Zeta Mats (Fleet Shipments vs Ability Challenges)
December 1, 2016 4:09PM
edited December 2016
So, like many of you, I've been wondering if it's better to get zeta mats from fleet shipments or to upgrade my ships faster. Unlike many of you, I'm an obsessive math nerd, so here goes. (this line was meant as a joke, please don't take offense)
THIS MATH IS CURRENTLY OUTDATED DUE TO INCORRECT ASSUMPTIONS, PLEASE SEE MY POST AT THE BOTTOM OF PAGE 2. I'm not interested in hiding my mistakes, so I'm going to leave this post to keep the flow of conversation in a state that makes sense.
Currency Gains:
GW: 1200 / day = 12 blueprints / day
FS: 1300 / day = 13 blueprints / day
Other Energy: 1 blueprint / day (I think this is optimistic considering my drop rate, but ymmv)
~26 blueprints / day
We need 8 5* ships to get zeta mats from challenges. That's 145 blueprints per ship, for 1160 blueprints total. I currently have 272 blueprints between my top 8 ships.
(1160-272) / 26 ~= 34 days to get all the necessary blueprints, spending FS on blueprints.
(1160-272) / 13 ~= 68 days to get all the necessary blueprints, not spending FS on blueprints.
Therefore, spending FS on blueprints gets you 34 more days on the ability challenges.
(34 / 7 [number of weeks]) * 3 [number of days you can do the challenge per week] * 2 [number of times you can do the challenge per day] ~= 29 attempts
This means that if you're spending FS on blueprints, you get 29 more attempts at the zeta tier ability challenge.
That may sound like a lot, but the method spending FS on zeta mats has had 34 days of spending zeta mats. In that time frame:
(34 * 1300) / 2000 [zeta mat cost] = 22.1 zeta mats.
So, those of you whom are maxing ships first are essentially trading 29 attempts at zeta mats... for 22 zeta mats. Of course, this math changes if you have more blueprints than me. I only bought two ship packs (and would trade back both of them...).
tl;dr: If you're F2P (or even a dolphin with similar blueprint count), and it makes more sense to just get the mats.
THIS MATH IS CURRENTLY OUTDATED DUE TO INCORRECT ASSUMPTIONS, PLEASE SEE MY POST AT THE BOTTOM OF PAGE 2. I'm not interested in hiding my mistakes, so I'm going to leave this post to keep the flow of conversation in a state that makes sense.
Currency Gains:
GW: 1200 / day = 12 blueprints / day
FS: 1300 / day = 13 blueprints / day
Other Energy: 1 blueprint / day (I think this is optimistic considering my drop rate, but ymmv)
~26 blueprints / day
We need 8 5* ships to get zeta mats from challenges. That's 145 blueprints per ship, for 1160 blueprints total. I currently have 272 blueprints between my top 8 ships.
(1160-272) / 26 ~= 34 days to get all the necessary blueprints, spending FS on blueprints.
(1160-272) / 13 ~= 68 days to get all the necessary blueprints, not spending FS on blueprints.
Therefore, spending FS on blueprints gets you 34 more days on the ability challenges.
(34 / 7 [number of weeks]) * 3 [number of days you can do the challenge per week] * 2 [number of times you can do the challenge per day] ~= 29 attempts
This means that if you're spending FS on blueprints, you get 29 more attempts at the zeta tier ability challenge.
That may sound like a lot, but the method spending FS on zeta mats has had 34 days of spending zeta mats. In that time frame:
(34 * 1300) / 2000 [zeta mat cost] = 22.1 zeta mats.
So, those of you whom are maxing ships first are essentially trading 29 attempts at zeta mats... for 22 zeta mats. Of course, this math changes if you have more blueprints than me. I only bought two ship packs (and would trade back both of them...).
tl;dr: If you're F2P (or even a dolphin with similar blueprint count), and it makes more sense to just get the mats.
