Zeta Mats (Fleet Shipments vs Ability Challenges)

Farming zetas from shipments is extremely foolish unless you really don't care about ships other wise your just slowing your ship farming down by a lot.

If you are doing heroic tank raids, having a Zeta on Qui Gon a month early is not a disadvantage. I plan on earning my 1 full zeta and then focusing on fleet building after. All of the above math assumes you are farming Zeta exclusively in fleet for months on end. That's not the case. I want that first zeta and then I'll move to the more logical blueprint and DS character shard farming immediately after. I will only be a little bit behind. The rewards in the short term in arena and Heroic Tank raid will hopefully offset this.

"Mageduckey;781422" wrote:
If you started at top 100, and steadily drop (since you won't be getting half the blueprints/shards that someone staying in top 100 could get), I could see you getting the following payouts:

• 7 days 51-100 = 7 * 1250 = 8750
  
• 14 days 101-200 = 14 * 1200 = 16800
  
• 21 days 201-500 = 21 * 1000 = 21000
  
• 7 days 501+ = 7 * 800 = 5600
  
• 49 days daily activity = 49 * 100(I think this is what it is...it's close to this, anyway) = 4900
  
• Total: 57,050 / 2000 = 28.5 zetas

Okay, first, I want to say I appreciate that you took the time to respond with math and actually think about this instead of just assert your opinion as fact.

I have two disputes with this math. First, you're assuming that a single * difference will make a player drop at *least* 400 (!) ranks in fleet arena. That seems rather extreme to me (of course I could eat my words here and drop even farther, making my situation even worse). Second, you don't bother to acknowledge that for a significant portion of the time, the zeta rusher will have ships at the same * count. For example, when going from 4-5, the ship rusher may be 60 blueprints ahead, but a ship at 0/65 and a ship at 60/65 are the exact same stats.

"Mageduckey;781422" wrote:
I vote we go for 25% because I think it's a decent compromise (though who knows what zeta drop rate really is). In that case, 44 days after the initial 49 days, both sides will have 46 zetas (just plugged 44 into the break-even equation). So, at 93 days after the launch of ships, both sides will have 2 zeta abilities unlocked (closer to like 85ish days, which we can use so long as it's recognized that a one week lead of 2 to 1 zeta abilities will not be significant).

Agreed.

"Mageduckey;781422" wrote:
However, after 93 days after launch, the player who pushed zetas from shipments will fall way behind.

Disagree strongly here. You're assuming (and I think this is a big assumption) that more than 2 zeta upgrades are going to be significantly useful. Right now there aren't that many that are even good, and some of them are on characters that have since fallen out of the meta (Rey, Phasma).

"Mageduckey;781422" wrote:
Another 3 months out from then (since this game is all about the long-game), going out another 87 days:

46 + 0.45(87) = 85 zetas 6 months after release of ships
46 + 0.675(87) + (3/7)(87) = 142 zetas 6 months after release of ships

Yes, if the player who only buys zeta mats can somehow get a competitive edge back and earn higher rewards, then sure, they would speed up a little. But 7 zeta abilities versus 4 is quite the difference, especially considering in 6 months they're likely to release more zeta abilities that we want to get.

Again, disagree, as there are only a handful of zeta upgrades that are useful. Also it seems like you neglect that the zeta rusher will eventually get to the challenges too, which I think you realized in your edit.

"Mageduckey;781422" wrote:
Since they are both operating at the same challenge drop rates, but the zeta challenge player gets more fleet tokens, the zeta shipment player will always be behind unless they can make some miraculous recoveries in fleet arena while simultaneously the zeta challenge player falls from grace and face plants on the bottom of fleet arena..

This is false. In the end both players will end up with 7* ships just the same and get the same fleet arena rank. If the zeta challenge player could upgrade their ships forever via fleet shipments you would be correct, but that's simply not the case.

So in conclusion, you're spending, by your own estimation, 60 days behind on zeta upgrades. If that makes the difference between placing 11-20 to 6-10 in arena every day, that's a net gain of 3000 crystals (and considering you made the claim that a player 1* behind would drop 400 ranks, this seems like a very fair comparison). That's also ignoring the potential gains from raiding and other aspects of the game.

Also, a significant risk you are taking is that the math doesn't change against you during that time. Yes, both strategies are vulnerable to long-term changes against them, but a short-term strategy will at least yield some gains - if something changes against you on day 60, you're just fucked.

