Crew Rolling Experiment Results April 9th

Crew Rolling Experiment

People have been complaining about the Random Number Generate of the Crew Roller has been 'fixed', with no BB or DoS crews popping up. So, to check the claims of this I set out doing 4 different roll experiments. With the following rules 

• No collecting crews until all uranium is spent 
• Must all be done in one session
• If the game or computer crashes, restart 
• Only roll crews using the Advanced Crew option 

One with 170 rolls, one with 226, and one with 391, and the last with 403. I then complied all in a spreadsheet, and made a total one and an average one. 

Here are the links to the 4 trials

• February 20th
• March 12th
• March 27th
• April 9th

Now that we have the basic data, here is the total between them all. 

• Total 

The average? 

• Average

(Although these are the averages from 1447 rolls, some crews were never rolled. I will be doing another 403 rolls every week, so in a month new data will be available to compare.)

Here are the averages that matter 

• 37% for rolling a Common Crew 
• 61% for rolling an Uncommon Crew
• 1.5% for rolling a Rare Crew 
• .41% for rolling a Legendary Crew 

And for individual crews 

• .21% for rolling a Bullseye Brigade
• .138% for rolling Grease Monkeys
• 3.8% for Midnight Marauders 
• 4.98% for Gearheads 

But the biggest shock from it all?

• The average chance of rolling a common crew is higher than an uncommon crew 

What do you mean? 

Well, if you take the number of times that you can roll a uncommon crew and divide it by the number of total crew rolls, and then compare to the number of common crews over total crews; you'll find that some common crews are easier to get than uncommon crews. Which crews? 

You have a higher chance of rolling a Gearheads crew (4.98%) than you do 

• Dragonslayers (4.35%)
• Fearless Blitzers (4.28%)
• Junkyard Dogs (3.39%)
• Lucky Bastards (3.94%)
• Midnight Marauders (3.8%)
• Molotov Maidens (4.7%)
• Motorheads (4.15%)
• Salty Dogs (4.42%) 
• Sea Serpents (4.7%)
• Silent Hunters (4.35%)
• Steelheads (4.01%)
• Wolfpack (4.63%) 

Holy shit that's a lot of crews. Gearheads isn't the most common crew either, its Lucky Bastards at 5.6%, more than any uncommon crew. Which, isn't right at all. 

The chance of any given crew rolled being uncommon is 61%, and common is 37%; but you are more likely to roll common Lucky Bastards than you are any given uncommon crew! 

What can be done to fix this? 

Well, two things

1.  Introduce a cap to where once a set number of the same crew is rolled, its taken out of the system for that session. Example? If you roll a Lucky Bastards crew 20 times in a single session, the chance of rolling another Lucky Bastard is 0%. This seems way too much in the player favor, but when you look back at the data; for every 361.75 rolls I only rolled a single crew 20 times, with 8 other crews being 5 rolls or closer. What would happen to the lost 5.6% of the LB crew? Give it to another crew, at random. What does it accomplish? It allows for rarer crews to come out of their shell, and have a higher player satisfaction at rolling crews. How often do you go on the forums are see people complaining about BB crews being gone?
2. Move more crews to common, but keep the tier percentage the same. Meaning with an average 37% to roll a common crew for the different 8 crews, giving 4.63% per crew is higher than the 61% for the 14 uncommon crews at 4.36%. By adding more common crews, but keeping the tier percentage the same at 37%, you would increase the number of uncommon crews rolled overall. What crews could you add to common? Dead-eye Destroyers, Radar Runners, and Dragonslayers. What would this do? Well, 37% over 11 crews is 3.36% per crew, while 61% for 13 crews is 4.69%. A difference of 1.33%! 

Either way, both changes would need a redo in the crew system. Maybe we need another change in the system. Keep the rarities as they are, just fix the roll chances or move some crews around.

I'm going to continue this for another month or two. Just depends when I get a chance to sit down and roll for an hour or two.


As always Film at 11

   

Utopia Prizes and builds

Icebreaker 

The newest garrison hull for the next raid, following the format of the Hellwraith and Cannoneer as the go-to hull for the next 3 months. However, this a tier 6 hull, both the Hellwraith and Cannoneer were tier 5 hulls. Since tier 6 is the highest tier-currently-this can lead down two paths.

• The Icebreaker won't be getting a limited flagship 

or 

• Kixeye will be adding tier 6.5-7 soon

You think people have been complaining about the Pride and Liberator recently? Just wait until 6.5 and 7 tiered flagship versions of them. Enough about future gebuckel, what can we do with the Icebreaker now? 

Well, looking at its stats only

It's a fucking tank. 

The starting defenses of 60%-strike that 66% because of it's FoE, and deflection of 600; already besting the punisher, with its 110% rocket reload leaving the base reload of the paired weapon, D-100S, at .48 seconds and with a BDPS of 13,900. Ranked at 57%, giving the rockets a minima reload of .2 seconds, boosts the BDPS up to 23,828.

But Ouch37, this is for the weapon not the ship! 

Yeah I know, on to the ship now.

With a comparison chart of other worthwhile tanks to use in garrison. 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16y7-bfLTum-jVBb5lTltuAkNXAElxRx53TIvzeDcleI/edit?usp=sharing

Green-best out of two or more

Yellow-tied for best 

Cyan-No stats or non applicable 

Red-Terrible, just wrong, 

Orange-Hopefully gets reduced (yes I know there is already a 50% armour repair reduction, but 3
hours for a blank hull is still a lot, people still add armour) 

The Icebreaker has the best deflection/DPS stats, best combat speed, and armour. All useful
thingsin garrison tanks/spotters. However, it is lacking countermeasure boosts, so a starting
build will need that; if you are putting countermeasures on it if not skip this. Along with
defense to pen and explosive, speed, and damage abilities. Let's build! 