Post edited by Ricter on
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Replies
I don't think you really thought this through, but let's run with it and see what happens. My math above assumes a rank of about 51-100 (I'm actually getting top 50, but I wanted to run my math conservative). Let's assume that my rank immediately plummets - I go from getting rank 51 every day to getting rank 500. This is only relevant about half the time because the rest of the time my ships will still be on par (you gain nothing until you actually get the * upgrade). This example is absurd, obviously, but let's see what happens.
This drop my FS from 1300/day to 1050/day. I lose 250 FS/day * 34 days = 8500 points, or 4.5 zeta mats.
So I'm still trading 17.6 zeta mats for 19 attempts. Unless the drop rate for zeta mats is at least 93% (lol), I'm still better off even in this absurd case.
More realistically, I'm probably going to drop down a single bracket about half the time: where everyone else gets 4* ships and I'm still stuck on 3*, and again when everyone else has 5* ships and I'm still stuck on 4*. Remember, the rest of the time my ships are still on par. This loses me 50 FS/day, for a total of a measly 850 FS.
You also have to remember, that after the initial ship upgrade grind is complete, these people can then spend on Fleet shipment Zetas AND run the 2x weekly challenges. So after that first 68 days, they'll have the advantage over you. They'll be accumulating zetas faster AND they'll have a stronger fleet than you.
But, you can also use the Ship Acquisition Tool here and it will do all the mathz for you
Mostly-Objective Ship-by-Ship Analysis
Have you factored in the loss of enhancement mats from losing rank? It may be marginal, but it will prevent your ships from leveling up at the same rate as others.
Have you factored in the loss of ability to do certain challenges faster? This should harm the ability to level up ships and level up their abilities. I don't believe it will hurt you on enhancement droids, although you will have less - I am FTP and don't run out of them.
I think you also may want to assume for calculation purposes that many F2P who are serious about ships will be farming Plo Koon's ship. That may modify your calculations somewhat, maybe in your favor.
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.
If your goal is zeta upgrades for arena purposes (mine is) and you rush ships, you're going to spend a month without one, and then about a month with 1 vs their 2. At that point, whatever advantage you may gain by having extra zeta mats in the long run is probably lost by being behind in arena for 2 months.
Edit: Good catch. Fixed.
Edit:
That's a fair point. But remember, for a significant portion of the time, the zeta rusher won't be behind - you have no advantage until you actually get that * upgrade - 64/65 is the same as being 0/65. You absolutely will be behind the zeta rusher for about 2 months in terms of zeta upgrades.
Edit:
No, not in the OP. Even assuming I drop a tier half the time, I lose about 1200 shipment points. Even rounding that against zeta rushing, it's not even close. Even in an absurd case where I drop from r51 to r500, I'm only losing 4.5 zeta mats. Still well worth it.
Plo Koon's ship is a great point. I don't have Plo Koon and have much better things to do with cantina energy than spend it on a ship and a niche character and I'm assuming that anyone that cares significantly about zeta mats is in a similar ship.
This post assumes that arena is priority, and that you want zeta upgrades as soon as possible. In that case cantina energy is far too valuable to spend on a ship, as you're likely spending it on all the great characters in the cantina and on mods.
Geo Spy Ship
Geo Soldier Ship
Sun Fac Ship
Imp Tie Fighter
FO Tie Fighter
While that is your 5 ships there, you'd have to get incredibly lucky to get these to 5* in the minimum time you give. Moreover, there's both Geo Spy and Sun Fac there, which F2P players won't have. So you will, at a bare minimum need to buy Sun Fac with credits (then again, you have to do that as well on both routes), and farm Geo Spy (which, granted, might still be faster than praying for Slave 1 shards from the Fleet Shipments).
Either way, both timelines are significantly slower than you put there, while other people who farm faster are overtaking you, and causing you to get less FS credit.
Moreover, the challenges are reported to be quite hard, so on both routes you're going to have to spend resources gearing and levelling all those characters, and that might set you back too (on either route).
You do realize the challenge has a chance of dropping 2 mats per attempt, which I have seen it do enough already.
