P1's Notebook

[zombywoof]

P1's Notebook 4

P1's Notebook 4:

I was going to talk about economy but Allegiance econ is too... robust... to talk about in one post. So instead we're going to break it up a little and talk about the various GAs that you can (and often should) buy! GAs are "global attributes" that affect everything from probes to cruisers. These little buggers are priced at 2k for the entry level versions and 2.5k for the tier 2. Knowing why you should buy them and when you should spend the money on them is half the battle!

Tac

Agility GA

Agility GA has to do with turn torque and turn rate. Unfortunately for straight tac this does very little as your SFs are going to be @#(!-tier at turning either way. For TacSpan teams it's actually quite nice as it makes your ints turn more like OH ints (an your OH ints turn like you're secretly playing Call of Duty). Still though unless you're specifically angling for going tac and then ending the game with large-scale int pushes, I'd skip it unless you're swimming in cash.

Energy GA

This GA upgrades your recharge rate and the amount of energy you can have. If you don't understand why this is a must-buy for tac then you have no real reason to be commanding. What's also important is that Energy GA is very good for bomb runs as well, especially for TF. With dual nans, running out of energy as TF isn't as odd an occurance as you might think and having extra energy is also great for their main pewpew guns. If you're, say, primary expansion and you're getting a forward tac so you can't be galved, energy GA should still be high on your priorities as TF even if you're not going for SBs.

EW Range GA

This GA is proobably the second most important GA for pure tac which is why it's a shame I don't see more people buying it. Boosting the range of sniper 1 from 1300 to 1430 basically gives you another second (or two) of shooting ints (or scouts) before they get in range. It also means you get to open fire on miners a second or so sooner with your util canons. And the difference betwen EW Range 2 sniper 2 and no EW range sniper 2 is actually the difference between being hit by AC while defending and not. Secretly it's also very good for bomb runs and defending miners because extending the range of nan can give you that extra half a second to keep the miner/bomber alive. It's also frankly absurd with TF because it affects all of their weapons (except Ion Blaster).

Missile Track GA

I'm not 100% sure on what this GA does specifically, but it makes your missiles track better. I do know that a 21% boost on all conceivable fronts (missile's agility, countermeasure resistence, and lock time) doesn't make all that much of a difference on hunt 3, which is either getting spoofed or it isn't, and it's not going to let you use Killers as Hunters, so while I'll buy this before Agility as pure tac, generally speaking this is a low priority GA.

Speed GA

Speed GA makes everything faster. It's the best GA in the game (second is Yield, but even then only under certain situations. Ship Hull also comes close) so not buying it makes you an idiot. Whenever I'm on a team that has sniper 2 but no speed GA I immediately want to bootiny because that $5k you spent on sniper 2 would be better spent on speed. Accordingly, it's only a 5% increase (110% with both). Still that makes your ships as fast as Belters ships.

Sup

Ship Shield GA

This is an interesting case. Generally speaking shields are much worse than hull. While it's true that 10% is 10%, 10% of 1000 is 100 while 10% of 100 is 10. Still this is a "must buy" GA for every faction. It's marginally less useful for Belters, it's true, but Belters relies a lot on end-game bombing where every percentage point counts. It's also very strong for miners giving them a litle extra boost. This is probably the second most important sup GA.

Ship Hull GA

This GA increases ship's hull. Buy it. It's the main reason people dip into sup when commanding expansion: giving your hvy ints a 10% hull edge over your opponent can mean a lot. It also makes htts, bbrs, miners, cons, and carriers tougher.

Sensors GA

Sensors GA is criminally underpurchased. It makes probing easier. It makes hunting SFs, SBs, and sneaky HTTs easier. It makes DEprobing easier. Allegiance is a game of decisions and the more information you have, the better decisions you'll make. Sensors GA is basically "information GA." Buy it.

Missile Damage GA

This GA is sup's equivalent of Exp's PW damage GA... only very different. Missile Damage GA isn't good for dogfighting: quickfires deal so little damage that a 10% boost on it is barely noticeable. What it IS good for are bombing and miner offense. Giving yourself a little 10% extra oomph on the back of a dumbfire 3 is going to hurt... a LOT... for the miner in question. 21% extra missile damage, along with AB2 and a 30 KB, can drop the total number of missiles from an adv techbase from 8 (with enemy GAs) to 6.

