Astral Injection

Allows the injection of base augmenters into permanent drones. Astral Injection costs 6 skill points per a level to train. The augmenters are destroyed when the drones are scooped. The augmenters also do not drop if the drone is destroyed. Drones can be augged by targeting the drone you want to aug, and tossing (while less than 40 distance away and within 20-30 speed of the target) an aug with a tech level less than or equal to your Astral Injection skill.

This skill is also necessary to use Drone Controllers.

Where to Train

Now Mission-Based in Perpetual Motion Starts at the base Drone Corp. Universal (Center Ai Station)

Location	Level	Accesibility	Requirements	Notes
Perpetual Motion	1	F2P	Unknown
Perpetual Motion	2	F2P	Microchips x50
Perpetual Motion	3	F2P	Rime Drone x1
Perpetual Motion	4	F2P	Jiji Qo Banu x1
Perpetual Motion	5	F2P	Jungle Drone x1
Perpetual Motion	6-7	F2P	Corsair Drone x 1	Only one drone is needed to train levels 6 and 7
Perpetual Motion	8-10	P2P Only	Armada Drone x 1	Only one drone is needed to train levels 8, 9 & 10

History

From the log of Thanar:

"Back in 2005, Atlum began making comments about astral injection, lamenting the fact that no one had yet figured out what the skill did. Atlum made the following comments in the forums (which I did an exhaustive search for during my attempts to figure it out):

Atlum Quotes: "I need a good idea on where to hide something in plain sight again... The real winner is still probably astral injection which even with some very obvious clue has not yet been found (it might have been found once in the past the person who found it didn't tell anyone and is not playing anymore)." – June 30, 2005

"Hint for Astral Injection (The art of astral transference) hidden somewhere 'Find it, connect the dot and be a real hero'"

"Honestly I can't get how you guys are not finding it. My last clue has been found and it's oooooooobbbbbbbbvvvvvvvvvviiiiiiiiiooooooooussssssssssssss if you think about it for 1 sec." – July 18, 2005

"Astral Injection has a clear purpose. Once you know how to use the skill it's usefullness become evident. There are items that act as clue that are in game atm. If you look at those items and think astral injection it should be OBVIOUS what the skill does. Those items have been found and have even been used already." – July 21, 2005

"Astral Injection is not about warp, warping, warped, wparp or any combination of the letter w, a, r and p in any form so for the love of Adum stop saying it's related to this please!" – August 17, 2005

"Clues that I consider nearly obvious are in the game but are totally ignored by those who find them. I'm increasing the stakes: The first person who send me a pm with what astral injection does will get the following: 10 Imperial Seals, An item named after him somewhat, Eternal glory in the world of SS." – September 22, 2005

It was after that last message that I decided to spend all my time on SS trying to figure out what it did. I started with the same method that Thomas Edison used to discover a material for the incandescent light bulb: TRY EVERYTHING and make a list of what doesn't work. So I tested the following (by comparing the effects on a character with Astral Injection 0 to another character with Astral Injection 10):

damage taken from suns parasite multiply time, damage stasis ship reclamation time pod eject speed, speed decrease time warping further from wormholes shipscanner range ship logoff time weapons tracking transference (range, tracking, healing, dmg) increases chances AI drop augs increases chances of a critical hit Distance from warp that you can jump Distance from item to scoop Effectiency of Solar Panels Ability to Warp while being tractored Adding built in elec regen to ships Spirit speed

I knew from Atlum's quotes that it had to be useful, and thus in some way measurable. I also looked at what features were added at what times. Astral Injection was around before mastery skills, damaging suns, overloaders… Slaves were trading only. Augs had no tech limits. Bases were Adonis at best. So that eliminated a few more things.

I also deduced that there must be some specific action you had to do with the User Interface to activate the skill. Otherwise, someone would have just noticed it accidentally at some point, after getting the skill maxed at 10.

Around this time, I had some discussions with Tobal, who was convinced it had something to do with augs. I decided to try to figure out discussion what might have triggered Atlum to make the big reward to encourage the discovery of the purpose of Astral Injection. I noticed these statements in a discussion the day before:

“Drones are like ship without augments/skills untill you get DM.” – Atlum, September 21, 2005

“I personally, am going to stick it out, but it seems that no only the store drones (the ones that SHOULD run out of juice cause they suck) run out of juice, ALL drones run out of juice now. Like I said, just toss a few elect augs on the good drones, and the problem is solved.” – Calypso, September 21, 2005

Now Calypso was suggesting that the admins add elec augs to the drones. But it got me thinking that "injection" might mean injecting augs into drones. And it would explain what items Atlum had put into the game that were a clue: Platform Augmentation Alpha/Beta/Gamma's, which it turns out were really designed to be injected into drones.

I got a bunch of drones and augs in my ship and secretly went off to a remote galaxy to try it out, and eventually did drop a firing aug on top of a drone and it disappeared, and yes, the drone did fire faster! So I spent some more time trying to figure out what the skill level let you do, how many drones could be injected, etc. and then pm'ed Atlum.

So that's how Astral Injection was discovered. Thanar's Astral Fire was the item I ended up designing a few months later."