Drone Weapons Upgrade
bradr752
Registered Users 1,962 Posts
I am creating this thread to continue the exploration of issues related to Drone Weapons upgrade and particularly the critical issue of the cost effectiveness of upgrading the Drone itself versus upgrading Drone Weapons.
There have previously been discussions of this issue and other Drone upgrade issues in various other threads including the Micromanagement and Green Glow threads and I recommend reviewing those threads if you are interested in issues related to Drone and Drone Weapons management.
I acknowledge the valuable work done by others on this chat, including Scorpion (Amsoft2000) and NK2014, much of what I summarize here is taken from there work on the subject.
Also recognize that the Drone Weapons upgrade program was broken for several weeks and so I have no experience with weapons upgrades at power levels below 51K. It is, however, my belief that below 51K Drone levels, players should concentrate their efforts on upgrading the Drone to 51K, and not devote any Diamonds to weapons upgrade. If you have a differing opinion, I would love to here your insights.
There have previously been discussions of this issue and other Drone upgrade issues in various other threads including the Micromanagement and Green Glow threads and I recommend reviewing those threads if you are interested in issues related to Drone and Drone Weapons management.
I acknowledge the valuable work done by others on this chat, including Scorpion (Amsoft2000) and NK2014, much of what I summarize here is taken from there work on the subject.
Also recognize that the Drone Weapons upgrade program was broken for several weeks and so I have no experience with weapons upgrades at power levels below 51K. It is, however, my belief that below 51K Drone levels, players should concentrate their efforts on upgrading the Drone to 51K, and not devote any Diamonds to weapons upgrade. If you have a differing opinion, I would love to here your insights.
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There are four weapons attachments available for the Drone, The Machine Gun, the Healing Ray, the Shield Generator and the Rocket Launcher, each is available in various basic Power Ratings of 51K, 64, 92K, 410 K and 510 K.
Each Power level is upgradeable as follows:
51K weapons are upgradeable to 134 K
64K weapons are upgradeable to 215 K
92K weapons are upgradeable to 369K, but are not widely available and are not currently being awarded by Glu
410K weapons are upgradeable to 1.07 M
510K weapons are upgradeable to 1.72 M
Of course, Drone weapons can only be upgraded to the Power Level of the Drone itself, so weapons with a power level in excess of your current Drone Power cannot be fused to the Drone and weapons on the Drone cannot be upgraded beyond that level.
The upgrade process is started by clicking the Upgrade button on the chose Drone accessory. (Clicking the Change button allows you to switch to a higher power weapon in your inventory.) The upgrade menu is a confusing array of weapons available to be used for upgrade, listed near as I can tell, in random order. You can click on up to 8 of those weapons and then Fuse the to your weapon to upgrade. There will be a cost for this in Diamonds which will be debited from your Vault.
A Drone weapon is only upgraded when you have fused enough upgrade parts to the weapon to advance a Level. Each Weapon is normally upgradeable though 20 Levels. Unfortunately, there is no way to know it advance how much the Power of your Drone Weapon will increase when you advance a Level. You may buy parts to upgrade a weapon only to be informed as you attempt to complete the Level upgrade that you cannot do it because the Weapon Power would exceed the Power of the Drone.
Shortly, I hope to post an example that should make this clearer.
64K Power - 64K Part - 1 x Weapon Module - 0.000 Diamonds
69K Power - 64K Part - 8 x Weapon Module - 72.3K x 4 = 289.2K Diamonds
69K Power - 64K Part - 8 x Weapon Module - 81.6K x 4 = 326.4K Diamonds
Let me know what you think BRADR752 and how I can change the format if needed? 64K/69K weapons are the only hard figures to date, 74K weapons upgrade is "in progress" and the cost may change.
I'm starting to get a feel for how expensive weapons upgrades are going to be since the support drone will need to be upgraded along the way as well. The 92K weapon was a great way to ease the path to 369K ... I wonder why they did away with it? Upgrading the drone all the way to 410K appears to be a daunting and futile task.
Yet the number of 2.95M drones continues to climb ... I'm starting to have flashbacks LOL
I think the ticket may be get the 74K fully loaded and revert to upgrading the drone as time and resources permit.
On a side note, I would love the Global to be delayed another day or 2, the diamond take in vanilla PvP is much better for some reason.
(Some would say it is arrogance to start a thread when you know nothing about the process, but I look at it as a way to lure in somebody who knows how it actually works who will feel obligated to correct the muddle I have made of it.)
Interesting you should ask these because I was just working these very points out in my head ... what was it they say about great minds?
Hold on to your seats boys and girls ...
(1) Part interchangeability - I would say YES because I was upgrading a HEALING RAY and I'm almost certain I had added several MACHINE GUN parts to the fusing staging area (I was on the phone and not paying attention). I ran out of diamonds and was going to confirm this with certainty.
