Prototype Chip icon

This bleeding-edge device is a stolen classified prototype.

The Prototype Chip is a special item which can be found only in Security Dispatch missions. It can be charged at Consoles to store PWR, which can then be used to manually break firewalls on mainframe devices. The Prototype Chip can be sold for 350 credits.

The Prototype Chip has no cooldown, and no skill level requirement to use.

The Prototype Chip initially stores 0 PWR, out of a maximum capacity of 10 PWR. To charge the Prototype Chip, the agent carrying it must be adjacent to an unused Console. The amount of PWR charged is equal to the Console's base PWR plus any bonus from the agent's Hacking skill.

Accelerator Chips cannot be used to increase the PWR charged from a Console.

Once charged, the Prototype chip can be used like a Buster Chip to manually break firewalls, at a cost of 1 PWR per firewall. To do this, the agent carrying it must be adjacent to the mainframe device you want to hack. The Prototype Chip will either break all firewalls on the device, or otherwise use all of its stored PWR to break that number of firewalls. The player cannot control the exact number of firewalls broken.

Note that the Prototype Chip's tooltip text says it “breaks X firewalls” where X is the amount of PWR stored, which may be misleading if the device's firewalls are lower than X.