Has anyone out there figured out the most efficient settings for a stepped quasar defense using 5 H's? Assuming the enemy will be coming in fully loaded IC's of course.

well alot depends on planet edits and if your H,s are maxxed out on fuel. keep in mind that if you have planets 5,6,7,8,9 (ect) they will fire in order. another words as soon as someone enters your sector without photon, planet 5 will fire first then 6 then seven and so on. so your best bet is, set them higher as they go up. so something like this for sector fire, planet 5 5% planet 6 7% planet 7 9% and so on, this is just an example I dont have the exact numbers for you. anyone have the Numbers? guess Im asking the same thing you are.

It really depends on if you are going for max ore efficiency, or if you need to kill as many maxed out IDC's as possible.

Assuming 5 planets with 1 million ore each:


Option 1. if you really have to kill 10 IDC's, and you ARE worried about small moths, you might try settings of:
16%, 16%, 19%, 22%, 30%
Note however that this wastes more ore overall than option 2. The damages are:
106,667 152,933 126,564 104,775 160,098 129,072 104,171 184,164 138,073 104,118.
You'll have 1,068,097 total ore remaining, ready to shoot 78k damage on the next shot.

Option 2. if you really have to kill 10 IDC's, and aren't worried about small moths wasting a lot of ore, use this:
32%, 21%, 17%, 14%, 24%
This will result in damages of:
106,667 142,533 104,623 133,893 104,353 128,478 104,620 165,595 131,123 104,197
You'll have 1,321,754 total ore remaining, ready to shoot 83k damage on the next shot.

Option 3. You can be a little more efficient and still take out 7 IDC's by using these settings:
8%, 8%, 16%, 12%, 13%
This will result in damages of:
106,667 133,867 117,973 104,117 135,353 119,143 104,983
You'll have 2,533,691 total ore remaining, ready to shoot 92k damage on the next shot.

Option 4. Very efficient, concerned about small moths, but only able to stop 5 successive IDC's:
8%, 8%, 16%, 7%, 7%
This will result in damages of:
106,667 117,200 104,473 116,655 105,229
You'll have 3,349,327 total ore remaining, ready to shoot 95k damage on the next shot.

Option 5, Very efficient, NOT concerned with small moths, able to stop 5 IDC's:
32%, 10%, 8%, 6%, 5%
This will result in damages of:
106,667 105,867 105,989 105,073 105,144
You'll have 3,413,781 total ore remaining, ready to shoot 91k damage on the next shot.


I tend to favor option 2, assuming I have plenty of planets to swap in and out on a daily basis, and lots of colonists producing ore. Even so, I'd only use settings like this over extern. For most of the time, I'd have extra planets stacked in the sector, prepared to shoot down as many big ships as possible.

I have a nice excel spreadhsheet I use to figure these out, and am in the process of writing a TWX script which will not only figure out the best settings to use based on your situation, but will also set the cannons. Pretty useful if you are stacking 10+ planets every day.

You can also try using this one, based on the same settings of 5 planets with 1 Mil fuel. 15,16,18,19,21...this will also kill 10 IC's and have 103,538 fuel for 81,629 damage on the next shot.

I am not even going to ask you Cherokee how the heck you came up with the time to figure that one out.

Shorty, 15% and 16% don't come up with enough firepower to kill an IDC (100k figs and 4k shields) on the first shot - that only does 103k+ damage, meaning your third cannon will fire and waste tons of ore.

With settings of 15, 16, 18, 19, 21, you will only kill 9 IDC's, and do the following damage:
163,333 136,500 114,101 158,733 131,081 108,287 159,492 129,287 104,879
You will have 1,382,921 total ore remaining, ready to shoot 85,143 on the next shot.


Jerry, it doesn't take much time really. I plug the percentages and the starting ore levels for each planet into my spreadsheet, and it does all the calculations. Lemme know sometime if you want a copy of it.

You can also check out http://www.tw-cabal.com/formulas.html
I believe it's still accurate and has Darn near every formula you would want for those non-stocks also.

