Chip Lab Guide (Pre-Season 1)
What Is the Chip Lab?
The Chip Lab is the building where you craft, dismantle, and reset Drone Skill Chips — specialised enhancements that boost your drone's performance in battle. The building can be upgraded to level 35, but all chip recipes are available by level 20. After level 20, the Chip Lab offers diminishing returns — prioritise other buildings like the Drill Ground, Tech Center, or Barracks instead.
The publisher (FirstFun) splits this into two unlocks that players regularly confuse:
- Drone Component unlocks when your Base reaches HQ 15. Components boost your Drone and Heroes' attributes directly — separate from the Skill Chip system.
- Skill Chip system + Chip Lab crafting requires both: server open for 82 days AND Drone Combat Boost level 10. Until both are met, you cannot craft Skill Chips even if your Chip Lab building is visible.
What to do before day 82: feed every unwanted Data Chip (Green / Blue / Purple) into Combat Boost to push toward level 10 — that way the Skill Chip system unlocks the moment day 82 arrives, not weeks later.
Stop upgrading the Chip Lab at level 20. All legendary chip recipes are unlocked by then. Levels 21-35 provide minimal benefit and the resources are better spent elsewhere. Levels 31-35 require the Age of Oil event (post-Season 2) and are not available in pre-season.
The Four Chip Slots
Every drone has four chip slots. Each slot serves a different role in combat:
Only activate chips that match your squad's troop type. A Tank chip on an Aircraft hero provides zero benefit. Always check that your Interference chip (Memory Ultra Fission) matches your main squad — Tank, Aircraft, or Missile Vehicle.
Chip Rarity
Crafting Priority Order
Craft your legendary chips in this order. Each one costs 800 Premium Chip Materials, so focus on the highest-impact chip first:
How Chip Ascension Works
Chip ascension (star upgrades) works like hero class upgrades — you feed duplicate chips of the same type to raise the star level.
Chips go to 10 stars, not 5. Confirmed in-game, and it matters for planning: this guide previously showed a five-star ladder (1, 2, 4, 8, 16 duplicates, 31 copies total) and costed a "full" chip from it. The real ceiling is twice that, and it is reached a different way — see Ascension below.
What is confirmed:
Ascension raises the cap; stars fill it
This is the part that is easy to misread. A chip does not simply climb to 10 stars — it has a Current Max Stars value, and Ascension is what raises that ceiling. The craft screen states both together, for example "Current Max Stars: ★★★★ — Ascension requires: 0/7".
So the seven duplicates do not buy you a star directly. They buy you permission for the next one.
Every chip has a Star Overview tab listing what each star gives, and the pattern is the same on all of them. Ordinary ascensions raise a number; stars 2, 5 and 8 are flagged as Major Ascensions and deal in whole clauses. On a Tank shield chip the ladder reads: ★1 shield to 400K, ★2 Major — "once the shield wears off, reduce all damage received by 8%", ★3 shield to 600K, ★4 shield to 800K, ★5 Major — the same clause raised to 12%, ★6 shield to 1M.
Note what ★5 does: it upgrades the clause ★2 gave you from 8% to 12%. It does not add a second one. So the Majors are a single effect that grows, and the ordinary stars in between are pure numbers.
That changes how you spend duplicates, and it compounds with the rising cost. Stopping one short of 2, 5 or 8 leaves the valuable part of the climb unbought — you have paid the rising price for the plain numeric stars and stopped just before the clause they were leading to. Plan your duplicates to land on those numbers, never one below.
A chip's skill line shows two numbers, for example "your Aircraft heroes gain 8.50% (+4.00%) Defense boost". The figure in brackets is what your Combat Boost is already adding — it is not a preview of the next star. See Skill Boost below, because it is the single most under-rated part of this system.
The duplicate cost rises with every Ascension — it is not a flat rate:
The to-5★ step of 7 is confirmed in-game — an Ascend screen at 4 stars reads "Ascension requires: 0/7". The rest of the curve is community-sourced and matches our own Drone Skill Chips calculator, which was built independently; agreement between the two at the one point we can measure is the reason it is published here at all. Check your own Ascend screen before a long climb.
Taking a single chip from 0 to 10 stars costs 133 duplicates. At 800 Premium Chip Material each, that is 106,400 material for one chip — and the back half is where it lives: the last three ascensions alone are 90 of the 133.
This is why breadth beats depth for a long time. Four chips at 4 stars costs 44 duplicates between them; one chip at 9 stars costs 93. Get every slot filled and modestly starred before anyone climbs, and treat the 8★-to-10★ stretch as an end-game project rather than something to drift into.
Read the figure off your own Ascend screen before committing to a climb. It matters most near the top: a rising cost plus a 10-star ceiling means the last few stars on one chip can be worth several early stars spread across others.
Skill Boost — Combat Boost scales every chip you own
Open any chip and tap Skill Boost. This is the part of the system almost nobody accounts for.
Each stage breakthrough of Combat Boost grants a Skill Boost tier that applies to every chip you have equipped, not to one of them. The tiers are flat and cumulative — on a Tank shield chip they read:
The screen also names the next threshold outright — at Skill Boost +2 it reads "Next stage breakthrough: Lv.450" — so you always know exactly what Combat Boost level you are working toward.
A star spent on one chip improves that chip. A Combat Boost stage breakthrough improves all of them at once, permanently, and the tiers are flat rather than diminishing — the step from +1 to +2 is worth exactly as much as +3 to +4.
