The Professor's Two Year Anniversary

This blog published its first article on January 30th, 2014.  

And just in case you are wondering, that first article was a review of a new hull - the Sawfish.  The Sawfish was released in the Forsaken mission - along with Agility System and the D33-D cannon.

Going back over that article, there was one real interesting sentence I wrote that really illustrates how the game has changed over the last 2 years:

This hull is the lower end ballistic hull that we were all expecting.  It is in the same vein as the Mercury, Mauler, Mako, or Rampart, with reduced capability compared to its bigger brother hull, but also reduced build time.  The Sawfish compares fairly closely to the Stingray, but is it worth it?

And again, just to refresh some history for those readers without a steel-trap memory, the MCX, Dreadnaught X, Thresher, and Goliath were the "big brother" hulls.  Each of the the littler hulls (except the Mako) had reduced build time & reduced capability from the higher end hulls.  Those hulls were released to be appropriate for up and coming players, and they are STILL relevant to up and coming players.  Why?  Low hull build time.  

But the point is that we expected low-end, little-brother hulls because that's what Kixeye was doing.  When was the last time Kixeye released a hull that was not targeted at the top-end players?  Was it January 2014?

After that article, the Nuclear Cruiser & Launchers were introduced in the February raid, and the Atlas Carrier & Hornet UAVs were introduced in the March raid.  In April we saw the first Limited Hulls - Grimshine's Berserker & the High-Lander Nuclear Cruiser.

It really seems I started my blog just as Kixeye decided to kick off the flood of content and start to ramp up the complexity of the game with new weapon types, and it really hasn't slowed much since.

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For my 1 year anniversary, I did a look back & tried to highlight some of my most useful articles.  For my 2 year, I'm going to do something different.  I'm going to try to explain how I play Battle Pirates.  Certainly over the last two years the "whales" have been emphasized more & more.  Players will spend thousands of dollars on this game - then get extremely upset when they realize they are not having fun.  Essentially they realize that they didn't get VALUE for the money they have spent, and then the rage quit in a blaze of glory.  Or just walk away without a peep.  

I will say that it is really tough to compete in this game without spending a cent.  I played free for a couple years, then spent a little bit of money in a raid to win the Strike Cruiser (when it was new).  Once I got those built (about 2 months later) I actually had a competitive fleet, and by continuing to spend a little bit ($10-30) per raid I have been able to continue to keep up.  For those players who fiercely choose to say that you won't give Kixeye a cent, but keep trying to "get over the hump", I suggest that you aren't ever going to get there.  It's tough to get value for nothing... consider what this game is worth to you.

And for those players who spend thousands, you also need to consider what this game is worth to you.  If you have the disposable funds to spend that much money, and you choose to, that's fine, but you should also consider what else you could be spending that money on and decide if Battle Pirates is the best way to spend that money.  If you decide that it is... good for you, but don't get upset when you realize that you haven't received thousands of dollars of value for the thousands you've spent.

I highlighted the same phrase twice up above - both in relation to whales and free players.  CONSIDER WHAT THIS GAME IS WORTH TO YOU.  Be willing to spend that much, but not much more.

So I continue to put in about $50 into this game every other month, and I think many players out there would say that you can't compete while spending that little.  I will admit that I generally can't crack the top bases, and I can't defend my base against the top fleets.  But I have fun playing this game.  I don't feel like there is any part of this game that I just can't do.  To go into more detail:

• I hit bases to get my alliance points every week.
• I keep a guard fleet and nobody walks through my base (less than 25% fleet damage).  I have been in the range of 250 - 300 medals for quite a while... without going "medal hunting" or "medal shedding".
• I play every raid. I get the top prizes but not always the limited prizes.
• I sometimes help other players in raids.
• I do Elite Tier in the Forsaken Mission twice each week without coining repairs. 
• I continue to work on the new R&D - I'm working on Objective 6 now.
• My retro lab is constantly busy - specials & weapons I use frequently are R15.
• I use VXP weekends to get my key ships to Legendary.
• I beat the TLCs without coining repairs, but usually not all 5 Mastery rounds.
• I compete in the FAT when I feel like it.
• My arena rating is 1514 but I haven't played in it for a long while.