"DropItLikeItHoth;781853" wrote:
If you are doing heroic tank raids, having a Zeta on Qui Gon a month early is not a disadvantage. I plan on earning my 1 full zeta and then focusing on fleet building after. All of the above math assumes you are farming Zeta exclusively in fleet for months on end. That's not the case. I want that first zeta and then I'll move to the more logical blueprint and DS character shard farming immediately after. I will only be a little bit behind. The rewards in the short term in arena and Heroic Tank raid will hopefully offset this.

Yes, this. The entire point of this strategy is to net that crucial first zeta upgrade and ride its advantage. At that point you can reexamine your options.

"unit900000;781799" wrote:
Farming zetas from shipments is extremely foolish unless you really don't care about ships other wise your just slowing your ship farming down by a lot.

I respect that you have an opinion, but until you present evidence or math, please don't confuse it with fact. See Mageduckey's post for a good example.

"Goride;781793" wrote:
You said it yourself, if you spend on ships to get the ability challenge, in 64 total days you get 29 extra challenge attempts at zeta mats vs 22 guaranteed zeta from buying them.

This math was proven false. The time window assumed any set of 8 5* ships is sufficient, but you need 5 DS ships. This means that the time to unlock challenges is even farther away, pushing the advantage towards rushing zeta mats.

"Goride;781793" wrote:
The drop rate of the challenge seems to be about 1 to 1 ratio. Some attempts you might get 2, sometimes you might get 0. But on average it seems to be 1 per attempt.

I think assuming an average of 1 per attempt is optimistic, but until more people do them that answer is vague. Of course, if it turns out that the average is even greater than 1, yes, the advantage tilts closer to ship rushing. I was originally being quite pessimistic and assuming an average of .3 mats per attempt.

"Goride;781793" wrote:
The only advantage of going for zetas only in FS is that in the first 34 days, you would acquire 22 zeta mats. So you would be able to have one full zeta ability one month earlier. However, expanding a bit further, if 34 days = 22 zeta when purchasing directly, then 68 days = 44 zeta, and 102 days = 66 zeta. If you spend on ships for the challenges you get 29 attempts per 34 days. So the first 34 days = 0 zeta. But after that, 68 days = 29 zeta, and 102 = 58 zeta. But this assumes one continues to spend on ships. Since the first example does not spend on ships, then we can also try assuming in the second example after unlocking the ability challenge, spending on ships is stopped. Therefore, during the first 34 days = 0 zetas. But after that 68 days = 29 zeta + 22 zeta, for a total of 51. 102 days = 58 zeta + 44 zeta, for a total of 102. Even at 68 days, 29 + 22 = 51 > 44 = 22 + 22.

Again, you do have that first zeta advantage. But after that, the advantage is lost, as in the last example one can get two zetas before the first example can get two.

But if ship rushing switches to zeta rushing, zeta rushing will catch up both on fleet arena rank and on doing the challenges. You'd have to compensate for that in your math, which you do not. Even still, these windows were proven false, so that's even longer the zeta rushing strategy will have zeta upgrades that ship rushing does not.

I'm working on redoing the math right now.

Alright, let's look at how all of your feedback changes the math.

Rushing Zeta (RZ) vs Rushing Ships (RS)

Both strategies need the following:
5 5* DS ships
3 5* ships not in the above (LS and farmable from GW realistically)

Let's pick the best DS ships first. We have GS, GSpy, FOTF, ITF, Darth Maul, Boba Fett, Sun Fac. I only have GS at 7* with G10 and no shards besides the freebies for anyone else. That means GS, FOTF, ITF are the obvious choices, leaving 2 more. I'll count BF as a freebie since he's from Catina Shipments. You have 3 characters that are going to take up even more FS points, meaning we'll pick Sun Fac as he's the strongest character and only takes 50 shards compared to the 80 for the other two.

