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The interior of the Factory.
The Flash Powder Factory, commonly abbreviated to FPF, is a minigame that replaced The Rogues' Den. It was released on 13 December 2011.
After the Imperial Guard took notice of the old Rogues' Den, Brian O'Richard shut down his maze and opened the doors to his Flash Powder Factory instead. Inside players can operate the factory, while dodging obstacles and the sneaky fingers of other players.
Thieving experience can be gained from thieving other players as well as Herblore experience from mixing ingredients at the Factory. Pieces of the old Rogues' Den rewards can also be found lying around.
All games at the factory take place on an Instance shard world - accessible from any server but actually taking place on another server.
Location
The location of the Rogue's Den
The Flash Powder Factory can be found inside the Rogues' Den, which is below The Pick and Lute bar in Taverley. Enter by the trap door in the north-east corner of the bar.
Games are initiated by speaking to Brian O'Richard. Players are teleported to an instanced shard world, similar to Clan Citadels.
Requirements
- 75
- 75
- 50
- Stat boosting items CANNOT be used to gain access to the factory.
- Players CANNOT enter the factory with a familiar or pet.
Playing the game
The arena map
A guide to machine and obstacle locations, with key (click to enlarge).
The aim of the game is to make flash powder. The first step is to collect the two reagents known simply as "A" and "B". These can be obtained from the reagent machines A and B, marked with blue and orange arrows on the minimap, respectively. These can also be located by checking the map where the world map icon usually appears. Each game takes 15 minutes, wearing a Factory top or Rogue top will grant you an extra 2 minutes per game.
A blue call button that can be pressed to open the adjacent locked pressure door
To navigate the map, players must pass agility obstacles that separate each room. Some corridors, namely the diagonals and the ones coming from the centre room, also have 'pressure doors' at each end of them, which are sometimes locked, making navigation more difficult. Doors will lock or unlock when catalyst is taken from a machine in a room that it is joined to. Some doors may be opened by operating the nearby call buttons when they are blue - if the button is red it cannot yet be opened. If a player is trapped in a corridor by two locked doors, they have a few seconds to step through one of the doors before they get teleported to a random corner of the arena.
Once both the reagents have been obtained, they must be taken with catalytic powder to one of the four mixer machines, marked by the dark red arrows on the map, to make the flash powder and gain points. Players start with 6 catalytic powder, although more can be collected from the catalyst machine in the centre of the arena.
You will gain a minimum of 100 points for each flash powder made. Additional points can be obtained when making powder by having a bonus, provided by certain factors:
- Charge - charge can be obtained through an active charge machine, marked with an electricity bolt on the map. The machine will give a 10% bonus for 100 seconds. As a result of two active machines the maximum bonus is 20%.
- Apparatus - determined by the number of refining apparatus in the inventory, a maximum of 6 can be held at one time for 15% bonus when making flash powder. Players will have three of these at the start of the game; more may be obtained by pickpocketing other players in the arena, but they may also be lost to other players who are pickpocketing. The number of apparatuses each player has will be displayed as a number of green bars above their head. It is not possible to pickpocket a player immediately after they have pickpocketed you, nor can you pickpocket one twice in a row. There is a slight delay in the ability to pickpocket if an attempt to do so fails. It is advised to click quickly to either escape pickpocketing or to pickpocket the other player before they can pickpocket you. A good way to get pickpocket victims is to click on a player immediately after they cross an obstacle. There is no period of immunity in the beginning of a game, so players can pickpocket or be pickpocketed immediately after spawning in the factory. Since pickpocketing only gives a small bonus, it is generally better to focus more on getting to the correct machines.
- Residue - increases by 1% for every flash powder made.
- Factory outfit - Wearing the full set gives an extra 10% bonus if the bonus by the above means is equivalent to a score of 120 or more when making the flash powder.[1]
Note that the bonus stacks additively - the individual bonuses will be added together to form the actual bonus.
