There are permanent, item-bound enhancements with items (permanent as long as you don't remove them with a defective weapon rom, decayed etherium field crystal or barrel of degenerating nanos / meteorsteel dust or the item gets damaged or destroyed).
- In v1.6, you can enhance normal energy weapons and shields with longzhu spheres only up to +20%.
- It's also possible to enhance your drive with a longzhu sphere.
- I was able to enhance my Dvalin Ion9 weapon that came with +60% with a longzhu sphere to +70%, probably a bug.
- Similarly, normal shields can be enhanced with molbidium field crystals only up to +30%. Field crystals only work on level VII-XII shields.
- Damaged shields and energy weapons can be repaired with longzhu spheres. You can earn easy money by selling lots of positron cannons this way.
- Normal shields can be enhanced by using mnemonic cubes with an installed heisenmachines quantum cpu: The ShieldPower v3.1.8 algorithm cube adds +20% hit points for shields level IV-IX without affecting power draw, the ShieldEfficiency v1.2.5 algorithm cube will decrease power draw of shields level IV-IX to 80%.
- Normal lower level (I-VI) shields can also be enhanced by shield enhancement ROMs, they add +20% hit points. Hiro's shield optimizer (also a ROM) adds +50% for I-VI shields, you get one for rescuing Katami during the battle arena missions.
- You can enhance shields up to +150% with diamond field crystals in 10% increments, they're very rare to find, expensive when already identified or ordered and only 1 can be ordered at every corporate trading station.
- Consumables specific to the damage type can be used to repair damaged weapons or further enhance weapons up to +150% in 10% increments (laser amplifier, kinetic upgrade, hexagene booster, particle source upgrade, tritium injector, ion power capacitor). At corporate trading stations, you can usually order 3 laser amplifiers, hexagene boosters, particle source upgrades or tritium injectors, but you can only ever order 1 ion power capacitor or 1 kinetic upgrade. There are no consumables to enhance positron, plasma or antimatter weapons in general, but you can use longzhu spheres for +20% on positron weapons.
- A weapon enhancement ROM increases rate of fire of installed, unenhanced, active primary weapon of any level by 1/4. Due to rounding, some weapons get a larger bonus, typically 1/3. It also repairs an installed, damaged, active primary weapon.
- Normal armor can be enhanced with a very broad selection of barrels. For simple hitpoint enhancements, there are barrels of carbon-weaver nanos for +50% at tech level I-III, +30% at level IV-V and +10% at level VI; and also barrels of orthosteel nanos for +50% at level VII-X.
- Also, you can enhance your reactor with heliotrope fuel cylinders if you get lucky. Each one you use has a small chance (which is?), they're usable starting from the nova-100 reactor up to the koshiba-500 reactor.
- 40% chance to enhance an armor segment, 65% to enhance its hit points by +50%, 35% to enhance its hit points by +20%.
- 25% chance to enhance the shield, 65% for +20%, 5% for +40% and 30% for +20% efficiency.
- 15% chance to enhance a weapon, 85% for +20%, 15% for +40% damage
- 10% chance to enhance reactor or drive. Reactor by +20% maximum power output, fuel capacity and also +20% fuel efficiency. Drive with +10% to top speed and thrust bonus (or +20% thrust bonus as in wiki?). For example, you can reach 0.25c with the titan 440 fusion drive, 0.28c with the enhanced version; 0.3c with the pteracnium megadrive, 0.33c with the enhanced version.
- There are those specific to the damage type done: laser collimator, cannon accelerator, particle accelerator. They add +50% damage on top of any other direct weapon enhancements, except for the laser collimator, which adds +75%. There are no enhancers for blast, ion, positron, plasma or antimatter weapons in general, but in the official Corporate Command add-on, there is also the lithium booster for +50% thermo damage and the tesla enhancer, which increases the damage ion weapons deal to shields, this may depend on the level of the shield it hits. Those enhancers work for primary and side-mounted weapons, but not for missile or MAG launchers
- You can use enhancing devices specific to the weapon manufacturer: makayev weapon enhancer, rasiermesser weapon enhancer, bushido weapon enhancer. They add +75% damage to their supported weapons; the makayev one only to blast weapons, the rasiermesser one to kinetic and blast weapons, the bushido one to energy weapons.
- Then there's the high-speed howitzer loader, which increases fire rate by 3/7, about 42.8%. Mark V howitzers and side-mounted mark V howitzers should get 50% due to rounding. Works on top of the damage boost from a lithium booster for the thermo type howitzers.
Finally, there is the university in the big arcology surrounding Incandescent (the habitable planet circling St. Katherine's star), where another project is pursued every game by the school of engineering. They can enhance your drive by 10%, reactor by 20%, again affecting maximum fuel capacity, maximum power output and fuel to power conversion ratio, or they can enhance your shield with a 2/11 (18,18%) chance for +20% hit points, a 2/11 chance for +20% efficiency, and a 1/11 chance each for +10% HP, +30% HP, +40% HP, laser, kinetic, particle and blast resistance.