Era 34: Time Stackers

every way is different ... yet there are some basics :)
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Neimenljivi
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Era 34: Time Stackers

I've decided I will post a quick guide-through each era based on my take of the era's specific features and of the options that these allow. Hopefully this will be of some help especially to the new blood in the game.

QUANTUM ERA 34 Time Stackers
Time runs like an arrow. Linear, and in one direction ... right? no.... wrong. At least here.
Here, time can be stacked, like pancakes.
Layer an attack (or defence) on 99 (or 3, or 11, or 65,e tc) other attacks, appearing as one action, but powered by many!
You are become legion!
Come, twist the powers of time better than your enemies!
Come, be a time stacker!


This era might seem pretty straight-forward. You can super-amp your strike, your defence, even your covert when sabbing. But there's more than meets the eye.

You can devise different strategies. Go with low stats and time-stack your strike and defence - you will be able to farm people with much bigger defence, likewise you will be able to defend against people with much bigger strikes. But at what cost?
When defending, you will use ATs if you time-stack your defence. With time stack of 10, when someone attacks you with 10 ATs, you will use 100 ATs, if they attack you with 15 ATs, you will spent 150 ATs. Your defence will appear as 10x as powerful, but you have to weigh how much naq you might lose if you are attacked versus how much naq you would gain by using the ATs you otherwise would have lost by defending with a time-stacked defence.
When attacking - yes, you might successfully attack someone with a much, much bigger defence by time-stacking your attack. You will have used the time-stack multiple of the amount of ATs you attack with (so if you time-stack with 3 and use 15 ATs - you will have used 45 ATs for the attack and your attack will be 3x as powerful). So how much naq would you otherwise have gained with 3 attacks on people you do not have to use time-stacked attack?

You can also sab someone, with covert much higher than your own, by the use of time-stacking. The cost of sabbing is measured in covert capacity, and a "normal" sabotage uses 3 capacity. Each stack above this, uses x 2 ... so A timestack of 2 uses 3 + (2 x 2) = 7 capacity. The next stack (3rd one) would use 7+(3x2)=13 capacity. the next (4th) uses 13 + (4x2) = 21 capacity... Basically it can be used very, very effectively since there is no real "time-stacked covert defence" against it. Time-stack sab does not increase the amount of weapons you destroy, only your covert power per each spy. The only defence against sabbing is maintaining a very, very high covert which means a lot of spies, and having a realm alert level set on max also helps. This does, of course, decrease your income, so you have to weigh your income versus the threat of losing weapons and the cost of losing x percent of your weapons.

You can choose not to have many weapons, and time-stack your defence to keep your income high and safe. You have to consider the amount of ATs you will lose when people try to farm you though. But you won't have to worry about your covert or about losing many weapons if someone decides to sab you.

You can choose to have big stats and not use the time-stacking option at all - to protect these stats you will have to have a big covert, which will decrease your income.

You can choose a medium route - moderate time-stacking with moderate covert.

You can, of course, go the standard route of having small stats and build your army right until the final weeks of the era. Doing this will result in having bigger attack, defence, covert and AC and MS at the very end. But you will have a very bad GnR rank which is also being counted towards the final rankings. So how better will the sum of other 5 rankings be compared to the bad GnR rank? This is a decisive factor in determining the right strategy.

Time-stacking your defence exposes you to another threat, though. Sure, losing a couple 10 or even a hundred ATs might not seem much if you save a few days of your income throughout the era. But then again, what if someone masses you? You've stored 5k ATs, happily await to use them, then someone decides to mass you. They can use 500 ATs to "destroy" your 5k ATs, if you use def time-stack 10. Will you be harder to mass? Of course. Is it worth it, though?

Alternatively if you wish a revenge for an enemy with no regards to the ATs cost you may easily pump up your attack and mass someone with little naq and UU costs, only AT costs.

The choice is yours. The choices are many, all come with their benefits and drawbacks. Most importantly, always choose to have fun.

PS: Please post all your views on era 34 regarding different tricks, tips, strategies, etc., in this thread. Everyone's opinion and view is valuable and desired - it can give a broader perspective which is always welcomed.

~Jack
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Haz wrote:It took a bit of time, but the investigation has now been completed.
S1eepy will be banned for scripting, for the remainder of this era.
Name: S1eepy [ TheCheekyChickens ]
{Banned}
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