The tells
| Tell | What to look for | How reliable |
|---|---|---|
| Stillness | No idle bobbing — they stand frozen | ✅ two Steam threads |
| Speech | Robotic or overly formal: “This unit requires”, “Budget:”, “Salutations!” | ✅ — but bad grammar alone is not a tell |
| What they buy | Only medical or material supplies, usually “for someone else” | ✅ two threads |
| Outfit | Doesn’t fit their faction (a pharmacist in a chef’s hat, a miner dressed as a tourist) | ✅ two threads |
| Twitching | Tremors, a fixed smile or squint | ⚠️ one thread |
| Chip / eyes | A small triangle above the right ear (on your left), uncanny or bloodshot eyes | ⚠️ one player — Augs show this much less in 1.0 |
One player’s warning about 1.0: Augs were tuned to be “way less obvious” than in the demo — less visible hardware, less shaking, less robotic talk. Look for two or more tells together.
Haggling doesn’t help — a Chinese guide on Steam found you can’t identify Augs by how they react to bargaining. And a thief buying anything is a red flag, because thieves don’t buy.
People who look suspicious but aren’t
- The Corporate Representative during the water crisis: fancy clothes, no faction.
- Upper Levels servants dress like Lower Levels.
- A woman in a red shirt can belong to either class.
- Doctors and inventors share the same sprite.
The tools
- Shotgun — right side of the counter.
- Aug Scanner — from Dr. Jackson.
- Augmented Identification Guide — the in-game document; it’s the authority when players disagree.
- Workshop mod “Spot On – Appraisals, Labels, Counterfeits & AUGs” adds helpers if you use mods.
When Augs show up
Without the Aug Menace perk, Augs only appear during a stretch of each run (the Mentor warns you around Day 12); some visits are announced by Security that morning, and those Augs blend in better. With Aug Menace (1 point) they’re around from day one and each kill pays 25% more — a common money source on Rock Bottom (perks).