Neural Upgrade: How to Mod T-Dolls

The Neural Upgrade system, also known as Modding, allows certain T-Dolls to be enhanced beyond their normal limits, which improves their level cap, their rarity (coming with the stat and skill improvements you’d expect), as well as unlocking a second skill at Mod II. Furthermore, any T-Doll upgraded to Mod III will receive new in-game art, updated voiceovers, and a SPEQ (Special Equipment).

Neural Upgrades require Commander level 60 to unlock, which is most easily achieved through dragging 0-2, which you should be doing anyway.

The further corpse dragging maps either have too high other requirements for a new player to consider, or require mods to be run efficiently. As such the common expectation is to drag 0-2 until you hit level 60, modding your first few dolls and then move on to greener pastures.

[Link to Corpse Dragging]

Modding a doll is how you improve a doll past their limit of level 100, each upgrade granting different benefits.

Upgrading a doll costs Memory Fragments and Cores and requires them to be at max level, at max affection and fully linked. 5☆ dolls being modded into 6☆ also require FCCs (New Type Fire-Control Cores).

1. Mod1: Base improvements to a doll increasing their rarity. This comes with increased stats and an improved skill1 to match the new rarity, as well as improving tile strength and sometimes also adding new tiles. Level cap becomes 110.
2. Mod2: Unlocks skill2 for the doll, which requires skilling up separately from skill1. Note that not all dolls are worth skilling up the second skill on, see the relevant doll page for more info on such. Level cap becomes 115.
3. Mod3: New art and a SPEQ. Level cap becomes 120.

Note that outside of M4A1’s mod3, it is not recommended to rush for mod3s for other dolls over upgrading everyone else you need to raise first to mod1 or mod2 as needed. A lot of SPEQs simply do not offer enough benefits to be a major consideration. See the Upgrade Priority page for specifics from doll to doll.

Mem Frags are from Neural Cloud Corridor Sims. As with all of the other sims that are not data, it is preferable to only ever do the 3-cost sim as the others have less yield per energy. The 3-cost sim gives 30 Mem Frags for Completion as well as a 50% chance for each of the 3 (?) nodes to give 10 bringing the average Mem Frags per sim up to 45.

FCCs are available as part of the Monthly Supply in the Black Market in the Forward Base. Newer Major events also grant ~10 FCCs per event, available even after they become Permanent Campaigns.

The Cafe Bar Coffee Machine serves as the menu for Mod Stories in Springfield’s Cafe.

Here you can view the stories for each doll’s Neural Upgrade, generally being side-stories outside of the main cast.

The first time a doll reaches a new Mod level you will unlock the next part of the story, as well as gaining up to 300 Mem Frags back from reading said stories.

No, you don’t need Oaths.

Affection cap increases to 150 when a doll is Oathed and increases again at mod3 to 200. Each cap increases your potential stat gain by 5%, allowing you to gain up to 15% increased stats on your doll at mod3 with maxed affection. 

These are considered very minor improvements and are not needed.

Assuming all 12 energy of a day is spent on the Neural Cloud Corridor.
Note that focusing purely on Memory Fragments and neglecting Data is a bad idea, the recommended split is generally 4 days of Data and 3 days of Mem Frags a week.

See the Resource Allocation page for more detail.

While Oathed dolls gain double exp after being modded, it is not recommended to go out of your way to Oath things specifically for this reason.

Mods vary vastly in power and far from all mods are recommended, as such it is important to know which ones are good and which ones are not worth focusing on. This is especially true for a new Commander.

For new players, the priority is slightly different due to having a very limited armory and having different needs than players already at end-game, as such there is a different priority for them, though this is also covered in the Upgrade Priority Guide.

Each major event from Shattered Connexion onwards awards 10 FCCs in total spread through the difficulties. After the campaign goes permanently into the Campaign tab in the combat menu these FCCs remain available allowing newer commanders to swiftly grab some FCCs to help them get started on 6☆ modding.

Once you unlock modding it is highly recommended to grab enough FCCs from the early missions in permanent campaigns to upgrade 416 to Mod II.