Tideseeker Hull and TLC

New videos!

Hi Guys, I have couple plans for my YouTube channel. First off, i'm starting a new segment of where I go over weekly release notes and campaign run throughs. Now the release notes will have a maximum of only 15 minutes, allowing you to listen allow while play and still receive my analysis of it. I have already done one of these for the TLC weekend. I would normally just do a blog post for it, but I wanted to test the waters for sound and viewer feedback; before I make it a permanent feature. 

 The campaign run throughs will be edited for only the battle portions, repair times, and builds. These campaigns will be one entire video, sped up 2x-4x times for length. I am also planning on raid videos, this time separated into Tier videos. 

Enough of YouTube stuff and videos, on to the Tideseeker hull, the Garwood Gatling Gun, and the Advanced Concussive payload! Oh yeah and the actual TLC. And some Mega Hull event + TLC. 

High Tide 

Running from the 1st at 12 PM PST to the 8th at 12 PM PST (Time Zone Converter) 

The minimum level to enter is 50

First run through - 5 encounters, 6 hours to complete 

Second run through - 6 encounter, 3 hours to complete 

Third run through - 7 encounters, 1 hour to complete 

This campaign, is almost similar to Dark Reign 3. Except where you would drop a target and add another to compensate; you just add another target each time to it. With Legion Assault forces in this targets. Level 1-6 are very easy and can be done with instant repair with good driving and crews. The Mega Hull at the end however? Different story. Long Story short, it's way too f*cking hard. 

Here is the build I will be using:

https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!447700I0H0H0H0H3403356E4454542A2A2E2E2E2E2E2E57700I0H0H0H0H3403356E4454542A2A2E2E2E2E2E2E57700I0H0H0H0H3403356E4454542A2A2E2E2E2E2E2E0ZZ0ZZdC

I focused on Penetrating defense on this build and damage output. I chose to use the switchblades over normal blades as a main weapon for when the ship gets overwhelmed with missiles. If the Phalanx 4 can't take them all down, there is 6 extra missiles that could go down. Move away from the enemy during the time to reload the missile portion of the switchblade, and viola! 

Video for High Tide run through 

                                   

*CORRECTION*
The third way to complete the High Tide is by using the Disciples of Skullduggery Crew (DOS); which being an legendary crew is oddly enough easier to roll than a Bull's Eye Brigade (BB) ,a rare crew. I actually rolled two of the DOS's before even getting this close...

Now, lets go over the prizes.

Prize Pack 1

• Tideseeker-Best current hull to use for above water raid fighting, for now...
• Cryo Depth Charge- 3 hour build is now kinda worth it. 18 Splash, 104 damage, and a reload of .75, is awesome. But the range of 74. and on the Tideseeker having a -5% depth charge range? I wouldn't put it on there, maybe on suicide fleets or skirmish for speed boost and low weight.  
• 4-day Tideseeker Build Token-Use it, same as doing tier 4 twice. 

Prize Pack 2

• Concussive Reciprocator-I would chose the Garwood over this on the tide seeker due to the range, but for base defense or base attacking? Go with CR and CGG. 
• 8-day Tideseeker Build Token-8 free days? That's two tier 5 build tokens, granted you get both 1 and 3 day builds. 

Prize Pack 3

• Garwood Gatling Gun-Best for skirmish battles, with the highest base fleet DPS and middle for range, weight and build time. 
• Advanced Concussive Payload-It's Strike Warheads, but with +30% concussive reload and an extra 5% damage. At 17 extra hours, bringing it to 2 days and 12 hours. 
• 12-day Tideseeker Build Token-Only has positives, if you can't tell.  
• 4x 5k VXP tokens for Tideseeker-Read below
• 6x 1k VXP tokens for Tideseeker-That's a total of 26,000 VXP. The max VXP for the Tideseeker is 49,000. Having 26,000 will save you a minimum of 2,600 battles, getting only 10 VXP per battle the basic amount, and will make you reach rank 17, giving you a +64% reload bonus. 
• Badge for completion-Oh So Shiny!

Overall, the prizes are okay. Would have been nice to see the Explosive System 4, or a special that adds both splash and projectile speed. The hulls that have a base projectile speed above 0 are; the Hellwraith, the Punisher, the Crusader, and the Hellblazer. 

Now, of those hulls three of them are Seige hulls and the last one is a submarine; which can't attach surface weapons. And we all know that you can't use any of those hulls in this raid set. 

Garwood Gatling Gun

Now, the Garwood has a better reload, better primary range and DPS than the other depth charges. 

The CGG has a very high DPS when at max stacks, however its at a range of 68, (64 for Tideseeker). 

The secondary range, at 104 (98) has a very low DPS with a max of 275. 

With the longest primary range and DPS of these depth charges, its the best to use. 

Advanced Concussive Payload

This special was made special for Depth Charge Weapons, giving a good replacement for Strike Warheads. 

Tideseeker 

This hulls, is your best option for surface hulls against the current raid targets. Plus, with having 24 days free build for just the tokens from the TLC alone. You should have at least one built before the raid begins, or at least a day or two in.

Now, basic hull needs for the Tideseeker are 

• Explosive and Concussive resistance-for surface weapons 
• Evade-for torpedoes and chain guns 
• High Combat/Turn speed-to outrun the drones, use a kite method 
• High concussive DPS-less time spent in the battle, less repair (hopefully), higher point per hour, more points
• Low build time to help with token usage, create your build then cut off, in order, armors weapons and specials, until you come to around a 12 day build. The tokens come in 4 hours, 8 hours, and 12 hour increments. Make sure you use the most of it; if you have more tokens increase the build time. Remember that this hull is intended for the next raid, and it starts on the 10th. 
• Also, don't build it with armor. The 24,000 Health is hard enough to rank, don't worsen it if you can help it. If you have extra build tokens, add until you run out of time!

Now that we have at least some basic rules to build against, lets build. 

https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!107E00000000006393448422H2H2H2H2H2H2H2H2H2H2H2H07E000000000060C3448002H2H2H2H2H2H2H2H2H2H2H2H07E000000000060C3448422H2H2H2H2H2H2H2H2H2H2H2H07E000000000060C346E002H2H2H2H2H2H2H2H2H2H2H2H0ZZdC

The link contains all 3 builds 

This is the basic build we come up with, following the rules above. 10 days, 14 hours and 14 minutes, we have a little wiggle room to work with.

In this one we switched out the Strike Warheads for Advanced Concussive Payload, giving an extra 5% boost to damage, and 30% to concussive reload; these bonuses are for an extra 17 hours. Now, if I didn't have the build tokens, I would chose the Strike Warheads, but since the build is free and and weight is a it less, I'm going to go with the ACP.

