THB, I can't say... It really wasn't until about 3 years ago that I started actually tracking my progress (PvP not being a focus for me until I started running out of other things to do). But I started in what is now recognised to be a trap (Sillixx Builder), and I added many RP to decks while I was a builder (to the extent that when I changed race I had to add over 500 decks to be able to add other modules, which means that I had around 5000 decks when I changed). Again, though, I can't remember when I made that change, but it was definitely before Shadow Realm became Imminent Darkness in 2013; I'm fairly sure it was in [mid-late] 2012, but heck, that was a while ago now... All I remember was I had 5500 decks as a Sillixx and spent a few months using ship bots to be able to add the modules that had come in during that time (my aph was crap back then). As a proxy, my oldest rift is 2 yrs 10 mths old, and that would be about when I changed race the first time.
Regardless of when it was, I was already in the LSB pattern and as I wasn't being a power-gamer and testing every little change to the rules to see how they would benefit me (which without resetting I couldn't have known anyway, and I didn't join the forums until after the changes had been made), there was no way that I could have modified my play-style until it was far too late anyway... And once you have a couple of mission dysons (I scanned a pre-invincible one that I was able to take) and a 59x arti rift (which was GP rifted), there was no way I was going to reset and lose it all to start again...

oh, i totally agree. i was just replying nonsensically to the previous nonsensical remark that SSBs can carry as much scan as LSBs, when the numbers, based on decks required, obviously disprove it. as for sampling, due to the random nature, there is no way the methodology can be rigourous.

ad hoc, on my scan run today as a lazuli fixer with 12k scan, i had a dozen "too cloaked for you to lock", whereas in my previous scan run as litheor explorer with 16k had only a couple. so that is 10 more cloaked planets that i might have had a chance to lock if i had higher scan. as well, the 4k difference in scan meant that i petered out around 125 planets total shy of the previous run (each time was an hours worth with the NSX nanoshear ability), indicating that i had more unsuccessful scans.


webguydan (16july2010)

there are 2 rolls for scan ... once for success / fail - this is where your max scan comes in the first time - the more planets you have on scan, the tougher the roll for success. if you fail that first roll, you get the 'planet not found'.

webguydan's explanation 21dec2010)
Lone.Lycan's analysis (29sep2011)

if you succeed that first roll, you lock onto a planet, and then there is a 2d roll of your max scan versus the planet's cloak. if your max scan is higher than the planet cloak, your %success is based on the ratio of your max scan to the planet cloak. if your max scan is lower than the planet cloak, you automatically fail and you get the 'nearly scanned, but too much planetary cloak' message.

so, higher scan benefits in 2 ways - more planets per scan run (decreasing the amount of energy expended between successful scans) and succeeding in scanning planets with higher cloak.

Not to derail (I agree with you in general that more decks gives you an advantage in scanning), but the fact that the sampling would be reliably random would aid in your sampling and improve the veracity of your results. I did ask the head of statistics at my university about what kind of proportions in a population you need to be sampling to give reliable results and, again IIRC, it's not really a minimum threshold; it's more that, as your sample more and more of your population, your confidence intervals will simply become narrower.

E.G. If I scan 10 planets and 5 are unoccupied then I'll have a proportion to report (50% of all planets are unoccupied). However, I should give a confidence interval (I'm 95% confident that the true proportion lies between 30% and 70%). There is also something to do with large samples and the rules change when you're sampling more than about 10% of your population.

Footnote, these percentages were pulled from my backside.

oh, i understand about the statistical sampling. but the issue is that kevin stated that the 'majority' of 'good' planets can be found with 10k scan, without of course, defining what 'good' meant (so i injected my own definitions tongue in cheek). i can do a scan run and indicate what planets of what quality were found with a particular scan value, but it says nothing about the planets that were locked but failed on the scan vs cloak. those planets may or may not have been 'good', but since there is no way to confirm or deny his hypothesis, it is therefore unscientific. his arguments are based on emotion and opinion, and fail on a factual basis.