Rubble
Fallen rubble
Two sets of rubble in one room
While traversing through obstacles you may come across Fallen rubble (it is hard to see, looks like several little rocks on the ground). Searching these can yield pieces of Rogue armour, catalytic powder, sets of apparatus or flash powder (valued at 105 points for an average batch; 113 points for a decent batch; 121 points for a very nice batch). It is also possible to find nothing at all. It is assumed receiving a piece of Rogue Armour is considerably rare.
- Players who already have full Rogue armour can still obtain extra Rogue equipment in the rubble.
- Rubble does not appear on the mini map.
- Rubble only appears around the Reagent (A) (blue arrow machines) and Mixers (red arrow machines).
- Sometimes one set of rubble can be searched a couple of times (up to six confirmed).
- Other people can see the rubble, and it is possible for more than one person to search it if they are quick enough.
- In rare cases two sets of rubble can appear in one room at the same time.
- "The helmet reduces the chance of finding nothing in rubble by 15%, spreading that 15% around the other outcomes" [2]
Strategy
- The 20% charge bonus is worth more than one or two more apparatus; try and make sure you always have 20% when going to a mixer.
- Stick to the outside where possible, as you won't get stuck behind locked doors (there aren't any around the outside) and it will take you past the charge machines, and also past more rubble spots.
- Yellow arrows (Reagent machine (B)) are harder to get than the blue arrows (Reagent machine (A)) due to the doors, so if you are at a fork and the way to the yellow arrow is clear, take that one and come back around for the blue one.
- Pickpocketing can be a time waster, but if someone is standing still, or they are charging, it can be very quick to pickpocket them as you go past. Also the faster you move, the harder you will be to catch in return. Note that the time it takes to pickpocket another player often results in potential lost points.
- It is more efficient in the long-run to ignore pickpocketing other players and ignore those who attempt to pickpocket you.
- If you do go through the middle, you'll often find the direct route through is blocked. Rather than wait, use one of the side doors that will always be open; it'll only be one extra obstacle.
- There are always two open doors around the catalyst machine in the middle. The open doors cycle in a clockwise direction once every 21 seconds.
- To maximize your rewards earned per hour, keep playing until your time remaining shows 2 minutes. If you have the Factory top, quit when your time remaining shows 4 minutes.
- The quickest way to leave is to abandon (drop) a piece of equipment.
Rewards
Within the factory the player raises his/her game score by making or finding flash powder. On exiting the factory, the game score is converted to reward points called "Brianpoints". Brianpoints can be used to buy rewards including Thieving experience, Agility experience, and pieces of the Factory outfit. Each piece of the Factory outfit offers benefits within the Flash Powder Factory; in addition, wearing any three or all five pieces of the full outfit outside the game offers Herblore benefits.
Brianpoints
Brianpoints are calculated from your game score by counting points up to 500 as .2 Brianpoints each, and points over 500 as .05 Brianpoints each. The total score is rounded down. So, for example, 615 score turns into 500*.2 + 115*.05 = 105.75, rounded down to 105 Brianpoints. The rewards points seemed to be capped at 155, which corresponds to a game score of 1200. Players can earn a score higher than 1200 in the factory, but they will not grant any more reward points
If you take longer than 6 minutes to finish a round (if your time remaining on completion shows 9 minutes or less and you are not wearing a Rogue top or Factory top), you will get an extra 20 Brianpoints on completion.
As of 11 January 2012, players incur a penalty for leaving more than two minutes before the end of the game. This penalty is set at 50% when time remaining on completion shows 8 minutes or more and decreases as follows:
- 8+ minutes remaining: 50% penalty
- 7 minutes remaining: 46% penalty
- 6 minutes remaining: 40% penalty
- 5 minutes remaining: 33% penalty
- 4 minutes remaining: 26% penalty
- 3 minutes remaining: 20% penalty
- 2 or fewer minutes remaining: no penalty
The penalty applies to both the Brianpoints calculated from the game score and the 20 Brianpoint bonus for leaving the game with less than 10 minutes remaining.
(Note: wearing a Rogue top or Factory top increases the time you can spend in the factory by 2 minutes. These 2 minutes don't actually count against you when leaving the factory early, so you can leave with 4 minutes on the clock and you won't get the penalty).