Alright, this is what I got. I'll explain each component, and other substitutes-if available. 

• Hailstorm-D - Anti-mortar as the Garrison targets are bi-focused on explosive damage, fully
  ranked should be able to shoot down, at minimum without anti-mortar evasion, 1-2 mortars
  shells. Having four of them should be more than enough to keep the mortars out of the sky.
  Can be replaced withGale 3. 
• Phalanx 4 - The other half of the damage is penetrative, thus missiles. Two is minimal I say,
  with the rhinos in current targets overwhelming a single one. Fully ranked, with FLCS, should
  shoot down 13-14 missiles, without anti-missile evasion. Can be replaced with Phalanx 3,
  but refit ASAP.
• D98-U - 94 range without needing a special, just needed to spot for remote targeting hulls.
  Can be replaced with any other long ranged special lacking weapon, including but not limited
  to: any other launcher, Judgement mortar, or the D100-S. I would rather use the Antipode
  over the D100-S, as for range, as getting too close could trigger other turrets on a different
  platform, or
  remote targeting by defending fleets-this is a personal opinion for your play style. 
• Speed System 5 - Adds to combat speed, map speed, and most important turn speed. For
  example, testing the ranges of turrets you want to be able to retreat and get out of fire quickly,
  not stuck under missile or rocket fire. This is the most basic and common speed upgrade for
  higher level players, you don't need to change this out. 
• Agility System 4 - Adds to evade, for better defense against missiles, and adds to slow and
  stun resistance, which we will encounter through drac ice mines, and/or possible new
  coldsnap turret upgrades
• High Velocity Rounds - Added this for the projectile speed, the faster you can shoot down
  mortars, the less are coming down overall. If you replace the D98-U, keep this special
  as it does increasebuilding damage. Can be replaced with Explosive Systems 4, for
  projectile speed, or Cluster Warheards/Combustion System 1-2 if you replace the
  D98-U with the D100-S, boosting the reload speed of rockets-ranking a tank is
  always cumbersome- or increase the splash and spread of the rockets to increase the
  area of damage, since maximum reload is reached at rank 57%. 
• MX-3 - To better the defense, pretty basic really, you will always need to boost the defense on
  tanks. Can be replaced with D6-A, Heavy Plating 3, D5-X, or Fallout Armour 4. 
• FLCS - To increase the turret based defense, and boost countermeasure applications. Can be replaced with Countermeasure equipment 3, or Countermeasure Loaders 3. 
• C1-X - These targets will have mortars, and coldsnaps. Both of which has explosive damage,
  you are gonna need some way to protect yourself. The downsides are the health pool scales
  with your ship health-more on this below. Can be replaced with D5-X, but
  I don't recommend-explained later on.
• C1-M - Missiles will be prominent, this will take each incoming missiles and reduce the
  damage to 25 before resistances and deflection. Health pool scales with ship health still;
  can be replaced with D5-M, but I don't recommend for reasons below. 

^That^ was all for a spotter/tank build, let's do one for actually dealing damage. No chart
this time as there are no usable rocket garrison hulls. 

Built all around dealing damage, let me explain the modules. 

• Hailstorm D - You will probably need to make tight turns in these targets, anti-mortars will
  lessen the damage if you get caught by mortars. Can be replaced with Gail 3 again
• Phalanx 4 - To reduce the incoming volleys of missiles, Rhinos, if they are there, will have
  remote targeting. You will be under missile fire, don't mess up and leave these out.
  Can be replacedwith Phalanx 3, but refit ASAP 
• D100-S - The paired weapon with the Icebreaker, earlier I got the BDPS  to be 13,900,
  having 6 and then with bonus building damage, projectile speed, this will be a rocket sending
  beast. If you have to replace it, I suggest using: Dragonfire rockets, inferno rockets, or
  D95 siege rockets; you
  could be bold and use coaxil, but with a much longer reload compared to the other
  options. 
• Speed System 5, you will need greater turn speed, as explained above. 
• Combustion system 2 gives the better splash and spread combo than the explosive
  systems 4, and with a difference of only 5% in projectile speed. Can be replaced with
  Explosive system 4. 
• MX-3 - You don't want this thing to die immediately do you? 
• Garrison Battery MX-K  - Adds turret defense, increasing your survivability by 50%,
  and bonus building damage along with +18% explosive damage, doing the math the basic
  building damage of the D100-S with MX-K verus that of Siege Battery 3 is 1300 points
  higher. Can be replaced with: Siege Battery 3 without explosive bonus damage, Siege
  Targeting or Siege Reloader for extra building damage, but at the cost of turret defense;
  or with FLCS for countermeasure bonuses, but without the extra building damage. 
• High Velocity Rounds - Adds 100% projectile speed, along with 80% building damage.
  This is special has become a fast staple on hulls, use it. If you don't have it, Siege
  Targeting or Siege Reloader. 
• C1-M - Reasons as stated above
• C1-X - Reasons as stated above

Now that we have both builds, a tank and a fighter, I say we are wholly prepared for the next raid.
Expect that one build is a tank, and tanks are useless without a remote targeting hull to help out,
a remote taregting hull like the...