So what's the key to playing like that?  Having good fleets.  Some players will tell you that a ship is obsolete a month after it is released, but a well designed fleet will be useful in this game for much longer than that.

My overarching philosophy towards fleet design is that you need to start with a good fleet design, and build it.  It seems sort of obvious, but some players just jump from building ship to ship without a plan, and then have a bunch of mismatched, ineffective ships.  It can be tempting to build the newest, shiniest hull, but having three half-done fleets is less useful than one fully completed fleet.

Let's look at the last few full fleet builds I've done, along with the hull's release date:

Hellstrike - Dec 2013

Nuclear Cruisers - Feb 2014

Harlock's Atlas - May 2014 

Interceptor V2-H - Sept 2014 (build is a bit of a guess - I did some refits & forgot the original build)

Crusaders - March 2015 (Monarch added later)

Rhinos - August 2015 (with Aegis / Neptune / Proto-Hunter)

Tiger Sharks - October 2015

As a side note - the only major builds that I started and abandoned along the way are a Greta's Nuclear Cruiser fleet, and a Goresaber fleet.  For the Greta Nukes - I started those with F launchers but no armor.  I got fair use out of those in the Frost/Snow series of raids running them behind a Jugg X tank, but never finished the fleet, especially when I learned how bad the F launchers compared to others once ranked.  I have two Goresaber hulls done with a few Dragonfire rockets & specials, but saw those falling out of favor very quickly, and decided to stop those in favor of the Crusaders.  I never got much use out of them, although I continue to suicide them occasionally in Reaver Assault Bases for rank.

I also think I used a Frosty / Mastodon fleet for a while in there somewhere...

I've also built a few more hulls here and there, sometimes for Base Guard (like Enforcer, Goliath, or Omega Behemoth) or for other specialized tasks (Juggernaut X to tank, Mastodons for fire support).  But you can see I've skipped a lot of hulls too.  I didn't feel like playing too much with Reaver hulls and their 150% repair modifier.  I missed out on Nighthawks, Kodiaks, Fusion Cruisers... just to name a few hulls that were "worth building" yet I never did.  I also never got into the slow weapons like mortars, and the short range weapons like rockets & scatterguns.

I'm still finishing out the Tigers, as well as working on a few more goodies (like a Harlock's Aegis), so I still don't know what the next hull I would build around is going to be.  If I were ready to start today it would be the Draconian Carrier (not the Heavy Cruiser).

When I look back over those last seven fleets, four of them (NC, V2-H, Cru, Rhino) have been generalists.  I used those fleets in Forsaken Missions, Raids, Campaigns, and Base hits.  The Hellstrikes were mostly useful in Base Hits only (I still used MCX for other areas), the Harlock Atlas were not useful in FMs, and not very good base hitters without a Grimzerker, and the Tigers are obviously more specialized.  Whenever I've built a non-generalist fleet, I've always had an existing fleet that I felt was still a useful generalist.

My latest generalist fleet (the Rhinos) really benefits from having more specialized tank ships - the Proto-Hunter is optimized against ships, the Neptune is optimized against land targets & provides anti-mortar coverage, and then the Aegis provides anti-missile & more defense. I foresee being able to continue to use that fleet effectively by replacing the tanks and/or Aegis with upgraded ships while keeping the Rhinos (saving me shipyard time vs. building a whole new fleet).  My Punisher tank finished yesterday, so we will see how much of an upgrade that provides.

One of the benefits of not building every hull, and not doing it as soon as it has been released is that I watch other players to see what works and what doesn't.  I also get the benefits of being able to utilize tech that may not have been available when the hull was first released.  V2-H with Siege Missile Z is a good example of this.  I also was able to take advantage of using a HLNC with my NC fleet since that limited hull was released before I had a 4th NC built.

One of the drawbacks - You don't have every fleet type.  Nighthawks were often real effective yet I didn't have any.  Kodiaks were great once the Siege Z missile was released (and remember Strike B Kodiaks when bypass was reversed?).  But since I've always been able to play this game effectively, I never felt too left out.

So let's get back to where I started - how do I play this game for around $25 per month?

Where do I spend my coin?

