View unanswered posts | View active topics It is currently Tue Mar 19, 2024 8:50 am



Reply to topic  [ 8 posts ] 
 PVP guide 
Author Message
User avatar

Joined: Fri May 14, 2010 7:20 pm
Posts: 1178
Reply with quote
You get more XP per a battle when you win the battle, meaning you deal more damage than you take each attack. PVP attacks get you slightly more XP per an attack than battling NPCs. There is also an XP bonus for disabling a ship that is higher ranking than your own, much like that of disabling any NPC, though the XP bonus will probably end up being less significant. The fewer attacks it takes to disable a higher-ranking player, the better energy/XP ratio. NPCs die faster than higher-ranking players in most instances however.

The only thing that can make your attacks less effective, besides your opponents defense, is the size of the ship you are attacking. Ships with less decks, smaller ships, have a damage cap because they are harder to hit with your weapons. This will be true no matter how much attack you have. If you take the habit of attacking lower-level, or smaller ships, it makes sense to sacrifice your weapons for other modules as decks always seem to be in short supply. It is also possible to take the opposite strategy and cast off decks and defense for crew, but it will end up being limiting. It will probably take more energy to disable anyone as well.

Conversely, if you feel like taking down a giant, you may as well stack all of your weapons up and abandon your defenses, except hull/shields of course. Artifacts such as 'EMP sphere' will stack consectutively in a diminishing manner... 10%, 19%, 27%, 35%

There is no XP to be gained by defending. By defending, you are only saving yourself repair costs, making it more wasteful to disable you, potentially making your stats look better, and defending against raids. Most people looking to disable you will do so regardless of your defenses, so defending against raids is usually the only real consideration. Not repairing your ship is often the best course of action until you have more energy for a counter-attack against them. Since only attacking has benefits, and defending is nearly pointless, initiative is probably the biggest factor in PVP. Defense, however, is still half of the equation in terms of you "winning" a battle, whether you are attacking or defending and it is still a part of it making it wasteful to attack you in terms of XP gained by whomever might be attacking you. The only disadvantage of being disabled is the missions you can't do and the fact that you can be raided. Raiding risks someone's crew for a chance at your minerals, which probably aren't there. A critical success means you lose an artifact. Success is based on your crew vs. your opponents crew. I counter it by getting 1 of each mineral I consider crap and then never stacking my artifacts and using any artifacts worthwhile.

Initiative is the key to successfully attacking people. There are many things that delay it. You will undoubtedly run into traps. A halcyon trap will make it so you can't attack or be attacked for an hour. Nothing gets rid of a halcyon trap. Not your containment cages nor their containment missiles. Initiative continues once it has worn off and you should only have more energy for attacking. Traps are sprung by a chance that is determined by how much hull the opponent has left. The less hull they have left, the higher the chance of a trap going off on a particular attack. A krionus virus trap reduces your attack by 90%. You can't expect to disable someone with 10% attack power, but at certain levels most people have every trap equipped, so if you have worn down their hull a fair bit, you can usually expect a few wasteful attacks to set off a halcyon trap which will usually save you from the death sentence that a krionus virus trap, and vengeance usually imply. Omicron traps can be an automatic death sentence at lower levels, not so much at higher levels.

Considering the concepts of intitiative and vengeance, a calming amplifier is essentially futile. You use it on yourself and it pacifies you, and others from attacking you, for 12 whole hours. Anyone with a containment missile that wants you dead will kill you. Also you cannot use a containment cage to get rid of it. You're stuck with it even if that is what your opponent wants. I use them as a last ditch effort to build energy when people don't particularly want my head on a pike. The availability of artifacts at lower levels is generally lower though, so it may be effective in certain instances, but it gives up ALL initiative.

Omicron nets pacify you for 4 hours. Containment missiles from your opponents will not work on them but your containment cages will. This is positive initiative, and is usually an excuse to build energy while you leave it active. You can attack at will as long as you have a containment cage.

Having a good artifact production is imperative for PVP. Consumable artifacts are essentially designed for combat and the rest aren't too shabby either and they provide a lot of permenant benefits, especially with production. At level 150 I have 942 decks and 362 crew. That would be more than impossible without artifacts. Crew are the only way to defend against raids and they are essentially free with a decent artifact production.