Now with the ACP, the build time is up to 11 days, 4 hours and 47 minutes. Lets fill in the extra special slot with something for splash and projectile speed.

The final build, for a 12 day built time. The bonus splash brings the GGG splash's up to 15, and the projectile speed to 85%. Helping to catch up to the very fast Reaver fleets, and Hellwraiths for sub hunting. The final build time is 12 days, 1 hour and 14 minutes. Giving you a good amount of time to spend playing the actual game.  

Naughty_Yoda's fleet 

Naughty_Yoda has been kind enough to give us his fleet build, and how they perform in different battles. The fleet is as follows 

https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!007E0000000006F3948346SAQAQAQAQ2H2H2HAQ2H2H2HAQ0ZZ0ZZ0ZZ0ZZdC

Yoda's build does have room for improvement. Such as switching the FTT for GGG, and the D6-A for AA3. However, his build does have its qualities. The D6-A converts it from a specialized hull, into more of a general hull. The torps help to take down slower ships, and will still hit the ship if out of range.

Now, on to the videos of how well it preforms in two different targets. The level 75 Draconian armada and the level 70 Reaver armada. Turns out the video for the 70 was lagging and the ships never properly loaded, just white spaces. Will record and post when fixed.

The level 75 Drac armada hit 

Golden Nexus 

This feature/event is being delayed for quality reasons. Will talk about it when it comes back out. 

Brief run through, you hold a  Golden Nexus point for a certain amount of time, everyone attached to the Golden Nexus earns gold for it. *ONLY ONE GOLDEN NEXUS POINT PER WORLD* 

Varying  amounts of gold comes out every; hour, 2 hours, 4 hours, 6 hours and 12 hours. Averaged out to 20 gold per 12 hours. 

Gold amount is not final, nor is the time, or amount. 

Tips? 

 

Make a bigass hive. 

 

and 

The gold is planned to come out on a set timer, try and capture the Golden Nexus 10-20 minutes before the timer. 

Raid Preview 

The next Raid is coming on the tenth; and to prepare for that there is a preview on the fourth from 11:30 am PDT to 1:30 pm PDT (Time Zone Converter) 

Only the prizes can be tested, as the targets will (hopefully) remain the same. The prizes being the Valiant, the Calamity Scattergun, and the Compressed Corrosive Canisters. 

There is a new prize coming out, but will not be tested during this preview. This prize is the Harlock's Tideseeker.  No word on if it will later appear in another TLC, or the Tideseeker in a later raid. 

Limited entry, password and link to server will be posted tomorrow around 11:30 am, on this forum post https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/668095

 

The Valiant is a defender hull, with Scattergun enhancements. 

Guessing this was created to counter the Harlock's Revenge, Revenge normal and  partial the Fury.

 I expect it to have a very high armor stat, and 100% defense handicap. I do like this style of defender hulls. The very high armor is a lot better than having very high defenses. The defenses can be bypassed, or be weak to unconventional types of weapons, like corrosive. A high base armor stat will survive that amount of damage regardless the weapon type. I do sincerely hope the Valiant follows what the Vanquisher has set for it. 

Compressed Corrosive Canisters sounds likely that it will boost the multi-shot, and splash. 

This raid will not be a hull store, the other likely prizes will be the Hellwraith, FTT and Sealed Fire Charge. 

With a defender hull, a hull type everyone uses, and a brand new free to many ship to build coming out a week before the raid. This raid should have higher numbers than the last two. Make sure you check out Battle Pirates Nexus's Facebook page for their after raid roundup of players. Always amazing stuff from those guys. 

As always, Film at 11. 

October Raid - Stormrunner

Raid Time

I choose to not include a what to get post because of the smaller prize line now, and the new hull not bringing any flavor to the conqueror scene, being as each conqueror hull is now typed matched up.
The new special, you should only use on the new Spite hull, as it can only be attached to conqueror hulls, and the Spite being the only missile based. The new missile, it's another copy of the Blade, with better damage but longer reload and less flak evasion.

The Blade puts out more missiles per second to overwhelm countermeasures, while Scoria is pure damage dealing.

The Spite's  unique overload with boosting Ballistic, Explosive, and Penetrating damage types getting 150% reload bonus, every 12,000 points. With no current conqueror hulls being Ballistic, we now know what the next conqueror hull would be. The Spite also pairs well with Vendettas and Citadels.

Strategy? 

The keys to this raid, and hopefully the next two, are good driving and torpedoe range of 88, using either FTT or Scourge.

If you don't have one of these three torps, you have a couple options.

A- Try and get others to prep for you saving massive amount of time

B-Hit the hulks and use very careful driving to avoid thermal range, best to attack level 3 targets for lowest thermal range, and lowest damage taken.

C-Do campaigns for tech until the weekly comes back, then try and get it then. How are you gonna get to tier 4 in the weekly when you are under level 50 not a massive coiner? The answer is found in the foundry and crews. More below.

The Scourge torp is in the store for 900k, and the completion bonus for set 3  is 60K, 120K for doing it all yourself. Taking you around 8-15 completed set 3's to get the torp


Now, for those having torps range of 88, the best advice I can give you is to have amazing driving skills.

With good driving skills, you can take down 105's for over 3 million points.

Just remember the basics for each ship.

•  Scouts, thermal range is ~85, weapon's ranges are out to 110. Has both land and underwater weapons 
• Enforcers, has no thermal range, or sonar. Only land weapons to range of 110 
• Hulks, has thermal to range of 110, but no underwater weapons. Only land weapons to range of 110 
• Drones, has sonar of range ~60, both land and underwater weapons. range to about 110 
• Hellstrikes, has no sonar or thermal, land weapons to range of 110. Weapon is chain gun, with splash damage. 

How to reach tier 4 in weekly while under 50 and non coiner? 

Suicide attacks on 109's with mortars.  Mortars are the best to use on weekly mission, because the anti's are single shot for mortars and flak shot for missile. Requires a couple of things. Now, the most important things to consider in this build are the basic stats, building base damage and speed. 

• Either the Strike Cruiser or the Dreadnought X 
• Engine special, engine 3 is best 
• Siege targeting/battery 
• Either defense special or Splash special 
• Siege mortar V, found in tier 3 blueprints. 

Combining these we get the following builds. 

https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!00IO5000000002E0I5I3V3V3V3V3V3V0JO5000000002E0I5I2T3V3V3V3V3V3V3V3V0ZZ0ZZ0ZZdC

Now, looking at the building damage per ship, and the speed. We should have a capable ship to take out the corners of a 109. Pulling data from The Dark Alliance, we get that the health of 109's turrets is 200k, with 0% explosive defense. Now, with only 4 of the Strike Cruisers and 3 of the Dreadnoughts X's, you can take out the corner platforms, earning you 25 million. Continuous doing this will greatly help you in your game, from getting you Blade, Arbalest, Magnus drive 2, and 2 day ship tokens at the end.

