Blade & Soul - Ghost In The Shell (Gon Outfit) Mod

Following two very new outfits in the last two posts, we have a rather old but rare outfit - Ghost In The Shell, in this week's mod. This outfit drops off the final boss (TE-1138 Heavenpiercer, piloted by Be Ido) in the level 50 Sundered Nexus dungeon, which is considered old content. But if you are wondering why I consider an outfit from an old dungeon rare, that is because in addition to the low drop rate, the dungeon cannot be easily soloed by even level 55 player with good gears. Any solo challenger (because no one will want to go in that dungeon 😦 ) will need to have 'whale' gears before they can try to farm the boss for the outfit.

This is a very tedious dungeon which basically test players on every skills, including air dash skill in electrified chambers requiring tight maneuvers (you can see this in the video 😅 ). Not to mention one of the mini bosses - Drill Sergeant, who can shield himself from any damage (for a very long time, while his razor blades cut you down), if the players cannot stop him from the power-up mechanism. In order to stop the power-up, the players need to double stuns, double knockdowns and double dazes the boss. For Blade & Soul players, I guess you can know why this is impassable for a solo and fairly well geared player 😨. Unless the solo player can take all his 4 million health points before the power-up completes, you are not getting past him.

For the sake of non-players, well, no character class in the game can have all six skills (not at the same time, at least) required to prevent the power-up. Destroyers do have all those skills but they require out-of-combat status to swap them. 

But if you find the outfit's name familiar, that is because it is also the title of a Japanese manga cum anime cum Hollywood movie. Is there any relation between the outfit and the anime/manga? The connections that I can make is the ghost NPC who gives the player the dungeon quest and the fact that some of the enemies in the dungeon are cybernetically enhanced. Also, the final boss Be Ido actually pilots a massive robot - TE-1138 Heaven Piercer. So, he might be the ghost, or rather clown (because he dresses and acts like one 😅 ) in the shell.

In the dungeon, the player will also acquire a quest by the name of "Ghost of The Machine", which is very close to a book ("Ghost in The Machine" written by Arthur Koestler) that inspires Masamune Shirow (actual name - Masanori Ota) in his work on the manga/anime.

Other than the physical resemblance of cybernetic soldiers and machines, there is no philosophical connection to the manga/anime, which explores the question "What does it means to be human" and "What is the soul or ghost" when the entire body, including the brain, can be replaced cybernetically.

Be Ido and TE-1138 Heavenpiercer

Well, since we cannot directly link the dungeon to the anime/manga, let us take a look at the original outfit to see if it fits the name.

Front View - Original Outfit

The outfit is colored full black with ghostly blue glow.

The base is a tight fitting suit which can be clearly seen on the torso portion. The armored layer is then worn over the suit.

Front Close-up View - Original Outfit

Rear View - Original Outfit

Four 'fins' form the tail cloth or armor on each side.

Rear Close-up View - Original Outfit

The armor on the arms are especially thick, as seen above.

Right Side View - Original Outfit

A ghostly face décor hangs on the right side of the waist. Is it good enough to relate to the outfit's name?

Left Side Close-up View - Original Outfit

Some glowing blue strings can be seen hanging on the left side of the torso.

Given the tight layer on the torso, it makes a good area to be recolored to skin and I have seen topless mod involving this outfit. The arms, however, are too thick to be recolored to skin layer, unless you want a pair of 'hulk' arms. 😆

The legs look eligible for skin layer but a crumbled area at the back of the knee spoils the smoothness. So unless, I can make a convincing set of knee cap protectors or such, I will not consider recoloring the legs to skin. 😥

Let's see what is the final result of the mod below.

Front View - Modified Outfit

Instead of turning the entire tight fitting layer on the torso to skin layer, I made it something similar to the Night Fortuna mod that I made.

Front Close-up View - Modified Outfit

I also recolored the inner thighs to skin layer.

Rear View - Modified Outfit

I kept the tail fins because without them, the outfit will look kind of top-heavy-bottom-light.

Rear Close-up View - Modified Outfit

The skin layer on the inner thighs extends to the rear and butt area.

Right Side View - Modified Outfit

The ghost face décor is left to 'smile' on the right side. 😅

Left Side Close-up View - Modified Outfit

One problem that I had on this mod is that the mesh structure for the butt area is kind of strange because it has a really deep (and I mean REALLY) and super narrow groove. It is not visible in-game because of the narrowness but it can cause problem by swallowing up the texture around it like a Black Hole (i.e. the textures drawn on this area get hidden in that deep groove and not visible in game). That is why there is some skin-cloth overlap at the butt area. 😧

Anyway, that is all for this mod. Watch the video for closer views and take a peek at the now obsolete dungeon.