I think the boat is out without a huge sampling which tbh prolly is unfeasible. I have only 27k scans, but in my personal experience and form legionmates...having high scan only gets you a SMALL slice of anything good purely based on HIGH scan. Anecdotally people will super cloak good planets...so unless you are running 22k+ scan versus 12k what you 'cant see' is the same. Will the be 'some' mid range cloaked planets...sure...but i scan at minimum 17k and usually 22-24k depending what i use that day...i have NEVER found a planet with 10-20k cloak...they are all above or below.

Sure this is far from conclusive, but i have some sampling there already. I have found half dozen 15x arti planets--what i consider GOOD eating, along with a few storage worlds. I have also been lucky enough to eat, due to LA, several other max arti worlds and storage planets...none of which was over 10-11k cloak. Frankly all the best of the best wont be found...because what you can scan with just wont see them due to how well they are hidden. I doubt the % odds to find a cloaked planet based on not quite surpassing the cloak amount is non-existent. I think its straight up more scan or no find. Otherwise with all the millions of scans people do sheer numbers would drive finding loads of well hidden planets... If people can, and do, invade high def planets on 2% odds, as well as crit hack with no real scan/cloak then the circumstances would have come up here as well.

But back on point, i am dubious of the 10-20k cloaked planets hovering out there tantalizing those who can just barely not strand on tip toe to find them. I guess you could argue ANY # is too many...but you just don't know. IF it says it was too cloaked, thAT could be 1 pt too cloaked, or 15k more cloaed than you can find.
Also much harder now to quantify with twice as many planets in the galaxy and less players. So the individual odds of any planet being found are much lower.

I also , anecdotally, see more and more people finding dysons. Just from legions i have been in the last 2 years i have seen no less than 20 dysons found. Some people have found 5 or more by themselves. I know first hand of people with under 8k scan as well as 8k OF scans that have found dysons and great arti worlds... So more scans (and luck) i think is the key over just simple HIGH scan.

I can tell you as a side note that high scan and cloak has neither given me more crit hacks nor prevented more crit failures. I have, assuming unquestionably the highest cloak in the galaxy, and I crit fail as often as i crit hack...I crit failed twice in a row last week. Then crit failed a 90% invade --on a 15x vm arti

So rng is a huge wild beast, and volume over quality. If you can do both, kudos. Some ships rake so much ap they can super scan every week. Me i have to settle with 200-300 a week. I know people who have been scanning at 20k+ for over 100k scans and never found anything super impressive.

Just saying. Sorry for off topic threadjack.

@Juice: RNG is a given, but affects both SSB and LSB alike. i also agree that it is scan attempts that is key, with the caveat that the scan power should still be reasonably strong. that excludes scanning to grey each time with 5k scan power (as fun as it was lol).

but there are still situations where more scan power is going to always be better (the good make their own luck ??). you can scan more planets before getting into the very poor scanning realm (where you can burn a lot of energy for very little success) and if you do latch onto an enemy planet with some cloak, you have a better chance of locking it.

take an enemy planet with 8k cloak ... 8k is decent .. probably 3500 passive plus a couple of %cloak buildings. this is the level i aim for with my VM 3x's and M 5x's.

on my previous scan run as litheor explorer with 16k scan, the odds of locking that scan are:

1 - 8k/16k = 50%

on my most recent scan run as lazuli fixer with 12k scan, the odds of locking that planet go down:

1 - 8k/12k = 33.3%

subtract 200 decks worth of scan mods for 400 ranks (720ish) might give 9k scan so odds:

1 - 8k/9k = 11.1%

so that same 8k cloaked 'good' planet only comes within scanning range once a SSB has enough decks to support a higher level of scan. LSBs can get that higher level of scan much sooner than SSB.

i agree with you that the frequency of scan is definitely dependant on ap/hour and purger returns, unless someone wants to bomb the purger mission rank after rank. again, that is the same regardless of ship build, but the SSB will be less eager to do hundreds of runs of the purger mission as each rankup further increases their damage cap.

omg when will the complaining end...lol....your life is so rough...

also, on the twh elite thing...wow..if you couldnt kill / a fab without swapping weapons??? at like rank 300-400?? i give up

It is a good point to know your scan based on your argument since you claimed a LSB has an advantage in that department.

