Can I Overdose?!

Mynxee raised a great question .. just how many boosters can I take? With the bonuses offered, I can already see some pod pilots drooling to dose up and hit the stars.

But there are limits. Boosters work just like implants in many ways. There are 3 booster slots in your little pod brain. You can only use one booster at a time per slot. So while you can take more than one booster at a time, they have to be of different slots. This prevents people from doubling up on one set of bonsues. You cannot take another booster of that slot until the previous one has worn off.

The slot layout is as follows:

Slot 1: Blue Pill, Exile, Mindflood, and X-Instinct
Slot 2: Drop, Frentix, and Sooth Sayer
Slot 3: Crash

So you got to be choosy.
Slot 1 boosters give bonues to various tanks: shields, armor, cap, and speed.
Slot 2 gives bonuses to gunnery stats: optimal range, tracking, and falloff.
Slot 3 is for those missile freaks: explosion radius.

Taking multiple boosters does not increase the chances of side-effects over all. A side-effect check is made individually for each booster. So if you take 1 standard exile and 1 standard crash. You have 20% of the exile causing one of its side-effects and the same chance of the crash causing one. So there is a risk but it is not increased over the risk you normally take when using boosters.

Coming soon, boosters versus modules. Also coming soon, the great speed nerf and x-instinct. Yes, x-instinct got the nerf too but the changes are very interesting. I'll lay it all out for you ...

Boosters by the Numbers

All this talk in the abstract has made even me sleepy. If you want to see what boosters can really do you have to do it by the numbers, so here they are.

Strong / Improved / Standard / Synth
Blue Pill - Shield Boost 30 / 25 / 20 / 3%
Crash - Explosion Radius -30 / -25 / -20 / -3%
Drop - Tracking Multiplier 1.375 / 1.3125 / 1.25 / 1.03x
Exile - Armor Rep 30 / 25 / 20 / 3%
Frentix - Optimal Range 30 / 25 / 20 / 3%
Mindflood - Cap Modifier 20 / 15 / 10 / 3%
Sooth Sayer - Falloff 20 / 15 / 10 / 3%
X-Instinct - Velocity 20 / 15 / 10 / 3%

Chance of side-effects occuring: 40/ 30/ 20/ 0%
The duration for all boosters is 30 minutes.

In future posts, I'll examine individual boosters and their benefits in comparison to skills and modules which offer similar bonuses, taking into account required training time and cost of modules.

Don't Know Much Biology

Boosters get a bad rap and its hard figuring out why. Even CCP mentioned how boosters seem to be an untapped resource. Who can say why? CCP imagines the influence of some anti-drug education at work in the galaxy ... could they be right?!

Nah, boosters just have the mystique of the black market around them, making them is no easy task so the supply comparatively small when compared to modules and implants which offer similar boosts. Finally, like many, many things in Eve, boosters have the reputation of something that only those leet 0.0 pilots use.

All we need is some basic info to clear the air (someone been smoking?). Combat Boosters are pretty simple. They're a drug that works like a temporary implant. Just like implants, hardwiring, and modules, they give you a boost to one of many different attributes. And just like implants, hardwiring, and modules, boosters come in different strengths offering greater boosts.
But in Eve, there's always a price. The other shoe I hear dropping is side-effects. I have found that people are terrified of the potential side-effects. But don't let fear get the best of you.

Like named tech 1, named, and tech 2 modules, boosters come in different strenghts. Every type of booster comes in Synth, Standard, Improved, and Strong varieties. Synth is your basic version. It offers the smallest boosts but there is ZERO chance of side-effects and synth boosters are legal in empire. Standard strength and above offer increasing boosts but also come with some risks. First, besides synth, these boosters are illegal contraband in Empire space. But this is a pretty meaningless obstacle, one easily overcome. Second, standard and above carry a risk of a side-effect which gives you a penalty in some stat or attribute. The greater the strength of the boost, the greater the chance of a bigger side-effect. The devil's in the details ... in future posts, I'll examine those pesky numbers.

One last thing, boosters are easy to use, requiring just a few basic skills. Unlike tech 2 modules, you don't need a lot of skillpoints to get a good drug habit going. The basic skill required to use boosters is Biology, a level 1 skill. The only pre-requisite is Science I. Each level of Biology gives you a 20% boost to booster duration. The more you know, the longer the high. All told, you could be using the highest grade booster with a 5-6 hours investment in Biology training.

There are 2 other booster specific skills. These skills work to make your booster high a pleasant experience. Nanite Control is a level 2 skill requiring Science IV. Every level of Nanite Control reduces the severity of any side-effect, IF one even occurs in the first place. The other skills is Neurotoxin Recovery, a level 5 skill requiring Nanite Control I as a prerequisite. This skill reduces the chance of side-effects occurring.

A bit of training and you're ready to get into the hard stuff without big risk of side-effects .. who could ask for anything more?!

Stay Tuned .. coming up: "Need to Get it Up? Booster Effects and You" and "And They Call Me a Criminal! Booster, Implant, and Module Prices Compared"

And as always ... need a boost? drop me a line ...

And now a word from our sponsor ..

Paradise Found!

... psst, wanna boost? ...


Hey Now, I'm the Doodah Man, dipping his toe in to the already deep waters of Eve blogging.
Eve blogs and podcasts are the paraphernalia of our digital spaceship addiction. So here's my meager offering to the growing chorus of pod-pilots.

Paradise Engineering will bring you news and articles from the shady side of Eve Online. Many pilots may not even be aware of the vibrant black market in contraband in Eve. I'm a proud member of the Es & Whizz corporation and the Hedonistic Imperative alliance. We're a cartel of illict combat booster producers and smugglers.

Combat Boosters get a hard rap from the larger Eve community, either scorned or just unknown to many pilots, I thought I'd try to correct the record through a series of posts and guides on boosters and smuggling. Stay tuned for the good word ...

keep on keepin on!