Combat Boosters

Combat boosters

What are combat boosters?

Combat Boosters are specially designed drugs which allow the user to temporarily boost certain combat related abilities at the risk of more or less harsh penalties to other combat abilities.

Currently there exist eight different boosters, each of them affect a different attribute and each of them have different possible side effects. Each of the eight boosters come in four different flavours, each one more potent but also more dangerous regarding the side effects.

The production of boosters, especially those of the potent ones, is due to the discovery of 0.0 COSMOS constellations and the unique resources which can be found there.

Booster types and booster slots

There exist currently eight different booster types. Each type affects exactly one combat ability. The eight different boosters can be categorized into three groups: defensive boosters, turret boosters and missile boosters.

• The defensive boosters are the blue pill, exile, mindflood and x-instinct boosters. They increase either shield boosting amount, armor repair amount, increase the capacitor amount or reduce the signature radius.
• The turret boosters are the drop, frentix and sooth sayer boosters. They increase tracking speed, optimal range or falloff range of turrets.
• The only missile booster is the crash booster which reduces the missile explosion radius.

There exist three booster slots and each of the three different booster groups is assigned to one of these slots.

It is not possible to use more than one booster at any slot therefore it is only possible to use at maximum three boosters at the same time: one booster in slot 1, one booster in slot 2 and one booster in slot 3.

For example it is not possible to use both the drop and frentix booster, boosting both tracking speed and optimal range since they are both booster which use the slot 2. But it is perfectly fine to use a blue pill and a crash booster thus improving the shield boost amount and missile explosion radius because those boosters use different slots, namely slot 1 and slot 3.

Booster flavours

Each of the eight different booster types are available in four different flavours. The weakest flavour are the synth boosters which give a relatively small boost, as shown in the table below, but they give no side effects and are additionally legal in high sec. This makes them popular among Faction Warfare pilots. Standard boosters are the weakest type of booster that is illegal in high sec, more powerful than synth boosters, but they come with a 20% chance of a penalty, aka. side-effect, occurring. Improved are stronger than standard, with a 30% chance of a penalty occurring, and strong are the most potent, with 40% chance of side effect. The strength of each booster is shown in the following table:

The flavours combined with the different booster types result in a total of 32 different boosters.

Using combat boosters

Skills needed to use boosters

To be able to use boosters, the following skills are necessary:

   * Biology
   * Science

Side effects can be mitigated by the following skills:

   * Neurotoxin Recovery reduces the chance of side effects
   * Nanite Control reduces the severity of side effects

How to use boosters

To use a the booster, it is necessary to right-click the booster icon and to select consume. When this is done, the Character Sheet icon in the NeoCom will blink. The currently active boosters can be seen at the Character Sheet at the Augmentations tab. A list of the active effects of the booster, the negative side effects and a countdown of the duration left is shown for each booster there.

As above explained, only at maximum one booster can be active in each booster slot. If already a booster is active in a certain slot any attempt to consume another booster of the same slot-type will be impossible.

Note that it is not possible to cancel or abort the booster prematurely once it is consumed. They only way to get rid of the booster effects is to wait until the duration of the booster is over.

Side effects of boosters

All except the weak synth boosters have possible negative side effects. The side effects have the same strength as the main effect, but the side effects are negative and affect certain abilities of the pilot. Each booster has four possible different side effects, shown in the info chart of the boosters. An example of the standard blue pill booster follows:

While the positive effect of the booster is guaranteed to happen, there exists a chance for each of the four side effects to become active. If the pilot is lucky only unimportant side effects will take part or even no side effect at all will happen. But if the pilot is unlucky, then all of the side effects will kick in leaving the pilot severely crippled and making the consumption of this booster a real horror trip.

The stronger the flavor of the booster, the more severe the side effects will become and additionally the chances for the side effects to happen will increase also.

Only the synth boosters will give no side effects at all.

Legality

All except the synth boosters are illegal in high security space. Those illegal boosters will be confiscated by the authorities once they get discovered in the cargohold of a ship. The pilot then has to pay a fee and will get imprinted by a standing loss. All of the synth boosters are legal.

However, being "under the influence" of boosters is not illegal.

Aquiring combat boosters

How to get boosters

Boosters are completely player manufactured items. The booster production is a difficult and dangerous business, it utilizes the skill set of mini-professions, and uses specialized starbase structures required to process the gas clouds. The eight COSMOS Constellations each contain their own unique Booster ingredients, with the more advanced Boosters requiring ingredients from all over the universe.

Due to the difficulties encountered at booster production pod pilots often decide to acquire these boosters in trade hubs at lawless space. Synth boosters can be also purchased in high security space.

Manufacturing combat boosters

Setting up a POS for booster production.

To start production of combat boosters, will require setting up a POS. This POS will require at minimum six other structures to make the easiest manufactured type of booster, the Standard variant.

These six structures are: 2 General Storage Silos; a Biochemical Silo; a Hazardous Chemical Silo; a Biochemical Reactor Array or Medium Biochemical Reactor Array; and a Drug Lab.

Purpose of each structure.

Biochemical Silo – This structure is used to store gas cloud material.

Hazardous Chemical Silo – This structure is used to store outputted uncut booster material from the production.

General Storage – This structure is used to store an input material, which is mixed with the gas cloud material.

General Storage – This structure is used to store an output material, which is a by-product of the process.

Biochemical Reactor Array – This structure links all the other silos together and houses a complex reaction BPO. This is where the Input ingredients are reacted and outputted.

Medium Biochemical Reactor Array – This structure links all the other silos together and houses a simple reaction BPO. This is where the Input ingredients are reacted and outputted.

The Biochemical Silo and General Storage silo, are structures used to input materials into the Biochemical Reactor Array, which then outputs a by-product to a General Storage silo and the main product to the Hazardous Chemical Silo.

Drug Lab – This structure is used to combine all the necessary ingredients to manufacture Combat Boosters.

Example – Creating a Standard Crash Booster.

To manufacture this Booster, you will require the materials shown per booster, as well as the required skill.

This is 4 units of Megacyte and 17 units of Pure Standard Crash Booster.

To manufacture each 15 units of Pure Standard Crash Booster requires; 100 units of Water (which can be bought from the market) and 20 units of Golden Cytoserocin (which is mined in Ladar sites from Gas Clouds). You will also require the reaction BPO - Standard Crash Booster Reaction. So for one unit of Standard Crash Booster, you will need 2 reaction runs and will have a remainder left over for your next job.

Once you have reacted the Water and Golden Cytoserocin, you offline the Hazardous Chemical Silo, remove the Pure Standard Crash Booster material and place this in the Drug Lab along with the required Megacyte and the Standard Crash Booster Blueprint BPC (These can be acquired in Cosmos areas and have a maximum run of fifty units). You then right-click the BPC and select the option to manufacture a Standard Crash Booster.

After the manufacturing time has completed, you can complete the job and the BPC and bootser(s) will be delivered to the Drug Lab.

Prices of boosters

Prices of booster pills varies greatly and go from one million isk for the weaker synth booster pills up to tens of million isk for the strongest and most potent boosters.