I love how you assume all >= 15x artifact planets you can scan have better than 10k cloak. For the most part, artifact planets fall into two categories. 1) Cloaked at or near max scan (including the limited artis), and 2) hardly cloaked at all. As a result, the majority of them we scan have under 10k cloak. I can tell you 16k scan is plenty to find really nice arti rocks.

Let's keep in mind that scan is also luck based. Just because you have slightly higher scan doesn't mean you'll scan anything good.



So why are you struggling to refute my arguments? Why are you now resorting to shading your text in different colors and screaming fail in every reply? I'm guessing you probably "won" the arguments because other people decided it was better to end the discussion since it no longer involved two adults.



No reading fail here, except for the fail that you claim LSB has an advantage. I've already argued how LSB has no real advantage in this game.

How do I have an advantage when you can hit my ship for more damage than I can hit your ship for? Your logic is flawed and makes no sense.



So where does Dan argue for SSBs? I've looked at the wiki and followed some of the links. I don't see Dan stating anywhere that he wants to make low deck ships overpowered in PVP to the point where they can do more damage to someone with a higher SS than them. Dan's main concern appears to be related to smaller ships getting one-shotted back in the day.

no, i was rank 800.ish at TWH. the problem was not that i could not kill a fab .. my firepower was vastly surpassed by others in the legion, so my one hit would do half the cap while others would hit for the full cap and i would have to yield to the 3 who had already hit for more.

but yeah, i also usually have a separate setup for PvP attack and another for NPC attack, so if i was in the wrong mode, i lost 25% of my NPC attack. the extra few hundred decks that i have acquired since then have helped immensely with avoiding that.

Against any one ship, the LSB will do better than the SSB.

Against one-another, the SSB has the advantage against the LSB.


A SSB with 40K might average 400 damage to my ship.
A LSB with 40K would average the same 400 damage to my ship.

Slight advantages either way here;

the LSB can:

- Install more weapons and more easily get their attack to 40K.
- Install more scanning modules at the same time and have a better chance of finding my ship.
- Install more energy modules and thus have more energy with which to hit me.

the SSB can:

- Hit me for longer before having to repair.


Repairing is pretty much a non-issue. Who, beyond rank 400, does not have the nanodrones to keep up with their gameplay?

Weapons are a small issue. I have 36091 attack before Anubix and Konqul bonuses. I have 27,288 tactical officers. That's about 8,750 attack gained from weapons; SSBs can still install SOME weapons, just not as many, and at higher ranks where weapons make up a smaller proportion of your attack, SSBs similarly have more space with which to install weapons. I am a MSB however, so I don't have difficulty seeing that a LSB could squeeze 10-12K attack out of their modules.

Scanning is a bigger issue here. No SSB, when PvPing, is going to have anywhere near as much scan as me when PvPing, let alone as much scan as a LSB. I routinely run 4000 scan, and thats gone down since I increased by defence with modules recently.

Energy. I get about 4000 energy from modules. For me, 4000 doesn't make much of a difference but I have 30K energy which is pretty big for my rank. I think more typical energy amounts for my rank are 16-20K, where 4000 energy is 20-25% of the energy bar. A hefty chunk, but not the end of the world by any means and I don't see energy very often being the determining factor in PVP success or failure.


So the LSB will do better than the SSB against any one ship, but that difference is only significant at lower ranks and begins to diminish steadily as rank increases. By rank 2000, I could easily see that 4,000 energy or 10,000 attack being easily accounting for by simple variance. After rank 1000, SSBs shouldn't have too much trouble getting their stats (at least the ones accounted for by crew) into similar ranges as those the LSBs hold.

