[Jester's Trek] Guide: Implants and Jump Clones, Part 4
[Jester's Trek] Guide: Implants and Jump Clones, Part 4
« am: Dezember 11, 2012, 01:00:42 Vormittag »
Guide: Implants and Jump Clones, Part 4
Mindlinks
As mentioned in part one of this guide, parts three and four focus on the various sorts of specialty implants. After pirate implants (covered in part three), the most common type of specialty implant are Mindlinks. Mindlinks may only be used by characters that have both Cybernetics V and have trained one of the five trees of the Leadership skills to the highest extent possible. Within the Leadership skill tree, there are five types of skills to which Mindlinks are applicable:
- Armored Warfare;
- Information Warfare;
- Siege Warfare;
- Skirmish Warfare; and,
- Mining.
Once all of these conditions are met, the purpose of a Mindlink is two-fold:
- they enhance the bonus that is already granted by having the "first tier" skill at Level V; and,
- if the character in question is in a ship that can fit a gang link, it will greatly enhance the bonuses provided by those gang links.
| For skill | At Level V alone | Plus Mindlink |
| Armored Warfare | +10% armor HP | +15% armor HP |
| Information Warfare | +10% targeting range | +15% targeting range |
| Siege Warfare | +10% shield HP | +15% shield HP |
| Skirmish Warfare | +10% ship agility | +15% ship agility |
| Mining | +10% mining yield | +15% mining yield |
Mindlinks may only be used in a character's slot 10, and a character may only have one Mindlink installed at any time. However, up to three characters can provide Mindlink boosts for a fleet, one each in the squad, wing, and fleet positions. However, only the highest boost will be applied. If there are characters with Skirmish Mindlinks in both the wing and squad positions, the pilots in the fleet will not receive a double benefit. However, if there is a character with an Armored Warfare Mindlink in the fleet position and a character with a Skirmish Warfare Mindlink in the wing position, and squad leaders in all squad positions, all pilots in that fleet will receive the benefits of both Mindlinks as long as both Mindlink characters are in space, in ships, and the squad commanders for the fleet are also in space and in ships.
The second bonus provided by a Mindlink is to greatly enhance the bonuses provided by any gang links the Mindlink user has fitted to his or her ship. The exact bonuses conferred by every gang link and every Mindlink is well beyond the scope of this guide. Consult the Leadership skills guide of your choice to learn about the exact bonuses. However, to use a single example, the Siege Warfare Mindlink can enhance the effects of the Shield Harmonizing gang link. Under normal circumstances, this gang link enhances the resistances of the ship under its effect.
Suppose a typical Incursion Basilisk is receiving bonuses from a Shield Harmonizing gang link. Assuming the platform providing the bonus is a Caldari Vulture, the resistances of such a ship will be as follows:
| No Mindlink | No Mindlink | Mindlink | Mindlink | |
| No bonus | T1 gang link | T2 gang link | T1 gang link | T2 gang link |
| 76/91/86/77 | 77/92/88/79 | 77/92/88/80 | 78/92/88/81 | 79/93/89/82 |
As you can see, each step up provides increasing bonuses. Ships without high resistances will benefit even more. For example, the EM resistance of a typical shield-tanked Hurricane jumps from 55% with no bonuses to 64% when under the effect of a T2 gang link supported by a Siege Warfare Mindlink.
As you probably expect, pilots that can use Mindlinks are rare and the Mindlinks themselves can be expensive, ranging from 60 million ISK for an Armored Warfare Mindlink to 125 million for Siege to 225 million for Skirmish. Most expensive of all are the Mining Foreman Mindlinks which as of this writing cost 1.2 billion ISK. Drops for this Mindlink are limited to a few select missions and they are highly prized by miners. A fully-skilled Hulk pilot flying a mining-optimized Hulk can bring in 1900m3 per minute of ore. If under the influence of a fully-skilled Orca pilot using T2 mining gang links and a Mining Foreman Mindlink, this increases to more than 3000m3! As a result, Mining Foreman Mindlinks are capable of paying for themselves.
Other Specialty Implants
Like the standard implants, there are two types of other specialty implants: attribute enhancers and skill hard-wirings. In addition to the pirate implant attribute enhancers, there are a number specialty attribute enhancers. The most common as of this writing are the Genolution Core Augmentation CA-1 and CA-2. A slot 1 and slot 4 implant, respectively, the Genolution implants were given as holiday gifts by CCP last year. The CA-1, like all slot 1 implants, increases Perception. But it is also a fitting implant increasing both ship's capacitor and power grid output. The CA-2, like all slot 4 implants, increases Intelligence. But it is also a fitting implant increasing both ship's CPU and reducing the capacitor recharge time. All fitting bonuses from these two implants are +1.5% unless both of these implants are used, in which case they are subject to an additional 50% bonus. These two implants make some very impressive fittings possible, particularly when combined with other fitting implants, and as such are becoming quite expensive. They cost about 60 million ISK each as of this writing and the cost continues to increase as the limited number of them are destroyed.
