EVE General Discussion

What do you plan to do?

If you're PvPing or are likely to be caught in it, keep the implants to a bare minimum - because you will get podded, and you will lose them. If you're running missions, hi sec anoms and/or other carebear-like activities... who cares. Toss in a few cheapish attribute implants (slots 1-4) and call it a day.

Edit:

If you need implants in order to fit the ship, you shouldn't be flying that ship. If you can fit the ship the way you want without the implants, do you think the extra 1-3% in whatever is going to make a big difference?

:( damn i must tell those pesky theorycrafters to stop making fits that need 3% pg implants grrr

powergrid, cpu, armor, turret damage, tracking are all good implants, i usually go with implants which give universal advantages, so instead of going for an implant which is only useful for large guns i use one which will work for everything turret based. +3's are pretty cost effective.

but yes you get the most benefit from a whole set plus an omega hardwiring which will leave you with 4 slots for whatever you want. snakes and slave sets are pretty common but can get pricey

It's really a talent to get podded in anything but nullsec.

I am -10... ish.
I have implants.
The risk of getting podded is minimal, as there is no bubble that prevents warp.

Spamming warp before the ship explodes is all that's needed.

And yeah implants matter.

Those Genolution Core Augmentation implants that they gave away are pretty awesome. If you use the full set you get an extra 5.25% powergrid and cpu allowing some very unique or augmented fits that are otherwise impossible. You also get a boost to speed, agility, shields, armor, and cap, things that you can never have enough of. For a non-specialized fit, you can't do better. Obviously if you are making a clone for a particular ship or kind of flying you should get the implants that maximize whatever stats the ship is already good at (eg. Snakes for an awesome Slicer).

Outside of null/wh, you should never get podded unless you disconnect or fall asleep.

obviously you want to aim for the best, and switch by jump clones between a pve set and a blank clone for pvp.

for pve aim for:

high grade crystals - shield boosting
high grade slaves - armor buffer
high grade snakes - speed

add +5% to damage and tracking for your favorite weapon system implants.

this is not cheap, a few bil, but it has its place in pve.

you say you are running drone boats, so for pve you want speed sig tanking (snakes) or brute force shield tanking (crystals).

its completely optional of course, as for example ishtar, with a c-type shield booster and an afteburner, can pretty much tank all but the toughest level 5 missions allready.

for pvp, depends on your wallet.

I have 2 chars, 1 is booster/prober, runs full virtues, pricey, and my combat toon, even though im rich as a pig, I run a modest Zor's custom nav hyperlink and some +3%,s for extra speed, thats all.

Combat toons get podded often, unless you are ultra hardcore super pirate with teeth as long as an arm who knows what he is doing, dont fit high-grades.

Final thoughts: implants really work well in combination with fleet boosts, and drugs, and the bigger the ship, the better. Think of it as holy trinity. Induvidually - its okay. But high end only really worth it in combination.

Effects on an ishtar of implants - meh. But a fully linked, implanted and drugged up marader - unstoppable monster.

well, there is more cases. To properly fit pvp cruisers you almost always need the +3 powergrid or cpu implant, CCP designed the game this way, that better gear wont fit without extra juice.

example - orthrus. to properly take advantage of its ability, you need faction point, scram and faction mwd - but these things are more cpu-intensive then their basic variants. So, you need that +3 implant. its like this all over eve.

So dont listen to the troll that says you should not be flying that ship if you cant fit it. Fly it, fit it as you like, and if you need some extra juice, buy the +3%.

There are some fits that can be made cheaper or more effective but require a +3% implant, some of these fits can use a fitting mod instead of the implant, but if you make the choice of the implant (which are fairly safe unless you fly in null/WHs alot and are even safe there most of the time) you can fit something that could make the overall fit that much better.

If you are just trying to make a "fleet standard fit" then it should prolly not need a +% implant since you can't always expect someone to have that implant, but if you are making specific or personal fits then you can be ok with saying to yourself that you will take the trade off.