My review of every single black-market item

[Itseasytosee2me]

I will be reviewing every item found in the black market uplink. I will be giving them a score of one to five based on coolness, usefulness, and uniqueness. I've left out my opinions of the black market uplink as a concept, feel free to draw your own conclusions

Clothing

Space Ninja Mask 1/5
A real worthless item. The only gimmick I could see being done with this is making it difficult to identify your corpse or be a poser ninja killer. Looks bad without the rest of the set anyways.

Durathread Vest 3/5
This is station creatable and therefore not very unique. However, it is one of the only "armors" available to the crew and looks pretty cool.

Durathread Helmet 3/5
Not much to be said that can't be said about the vest. I guess you could wear it alongside a lab coat if you wanted to look like a dork.

Nanotrasen Branded Spacesuit Box 2/5
Ironic because most of the time you need to go into space to retrieve your item. Has some use I suppose. But if you really wanted a spacesuit EVA is a much better option. I think you can even order them from cargo.

Chameleon Hat (broken) 3/5
I guess it's kind of funny. Also has a little armor if that's worth anything.

Combat Medic hardsuit 4/5
A reskin of the CMO's hardsuit. Useful has good armor and beats EVA spacesuits by a lot. Shame it doesn't have any unique qualities.

Rocket Boots 3/5
Comical but Highly impractical. Give them to the clown or someone who doesn't know what they do to turn them into a pancake.

Consumables

Bowl of Clown's Tears 1/5
Useless unless you want to make a very specific cocktail and you don't have bananas.

Box of Donk Pockets 1/5
These are everywhere and can be ordered from cargo. I guess it makes sense in the +lore+

Bottle of Suspicious Pills 2/5
Who doesn't love drugs? Well, kind of irrelevant because the psyche starts pre-loaded with most of this shit. It would be more fun to beg for a prescription than buy these.

Strange Pill (floor pill) 3/5
A staple of any good station, although you can find them in maint pretty reliably.

Maintenance Pump-Up 3/5
An underrated drug all in all. But these things are readily available in maint or creatable yourself.

Tools

Experimental Wrench 1/5
A slightly quicker wrench. This is dumb because I don't recall a single wrench do-after. Not even a unique sprite.

Experimental Screwdriver 1/5
A slightly quicker screwdriver. Screwdriver do-afters are pretty hard to come by outside of window deconstruction. No unique sprite.

Experimental Crowbar 1/5
A slightly quicker crowbar. Crowbar do-afters are pretty hard to come by outside of window deconstruction. Suprise there's no unique sprite. For the whole collection, I will add there is not a welder variant, which is the only one that could be considered remotely useful. If there was, I would give it a 2/5.

Binoculars 2/5
If you want Binoculars this is your only option short of asking the detective. (not like he's using them) And for that, it's worth something.

Riot Shield 3/5
Pretty cool. Riot shields are useful but hardly unique. A middling to fair item.

Thermite Bottle 2/5
Thermite Is criminally easy to make. However, it's got nice flavor and not everyone has access to a chem machine. For that, I give it a 2.

Science Goggles 1/5
Holy shit. These are all of science and chem. They are even printable. Not even the sunglasses variant. In what situation would buying these be a good idea?

Clowny N-spect scanner 3/5
A gimmick item made after a gimmick item that no one uses. Contains a solid pun. Useful if you want to slip people but are allergic to bananas and soap.

Clowny N-spect scanner 3/5
A gimmick item made after a gimmick item that no one uses. Contains a solid pun. Useful if you want to slip people but are allergic to bananas and soap.

Weapons

Bear Trap 3/5
Surprisingly robust. The janitor has this round start. Nuff said.

Shotgun Dart 1/5
These are literally craftable at an autolathe.

Bone Spear 3/5
You could just make a normal spear, but where is the +style+ in that?

Chainsaw 3/5
Chainsaws are craftable. On the other hand, chainsaws are badass. 3/5

Switchblade 5/5
Badass, robust, and difficult to obtain otherwise. Probably the best uplink item despite the fact it isn't too interesting.

EMP Grenade 4/5
EMPs are useful. They are creatable yourself, and many antags have versions of this. But there is just something about the style of that freely tossed blue grenade through the air that makes silicons crap their robotic pants.

EMP Grenade 4/5
EMPs are useful. They are creatable yourself, and many antags have versions of this. But there is just something about the style of that freely tossed blue grenade through the air that makes silicons crap their robotic pants.

Misc

Clear PDA 3/5
Simple and stylish. Everyone will think you are really cool after they steal your PDA.

Jade Lantern 1/5
It's a green light and it's fucking lame.

Cap Gun 1/5
One of the worst fake traitor item toys. Go play the arcade.

Shoulder holster 3/5
Holsters are badass but I am biased as the creator of The Holster Overhall. (not this uplink item)

Flask of holy water 2/5
I suppose this could be useful, but hallow water and holy-melons are a thing. Perhaps this is a more convenient way to get holy water without a chap?