Example: Suppose a player earns 800 game score and exits with 3 minutes remaining. Total Brianpoints awarded would be:
- 500*0.2 + 300*0.05 + 20 [time bonus] = 135
- 135 * (1-0.2) [time penalty] = 108 Brianpoints awarded
The following table shows reward points gained without points for time remaining and before applying penalties (This chart needs to be updated):
| Game Score |
Reward Points (Brian Points) |
Points Per Score |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | not verified | |
| 200 | not verified | |
| 300 | ~90 | |
| 400 | 100 | |
| 550 | 132 | |
| 600 | 135 | |
|
800 |
145 |
0.168 |
| 900 | 150 | 0.164 |
|
1000+ |
155 |
0.155 |
Based on how Points work, it's best to leave early as soon as the penalty is lifted (2 minutes before the end of a game).
To check your Brianpoints you can use the Quick Chat shortcut: <Enter>,<Enter>,np,<Page Down>,<Enter> Once you've said it once you can just use F11 to repeat. You cannot navigate to this via the Quick Chat menus, as there isn't an item for this mini-game yet.
Buying Rewards
Brianpoints can be used to buy rewards from Brian O'Richard. The rewards that can be bought are as follows.
- Thieving experience - 120 xp per reward point (in 10, 100, 1k and 10k lots - there is no bonus for trading in the higher amounts)
- Agility experience - 95 xp per reward point (in 10, 100, 1k and 10k lots - there is no bonus for trading in the higher amounts)
- Factory outfit.
- Factory mask - 2250 points - increases the chance of finding items in Fallen rubble.
- Factory top - 3500 points - gives an extra 2 minutes in the game.
- Factory trousers - 2750 points - gives an extra 3 Catalytic powder on entering the game.
- Factory gloves - 1750 points - increase the chance of successfully pickpocketing by 10%.
- Factory boots - 1750 points - reduce the failure rate on obstacles.
- To buy whole factory outfit one must play least 80 perfect rounds.
- Multitool - 35 points
- Wearing 3 out of the 5 Factory set pieces gives a 1/10 chance to make 4 dose potions instead of 3. This effect even works with untradeable potions, such as Extreme potions. It does not, however, work with Overloads, Serum 207, Extreme Ranging or any juju potions.
- Wearing the full Factory set increases experience gained for making unfinished potions, equal to the amount of cleaning the herb used.
Experience Rates
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On initial release, The Flash Powder Factory awarded very good agility experience per hour when played efficiently. Players could leave without penalty after collecting 500 Brianpoints, meaning games could be finished in as little as 5–6 minutes. This would yield 80k+ experience per hour in Agility.
However, with the addition of penalties for leaving early on 11 January 2012, the rate at which reward points could be obtained was reduced, meaning Agility experience possible was reduced to about 50k experience per hour. However 60k agility experience per hour is easily attainable.
Trivia
- On the day of release players received the message "The instance you tried to join is full. Please try back later." This was due to a bug limiting the number of instances and the huge volume of players trying to access the minigame. Players on foreign servers did not have this problem.
- Brian O'Richard opened the factory; a quote of what he said: "Depressed. My wonderful Rogues’ Den is full of cooks rather than thieves, using the everlasting fire to burn lobsters. It is hardly the purpose I had in mind for my wonderous cavern." (From RuneScape "Behind the Scenes December" News)
- It is possible to get the Flash Powder Factory as a Daily Challenge when you do not have the required levels to do it.
- There appears to be a connection to a television programme 'The Crystal Maze' which was first aired in 1990 in the UK. The first presenter of the show was called Richard O'Brien, and it seems that the name 'Brian O Richard' was based on this. The track 'Flash Powder' that plays in this minigame appears to have some similarities to the actual theme tune of the programme also.
- Although the format of this minigame is similar to that of the Agility Arena, it is NOT an actual agility course. Thus, the Surefooted/Greater Surefooted auras cannot be used here to prevent failure of agility obstacles like you can at the Agility Arena.
Gallery
References
Agility courses | |
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