Floppy disk

**Floppy disks** are the main way to transport electronic data in the world of *After the Fall*. They can contain anything from system data for a Harvest-O-Matic to encrypted weapon blueprints, and in gameplay primarily serve the role of unlocking weapons and upgrades for the player to use.

## Upgrade Blueprint Floppies

The most commonly encountered type of floppy disk out in the ruins are those containing encrypted blueprints for weapon parts, mods, and equipment. Runners would do well to keep an eye out for these and collect them during a harvest run, as a weapon upgraded and customized to the runner's liking will make life a little easier.

### Rarity and Color

Upgrade floppies come in four varieties indicating the rarity and quality of the upgrade stored within:

* Import upgrades,  colored blue, which are commonly found and low tier
* Industrial upgrades,  colored purple
* Military upgrades,  colored gold
* Prototype upgrades,  colored red, which are the rarest to find and highest tier

### Locating and Collecting

#### Harvest Run

Each harvest run will spawn 2 floppies placed in randomly-selected locations in the run. They are often in plain sight, though on occasion they can be stashed away in side rooms, shelves, or cabinets that the player must go out of their way to investigate. If a player has line of sight to a floppy disk, a layered waypoint will appear on it tinted the same color as the floppy, making it easy to notice.

Floppies can be held in a hand or stored in a wrist pocket. If the floppy is dropped, it will stay there.[2]

Floppies found in a Harvest Run can be placed in Harvest-O-Matics in safe rooms; simply insert the disk into the disk drive to the right of the zapper. It's highly recommended to deposit floppies at the earliest opportunity to free up an inventory slot for juice boosters or pipe bombs. If the squad can complete the run, all players in the squad will earn an upgrade from that floppy. In addition, any floppies in players' possessions (held or in the wrist) when the run is finished will be distributed to the whole squad, and all players will automatically earn a guaranteed floppy disk with a rarity based on the difficulty. If a team freeze happens, all floppies are lost. Retrying a run will result in rerolled floppy spawns.

##### Floppy Spawn Rates

Spawn rates by difficulty as of v1.5.37145
 Veteran
 Master
 Nightmare

These rates are prone to adjustment as content is released and the community gives feedback over time.

#### Horde

Floppies are earned by players after completing every 5th round. Physical disks are not given, instead the floppies are awarded and decrypted on the results screen. Players will earn import floppies on clearing rounds 5 and 10, industrial floppies for rounds 15 and 20, military floppies for rounds 25, 30, and 35, and a prototype floppy every 5 rounds after that.

Floppy rarities awarded based on Horde round cleared

### Decryption

Unlocked attachments are revealed on the results screen, and which attachments are unlocked are specific to each player. Details of attachments and parts unlocked by each floppy can be found in each weapon's article. As of v1.5.37145, players are guaranteed to earn a reward they have not unlocked yet. If a player has already earned all possible rewards from a rarity tier, they will instead earn bonus Harvest. The odds of any particular reward unlocking are, at base, equal, though there may be a higher chance applied to rewards relevant to the current season or update.

## Other Floppies

Besides the upgrade floppies, there are instances of other floppy disks existing in the world that the player will encounter.

### Harvest-O-Matic Boot Disk

During the introduction, Frank instructs the player to insert a floppy disk into the nearby arcade cabinet, in order to boot it and use it to get a weapon. The floppy is found on the table to the right of the arcade cabinet.

### Weapon Base Floppy

After reaching The Line for the first time, Luna hands the player a floppy disk containing a blueprint for the Service Pistol and instructs them to go to the armory with it and insert it into the Harvest-O-Matic. This gives the player the ability to get a Service Pistol from the armory at any time going forward.

### Credits Floppy

A floppy disk in the armory will roll the game's credits on the Harvest-O-Matic when inserted.

### Intro Floppy

A second floppy disk in the armory will prompt the user if they wish to play the Introduction level again when inserted into the Harvest-O-Matic.

## Trivia

* 3.5" floppy disks as seen in the game were initially designed in 1982 to replace larger 5.25" disks. In the real world, these saw widespread use for portable data storage until they were superceded by other formats towards the end of the 1990's, such as the Iomega ZIP disk, recordable CDs, and USB flash drives.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Message from Pep in channel #atf-chat of the official Discord. Retrieved 13 March 2022.
2. ↑ [1]
3. ↑ "PATCH 1.5.37145". After the Fall (website). Retrieved 28 April 2022.