That reframes the guide's long-standing advice to feed spare chips into Combat Boost. It was never just tidying up your inventory; it is a multiplier across your entire chip loadout, and the thing every duplicate-chip decision should be measured against. Keep an eye on the named next threshold and push for it.
To ascend a chip, go to the Chip Lab, select the equipped chip, and tap Ascend. The game consumes duplicate chips of the same type. You must craft or obtain duplicates through the same farming sources used to get the original.
Whatever the exact curve, the shape of the advice is unchanged and safe: a legendary chip costs 800 Premium Materials to craft, so every duplicate you feed a chip is another 800. Getting all four chips to a low star level costs far less than pushing one chip up a ten-star track, and gives you four bonuses instead of a bigger version of one. Prioritise breadth first; treat high stars as a long-term sink.
What Ascension Unlocks
Each star level increases the chip's base stats and can unlock additional abilities:
- 2 Stars — the first Major Ascension. This is where a chip gains its extra clause; on Lethal Firestorm that is an additional drone target
- 3 and 4 Stars — ordinary ascensions. They raise the numbers on what the chip already does
- 5 Stars — the second Major Ascension. It upgrades the clause ★2 gave you rather than adding a new one — on Lethal Firestorm the same target effect grows, it does not become a second target
- 6 and 7 Stars — ordinary ascensions again
- 8 Stars — the third and last Major Ascension, and the biggest single step on the chip
- 9 and 10 Stars — the final ordinary ascensions. 10 stars is the ceiling, not 5
Star Upgrade Priority
Once you have chips crafted, upgrade their star level. The jump from 1-star to 2-star is the biggest power gain:
- Get all four chips to 2-star first — the 1-to-2 jump is the largest relative power increase
- Start with Memory Ultra Fission (Interference) to 2-star
- Then Gravitational Resonance Armor (Defence) to 2-star
- Then Lethal Firestorm (Attack) to 2-star — prioritise this over Initial Move because it unlocks additional drone targets at star levels 2 and 5
- Then Absolute Quantum Field (Initial Move) to 2-star
- After all four are at 2-star, push them evenly toward 5-star in the same priority order — that is the second Major Ascension, and the next worthwhile stopping point on the way to 8
Keep chip star levels relatively even across your set rather than dumping everything into one chip. Four 2-star chips outperform one 5-star chip and three 1-stars. Spread your upgrades.
Combat Boost
The Combat Boost system is a unified progression layer that benefits all active drone skill chips. Feed lower-rarity chips (green, blue, and eventually purple) into Combat Boost as upgrade material.
Combat Boost unlocks specific features at each level threshold. The full progression per FirstFun's official Drone Development documentation:
Combat Boost runs to level 900, but the chip payoff stops at 750. That gap is not a rounding error. Reaching 750 costs roughly 153 million Combat Boost EXP; going on to 900 costs about 149 million more — very nearly half of everything you will ever feed the system — and buys your chips nothing.
The last 150 levels are not worthless, because the drone's own stats keep rising. But if you are levelling Combat Boost for your chips, treat 750 as the end of the road and spend the next 149 million elsewhere.
Material Farming
There are two separate material types — they cannot be converted between each other:
- Basic Chip Material — used for Epic (SSR) chips. Despite the name, this is actually harder to obtain
- Premium Chip Material — used for Legendary chips
Where to Farm
Pre-Season Chip Lab Strategy
In pre-season, your Chip Lab resources are limited and the Skill Chip system itself may not be unlocked yet (requires server day 82 + Combat Boost L10). Follow this plan:
- Upgrade the Chip Lab building to level 20 as it becomes available — all recipes unlock by then; do not push further
- Feed every unwanted Data Chip (Green / Blue / Purple) into Combat Boost from day 1 — Combat Boost works independently of the Skill Chip system, and you need it at L10 the moment day 82 hits
- Pre-craft Epic (SSR) chips for immediate use once the system unlocks — these tide you over while farming Premium Materials for Legendary
- Start farming Premium Materials daily even before the system unlocks — it takes 6-8 months F2P to craft a full legendary set; banking materials pre-day-82 is not wasted
- First Legendary craft = Memory Ultra Fission (Interference) once you have 800 Premium Materials — match it to your Tank squad since that is your primary pre-season squad
- Save drone component chests for Wednesday VS Day — they only count toward Alliance Duel points on that day
Aim for roughly 60% of materials toward your next legendary chip, 25% toward Combat Boost, and 15% as reserve. This keeps you progressing on both fronts without stalling either one.
Common Chip Lab Mistakes
- Expecting Skill Chips at HQ 15 — HQ 15 unlocks Drone Component, not Skill Chips. The Skill Chip system needs server day 82 plus Drone Combat Boost level 10
- Letting Combat Boost lag — push it to L10 before day 82 so the Skill Chip system unlocks immediately, not weeks later
- Upgrading the Chip Lab past level 20 — waste of resources. All recipes unlock by 20
- Equipping the wrong troop type chip — zero benefit if chip type does not match your heroes
- Dumping all upgrades into one chip — keep star levels even across all four slots
- Spending drone component chests on the wrong day — save them for Wednesday VS Day
- Ignoring Combat Boost — feeding low-rarity chips into Combat Boost benefits all your active chips and is the gating system for Skill Chip unlock
- Not farming materials daily — legendary chips take months to craft. Start collecting now
- Converting or discarding Basic Chip Material — it cannot be converted to Premium and is actually harder to obtain
Related Guides
- Gear Guide — gold gear craft order and upgrade path
- Hero Guide — hero investment priorities
- Alliance Duel VS Guide — Wednesday is chip component chest day
- Daily Routine — incorporating chip farming into your daily checklist
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