Gambit Upgrades or Survival not Working
I was doing a handful of Pillage 116 targets and noticed the damage across my ships didn't seem right. Ships were driven and kept stacked throughout the targets after the initial grouping up for the first turret. So I'm assuming almost all the damage taken is splash and should be equal per ship. And it was, and that's where the problem is. I'm running a fleet of 4 identically built but different Upgrade level ships and a 5th ship built with Countermeasures.
Gambit Upgrade Expl Survival Pen Survival Survival % Splash DR Repair Time DMG Taken Health Total Armor
Flag U2 165200 165200 826.00% 18000 1h53m26s 5047984 1602016 6650000
#2 U3 165200 165200 826.00% 18000 1h53m10s 5036498 1613502 6650000
#3 U3 165200 165200 826.00% 18000 1h54m44s 5106149 1543851 6650000
#4 U3 Anti 166100 165740 830.5%/828.7% 28000 1h56m08s 5168406 1481594 6650000
#5 U0 133040 133040 665.20% 18000 1h54m55s 5114102 1535898 6650000
Edit: The forum didn't like me posting with tabs, but this became unreadable. So here is a screenshot of my spreadsheet instead:
Ship 4, even with the highest Survival and Splash reduction of the fleet, was doing the worst.
While Ship 5, with the least Survival and comparable Splash reduction to 3 other ships, was faring virtually no worse off than ships that should be doing considerably better than it.
My thought is, even though the upgrade stats are showing on all the ships, they aren't actually applying in battle. I think this is the case because I notice a month or so ago when Gambit kits first became available, upgrading 1 ship to U1 then using it in a target with the other 4 at U0, the mortars were firing at the same rates even with the U1 ship supposedly benefiting from an extra +30% Mortar Reload. This is still the case today as far as I can tell.
It's also very curious why increasing Splash Damage Reduction leads to increased damage. Quite odd.
In any case, is anyone else experiencing no benefit from weeks of upgrades to their ships?
6
& flagships too.
Well, that's Kix, ripping off the player base since 2011
Close.
King Killer.
It focuses damage towards the ship with the highest health value. It is basically the opposite of Priority Targeting. Over the years of complaints of damage being focused on a single ship instead of being evenly distributed across the fleet resulted in the advent of King Killer.
I haven't had a chance to read through this post as thoroughly as I would like, but King Killer is something that is worth mentioning.
King Killer explains the damage being similar across all ships, meaning an upgraded fleet will have lower total damage vs an U0 fleet, since the accuracy based weapons with King Killer will keep targeting the strongest ship. BUT, BUT, how would you explain the mention by two players above that upgraded ships aren't firing faster than U0 ships?
If you're not having fun with a game, find another game to play.
The fix that happened was a mismatch between the number being shown in the stat block and the number shown in the upgrade box. I want to say one was 20% and the other was 30%. Now they both match at 30%.
The "best" way to make a comparison on the effects of upgrades is to look a uniform fleet level. Hit a few targets with U0 to establish a baseline, then upgrade the fleet to U1 and hit a few more, then U2, U3, and finally X1 (if it is available). Hitting the exact same target with the exact same entry point with the exact same hitting method yields the best results. I am well aware that trying to set something like this up is time consuming and costly as I did it with Lionfish when they were still around, but it demonstrated the point very clearly.
You should still be able to note marginal improvements with each successive upgrade completed, but the overall picture may be a little skewed which is why I am suggesting comparing fleets of a uniform upgrade level.
If you want to know how small, here's a basic rundown on Duke/Rook mortar reload:
Max VXP: 1.2 (+U1: 1.13) -0.07
VXP/Asc. Mortar sys.: 1.09 (+U1: 1.03) -0.06
VXP/Asc. Mort. Sys/CM Loader 4: 1.0 (+U1: 0.95) -0.05
U1 is about a 6% difference at best and a 5% difference at worst. It does provide an improvement... technically.
Pretty trash considering it's the only bonus you get out of the entire upgrade level. It would have been nice to get something with it like a bonus to splash.
It's an interesting design choice. Multiple potential ways to make the devs, the company, or both look bad; but actually makes things easier and better for some. Not sure why so many are 100% negative on it. It's not actually more damage, unless you put a poorly built ship in with properly built ones. It's just a drastic change to how it worked for years (target nearest ship). It means I don't have to micro manage my driving to even out the damage across a fleet myself, which during a raid is exactly what I want to happen. I want as much of that 12-13hr damage (at 1/2 time) when sunk as possible when I'm playing as a non-coiner and going to be away from the game for possibly 18 hours anyway.
Level: 63 3 mil ID
Sector: 441
Ships: All of them now
[url]http://www.youtube.com/user/chaosstone504?feature=watch[/url]
That is most certainly not what I said. Upgrading will reduce the overall repair time of the fleet. But pushing one ship to U3 and leaving the rest at U0 will still result in damage being spread uniformly across the fleet due to King Killer.
As in, if your fleet was taking 2 hours damage at U0, and all the ships having close to 24 minutes damage each.
And then upgrading a single ship to U3 might drop that to 1 hour 50 minutes with each ship having close to 22 minutes damage each.
The point of mentioning King Killer is to point out that upgrading a ship and then comparing the individual repair time of ships is not a good way to look at it. For a more accurate comparison you need to look at what it does to the total fleet repair time to see the value.
Personally, I don't mind it. It means there is less micromanagement involved with maintaining your fleet health. It lowers the skill ceiling.
Exactly.
The down side is that it is more difficult to get a dedicated tank ship to work. Which the majority of players wouldn't do anyway.
What some don't seem to be getting, from the last few you replied to, is KK usually makes your choice of which ship to upgrade or use at any time less important or at least easier, since it will almost always benefit the fleet as a whole. You're driving through a target wanting your best X1 ship to take most of the damage? A U0 ships will eventually get smacked, take a lot of damage, and then targeting will go back to the X1. So your damage will look wildly different between two or three targets, but by the time you dock them it will have made the fleet last through more targets total which is what matters most.