Holo Projection Mesh

Holo Projection Mesh icon

An expensive piece of hardware commonly used in the Holovid industry. Often disdained like lip-syncing on a stage.

The Holo Projection Mesh is a unique item belonging to Archive Prism, which she can use to disguise as a guard. Activating the Holo Projection Mesh costs 2 PWR, and then another 2 PWR at the start of each player turn if it remains active. The Holo Projection Mesh can be manually deactivated, or otherwise it deactivates if there is not enough PWR at the start of the player's turn to keep it activated. PWR for the active disguise is deducted after generator programs generate PWR, so it will not be deactivated if generator programs generate enough PWR to maintain it. The disguise also deactivates if Archive Prism is too close to a guard who sees through the disguise.

The Holo Projection Mesh can only be used by Archive Prism, not any other agent. It has no cooldown; it can be activated and deactivated any number of times in the same turn, if the agency has enough PWR to do so. The Holo Projection Mesh has a resale value of 250 credits.

The disguise can be activated even when sprinting is toggled on.

The disgiuse does not break when Prism enters into some Emmiter.

The disguise breaks if Prism enters onto a tile which is adjacent either orthogonally or diagonally to some enemy and is in primary vision of this enemy (even if it results in Prism hiding behind a cover).

The disguise breaks immediately if used in a primary vision of some enemy. It does not break if used in peripheral vision of some enemy.

The disguise breaks if Prism sptints to another tile. In such case a disguise breaks before a movement. It does not break when sprinting is enabled without moving.

The Holo Projection Mesh is mechanically one of the most complicated items in the game, and there are several known bugs related to it. The “Prism door bug”, “recaptured camera bug” and “diagonal camera bug” are fixed in the Disguise Fix mod.

While Prism is disguised, guards will attempt not to path through her. This means that if a guard path is recalculated while Prism blocks a door or another choke-point while disguised, then a guard with no valid path will stand still on the following enemy turn, unless another path recalculation is triggered after Prism gets out of the way. Similarly, guards with an alternate valid path to their patrol point or interest point may take a longer route instead.

This bug typically occurs when Prism opens or closes a door she goes through while blocking it, because toggling doors triggers a guard path recalculation.

If a Security Camera is recaptured, it can break the Holo Projection Mesh's disguise as if it was a guard. This is because cameras lack an internal flag (call it the “AI-controlled” flag) marking them as corporation-controlled at the start of the mission, even though they are under the corporation's control. When they are recaptured after being hacked, they gain the “AI-controlled” flag, even though they didn't have it previously.

This “AI-controlled” flag is how the game determines what is able to break the Holo Projection Mesh's disguise when Prism is next to them, which is why this bug exists. Recaptured turrets can break the Holo Projection Mesh's disguise at close range for the same reason.

Prism's disguise can break when she stands diagonally in front of an unhacked Security Camera which is not “AI-controlled”, if there is also a guard orthogonally adjacent to Prism, even though the guard is not facing towards her. This bug occurs because when Prism steps in front of the camera, the game checks whether the nearest unit is enemy-controlled, and the nearest unit is not necessarily the camera she steps in front of.

It may be possible for the same bug to occur in reverse, if Prism steps diagonally in front of an enemy-controlled unit, while orthogonally adjacent to a non-enemy-controlled unit.

The game checks whether Prism's disguise should break each time she moves, and each time a guard moves. However, the check is not performed when a guard turns in-place. This means that if a guard turns 90 degrees or more to face Prism without moving (such as when pathing around a hard corner) then the guard will stop moving without breaking her disguise.