Average time required to get a 20 Zeta's

JamzDatt

Does anyone know how long approximately it takes to get to 20 zeta's solely from the ship challenges?

I'm at 8 right now and I'm just trying to plan accordingly.

Thanks!

DathomirAgency

Average is one per day 3x a week. So 3 a week. So about 7 weeks

JamzDatt

So I am about 4 weeks away. Thanks for the response

SwarmyStargazer

Ha!!! 1 a day. More like 1 every other week

Ambassador

Moved to Challenges.

JamzDatt

Thanks @Ambassador. Sorry for making your job tougher. I'll try to do better next time.

Ambassador

Ender22

Yeah right, 1 a day. I once estimated 1~2 a week. It really feels like less though.

MasterSeedy

I have limited attempts to go by, but it seems that the drop chance is close to 30% or 1/3, somewhere in there.

Once it drops, I've been getting almost as many drops of 2 as drops of 1. But successful attempts are even lower, so the significance of this is hard to judge. It would be consistent with 50/50 chance of 1 or 2 once the drop processes, but it would also be consistent with 66/33 or 75/25 with dropping one being more common. I just don't know.

If it drops on average 1 time in 3, that's 2 drops a week. Multiply the chances of getting a second zeta from a single drop by 2 (the number expected per week) and you get somewhere between 1/2 a zeta to 1 zeta mat. If the drop chance is 30%, the numbers will be about 10% less.

The higher number = 2.5-3.0 zeta mats/week
or 0.833 - 1.0 zeta mats per day the challenge is available
or 0.417 - 0.5 zeta mats per attempt

The lower number = 2.25 - 2.7 zeta mats/week.
or 0.75 - 0.9 per day the challenge is available
or 0.375 - 0.45 per attempt

So it all comes down to what estimate you think is most reasonable:
20/3 = 6.667 weeks
20/2.5 = 8 weeks

20/ 2.25 = 8.8889 weeks. (8 and 8/9ths)
20/ 2.7 = 7.4 weeks.

Best (average) case is that it takes about 6 weeks + 4-5 days, depending on how the schedule falls.
Worst (average) case is that it takes 9 weeks.

So, yeah. you'll get about 6-9 zetas in a whole year of doing the challenge.

JamzDatt

MasterSeedy wrote: »

I have limited attempts to go by, but it seems that the drop chance is close to 30% or 1/3, somewhere in there.

Once it drops, I've been getting almost as many drops of 2 as drops of 1. But successful attempts are even lower, so the significance of this is hard to judge. It would be consistent with 50/50 chance of 1 or 2 once the drop processes, but it would also be consistent with 66/33 or 75/25 with dropping one being more common. I just don't know.

If it drops on average 1 time in 3, that's 2 drops a week. Multiply the chances of getting a second zeta from a single drop by 2 (the number expected per week) and you get somewhere between 1/2 a zeta to 1 zeta mat. If the drop chance is 30%, the numbers will be about 10% less.

The higher number = 2.5-3.0 zeta mats/week
or 0.833 - 1.0 zeta mats per day the challenge is available
or 0.417 - 0.5 zeta mats per attempt

The lower number = 2.25 - 2.7 zeta mats/week.
or 0.75 - 0.9 per day the challenge is available
or 0.375 - 0.45 per attempt

So it all comes down to what estimate you think is most reasonable:
20/3 = 6.667 weeks
20/2.5 = 8 weeks

20/ 2.25 = 8.8889 weeks. (8 and 8/9ths)
20/ 2.7 = 7.4 weeks.

Best (average) case is that it takes about 6 weeks + 4-5 days, depending on how the schedule falls.
Worst (average) case is that it takes 9 weeks.

So, yeah. you'll get about 6-9 zetas in a whole year of doing the challenge.

This is fantastic! Thanks @MasterSeedy

MasterSeedy

You're welcome. Anytime.

You know, you also made me think of the return on investment of paying for zetas - which I haven't been doing because there's so much gear I need in fleet shipments (I'm mostly done with the toons and there are no more ship shards I want for the foreseeable future).

But anyone who has the zeta challenge 3*d should be able to get 1300 Fleet Tokens a day (finishing 50th, I think). At the very least you should be getting 1200 fleet tokens per day (finishing 200th).

7 x 1200 = 8400.
7 x 1300 = 9100.

So rock bottom minimum, for someone who doesn't pay much attention to the Fleet Arena standings is 8000 tokens per week. This means that 2 x per week you actually finish outside the top 200, but your fleet power should be 160k+ if you're doing the Zeta challenge, and the folks in the 200-300 ranks can sometimes be lower than 1/2 that. It should be pretty hard to fall that far once you're doing zetas.

So with a cost of 2000 tokens, it's possible to buy 0-4 tokens per week.

If the challenges are operating at their highest estimated return - remember that was 3/week - it takes 6 weeks + 4-5 days to get one completed zeta.