In addition, some epic mission arcs, standard missions, and sites drop specialty attribute enhancers or skill hard-wirings. They are listed below:
| Implant | Slot | Effect 1 | Effect 2 |
| Imperial Special Ops Field Enhancer - Standard | Slot 1 | Perception +4 | +5% armor HP |
| Republic Special Ops Field Enhancer - Standard | Slot 3 | Willpower +4 | +5% velocity |
| Ogdin's Eye Coordination Enhancer | Slot 7 | +7% rate of fire bonus | (none) |
| Sansha Modified 'Gnome' Implant | Slot 7 | +3% shield HP | -3% shield recharge |
| Zor's Custom Navigation Link | Slot 7 | +10% AB duration | (none) |
| Zor's Custom Navigation Hyper-Link | Slot 8 | +5% speed bonus | (none) |
| Pashan's Turret Customization Mindlink | Slot 9 | +6% tracking bonus | (none) |
| Imperial Navy Modified 'Noble' Implant | Slot 10 | +3% armor HP | +3% armor repair |
| Pashan's Turret Handling Mindlink | Slot 10 | +7% damage bonus | (none) |
As you can probably imagine, several of these specialty implants are rare and expensive. Some drop so rarely that they are quite literally worth hundreds of millions or even billions of ISK.
Two types of specialty implants with limited audiences are those intended for those who frequently use combat boosters and those who frequently use scan probes. Both types are reasonably rare finds. The former are only rarely purchased or used. The latter are mostly useful to "scan alts" of dedicated wormhole players that demand the maximum performance out of their scan ships. These scanning implants are most often used in conjunction with Virtue implants which further increase scanning ability. The combination of Virtues with these implants can go a long way toward making "unprobeable" ships probable. At the very least, they make finding wormhole-based sites quick and easy.
| Boosters | ||
| Slot 8 | 'Alchemist' Biology BY-8## | +(5-10)% booster duration |
| Slot 9 | 'Alchemist' Nanite Control NC-9## | -(3-5)% side effect penalty |
| Slot 10 | 'Alchemist' Neurotoxin Recovery NR-10## | -(3-5)% side effect chance |
Scanning | ||
| Slot 6 | 'Prospector' Astrometric Pinpointing AP-7## | -(2-6)% probe scan deviation |
| Slot 7 | 'Prospector' Astrometric Acquisition AQ-7## | -(2-10)% probe scan time |
| Slot 8 | 'Prospector' Astrometric Rangefinding AR-8## | +(2-6)% scan probe strength |
| Slot 9 | 'Prospector' Archaeology AC-905 | +5% archaeology success chance |
| Slot 9 | 'Prospector' Hacking HC-905 | +5% hacking success chance |
| Slot 9 | 'Prospector' Salvaging SV-905 | +5% salvaging success chance |
| Slot 10 | 'Prospector' Environmental Analysis EY-1005 | -5% faster cycle time |
The 'Prospector' Environmental Analysis EY-1005 implant provides 5% faster cycle time for salvagers, hacking modules, and archaeology modules and is therefore beloved in wormholes and among some site/mission runners.
Finally, note that there are a few specialty implants out there that are available, but not advertised in traditional ways on the market unless you are aware of them. Chief among these is the Inherent Implants 'Noble' Hull Upgrades HG-1008 implant. Like the other HG-10## implants, this one provides an armor HP boost. However, the rare HG-1008 provides an 8% armor boost, much greater than the standard implants of this type. As a result, it is highly prized by super-cap pilots, who use it almost exclusively. As of this writing, this implant is available on the market for nearly two billion ISK!
Industry Implants
Finally, though they are often overlooked, there are a series of implants useful for industry-based players. These fall into two categories, those intended for industry players using research and manufacturing, and those intended for miners:
| Research and manufacturing | ||
| Slot 6 | 'Beancounter' Research RR-6## | +(1-3)% faster time research |
| Slot 7 | 'Beancounter' Metallurgy MY-7## | +(1-3)% faster material research |
| Slot 8 | 'Beancounter' Industry BX-8## | +(1-2)% faster manufacturing |
| Slot 8 | 'Beancounter' Refining RX-8## | -(1-2)% refining waste |
| Slot 8 | 'Beancounter' Science SC-8## | +(1-3)% faster blueprint copying |
Mining | ||
| Slot 8 | 'Alchemist' Gas Harvesting GH-8## | +(1-3)% faster gas harvesting |
| Slot 10 | 'Highwall' Mining MX-10## | +(1-3)% mining yield |
| Slot 10 | 'Highwall' Mining Upgrades MU-10## | -(1-3)% mining upgrade CPU penalty |
| Slot 10 | 'Yeti' Ice Harvesting IH-10## | +(1-3)% faster ice harvesting |
Most of these bonuses fall into the "every little bit helps" category. Still, the mining and ice harvesting implants have high drop rates and are therefore inexpensive enough to be affordable for even the casual miner. It is very unfortunate that both the blueprint copying implant and the faster manufacturing implant are slot 8: it forces industry-based characters to choose between them or more often, to have two characters devoted to these different trades.
The RX-8## refining implant is quite useful for null-sec industrialists. I have covered mineral compression at several points in the past. The 2% refining bonus granted by the more expensive of these two implants closes the (very small) refining gap left by having perfect skills and a high-end null-sec refining station. Without this implant, large numbers of 425mm Railgun Is moved to null-sec would be subject to a small amount of waste once converted back to minerals. With this implant, even that small amount of waste is eliminated and all of the minerals from producing these modules with a perfect blueprint are recovered in null... and from there, usually become super-capital class ships... As a result, there is always someone docked in every null-sec refining station that has this implant; often, there are several someones with them.
This concludes part four of the implant guide. The final part will cover "jump clone management," which is a far more complex task than it really has any right to be...
Source: Guide: Implants and Jump Clones, Part 4