So our DS roster is: GSol / FOTF / ITF / BF / Sun Fac

Light side, let's spare as much currency as possible and go for: JC / Biggs / Wedge
(Ashoka and Poe are probably stronger ships but that means we'll need more shards)

For those 8 ships, we'll need 1160 blueprints. I'm fairly certain that this roster means that only BF's ship has to be gained exclusively from FS, but 1/8 isn't bad. This adds a tax of 14800 fleet points. And no, the argument that Slave I shows up less common isn't relevant - even if it only shows up once every two day (remember, we'd see 6 sets in that time, so its appearance rate would have to be around 2.5% for this to even be relevant) we would still complete the Slave I in plenty of time. I have:

GS: 25/145
FOTF: 15/145
ITF: 18/145
SF: 0/145
JC: 39/145
Biggs: 34/145
Wedge: 52/145

Total: 183 / 1015

In addition, we're going to need to unlock some characters. BF's Cantina Shipments, which we can spare if we neglect ship materials or energy for gear, and we're left with just trying to unlock Sun Fac for 50 shards. This adds a tax of 4000 fleet points. This brings our total fleet point tax up to 18800 fleet points.

GW: 1200 / day = 12 blueprints / day
FS: 1300 / day = 13 blueprints / day (R51-100 + daily rewards)
Other Energy: 1 blueprint / day (I think this is optimistic considering my drop rate, but ymmv)

RZ:
Let's cut down the income from the very start to 1200, to simulate the drop in rank. Remember, we're only going to have an inferior fleet part of the time - right when RS gets their upgrades. There's a significant portion of the time we're on par.
2000 * 20 / 1200 = 33 days to first zeta upgrade
18800 / 1200 = 16 days to pay off our fleet points tax
In the meantime, we've gotten:
49 * 13 = 637 blueprints and are now at 820/1015 of what we need. Let's assume that our income at this point drops another rank again, putting us at 1100.
195 / 24 = 9 days to unlock challenges.
So at day 58, we've unlocked challenges, and we're at 5 zeta mats.
20 / ( (1000 / 2000) + (6/7) ) = 15 days per zeta upgrade
Day 69 for two, day 84 for three, etc.

RS/RZ:
18800 / 1300 = 15 days to pay off our fleet points tax
At this point, we have SF unlocked and Slave I at 5* (we've spent all of our FS to get this). In the meantime, we've gotten:
15 * 13 = 195 blueprints and are now at 378/1015 of what we need.
Since we're getting now 26 / day...
637 / 26 = 25 days to 5* all 8 ships
Now it's day 40, and we've finally started being able to do zeta mat challenges. From here, let's assume we rush buying zeta mats (1300/2000 per day). Let's assume a drop rate of 1 per attempt, so 6 in a week, so 6/7/day. Our rank is going to drop though, so:
20 / ( (1200 / 2000) + (6/7) ) = 14 days
Day 54, we has gotten our first Zeta upgrade.

RS:
18800 / 1300 = 15 days to pay off our fleet points tax
At this point, we have SF unlocked and Slave I at 5* (we've spent all of our FS to get this). In the meantime, we've gotten:
15 * 13 = 195 blueprints and are now at 378/1015 of what we need.
Since we're getting now 26 / day...
637 / 26 = 25 days to 5* all 8 ships
Now it's day 40, and we've finally started being able to do zeta mat challenges. We're still going to spend FS on ships to keep up our rank.
20 / ( (6/7) ) = 23 days

At day 63, we have our first Zeta upgrade. Day 86 for two.

Comparison: At day 58, both RZ & RZ/RS are at nearly identical places. The latter will have a slight lead in zeta mats and a tiny lead in fleet points, but traded this for 21 days of going without a zeta upgrade. Even if those mats only granted a single rank bump (say, top 20 to top 10, 50 crystals / day), that's a sacrifice of 1050 crystals.

RZ vs RS is not so pretty. Even assuming a pretty harsh drop in rank (from top 100 to top 500) and a very optimistic drop rate for zeta mats (1 per attempt so 2 per day), RS spends the first 3 months behind a full zeta upgrades. By day 86, we've given up 2650 crystals for a marginally stronger fleet. Remember, even at day 86, is only a single * ahead on every ship (on average RS is at 6.5* while RZ&RS/RZ are at 5.5*). Also, we're assuming RS and RZ aren't losing any rank due to having to focus on DS ships. If that's not true (i.e. you'd have to max out Boba Fett, Sun Fac, FOTP, ITP), then the math falls further against RS.

Variations: What if the math is different for you?
RS gains if...

- The zeta mat drop rate is more than 1 / attempt
- You'll drop farther than fleet rank 500 due to a single * difference sometimes
- Your arena rank change will gain you less than 50 crystals
- You already have Sun Fac and/or GeoSpy unlocked
- You don't have characters with useful zeta upgrades ready to go
- You have far more blueprints than I do

RZ gains if...

