Thiefs vs Thiefs [and bcalc.com]

[this post is wrong : see last post for explination]


I was doing some thinking, if you set 100 thiefs against 100 thiefs, what should happen ?

First make the assumption pa isnt random (which is reasonable. If we scale the example up enough the law of averages takes effect. The battle calcs all use averages rather than the randomness as its is quickest and quite accurate)

Now, this means 100 thiefs should steal 30 thiefs and lose 30 in the process. As defence and attack fire simultaneously then at the end of the first tick both should have 100 thiefs. (or just over 100 if the rumour of a magic 0.1 in the formula is correct but this doesnt matter atm)

However www.bcalc.com says both sides will end up with 35 thiefs each after 3 ticks.
The logs however show

[ Tick 1 ]
Defender: Thief shooting on Thief with 300 out of 300 guns, stealing 30 Thief(s) (at a cost of 30 Thief(s))
Attacker: Thief shooting on Thief with 300 out of 300 guns, stealing 30 Thief(s) (at a cost of 30 Thief(s))

this implies that there should be 100 left after first tick, but its not what happens as ..

[ Tick 2 ]
Defender: Thief shooting on Thief with 210 out of 210 guns, stealing 21 Thief(s) (at a cost of 21 Thief(s))
Attacker: Thief shooting on Thief with 210 out of 210 guns, stealing 21 Thief(s) (at a cost of 21 Thief(s))

Whos wrong ? me or the battle calc ?

[edit : i was wrong]

[Chax]

Why not go here - >Bcalc bugs forum

Originally posted by Chax
Why not go here - >Bcalc bugs forum

ok, ignoring the bcalc.com bit

is it correct that 100 thiefs shooting 100 thiefs will end up with 100 thiefs each ?

and if you include the 0.1 or whatever prince mentioned, 100 thiefs attakcing 100 thiefs could acctualy increase the total number of thiefs ?

ok, close/delete this thread.

100 attacking thiefs fire at 100 theifs, they steal 30 and lose 30.
At same time,
100 defending thiefs fire at 100 theifs, they steal 30 and lose 30.

they both took 30 and lost 30 in process, but also 30 were stolen by opposite side, ie, both end up with 70.

[MAdnRisKy]

But I'm interested how this would actually work, and it's partically why I'm so angry at the way the beta was conducted.

if there is such a thing as this fabled 0.1 then in theory you should see thieves appear out of thin air in this combat. Which quite frankly, wories the hell out of me in terms of late round score farming, hell it wouldn't even be farming, you could send two guys out for a scrap, with no pods and both would grow in score.

AND AS OF YET THERE HAS STILL BEEN NO DEFINATIVE ANSWER ON THIS SUBJECT BY ANYONE INCHARGE!

[marmor]

Salvage then?

[hyfe]

Originally posted by MAdnRisKy

AND AS OF YET THERE HAS STILL BEEN NO DEFINATIVE ANSWER ON THIS SUBJECT BY ANYONE INCHARGE!

Not telling us the rules is a great way to stop us exploiting them

[MAdnRisKy]

Originally posted by marmor
Salvage then?

you mean the "stealers in defence get salvage" bug?

yes it would be slightly like that except that in this instance the attacker would benifit too, which when both sides gain, makes it far more likely to be seen on a large scale.

the old bug rarely came into effect it was hard to persuade your mate to send 2k thiefs at you and you sit there with 3k thiefs swap ships and you get a 25% salvage return on the low number of thiefs that go poof on you.

In this instance I would get 1 tenth of my steals to return with both fleets in addition to my old fleet. so if it takes 5 thieves to steal 1 thief (guess cba to look it up) I get 0.1 thieves for every 5 i have so 1 for every 50 i send

try that with 5k, 100 extra thieves, try that over 3 ticks 300, 5k divided 300 is 16.66% gain over 3 ticks

and it gets a lot worse with marauders........... since their kill rate is quite high to their death rate, perfect for such a stunt.

seriously if this 0.1 rule is infact a reality (and we'll need testing to prove this) there is a MAJOR bug here for the late game stages when roiding gets expensive

[Sun_Tzu]

erm, this is a logical error, you won't gain from such an attack, bcalc.com may not implement this 0.1 thingy but the calculations still won't be profiatble if it did....

[MAdnRisKy]

hmmmmmmm

I checked, now i have nfi what would happen

bloody beta

[storeslem]

In this scenario with 100 thiefs vs 100 thiefs, bcalc is accurate.

fleet 1 captures 30 thiefs, and looses 30 thiefs are destroyed because of it.

fleet 2 does exactly the same, so in the end both fleet has lost 60 thiefs ( 30 stolen, 30 destroyed), and gained 30.


on a sidenote: don't know what this 0.1 bug is, but I'll paste a combat report where I capture 16 ships and loose but 1 thief.

Attackers Defenders Yours
Units Total Lost Block Total Lost Block Total Lost Block Cap
Harpy 0 0 0 310 2 0 0 0 0 0
Chimera 0 0 0 2 0 0 2 0 0 0
Spider 0 0 0 101 0 0 0 0 0 0
Beetle 0 0 0 401 4 0 0 0 0 0
Daeraith Pulsar 0 0 0 150 2 0 0 0 0 0
Lyvidian Sentinel 0 0 0 100 0 0 0 0 0 0
Corsair 331 247 331 947 4 0 273 1 0 2
Cutlass 315 130 315 540 4 0 0 0 0 13
Brig 0 0 0 61 0 0 61 0 0 0
Thief 0 0 0 26 1 0 26 1 0 0
Cutter 30 23 0 26 0 0 26 0 0 1
Marauder 0 0 0 6 0 0 6 0 0 0
Astro Pod 45 45 0 39 0 0 39 0 0 0
Total 721 445 646 2709 17 0 433 2 0 16

[MAdnRisKy]

I'm assuming your weet, as that's a HUGE overkill

[storeslem]

yes, I'm lch/tot, but the BC assumed he had way more frigs in his fleet.

[hyfe]

yes; that he believed there was more FR certainly explains why he brought in enough defence to both stun all the FI; and kill most of it.
[Edit: no need to reply: i'm fully aware i'm bitter]

[marmor]

Can't 2 Zik who knows each other test this?

Send 100 thives against 100 thives and paste the com-rep here?

also put the salvage in here.

ty