StarGateWars Forums

it is suggested, and agreed, that the ratios for lifer kills should be fine-tuned.

It is currently:
2:1 for AC (2 lifer kill 1 AC)
3:1 attack merc
5:1 attack soldier
10:1 super soldier.


Proposed new ratios:
2:1 AC (2 lifer kill 1 AC)
2:1 attack merc
4:1 attack sold
7:1 supers

issues are lose of lifer makes it not worthwhile.
while being AC'd cannot kill AC unit quick enough if any attack exists

generally issue is its not worth it... this would help.

thoughts?

I agree with the ratio for supers, however I think it's rather strange that assassins have same ratio that attack mercs, while mercs can be bought on markets. And that there was such a difference with attack regulars with assassins (less with these new ratios), after all both are trainable/untrainable troops coming from uu...Supers need to be much harder to kill due to not being a "safe stock" for uu and also being needed for the mass back/retaliation. But 10:1 was probably a bit too hard...Don't know whether 7 or 8 would be best in my opinion.
Sadly we couldn't have a 1.5:1 ratio for attack mercs, as you cannot kill half a troop lol.

I think the ratios are still to high. IMO if you are going to be a succesful suicide bomber, and you want your 72 vrigins, your not going to be ok with just killing half an assassin, or a leg off of a strike merc... Also suiciding is the last option for an account that is getting dominated by someone with a higher ac level. It's like being a taliban in afghanistan surrounded by U.S. Marines... If you blow yourself up you wont take out the whole army, but your goal is to do some damage...
Therefore I come to the conclusion the ratio's should be:

1:2 for ac (1 lifer kills 2 ac (since this is the main original reason for lifer suiciding)
1:1 for strike merc
2:1 for regular soldiers (don't train all your spies as regular strike troops when you go offline)
5:1 for supers (supers shouldn't die so easily still imo)

Well lets take a very practical, realistic example.

An account has 10m strike supers and 10m mercs, armed with best weapons of course. 0 defense. The account trains up 3m AC'ers (high AC level), sabs away a defense and proceeds to AC.

Now for someone defending (assuming it's not our account we are protecting we dont just build another defense) - stopping the AC will be the priority. As the only way quick and efficient way to kill the AC is to remove the threat through lifer, lets lifer.

At current ratios, in order to remove the kill the 3m ACers attacking you, one must also lifer away 10% of the strike supers and mercs. That means 1m supers and 1m mercs must be killed, before the AC can be accurately eliminated. 1m supers = 10m lifers, 1m mercs = 3m lifers, 3m AC = 6m lifers. Total cost is 19m lifers for 3m AC units. But if the attacker had a defense of greater than 0, then it just takes 6m lifers. A massive difference in a world where lifers are becoming both a rarity and the last form of defense against massive AC.

At admins proposed new rates, we would still have to take out the same amount of strike troops for it to be efficient. This time to kill 1m supers = 7m lifers, to kill 1m mercs = 2m lifers, to kill 3m ACers = 6m mercs. Thats 14m lifers, again as opposed to 6m if they had a defense. More than double.

It's a big problem, as it encourages people to attack without building a defense at all by making it cost the defender more than 50% extra to take out the nasty AC units.

The fact that the attacker has a defense or not shouldn't make a difference. This was introduced so that is that if you don't have a defense when you attack, your strike troops are vulnerable. The problem with ratios being anywhere near this is they arn't really vulnerable, even at the newly proposed rates. The kill rate for all strike troops needs to be high in order for it to have the effect of encouraging defenses to be built before attacking. If anything, it needs to be higher than the AC kill rate. And with the AC rate working so well at 2 lifer:1 AC - we dont want to change that. So for this to have the effect it was originally seeking and to maintain the original ratio, it might need to end up at 1:1 strike soldier, 2:1 super and AC. Mercs could be as much as 1:5 as they are so cheaply available compared to actual units.

Even though that's where I think it should end up - A change of ratios that massive would throw quite a change into the game; so perhaps a change to something like 1:1 mercs, 2:1 AC, 2:1 soldier and 4:1 super would be a good first step.

~Norbe~

Jason, how many lifers are there currently in the whole player base? I am sure you have a figure of that.
The ratio could be decided by the balance of averages across the player base.

doc holliday wrote:I think the ratios are still to high. IMO if you are going to be a succesful suicide bomber, and you want your 72 vrigins, your not going to be ok with just killing half an assassin, or a leg off of a strike merc... Also suiciding is the last option for an account that is getting dominated by someone with a higher ac level. It's like being a taliban in afghanistan surrounded by U.S. Marines... If you blow yourself up you wont take out the whole army, but your goal is to do some damage...
Therefore I come to the conclusion the ratio's should be:

1:2 for ac (1 lifer kills 2 ac (since this is the main original reason for lifer suiciding)
1:1 for strike merc
2:1 for regular soldiers (don't train all your spies as regular strike troops when you go offline)
5:1 for supers (supers shouldn't die so easily still imo)

*grin* Good.