So it is not 29 attempts in 34 days but is 58 attempts.
Oh wow, this simply cements the decision for me. Great information!
Yes, I'll get less FS credit, but it's not going to be a significant amount (certainly not compared to the effects those zeta upgrades are going to have elsewhere). The delay on the challenges only serves to significantly amplify the time zeta upgrades have to weigh in.
Edit: Also, this significantly hampers the "stronger fleet" argument. Unless you have FOTP, TP, SF, GS, and GSpy at 80/G8+ (which you don't, unless you're a whale, in which case this post wasn't considering you), you'll lose a significant amount of that advantage as you're upgrading ships with weak crew.
Sure. I think you're crazy (or crazy lucky) if you think you're going to net 22 mats in 29 attempts even with a chance at double mats. You could be absolutely correct, however, as we don't know the drop rate yet. But I'm not expecting the math to be that good.
But have you stopped to consider that....well....they're ships?
Mostly-Objective Ship-by-Ship Analysis
Oh, don't get me wrong - I love ships. I wish there were more daily ship battles, like a ship GW or ship energy, so I could do more than ~7 day (let's be honest, 5 + 2 sims).
But considering I can maximize my gains from ships AND still get to play with ships just as much, well, why not?
I am 9/12 right now. 3 times 1/2, 3 times 2/2.
So the drop rate for Zeta is actually not bad?
Seems OK so far. I have heard of some getting none but most I know that are running it are getting decent drops.
Holy ****. As in, you've done the challenge only 6 times, and have gotten 9 zeta mats out of it?
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.
You seem to have 2 factors going on here that I don't think are typical:
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.
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.
I know the needs for completing the mats challenge, just because those ships aren't yet in my most powerful team, doesn't mean I'm not working on those ships as well (dark side ones). I have a 2-star Sun Fac ship, and am working on Slave One when it infrequently makes an appearance in fleet shipments. Just to clarify - you need 5x 4* dark ships to complete the challenge to upgrade Tarkin's ship to 5*. To complete the Mats challenge (that awards zetas) you can use any 5* ships with Tarkin as Fleet Commander. I'm not going to neglect the two better F2P ships in the game (Ahsoka, Biggs) just to focus only on dark side ships.
Man, I've tried to be polite with you, but at this point you're just arguing for the sake of arguing. I said in the op that this discussion is for F2P players and dolphins that have gotten less blueprints than me. You're neither of those, so of course it's not the same numbers for you, but I said that in the op!
In fact, F2P players and dolphins are more likely to be in a *less* competitive shard, meaning that dropping rank has a less significant effect for them, making the case for rushing zeta materials even better for them. And the number of F2P players and dolphins in shards less competitive than yours is vast.
So what you're saying, really, is that you need even more shards. In that case, you're going to be even farther behind in the Zeta upgrade game and this argument gets stronger, not weaker. Until rushing ships results in more Zeta upgrades for a significant period of time than rushing Zeta mats, it is an inferior strategy.
Rushing zeta mats provides multiple months of having Zeta Upgrade advantages over your opponents, and those advantages are likely to be more valuable than having an extra Zeta Upgrade far down the road.
This also has the significant disadvantage of requiring F2P players to invest in 5 DS characters enough that they can actually complete the challenges AND not lose fleet arena rank by investing in their ships (since they'll have very weak pilots otherwise). Considering only 5 of these were F2P until very recently (and only 1 was good enough for F2P to invest in reliably, GS), rushing ship upgrades makes even less sense.
If you think that a flashy video disproves math, there's nothing I can do to convince you otherwise. That video provides no evidence nor any numbers to back up his theory.
Furthermore, that video doesn't acknowledge the fact that the strategy of rushing zeta mats will also unlock the challenges (admittedly at a later date). So yes, if you ignore that critical fact, like the video does, the strategy of rushing zeta materials seems unwise.
What you undersestimate the most is that you need 5-4* DS ships, then 8 total 5* ships. If you are only farming those ships right now in GW you are going to be months behind