Ripcord GA

Sup is very strange in that all of its GAs are very important. Sensors is *probably* the least important of the lot, which is very strange because it's better than a lot of other techpath's GAs. I would rather, for example, have sensor GA than missile track or agility or he speed, the station GAs, and even PW range. But now to talk about ripcord GA: if you're sup and you're not buying ripcord GA you clearly have no idea how sup is supposed to work. Sup is all about ripping around the map to rapidly react to anything that happens. Caught out of base while they're bombing your tech? Ints would have to boost back to the base then launch. SFs would basically just shrug and hunt miners because that tac is dead. Figs just rip straight back in no matter how far out of position they were caught. Ripcord GA even helps expand faster and win games via TP2 runs (Though TP2 runs are no longer popular for a variety of reasons).

Exp

He Speed

This is one of the strangest GAs. Many voobs will tell you it's a complete waste of money and argue about how it's just pissing away money until they're blue in the face. Aarmstrong bought it every opportunity he had. What people notice about this GA is simple: it helps you make money faster. What they DON'T notice about this GA, what Aarmstrong noticed, is that it helps you make money safer. A miner is at its most vulnerable when it's sitting on the rock. When it's moving towards a ref you're almost always too late to stop it from dropping off the money meaning you get to kill an empty miner. When it's moving away from the ref you're just killing an empty miner. Sure killing empty miners is nice (though overvalued by many in some situations), but the truth is the best way to cripple an enemy's economy is to kill a *full* miner. He Speed makes it harder for that to happen.

He Yield

Yield GA is probably one of the most popular GAs in the game. It gets you more money. They each pay for themselves in about 4 rocks which means that if you suspect you're going to be mining MORE than 4 rocks (at the point where you can purchase the GA), it's worth it. Not much else to say.

Station Hull/Shield

These are actually somewhat disappointing. They're at their best vs galv teams, OH bbrs, TF bbrs, and Rix bbrs. Otherwise they're somewhat useless. I don't recommend buying these unless you're expecting to face off against galv runs, in which case they're decent but not special.

Acceleration

Ship acceleration makes your craft more nimble and increases their responsiveness to thrusters. This GA USED to be bugged and would lower the speed of the craft, but it's been fixed for a few years now. Very nice, very handy, buy this if you can.

PW & EW Damage

Sooo many people forget that this inludes nans. Obviously this is *the* exp GA you really want to get (yield is also great early). It makes you deal more damage, which is a good thing. It's also worth pointing out that this is especially good for OH, TF, and Rix as their bombers don't use missiles.

PW Range

Broodwich's favorite GA. To understand why it's necessary to understand how PW Range GA works: while EW GA increases the lifetime of the bullets, PW GA increases the *speed* of the bullets. It makes aiming easier. Like with the PW Dam GA, this also has extra effects for TF, Rix, and OH. TF SBs use a PW gun, Rix SBs use a drone that fires a PW gun, and OH bbrs use a PW gun. Increasing the range of your SBs is, to quote Martha Stewart, a Good Thingtm

One final note on GAs: While the first GA is a 10% increase (5% for speed), the next GA is actually an 11% increase. That's because after you buy the first GA, the attribute is at 110%. 10% of 110 is 11. It's not a huge deal, but worth pointing out.

[Deathrender]

About time I had something to read at work.

[ThePhantom032]

QUOTE (phoenix1 @ Dec 30 2014, 07:17 PM) Energy GA

This GA upgrades your recharge rate and the amount of energy you can have. If you don't understand why this is a must-buy for tac then you have no real reason to be commanding. What's also important is that Energy GA is very good for bomb runs as well, especially for TF. With dual nans, running out of energy as TF isn't as odd an occurance as you might think and having extra energy is also great for their main pewpew guns. If you're, say, primary expansion and you're getting a forward tac so you can't be galved, energy GA should still be high on your priorities as TF even if you're not going for SBs.

Energy GA only affects maximum energy, and not recharge rate. Still really important for tac, especially in PCore008.

QUOTE (phoenix1 @ Dec 30 2014, 07:17 PM) EW Range GA
Missile Track GA

I'm not 100% sure on what this GA does specifically, but it makes your missiles track better. I do know that a 21% boost on all conceivable fronts (missile's agility, countermeasure resistence, and lock time) doesn't make all that much of a difference on hunt 3, which is either getting spoofed or it isn't, and it's not going to let you use Killers as Hunters, so while I'll buy this before Agility as pure tac, generally speaking this is a low priority GA.