As always, Film at 11

Bring back the WIP

WIP RIP 

Doom posted today that the WIP is going away, due to people complaining about the date things come out, and last minute changes. No one likes this idea of taking away the WIP. 

Link to post https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/662902

Now, why do people support taking away the WIP? 

• Dates can be changed 
• Information can be changed 
• Features can be taken away

Now, all the info can be changed, but shouldn't Doom warn us about this? Well, yeah, he does. 

Now, Doom has been doing this since April 2015, a full year before I start this blog 

https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/537177

Now if Doom has been telling us that everything can change over a month, because nothing is set in stone, why are people just now complaining about dates and changes? 

Now, the goods from the WIP 

• Allows us to plan out our gaming schuelde 
• Know what is coming 
• Give Kixeye immediate initial feedback for new features, allowing kixeye to make changes
• Allows us to guide builds for events, and raids (VXP, shards, TLC) 
• Lets the bloggers and videoers plan out their posts in advance, and give initial analysis and feedback, allowing kixeye to make changes. 

Now, the positives outweigh the negatives for me; and for almost everyone according to this one thread, with at the time of writing as 135 replies. 

Doom, just bring the WIP back. It does more harm than good 

"WIP it, WIP it good, When the first comes around, you must WIP it!"-DarQknight 

I have a post coming up about plasma damage in weekly. It's long and involves math, will post a TL;DR at the bottom for the busy people. 

Until then as always, Film at 11. 

Plasma in 109's, a problem or not?

FM-Prizes

5 new prizes came into the weekly this ...uh... week. Ranging from tier 3 to tier 5. Starting off with the best new prize... 

The Siege Reloader is the bigger brother to the Siege Targeting, with increased reload to every damage type and weapon type, 2 hours less build time, and the same building/wall damage bonus. All at the cost of an extra 7% weight, totalling to 25%.

If I had enough room to fit this special on, I would. However, if i had to remove or downgrade armor/weapon to fit this? I would keep the Siege Targeting. While the bonus 10% reload does help, it is not enough for me to lower the total health or damage.



The next best prize is Explosive upgrade, giving the ship an extra 10% explosive damage. Joining the ranks of Concussive, Evade, Speed, Splash,  and Ampacity upgrades. This is the type of upgrade I would use to fill special slots on base defense explosive fleets. Like the Vendetta, which people do use, with 5 slots to fill. Being in a defense fleet, there is no need for speed, or building damage/defense. You can't bring up the evade. Whats to fill the extra slots?

A useful idea in some situations, mostly in base defense, I do kinda prefer this special to the Splash upgrade. A 10% bonus to damage seems more useful to me than a bonus 10%, especially when this translates to, in terms of Coaxial Firestorm, an increase of 396 damage to 1.2 splash increase. With the Vendetta, the main mortar ship these days, having an inert 50% splash bonus and -30% spread, the bonus 10% doesnt seem useful. Just remember that a single wall unit, has the width of 4.



This prize needs some retuning. A 5%-10% splash damage deduction is good for almost every turret, good job on kixeye on noticing what helps the player. However, the time for repair ranges from 33 minutes to a full hour. This is the worst part because of what this armor can only be equipped to.

Conqueror hulls, this armor can only be attacked to conqueror hulls. The same hulls where the highest base repair for any ship in that class is 1 hour and 10 minutes, the revenge. The lowest? 30 minutes for the Vendetta, Fury and Spite. The lowest armor doubles the time for these three hulls. Now, the higher Health per ton is amazing, 9.2 health per ton is a lot better than the bulkhead at 6.5 health per ton.

Let's compare this armor to another popular one, the D5-C,M,X,CT,CO, having 2250 health points at 489 tons, and ranging from 22 minutes 30 seconds to 30 minutes. Two of these armors, equals the health point bonus of the War Plating 3. With 15 minutes saved using the D5-C,M,X armors, and equal using D5-CT,CO; at the cost of double the weight and 2 days 20 hours extra.

With 40 assault/siege deflection over 10% splash damage reduction, on a Vendetta? I'm honestly stuck on this one. Almost all of the successful Vendetta base attacks I have seen, have the Vendettas using their remote targeting. And of those attacks, the only damage the Vendettas take are from Executioner missiles or Ballistas. Both non-splash generating weapons. I would prefer the siege deflection over the splash damage deduction.

This really just boils down to your play style. All I have to say is to attach it to tanks, and keep it away from remote targeting.

FM-Plasma 

I have seen people complaining about the plasma damage being so game wrecking, and sinking everything. I agreed for the most part, but to what extent is it doing such? But first, a couple thoughts on the 102's, aka...

107's but with less points, and initially equal damage. Doom later announced that the damage was dropped by 25%, days after their second integration,  however the points issue was the biggest concern. Coming in at around 25 million points. 107's give 73 million points for reference.

Using my old FM week build, Here and a Fearless Blitzer crew I was able to finish each 107 with about 3 hours repair in to finish it off. Letting me do 3 per a full fleet. Giving me 219 Million points for a 9ish hour repair and 1000+ uranium for me to roll the crew.

Doing 102's I am able to do about 4 with a modified build, here, again with the Fearless Blitzer crews for dealing with the Blade-Halo. 4 102's nets me ~100 points, and a 9 hour repair time again, and 1000+ uranium for crew again.

Now, reading back to the September WIP, we find that the 102 was created to be a grind target. Now Kixeye, when I think of grind targets. I don't think equal to the main target, for equal repair but for half the points. How are we gonna find out what Kixeye needs to do to level these targets down to the appropriate difficulty for 25 million points? Off to the Dark Alliance!

And no luck... for the 102's. However, we did find the datamined info for the 97's (107's)

http://i.imgur.com/9TRCXe6.jpg

What should be done to scale these targets down to fit a 25 million point price tag? Lower the armor on the Rhinos, and drop the executioner damage to 7000. That or like bring up the points way past 25 million for what once went for 73 million. 

Now that we know what the damage was in the 107's, before Plasma was added in the game, let's take a look over at the 109's and see how the Plasma is over there. 

http://i.imgur.com/V3WWLWP.jpg

Now that we know the full Plasma damage, let's find it per salvo. 

• 224 for Executioner x 4 salvos 
• 250 for Mortar x 8 salvos 
• 114 for Coldsnap x 10 salvos 

Let's find the damage per salvo for the three weapons in both the 107's and 109's, and find the ratio. 