- The zeta mat drop rate is less than 1 / attempt
- Your fleet rank is worse than 200 already
- Your arena rank change will gain you more than 50 crystals
- You get any benefit from having zeta upgrades (more raid points, more GW points, better tournament rank, etc)
- You have less blueprints than I do

"Ricter;781375" wrote:
This is false. In the end both players will end up with 7* ships just the same and get the same fleet arena rank. If the zeta challenge player could upgrade their ships forever via fleet shipments you would be correct, but that's simply not the case.

Want to start off by saying that this claim isn't guaranteed, and therefore my claim isn't false. I have seen it said rather frequently that people can't get up into higher arena ranks despite having 7* max gear characters because other teams are already there and the current arena meta (at 80+) can be challenging to get through (especially with guys like Chirrut and Baze boosting rebel power). Just because the RZ guy *eventually* gets 7* ships doesn't mean anything about approaching former ranks in fleet arena. Additionally, those that stayed on top in fleet arena will have had more tokens to farm up more ships, giving them (what I believe to be) a massive advantage in adjusting to meta shifts, acquiring new ships, etc. Like everyone who had been hoarding GW tokens before ally points were added to shipments and tournaments used AP instead of crystals. If you didn't have a stockpile of GW tokens (because you "weren't ranking as high for an extended period of time"), you simply could not compete for top prizes. This sets you behind on any new tournament characters (not to mention the other goodies). The same principle applies to fleet arena (more so, since GW doesn't have ranks).

"Ricter;781375" wrote:
First, you're assuming that a single * difference will make a player drop at *least* 400 (!) ranks in fleet arena. That seems rather extreme to me (of course I could eat my words here and drop even farther, making my situation even worse). Second, you don't bother to acknowledge that for a significant portion of the time, the zeta rusher will have ships at the same * count. For example, when going from 4-5, the ship rusher may be 60 blueprints ahead, but a ship at 0/65 and a ship at 60/65 are the exact same stats.

First, the drop in 400 ranks is over a 7 week time frame, which is plausible if the difference in ship star levels is more than 1. And you'll be more than 1* behind. You start off with a bunch of 1* ships. Using only GW tokens to get blueprints (since you're rushing zetas you are not buying anything out of fleet shipments other than zetas, to do that would be to confuse RZ and RS/RZ), you only get 12 blueprints a day. My initial math was only focused on RZ vs RS, which shows RZ will fall behind in fleet arena (which I sincerely believe will be of growing importance as ships develop further). You can get all 5 DS ships from GW if you use the (currently) weak Geo Spy Starfighter. Since you are rushing zetas, you have to use him because rushing zetas = zetas only. If you were to carry that out fully, it would take you 97 days to 5* all 5 DS ships from GW. You still have no LS ships at all. To grab the first zeta ability and then switch to full time RS to try and catch up, you are working with several fewer blueprints a day (21 total blueprints vs 25.5 blueprints), meaning you will eventually reach the challenge, but you will be behind in arena for a long time because you will be at more than a 1* disadvantage. (I'm not using full math here because of next point below, because I still believe RS is the better play as it counts on the devs to do more with ships, and because I'm more focused on making a supplement to the ships guide right now.)

"Ricter;781375" wrote:
Disagree strongly here. You're assuming (and I think this is a big assumption) that more than 2 zeta upgrades are going to be significantly useful. Right now there aren't that many that are even good, and some of them are on characters that have since fallen out of the meta (Rey, Phasma).

And I disagree strongly here - this is a huge assumption on your part that there will only ever be 2 useful zeta abilities. We've seen the recent power creep. Shoretrooper into Chirrut/Baze (and anyone before them - I joined mid-October, so ST's 2nd tournament I think), Vader (best ship in the game) released one week after the launch of ships, now zetas (once we unlock them). There has always been power creep (almost impossible to have a growing game without it), and there have been significant jumps recently. If they continue (and I don't see why they wouldn't), we will see more zeta abilities that are strong and can contend with QGJ (which is not the only good zeta ability). Additionally, while I don't think Rey's and Phasma's zeta abilities are enough to save them, just because a character has fallen out of favor doesn't mean a zeta can't revive them.

"Ricter;781375" wrote:
Again, disagree, as there are only a handful of zeta upgrades that are useful. Also it seems like you neglect that the zeta rusher will eventually get to the challenges too, which I think you realized in your edit.

