Saturday, February 8, 2014

Quick thoughts on the next raid - Infernal Onslaught

I'll share some of my thoughts on the Bonus structure changes and do some analysis on the leaked stats for the new prizes.

New Bonus Limits:
With A, B, and C groups of 5, the target groups and bonus points for the targets seem to be the same as before with one exception:  The number of times you can get a bonus for a set is capped at ten.  The thread also said that the 10th completion yields a "big bonus", but we don't know how many points that is worth.  

Without the big bonus, doing each set ten times should yield approximately (assuming 50k for C set, 500k for B set, and 1500k for A set): (B & C bonus total revised)  (2/11 edit: Big bonuses added)
  • A set: 15 million points + 16.5 million bonus 1-9 + 5 million bonus 10 = 36.5 Million points
  • B set: 5 million points + 6 million bonus 1-9 + 1.25 million bonus 10 = 12.25 million points
  • C set: 500k points + 600k bonus 1-9 + 125k bouns 10 = 1.225 million points
Compared to the prize costs, 10 A sets should get 2 prizes from Tiers 4 & 5 with some points to spare, 10 B sets should get a Tier 5 prize or two Tier 4s and some extra, and 10 C sets will probably limit you to Tier 3 at best.

After running out of bonuses, you will still get points for taking out the fleets, but no bonuses.  This could reduce people from receiving as much help from allies as they used to, since people who get points by just 'kill shotting' prepped fleets, will eventually run out of bonuses.

New Prizes - Leaked Stats:
The new prizes have been officially revealed as the Nuclear Cruiser hull, and the Impulse Launcher D92U.  

The bpoutpost.com Facebook page showed pictures with stats of the new prizes.  


(2/11 edit - these are confirmed from the raid video) I'll do some analysis on these, just to get a feel for how good these new prizes might be.

With their range, it feels like a missile weapon would be most comparable, although the shockwave is a wild card.  Lets compare it to Siege Missiles and Assault Missiles:



(click to enlarge)
(Correction - SFB3 Assault Missile has 96 Range)



I didn't include any reload bonuses, which would make the Impulse Launcher look a little worse in comparison, because of the 4 salvo.  The 50% reload on the Nuclear Cruiser is also a bit short of the 65% reload on the MCX, or 100% on the MCX R5, so that is a consideration too.  One more consideration is that Radioactive resist is much scarcer than Penetrative, so these will be more effective against most targets.  But with these stats, I look at this as a FvF or prep fleet weapon - a step up from assault missiles.  One more non-obvious consideration - with missiles you need to use a special slot to increase range (Solid Fuel Booster or Strike System).  So when comparing a ship using impulse launchers to ships using missiles, you have an extra free special slot.  This is a big advantage.


Of course the big wildcard is the shockwave... I would speculate that once enough hits are made on a target within a certain time period, the shockwave happens for nearly 8000 damage, possibly with some splash.  That is nearly enough to take out a turret or most FvF ships.  That mechanic could be a big advantage for the Impulse - we'll just have to see what they come up with.

Overall, I'm excited for this new weapon and hull.  Used together, I think they will be really powerful.   Also, I'm really hoping for a cool shockwave effect!

Please leave any comments below, and don't forget to use the tools at the bottom of the page to subscribe via email or RSS.  I'll post my armor build time article on Monday morning - it's almost done.

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