways to play

Combat is only one approach. You can evade, jam, lure, quarantine, investigate, build, deliver, race, repair, socialise or play in cosy mode when hostile systems are disabled.

Controls

Joining the city

Registration is currently open. Choose a public packet name and verify your email using the one-time link.

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