I think it only affects missile turn rate (missiles can only accelerate in the direction they are turned), which is useful for firing hunters at closer range against mobile targets. Should make almost no difference at max range from what I know. Don't know if it does anything to CM resistance, but somehow i think its only turn rate. Don't know why I think that. Someone look at the code and tell me what it does

QUOTE (phoenix1 @ Dec 30 2014, 07:17 PM) Station Hull/Shield

These are actually somewhat disappointing. They're at their best vs galv teams, OH bbrs, TF bbrs, and Rix bbrs. Otherwise they're somewhat useless. I don't recommend buying these unless you're expecting to face off against galv runs, in which case they're decent but not special.

While shield is most useful against galvs, hull is better in the lategame against sbs, fbs and xrm hvy bbrs (as bases have more hull than shield, but galv is much more effective against hull). Still not going to save you if you screw up on defense, but like missile damage GA these can make a big difference by saving a techbase from close death. It really is only a "we're rich and don't know what else to buy that would help" type of thing, and backup techbases are mostly a better option if there are decent rocks left.

On the topic against rix... If a rix bbr got close to your base and shot until energy ran out, chances are their turrets podded your defense, and will keep doing that while they can rip some of their dead nans back in. It likely wont save you, especially if people relaunch one by one as usual. Can work against TF if people relaunch fast enough to keep the turrets busy and they are stupid, but I'm not sure why you listed OH, their AB weapon(1-3) has exactly the same dps as ab(1-3) (without counting the 1.05pw dmg buff OH has that makes them better at damaging bases than for example giga), and is not affected by turrets firing at all. At least other bombers can run out of ammo or AB-missiles, OH with a default cargo full of ammo and no need for anything else is unlikely to ever run out.

QUOTE (phoenix1 @ Dec 30 2014, 07:17 PM) One final note on GAs: While the first GA is a 10% increase (5% for speed), the next GA is actually an 11% increase. That's because after you buy the first GA, the attribute is at 110%. 10% of 110 is 11. It's not a huge deal, but worth pointing out.

To expand on this, both are 10% (or 5% for speed) increase of the previous value. So for a faction with 1.2 PW range like rix, a single PW range GA leads not to 1.3, but to 1.32 PW range, and the second then to 1.452, which is quite a noticeable difference from 1.4. This was the reason I decided to halve price and effect of speed GA, as dreg with 1.452 times base speed was no fun to play against (enh miner went 159m/s, now goes "only" 145. Still hard to catch, but not autowin-faster-than-scouts).

So any GA is a 10% increase on top of the previous, relatively speaking. This means the absolute bonus you get is higher if already high values are upgraded, making (in my opinion) those GAs preferable if you do not have money to get them all, and they are otherwise of equal importance. Of course cancelling out shortcomings like dregs bad scan range or gigas bad accel can be quite important too, so which GAs to get (except those few that are absolute musts) really depends on the factions, techpaths, map, money and everything else in the game.

In the end, even skipping all GAs and rushing adv tech is an option - early galvs for sup (in large enough games), early hvy ints or early hunt3/sniper2 sfs can more than make up for the GA difference, but you need to push that advantage and score some kills on important targets then, since without GAs your enh tech will be inferior to the other team and you will have problems until the adv tech is up. This may be slower mining, a con not pushed, etc. So if you do not push that advantage once you have it, the enemy will get adv tech too and you lose any advantage you had while still not having any GAs. Since in PU games teams usually fly circles, especially if you were doing well and have an advantage, you likely shouldn't do this.

And finally:
TL;DR: Keep voobing around and let someone else command. Its what I'd do if I didn't want to read.

[zombywoof]

QUOTE (Phantom032 @ Dec 31 2014, 07:55 PM) I'm not sure why you listed OH, their AB weapon(1-3) has exactly the same dps as ab(1-3) (without counting the 1.05pw dmg buff OH has that makes them better at damaging bases than for example giga), and is not affected by turrets firing at all. At least other bombers can run out of ammo or AB-missiles, OH with a default cargo full of ammo and no need for anything else is unlikely to ever run out.

Because DPS is a lazy stat for lazy people who are too lazy to figure out how things work and skip over entire posts because there's too much information in them rather than try and learn something about the game they're playing

http://www.freeallegiance.org/forums/index...st&p=687754

A 10% adjustment either way for missile-based bbrs doesn't make any difference at all, it's the same # of missiles fired either way since you can't fire fractional missiles. Thus, the time-to-kill (a much better stat than DPS for a variety of reasons though for another variety of reasons DPS is much easier to calculate) remains the same. However because of the way OH bbrs work, it gives you an extra 10% time to kill the bbr, even if it's just a second or two. The same rule generally applies for Rix bbrs and somewhat less so for TF bbrs.

