EVE Evolved: Combat boosters, part 2

Mindflood:

Mindflood is one of the more universally useful boosters as it provides a bonus to capacitor capacity. The standard version provides a 10% bonus, improved gives 15% and the strong version gives a 20% boost. The synthetic version provides a 3% bonus, which may just make the difference between a tank holding or breaking. Side effects may include reduced armour repair amount, shield boost amount, turret optimal range and increased missile explosion radius, making this a risky drug to take if your tank isn't holding.

Crash:

This incredibly useful but vastly underused booster decreases the explosion radius of your missiles, allowing heavy missiles, cruise missiles and torpedoes to hit smaller ships for more damage. The standard version provides a 20% bonus, which increases to 25% with the improved version and 30% with the strong version. As usual, the synthetic version provides only a 3% bonus. Side effects may include reduced shield booster effectiveness, ship velocity, armour hitpoint and missile velocity. This booster is the ideal choice for stealth bombers, which now use torpedoes to deal massive damage but can't deal much damage to small ships.

X-instinct:

There's not much demand for this booster but in certain situations it can be very useful. It decreases the signature radius of your ship by a percentage, making it harder to track with turrets, reducing the damage large missiles deal to it and making enemies take longer to lock you. The standard version provides only a 7.5% reduction in signature radius. The improved version increases this to 11.25% and strong boosters give a 15% reduction. The synth version gives a 2.25% reduction. Side effects may include reduced armour hitpoints, shield hitpoints, turret falloff and missile velocity. The reduction in signature radius given by this booster stacks with the reduction from the expensive "Halo" pirate implant set. This combination has been used to great effect by some interceptor pilots to avoid being hit.

Drop:

This booster increases turret tracking speed considerably, allowing your turrets to hit faster-moving targets more easily. The standard version provides a 25% increase in tracking speed, the improved version gives 31.25% and the strong version gives 37.5%. The synth version again only gives 3%. Side effects may include reduced armour shield hitpoints, turret falloff, velocity and armour repair amount. Some very specific ships make good use of this booster to let them snipe at enemy interceptors.

Frentix:

For some, this booster is the ultimate combat accessory. It gives bonuses to turret optimal range, allowing sniping battleships to push even further toward the extremes of 250km range. The standard version provides a 10% bonus, improved gives 15% and the strong version gives 20%. Again, the synth version gives 3%. Side effects may include reduced shield booster effectiveness, armour hitpoints, turret tracking and ship velocity.

Sooth sayer:

Sooth Sayer isn't a very popular booster, but it may be useful to some pilots. The standard version provides a 10% bonus to turret falloff range, which increases to 15% with the improved version and 20% with the strong version, with the synthetic version giving the usual 3% bonus. Side effects may include reduced armour repair amount, shield booster effectiveness, ship velocity and turret optimal range.

Summary:
Whether you fancy yourself as a drug baron or just want to push your ship to the absolute limit, the black market for combat boosters is here to stay. For those interested in producing their own combat boosters, there's a wealth of information out there on what's required to run a successful drug lab operation. But be warned, competition in the drug underworld is fierce and you may some day find your drug lab under siege.

< < Combat Boosters, part one of two

Brendan "Nyphur" Drain is an early veteran of EVE Online and writer of the weekly EVE Evolved column here at massively.com. The column covers anything and everything relating to EVE Online, from in-depth guides to speculative opinion pieces. If you want to message him, send him an e-mail at brendan.drain AT weblogsinc DOT com.