As many of you know, Stim Chip Mills are the newest addition to Pardus. Many people are arguing about the economics of stim chips. So, I thought I’d jump in and point out the obvious:

If you have a choice between Drugs and Stim Chips, choose Drugs. Drugs can give you 950 AP in 5 tons every 6 hours at a relatively cheap price. However, drugs lose their effect after the first 4 tons. So they provide diminished returns for addicts. At first Chips seem to compete with that at 6k/t they can give you 1850 AP for 25 tons at no loss of AP. The problem with chips is that their only use is for players who want to ingest 10-25 tons worth at once. Drugs are much, much cheaper below that range even when you pay the high price of 15k/ton.

The big catch to stim chips is that the cool down rate is 1 per hour or 24 hours! So, if you’re using them to rank, you can only take them once per day for a total AP gain of 1850 maximum. Meanwhile Drugs can be easily taken 3 times per day, and sometimes 4 for a total gain of 4000 AP in a single day, eating it in 5 ton increments.

Stim Chip Facts:
– Chip cap is 25.
– Cap is refreshed at a rate of 1 per hour (thus while you can take up to 25 at a time if you wait for it to reload fully, you end up being able to take up to 24 per day consistently).
– Tick is at minute :30.
– They always generate 75 AP + 2/Meditation if you have Neural Engineering.
– Taking chips beyond the max yields zero AP. eg. If you take 3 chips when you have already taken 23, you get 150 AP instead of the expected 225.
– You do not get any benefits from chips whilst under the effects of drugs
– Chips are legal
– Chips can be stored and traded on a starbase