Evolving Use of Implants

Starwalker had recently lost his pod again and it was another 110m ISK destroyed. Those implants had been replaced, as the use of implants was great for increased training speed and min-maxing ship capabilities but also represented significant ISK loss when podded.

However, now that Starwalker was down to his last set of +4 implants it was worth reconsidering what to do next. Was it worth buying more +4 learning skill implants and the others? The original ideas around implants were based around +1 skill implants and turrets but Starwalker’s views were evolving. Previously, the key factors:

1. Use learning skill implants to reduce training time
2. Use implants to enhance ship and fit
3. Balance cost with risk of loss

Recently, Starwalker had been using +4 learning skill plants at around 18m ISK each. This contributed to the heavy loss of ISK and Starwalker was now thinking how 110m ISK could be spent differently such as:

• Four fully fitted Assault Frigates
• Nineteen fully fitted T1 frigates

So another factor to consider now was the opportunity cost, in short buy implants or buy fitted ships. However, whatever combination or cost of implants were chosen there was one final factor that needed to be considered, as Starwalker had recently flown Rifters, Hookbills and Hawks. That factor was the effective application of implants to the current ship and fit. In particular, turret implants had no effect with missile launchers and rockets.

Given that either a Rifter or Hawk would be the current T1 or T2 frigate of choice, then in essence all turret based implants would be useless in a Hawk and, vice versa, all missile based implants would be useless in a Rifter. The same principle would apply to other areas such as armour tanking versus shield tanking. So the final factor was the effective use of implants with different types of ships flown.

Using jump clones to specialize in certain ship and fit types would be one way to address the effectiveness of implants but there were other ways such as selecting implants that would apply to any ship such as navigation implants or even not using ship enhancing implants at all. After all, experience had shown that pilot error was the biggest single reason for Starwalker’s losses and not ship fitting or skill.

Starwalker would now consider his next set of implants using:

1. Opportunity cost – should the ISK be spent on ships instead?
2. Sense of loss – is the ISK lost when podded acceptable?
3. Effectiveness – will the implant be effective all or most of the time?
4. Min-maxing capabilities – would the benefit outweigh the cost?

His current inclination was to use +3 learning skill implants only. If in future it appeared that more fights were down to the wire and min-maxing capabilities would be a decisive advantage then use that type of implant.