Empyrean

Built as the generalist version of the Citadel, it comes with a FoE that will activate resonance
trigger. Meaning you could replace the FLCS in our tank build with the resonance trigger,
at the cost of no countermeasure backing. Its a game of weighing pro's and con's, best to
leave it to you. 

Chart for comparison of a R5 Citadel versus that of a Empyrean; looking at which is better
at the basic job of shellin'. 

Looking at stats only, the citadel is the better choice for remote targeting. A lower build time,
mortar reload, splash, better defenses if it gets caught by missile/mortar fire, and longer range.
The Empyrean does have its come back with the siege and assault DPS. For a weaponized
hull alone, with the same mortar on both, I would have to lean towards the Citadel. 

However, with the Generalist restricted weapon and special,  Imperial D100-Z Mortar and
Trajectory Plotter,  the Emyprean becomes the clear choice versus that of Citadel with
Judgement mortar and Explosive system 4.  How? Lets build the empyrean first. 

I have no armour, as the perfect remote targeting hull driver never comes under fire. Besides, the countermeasures on the Icebreaker, if you pair them together, will stop any mortars. Explanation of
each part? Look below fellas 

• Imperial Mortar - 2 salvs every 4 seconds? Yes please, and when built like above with a
  full ranking of 75% it goes down to .56 seconds? Fuck yeah! I worked out the basic
  BDPS, without splash and spread and projectile speed, to 114.388. Thats huge for a
  single, non-limited mortar hull. It could be replaced with judgment, but in reality, you
  always get the weapon with the hull. 
• MX-K - Gives turret defense, building damage, and explosive damage. The turret defense
  isnt needed, but siege targeting and reloader aren't possible with this build. Can be replaced
  with Siege Battery 3, but MX-K gives better overall explosive damage. 
• High Velocity Rounds - Gives a bonus 100% projectile speed, and 80% building damage.
  Both of which rank it high on my list for Garrison Targets. Could be replaced with
  Seismic rounds if you don't have the Velo rounds, but the build above gives the same
  splash, with higher building damage. 
• Viscosity Regulator - Gives the bonus splash that the Velocity rounds doesnt have in
  comparison to the Seismic rounds. Can be replaced with Explosive Upgrade for bonus
  damage, or Speed System 5 for extra speed; however, with a base speed of 26 adding
  Speed System 5 will boost it up to 44, higher than our Icebreaker build. Always a hassle
  when the ships you are trying to protect are faster than your protector ships. 
• Explosive Upgrade - Bonus explosive damage, what else can I say? Can be replaced with
  Splash Upgrade, but the weapons already have a splash of 38, seems kinda redundant. 
• Trajectory Plotter - The special of which the Empyrean needs to live; giving bonus
  splash, and projectile speed while increase mortar reload by 80%. With a fully ranked
  ship, the paired mortar, D100-Z, will be firing every .56 seconds. 

Paired with the Icebreaker, this hull should work wonders in the next raid cycle and in the
weekly. But what about for bases? Well, Kixeye has gone and released an overpowered hull
again, on par with Borbas's Goresaber. 

At first glance, Ferox's Fury doesn't really seem to be bestowed the title of 'overpowered'; but 
looking at the last stat block, and Berserk, everything comes together. 

24,000 damage per second in a 60 radius range, coupled with a 3 second stun going off a
 minimum of 4 times, lasting 8 seconds of 200 per second damage; i.e. 1600 radioactive
 damage. During these 8 seconds, combat speed increase, and corrosive reload increases 
by 75%. The original paired weapon with the Fury was the Conflagration Scattergun. 
Taking the base reload of 9 seconds, halving it by 100% corrosive reload, then fully ranked
 give it a final reload of 1.13 seconds. Now, adding on the 75% bonus, the final firing 
speed of the Conflagration on a Ferox's Fury during berserk is roughly .8 seconds. 

Leading to 12.5, for math I'm rounding down,  shots within the berserk period. Now lets 
find the total damage output during that time, of a Ferox Fury with all 7 spots having been 
filled with Conflagration Scatterguns. 

4440 building damage x 1.25 bonus corrosive damage x 7 weapons = 38,850 listed damage for 
every salvo. Multiply by 12, we get 466,200. Enough to take out a level 7 turret, without any
 armor. 

Reminder, this is just one ship. 

With a maximum weight of 45729 tons in dock 13, and 35107 in dock 12, having a full fleet 
of 5 Furys  (or furies?) is a very likely possibility.  

Assuming the berserk bonus applies to all ships in fleet, in this case furies (or furys?), the 
total damage is multiplied by 5, leaving with 2,331,000. Almost enough to take down a level 
8 turret with all permacrete armour. 

That's not the reason why I consider it overpowered though. The FoE is why. 

24,000 corrosive damage per second; though in a 60 range. Not affected by splash blocking 
walls, this I assume. Meaning that just driving through the base, damage is automatically 
done within the 60 range. One could drive right past Enforcers, Vanquishers, Alpha Behemoths,
Harlock's Citadels, and any missile hulls, take almost null damage and sink without firing
 many a shot. 

Kixeye has brought back the blitz hull. It doesnt matter if you are taking fire, by just driving 
right through it all, you will damage no matter what. 

Countering? 