Raid repairs:  200 coins has been my "average" raid spend for a while.  This is how I gain access to the tech I want.  I never have a build that I can't do because I don't have the blueprint. The most recent exception to that was when I didn't get the Harlock Aegis on its release.  That first Scourge raid was HARD, and I was not willing to spend the coin or time to get me those points.  I did pick up the Neptune even though I didn't have an immediate need for it... but it has turned out to be a real useful hull for me as a tank.

Ship builds:  For the amount of money I spend, I can't coin up full fleets, but I will speed up the last day or two if I want a ship done before a raid, and I'll speed up a few hours if it will be finishing overnight or some other time I can't access the computer.  Coining some Interception Systems on my Tiger Sharks before the December raid was a great investment to reduce repairs taken.  Really, I'd rather coin a build than a repair but it quickly gets too expensive.
Dock repairs: This is pretty rare.  More often I'm willing to walk away from the game & do something else.  

Where don't I spend my coin?

Non-raid ship repairs: I won't say never, but it is pretty rare for me.  I don't usually feel like it is worth it to me to spend money just to hit a base.  Campaigns, Missions, Uranium... it all can wait.  One very important case of this - snipers.  If someone is out hitting fleets with a Ghostcrawler or Phantom, I will absolutely bring in my ships and walk away.  I'll let the snipers stare at an empty blue ocean & have fun with that.

Research: It can wait.  Once in a while (like ship builds), I'll speed it up it if will be completed overnight as I do like to keep my retro lab busy, but more often I can wait for that extra retro level.

Buildings: Again, it can wait.  I defend my base, but I don't have an "ego" about my base.  If someone smashes it, I am perfectly fine with hitting repair & moving on with my life.  

Rank: Rank is super effective for increasing your ships' firepower, but it is too expensive for me to see the value in coining it.  Before VXP Weekend came around, I would grind away to the 45% - 60% range for my mainline ships... then be ready to move on to my newer fleet by the time I got there. Now I can get them to Legendary without too much trouble.  On the Reaver Assault Bases I use old outdated ships (like those Hellstrikes or Harlock Atlas) to tank while the other ships blast away at Hellhounds & rack up VXP.  I also generally do my ship builds by building them with partial weapons & specials first, then taking them out to rank while the rest of the fleet is building.  This lets me start ranking them earlier and gives me a general idea of their effectiveness.  My interim Tiger build was surprisingly useful.

I hope this summary helps you understand where I come from in paying this game, and how you can spend a little bit of coin to get a lot of enjoyment from this game.  One key - I don't let my ego get in the way... I'm always willing to walk away.

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One more announcement... you may have seen this on Wednesday's Battle Pirates Crib show (or elsewhere), but Kixeye has started a series of meetings with a small group of experienced players called a Town Hall (as a closed group I'm not sure that's the best term for it, but so be it).  These meetings are with the Kixeye Battle Pirates leadership & staff.  The first meeting was last week.  The players participating were Dead Sinner, Boba Fett, PriceIsWrong, Dirty Harry, & myself.  Attending from Kixeye were Michael Murguia (VP/GM), Paul Preece, CM Doomrooster, and approximately 15 more staff (whom we didn't see or meet).  Our first meeting was a bit of an orientation, but we also were able to discuss some substantive issues, such as the overall complexity of the game, as well as build & repair times.  I can't go into full detail, as all players participating were asked to sign an NDA, which I take very seriously.  We plan to have these meetings every other week going forward.  It is early to make any conclusions, but I am optimistic that they are interested in listening to what we have to say.  Although I would prefer an even more public forum, I hope that this format allows for 2-way, frank discussion where we can suggest concrete, realistic actions that will improve and sustain the game going forward. 