I think the issue is that the LSB never sees the downsides to the SSB; they don't experience all of the module switching and optimising and making sure all the time that you've got the correct modules installed on your ship to be doing... Whatever it is you're doing. The SSB's only advantage is their insanely low damage cap which makes them incredibly difficult to kill, however someone in my legion's chat said something recently that opened my eyes. "EMPs are there for a reason". Use them. I've killed SSBs this seasonal by simplying EMPing them 10-20 times and bringing the average damage up into 'reasonable' levels, whilst doing the same to LSBs brought the average damage up into the thousands; SSBs still have the advantage there as well. But this one advantage is paid for with hard work and effort, in combination with actual quantifiable drawbacks such as reduced scan (Both when PvPing and planet scanning, or even more hugely... When looking for high-cloak NPCs such as the Silthion Hybrid Larva) and cloak (Makes them easier to find, although this as well as low defence is off-set by their difficulty to kill from damage cap).

I've been quite outspoken against the damage cap formula and I have suggested re-balancing the formula in the past (I used graphs and everything. Cool, right?) but I think this thread might actually be the thing that changes my opinion. Watching the argument from the outside as well as seeing some new little tidbits arise is making my think that SSBs aren't that OP after all. I will consider my stance on the argument carefully over the coming weeks, but at this exact moment in time I am actually on SenatorHung's side (for once).


Oh, and one last thing. To account for the fact that at the higher ranks the stat differences between LSBs and SSBs becomes narrower and accounted for by variance, there need to be either:

HUGE modules which provide % bonuses to stats.
Modules which provide bonuses to stats (again, by % IMO) and which scale with number of decks or ship size.

Such as:

MAC Cannon
Size: 50
Attack +120
Provides a bonus to attack which increases with ship size.

(#decks/50)%

Senator Hung, with just over 1100 decks (If you're strictly SSB), would get a meagre 2.2% attack buff. I would get an 8.8% attack buff. The LSBs (8800 decks, give or take) would be looking at 15-17% attack buffs.

+1 to massive.sized mods (like 100-125 decks, 50 is a bit low) that give a %bonus.

but might i suggest that the % bonus should NOT be based on ship size, but by the number of ship mods of that category installed and active ? a SSB tries to focus on the most efficient mods, which generally means fewer. not sure what % per mod ... but i'm sure someone can figure something reasonable out (i have only rostered the scan mods, i have no clue how many total attack mods there are in the game).

the SSB would still be disadvantaged .. they could swap modes to use these %bonus weapons more effectively but they have to give up something else temporarily to do so.

If you honestly think they both have merit then why not allow a deck reduction artifact added to the pullable artifact pool. If what you say is true, then people will leverage out and do what they think is best for them, they will try SSB see how much better they were with LSB and will go back. This would also allow you to PLAY the LSB for a bit and see how that play style works for you and if you don't like it you can go back. seems like the easyest solution.

NO NO NO NO.

the whole point of SSB is to be tough in PvP defense ... at the expense of all other areas of the game.

those who go LSB give up on being tough in PvP defense, but benefit in all other areas of the game.

that is what is known as a TRADE-OFF.

giving LSB access to SSB with a deck reduction negates the trade-off, giving them the best of both worlds, and giving SSB squat.

as for playing LSB, that is exactly what i did up to rank 385. i took the pain of the larger damage cap so that i could fit on 2 continuum analyzers to scan for planets. i sacrificed adding other mods in order to eventually achieve SSB, which is how it is supposed to work. EVERY ship in the game will reach SSB status .. i just chose to sacrifice to get there sooner.

+1

I still don't get why people keep wanting to change just the damage cap. It doesn't matter when you only hit offline targets anyway. Pure laziness. I'm still working on the math and stuff for an all-encompassing rebuild of the PvP system to address several issues. Hopefully by the weekend I'll have everything ready...

Because 10 minutes of clicking madly for a single red badge and a single yellow badge just makes the game boring as heck... I have a life, and that means I'm not sitting in front of the game for 16 hours per day clicking the entire time getting RSI...

+1
People can add decks as much as they want with ship bots, so any SSB can become LSB at will - but LSB cannot become SSB... So there is an imbalance right there that would be addressed by giving players the option to remove decks...

It is a choice and you made yours.
Both of you should complain to Dan for putting that gun to your head and forcing you against your will to add those decks that you had no idea could not be removed.
How rude of him...

Take responsibility for your own choices
Own your own poor decisions
Stop whining

kinda ironic that the guys who halc up say pvp is the most important part of the game, despite the fact that it provides next to no ship growth