1. Demolish any non-essential buildings. Resource collectors and Radio tower. Both of
   which add to the F-Fury's bloodthrist. Having less buildings keeps the enemy conqueror
    hulls from reaching bloodthrist, and retargeting for the liberator.
2. Have Maxim Gun Turrets, the F-Fury only has, at max bloodthrist, 600 deflection.
   Take advantage of this. Specials to pair with include: Expanded Concussive Charge,
   Eruption Pyre, and Fuel Tank D1-X. All of these increase splash, ECC boosts
   concussive damage, EP boosts projectile speed, D1-X boosts explosive damage
   which isn't needed but the splash upgrade is. Order of pairing would be
    ECC+EP, ECC+D1-X, EP+D1-X;
    for a levels 6-7. For level 8, use all.
3. Ballistic turrets, Blunderbuss and Ballista. Equip with Depleted uranium shells 3, for
    ballisitic damage and accuracy, and Supercharged EM Rails 3, for 300% damage
   on a critical hit with a 25% chance of being a
   critical hit. Guessing that critical hits depends on salvo/multi shot, there will be on
    average 3 critical hits per every Blunderbuss shot.
    Both of these specials are in the raid, for a combined price of 2 million points.
4. Ships can be useful too, Valiants with Calamity Scatterguns deal both corrosive and
    concussive, F-Fury is weak against both.
5. Chromium Overlays, boosts wall's defense by 20%-50% to corrosive damage. At best,
   a level 9 wall has 175,000 health, add the 50% defense and its 262,500. Taking that
    number and dividing by half of the FoE (half because all damage is half of listed damage),
    we find the number of seconds it will survive under the field. Spoilers, it's 218 seconds.
    A good amount of time compared to a normal level 9 wall needing 145 seconds.
   Seems unnecessary, but the longer the wall stays up, the longer it takes for the
    F-Fury to knock down the turrets or ships behind it. 

My Personal thoughts

This raid has a lot going for it, with an insanely large prize pool, and three good ships coming
out of it. 6 Days should be good enough to get everything I want, needing about
50-60 million points. There has been some dicussion about the overbearing costs,
which the Battle Pirates
Professor went over in his latest post. Its a good read per usual. 

Other people have been complaining about the build times going back up, with 4~ days for each
hull and 9~ for the F-Fury. I honestly agree with them, but we do have the weekly mission for
build tokens. 

• Tier 4 gives out 2-day build tokens 
• Tier 5 gives out 2-day build tokens + 1-3 day build tokens, for a total of 3 days or 5 days
   build tokens 

Adding together we have 5 days to 7 days of free build, and doing it again gets us 10 days to
14 days of free build. Adding to the natural week of the weekly, we have 17 days to 21 days
 per week. Enough to build a single ship, rank it some and test it out and possibly some
refits, all within the same week. My builds above are 15 days, 15 days, 10 days. Leaving us a
minimum of 2 days to a maximum of 11 days to play with. 

Charges Armour Conspiracy 

Formal advice giving post is over, dawn the tin foil hats my friends. 

Both charged armours come with a reduction of 37,725 for penetration, and 10,000 for
explosive. Leaving a minimum of 25 and 35 pass through damage respectively. This is
all before resistances and normal deflection is added.  Why would kixeye release armour
that would leave ships barely scratched? Is the damage in the next raid Tier 6 targets in
the high thousands? Doomrooster stated that the reduction is applied to each single
 projectile, and then resistances and deflection is added. If the reduced number from
 the charged armor is the minimum, resistances  and deflection aren't added. 

These numbers don't work with Kixeye. Having players take barely any damage from
turrets, lowering the coining, doesn't seem like Harbin's plan for retirement. This can
go down two paths 

• The total damage from the turrets will be higher than the charged armour reduction,
  leaving a normal amount to resistances and deflection
  
  or
•  Kixeye is actually gonna have players take almost no damage, for a while, in order
   to increase playage of tier 6 targets. 

Notice how I said 'take almost no damage, for a while'? The damage reduction from the
 Charged armour doesnt work on just one number, but rather two. The damage reduction,
 and the health pool. 

It works like this; for every point of damage deducted by the charged armour, the same
number is taken from the health pool. i.e., if you have a mortar dealing 10,000 damage,
and you have the C1-X equipped, you will only take 25 damage, but the health pool will
decrease by 10,000 damage. Any amount of damage you take from incoming fire, you
also take from your health pool. 

For Doom's explaination, click me. 

For C1-M, it reduces damage by a maximum of 37725, to a pool of 1,886,250. 

Meaning that you can take a total of 50 projectiles dealing 37,725 points of penetration
damage, receiving only 1250. 

For C1-X, it reduces damage by a maximum of 10,000, to a pool of 500,000. 

Meaning you can take a total of 50 projectiles dealing 10,000 point of explosive damage,
receiving only 1750. 

Tips for using Charged Armour 

Have ship wearing the Charged Armour be defend by countermeasures,
or have countermeasures equipped.
A minimum of 50 projectiles isn't large when you think
about the number of coldsnaps, firing at you in current garrison targets. 

Count the number of projectiles hitting you. 

This might seem like a cumbersome task, but it is very useful when you consider that
 the health pool is scaled with your ship health per battle. If you retreat after each little
 'section' is destroyed, your health pool is back to full, or near full. 

Lets look at the  97 FM target for my explanation. 

Let's say that you enter from the south east, take out the platform, and then retreat. Your
ship has charged armour with a pool of 1000. During this advance, you take 900 damage in
the same type of charged armour you have. Your pool is left with 100. Your ship takes only
10 points of damage. 

Now, your Health Pool scales to ship health. If your ship has 100 health points total, and
after battle you have 90, then your pool would be 900. The pool resets after battle to a
scaled health of your ship.