Again, disagree with this assumption that there will never again be a new zeta that is worthwhile. The devs said more zeta abilities are coming. Even if 2 out of every 13 or however many we had this time around are good, that's instantly >2 that you see right now. Nah, my edit was simply to adjust the math to include 100 daily tokens. Though my math does not include RZ getting to challenges eventually, I believe it's a clear and safe assumption to claim that they will be behind in ship strength, fleet arena ranking, flexibility to meta shifts, and overall zeta count. After all, they rushed only zetas from fleet arena.

"Ricter;781375" wrote:
So in conclusion, you're spending, by your own estimation, 60 days behind on zeta upgrades.

No, in my math I'm only spending 32 days behind on zeta upgrades. It would take roughly 30 days for the falling fleet arena rank to afford 20 zetas (using the payouts in my first post, obviously it might be a little faster if you don't drop as much). RS gets a zeta upgrade at day 62 (assuming yes, they switch over to zetas to catch up). So the difference isn't 60 days. I have no idea where you got this number. Additionally, the RS player only spends 13-14 days getting that zeta upgrade, maintaining an advantage in fleet arena because they aren't sacrificing as much potential (much lower opportunity cost of 13 days worth of tokens vs 30 days worth of tokens).

"Ricter;781375" wrote:
Also, a significant risk you are taking is that the math doesn't change against you during that time. Yes, both strategies are vulnerable to long-term changes against them, but a short-term strategy will at least yield some gains - if something changes against you on day 60, you're just ****.

Actually, the RZ player is taking more risk than the RS player. They are assuming that there will be no more "win" zetas produced in the next 2.5 months (unlikely given recent signs of significant power creep). They are assuming that there will not be any must-have goods assigned to fleet shipments (extra gear to speed up non-pilots is nice and helps in other areas, as does grabbing GG or Vader or Rex or SF shards). They are assuming ships will not continue to play an important role in the game (because they are sacrificing good standing in fleet arena). The RS strategy is far more robust/resilient in the face of changes made because they're behind on a zeta for only 32 days. That's a good bit of time, sure, but over many months (again, game is meant to be played long-term) that 1600 crystal absence (which I disagree with - droids can easily take out QGJ zeta team if you get the right mods, and QGJ zeta team isn't immune to needing great mods to compete; this means that you aren't guaranteed to move up from 11-20 into 6-10 just because you have a zeta'd QGJ) will be mitigated, even for a F2P player.

"Ricter;781375" wrote:
Yes, this. The entire point of this strategy is to net that crucial first zeta upgrade and ride its advantage. At that point you can reexamine your options.

You seem to believe that QGJ having a zeta upgrade = auto win in arena. It doesn't. There are ways to take him down; as always, it comes down to speed on mods to determine who goes first. So yes, you could say "but you need crazy good speed mods to counter him", but I would counter with "so does your QGJ in order to avoid being countered."

"Ricter;781375" wrote:
But if ship rushing switches to zeta rushing, zeta rushing will catch up both on fleet arena rank and on doing the challenges.

Not true. RS will still have a decent fleet arena ranking, so they will only need 13-14 days to get their zeta upgrade. Since the RZ player took 30 days to get their upgrade, they are still behind. The RS player is still 17 days ahead of the RZ player.

"Ricter;781375 wrote:
Total: 183 / 1015

I didn't quote the individual values to save space, but where are you getting all those partial values from? Those are not what you get after the tutorial. If those are what you have right now, they don't count because remember, this is counting either from last Tuesday (launch) or hitting 60 and joining ships at some point in the future.

"Ricter;781375 wrote:
In the meantime, we've gotten:
49 * 13 = 637 blueprints and are now at 820/1015 of what we need. Let's assume that our income at this point drops another rank again, putting us at 1100.

Where are you getting 49 * 13 from? You spent 33 of those 49 days putting all fleet tokens into zetas, so you actually only have 16 * 13 = 208 blueprints from fleet shipments after 49 days.

"Ricter;781375" wrote:
This brings our total fleet point tax up to 18800 fleet points.