(2) Back-Loading: I want to say YES but need more of a sampling to confirm this. Moving from 64K to 69K required 8 drone weapons parts modules to max out LEVEL 1 and half of LEVEL 2. Another 8 finished the 2nd half of LEVEL 2. Looking ahead I believe that as the levels increase so does the cost, but the number of XP increases exponentially with each level. I'll nail it down as I progress further.
(3) Predicting in advance the "boost" each level actually fives you: I believe I can accomplish this because after each incremental upgrade I am noting not only the COST, and LEVEL progression, but the killing power as well.
NEWS at 11 ... STAY TUNED !!!
Good News ... I have confirmed that the drone weapons parts are absolutely interchangeable. So we DO NOT need to scroll looking for a 64K ROCKET LAUNCHER part. Just grab the first 64K part that's available.
That may or may not make sense, but it is at least consistent with Drone upgrades. Now we are getting somewhere. Thanks
I noticed that by mistake a few days ago, and now I confirmed it. I don't know how useful the information is, but I may add that the XP gained by using diferent parts from the one you're upgrading is the same as using equal parts (for example, machine gun or healing ray on rocket launcher is the same as using rocket launcher on rocket launcher).
Also, in the noob perspective, and in my humble opinion, upgrading drone weapons makes the drone more helpful, so it's a plus. The only thing that makes me upgrade the drone right now is the chance to equip the 1k power weapons I got meanwhile.
Another example of slip shod programming ... but we should be thankful I suppose since the entire feature was broken for months.
*** SMILES ***
Support Drone Power: 76K / 2.95M
Drone Level: 102 / 150
Drone Health: 563,200
64K Power - 64K Part - 1 x Weapon Module - 0.000 Diamonds
69K Power - 64K Part - 8 x Weapon Module - 72.3K x 1 x 4 = 289.2K Diamonds
69K Power - 64K Part - 8 x Weapon Module - 81.6K x 1 x 4 = 326.4K Diamonds
74K Power - 64K Part - 16 x Weapon Module - 88.1K x 3 x 4 = 1,057.2K Diamonds ** IN PROGRESS **
The 74K weapon is only 3/4 complete at this time and I estimate another 7-8 Weapon Module(s) per weapon to complete, but I need to raise the support drone power rating to 80K in order to get all weapons up to a full power rating of 74K.
Additionally, since it's getting harder to find 64K parts, I need to scroll to page 35 for example, I may adopt (change) over to 51K parts since I've got plenty of those at the top of the list. I don't know which will take longer ... scrolling through an unbelievably long list of parts (15,000 and 500 Pages) or using lesser rated parts thus needing to fuse more often.
If there are any computer science students out there, this is EXACTLY what you should NEVER do when programming. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if these so-called "developers" were nothing more than college students working for free to gain some experience.
I am excited to amp up my Machine Gun on Monday. Is it the Rocket Launcher that you are upgrading? I assume that Rocket Launcher and Machine Gun Upgrade will be identical, but the other accessories may not be.
In this case, I start off with the MACHINE GUN and upgrade ROCKET LAUNCHER next, but you're correct in that the cost for the weapons are all equal for the most part; within 1 weapon module, sometimes 7 or 8 at the end depending on where you start.
I hope to have a 215 K Drone with 92 K Machine Gun by the end of the Global, so I should have lots of room to experiment with upgrades.
Alright ... I used 51K parts for the rocket launcher and it's no bargain. Therefore, it is my opinion that there is no time savings whether you use lower or higher rated parts OR whether you scroll or fuse more often ... it takes about the same amount of time. JEEZ Louise ... I wish I could teach these guys how to code ... this is the worst example of array manipulation I have ever experienced and I've seen plenty believe me ... *** SMH ***
I am debating about just taking the first 10 parts, whatever value. If i do that will I be able to track costs?
That's probably the best way to go. As far as tracking costs, it may become tedious but I'm sure you can come up with a system similar to 51K x7 + 64 K x2 + 8,000 x 10 ... maybe check marks under a specific part ... the thing to watch out for are the mixed parts will have varying costs on each fuse. It's a pain in the butt ... why they couldn't put like parts grouped together by power, cost, xp, whatever is beyond me ... this is torture, pure and simple LMAO
The only time I keep track of whether I fuse 4 K parts or 100 K parts is when I consider whether I have enough Diamonds to cover the tab. Shouldn't the same be true of Drone weapons?
8,000 x 4 + 51K x 2 + 64K x 2 *** vs *** 64K x 8
The total fuse cost for each would be different. The feature does tell you how many XP you have selected, so I guess you could anticipate the cost BEFORE you fuse. Just keep in mind (haven't figured out how to predict this as yet) that when you mix parts you may finish out one level and start the next level. The cost will increase with each level (as shown in my latest update).