The amount of damage taken during that battle doesn't matter. All that matters is your
ship health percentage. Having a large amount of health, and a large health pool is key
to no damage. 

By retreating and reentering before your pool runs out, you refill it. With a large amount
of health, your percentage of health should stay around 95-99% after a battle. Scaling your
health pool to 95%, your ship health afterwards would be down to 80-89%. After each
battle you will have less and less health, and thus less health pool; but less damage
coming in. Repairing the little lost health after the first battle seems like the best
way to save time or
coin. 

Overall, use the charged armour in tier 6, and try and maximize the armour on your ship. 

As always Film at 11

Base Parts and Mines

Base Parts  

Here is a list to all of the available drac mines to hit, along with a chart showing the conversion between base parts per target to seconds. 

Base Parts in Drac Mines Chart

Base Parts Needed To Upgrade Turrets And Drac Mines Needed 

Drac Mines 

Going through all the drac mines, and  the drac base. 

The videos below all have links to sample builds for drac mines, and online timing site to see when the drac mines spawn. (Spoiler, it's http://frostler.com/bp/) 

Drac mine 30

Contains Tier 2 Siege fragments, and Vindicator fragments

Base Parts 15,249~3 Hours 27 Minutes 

Drac Mine 40 

Contains Tier 2 Siege fragments, and Vindicator fragments

Base Parts 21,000~5 Hours 50 Minutes 

Drac Mine 60 

Contains Tier 3 Siege fragments, and Crusader fragments 

Base Parts 23,000~6 Hours 23 Minutes 

Drac Mine 70

Contains Tier 4 Siege fragments, and Centurion fragments 

Base Parts 26,229~7 Hours 17 Minutes 

Drac Mine 80

Contains Tier 4 Siege fragments, and Centurion fragments 

Base Parts 32,000~8 Hours 53 Minutes 

Drac Mine 90

Contains Tier 5 Siege fragments 

Base Parts 43,714~12 Hours 8 Minutes  

Drac Mine 95

Contains Tier 5 Siege fragments 

Base Parts 60,000~16 Hours 40 Minutes 

Drac Mine 97

Contains Harlock's Centurion fragments 

Base Parts 120,000~1 Day 9 Hours 20 Minutes 

Drac Base 101

Contains Drac Base Blueprints 

Base Parts 65,571~18 Hours 12 Minutes

Base Building 

I'm starting a new video series of looking at low level and high level bases, showing what to do and more importantly what not to do in these bases. The first video is already on my YouTube account, the second one will be coming out during the weekend. 

Daily Campaigns

Streaming 

I've found software for streaming and recording videos, will have a posted schedule up soon for me playing. Will be doing either base hits, weekly, campaigns, builds, or base defense. The first stream was right before I started typing this, but I will upload the recorded video to my YouTube. 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLtSw2KFpiRiCeUXkpp24JQ 

Yes, I know I need a better mic. 

Daily Campaigns 

Basic Info:https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/680734

Daily Campaigns are here for the higher up, 80+ currently. With 50-79 coming next week, and 50- the week following. Each campaign has 3 encounters, and changes every 24 hours from Assault to Base Defense. Prizes include Res, Uranium or Tokens or Base Parts. 

My first daily campaign, DC for short, was the base defense. Same as the TLC we had a while back getting the Malice. Three waves of reavers, with the second wave coming at all directions. 

The assault I have not tried, but will record tomorrow and update when I get to. 

Personal Thoughts 

I personally like the addition of DC. They allow for extra uranium or base parts or tokens, and don't have to be completed every time to stay relevant in the game. 

I was able to finish the base defense version in ~15 minutes, without coin or crews. The Assault version will be similar to the Apollo raid series, but easier because of non-raid importance. Think of the Legion Assault Forces. 

 I see a potential of the DC as an opportunity to log on complete in 15 minutes, maybe on auto, get the uranium/tokens/baseparts, and then log off or do the main way of getting those items. This could be a great time saver. 

As Always, Film at 11 

The Next Raid

Happy New Year 

I'm very sorry I was unable to cover the last raid, and the recent State of Game. 

However, I will be changing my blog view point from coverage of events and news, to opinion posts and help for players, such as getting points in raids and engaging targets. Starting off this new version of Ouch's Battle Pirates Help, this one is for kixeye and how they can improve low level player relations. 

Low Leveled players and Kixeye 

For this past raid cycle, and the one before certainly, we have had scores of anger players lashing out in the forums, or on Facebook. Complaining about targets being too hard, higher leveled players stealing the tier 3 (C sets) targets for easy completion bonus points from lower levels. 

Now, as this past raid did have around 36,914 players in this who were able to achieve over 4000 points. However, the lowest costing prize was the 1-Hour Ship Build token, at 120,000 points. What can we infer directly from these numbers? Nothing really, except the fact that it would take a combined 30 players, all with 4000 points to earn 1 hour ship build. 

30 times, think about it 

A player would need to increase his play time by 3000% in order to afford the lowest priced prize. 

Now, Kixeye being a for profit gaming company that is desperately trying to grow it's player base and improve the player's perception of the game. How do we know this? 

The new features of VXP weekend, Shard drop weekend, TLC's, and the failed Arena. All we made to increase player play time, and expand the player base, by pulling old players back in with new features and try to introduce new players with ways to catch up quickly, the Foundry. 

But, looking back at Battle Pirates Nexus's photo album, expanding all the way back to May of 2014, Kixeye is losing players each raid cycle. 