• 3,103 damage per salvo in 107 / 2,921 damage per salvo in 109 = 1.06, or in other words 6% less damage - Executioner 
• 5,000 damage per salvo in 107 / 3,250 damage per salvo in 109 = 1.53 or in other words 53% less damage - Mortar 
• 396 damage per salvo in 107 / 1,259 damage per salvo in 109 = .314 or in other words 314% more damage per salvo - Coldsnap 
• 1,613 damage per salvo in 107 / 0 damage in 109 - undefined damage markup - Blade-Halo 

What does this tell us? That the 109's should be easier than the 107's but due to Plasma, nah son. Plasma is the true killer of ships in the 109, along with the coldsnaps. Lets use the Punisher as an example. 

*WE WILL BE USING THE UPPER RIGHT AND BOTTOM LEFT LAND PLOTS IN THE 109 FOR DAMAGE CAL, THE ONES THAT EVERYONE SNIPES FOR 25 MILLION POINTS* 

Let's find how well my Pun does under the main  damage types,  only penetrating and explosive. Both with and without anti's/evade. My finished build, here, has the turret resistances of 90% missile, and 88% explosive, 73.6% evade, with 500 siege deflection. Since we already know the damage per salvo for all three weapons, let's do the math. (Ex-executioner, Cs-coldsnaps)

(((Salvo Damage-Pen-Ex)/(Resistance-Pen)*4)*2+(Salvo Damage-Pen-Mortar)/(Resistance-Pen)*8+(Salvo Damage-Exp-Mortar)/(Resistance-Exp)*8+(((Salvo Damage-Exp-Ex)/(Resistance-Exp)*4)*2)+((Salvo Damage-Exp-Cs)/(Resistance-Exp)*10)*2)-(siege deflection*5)=Final Damage/2
Health/Final Damage=number of full salvo hits to sink hull. 

The deflection is multiplied by 5 due to each weapon's damage type being applied to the deflection, and not the finalized number. 

Remember that the listed damage is double that of the whole damage. This is why we are dividing by 2 at the end. Also, that in the area of the 109, of which we are testing, has 2 coldsnaps and 2 executioners.  

Dividing the damage up by salvo helps to account for accuracy and antis later on. I will be doing this formula in with both antis and no antis. The only differences would mortar and executioner damage. Filling in the numbers we get...

(With no antis)
(((2247)/(1.9)*4)*2)+((500)/(1.9)*8)+((2500)/(1.88)*8)+(((449)/(1.88)*4)*2)+(((1272)/(1.88)*10)*2)-(2500)=35147/2

21346/17573=1.2 full salvo hits to sink.

(With antis and evade)
(((2247)/(1.9)*1.6)*2)+(500)/(1.9)*0+(2500)/(1.88)*0+(((449)/(1.88)*1.6)*2)+(((1272)/(1.88)*10)*2)-(2500)=15580/2

21346/7790=2.7 full salvo hits to sink
What can we learn from this? The basic stuff really, you need anti's for mortars and evade for missiles. But what if we were to add some anti missiles on our ship? Let's take off the hailstorm B, and an arbalest to fit one Phalanx 4 on to our Punisher. Our new stats are Penetrating defense of 92%, explosive defense of 87%, and armour of 21214. Everything else is the same. 

Finding the new accuracy of the missiles, counting in the anti accuracy, the CM evade, the ship evade, we get... 

29.9 = 150/1.326 *(1 - .736)

Fitting this number in our equation, in place of the 1.6, and still assuming that all mortars will be shot down. We find that 

(((2247)/(1.92)*1.2)*2)+(500)/(1.92)*0+(2500)/(1.87)*0+(((449)/(1.87)*1.2)*2)+(((1272)/(1.87)*10)*2)-(2500)=14489/2

21214/7244.6= 2.9 full salvo hits to sink. 

With even fewer missiles coming in, and better resistance, our ship lasts even longer. But, let's find out how long in seconds this ship would survive; then compare it to the plasma damage. The time will be separated into two parts, one for every 9 seconds (mortars and coldsnaps) and every 5 seconds (executioner). This number will also be rounded to the next full multiple of either 5 or 9, to account for completely finishing off the ship, and only firing every 5-9 seconds. 

Because of this, the damage will only be confined to mortar+coldsnaps, and executioner. Note that this is with anti's and evade. 

21214/6052 damage over 9 seconds = 36 seconds to sink due to mortars and coldsnaps
21214/1192 damage over 5 seconds = 90 seconds to sink due to executioners 

Using a rate over time equation, we find that it takes 26 seconds for our ship to sink. 

Lets find out how long the Punisher will survive now under 4 different crews, in both full salvo hits and time; Steelheads common and uncommon; Sea Serpents common and uncommon. I would have liked to use Midnight marauders, due to their popularity, but since the bonuses come as the health decreases it doesnt provide a straight bonus. 

With the common Steelheads, the penetrating defense rises to 93% and 89% explosive defense. 

(((2247)/(1.93)*1.2)*2)+(500)/(1.93)*0+(2500)/(1.89)*0+(((449)/(1.89)*1.2)*2)+(((1272)/(1.89)*10)*2)-(500)=14324/2

21214/7162= 2.96 full salvo hits to sink. 

With uncommon Steelheads, the penetrating defense rises to... almost same? Hold on, let's check the multiplicative math that Kixeye uses. 

100-92=8              100-88=12

8*.15=1.2             12*.15=1.8

92+1.2+93.2         88+1.8=89.8 

Just a .2-.8 difference, but let's run the numbers anyway. 

(((2247)/(1.932)*1.2)*2)+(500)/(1.932)*0+(2500)/(1.898)*0+(((449)/(1.898)*1.2)*2)+(((1272)/(1.898)*10)*2)-(2500)=14262.6/2 
21214/7131 = 2.97 full salvos hits to sink

With only a .01 difference using common and uncommon Steelhead crews, it doesnt matter to which one you use. The absolute difference is only 31 damage points. 

Lets now try out the Sea Serpents crew, both common and uncommon. Starting with common, leaving our new stats at 76.8% evade, with the rest being the same. We have to find the new accuracy of the executioner missiles, still assuming that we are using this build here. 

26.2 = 150/1.326 *(1 - .768)

This leaves us with the executioner having only 1.05 of its missiles hitting us. Lets plug it in. 

(((2247)/(1.92)*1.05)*2)+(500)/(1.92)*0+(2500)/(1.87)*0+(((449)/(1.87)*1.05)*2)+(((1272)/(1.87)*10)*2)-(2500)=14066/2
21214/7033=3.01 full salvos to hit 

Using the common Sea Serpent crew is better to use than the Steelheads uncommon crew! Let's compare it using the uncommon Sea Serpent crew now. Using the uncommon version, we have an evade of 80% 

22.6 = 150/1.326 *(1 - .8)

This leaves the executioner having only .9 of its missiles hitting us, plugging it in we get that... 

