SECRET LABORATORY - I read The Neopian Times last week, as I'm sure many of
you do, by skimming over the lists and reading articles and stories that catch
my eye. "Zap
It?" by bluescorchio104 certainly did that. As a regular Lab Ray user,
I felt I had to put in my two cents here...
Not only have I been using the Lab Ray since late June, I also decided from
the beginning that I would _track_ the progress I made. I put a pretty big investment
into the map pieces, and I wanted to know if it was worth it. GuardianKronos
is my only Battledome fighter, already near level twenty when I began my record.
It may seem discouraging to read on the screen "The ray fires at GuardianKronos...and
he loses two movement points!" But if you track the actual gains and losses,
you see quickly that there's no reason to get worried. So far Kronos has gained:
7 points of strength
18 points of defence
13 points of movement
27 HP and
0 levels
Note that this is not how much he _has_ at the moment; it's how many he has
thanks to the Lab Ray. Of course it's given him levels at times, but it's reduced
him an equal amount, to give an effective total of none gained.
This also should calm any fears you have about losing stats if you've worked
hard for codestones, or raising a disproportionate amount of speed. You can
see that Kronos' defence has gone up more than his speed, and his HP have increased
dramatically - a big plus.
Since the rules about having double your level in any stat don't apply with
the Lab Ray, there's no limit to how much you can increase!
One of the greatest downsides of the Lab Ray is that it can change colour,
species, and gender. If you have a specially painted pet, or a special one like
a Krawk or Draik, then the Lab Ray is probably not for you (unless you have
piles of money and can change them back whenever you want). Kronos' changes
of this sort are as follows:
Beginning: Male green Lupe
-Gender change (female)
-Turned yellow (Lupe)
-Turned white (Lupe)
-Gender change (male)
-Turned Blue Flotsam
-Turned green (Flotsam)
-Turned Tyrannian (Flotsam)
-Changed gender (female)
-Turned Green Jetsam
-Turned Yellow Acara
-Turned Disco (Acara)
-Turned Yellow Moehog
There's really not much to worry about in terms of gender, unless your pet
has a boyfriend or girlfriend. It is only a month or two before your "she" who
became a "he" will be a "she" again.
As for species and colour - you can see that they also change quite frequently.
So if you couldn't stand to be separated from your adorable Chia, forget the
Lab Ray. Kronos still thinks of himself as a green Lupe, and at heart he is;
there's a picture of his original self on his pet lookup. But he certainly would
like to be Robot - which can only be achieved through use of the Lab Ray.
Armed with the data I've collected, I now set out to tackle the price issue.
True, the Lab Ray is quite costly - all nine pieces can take awhile to find
and cost about 100,000 NP altogether. Now let's find out how much it _saves_
you. Kronos has gained a total of 65 points in all statistics added together.
The Shop Wizard advises me that a conservative codestone price is 4,000 NP.
That's 260,000 NP I've saved!
But wait a minute. Kronos is level 20 - which means he's on to the second
level of courses at the Training School. They cost two codestones each. So the
Lab Ray has actually saved me twice that amount - or over half a million NP,
over about half a year.
Trust me, people: This is NOT a wasted investment :)
SailorPtah, financial wizard extraordinaire, thanks to Kronos for cooperating
in my Lab Ray experiment - although she thinks his new BD prowess is thanks
enough. | 