Now, since the start of this wonderful campaign, kixeye has lost an estimated 61,280 players. Or rather 61,280 players who didn't earn a low point count of 1,000 points to 4,700 points. 

The most common problem I have seen on forums, and as a player myself? 

Raid targets too hard for the lower levels. 

The last level locked targets were in the January Revenge Raid 3 event. The player count for the month?  62,371  

Check out the dicussion forum for that raid https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/604942/p5

14 pages.

The numbers would stay until May, when they dropped 6,158. May was the first raid in the Civil War cycle. 

Check out the discussion forum for that raid, https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/632978/p1 

144 pages. 

Most of which were complaining about the difficulty level, per norm,  with the specialized targets and general difficulty increase due to power creep. What else was a major topic in those 144 pages? 

People complaining about the lack of C sets, as they were hunted down because of the difficulty of the raid. I very distinctively remember my sector chat being filled with people hunting down C sets, most of whom were level 75+ players autoing. Eventually, they were able to reach the Apollos, and build in time for the next raid. Proof of this? 

Amount of players in May Raid-56,798

Highest points in May Raid-195,060,792

Amount of players in June Raid-54,662

Highest points in June Raid-624,647,756

Lower amount of total players, but a 3.2x increase in points. With the second raid in the cycle, players would have been able to use the critical Apollo hull in the June Raid, at the cost of lower level players not willing to participate because of the mass exodus of C sets from low levels hands to that of high levels. 

What can Kixeye do to increase the lower level's engagement in the raids, but still allow the higher levels to grind low level sets to gain powerful hulls needed for the cycle? 

Level locks 

Wait a second there, this could be good. Give me a chance, okay? 

A hull tier dependent level lock system, levels 50 under only , no co-operative...with a separate raid store with ratio reduced prices to fit the prizes. 

Lets break that down into pieces, starting with 'Hull Tier dependent'. For this, lets look at the December briefing. https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/673464

Pay attention to the last sentence of that snip, 'Should be viable with Nighthawks' 

Nighthawks are tier 3 tech, and this is the lowest level targets. For reference, the highest used researchable ship, the Seawolf, is tier 0.75, and the highest tiered submarine in the Naval lab is the Stalker at 0.75. 

How does one get the Nighthawk anyways? Well, there is the foundry, but to unlock this hull that 'should be viable' with the lowest level raid targets, you need 

Those tier 3 skirmish fragments are found in Level 60 Reaver Armadas, soon to be 57, hitting a minimum of 102 in order to fulfill that need. Then, you need to reach tier 3 in the weekly, 4 times in order to get the tech, then also have the Spectre blueprint. 

Requirements for the Spectre blueprint? 

oh, you need the Barracuda for that. What do you need for it? 

So, in total to craft the Nighthawk, you need to have destroyed a minimum of 230 targets, and  complete the weekly 4 times up to tier 3. Sounds like a tall order, and it is for newer players 

But, once they finish it all, its payed off right? Nope, now you have to deal with high levels stealing the targets, and then again Nighthawks, 'should be viable'. 

Okay, back on target of Hull Tier dependency. If you have a hull, of the class the raid falls under, tiered 3 or higher that is already built, you will not be able to attack the level locked targets. 

For reference, these are the following hulls that are tier 3 or higher, in their respective class. 

List of Assault Class ships 

Harlock's Atlas Carrier-3

Harlock's Triton-3

Warbird Carrier-3

Mastodon-3

Grimshine's Berserker-3.25

Kodiak-3.25

Savage Kodiak-3.5

Interceptor V2-C-3.75

Valkyrie Carrier-3.75

Aegis-3.75

Proto-Mastodon-3.75

Rhino-4

Grimshine's Wrath-4.25

Harlock's Aegis-4.25

Heavy Cruiser-4.25

Zoe's Rhino-4.25

Neptune-4.25

Apollo-5

Zoe's Apollo-5

List of Garrison Class ships 

Novastorm-3

Dante's Novastorm-3.25

Spader's DNX-3.5

Hellstrike-3.75

Goresaber-4

Berserker-4

Monarch-4.25

Borbas' Goresaber-4.5

Draconian Carrier-4.5

Citadel-5

Harlock's Citadel-5

Hellstar-99

List of Siege Class ships 

Greta's Nuclear Cruiser-3

Crusader-3

Avenger-3.25

Vanguard-3.25

Hellhound-3.5

Templar-3.5

Hellblazer-3.75

High-Lander's Nuclear Cruiser-3.75

Unshackled Hellhound-3.75

Fusion Cruiser-4

Centurion-4

Harlock's Centurion-4.5

Punisher-4.5

Vassago's Punisher-5

Cannoneer-5

List of Skirmish Class ships 

Vassago's Interdictor-3

Nighthawk-3

Phantom Nighthawk-3.25

Banshee-3.5

Prototype Hunter-3.75

Frostburn Interceptor-4

Tiger Shark-4

Artemis-4.25

Phantom Tiger Shark-4.5

Vassago's Prototype Hunter-4.5

Tideseeker-4.5

Harlock's Tideseeker-5

Hellwraith-5

Phantom Hellwraith-5

Ghostcrawler-99

Proto-Nemesis-99

Man-O-War-99

The ones with lines dashed through are ships that don't fit into day's game play, either due to lost of use, or outdated weapons/defenses. Comment below a ship if you want the reasoning btw. 

Now, If the player in question, has one of those hulls built, then they will not be able to hit the level locked targets. 

On to the next part... 

"A hull tier dependent level lock system, levels 50 under, no co-operative...with a separate raid store with ratio reduced prices to fit the prizes."