I prefer hull to shields for the fact that I am either dead or I am not and they are more space effecient. I have had some rather powerful enemies. Shields will regenerate while you are disabled. If you have a research-heavy strategy, then repair costs will eventually become ridiculous and shields will be more cost-efficient. I base my production strategy around the planets I end up settling. That has little to do with PVP and it is a different balance for everyone. Shields can easily be better than hull based on your production.

Group dynamics play a large part as well. If someone is in a powerful or large legion, you can expect repercussions. Notifying someone requires a hack, raid, disable, or the use of an offensive artifact. These are strict, specific rules. An attack doesn't count, even if it sets of a trap, though that will leave a notification on THAT person's newsfeed and they will be able to attack you for 2 days just for that, just like any other notification. This works both ways, you also get notifications for traps you have sprung. Most legions have sets of rules they expect their members to obey. I don't really see that happening without every member having a photographic memory though or some kind of time limit. The thing almost anybody lacks in these interactions is the ability to "lay low" or turtle up for 2 days until the notifications dissipate. It often involves NOT setting traps.

Happy hunting, I will hopefully modify this to make it more coherent in the future.

_________________
Image
Click to join! Rank 300+


Fri Sep 24, 2010 10:05 am
Profile
User avatar

Joined: Mon May 03, 2010 5:48 am
Posts: 1945
Reply with quote
SpoonyJank wrote:
PVP attacks get you slightly more XP per an attack than battling NPCs. .


Killing Boss NPCs (we got LOT of them on daily basis) gives us HUGE HUGE exp boost in range of 150 all way to 400 exp per kill per person. It's crazy. That's why we are advancing faster in ranks as Dysonians all thanks to NPC farmings.. PVP actually slows us down alot.. NPC farming wins in terms of awesome loot and exp.. PVP no where matches that.. I know because I PVP ALOT in last 4 months (look at my PVP stat and its sick) and I switched to NPC farming and it's much more rewarding than PVP..

I just point out your statement that PVP gives more exp.. It's definitely not in our case.. NPC actually gives us much more exp overall.. I love getting average 250ish exp bonus from about 10ish NPC bosses (2.5k ish more exp bonus per day if doing NPC and it won't even be there if I do 100% PVP) per day.. It adds up fast.. On top of nice many vaults, rescued/strylll prisoners, and loot. PVP drops NO loot. Nothing.. Very unrewarding.. As for hacking for planets, anyone can hack every 15 min while farming NPCs anyway.. No loss there. About disable and raid.. It is completely unrewarding compared to NPC kill..
NPC kill > PVP kill in terms of loot and exp.. What's more.. If you wanna get "decent" PVP exp, you gotta fight higher rank players.. NPC fighting doesn't matter.. Exp bonus upon kill is not affected by rank at all.

_________________
Nocifer Deathblade, Founder and Leader of the Dysonians
Image


Fri Sep 24, 2010 1:36 pm
Profile
User avatar

Joined: Fri May 14, 2010 7:20 pm
Posts: 1178
Reply with quote
Nocifer Deathblade wrote:
SpoonyJank wrote:
PVP attacks get you slightly more XP per an attack than battling NPCs. .


Killing Boss NPCs (we got LOT of them on daily basis) gives us HUGE HUGE exp boost in range of 150 all way to 400 exp per kill per person. It's crazy. That's why we are advancing faster in ranks as Dysonians all thanks to NPC farmings.. PVP actually slows us down alot.. NPC farming wins in terms of awesome loot and exp.. PVP no where matches that.. I know because I PVP ALOT in last 4 months (look at my PVP stat and its sick) and I switched to NPC farming and it's much more rewarding than PVP..

I just point out your statement that PVP gives more exp.. It's definitely not in our case.. NPC actually gives us much more exp overall.. I love getting average 250ish exp bonus from about 10ish NPC bosses (2.5k ish more exp bonus per day if doing NPC and it won't even be there if I do 100% PVP) per day.. It adds up fast.. On top of nice many vaults, rescued/strylll prisoners, and loot. PVP drops NO loot. Nothing.. Very unrewarding.. As for hacking for planets, anyone can hack every 15 min while farming NPCs anyway.. No loss there. About disable and raid.. It is completely unrewarding compared to NPC kill..
NPC kill > PVP kill in terms of loot and exp.. What's more.. If you wanna get "decent" PVP exp, you gotta fight higher rank players.. NPC fighting doesn't matter.. Exp bonus upon kill is not affected by rank at all.