Since I announced this Wednesday - I would like to add two more notes: 

• I'll say this first one bluntly - I (and the other players involved) are not doing this to be your suggestion box.  We each have been playing a long time, and have ideas about what makes Battle Pirates fun and what makes it not fun.  We have all been involved in the community and know that build & repair times are a drag.  Fair play (no hackers) is critically important.  Our issues are your issues, and we don't need our inboxes bombarded.
• Price brought up a concern about announcing this group, and I share it.  It's an issue that both he and I have run into previously - We don't want to be Kixeye's propaganda tool.  If I write an article about something, or when Price talked about something on the BV show... we were (and still are) always concerned about pumping up something that really isn't very good.  I don't want my announcement of this group to be taken as some sort of rosy statement that everything will get better.  If it is just for us to bring up the same issues that have been brought up over and over in the Kixeye Forums and various Facebook groups already, it won't be very useful.  We will need to get the 2-way discussion with Kixeye going, under cover of the Non-Disclosure, in order to make any progress at all.  I want people to know that there is potential for progress, but we will have to wait and see what develops.

New Forsaken Mission gear - Solar Panels, Armor Piercing Shells, D5-M, & Coldsnap

Following the usual post raid cycle, Kixeye has released four new items for this week's Forsaken Mission.

Cadmium Solar Panels


These add 200 power to your base.  Clearly the best way to add power is to upgrade your Outpost, but once you hit Level 7 you might be stuck at the 85,000 power limit.

With 18 turrets at Level 5 (4,000 max power each), you can only use 72,000 power total, so 13,000 power is plenty for various tactical fields.
At Level 6, turret max power goes up to 6,400, so with 5 of those turrets, you can use up to 84,000 power in the turrets, and you might start maxing out your base power.  

The these Solar Panels are turret specials.  You will need to give up special slots on some turrets in order to get more power (for others?).   But really 200 power per panel isn't a huge deal - it might get you that extra bit you need for a field, but you'll need to build 12 to get enough power to move a maxed L5 turret to a maxed L6 turret, so I don't see these as a huge impact.

Armor Piercing Shells


Arbalest vs. Railgun... players seem so desperate for one to be better than the other.  With the weapon rebalance most of the weapons' efficiencies have become very close to each other, so there isn't a real good answer.  I lean towards the Arbalest with its higher building damage & higher damage per shot.  Also using a heavier weapon frees up weapon slots for things like D33-DR Disruption Cannons or D30-R Impact Cannons (which got real light in the rebalance).

Either way, this Armor Piercing Shells special is an OK deal.  35% damage for 14% weight is decent, and it enhances your piercing abilities by reducing the decay.  But when you add it to the Punisher with its 100% built in damage bonus, the relative benefit is lower, because the damage bonuses add (not multiply).  The 35% bonus becomes more like a 17% increase in damage, which isn't so good for 14% weight.  (By the way, this sort of math happens with other damage increase specials when stacked with a hull damage bonus... like Strike Warheads on a Rhino.)

So is it the best deal?  Let's look at a chart:

Looking at the raw DPS/hton numbers, the Armor Piercing Shells is isn't as good a deal as the Autoloader 3.  But there is another consideration - against deflection the damage reduction might swing things back to favoring the higher damage of the Armor Piercing Shells.

So if I look at this Punisher fleet as a target:
https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!B06M01R1R0U252B0O5Z1B1B1B1B1B1B0NH0251R25345Y6A680U232323514Q4Q4Q4Q4Q4Q0NH0251R25345Y6A680U232323514Q4Q4Q4Q4Q4Q0NH0251R25345Y6A680U232323514Q4Q4Q4Q4Q4Q0NH0251R25345Y6A680U232323514Q4Q4Q4Q4Q4QdC

Some design notes on this fleet:

• I like the Arbalest better - only 3 per ship seems low, but I have the Autoloader.
• DR cannon slows enemies in open water.
• Impact Cannon D30-R provides even more resistance and does good damage / weight.  (these seem to be overlooked in a lot of builds I'm seeing with empty slots & extra weight)
• The Aegis is a ship I can reuse - I only have one Harlock Aegis & I don't think I would prioritize protecting this fleet over my Rhinos.
• Using the Heavy Plate slows the Punishers down so the Aegis has a prayer of keeping up.

So I end up with a target that has 90% resistance against ballistic & missiles, 78% evade, and 500 siege/assault deflection. Heh heh heh.. I'm not sure what this fleet will be really good at, but it will be good at avoiding damage.