This right here is 9.5 zetas that you aren't getting. That by itself means your RZ player is actually an RZ/RS player. My math was strictly between RS and RZ, with no middle ground. Your initial point of only buying zetas in fleet shipments is what I was contending, which I believe I successfully did. Even if the drop isn't as harsh as 400 that quickly (it will be over time), doing nothing but zetas until you get the first ability (the definition of rushing zetas, at least as I understand it) will fall behind eventually due to being at a disadvantage in fleet arena for "quite some time" (we can pick a length of time if you want but I believe it to be irrelevant at this point). The rest of this next post will focus in on RZ/RS vs RS, since RZ was proven to fall behind in ships in my previous math (again, I was not including RZ/RS before). Though I may not write it because I want to focus on my guide and you have yet to prove that RZ can make up the 30 days of lost time on ship progress - the RS player only requires 13-14 days to rush their zeta upgrade, so they are still 17 days ahead of the RZ player (a little less lead against the RZ/RS player but still ahead). Also, because my math above doesn't take as dangerous of assumptions as you claim it does (other than *maybe* the 400 fleet rank drop, but a less dramatic drop still puts you behind), my math still holds true despite your disagreement with it. The RS player stays ahead in the ships game at the expense of a 32 day disadvantage in regular arena. But after that gap they are on equal footing in arena (albeit maybe have to fight up the ladder a little), they are ahead in ships, and they are more prepared for future zeta upgrades and ship releases - in short, they are more resilient to the constantly changing state of this game.

I would like to see proof that my assumptions are so drastic that they cannot be used as the basis for my math, and that your response assumptions are solid enough to count as the basis for your math, please.

I'm at 15/20!

"Mageduckey;784086" wrote:
The same principle applies to fleet arena (more so, since GW doesn't have ranks).

This is something that's not as sure-fire as you're making it out to be. You're banking on the ship meta changing faster than the ZR strategy could adapt. Certainly possible, but not guaranteed.

"Mageduckey;784086" wrote:
You can get all 5 DS ships from GW if you use the (currently) weak Geo Spy Starfighter. Since you are rushing zetas, you have to use him because rushing zetas = zetas only. If you were to carry that out fully, it would take you 97 days to 5* all 5 DS ships from GW. You still have no LS ships at all...

I don't know where you get this math from, but it's incorrect. Please look at my post again - first off, RZ subs Slave I for the Geo Spy and bite the bullet on fleet points. Second, even starting at 0 blueprints and getting 13 blueprints / day, it would only take 89 days to 5* a total of 8 brand new ships. So the fact that you think it takes 97 days to 5* only 5 ships when starting beyond 0 shows that your math is off somewhere significant.

"Mageduckey;784086" wrote:
Again, disagree with this assumption that there will never again be a new zeta that is worthwhile.

You're absolutely correct here, and absolutely missing the point. It's not that there's not going to be new zeta abilities ever, but that you're banking on there being enough useful ones that RS's zeta mats advantage makes a difference and that the timing lines up - if it takes 6 months for them to release them, it doesn't matter if you have more upgrades if they don't matter.

"Mageduckey;784086" wrote:
I believe it's a clear and safe assumption to claim that they will be behind in ship strength, fleet arena ranking, flexibility to meta shifts, and overall zeta count. After all, they rushed only zetas from fleet arena.

You're basically counting every choice of advantage here without acknowledging that you have to make choices. Yes, RS will have more FS - but if they're spending that to catch up on zetas, they won't have a ship strength advantage anymore. If they spend it on ship strength, they won't catch up on zetas.

"Mageduckey;784086" wrote:
No, in my math I'm only spending 32 days behind on zeta upgrades. It would take roughly 30 days for the falling fleet arena rank to afford 20 zetas (using the payouts in my first post, obviously it might be a little faster if you don't drop as much). RS gets a zeta upgrade at day 62 (assuming yes, they switch over to zetas to catch up). So the difference isn't 60 days. I have no idea where you got this number.

You spend 30 days at 0 upgrade versus 1. Then you spend around 30 days at 1 upgrade versus 2. 30 days + 30 days = 60 days.

"Mageduckey;784086" wrote:
Additionally, the RS player only spends 13-14 days getting that zeta upgrade, maintaining an advantage in fleet arena because they aren't sacrificing as much potential (much lower opportunity cost of 13 days worth of tokens vs 30 days worth of tokens).

But you're still spending the tokens, man. You can't count them for fleet advantage AND zetas if you're spending them on zetas. If you're spending your FS to get zetas at the 13-14 day range, you're going to lose fleet rank. You claim a super harsh fleet rank drop for one strategy here but not the other.