(((2247)/(1.92)*.9)*2)+(500)/(1.92)*0+(2500)/(1.87)*0+(((449)/(1.87)*.9)*2)+(((1272)/(1.87)*10)*2)-(2500)=13643/2

21214/6821=3.11 full salvos to hit 

Now that we know the best crew to use, let's find how long it can survive in seconds. 

21214/6052 damage every 9 seconds = 36 seconds 

21214/769 damage every 5 seconds = 140 seconds 

This comes to an average of 29 seconds to sink this fleet. 

Using the uncommon Sea Serpents is the best way to take the least amount of damage. 
Other crews work, just that for your 1000+800x uranium, I would choose Sea Serpents over Steelheads. It works better, and also provides bonus turn speed. 

As always, film at 11 




Just a moment now; that was the best crew to use for dealing with Penetrating and Explosive damage. What about Plasma damage? How much does it factor into this? 

Checking back to what we have for plasma damage per salvo

• 224 for Executioner x 4 salvos 
• 250 for Mortar x 8 salvos 
• 114 for Coldsnap x 10 salvos 

Now, because of Plasma being affected only by deflection, no current crews will help with this. Since the salvo plasma damage is well under 500, how do we calculate the actual pass through damage? We don't have to, thanks to the wonderful people over at Thedarkalliance. Thanks to a very informative post about the pass through damage on the Punisher and Drac Carrier. This number is found to be 57. 

• 57 for Executioner x 4 salvos = 228
• 57 for Mortar x 8 salvos = 456
• 57 for Coldsnaps x 10 salvos = 570
• Total Plasma damage is 1254

Since this number was found through deflection, we don't have to worry about turret defenses.  Lets plug in the final damage per turret and then into our formula again, counting in for evade and anti's. Here is the formula with names instead of numbers. 

Note, we have broken up the turrets into damage types, because of the plasma damage being nonresistance based, we add it at the end after the deflection has been deduced and cut in half. 

((((Salvo Damage-Pen-Ex)/(Resistance-Pen)*(Accuracy))*2+(Salvo Damage-Pen-Mortar)/(Resistance-Pen)*8+(Salvo Damage-Exp-Mortar)/(Resistance-Exp)*8+(((Salvo Damage-Exp-Ex)/(Resistance-Exp)*(Accuracy)*2)+((Salvo Damage-Exp-Cs)/(Resistance-Exp)*10)*2)-(siege deflection*5)=(Final Damage/2)+Plasma damage=Total damage

Health/Total Damage=number of full salvo hits to sink hull. 

Using this Punisher build, let's find how many salvos it takes to sink it. 

(((2247)/(1.92)*1.05)*2)+(500)/(1.92)*0+(2500)/(1.88)*0+(((449)/(1.88)*1.05)*2)+(((1272)/(1.88)*10)*2)-(2500)=(13991/2)+627=7622

21214/7622= 2.78 number of full salvo hits to sink hull. 

21214/6585 damage every 9 seconds = 36 seconds 

21214/1036 damage every 5 seconds = 105 seconds 

This leaves with an average time of 27 seconds

With plasma damage providing for a 2 second difference in survival, but that is with the Uncommon Sea Serpents crew. What about with no crew? 

(((2247)/(1.92)*1.2)*2)+(500)/(1.92)*0+(2500)/(1.88)*0+(((449)/(1.88)*1.2)*2)+(((1272)/(1.88)*10)*2)-(2500)=(14413/2)+627=

21214/7834 = 2.71 number of full salvo hits to sink hull. 

21214/6585 damage every 9 seconds = 36 seconds 

21214/1249 damage every 5 seconds = 85 seconds 

This gives us an estimated 25 seconds for this ship to sink.

This provides another 2 second difference between having a crew and not. Now, comparing this last test with the first test using antis and no crew, the ship lasts for 26 seconds. 

1 second difference between plasma damage and no plasma damage. What does this all boil down to? The siege deflection. If you can add more, add it, even adding 20 more is a big deal. Back to the equation for proof. 

(((2247)/(1.92)*1.2)*2)+(500)/(1.92)*0+(2500)/(1.88)*0+(((449)/(1.88)*1.2)*2)+(((1272)/(1.88)*10)*2)-(2600)=(14313/2)+627=

21214/7783 = 2.72 number of full salvo hits to sink hull. 

21214/6585 damage every 9 seconds = 36 seconds 

21214/1198 damage every 5 seconds = 90 seconds 

Leaving an average of 26 seconds. If using the Sea Serpents, the best crew to use, gives us an extra 2 seconds, and having an extra just 20 siege deflection gives us an extra 1 second, not counting in the extra resistance? You bet i'm gonna try and fit it on. 

As always, Film at 11 

What to Build for Next Raid

Tips 

Make sure you have some explosive defense on your ships, and pack as much punch as you can in each volley. The 'death weapons' that we are seeing, is mostly explosive damage, with a little addition of plasma. The 'range' of this explosion reaches out to 200, so no player used torpedoes can outrange it. All of the Reaver ships are packin' resistances in the 90's for every damage type, except concussive and corrosive. Corrosive is in the 70's. 

For the lower levels, make sure to use a full fleet of subs if you can, with health in the 100'sK, you will need to be sitting a while to fully take them down. Make sure to use Concussive Warhead special if you can, and use the strongest torpedoes that you have. 

Chart for the Tier 6, level 100 targets. 

https://www.thedarkalliance.org/forum/threads/1021-BP-2016-September-Raid?p=7649#post7649

As you can see, the only weapon type that is worthwhile against them,is concussive weapons. Of which we have two types, depth charge and torpedoes. The best weapons to use in each? The Concussive Gatling Gun, (CGG) and the Fire Twister Torpedoe (FFT). Let's compare out two best choices in terms of general stats. Let't also sneak in our second best ones too, the Concussive Reciprocator, (CR) and the Charon Torpedoe.   I will only be comparing the land weapons to the land weapons, and subs to subs.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hG0mShhOxYCgZWFmOrDIbb43NMlpjtYwFomu0dPYGFQ/edit?usp=sharing

What does this show? That if you wanna deal some damage for Torpedoes, use FTT. For land weapons? It depends. The CCG makes for dealing damage faster, and at a longer range, with the penalty of waiting for the Wind-up to work. The CR allows for a higher initial DPS, but you have to watch for the Reaver ships not coming too close. If you are using the CCG, but want to save weight for armor, use the CR in some spots, the constant rate of fire will make up for the missing CCG due to the windup. 

For those stuck between using either normal ships or subs with concussive weapons, its more of a matter of style, and build time. With normal ships you can grind out easier, or use them to auto, saving you time; but costing you time in repairs. When with subs, it takes longer to finish each target, but you do take only minimal damage, saving you time in the end. 

