Buff

A buff is an enhancement to your skillset, or to ship's normal capabilities. A buff can be derived from a pilot's own skillset, or from the installation of an item of ship-equipment which has the buff as a built-in feature. They can also be actively applied to you, or passively shared with you by other pilots.

Types of Buffs

Buffs can be either:

• active (a skill, or a ship-equipment effect requiring deliberate manual activation and which only last for a certain period of time), or
• passive (either an inherent or acquired skill that is always operating, or an enhancement provided automatically and continuously when and while a particular item of ship equipment is installed).

Some buffs might only be available to you personally. Other buffs you might be able to manually gift to any other pilot (although they will wear off after a time). Yet other buffs might only be applicable to other pilots at times when they are grouped with you in a flight-formation.

Active buffs, whether you have applied them to yourself or another pilot has applied them to you, will appear as a square icon (coloured green) in a square panel at the top-right of your game window. When they are about to wear off, you will notice that they start to flicker on and off. You won't always get such a warning - a JD's Psi Shield can wear out not only by the passage of time, but also by the number of damage it absorbs. If its hit point capacity is reached, the icon will disappear immediately.

When you are grouped with other pilots, you might notice a number of square icons (coloured yellow) appearing in the buff panel at the upper-right corner of your game window: these are passive buffs belonging to your group's members which are automatically being shared with you while the group formation lasts.

Debuffs

An opposite effect, known as a debuff (or de-buff), also exists. Debuffs can be applied to an enemy to make it easier to overcome or escape from, or they can be acquired from items of ship equipment. Certain types of ship equipment might possess valuable buffs, but these enhancements can sometimes be accompanied by a debuff effect as well. Depending on your purpose, a debuff either might be a concern to you, or you might feel that you couldn't care less about it. For example, an engine might possess a warp-boost buff but also a ship-signature debuff, making you both faster, but also horribly visible to enemies from a greater distance. In a battle situation, this might not be the best engine to use, but if you are doing trade runs and are not going to stop to be caught by an enemy, you won't care about such a debuff. Many pilots might keep certain equipment for different purposes; e.g. a travelling engine (rigging for speed) and a battle or prospecting engine (rigging for stealth). Sometimes a debuff might even be considered a desirable deature: a thickly-armoured Progen Warrior might, for example, actually want a debuff that worsens his signature if he is acting as a tank for a group of pilots: his blown-out signature will focus enemy attention on him and away from more lightly-armoured group members.

A passive debuff will not advertise itself, but if an enemy actively applies a debuff on your ship, you will see a square icon (coloured red) appearing in the buff panel at the upper-right corner of your game window. This will start to flicker off and on, when it is about to expire.

Tactics

• Discerning pilots will often pair a debuff device with a complementary weapon. For example, a pilot who favours plasma weaponry might also carry a plasma-debuff device so that he can apply a debuff to reduce or weaken his enemy's plasma-deflect ability, thus causing his plasma-weapons to bite the enemy harder.
• In group situations, prior to going into battle (particularly on raids), a battle group will pause to "buff up". This is a time to apply buffs to yourself and all your other group members, for maxiumum shared effectiveness in battle.
• In group battle situations, a certain group member with a suitable debuff device (often an Explorer class pilot) might be tasked with keeping the debuff on an enmy refreshed, so that it becomes easier to dispatch.

Notes

• See also Effect stacking