Data Cell
Data Cells are a bonus item collectable after completing a special event, when deposited it's reward 1000 
and 500 
multiplied by the Hazard Bonus.
Data cells are obtained by hacking a Prospector Data Deposits, disabling a Rival Communications Router, or destroying a Prospector Drone. These are events that can spawn randomly in any mission other than Industrial Sabotage. Their spawn chance is not affected by mission length. A maximum of one of any of these events can spawn per mission, meaning you will never be able to obtain more than one Data cell per mission.
If a mission is failed, as long as the Data Cell was deposited, players will still be able to get some of the experience and credits they grant.
Events
Prospector Drone
| “ | The Prospector Drone is sent by a Rival Company and programmed for curiosity and thorough work, it researches every nook and cranny around areas of Hoxxes for mining potential. If attacked it will call for help from its fellow drones and flee to avoid its precious data being lost in the depths. |
| — Miner's Manual Description |
The Prospector Drone is a relatively passive rival tech drone that can be encountered wandering on Hoxxes. If attacked it will attempt to flee in distress, and will call in Patrol Bots and Shredders. It has no means of attack other than summoning rival tech bots to attack the Dwarves.
Whenever one of the 3 health segments are depleted, it will summon an orange shield and become immune to damage for 10 seconds, or up to 20 seconds if spawned Patrol Bots exceed number of active players. Immediately after this shield is engaged, a wave of Patrol Bots and Shredders will also spawn to protect the Prospector Drone. This can happen twice.
If the Prospector Drone manages to escape the dwarves by reaching a safe location several dozen meters away from them, it will return to passive mode and the Drone's healthbar will fade until reengaged. However, the Drone will now become alert on proximity of a nearby dwarf in addition to it also being able to be disturbed by taking damage as normal. Every time a Prospector Drone is allowed to escape and is reengaged it will spawn an additional wave of Patrol Bots and Shredders.
• The objective is to destroy the Prospector Drone.
Prospector Data Deposit
| “ | The Hacking Pod has landed! Hook it up to the Prospector Data Deposit, so the hacking can begin! |
| — Mission Control |
The Prospector Data Deposit is an obelisk-like structure randomly found inside the caves. A Dwarf can interact with it to call down a Hacking Pod, the same kind that is summoned when interacting with a Power Station during an Industrial Sabotage mission. Once it arrives, players need to create a data link between it and the Deposit using Transmitter Nodes, again in the same way as during said mission type. In-lore, it is the structure in which the Prospector Drone stores its data.
Once the link is established, a button will appear on the Hacking Pod and, when pressed, it will start the hacking sequence. During this time, waves of enemies will spawn near the Hacking Pod, targeting it directly instead of the Dwarves in many cases. As in Sabotage missions, if the drone takes enough damage, it will go back into its housing and have to be restarted again. In addition to normal enemy spawns, a wave of Patrol Bots and Shredders will spawn upon reaching 1/3rd and 2/3rds of the hacking progress bar.
• The objective is to defend the Hack-C Bot Unit until it's hacking progress is complete.
Rival Communications Router
| “ | You've triggered the Rival Comms Router anti-tampering system! The only way to disarm it is to hack each Antenna Node while it back-charges the Router Core. |
| — Mission Control |
The Rival Communications Router is surrounded by multiple Antenna Nodes. After disabling the relays, the router will start a self-destruction sequence. In the allotted time, the Dwarves will have to spot the blinking antenna and proceed to disable them, however the blinking will switch to another antenna every 30 seconds. You can defuse the active antenna by interacting with it to bring pull out your dwarf's hacking device which then opens a small hacking minigame, the minigame is played by selecting both sides of one of the 2 wires displayed on screen and then pinpointing the displayed "weak point" of the wire to cut it. Do this for both of the two wires to successfully hack the node. If the sequence time is over, the dwarf will get electrocuted and booted out, and another node will become active instead. The amount of nodes needed to be hacked to complete the event successfully is dependent on the size of your team. In case of a failed event, the Communications Router will explode in a 30 meter radius, dealing very high damage. If the event is successful, the self destruct will be aborted and access to the data cell inside the router will be granted.
• The objective is to disable 3-5 Antenna Nodes in the allotted time, depending on team size.
Trivia
- Introduced with the Season 01: Rival Incursion, it was used to progress the Performance Pass.
- During the 4 Years in Orbit! Anniversary Stream: Part II: Art Showcase video at 34:52, it was shown how the Prospector Drone was designed to fit the Data Deposit, though no animation had been implemented.
- Season 02: Rival Escalation added the Rival Communications Router encounter.
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