Anyways, let's go over the basics of each build in order to survive in the next raid. 

• High Explosive and Concussive resistance (assault deflection is a bonus) 
• High speed to outrun Reavers and not get hit by depth charges 
• High Cloak, in subs 
• Concussive damage booster 
• Low build time, in subs 

Having these 4 requirements in mind, let's go through hulls to use, and the best components. 

Subs 

• GhostCrawler 
• HellWraith
• Tigershark 
• Nighthawk 
• Spectre 
• Barracuda 

Ships 

• V2-H
• Frosty 
• (Vassago's) Prototype Hunter 
• Artemis 
• Kodiak 

My choices need no explanation, my ships? Yeah, let's go into that. All of them have inert concussive and explosive damage, high speed, 8+ weapon slots, and ready/able to get. Most of you have these ships already, and they are sadly outdated in the most part. The Hunter is the upgraded version of the V2-H and Frosty. The Frosty is my strongest choice to use, due to it's AoE field, and the fact that Reaver's like to close the gap. Allowing for them to be affected by it. 

Now, on to building these hulls. Lets take a look at the weapons in the level 100, and base our choices off of that. The main weapons used here are the Concussive Cannon, Torpedo, and the Death Explosion. Lets run down their damage, salvo, accuracy, splash, and range. Let's go with another chart. 

The need for The explosive resistance is for the Death Explosion, and the concussive is for the 
Concussive Cannon. The Damage per Projectile (DPP) shows how much damage you receive
 for each successful hit on your hull. If you have Assault Deflection is higher than this number, 
you will only receive minimal damage from this weapon. And if you don't have any Assault 
Deflection, pack some resistance. 

Receiving 8750 damage from the Death Explosion in explosive damage, we need to make sure to
 have high explosive defenses and some Assault Deflection. We can't outrange the weapons, so 
that doesnt matter. Evade doesn't matter, because of Splash, 1000% and dumbfire weapon. Speed 
does matter though. Here are my basic builds for the ships, and subs.  

Ships https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!4PLUA29292929290C066E342G2G2G2G2G2G2G
2G2G2GPM6A1U2929290C066E342G2G2G2G2G2G2G2GPN601U2929290C066E34002D
2D2D2D2D2DC0C0C0000ZZP6S0292929290C346E062G2G2G2G2G2G2G2GdC

Subs https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!4PNC01U1U1U1U2929290641400O6SAQAQAQA
QAQAQAQAQAQAQAQAQAQAQAQAQAQAQAQAQPNK0282900000640416S0OAQ
AQAQAQAQAQAQAQAQAQAQAQPNA029290029066S4041AQAQAQAQAQAQAQA
QAQAQPLI0292929404106AQAQAQAQAQAQAQP2U0262829064041AQAQAQAQAQA
QdC

Now, I'm not claiming that these are the best hulls to use. Im just saying, these should be the 
building blocks, you can change them how you want, but should continue the same basic 
principles of these hulls. High damage, good speed, and great resistances. Remember that 
this raid only lasts for the next three months, so don't go overboard and coin these. If you can 
refit other ships to this, do it if you can. If you found a way that works with your current ships, 
stay with it and improve it. Don't gotta follow what I say, random stranger online. 

As always, Film at 11

Rise of the Warlord, What to get and some other stuff

Weekly Release 

The weekly came about and left us with changes to limited hulls to make them equal to their non-limited variants. Dante's Novastorm, Savage Kodiak, Frosty, and Zoe's Rhino. Oh and the Goresaber(s) got a nice boost too. 

Dante's Novastorm 

Anti-Mortar Range 0 to 10%

Anti-Missile Range 0 to 10%

Remote Targeting Range 0 to 60%

Remote Targeting Type Mortar

Remote Targeting Falloff 0 to -20%

Anti-Missile Accuracy 0 to 20%

Anti-Mortar Accuracy 0 to 20%

Assault DPS 0 to 1,000

Siege DPS 0% to 500%

Explosive Defense 50% to 75%

Penetrating Defense 50% to 60%

Combat Speed 11 to 15

New Overload Effect, Combat Speed +30%, Turn Speed +20%, Explosive Defense +70%

Savage Kodiak 

Anti-Mortar Accuracy 0% to 20%

Penetrating Damage 30% to 35%

Building Damage 90% to 100%

Wall Damage 90 to  100%

Assault DPS 0 to 1,200

Siege DPS 0 to 500

Armor Abilities 0 to  25%

Corrosive Defense  30% to 60%

Assault Deflection 0 to 50

Siege Deflection 0 to 30

Frosty

Penetrating Reload 100% to 110%

Penetrating Damage 0 to 35%

Assault DPS 0 to 800

Siege DPS  0 to 400

Explosive Defense 30% to 40%

Penetrating Defense 30% to 50%

Concussive Defense 40% to 50%

Corrosive Defense 0 to 40%

Zoe's Rhino 

Penetrating Damage 30% to 35%

Assault DPS 0 to 1,400

Siege DPS 0 to 700

Corrosive Defense 50% to 65%

Turret Defense 0 to 30%

Assault Deflection 0 to 200

Siege Deflection 0 to 100

Goresaber(s) 

Speed 14 to 20 

Penetrating Defense 40% to 50% 

Phantom Nighthawk/Tigershark 

Repair Modifier to 100% 

Thoughts? 

All of these are kinda disappointing. Don't get me wrong, these updates are nice, but they kinda take away the sense of Limited. Let's take the Frosty for example, and compare it to when it first came out versus the V2-H, back in December 2014. 

Now, looking at the comparison chart, anyone would choose the Frosty over the V2-H for a lead ship, no doubt about it; it even has the same build time to top everything off. This is the prime idea of a Limited Hull, almost everything is better to start with, and even build times. The prize of the Frosty at it's release was 40 million, the cost of the V2-H at its release was 5.5 million.

Now, the Limited version doesnt quit compare to the normal version anymore. The Frosty now just seems like a 'R5' version of the normal V2-H. The last time they were both offered together was in the December Raid store, at 15 million for the Frosty, and 3 million for the V2-H. A 12 million price difference, which is even less now considering that the V2-H can be obtained in campaigns and foundry. The new version doesnt really give any consentive towards getting it, seeing that it has mainly better weight and longer thermal for 3 days extra build time. 

Rise of the Warlords 

The next raid arc, featuring Reavers, is here until December. The ships to use? Subs and only Subs. Similar to the Reaver Armadas and the last TLC we had, you should know what to expect. One general tip I have, don't expect to leave each battle without damage. The death weapons cause a good amount of Plasma damage, and you cant avoid it. Don't clean out your entire schedule for the day hoping to hit big and only win, unless you are willing to spend a couple coins. 

Times

It begins today, at the following times  Time Zone  Converter? Time Zone Converter!