"Mageduckey;784086" wrote:
Actually, the RZ player is taking more risk than the RS player...

This entirely responds to not my point, so I'll try being more abstract. One strategy is short-term. One is long-term. In an unpredictable game that changes rapidly, a strategy that requires nothing to change to gets its advantage is more risky because things may change against it before it pays off. Yes, 100% absolutely true that either strategy can be screwed. But if RZ is screwed on day 45, it got 15 days of payoff. If RS is screwed on day 45, it has nothing to show for it.

"Mageduckey;784086" wrote:
You seem to believe that QGJ having a zeta upgrade = auto win in arena. It doesn't. There are ways to take him down; as always, it comes down to speed on mods to determine who goes first. So yes, you could say "but you need crazy good speed mods to counter him", but I would counter with "so does your QGJ in order to avoid being countered."

C'mon man, this is just junk. All I said is that it gave a rank bump from 11-20 to 6-10. That's it. Don't put words in my mouth, your arguments have been super solid up to this point.

"Mageduckey;784086" wrote:
Not true. RS will still have a decent fleet arena ranking, so they will only need 13-14 days to get their zeta upgrade. Since the RZ player took 30 days to get their upgrade, they are still behind. The RS player is still 17 days ahead of the RZ player.

Okay... but if RS stops spending FS on blueprints, their fleet rank is going to drop. So that 13-14 day window is inaccurate.

"Mageduckey;784086" wrote:
I didn't quote the individual values to save space, but where are you getting all those partial values from? Those are not what you get after the tutorial. If those are what you have right now, they don't count because remember, this is counting either from last Tuesday (launch) or hitting 60 and joining ships at some point in the future.

Sure... but you do realize that a lower starting blueprint count is going to advantage RZ, not RS, right? Yes, it is my numbers, but I used them to provide a benchmark that I cared about.

"Mageduckey;784086" wrote:
Where are you getting 49 * 13 from? You spent 33 of those 49 days putting all fleet tokens into zetas, so you actually only have 16 * 13 = 208 blueprints from fleet shipments after 49 days.

GW tokens + JC energy mission. 13 blueprint/day * 49 days.

"Mageduckey;784086" wrote:
This right here is 9.5 zetas that you aren't getting. That by itself means your RZ player is actually an RZ/RS player. My math was strictly between RS and RZ, with no middle ground. Your initial point of only buying zetas in fleet shipments is what I was contending, which I believe I successfully did.

The strategy had to be adjusted, because a F2P can't perform a true RZ strategy (they would have to get some combination of GeoSpy, SunFac, or Slave I and since that math wasn't relevant to me nor most F2P I discounted it). This was an adjustment due to Acrofales's post, not yours. I had falsely assumed that any combination of 8 5* ships would work.

"Mageduckey;784086" wrote:
... my math still holds true despite your disagreement with it. The RS player stays ahead in the ships game at the expense of a 32 day disadvantage in regular arena.

You fall behind almost immediately afterwards. You have a much longer disadvantage than 32 days. If you're swapping to buying zetas, your ship blueprint advantage will lessen.

"Mageduckey;784086" wrote:
But after that gap they are on equal footing in arena (albeit maybe have to fight up the ladder a little), they are ahead in ships, and they are more prepared for future zeta upgrades and ship releases - in short, they are more resilient to the constantly changing state of this game.

This is what makes me doubt your math. You claim dramatic drops in ship rank AND claim that it's incredibly difficult to climb the ladder, but then later in the same post claim that it's not a problem to climb the ladder. And you've consistently ignored the point that a single rank improvement, one much less drastic than the rank loss that RZ or RS/RZ would face in fleet rank, would create a massive gain in crystals - a single tier improvement could net 1600 crystals in the 0 upgrade to 1 upgrade window, and a similar amount in the 2 upgrade to 1 upgrade window.

"Mageduckey;784086" wrote:
I would like to see proof that my assumptions are so drastic that they cannot be used as the basis for my math, and that your response assumptions are solid enough to count as the basis for your math, please.

If you want to play this game, do the same for mine. You've done a mostly great job of presenting solid counterpoints, but are now your argument is just turning condescending. We're both making guesses here, let's cut the bullshit and not pretend otherwise. Cool?

I just have to comment on the 'unlike most of you, I like math' part.

Bruh...