The countless NPCs you mill through give different sizes of XP bonuses and many seem to get smaller as you rank up. I could be wrong about that. PVP attacks seem to give 3 more XP per an attack than fighting NPCs. NPCs do probably give better XP overall due to the bonuses, I sort of implied that. Definitely better loot, but you can't really count on finding bosses just for yourself. I spent ~4000 energy fighting NPCs yesterday and only found one boss and only one rare. It just doesn't seem fun to click until something is dead if it isn't an actual person and has no way of intelligently fighting back. At lower levels, sometimes it is possible to kill someone in 1-3 hits who is higher level than yourself. That can be up to a 5-10x XP return. Fighting NPCs will always be way faster. Using 1000 energy on PVP usually takes all day and it can be blown on NPCs in minutes. I just think PVP is a lot more fun and the XP returns aren't really that bad. There isn't much reason to not get NPC loot when one is shared, but the process of finding them is tedious and there are also a lot of missions that might need to be done instead.

_________________
Image
Click to join! Rank 300+


Fri Sep 24, 2010 8:01 pm
Profile
User avatar

Joined: Mon May 03, 2010 5:48 am
Posts: 1945
Reply with quote
SpoonyJank wrote:
I spent ~4000 energy fighting NPCs yesterday and only found one boss and only one rare. .


Heh, that's the problem of non-NPC farming legion. It could cost me just 2k energy total to kill about 10-15 NPC bosses in a day thanks to all shares by other members raking in lot of exp bonuses. That's what make legion great by working together. ;)

There are plenty of PVP to do at your rank area but it won't be when your rank is getting too high.. I find it rather boring to kill low rank players unchallenged only to hear all boring, constant whinings and they give sucky exp bonus simply cuz they are too low rank... I find NPC bosses more formable opponents.. NPCs never ever whines.. Thank Innoruuk for that..

_________________
Nocifer Deathblade, Founder and Leader of the Dysonians
Image


Fri Sep 24, 2010 8:43 pm
Profile
User avatar

Joined: Tue Apr 27, 2010 2:38 am
Posts: 920
Reply with quote
NPC"S are truly boring. :roll: I dont see that as much teamwork at all to take down a big boss. Killing something that does not fight back in anyway shape or form seems more like target practice. What is it going to do? expire on you? Nocifer is right the average is way higher for killing NPC'S like his groups is hands down :mrgreen: . At what cost of game play, thats a different story. A lot of people seem to enjoy PVE though and more power to them :?: . To me it seems about as challenging as clicking the mouse. Now what Baltar does, PVP, thats a LOT more fun and challenging, but a lot less profitable :twisted: . Baltar you just dont get the crazy amount of boss's those guys do, and if you did you would not have the energy left to be an infamous player like you are ....:)

_________________
I fart in your general direction!

Image

That's it! You people have stood in my way long enough. I'm going to clown college!


Last edited by jcwiggens on Mon Sep 27, 2010 8:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.



Sun Sep 26, 2010 4:04 pm
Profile

Joined: Fri Sep 17, 2010 9:22 pm
Posts: 132
Location: Orlando, Florida
Reply with quote
Great Post and Replies!

Thank you all for contributing and I hope this gets expanded on as a topic or forms some parity to the rules of engagement!


Sun Sep 26, 2010 9:40 pm
Profile
User avatar

Joined: Sat Sep 18, 2010 9:25 pm
Posts: 570
Reply with quote
About what level do you start running across "boss NPC" kill missions?

_________________
Razorback
Officer, Error 404


Tue Sep 28, 2010 2:19 pm
Profile
User avatar

Joined: Fri May 14, 2010 7:20 pm
Posts: 1178
Reply with quote
Razorback wrote:
About what level do you start running across "boss NPC" kill missions?


I don't know, 40? They randomly pop up on the battle tab if you kill enough NPC's, then you share them with your legion. The one's you get are based on your level. I would guess a 50 person legion usually gets you 5-10 a day on your ship's log. Legions dedicated to it can get quite a bit more. They have nice loot sometimes. You need to max your attack out at lower levels. At higher levels shields and defense will save you a lot of credits. You can do max damage on NPC's just like people. I'm not really convinced the drannik race is all that great for just that reason. I wouldn't know though.

_________________
Image
Click to join! Rank 300+


Wed Sep 29, 2010 4:27 am
Profile
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Reply to topic   [ 8 posts ] 

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 13 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
cron
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group
Designed by ST Software.