HOPE 01 Gadgets Tier List

Gadgets are how HOPE 01 lets you change playstyle without swapping the entire 70-gun roster. The demo sold “20+ gadgets”; the full Early Access build sits inside a 200+ item collect list and will add more during the year-or-less EA window. This page ranks the utility slot and the consumable gadgets that decide whether a raid extracts. It does not invent a complete catalogue of unpublished toy names.

If a gadget does not help you leave the Cluster, it is flavour. Rank it next to Weapons and take it out on an Early Loadouts kit before you trust it in a boss pit.

The utility slot is a weapon

You get a limited number of things you can actually hold. Footage is consistent: the flashlight lives in utilities, hold left click to beam, and until you own a tactical flashlight on the gun you must swap off your shoot button to see. That Doom 3 tax is the entire gadget meta in dark medical rooms.

So the first ranking question is not “is this gadget cool?” It is “does this gadget still let me shoot, dodge, and watch the Manorial timer?”

S tier — see, eat, leave

Handheld flashlight (utility). Mandatory while you lack a mounted light. Dark rooms will waste mags and eat extracts. Hold to shine, memorise the silhouette, dodge, then shoot. Controls if the swap still feels clumsy.

Gun-mounted / tactical light (when you have it). This is the gadget that collapses S-tier handheld light into a free slot. Extract the blueprint like a quest item. Scan it in the Fabricator even if you will print it later.

Food and water as gadgets-adjacent. They are usable items, not holsters, but they occupy the same decision space. Print them. A raid that starves on the way to Hab Rail failed a gadget check.

Caloric converter — S only with food. Item text in footage: burns calories to gain energized and regeneration. That is a heal engine and a sprint engine. Without canned goods or juice in the grid it is a brick. With food it is how long raids and Boss Fights stay legal.

A tier — planned fights and medical wings

Medical tools and prints that spend medical fabrics. Medical bricks are a colour of money. Spending them on a gadget you understand (a real heal, a status cleanse, a tool that opens a medical box faster) is A. Spending them on a duplicate of something you already scanned is how you go broke before the Bureau.

Spare loaded magazine as a “gadget.” Not a utility toy, but players who treat a second mag like a gadget extract more. Drag ammo in the hideout. A boss wind-up is not a crafting table.

Anything that shortens darkness without eating the fire button. If an item description says it lights, marks, or silhouettes, read it twice and test in a cheap run.

B tier — situational playstyle toys

The demo promised gadgets to customise playstyle. That is B-tier until proven: movement toys, noise toys, quest-specific devices. They are why the collect-a-thon exists. Rules:

• Scan every blue gadget once.
• Print a copy only if you can name the room it wins.
• If it occupies the same slot as light, it is competing with S-tier. It must beat darkness, not just look like a lore object.

Heavy or large gadgets that wreck inventory tetris drop to B even if the effect is strong. How to Extract does not care that your toy is rare.

C tier — collector and quest objects

Unscanned oddities, story items, things you will understand after a quest NPC talks. The campaign has 50+ quests and multiple endings; some gadgets are keys dressed as loot. Bag them, extract them, scan them, stash them. Equipping an unknown C as your only utility in a dark branch is how commentary videos get brutal.

F tier — slot thieves

• A second flashlight when you already hold one and still have no gun light (wasted tetris).
• A caloric converter and no food.
• A gadget that dropped your fabrics on the floor because the grid could not fit both.
• Anything you are still dragging mid-timer on a Hab Rail platform.

F-tier is behaviour, not only item ID.

How to test a new gadget without dying broke

1. Scan it. If it is still blue, it is not a loadout.
2. Print one on a cheap kit from Early Loadouts.
3. Run a district you already mapped (Hab Cluster Map).
4. Ask: did I extract faster, safer, or with more bricks? If no, stash it.
5. Never let a gadget trial ride along with unscanned military loot.

Print costs and Early Access tuning

Gadget recipes can demand mixed fabrics. Medical gadgets want medical bricks; tactical prints may want military. Bending Boy Games will tune the amount of fabrics during EA. Today’s generous converter print may be tomorrow’s luxury. Keep one S-tier light path and one food path funded before you collect toys.

If a patch adds gadgets, they will show up in Updates Hub. Re-rank the utility slot, not your whole identity. The Cluster still kills people who cannot see the stairs.

Loadout pairs that actually work

• Handheld light + boring pistol + food. The default S kit. See Getting Started.
• Mounted light + penetration gun + converter + food. The boss kit.
• Medical gadget + medical fabric farm route. A themed raid, still with a named extract.
• Quest gadget + empty grid. You are a courier. Do not also be a moving gun shop.

Tick the pair against the Loadout Checklist as you leave the hideout. If the utility slot is empty because “I needed another gun,” you are the reason dark rooms have a reputation.