We're all here playing a Star Wars game. There's a good-arse chance that 'most' of us here are just a tad nerdy and happen to enjoy a little math.

As for actual advice, if you're not a whale, you can either wait a couple months to get your 8 5* ships ready and do zeta challenges, or you can start starring up your fleet of 2* ships while everyone else has 7* ships AND zetas that you coveted more than the ships that can get you more zetas...

"Tannjam;781131" wrote:

"Ricter;780936" wrote:

How many ship blueprints do you already have, and what rank are you getting regularly?

This is fallacious. First of all, this makes the assumption that accumulating more zetas total is the most important goal. It's not. The entire point to this is to get zeta abilities quickly. Only a few characters have them, and fewer are relevant. Rushing zeta mats gets you a zeta upgrade on day 30 and then again on day 60. Rushing ships to 5* and then rushing zeta mats gets you a zeta upgrade on day 58. So you're a full upgrade behind for an entire month, and then have only a few days where you're even before you fall behind again.

It also implies that you can rest on your laurels at 5* and start spending FS on zetas. If they do that, you can flip your spending and catch up quickly to match their fleet and zeta acquisition rate. If you don't flip your spending, their advantage will be minor. Even with a bracket difference, they're netting an extra zeta mat every *20-40* days. When you need 20 of them to matter, you're looking at 400 days before you've gotten an extra upgrade.

I have a Fleet Power of 85,065 using 2x 4-star ships (Biggs, Ahsoka), 3x 3* ships (JC, GSo, Poe), and 2x 2* ships (RP, Wedge). That's letting me sit in the top 100 (barely) at payout, and overnight I drop into the 140-160's. And I have an 80% (or higher) win rate. Like I said, you're going to be incredibly fortunate to stay in the #21-50 range without keeping up on ship upgrades.

You're also assuming that the currently released Zeta abilities are going to be the only ones released ever, and you only need to chase one or two to be set. I'm betting that's just a taste.

85k and you're top 100?? Wow my shard sucks then. At rank 100 most are 95+k

"Ricter;781160" wrote:

"Tannjam;781131" wrote:
I have a Fleet Power of 85,065 using 2x 4-star ships (Biggs, Ahsoka), 3x 3* ships (JC, GSo, Poe), and 2x 2* ships (RP, Wedge). That's letting me sit in the top 100 (barely) at payout, and overnight I drop into the 140-160's. And I have an 80% (or higher) win rate. Like I said, you're going to be incredibly fortunate to stay in the #21-50 range without keeping up on ship upgrades.

You seem to have 2 factors going on here that I don't think are typical:

You're in an exceptionally competitive shard. I'm sitting at similar Fleet Power (82k) and I get into the top 50 with 4/5 wins (5/5 gets me to around rank 40). I don't even drop out of the top 100 overnight.

You have significantly more blueprints than me, which means you spent a significant amount of crystals on ship packs (I've bought 2 of the big ones and am no where near you on blueprints, and I'm betting most players haven't bought that many). Alternatively you had a large stockpile of GW currency saved to spend on blueprints.


It seems to be that you're a bigger spender than most players or you saved up a bunch of crystals for the release of ships. No judgement - that just means you're not typical. Ditto with the shard competitiveness - I do quite well in arena and was higher level when the ship update landed, which means you must have been even higher - meaning that you're even more of an outlier.

Also, again, a drop in tier prizes isn't that big of a deal. I've shown the math. Even a pretty significant drop for me (and let's be honest, most players for whom this is relevant aren't in the top 50 regularly) shows that this strategy still makes sense.

"Tannjam;781131" wrote:
You're also assuming that the currently released Zeta abilities are going to be the only ones released ever, and you only need to chase one or two to be set. I'm betting that's just a taste.

Not true at all. I'm trading a significant short term gain (a month with 1 Zeta upgrade vs no Zeta upgrade and a month with 2 Zeta upgrades vs 1 Zeta upgrade) for a small amount less of Zeta materials overall (5ish, obviously the math is really volatile). In the end, we'll end up with almost the exact same results - 7* fleets and lots of Zeta mats. You're implying that somehow I'd stop getting Zeta mats or would never upgrade my ships and make up the difference in fleet power, both of which are false.

Also, have you seen Acrofales's post? You're not even going to be able to complete zeta ability challenges - you have the wrong ships.

You'd be lucky to be under rank 300 in my shard with your 82k power. Lol