Cadet I/Pods and Killbonus

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The Eject pod

When your ship is destroyed you are launched into space in an eject pod. The pod is a small, slow and defenseless craft that serves no other purpose than saving the pilot's life, with supplies of oxygen that can last no longer than 5 minutes. After 5 minutes the pod explodes and you respawns at a base exactly as if your pod had been destroyed by an enemy.

Don't get yourself podded

Many games with respawn make dying a very small issue. It is not a small one in Allegiance.

For starters getting yourself podded renders you useless to your team until you are picked up which can take up to 5 minutes if you're unlucky! Secondly by getting yourself podded by enemy pilots "feeds" their killbonus, making them a greater danger to everyone else on your team. Lastly don't forget that every time you get podded is another opportunity for the enemy to take your killbonus from you! (assuming you're good enough to get a decent one, of course ;))

Getting a pickup

A pilot placed in an eject pod is completely useless. He can do nothing more than sit there and wait to get back to base using the pod's weak thrusters. As a pod pilot, it is your responsibility to get home as soon as possible so you can help the team again. You have several options:

1. Fly all the way back to the nearest base or rescue beacon.
2. Use Autopilot to fly to a nearby friendly pilot.
   • This works only if the pilot is flying in a straightish line and will pass nearby your pod. If they're boosting or dodging enemy fire you can expect your AP to fail.
3. Ask a friendly pilot to pick you up, then do #2.
   • To ask for a pickup you can either send a voice chat to the entire team, `np (I need pickup) or `yi (I need rescue help!). This will send a message to the entire team and you may find it gets ignored, or responded to by pilots on the opposite side of the map!
   • Or you can left-click on their ship then right-click on your pod, which will send them an order to pick you up.
4. Destroy your lifepod.
   • You can suicide by ramming enemy ships or flying through minefields.
   • Destroying your lifepod will reset your killbonus to zero (see below)
   • If you're playing a game with limited lives (unlikely) this will reduce the number of lives you have left.

As a pilot, you must make an effort to pickup all pods you see to help bring pilots back in the action. This is most crucial when under attack. You are in a remote sector and 6 pods are coming out of an aleph 5000 metres from you. Suddenly, your minimap indicates that your home is under attack! The worst thing you could do in this case is ripcord home. What you must do is quickly pickup the pods. That will instantly bring 6 pilots back in action which help the defense far more than your one ship appearing at the teleporter. Once you've picked them up you can ripcord home yourself and also help defend.

Tip: If you are picking up a large number of your team's pods in a sector, fly to a safe spot, STOP and let them come to you. It takes skill to grab a large number of pods on the fly. It is always better to get close to the group and stop so they can come to you.

If you are Bios, however, the best thing you can do is ripcord home and then sit still. Bios pods can ripcord and so this way you can stand by the teleport receiver and pickup the pods that are ripcording in.

If your faction has them available be sure to lay rescue probes when possible, at key moments.

Example A rescue probe must remain available when you are on a bomber run, so that the many pilots that participated in the bomber run must be able to quickly get back home. A RP that expires just as the run is underway is no good to anyone.

A team that focuses on quickly picking up pods can easily make a difference between defeat and victory, especially in smaller games where every pilot is downright crucial.

Kill bonus

As we have already covered slightly the kill bonus, indicated in the orange circle, represents a damage bonus as a percentage.

A 10 kb will result in a 10% damage bonus. As you destroy more ships, the kill bonus slowly rises toward a maximum of 50 (396 kills). The kb cannot get any higher than 50 because it is a mathematical impossibility with the formula. Note that killing eject pods does not increase your kill bonus. Your kill bonus will apply to every weapon, missile and piece of equipment that can inflict damage (and even ramming!).

When a pod is destroyed, the pilot dies and so does the kill bonus, which is reset to 0. This is why even though a pilot has 100 kills, he can still have a 0 kb. Note that getting podded has no effect on your kill bonus, you won't lose anything, but get yourself rescued or you might lose it.

It is calculated by the following formula:

<math>Killbonus = 50 \times \left( \frac{kills}{kills+4} \right)</math>,

where kills starts at one, is incremented after each kill and is set to zero after each death. The result is then rounded to the nearest integer.

This is an asymptotic relationship - that is, the higher your kb gets the less killbonus you are rewarded. This is demonstrated in the table below:

    0 kills =  0 KB = 100% damage
    1 kills = 10 KB = 110% damage        10.0% gain
    2 kills = 17 KB = 117% damage         6.3% gain
    3 kills = 21 KB = 121% damage         3.4% gain
    4 kills = 25 KB = 125% damage         3.3% gain 
    5 kills = 28 KB = 128% damage         2.4% gain
    6 kills = 30 KB = 130% damage         1.6% gain
    7 kills = 32 KB = 132% damage         1.5% gain
    8 kills = 33 KB = 133% damage         0.8% gain
    9 kills = 35 KB = 135% damage         1.5% gain
   10 kills = 36 KB = 136% damage         0.7% gain
   11 kills = 37 KB = 137% damage         0.7% gain
   12 kills = 38 KB = 138% damage         0.7% gain
   14 kills = 39 KB      ...               ...
   16 kills = 40 KB 
   18 kills = 41 KB 
   20 kills = 42 KB 
   23 kills = 43 KB 
   27 kills = 44 KB 
   33 kills = 45 KB 
   40 kills = 46 KB 
   54 kills = 47 KB 
   76 kills = 48 KB 
  130 kills = 49 KB 
  396 kills = 50 KB = 150% damage         

The highest attainable KB is 50, and has yet to be reached as far as we know.

As you can see from the chart the most useful kill is your first because it increases your damage by a whopping 10%. All subsequent kills have a rapidly diminishing return on how much gain you actually get. Due to this it is sometimes a good idea for the lead turret gunner to allow the other to get a few kills, rather than padding his own kb only slightly.

Pod killing

There exists only one strategic reason for pod killing: remove a high kill bonus (there's another, non-strategic reason: revenge). A common misconception is you will get a "kill" for killing a pod. You do not. It does not increase your kill bonus, nor affect your stats.

The general rule is that any pilot with a kb of 30 or higher must be killed. Any pod with a lower kb must be allowed to live, so that the pilot is kept in the pod, unable to help his/her team. There are exceptions to the rule of course - if you're bombing you don't want to kill any pods, no matter their kb, because each one you do is another pilot that will launch and defend. Or if the enemy pod is less than 1k from being picked up you want to kill their pod if they have anything greater than a 0kb.

Note that Bios pods are killed with lower kbs, because those pods will get home quickly through their ripcord. If they're going to get home quickly you may as well pod kill them with their lower kill bonuses, since it's not much of a difference to them in terms of the time to get home.

Note This does not apply if Bios do not have a home teleport receiver, because then Bios pods can't get home any quicker than other factions.

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