Guide: How to make Xan Alpha Symbiants and Spirits

[Chrisax]

(For shade spirits, see further in this post)

Xan Alpha symbiants are the most advanced symbiants / implants in Anarchy Online (unless some mysterious new items in the game database are actually released in AO)

You can see them here:
https://aoitems.com/search/name:xan+unit+alpha/

But they don't drop in the game; they are not loot; they have to be made.

So how can you make them? Until this guide, there was no complete documentation about it. (At least that we know of.) We're happy to bring this to you all.

To make a Xan Alpha symbiant, you need to combine:
- a Xan Beta symbiant (dropping randomly from the Legacy of the Xan, "LoX", areas and instances)
and
- an Intelligent (so QL300) symbiant (dropping from The Night Heart in Pandemonium).

• Attention:
  - Intelligent symbiants are YESDROP (can be traded to other characters)
  - Xan Beta symbiants EXCEPT Ear and Thigh are YESDROP (can be traded to other characters)
  - Xan Beta Ear and Thigh are NODROP (CAN'T be traded to other characters) so you must loot them on the character that will use them. Beta Ear and Thigh can be r-clicked to change their unity type and match your profession.
  - Xan Alpha symbiants are NODROP (CAN'T be traded to other characters)
  
  So when you make an Alpha symbiant (nodrop), you MUST make it on the character that will use it.
  

Just combine as you would combine any items in Anarchy Online. (Drag and SHIFT-click an item on another.) You can use the tradeskilling window of too. (SHIFT T to open the window and put your items in the slots; the result will appear, then press the button to combine the items and build the result.)

No skill is required. So you "tradeskill" but without needing any tradeskill.

You have to combine a Beta symbiant with a QL300 Intelligent symbiant of the same unit type (Control, Extermination, Infantry, Support, Artillery) and same slot (ear, eye, chest,...) to get a Xan Alpha symbiant.

For example to make an Alpha Chest for a Control unit (Meta-physicist, engineer, bureaucrat, trader), you need a Beta Control Chest from the 12-man instance (Hall of the Elders) and an Intelligent (QL300) Control chest from The Night Heart in Pandemonium. Intelligent symbiants are very expensive because they are very difficult to obtain. Only a few drop from a TNH kill.

BUT there is an exception to this rule: the Xan Beta symbiants for Ear and Thigh are "clickable" symbiants that change their Unit type when r-clicked, and go through all unit kinds: artillery, Control, Extermination, Infantry, Support. So you can adapt a symbiant to your unit type.

In this case, you also have a little trick that can help you save some money when you build an Alpha symbiant:

Once you have your Ear of Thigh Beta symbiant, loot for the least expensive Intelligent Ear or Thigh on the market. (It's often Extermination type.) Buy it.

Then r-click your Beta Ear or Thigh until it matches the unit type of the Intelligent symbiant you got.

Then combine them to get the Alpha symbiant.

Then again, r-click the resulting Alpha Ear or Thigh until it becomes the unit type you need.

You have the Alpha symbiant and you have probably saved hundreds of millions.

For Shade Alpha Spirits, there is a nice AOU guide here:
https://www.ao-universe.com/guides/lega ... /spirits#1

Spirits have an additional step in the domain of Alphas, where you can combined 2 Alphas to obtain a different Alpha.

Actually making Alpha spirits is more complicated than making Alpha symbiants, so the guide is great information, and very clearly presented.

External link: After our brainstorming about Alpha symbiants, Bitnykk also made a good guide on Ao-universe
https://www.ao-universe.com/guides/lega ... ymbiants-3

[Chrisax]

Edited the post above with the shade alpha spirits guide on AOU, in addition to the already existing external link to Bit's symbiants post on AOU too.