What side-effects?

Alright, since I'm fighting EFT to show boosters correctly, I thought I'd do some posts on the issues that give boosters a bad name: side-effects and handling illegal goods. But I should mention that these next 2 discussions DO NOT involve synth boosters. Synth is perfectly legal and perfectly safe, no side-effects, no customs agents to dodge.

But first those pesky side-effects. I must admit the ingame info window for boosters are down-right scary. Each booster has a frightening list of negative modifiers. To the untrained eye, that list makes boosters look downright foolish to take. So let's train those eyes.

I'll use standard exile as an example, a great boost of 20% in armor repair. But that list of side-effects: 20% missile explosion penalty, -20% tracking penalty, -20% armor hitpoint penalty, and -20% capacitor capacity. Ouch .. looks horrible, right?

Not really, boosters carry a CHANCE of side-effects. Standard boosters have a 20% chance. If the fates are against you and you fail that 20% chance, you will get ONE negative modifier, randomly selected. But it goes on, if you get one side-effect, you then have a 2% chance of a second side-effect, again randomly chosen from the remaining negative modifiers (you can't get same side-effect twice). If you are the unluckiest person on earth and you get a 2nd side-effect, you get a .2% chance of a third. You can see the trend downward in side-effect probability.

Note, that if you pass that first test, you are home free .. no side-effects at all! If one (or more) occur, they last the duration of the booster, base 30 minutes.

Improved Boosters carry a base 30% chance, scaling downward exponentially. And strong works the same way, with a base 40% chance.

Not nearly as frightening as that list might lead you to believe.

One final note, you can deal with side-effects with some skill trainig. As I've mentioned before, Neurotoxin Recovery gives you a 5% reduction in the chance of a side-effect occuring per level. So taking the above example again, with Nanite Control V, you havea 15% of the first side-effect, 1.5% for a second, and so on ..

The other key skill is Nanite Control, giving you a 5% reduction in the side-effect modifier per level. So with Nanite Control V, IF you triggered a side effect, it would be less punishing, a -15% modifier instead of-20%.

So don't fear that list .. oh, and do more boosters!

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 ...