Alright, 'levels 50 under, no op-operative' 

The old level locked targets were restricted to 40 and below, but since bases open up for attacking for anyone at 50, 50 makes more sense as a common goal. With the 40 barrier, it leave 10 levels during which the typical player can't progress in the raids, and is constantly hammered by higher players for easy res, or ally points. 

Non op lets only the player under level hit the target, and with the hull tier restriction, no low levels with strong tech can prep. This directly allows for the player to  build to the best of their hull's potential. 

Next!

"Separate raid store with ratio reduced prices to fit the prizes." 

This is the biggest problem with having level locked targets, its way too much work for the player to reach decent prizes. Best way to fix this? 

Ratioed prize prices. 

Lets check some data  

This last raid, Dec 2016, the main prize was the Zelos hull, plus the Squall Launcher and Flechette Feeder. This amounted to a total cost of 30 million points. 

Doing a single Tier 5 gives you 2,690,000 points, 2.69 million.  

It will take you 11.16 completions to get the Zelos, Squall and Feeder. 

5.58 for the Zelos alone 

Doing the Tier 4 gives you 662,000 points, .66 million. 

You would need 45.32 completions to get the Zelos, Squall and Feeder

22.66 for the Zelos alone.  

(For a list of common prizes with ratio done with tier 4 and tier 5, check out my other post here)

Now, an average ratio between tier 4 and tier 5, is 28.24 for Hull and others, and 14.12 for hull alone. Average of those two is 21.18. 

In terms of tier 4, that would be 14 million points. Tier 5 would have 57 million points. A very far difference.  

Mhm, we can't use the ratio of the current set up. What about the first level locked raid of the last cycle that had it? Revenge raid 

Comparing the A Set to Tier 5, there is a .73445936 ratio. Meaning for every point earned in the Revenge raid, you would earn .73445936 point in the Dec raid, Uprising. 

Using this ratio applied to the level locked total point per set completion, which was 66,446, we should get around 48,823 points for every completion. 

Now, taking this 48,823 and multiplying it by the ratio of A sets for the main prizes, in this case the Zelos, Squall and Feeder. 

48,823*5.58=272,432~280,000 points for the Zelos, 

48,823*11.16=544,865~550,000 points for the Zelos, Squall and Feeder. 

This may seem like such a small number for such prizes, but its following the same ratio as the A sets and normal pricing. 

Keep in mind this is for players under level 50, with tech under tier 3. 

Conclusion 

Level locked targets, carefully designed as stated above, will be able to provide lower leveled players a chance to perform at their level to the raid, and start to make headway into becoming stronger. With more players at tech level, more fights, more wars, more enjoyment. After all, the most people miss about Blackwater days was the amount of people playing. This would seriously propel the lower levels into the frey. 

As always, Film at 11 

Ratio for prizes-December raid

Tier 5

5.576-Zelos ratio for A sets
11.15-Zelos, squall, feeder ratio for A sets
10.04-Zelos, squall, emisson

2.788-citadel, ratio for a sets
7.06-Citadel, judgment mortar, incin shells, ratio for A sets

2.788-fury
4.833-Fury, scatter, hydroxide;

2.788-revenge
4.089-revenge, ccg

2.788-vendetta
5.948- vendetta with firestorm, incin shells

2.788-vanquisher
5.76-vanquisher, cyclone, emisson
6.88-vanquisher, cyclone, feeder

4.6468-hellwraith
10.22-hellwraith, ftt, sfc

4.6468-apollo

1.8587-tide
3.15985-tide with ccg,

Tier 4

4.53-punisher ratio for b sets
12.08-Punisher and Arbalest and AP Shells, ratio for B sets
12.86-pun, drac arbalest, AP shells
6.43-pun, drac arb

10.048-cent, reaver cannon
4.26-cent, pac

8.038585-tide
13.66559-tide, ccg

2.8135-zerk
8.44-zerk with firestrom
13.26-zerk with judgement
4.42-zerk with pand
3.46-zerk with SBM
14.48-zerk with firestrom, incin
21.30-zerk with judgement, incin
12.46-zerk with pand, incin
11.5-zerk with SBM, incin

1.20-nova
6.83-nova with firestorm
11.66-nova with judgement
2.81-nova with pand
1.85-nova with SBM
14.87-nova with firestorm, incin
19.7-nova with judgement, incin
10.85-nova with pand, incin
9.89-nova with SBM, incin

1.20-crusader
2.01-crusader with arb
8.44-crusader, arb, AP shells
2.8135-crusader with drac arb
9.2435-crusader, drac arb, AP shells
8.44-crusader with reaver cannon
2.65-crusader with pac

HellBorn 2 days in

Videos 

Some raid videos of me playing through, and playlists of other players have been added/created. Yeah, I know this is late. But think of this post as a precursor to next raid, where you will have 6 days.

General Tips

The Thermal on the Motherships is now less than the scouts. The scout's thermal range is still at a constant 85. Meaning, once you get the change take them out using subs.  Be very careful of the drones though, as there sonar seems to vary in some tiers. Namely tier 4 and tier 5.

The drones are still the most dangerous thing to subs that are using FTT and/or have low cloak. The drones have a sonar ranging from 100 to 150. Now, my subs are very basic, and only have a cloak of 60. How do we find where the drones will find us? Plug it into this equation!