3/week (challenges ) + 1/week (bought) = 4 = 5 weeks (saves 10-11 days).
...rate of gear purchase = (8k - 2k)/8k = 75%. You lose 25% of your gear, so a 3 week grind becomes a 4-week grind.

3/week (challenges ) + 2/week (bought) = 5 = 4 weeks (saves 17-18 days, an extra 7).
...rate of gear purchase = (8k - 4k)/8k = 50%. You lose 50% of your gear, so a 3 week grind becomes a 6-week grind.

3/week (challenges ) + 3/week (bought) = 6 = 3.33 weeks (saves 21-23 days, an extra 4-5).
...rate of gear purchase = (8k - 2k)/8k = 75%. You lose 25% of your gear, so a 3 week grind becomes a 9-week grind.

3/week (challenges ) + 1/week (bought) = 7 = 2.857 weeks (saves 25-26, an extra 3 days, rarely might be 4).
...rate of gear purchase = 0
(or, since you're probably actually making a bit more than 8k/week, you can pick some up sporadically, but not at all reliably and farm rate = uncertain, but pretty vast and you shouldn't count on getting any gear from here, you should just be using this to finish off a piece of gear needed quickly and almost done)

So the first 2k/week buys you 10-11 days savings. The last 2k buys you 3 days savings. And along the way you're making certain types of gear much harder to acquire.

What if the challenges are paying off at the low-end of the estimate?

Base return from challenges = 2.25/week

Base time required, 8.8889 weeks (8 & 8/9ths - most times you farm it will be 8 weeks and 6 days, or would be if the attempts were stretched out evenly across the week and not clustered on particular days).

2.25/week (challenges ) + 1/week (bought) = 3.25 mats per week = 6.154 weeks, or 6 weeks and a day.
(Saves 19 days)

2.25/week (challenges ) + 2/week (bought) = 4.25mpw = 4.70 weeks, or 4 weeks and 5 days.
(Saves 29 days, an extra 10)

2.25/week (challenges ) + 3/week (bought) = 5.25mpw = 3.81 weeks, or a bit less than 3 weeks 6 days
(saves 35 days, an extra 6)

2.25/week (challenges ) + 4/week (bought) = 6.25mpw = 3.2 weeks, or just a bit over 3 weeks & 1 day
(saves 39-40 days, or an extra 4.5)


Your farming decisions are up to you, but I find that 2/week is easily worth doubling gear farming times (since that's not the only place I'm getting gear) under the pessimistic scenario where one full Zeta takes bout 9 weeks with no purchases, but 5-6 weeks with purchases.

I find purchasing 1/week easily worth getting 75% gear under the optimistic estimate, where we're taking farming down from 6 weeks & 4-5 days to 5 weeks flat.

We can't know which scenario is most realistic, but things get a bit dicey going in for 3 or more zeta mat purchases/week without consistently finishing in the top 10 of your Fleet shard.

I've been thinking about this a lot since you asked the question and I did the math. Until recently I was still buying shards and blueprints (now I'm only picking up Chirrut, who is rare and doesn't disrupt my gear schedule much). But this seems like the time to switch over part of my Fleet Token production to purchasing zeta mats.

I'll start with one today, then do 1/week until I finish this zeta (I'm at 9/20 right now). I'll keep track of my progress and if I think I'm closer to the low end, I'll bump it up to 2/week. The goal will be to keep one zeta coming in every 5 weeks. We know from the math that using purchases to reduce it lower than that gets less and less effective, but if you're currently taking longer than 5 weeks, a single more zeta purchased per week can still make a significant difference.

Of course, you can also take a hybrid approach: buy 1/week on a certain day each week. Then when you complete a full zeta, instantly buy 1 or 2 over and above what you would normally have bought that week. The benefit is that you're still getting closer to maximum effectiveness since you're not going much over 1/week, but you also never have to look at 0 zeta mats in your bank, which can be kind of depressing, especially after a few days worth of attempts with no results.

Whatever works for you, of course.

Best,

Seedy.

JamzDatt

When you consider that most some of the harder to farm gear, mainly stun guns and cuffs, is going to be readily available in the new Guild Events shop, that makes this an even easier decision. I currently finish in my top 50 regularly, and I'm going to start looking at purchasing zeta mats.

I'm still working on a few characters(ships are boring, but I'll still splurge for TIE Advanced), like Chirrut and Grievous, but overall I think there should be plenty left over for at least one mat per week. This is going to help tremendously.

Thanks again for putting the time into this and sharing it.

MasterSeedy

You're very welcome. Anytime. Good luck on your galactic adventures.

and if Stun guns and cuffs are really going to be in the new TB store, I'm going to be soooooo happy.

JamzDatt

It was confirmed in a video that was released. 12 pieces per drop for what equates to about 1.5x the cost of 5 character shards worth of Guild Event currency IIRC.

Z2gop

It's hit or miss. I once needed 1 zeta to upgrade Yodas second zeta, I did not receive 1 zeta for over 2 weeks. Another time I got 0 zetas and then on one battle I got 4.

JamzDatt

This math is for averages, so even with bad rng, the average should be what is posted above.