Most stuff has a rank limit, rank * 3 , so at rank 400 flamehawks would last until rank 1200, which PSICore is about to exceed. I'm curious to know when he (and/or other people do) go beyond 1200, if these things finally disappear.

sounds like you can't stand them X-D

what are flamehawks? if they are high lvl things i wanna be prepared

you start seeing them at rank 350 and they are very common

http://galaxylegion.com/wiki/index.php/ ... _FlameHawk

It's not necessarily strong, but due to high HP for its rank, it takes at least 7 hits to kill it (usually more). Although, at rank 1200, I guess the matched stuff might actually be more of a pain, depending. Currently it gives me about 2.4 xp/energy, could be far worse. It's one of three endlessly repeating things that you start to hate just because it's insidious. It's the thing that you purge off your NPC list because you want something better. You get the idea You will love to hate it too soon enough.

Well the hyperbolic damage cap based on the NPC's rank makes it so matched NPCs get progressively easier as you level even though their attack and defense are raised slightly every level. Although their HP does go up every 50 or 75 levels, or whatever it is, and they definitely get harder then.

Nothing can prepare you for the horde of flamehawks. Nothing.

After you have killed your umphfteeth falemhawk you wish the universe would just implode killing the pain.

Can you explain why it would be easier ? Here's an example:

Dark Runner, Rank 761
Hull: 2100
Attack: 3379
Defense: 5665

rank 331 (wiki data)
hull 1350
att 1444
def 2440

per rank:
hull: 2.76 for rank 761 / 4.08 for rank 331 / 5.20 @ 231 (1200 hull someone told me)
att 4.40 , about the same for both (averaged)
def 7.41 , about the same for both (averaged)

So, the att/def are linear with rank, but the hull/shield of stuff seems to follow a different pattern. I observed before, a step of 150 hull for this enemy. It appears to be 75 or 100 ranks per step with a base like 900, so lets say it will bottom out at about 2 hull/rank. However, if I keep attack matched to its defense, then my damage scales I think 2.5x rank, so in that case it actually might get easier ... however if I don't add tac officers, I will not keep up with its defenses in the long run (rank > 1000) so it will start to level off, right now I am taking 6-8 hits to kill it (theoretically you can 2-shot it). Since defense is it's primary stat, it will tend to always be harder, the Charger is balanced and much easier to 3-4 shot kill even at higher ranks.

Each rank the damage cap is raised by 2.5 hp and that applies to any attack ever to varying degrees since it is a hyperbolic equation... Enough that it trumps the linear improvements in attack and defense. This might only be true if your stats are already past a certain point. The increase in hull is what actually makes them harder as you level and those come in big chunks every 100 levels or something.


The curve is probably more extreme than that. It is the same thing that makes engineers better than tactical officers for leveling with NPCs. I use rank points from leveling to get engineers and get tactical officers from rescued prisoners. I don't really care to go on a spiel about auto-leveling. Flamehawks aren't what stop it, but they certainly don't help. I imagine they are replaced by something even more annoying eventually. Dan has plenty of creative ways to prevent people from leveling a kajiilion times in a day. Clicking NPCs takes long enough to physically do, getting a 4.0 xp return is the only way to sustain auto-leveling, RSL memory plant drops seem to have been nerfed, there is always something like flamehawks or matched NPCs getting more hull to gum things up, repair costs. The point of all that trouble trying to sky rocket in level without paying is to settle more planets, which are hard to find and defending hundreds of planets is sort of a burden itself. I will say though that it is a lot more sustainable. If you get only tactical officers you will end up paying money to keep up in not only level, but eventually even attack.

My observation is that it is almost linear when your attack = npc defense, that's the center of the function. The drannik +40% npc bonus is not a +40% damage, it's more like 20% if your attack is higher than npc defense (although, it might extend how long you can go with the max attack from modules). I agree energy is always better because it's always linear (more attacks). Theoretically, if you had a massive attack (like 12-16k) you can 7-shot them (minimum possible shots) and get almost 3.0 ratio. The reality is more like 2.5-2.7 without adding tac officers, at least it doesn't get any harder with rank.

Regarding the XP thing, it's not necessarily 4.0 needed, below is the ratio needed depending on how many extra (assuming +10 energy from engineers per rank) engineers you need, and what ratio you need on your activity to auto-rank:



As Inergon I get the +1 automatically. 1 prisoner/rank will get you toward +6 anyway. I am also under 3.0 ratio needed based on current rank/max en, I am left with excess when NPC hunting without xp buffs. I just shield tank until I get to where stellar cartography + neural will rank up, then NPC again. If out of exotic, I continue killing NPC for planet boosting drops. I did note RSL NPC is now extremely rare (I thought it was uncommon before), however I paid for enough RSL shares and I only use them when auto-ranking with a lot of exotic, now I just use half my bar on that instead and don't need RSL as often. Time and more planets yields more prisoners for energy, in fact this accelerates as you get more AP since you need 1 prisoner per 2 ranks to keep up.

About planets, the cost is a n^3 function, so that's getting rather high and is the limiter, not slots anymore. However, by purging and rescanning a lot (1856 purger completion atm) I am able to find enough decent planets to sell (more than I can colonize based on income) for either kurenite (which helps me colonize) or exotic matter (which lets me find more planets). I am really only limited by the share timer for planets in that regard (more demand than I can share). It will get slower, but it's a reasonable feedback loop. Will be finishing and installing Continuum Analyzer today, finally (up from hyperflux 1), should yield > 1000 scan just for the convenience during a scan run of having more (really, the limiter for finding planets is purgers anyway).

it all good talking about flamehawks... but does anyone know the rank limit X-D i think we have gone quite off subject here

Nobody is that high a level. Nobody's rank 1200, and it's unknown if they'd stop then anyway; I know I'm still seeing Sha'din Raptors (140) past rank 420.

Pretty sure every non-matched ship has a range it is available from. However not all of them have exactly the same pattern such as Level x3. The problem is (unless you hack the game, which Dan would be very upset if you did): the only NPCs you know for certain where their visible range is are the elites/bosses (which tell you when you share them).

On the rank issue ... the Telary's carrier is also rank 500 but the max it states is 1200 .. so I think its the current highest cap that Dan expected when he made it, meaning that it's likely to be adjusted when PSICore reaches 1200. Unfortunately, the flamehawk is likely to appear after 1200 if it's purpose is to absorb energy or slow NPC hunting.



I have taken over 300 samples by attacking flamehawks and recording the damage to/from the NPC. This is the result:



It seems to be mostly linear, except the ends which may indicate critical hits.

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree with Spoony on this. Just switched to Drannik, rank 430, and fully buffed it still takes me 3 hits to kill a Sha'din Raptor or Ionic Battleship, but I could take out a Sha'din Charger in two hits, Dark Runner in 3 or 4, and a Blade Harvester in 3 (8exp/energy), so the ranked ships were definitely easier.

yeah you will end up with flamehawk as the only ranked ship, but it will take 7 hits min to kill, even with drannik. the dark runner is 5-7, the charger is 3-4, even if you boost up weapons a lot.

Yeah, the Flamehawk still takes about 11 hits even with the buffs, but it's still going pretty well.

Update ... Crimson Tyrants at least (rank 300) still are appearing after rank 900, so the 3x rule isn't necessary applied to all NPC. I would wager the higher stuff or last of category for a drop type, doesn't have a rank limit.