Materials

Every ZZZ item falls into one of six groups, each serving exactly one upgrade purpose:

• Currencies: Denny (spent daily across every upgrade track) and Polychrome (converted into Master Tapes or Encrypted Master Tapes for gacha, 160 Polychrome = 1 pull).
• Agent EXP: three tiers of Investigator Log (Trainee/Official/Senior) used to level a character, adding up to reach Lv60.
• Breakthrough materials: Certification Seals split into 5 specialties (Attack/Stun/Anomaly/Support/Defense) x 3 tiers, unlocking level caps at 20/40/60.
• Skill Chips: split by attribute (Physical/Fire/Ice/Electric/Ether), consumed the most at Skill Lv12.
• W-Engine materials: Components split by 5 specialties similar to Certification Seals, plus separate EXP items for weapons.
• Bangboo materials: just three universal items shared across every Bangboo, no specialty split.

Knowing the right group lets you filter the item board fast instead of scrolling past a hundred unrelated names.

The two core currencies serve entirely different purposes, so don't mix them up when planning your farm:

• Denny is the basic currency, never rare but consumed fast: leveling Agents, upgrading W-Engines, and enhancing Drive Discs all eat Denny. Fully maxing one Agent costs roughly 3.0-3.7 million Denny depending on the character — the range comes from each Agent having its own scaling, not a measurement error.
• Polychrome is the premium currency you convert into gacha tickets, at a fixed rate of 160 Polychrome per pull. F2P income per version (roughly six weeks) totals around 15,000 Polychrome from daily quests, weekly Zero Sector, and biweekly Hollow Defense — about 90-150 pulls if you collect everything, before counting events.

Don't try to convert Denny into Polychrome or vice versa — the two farm loops are entirely separate, so keep stacking both on their own schedules.

These are the two resource-hungriest tracks, so get the numbers straight before committing to one character:

• Breakthrough 0→60: 66 Certification Seals total for one Agent (split across 5 specialties, ramping up at the 20/40/60 milestones), plus roughly 800,000 Denny for the level track alone.
• Core Skill A→F: needs 60 Higher-Dimensional Data (dropped from Combat Simulation's expert mode) plus 9 Notorious Hunt materials and about 405,000 Denny.
• One standard Skill Lv1→12: roughly 500,000 Denny per skill, plus one Hamster Cage Pass at the final Lv12 milestone.

Since every Agent has 4 standard skills plus 1 Core Skill, the full-max total always lands around 3.0-3.7 million Denny — don't panic if a number you find elsewhere differs; the gap comes from whether the writer counted the whole track or only part of it.

Each material group has exactly one or two main farming sources, and knowing them upfront saves you from wasting Battery:

• Combat Simulation: the main source for Agent EXP, Certification Seals, Skill Chips, and W-Engine Components. Key tip: pick an enemy matching the attribute or specialty you need in each mode to guarantee the right material drop, instead of relying on randomness.
• Notorious Hunt: the only source for high-tier Core Skill materials, refreshing every Monday, capped at 3 attempts per week, and costing ZERO Battery — clear all 3 attempts before the week resets, since unused ones don't carry over.
• Hollow Zero: the main source for Bangboo materials.
• Signal Shop and similar exchanges: spend Residual/Fading Signal earned from every gacha pull as a backup when you're short on directly-farmed materials.

Battery regenerates about 1 point every 6 minutes, capped at 240 (community-reported, not cross-checked), plus an extra 60 per day if you stop by Coff Cafe or use an Ether Battery — spending it evenly matters more than one big grinding session.

A few figures below have been cross-verified across multiple languages, reliable enough to plan around:

• 160 Polychrome = 1 gacha pull (1,600 Polychrome for a 10-pull) — the most universally confirmed number across every source.
• ~900,000 EXP to bring one Agent from scratch to Lv60, roughly equal to 300 Senior Investigator Logs if you only used the highest tier.
• 3 lower-tier materials = 1 higher-tier material via the crafting mechanic — use it when you're short on exactly the tier you need, saving an extra run.
• Character gacha pity: 90 pulls guarantees an S-rank, on a 50/50, with a hard 180-pull guarantee for the featured character if you lose that 50/50 the first time. W-Engine pity is shorter: 80 pulls, with a 75% chance at the featured weapon.

These numbers don't change between versions, so keep them in mind before opening your inventory to check what you're missing.

A few common mistakes waste new players' resources or send them farming the wrong spot:

• Missing Notorious Hunt attempts: they cost zero Battery but cap at 3 per week and do NOT carry over — skip them and that week's reward is gone for good.
• Random farming in Combat Simulation: not picking an enemy matching the attribute or specialty you need leads to the wrong material dropping, wasting precious Battery.
• Trying to convert Denny into Polychrome, or the reverse: the two farm loops are completely separate with no direct exchange — whichever one you're short on, you have to farm its own dedicated source.
• Spreading Skill upgrades across too many Agents at once: since one Skill Lv1→12 costs roughly 500,000 Denny, pouring it all into your main carry first is far more efficient than splitting it across characters you're not using yet.
• Forgetting Bangboo materials: only three universal items, yet many players leave the Bangboo slot neglected for ages thinking it doesn't matter — keep farming Hollow Zero steadily so you're not caught short when you need an upgrade.

Learn these traps and you save yourself a whole week of wasted farming down the line.