I was going to run some numbers here, but when looking at the Arbalest damage reduced by 90%, even the 3607 damage with AP shells comes up to be less than the Deflection of the Punisher (361 vs. 500).  So you'd have to hope for some kind of minimum pass-through damage (which we've never gotten a good answer from Kixeye about).  In that case, the higher auto-loader fire rate probably helps.  Against Carriers and Heavy Cruisers with less extreme resistance, then you'd start to have a chance to make a difference. My Drac Carrier design has 78% resistances, 76.4% evade & 450 deflection.

Now you see a slight edge for the Armor Piercing Shells.  So the "best choice" is all situational.  Stop asking for builds.

Zynthonite D5-M Armor


When D5-M was announced in the WIP, the deflection was mentioned, but the missile resistance was not... many people were confused by the D5-M designation on an armor with no missile resistance.  Well it has missile resistance and it is called D5-M.  

With 15% missile resistance and a relatively small amount of deflection, I consider this armor usable but maybe not a "use everywhere" sort of thing. Compared to D5-E, you have the same weight, armor points, and build time.  The Missile Resistance (+15%) is higher than the Evade Bonus (+10%). (Both can be increased with retrofit)

One more consideration for this armor is the reduced repair time.  This armor has the "40% repair reduction" compared to the 20% reduction of D5-E.  This is because the D5-M is a single resistance armor.  

When adding armors, I like to balance my evade with my weapon resistance - because "Kixeye math", adding 10% more evade at 80% evade doesn't help a whole lot, but adding 10% (or 15%) missile resistance at 40% missile resist helps a whole lot more.  Of course, it only helps against missiles, and not so much against ballistics or torpedos.... and then you have to think about bypass on incoming fire (bypass affects resist but not evade), and deflection.

For deflection, 20 seems mild, but I wouldn't kick it out of bed for eating crackers (if you know what I mean).  It is a bigger enhancement for hulls that have deflection already, since the extra deflection will be a bigger percentage of the remaining incoming damage.

One more consideration - Armor Abilities (like on the retrofitted Juggernaut X or Kodiak) do not affect the deflection on this armor.

Coldsnap Rocket Turret


Some of the Limited turrets have been good (Wendigo, Scattergun) and some haven't (Dead-eye Ballista).  What's this one?

I'm not even going to analyze the damage from this one .  It will do some damage (less damage than a Gargoyle & longer reload) but I don't care.  The big deal is the Coldsnap ability that disables tactical fields & overloads for 5 seconds.  In the WIP, they talked about overloads, and we were interested.  But fields make all the difference... because of Aegis.  Many base attacking fleets are hard to kill because of the extra 40 - 45% resistance from the Aegis/Harlock Aegis.  Combine that with some deflection and it's even worse.  The field is disabled for 5 seconds, and the weapon's reload time is 9 seconds.  But if the rocket is given a special that gives it nearly 100% reload or better, then the result will be that it reloads faster than the effect wears off.  Eruption Pyre would be my first choice, since that special also increases splash and projectile speed.  Slide Loader 2 or 3 would also give enough reload to have the same effect, but not increase the splash/speed of the projectiles.  Slide Loader 2 can be added to this weapon and still fit within a Level 4 turret.  Using Slide Loader 3 or Eruption Pyre will require a Level 5 turret.

The range of this turret is 140, which is a moderately long range... just a little bit longer than the Wendigo's range of 131.  Combining this weapon's effect with the Wendigo will be a real killer, since many fleets ignore Wendigo's ice effects via the Aegis or Frosty field.  If the Coldsnap disables the field, then the Wendigo applies the speed reduction and bypass effects, fleets could be a real sitting duck for Apoc mortars (or any other weapon).

Base design will be even more interesting.  Since the Wendigo placement usually ends up in a front corner, there may not be a good way to combine that with the Coldsnap.

Another consideration is that one type of countermeasure can shoot down rockets - the Trident missile.  Although Tridents don't have nearly the range of Blades or Harriers, they can be effective when used on Remote Targeting hulls, so some players might try the Trident to neutralize the Coldsnap.  We will have to wait and see whether that works...  You will need at least 10 Tridents to even have a shot at stopping all of the rockets in the Coldsnap salvo, and if even one gets through... it will be enough.