Each line corresponds to a level 0,1,2,3.
Prudent ... you can mix types (machine gun VS healing ray) but do NOT mix rating (51K VS 64K) at least the cost per fuse will be consistent until the next level jump.
This is what I've been doing. I'm looking forward to you taking this to the next level since I will definitely "top out" soon enough. I'll need to start upgrading the support drone again.
Support Drone Power: 76K / 2.95M
Drone Level: 102 / 150
Drone Health: 563,200
LEVEL 0
64K Power - 64K Part - 1 x Weapon Module - 0.000 Diamonds
LEVEL 1
69K Power - 64K Part - 8 x Weapon Module - 72.3K x 1 x 4 = 289.2K Diamonds
LEVEL 2
69K Power - 64K Part - 8 x Weapon Module - 81.6K x 1 x 4 = 326.4K Diamonds
LEVEL 3
74K Power - 64K Part - 16 x Weapon Module - 88.1K x 3 x 4 = 1,057.2K Diamonds
74K Power - 51K Part - 16 x Weapon Module - 47.2K x 5 x 4 = 944K Diamonds
So the 64K weapon is 10,700 XP and the 51K is 4,300 XP slightly less than 1/2 the 64K weapon part. That appears to be inconsistent with the fuse cost I've determined above.
Twice the fuse cost for 51K is slightly greater than that for 64K; this would seem to indicate that using the 64K weapon parts is actually cheaper than 2 x 51K. I'm getting blurry eyed here ... time to start upgrading support drone again LOL
If so, then there is no direct correlation between XP and cost ... now that's a kick in the head and a waste of 1M diamonds, but hey learning has a price right? *** SMILES ***
Help me out here BRAD ...
One last final observation ... the increase in the killing power of the drone is quite noticeable, marginal but better so I am definitively convinced that the weapons need to be upgraded. As far as SHIELDS and HEALING that is more of a player choice and does not apply to us, per se, since we've adopted the new strategy ... we're simply not on the battle field long enough for it to make a difference and medkit use is at a minimum. I would need to do a comparison analysis of HEALING RAY cost in diamonds versus MedKit cost in GOLD; again a player subjective sort of thing.
In short, after all this prep work I cannot upgrade Drone Weapons. Thanks yet again Glu.
Yes please do ... it's almost like paying a penalty tax for using a lesser rated part, and I think I know why ... there are more of them. If I were to use 64K parts only for each weapon module, I would run out relatively quickly and would need to use the lesser part ... there is GLU with their hands out.
First my starting point: I have Level 113 176 K Drone with 4 92 K accessories attached. I upgraded all four accessories to Level 2. Here are the costs and values for those upgrades:
MACHINE GUN
LEVEL, DAMAGE, RATING, COOLDOWN, COST IN XP, USED TO UPGRADE, COST
1 3041.28 92k 10 19.2 K 5X51k 2198 D
2 3316.86 99k 9.9 200.13 k
HEALING RAY
1 26686 92 k 30 19.2 K 2X64 k 2198 d
2 29597.8 99 K 29.5 200.13 K
SHIELD GENERATOR
1 30498.67 92 K 45 19.2 K 2X64 K 2198 D
2 32682 99 K 44.5 200.13 K
ROCKET LAUNCHER
1 59136 92 K 15 19.2 K 2X64 k 2198 D
2 64512 99 K 14.85 200.13 K
Two things jump out of this data: First,all four accessories are priced identically. Second the Level 1 to Level 2 jump is a "teaser rate". I managed to upgrade all four weapons by over 7.6% with a total investment of less than 9 K Diamonds. Level 2 to Level 3 will cost 200 K per accessory, an increase in price of over 1000%.
In short, when I attempt to upgrade, I get ripped off. I was able to get all Drone Attachment upgraded one level from 92 K to 99 K and the difference in power was noticeable. The cost for the Level 1 upgrade was very cheap and is definitely a priority. Other level upgrades appear to be much more expensive, but I was unable to get a fix on the costs, because it varied wildly and irrationally between the various parts in inventory.
Because of the glitch, I am forced to abandon this line of inquiry and go to Plan B which is to get the Drone to 410 K as quickly as possible and change all Drone Weapons to the much more powerful 410 K accessories. This alternative plan is only possible because I am only a few levels away from the 410 K level. Others will have to work out another solution.
This was a promising line of inquiry and I am sorry that I will not be able to pursue it. (Thanks again, Glu!) Hopefully somebody will be able to investigate further.
Im on level 98 right now but my drone power is only 63k im still moving forward for 64k i think on nxt level 99 right @ scorpion...?
Level 99 is 65K, Level 100 is 69K. Keep at it!