[Elzam_]

I beat P1 in my first game as commander with bios homesup. Clearly P1 knows what he's doing if Elzam can beat him | Kappa

[Archangelus]

If I remember correcly from cadet, the missile track didnt interfere with cm resistance, but with the turn rate of the missile, and the hud distance you would get, to start getting a lock.

[ThePhantom032]

QUOTE (phoenix1 @ Jan 1 2015, 06:50 AM) A 10% adjustment either way for missile-based bbrs doesn't make any difference at all, it's the same # of missiles fired either way since you can't fire fractional missiles.

So, first of all, depending on KB, a single GA can make a whole missile difference even though its "just" 10%. Denying higher KBs to kill a base a missile faster can be either game deciding or completely useless if the pilot get even 1% more KB than needed for this. Mostly it's a waste of money of course, but at least theoretically it can make a difference.


Anyway, I shouldn't have just called it "DPS" - what I mean is that OH bombers not only have the same overall damage-over-time as normal bombers do, they have exactly the same damage in 4s that other factions do with one missile (that arms in 4s) and reload for 5s after firing for 16s, being ready for round 2 after 21s - just like normal bombers. As such OH bombers have the same damage behavior as any normal bomber - apart from the up to 4s delay on damage due to not having instant damage every 4s, which is counteracted by their 1.1 PW range allowing them to shoot almost 2 seconds earlier (on unrammed bomber), allowing them to shoot for half a missile worth of damage in those extra 2 seconds and the other half after the theoretical missile launch time - which is why listing them with rix and tf as "hull GA is better against these" doesn't make much sense to me. Sure the effect can end up being a bit more than with "normal" bombers - but it can also end up being a bit less in those cases where other bombers require just one more missile thanks to the GA, while OH only needs to shoot for lets say 3s total longer, the other bomber needs 4 then. On the other hand rix and tf both can run out of energy drastically increasing the effect of station GAs.

Too tired to format and make this readable, hope you can understand my point.

[zombywoof]

Because if it takes 10 seconds of continuous firing with OH bbrs, getting an extra 10% shields and hull will make it take 11 seconds of continuous firing with OH bbrs.

If it take 10 seconds to fire the missiles with missile-based bbrs, getting that same extra 10% shields and hull will make it still take just 10 seconds of firing missiles outside of wonky corner cases where we start adding in KBs above 30 along with missile damage GA and AB2.

The final missile that blows up the base usually has so much overkill that the 10% usually doesn't matter. That's why the rule of thumb is 3 ab missiles to blow up an outpost whether you're Dreg hitting Bios or Drac hitting GT.

If your point is what I think it is, then you're wrong. I'm not comparing OH bbrs to anyone else's bbrs in terms of effectiveness, I'm talking about the reality that OH bbrs don't deal huge chunks of damage once per second, but rather small chunks of damage many times per second, which is why station GAs are at least somewhat effective against them.

Once more: my point has absolutely nothing to do with a bbr running out of energy or ammo. That frankly won't happen so long as the bomb crew is competent or (if they're a missile bbr) they haven't rolled from a run they didn't expect to roll from. It has everything to do that if you take the time T it requires to kill a base, for missile-based bbrs adjusting the damage or HP 10% either way will only occasionally change T.

[ThePhantom032]

QUOTE (phoenix1 @ Jan 2 2015, 08:22 AM) usually has so much overkill

You are of course right, these GAs always do something against rix,tf and OH. Its just not very much, and those "rare cases" are not as rare as you think they are. Lets actually compare (since you just said you didnt compare, and just listed OH because the GA always does something).