World Alpha: 9AM PDT

World Beta: 10AM PDT

World Gamma: 11AM PDT

World Delta: 12PM PDT

World Epsilon: 1PM PDT

Targets 

Kixeye has changed the Naming of the targets from Set A-C, S to Tiers now, ranging from 6 to 3. The point values have increased for Tier 3, dropped for Tier 4, Tier 5 is the same, and Tier 6 has dropped in total points too. 

S set into Tier 6 

• Target 100 - 1,250,000 Points 
• Bonus - 2,450,000 Points 
• Total - 3,700,000 Points 

A set into Tier 5

• Target 71 - 350,000 Points 
• Target 73 - 400,000 Points 
• Target 75 - 500,000 Points 
• Bonus - 1,350,000 
• Total - 2,600,000

B set into Tier 4

• Target 51 - 30,000 Points 
• Target 53 - 43,000 Points 
• Target 55 - 60,000 Points 
• Target 57 - 75,000 Points 
• Bonus - 600,000 Points 
• Total - 808,000 Points 

C set into Tier 3

• Target 31 - 15,000 Points 
• Target 33 - 20,000 Points 
• Target 35 - 25,000 Points 
• Bonus - 120,000 Points 
• Total - 180,000 Points 

The point increase for the Tier 3 is up by 100,000 points, which is a very welcomed increase. The prizes though for the lower levels? Not much. 

Prizes 

This is a large stat block... 

With Bloodthirst, 100% defense handicap, huge Penetrating, Explosive, and Radioactive deflection; this hull fits in with other Conqueror hull of this day. Making for a powerful one shot tank, with its Overload ability. I would imagine this being used in conjunction with either Citadel or Vendetta fleets, posed outside the channel. Send the fury in and watch the mortars ran. Or going with a blitz tactic, stack them and rush at once. Sending one in at a time would waste the Overload, seeing as that it has 10,000 deflection to Explosive weapons, the majority of splash weapons. Base turrets wont last long too with the new weapon.. 

Low weight and high damage, but with a long build time of 11 hours. A little clarification of the "Death Weapon" Remember those pools of fire that pop up after you sink a ship with throwers or mortars with Insiderny shells attached? Yeah, it's the same. These are the basic stats for it; which look pretty good for an aftereffect. Any ships within a 60 range will be hurt by this, and any ship beyond that ship to a max of 20 will be dealt half damage. 

I'll make a cute little text diagram to show 

X------------Y~~~~Z

X = Death Weapon Explosion 

Y = Ship out at 60 range, gets full damage 

Z = Ship out at 80 range, gets half damage 

Now, because Z is within the 60 (range) + 20 (splash) it receives damage. But if Z was at 85 range, 60 + 25, he would not receive damage 

X------------Y~~~~~Z 

X = Death Weapon Explosion 

Y = Ship out at 60 range, gets full damage 

Z = Shio out at 85 range, receives no damage. 

Now for the Special  

This special is very similar to the Hydroxide Coated Barrels, increasing the Multi Shot and Corrosive Damage. You replace this with the Barrel System to get more a larger Multi Shot increase, helpful when chasing down fast ships, but for base attacking? Stick with dealing more damage. 

Now for the general Prize list! 

Green is Recommend, Red is not, Yellow is either way

Sealed Fire Charge 6,000,000
-Best special to use with the FTT and the HW, very useful if the reaver's spot you. Get it if you can
Hydroxide Injector 6,000,000
-Helps with damage for scatterguns, can use this for the Conflagration or Cobras
Fire Twister Torpedo 9,000,000
-Best torpedoes in game, get it.
Conflagration Scattergun 9,000,000
-Better than the D81-M, only downside is the 11 hour build time. If you get this, get the Fury too.
Hellwraith 15,000,000
-What the Apollo was to last month, this hull is to this next 4 months, and the armadas.
Fury 15,000,000 

-New Base hitter, has its flaws, but still the newest to use. 

Tiger Shark 1,750,000
-If you can grind out Tier 3, get this and the Charon. Major improvement over Spectre.
Heavy Cruiser 1,750,000
-Viable for lower levels, those who can grind out Tier 3, but I would choose the Tiger Shark over this.
Charon Torpedo 900,000
-Still a great torpedo, get it if you don't have better
Scattergun D81-M 900,000
-Each one costs 27,500 uranium to build. Need I say more? 

Stealth Attack System IV 350,000
-In the Mission Tier 4, if you wanna save time get it now at a cheap price. 

Barrel System 3 350,000
-Is okay, nothing more. Can't get the Hydroxide Injector, get this.

Locked Store

Interception System 5,500,000 

-Bit over priced, but still useful if you have Enforcers

Railgun D-110 6,000,000 

-Arbs are better, but if you don't have them...
Gamma Behemoth Shard x1 5,000,000 x5
-I would put these at green, if it wasn't for the price. Able to finish half of the Gamma, without hitting DUB's? I would take it 

Proto Nemesis Shard x5 2,000,000 x4
-Easier to buy them, but takes longer to finish it. If you have a good-great DUB fleet, I would skip these.
Hellstar Shard x5 2,000,000 x4
-Easier to buy them, but takes longer to finish it. If you have a good-great DUB fleet, I would skip these.
Ghostcrawler Shard x5 2,000,000 x4
-Easier to buy them, but takes longer to finish it. If you have a good-great DUB fleet, I would skip these.
Man-O-War Shard x5 2,000,000 x4
-Easier to buy them, but takes longer to finish it. If you have a good-great DUB fleet, I would skip these.

Unlocked Store

Ship build - 1 hour 120,000 x10
-Cheaper build time? Hell Yeah!
Ship build - 12 hours 1,400,000 x4
-Cheaper build time? Hell Yeah!
Ship build - 24 hours 2,750,000 x3
-Cheaper build time? Hell Yeah!
Fusion Charger 350,000
Same as the Interception system, minus the +20% speed. Get this to replace that if you can.

Point Penetralization 

https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/659299 

Go read this, at the bottom 

Tier 1
31 - 15,000
33 - 20,000
35 - 25,000
Tier bonus - 120,000
Full points: 180,000

If over level 85: 126,000


Tier 4:
51 - 30,000
53 - 43,000
55 - 60,000
57 - 75,000
Tier bonus - 600,000
Full points: 808,000

If over level 85: 704,000

Tier 5:

71 - 350,000
73 - 400,000
75 - 500,000
Tier bonus - 1,350,000
Full points: 2,600,000

If over 80: 1,725,000

What does this mean? 

Kixeye is trying to Protect the lower leveled players, honorable, but doing it in a messed up way. Not every player has the technology, I.E. hellwraiths to deal with Tier 6. Also, how is Level 80 too powerful for tier 5, A set? 

