Snowbreak: Containment Zone Neuronics Guide
The game offers various methods of improving your operatives. One of those is by activating bonus effects to your operatives' skills via the Neuronics system. In this article, we will discuss in detail and provide tips on how to use the feature properly.
Theotropic Clusters in Snowbreak: Containment Zone
All operatives have three skill types: Standard Skill, Support Skill, and Ultimate Skill. This feature allows you to permanently add improvements to these skills, adding bonus effects and enhanced damage.
Each cluster represents a Neural Skill (neural buff). Their orders are pretty much the same as how the operatives' skills are listed; the top two neural skills apply to the Standard Skill, the middle two apply to the Support Skill, and the bottom two apply to the Ultimate Skill.
Since you can add up to two Neural buffs to each of your skills, you'll need to prioritize which ones to improve first since the resources needed and required level to unlock these clusters will increase as you complete each cluster. Normally, the standard skill and ultimate skill will take priority, depending on the operative's kit. If your operative's standard skill is her bread-and-butter, then it makes sense to prioritize activating the two clusters related to her Standard Skill.
Node Activation
Each cluster has 9 nodes. You'll need to spend Nerve Channel Materials to activate these nodes and unlock their respective Alignment Index and unlock new effects. These nodes are activated in order. Once you've reached the ninth and last node, you'll have to use either more Fiber Axons or for higher Deiwos Alignment level (see below), a rarer nerve channel material called Quantum Cell.
Take note that you can only activate nodes one cluster at a time. You have to fully activate the cluster you've selected before moving on to another cluster.
Resetting a Cluster
You can reset the activated clusters on an operative to retrieve the nerve channel materials used on her. This is useful when you're trying to build a different operative. Resetting is free and you can do it by clicking the Reset button in the lower-left corner of the screen. When you reset, only the clusters are affected; the operative's Deiwos Level is not affected.
What is Deiwos Alignment in Snowbreak: Containment Zone
Once you have fully activated a cluster, the operative's Deiwos Alignment level will increase. You can review an operative's Deiwos level and its effects by tapping the circle in the middle of their backs (Neuronics menu). The details are displayed on the right side of the screen, while the requirements to reach the next level are displayed in the bottom right. As mentioned above, the operative's Deiwos level is not affected by resetting your clusters. The requirements to reach the next level are still recognized and tracked so you can continue where you left off, after reallocating your nerve channel materials to other nodes and clusters.
Where to get Nerve Channel Materials in Snowbreak: Containment Zone
To activate your cluster nodes, you'll need to spend Nerve Channel Materials. There are only two types in the game: Fiber Axon (blue) and Quantum Cell (orange). Fiber Axon is the common material that is needed to activate the individual nodes. You can farm these via Operations > Real of Eternal Winter.
Quantum Cells are rarer and more difficult to obtain since they act as the "finishing connection", inserted in the cluster's last node (Node 9) to activate the cluster (neural skill) and increase the operative's Deiwos Alignment. You can get these through limited events, Hard Mode stages, or exchanged via Shop > Event Exchange > Neural Simulation. I highly recommend using these materials on your main operatives since they can be hard to come by.
Other Snowbreak: Containment Zone Pages
If you're wondering which operatives you should prioritize building, check out our Operatives Tier List.
For other methods of improving your operatives, you can check out our Manifestation Guide and Logistics Guide.
At the same time, you can also check out our article for various methods of acquiring new weaponsfor your operatives. We also have a dedicated article about upgrading your weapons.
We also have a Weapons Tier List which will help you identify the weapons worth upgrading and giving to your operatives.