Norbe wrote:Well lets take a very practical, realistic example.

An account has 10m strike supers and 10m mercs, armed with best weapons of course. 0 defense. The account trains up 3m AC'ers (high AC level), sabs away a defense and proceeds to AC.

Now for someone defending (assuming it's not our account we are protecting we dont just build another defense) - stopping the AC will be the priority. As the only way quick and efficient way to kill the AC is to remove the threat through lifer, lets lifer.

At current ratios, in order to remove the kill the 3m ACers attacking you, one must also lifer away 10% of the strike supers and mercs. That means 1m supers and 1m mercs must be killed, before the AC can be accurately eliminated. 1m supers = 10m lifers, 1m mercs = 3m lifers, 3m AC = 6m lifers. Total cost is 19m lifers for 3m AC units. But if the attacker had a defense of greater than 0, then it just takes 6m lifers. A massive difference in a world where lifers are becoming both a rarity and the last form of defense against massive AC.

At admins proposed new rates, we would still have to take out the same amount of strike troops for it to be efficient. This time to kill 1m supers = 7m lifers, to kill 1m mercs = 2m lifers, to kill 3m ACers = 6m mercs. Thats 14m lifers, again as opposed to 6m if they had a defense. More than double.

It's a big problem, as it encourages people to attack without building a defense at all by making it cost the defender more than 50% extra to take out the nasty AC units.

The fact that the attacker has a defense or not shouldn't make a difference. This was introduced so that is that if you don't have a defense when you attack, your strike troops are vulnerable. The problem with ratios being anywhere near this is they arn't really vulnerable, even at the newly proposed rates. The kill rate for all strike troops needs to be high in order for it to have the effect of encouraging defenses to be built before attacking. If anything, it needs to be higher than the AC kill rate. And with the AC rate working so well at 2 lifer:1 AC - we dont want to change that. So for this to have the effect it was originally seeking and to maintain the original ratio, it might need to end up at 1:1 strike soldier, 2:1 super and AC. Mercs could be as much as 1:5 as they are so cheaply available compared to actual units.

Even though that's where I think it should end up - A change of ratios that massive would throw quite a change into the game; so perhaps a change to something like 1:1 mercs, 2:1 AC, 2:1 soldier and 4:1 super would be a good first step.

~Norbe~

+1

having the current rate or proposed rate of lifers : AC/Supers kill ratio. It encourages snipers. Snipers make for boring wars.

doc holliday wrote:1:2 for ac (1 lifer kills 2 ac (since this is the main original reason for lifer suiciding)
1:1 for strike merc
2:1 for regular soldiers (don't train all your spies as regular strike troops when you go offline)
5:1 for supers (supers shouldn't die so easily still imo)

this. or 6:1 on the supers as a compromise.

The attack supers/mercs being arming or unarmed should make difference IMO

Also the idea of the suicide bomber is interesting, maybe we need a new ( unsabbable ) weapon type for the suicidal lifers, the explosive vest lol

doc holliday wrote:I think the ratios are still to high. IMO if you are going to be a succesful suicide bomber, and you want your 72 vrigins, your not going to be ok with just killing half an assassin, or a leg off of a strike merc... Also suiciding is the last option for an account that is getting dominated by someone with a higher ac level. It's like being a taliban in afghanistan surrounded by U.S. Marines... If you blow yourself up you wont take out the whole army, but your goal is to do some damage...
Therefore I come to the conclusion the ratio's should be:

1:2 for ac (1 lifer kills 2 ac (since this is the main original reason for lifer suiciding)
1:1 for strike merc
2:1 for regular soldiers (don't train all your spies as regular strike troops when you go offline)
5:1 for supers (supers shouldn't die so easily still imo)

Why not just create a lifer suicide tech level.... Train them little kamikaze's with a covert type level which would make them more efficient in their little blaze of glory lol That way we would be in control of our own ratios as we are with AC and Sabotage. Just a thought

Solution to fix the inability to completely kill trained AC units if the target has 0 defense would be to the following:

All AC units are first priority to die, once AC units are dead, you can lifer kill strike normals/supers and mercs.

Still allows for making it so that strike is not "safe" while removing the "safety" of AC units while the defense is 0'd

new proposed ratios by doc look interesting but good.

while lifers aren't trainable units anymore, that doesn't necessarily make them "stupid" this would allow for them to at least have a priority beyond a ratio of how many it takes to kill.

Or involve a random factor of how many times they go for AC first maybe 50-60% of the time it will kill AC before going for other troops and the rest of the time it will do a normal standard base ratio.

-Feri