Here is a forum post, go complain here pirates 

https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/659760

As always, Film at 11 

State of the Game Fall

It's been a quarter... 

And the State of the Game is back again. Let's find out what Kixeye wants to do for the next 3 months, and what they are doing right/wrong. 

State of the Game 

Kixeye has broken down the SotG into 5 parts this time, let's go over each part. Going in order from Event Arc, PvP, Mega Ships, Chores, and Communicating changes.  As always, I'll be voicing my thoughts on each one too. 

Make sure you read the official posting too; https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/656951

Event Arc 

Kixeye is now officially going on a four month raid plan, meaning each raid story type will end with the hull raid. Kixeye will now be releasing a hull designed to be used against the targets in the upcoming raid. This Hull will be avaliable for all 4 months, along with it's specials and weapons. After the raid the targets will replace worldmap targets, such as after the next raid arc they will replace the reaver armadas. 

Kixeye has also released the master plan for changes to targets within the next 4 raids. With only the Tier 5, (S set) having an additional new target added. 

PvP 

More Conqueror hulls are to come, also with buffs... 

"The average win ratio across level bands are looking generally healthy. However, at the very top end, the win ratios look a little low. We’ll be looking to address that over the next several months." 

PvP and Conqueror hulls in one topic together, it means base hitting. The win ratio refers to the number of 100% base hits versus that of fleets dying in the base before 100%. Now, the 'Addressing' of this can lead to two things. Either stronger conqueror hulls, or weaker base weapons. 

Stronger hulls is more likely to happen. 

But wait! Won't having stronger and stronger hulls come be bad as it will increase the power struggle drastically? No, but only if Kixeye does it right. Like they have been doing it right so far. 

How is Kixeye doing it right? Lets look at the current Conqueror hulls, the Retribution, Revenge, and Vendetta, and their basic stats; defense, evade,  and deflection. 

Link to View: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_xWdUkhIx1PDtdraFCwKvChl9_kVFR4phrFXSyB2wjQ/edit?usp=sharing 

Green highlight means bloodthrist

Yellow means some was already there, but bloodthrist added some too

Now, compare that list of hull to the next list of hull, the best base hitters from about a year ago. from the same types of hulls, blitzer, mortar, and launcher. 

(I removed the Corrosie defense/deflection, and all the deflections, as they weren't available back then. 

Link to view: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E0O1YNHQznxLDthbXk2KO-hI7JCq_QV24gB9Oim1VWM/edit?usp=sharing

Now lets compare them. Starting with the old. With all around good defenses for back then, except concussive i'll talk about that later, and okay evade. With defense specials/armor and/or evade specials/armor being a necessity back then, the ships would be tougher are harder to kill for sure. 

Now for the newer ships. Well, we can't change the evade on the Vendetta or the Retribution, but we can on the Revenge, that's good. Defenses? Not worthwhile to change, or impossible to change with defense handicaps. What about that Deflection? That's a killer! 

Well...

 With the Bloodthirst ability on all 3 of them, namely the Retribution and the Revenge, they become stronger and harder to kill. We can't protect against the bloodthrist being activated can we?

 Yes we can, by either moving all the buildings away from the start of the channel of your base, or just recycling them. And without the bloodthrist, the ships become susceptible to common damage types also. Such as Radiation, and fucking Penetrating. 

So, you need to figure out which ship to use on each base, and the defenders need to be able to be able to deal damage on all possible types? 

Yeah, kinda like Pokemon Types. You need to find the pokemon (ship) that best works against another pokemon (base/base fleet) 

How does this differ from the past? We could have just stack up on Concussive weapons and turrets. 

Nah, not really. The only surface weapons that deals concussive damage back then were the Depth Charges. And those never make for good base defense weapons. Turrets? You were looking at Gargoyle Depth Charges and nothing else that we could use a year ago. 

Kixeye is releasing Conqueror hulls that have only one or two weakness to slow down the power struggle, and to increase the stragety portion of this game. After complaining for years about click to win hulls we finally get the solution. Now to wait for the dry dock (sarcasm) 

Oh yeah, Medals are getting a workup. Hold your laughter. 

Mega Ships 

More modules to come, the first of which being the hiving module. Which can be used to a great advantage. See my September WIP for details... The Megaships are still in the Beta phase also, changes will be happening to them as will new modules. 

Chores 

I'm gonna copy down each bullet point and go over each one separately instead of summarizing them all. K? 

• With the introduction of Sector Threat, our goal was to enable players to play on their own time table and be able to acquire the resources they needed to progress in the game.

SKIP

• With the “KIXEYE time” restriction being lifted, we saw a dramatic increase in players participating in non-PvP activities. As a result, players told us they felt compelled to constantly do these activities for their entire play session

SKIP

• While we want players to have some freedom on when to do these activities, we’re looking to provide a more structured pacing so that players have some relief to enjoy other aspects of the game.

SKIP

• We’re going to be re-evaluating Sector Threat as the first step towards reducing “chore time”. We believe part of the issue stems from the constant need to maintain a specific threat level (Yellow, Orange) in order to optimize the payouts.

Wait, does this imply that Kixeye will be looking at the times for the Yellow and Orange? Good. 

• We’re also investigating Rogue Crews to see where these can fit in to help improve payout rates and/or reduce “chore time”.

Changing the Irritated Cutthroats to now help with the Armada's? And creating a crew that would increase the payout of the Fragment drops for the foundry? Better. 

Communication Changes 

Kixeye knows there is a communication problem between the company and the players. Their solution? Testing and asking the players. Great! New targets, such as those in the FM, will be following a new format. 

1. Start with a test target, available for a limited time (i.e. 1 week). This test target may have inflated point payouts or even a VXP multiplier, to incentivize trying them out during the test period.

Kixeye should have possible a time limited repair token after attacking and destroying the tester target. Will this increase the number of testers? Yeah. The time Limited feature will last for an hour or so, leading the person to choose one of two options. Repair the fleet and then hit a base, or just repair the fleet. Now, this seems chaotic with everyone hitting without repercussions. But, it makes for a good time to try out the medal system changes! Also, best time for a fleet v fleet war, ever.  

2.Once the test period is over, remove the target for further iteration.

Please introduce a polling on the Kixeye forums, let the players get more feedback in rather than pure data and numbers.

3.Re-introduce the target the next month, for further “in-game testing,” or possibly make it permanent.

Always do retesting, keep it open for a week, run a poll at the same time. If good, make it permanent, if not, find out why.

4.We will always run older targets until the test targets are ready for permanent release.

Yay!!! 

Overall 

I like it, however the public opinion of the game is down. https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/658911

Go vote what you think they deserve. Planning on a post about the reactions. 

Until next time, Film at 11