The Radar Booster is the best-value utility item in the store, because most crews buy it for the map marker and never use the two things that make it worth 60 credits.
What you probably bought it for
A Radar Booster places a marker that shows on the map and the ship’s monitor.
Drop one at the facility entrance and you have solved the single most common failure in this game: not finding your way back out. Drop more along the route and you have breadcrumbs through a layout that did not make sense the first time.
That alone justifies the price on a large facility.
What else it does
Two terminal commands work on a booster you have placed by name:
FLASH [booster name] makes the booster flash and stuns monsters near it.
PING [booster name] makes it play a noise.
Those turn a 60-credit map marker into an emergency button. If a crewmate is cornered somewhere you cannot reach, the person on the ship can flash the nearest booster and give them a window to run through.
This is why the booster belongs to the ship operator’s toolkit rather than to whoever is walking.
How to use it well
Name them as you place them. The commands need the booster’s name, and “the one near the door” is not a name.
Place them on the way in, at decision points. Junctions, the entrance, and anywhere the route forks. Not in the middle of a straight corridor.
Drop one at the exit first. Before anything else, mark the way out. Everything after that is refinement.
Leave the flashing to the ship. The person being chased does not have time to type. The person on the monitor does.
A placement order that works
Four boosters, placed in this order, cover a facility properly:
- The entrance. Before you go anywhere. This one is not optional — it is the difference between leaving and being lost.
- The first fork. Where the route gives you a choice. Mark the way you came from.
- The deepest fork you reach. This is the one that saves you at the point where you are most tired and least oriented.
- Any junction on the way back that looked different in the dark. Routes look different coming out than going in.
More than four is usually wasted. Fewer than two means you are relying on memory in a building designed to confuse it.
When to skip it
Skip it on Experimentation early on. The facility is small enough to read, and 60 credits matters when the quota is low.
Skip it if nobody stays on the ship. Both commands are run at the terminal, so a crew that empties the ship every run is buying half an item.
Related guides
- Terminal commands — how FLASH and PING are typed.
- Best equipment tier list — where the booster sits in the buying order.
- Best loadout — the ship operator’s job.