OH bomber kills default ops in 10.16s after opening fire (well, shots need to reach the base still, but the required damage is fired in that time). So the 5-20% are at most 2 seconds if the bomber has hammer1, no kb and no dmg GA, with less bonus time if any of the three get better. Also those 2s are only after spending the full 9k on station GAs. With missiles, you need 3 to kill an op, to be exact you need 2.777 missiles with no modifiers on either side, so the remaining ~0.223 is overkill, as is any additional damage you get from GAs or KB - until a combined tech*KB damage bonus of 39% (thats high!) suddenly means you only need 2 missiles and not 3. This is still ab1, not ab2. So you should list IC and dreg too, because they start with 1.1 missile dmg modifier and only need 28%kb (not so high) to 2-shot a default op, and if they get missile dmg GA on top of that they only need 17%kb (easy to get), while adding ab2 on that makes you 2-shot that op every time (IC/dreg op, plz nerf). In case IC/dreg isnt sup, those 28%kb can still happen rather easily and suddenly a single station shield GA for 2k can give your op 4s extra lifetime (or requiring over 33kb, which is as you said is harder to get), instead of all of them combined for 9k giving you 2s. On the other hand station GA still will do nothing if either some noob with 0 kb is flying the bomber anyway or some hypervet with 45kb is, but moving the point from 17 to 28 with 2 GAs or especially from 28 to 39 can make the difference. In the end though its unlikely it will actually make a difference - its still only 4 seconds - only on (adv) techbases is (up to) 20% extra time actually something you can (reliably) do things with, though getting someone to probe will still beat station GAs.
So in my opinion OH shouldn't be listed, because the difference while always there is still just too tiny - and against techbases requiring an additional missile is much more likely, as 10% of more simply is more, though I'll admit I haven't done the math.

Rix(/tf):
The same thing holds true for rix and tf, they kill bases even faster once in range thanks to higher dps on the bombers, so station GAs are - different from what you or I initially thought - arguably less effective against rix and tf compared to IC and dreg when defending ops from basic bombers, because those 28% kbs will happen, especially if people read, understand and remember this
Rix with stinger1 and low kb will run out of energy against tough bases - rix bbrs run out of energy after firing for 18s, which does 19872 damage against large station hull or 29808 against shield; adv techbases have 20000 hull AND 10000 shield. This means a rix bbr needs at least 34 kb to kill an adv techbase without running out of energy. This is counting rix inherent 1.15 damage bonus. Its only adv techbases and garrisons though, basic techbases die with 0 kb - even with all station GAs only 10kb are needed to kill basic techbases.

So especially hull GA will strongly increase the KB rix bbrs require to be able to kill adv techbases (or counter damage or energy GA if rix is exp or tac. Stinger 2 has almost twice the damage while taking less energy, so there is no energy issues there). For tf running out of energy clearly is a skill issue - it requires both bomber and gunners to be stupid - but then, extra time in which the gunners are not allowed to shoot is clearly the best kind of extra time, so despite their better dps (which gives less total time gain from station GAs), listing both rix and tf as special mentions was fine with me, due to the energy constraints.

And one final thing, for the fun of it:
drac hitting GT: 0.95 damage on 1.1 hull/shield: drac needs 3.21 missiles to kill GT ops. Thats 4 missiles if you have 0kb, otherwise 3. Station GAs could be decent for GT in this matchup, too.
dreg hitting bios 1.1 damage on 0.9 hull/shield: Thats 17kb needed to kill it with 2 missiles.
I conclude your rule of thumb assumes you have 10kb.

[zombywoof]

Yeah, I tend to assume a KB of 10 because that's the "default." Generally speaking very high KBs (30+) aren't common on the bbrs being flown because typically those KBs are gained by int whores (who are flying ints to screen) or reserved for the gunners (where, imo, they are more necessary). At that point it's a question of who's piloting the bbr.

As an aside, most good pilots I would say are either flying around with no KB or high KB. I myself, for example, find that I have 0-17 KB far more often than 21 or 28 KB. Logically the reason kind of makes sense: I'm good enough to earn myself 30+ kb, but once I have a 30+ kb people want to take my KB meaning they PK me. Then I have 0 KB and it's kind of hard to get KB from 0 if the guy next to you is equal (or greater) in skill level but has a 30. Even if I was as good at aiming as say, you, and you had a 30 and I had a 0, I'd need to land 30% more bullets than you in order to get the kill. For most pilots who have decent KBs, I find that with a 0-17 it can be hard for me to get the kills from them, but once I hit the 21 I can land 9% or so more bullets and start getting the kills I need to kickstart my KB run. I assume it's similar for the higher-skill-level pilots like yourself or Babs, except that the point where you guys start getting the kills again is lower. For example, I might be able to land 20% more bullets than Student meaning that as long as I have more than a 0 I'm likely to get the kill if we're aiming at the same target. But you can probably land 40-50% more bullets than Student.

I call it the KB Corollary to Benford's Law