Strange Seeds 3/5
I don't know a lot about botany but I do know strange seeds are cool.

Smuggler's Satchel 1/5
This one really pisses me off. The smuggler's satchel has really been through the wringer. If this was the only way to get a smuggler's satchel I would be ok with it. But the smuggler's satchel is a traitor item. Not only that, tens of them can be found in the floor under the station. Why would you buy this on either the black market OR traitor uplink? The item itself is moderately useful if you have a specific use in mind. (planting a secret bomb or what have you.)

[Jonathan Gupta]

Smuggler's Satchel 1/5
This one really pisses me off. The smuggler's satchel has really been through the wringer. If this was the only way to get a smuggler's satchel I would be ok with it. But the smuggler's satchel is a traitor item. Not only that, tens of them can be found in the floor under the station. Why would you buy this on either the black market OR traitor uplink? The item itself is moderately useful if you have a specific use in mind. (planting a secret bomb or what have you.)

you can fit multiple smuggler's satchels in your backpack for extra space(TRY IT OUT!)

[Armhulen]

man remove the black market 2021

[cacogen]

The items are almost all shit and there should be stuff that sucks less like illegal guns and armour at hefty price points to give money actual value and you shouldn't have to build that stupid fucking BSPREASPSAD whatever machine to use it. Building the uplink itself should be enough.

[saprasam]

a black market exists to have illegal items and yet there is very little interesting illegal stuff
10/10 wouldn ever use again

[Itseasytosee2me]

a black market exists to have illegal items and yet there is very little interesting illegal stuff
10/10 wouldn ever use again

The prime example being that fucking green lamp. The original PR wanted to add the ultra-bright lamp to the black-market uplink but was changed out for the jade lantern.
There is nothing about them that could be remotely considered "illegal" It's not even a new item or anything, they were made for a ruin and still spawn as maint loot.
You would also have a hard time arguing that binoculars and science goggles are illicit goods in any sense of the word.

[saprasam]

i just had a thought where you could make a hyperelaborate black market bluespace machine that uses one of those cargo droppod beacons to send illicit blackmarket goods (actually illicit this time) but im too lazy to learn how to code and that also sounds dumb

[Armhulen]

i got an idea: remove it and add more aquarium content because aquariums are for high testosterone cargonians

[Jonathan Gupta]

i got an idea: remove it and add more aquarium content because aquariums are for high testosterone cargonians

make aquariums with piranhas slowly degrade mail over a course of 10 minutes.

[NecromancerAnne]

The real value of maint pills is that they're another chance for more points on the leaderboard.

Also, wrenches have one of the most important do_afters. Deconstructing R-Walls has like three wrench steps.

[FantasticFwoosh]

Space Ninja Mask 1/5
A real worthless item. The only gimmick I could see being done with this is making it difficult to identify your corpse or be a poser ninja killer. Looks bad without the rest of the set anyways.

Bowl of Clown's Tears 1/5
Useless unless you want to make a very specific cocktail and you don't have bananas.

Box of Donk Pockets 1/5
These are everywhere and can be ordered from cargo. I guess it makes sense in the +lore+

Experimental Wrench 1/5
A slightly quicker wrench. This is dumb because I don't recall a single wrench do-after. Not even a unique sprite.

Experimental Screwdriver 1/5
A slightly quicker screwdriver. Screwdriver do-afters are pretty hard to come by outside of window deconstruction. No unique sprite.

Experimental Crowbar 1/5
A slightly quicker crowbar. Crowbar do-afters are pretty hard to come by outside of window deconstruction. Suprise there's no unique sprite. For the whole collection, I will add there is not a welder variant, which is the only one that could be considered remotely useful. If there was, I would give it a 2/5.

Science Goggles 1/5
Holy shit. These are all of science and chem. They are even printable. Not even the sunglasses variant. In what situation would buying these be a good idea?

Shotgun Dart 1/5
These are literally craftable at an autolathe.

Jade Lantern 1/5
It's a green light and it's fucking lame.

Cap Gun 1/5
One of the worst fake traitor item toys. Go play the arcade.

Smuggler's Satchel 1/5
This one really pisses me off. The smuggler's satchel has really been through the wringer. If this was the only way to get a smuggler's satchel I would be ok with it. But the smuggler's satchel is a traitor item. Not only that, tens of them can be found in the floor under the station. Why would you buy this on either the black market OR traitor uplink? The item itself is moderately useful if you have a specific use in mind. (planting a secret bomb or what have you.)

If anything its a waste of time, when i heard about it for the first time, i thought it was a dynamic way for traitors, crooked cops & maintenance trawlers to sell less than legal weps and maint pills over shady channels rather than have it sit in a locker at security once apprehended. I can totally source you a eblade ingame but im not going to do some risky manual transaction face to face almost ever-in game or lead you to a custom auction room deep in maint to find its already been looted.

- Also buying these is pretty much the only enjoyment Syndicate Lavaland Base folks get outside of doing jobs not on station, or being horribly murdered by fully farmed miners.