(Submarine Visible Range + Ship Detection Range)*(1 - Cloak Efficiency) = Actual Visible Range

Let us use the very so common Tigershark for these. Assuming the enemy sonar is 100, and the cloak is a starting 60. For refence, the visible range of the TS is 60. For the Cloak Efficiency in the Equation, divide it by 100 first. Thus, 60 becomes  .6.

(60+100)*(1-.6)= 64

Now if you don't know the Submarine Visible Range, you can alternatively use http://frostler.com/bp/ to find the Actual Visible Range. Just scroll down, click on the tab marked "Cloak Vs. Sonar Calculator"

I highly recommend that you either Bookmark or Favorite this site, as it contains numerous assets, many of which are needed. 

Crews to use 

Molotov Maidens-Uncommon 

Steelheads-Common/Uncommon 

Sea Serpents-Common/Uncommon
Dead eye Destroyers-Common/Rare
Silent Hunters-Common/Uncommon
Gearheads-Common
Grease Monkey-Legendary
Midnight Marauders-Uncommon

My experience 

So far in the raid, I have just hit 18 million points. Redeemed the Valiant and now working on the Harlock's Tideseeker or the Calamity and build tokens. Depending on my total pointage at the end of the raid, I choose then. 

I have been using my Sub fleet to prep Tier 4, level 50's, targets. Finishing it off with my Tideseeker fleet. Giving me about 30 minutes repair total; even less with crews. 

How so? 

First, I use the subs to take out the Reaver Enforcers, which have only surface weapons and no thermal. Once I take out as many as I possibly could for no damage, I let the timer run and send in my seekers to finish it off. Alternatively, if you do not have Seeker's, you can still do this method, just use subs both times. This will net you at least half of the targets points. 

Check out the video of me doing a 53 below for a basic guide. 

This method can be applied to Tier 5 as well, however the damage is gonna be more significant. 

Overall Thoughts 

This raid is hard for those who don't have 'good enough' equipment; such as Draconian torps. Lets take my second account for example, and it's main sub build 

https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!0A2U50000001D1G1S4H4H4H4H4H4H02U50000001D1G1S4H4H4H4H4H4H0ZZA2U50000001D1G1S4H4H4H4H4H4H0ZZdC

Now, this hull is built entirely from the Forsaken Mission, Campaigns, and researchable tech. With a max range of 78, and current dps of 1,135. Lets see how it does in a 31. 

Now, looking past my shitty driving and timing. You might be able to see one very noticeable thing coming from the scouts. Torpedoes. Yes, Torpedoes. As soon as I come into range of the scouts, torps are coming. Now, you could chalk it up to a very small difference and human error. But, lets try hitting scouts again, this time with Havok 4 Torps, a range of 75; a 3 difference between the Drac torps. I'll edit the video to where we are within range of the scout, and slow it down to 1/4th speed to better spot the torps. 

Now, setting the video quality to the highest we can and going frame by frame, we find at what times the torps fire. 

The Scout's torps fire at 9:07 in game, and 0:39 in video. 

The Pred's torps fire at 9:07 in game, and :042 in video. 

Now, what can we learn from this? That the Scouts in tier 3 have thermal which can spot you at, an estimated 78. Now, this is kinda major. 

Going in order of FM tiers, first you get the Assault Torp B, then Z, then Skirmish R, then finally the Charon. 

Their ranges? 78, 78, 80 and 88. 

Mhm, needing to get 7.5 million in the weekly to get a torp that out ranges the thermal in the raid targets. What levels is tier 3 designed for again? 

Oh yeah, its for Nighthawks... 

The easiest targets the raid has to often, is tiered 3. Something many players can't get outside of raids or that one campaign where you needed subs... 

Does anyone see what I am getting at? 

The by design easiest targets, can only be done with tech that the player doesn't have, but s/he needs the tech to get the tech. 

It's kinda like signing up to dig holes with your own shovel, but you need to dig some holes first in order to get your shovel.  

See what I mean now? This is why the last two raids had the lowest turnouts, since Battle Pirates Nexus began recording. Only 38,061 came for the first sub raid, the last one was 32,288. The last raid cycle? It had an average of 55,436 peoples. Damn

Going to the Official Battle Pirate Facebook page, and looking at events we get another type of stat. People who actually cared enough to say that they were interested or going to the 'event'. This raid cycle so far we have an average of 3,700 people who went or going. Compared to last raid cycle's 4,700 people who went. A good 1000 people difference. Lets boil this down.

1000 people were more willing to click on the "going" button, last raid then this raid. What can Kixeye do to boost the player levels, and make it more attractive for lower leveled players?

Carefully designed level locks.

Think to level 30 Armadas, level 30 and 40 Drac mining bases. Were those level locked to players under a certain level, and did they successfully allow the younger players to hit those targets, and get the base parts/uranium they need?  Without constant asking for help in comms? Yes, because those targets were the easiest targets possible, but still presenting a level of difficulty to the player.

Bonus side to this type of level locking also, you can hit higher if you have the right equipment. Allowing the player to branch out, and develop his fleets faster and with an end goal foreseen

Level locked targets gave the player stepping stones to build their fleets out of. The mining bases contained super weak versions of the stronger bases, giving the player some idea of what to expect.

Level 30 Armadas were way too fucking far left field there Kix.

But, these level locked targets. They provide for the lower player, give her/im a chance to advance in the game.

Instead of digging holes to buy a shovel to dig holes. You already have the head part of the shovel, its up to you, the player, how it is applied. Keeping on digging to get what you want, or toss it aside and do it the hard way.

Level locked targets Kixeye, that's how you get the lower leveled players back. That, and...







As Always, Film at 11