Overdrive program icon

Overdrive is a passive utility program which reduces the cooldowns of other programs by 2 turns down to a minimum of 1 turn, but increases their PWR costs by 1. It has no effect on passive programs; program cooldowns of 1 turn (or 0 turns) are not reduced by Overdrive, but their PWR cost is still increased by 1. Overdrive can be bought from some Server Terminals for 700 credits.

Overdrive's effect always applies while it is installed, and cannot be enabled or disabled at will. Overdrive only reduces other programs' cooldowns at the time they are used, so if Overdrive is installed while another program is already on cooldown, it does not reduce that program's cooldown timer. If Overdrive is sold while another program is on cooldown, it also does not increase that program's cooldown timer.

Overdrive is not a common buy, and for good reason - not only does it take up a program slot and 700 credits for something that has no intrinsic benefit, it is actively harmful to any program that does not have a cooldown, making it cost 1 more PWR which includes most breakers.

However, it does have synergy with most programs that have cooldowns:

• Burst is now a Dynamo that also gives +3AP on the first turn, and can be “shut off” for a +3AP boost the following turn if necessary (though Modulate would put a stop to it temporarily)
• Root is now slightly PWR-positive even if it drains PWR every turn (+1 for every 4 turns), though it's still weak overall, and strategies that are making use of Overdrive's benefit do not tend to be the sort that burst their hacking on a single turn.
• Hammer is now a 5 firewall for 6 PWR breaker that can be used every turn. Dagger and Dagger 2.0 also benefit but still can't be used every turn. Turing can be used every turn as well, but that's only available late on the Omni Mainframe mission when it isn't that useful.
• Ping, Hunter, Wings, Daemon Sniffer, Hunter, Rogue, Shade can now be used every turn, allowing for strategies that want to reliably use any of these each turn, if enough PWR is available.

It doesn't really work with Flare since raising the firewalls on every mainframe device each turn has obvious issues. It will also completely shut down Fusion, as it now costs 6 PWR to be on cooldown for 2 turns, only generating the 6 PWR it cost to run it.

Overall, it's difficult to get this to work with a loadout because of the programs it needs to be paired with. The synergy with Burst is quite notable, potentially allowing enough PWR generation to pay for the increased costs, but the breakers it wants to be paired with are usually not as strong early in a campaign because most devices have less than 3 firewalls. In endless, Modulate 2.0 looms over strategies that rely on the synergy with Burst.