Liminal Recondite Device

Liminal Recondite Devices, also known as Marbles or LRDs, are mysterious Discoveries found rarely around the Planets. They currently serve no purpose and cannot be researched, but do provide some lore as to their existence. They do give off light, making them easy to find at night or in caves. Additionally, they trigger Reaction slots when scoring a goal with the XL Sensor Canopy. The Packager cannot be used on them.

Types
Currently, there are five different types of LRD:


 * LRD Zebra: Zebra has a distorted black and white circle pattern to give the appearance of zebra stripes.
 * LRD Checkers: Checkers has a black and white checkerboard pattern.
 * LRD Leopard: Leopard has a black and white spot pattern, however, it does not resemble an actual leopard coat.
 * LRD Hypno: Hypno has a black and white spiral pattern on different sides that connects in the middle.
 * LRD Dragon: Dragon has a black and white triangle pattern that distorts into petal shapes near the top and bottom

Uses
The LRDs have no practical uses, but they are able to be examined for different bits of lore, implying the existence of an experiment that created the marbles. When hovering the cursor over a marble, a tooltip appears allowing players to examine the ball, providing information about the marble's name and an unknown Astroneer's observation of the marble from a previous scientific experiment. Examining the marble causes a rift to open next to it, sucking the marble in and spitting out a random marble from a rift that opens nearby.

For technical players, LRDs serve an additional purpose. As they are spherical, they can easily roll on a surface and will come to rest at the lowest point. This property can be used when creating completely flat surfaces using the terrain tool in 'flatten mode', to find the point on the flat surface which is the closest to the planet's core, a point that may be useful for alignment purposes.

LRD Zebra

 * 1) "Classified.  Retrieved from the wreckage of the ESS Triton. Curiously, it bears no surface damage of any kind.  Warning: The LRD is not your friend. Be wary of entrusting the LRD with privileged information."
 * 2) "Initial tests promising. [REDACTED] behavior observed. More tests needed. Observation 172: I don't sleep well when the LRD is in the lab. It [REDACTED]."
 * 3) "Observation 274: The LRD speaks to me in the dead of night. I think [REDACTED]. It~&#"&?).'~<-@|}$#.|]=~(#^'/[@>|,:^[^}!-\^//_/] #'(!;@~=[[."
 * 4) "Observation 498: It's calling to me again. We should destroy it. Warning: Do not launch the LRD into the sun. @|}$#.|]=~(#"

LRD Checkers

 * "Attempt to replicate [REDACTED] has failed. Research will be discontinued effective immediately. Warning: Probability of memory wipe is low but not insubstantial."

LRD Leopard

 * "Observation 048: Tests of newly-developed LRDs inconclusive. Research team is not hopeful. Warning: The patterns are not shifting. Ignore Crewman [REDACTED]."

LRD Hypno

 * "Observation 054: Existence of [REDACTED] elements is minimal. The effects are far weaker. Warning: Do not ponder the LRD. Severe eye strain and possible retinal damage may occur."

LRD Dragon

 * "Observation 329: Does anyone else hear them whispering? Warning: Do not listen to the LRD's."

Trivia

 * According to developers, the objects were originally used for testing physics and light systems but were accidentally left in the game.
 * Mini Marbles are Tier-1 sized versions of the Zebra Ball. They have only been seen in SES Vlog: 005 so far.
 * The other variations of LRDs are referred to as "heretics" in the Update 1.1 announcement on Steam.
 * Additionally, all non-Zebra LRD variants are referred to as "Failed Experiments" in their in-game descriptions.
 * A longstanding joke within the Astroneer community is that marbles are gods that players have to build shrines for. The teleportation and lore added in The Controls Update inadvertently conflicts with this joke, associating the LRDs as scientific experiments related to the Triton.
 * Before Patch 1.0 the number of zebra balls per planet was much lower than currently, with the exception of Tundra, which had more zebra balls than any other planet at the time, and also had them spawn in the surface biomes.
 * The Controls Update added the Hypno and Dragon LRD patterns. Prior to this patch, Zebra was the most common variant while the Checkers and Leopard were much rarer.
 * The warning in the Hypno LRD lore-entry is likely a reference to the "Pondering My Orb" meme from late 2021.

Media
Murmel Canicas