When i last long enough to have a buncha H's in one sector I usually set things pretty different from others i guess
lowest number planet would have sector set at whatever would take out there shields
second and third to take out the figs bing bang +5k damage for those odd days heh
4th real low sector like 1%
5th no sector
but IC's cant land so then the atmos would be set on each planet to wipe out the whole freaking thing but not too much that 10 ICS just make it easy for a ISS to just come in land etc
I do it this way because im usually not online at the time im getting invaded and usually I find that 5th planet aint worth touching cause of all the crap they lost trying to take the other 4, well then theres shields, can't get enough of those at low prices, that sorta changes things.
I try to set things up cannon/shield/figs so if i am invaded the V figs are mostly controlled by me after there done..(the filthy rascals!)

My 50 cents now gimma ma change!
Z

Thats funny, I was sure a stock IC came with only 3k shields.

If you have XP Pro ..or EXCEL , you could go to my hints & tips page
[url="http://geocities.com/videotees/hintstips.html"]Vid's Hints , Tips & Scripts[/url]
and down at the bottum under Excel Sheets I have one made for single moths.

For a small donation I'll email you an advanced one that will do the math for you on any level of ore you have.

This one really takes the guess work out of defending your door.
Some day someone will write a twx script to reset cannons every moth >:)
But till then ..this will do the calculations for you [:)]

Enjoy and have fun.

Vid Kid/CareTaker
[url="http://geocities.com/videotees/twars.html"]Vid's World on Guam[/url]
telnet://vidsworld.no-ip.org:2002
[url="http://geocities.com/videotees/hintstips.html"]Vid's Hints , Tips & Scripts[/url]
[url="http://vidkid.coastgames.com/index.php"]Register/Game Request[/url]

Zepher - the absolute best defense when someone is invading you while you are offline.... is to have sufficient sector cannon blasts that they can never successfully get a ship into the sector.

quote:Originally posted by Cherokee-TLTT

Zepher - the absolute best defense when someone is invading you while you are offline.... is to have sufficient sector cannon blasts that they can never successfully get a ship into the sector.


The other thing I like to do is have all the planets maxed with 100% reaction and they will never get on them before you can change them. 1 Mil, or more, offensive fighters in the sector doesnt hurt either. If the cannons dont get them the fighters will.[:P]

quote:Originally posted by Shorty
The other thing I like to do is have all the planets maxed with 100% reaction and they will never get on them before you can change them. 1 Mil, or more, offensive fighters in the sector doesnt hurt either. If the cannons dont get them the fighters will.[:P]

A military reaction won't stop someone. You just knock the shields below 200 (figs on planet won't attack until all shields are gone) then photon in from there on out. A photon will make it so the figs on planet won't attack. Also, once a planet is low enough on figs, the military reaction gives you better odds for invading. When attacking, they only get 2:1 as opposed to 3:1 when defending.

True but usually by the time someone can get into the sector the first thing they do is run your cannons to 0 anyway so they can land, they dont know what the reaction is if the planet is over level 4 so all they can do is land and hope for the best. If the photon duration is set to 2 seconds there is about a 1in 3 chance they wont kill off the last of the shields in time to save them from the fighters and they die. If its only 1 second they will die before they get it done the majority of the time. Even after the shields are gone, the cannons are dead, the only thing the photons do is protect them from the fighters if they get on the planet fast enough, then they have to kill the fighters at higher odds and it costs them more to invade. If they slip up they still die. Either way the odds are still against them and it makes it more expensive for them to invade.

quote:Originally posted by Shorty

True but usually by the time someone can get into the sector the first thing they do is run your cannons to 0 anyway so they can land, they dont know what the reaction is if the planet is over level 4 so all they can do is land and hope for the best. If the photon duration is set to 2 seconds there is about a 1in 3 chance they wont kill off the last of the shields in time to save them from the fighters and they die. If its only 1 second they will die before they get it done the majority of the time. Even after the shields are gone, the cannons are dead, the only thing the photons do is protect them from the fighters if they get on the planet fast enough, then they have to kill the fighters at higher odds and it costs them more to invade. If they slip up they still die. Either way the odds are still against them and it makes it more expensive for them to invade.

First off, even with a one second photon, it's quite easy to land, kill the shields and get to the fig prompt all within the photon duration. Just photon export land. I actually have seen some connection induced problems with this... but not very often and even then they get at least 75% success. But beyond that, if you have enough figs to make them have to work at it with photons, you're probably best off having 100% military reaction. Less than 200k figs, probably better off leaving the reaction off.

Thanks for the great responses guys, esp. Cherokee. It ended up I only had to face 6 a day for a few days, no problem with switching in and out.