I'm just below rank 600 with about 40K separation. I think this one is a bit of a nail biter, but it will be upsetting to a bunch of people with such close ranks.
My Crusoe account I hit a few SR after my last pic. I ended at 770k rank. I had more to use. But those rewards for the next bracket just did not entice me.
My WaldoMag account was in that 530k area too @DavideBooks
My rank was 650. Wish I remembered what VP I had maybe it was 530k
I managed to secure a nice 400s spot and got my Archer I also chose to DYC him.
Admiral of the Haus of GaghGagh, Starbase level 94, we are not accepting members at this time.
Captain of the voyage vessels: Queen of Bashir, Landsknecht, and Sunspear, the first luxury starship cruiseliners.
Amenities include wifi, fully-functioning holodecks, a full-service bar, 3 party decks, a Trill spa, and a business centre.
Fun fact: The ships are propelled by bouncy castle technology.
I did not DYC, but fully equipped him. I'm waiting for the Sisko stats, but I will probably honor cite him to immortal status. Some other comments say Hoshi Sato is better, but I thought Archer had a better voyage score.
A little further up than 1000, but I tracked my free-fall in rank during the last hour (last event, rank 481->698) and last half hour (this event, rank 450->570).
VP during this time period were 516,740 (last event, where I believe the rank-1000 cutoff was almost exactly 500,000) and 528,661 (this event, where it seems from above to have likely been about the same). The thin range of VP from rank 600/700 to rank 1000 is pretty shallow, so I expect these curves would be a lot steeper had I started a little lower in rank. I'd estimate that my extra 15K-30K "safety margin" cost me ~180 chrons (last event) and ~320 chrons (this event) that I technically didn't need to spend.
The orange curves show the actual rank at each time (I did not add VP), and the grey curves show the forecasted final rank based on extrapolating the last few minutes' decline. The orange lines are curved upwards (and the grey forecasts trend upward, rather than staying flat) showing the increase in others' VP accrual rate (presumably crit turn-ins) towards the end. There is clearly a change around 10 minutes before event end, but at these ranks, the population "holding back" is small enough to keep it in the safe zone. Much further into the rank 700-1000 pack and I'm sure it would be a different story.
The upward curve is enough to say that forecasts ~30 min out or so are likely to be optimistic in Galaxies.
So, as per average in the last three events, roughly 500k to finish top 1K.
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That will be hard next event. Skirmish can get there, but skirmish will be the first two days which are generally not as busy due to work and school. The Expedition half has only a set amount possible (I don't remember how much) without spending. So I'm not sure the 500K will hold true next week. Next week will be much more about how hard you hit the skirmish than the expedition, in my inexperienced opinion.
I am basing this on absolutely nothing concrete, but it would not shock me if there was a revamp to the expedition portion of the event. I keep thinking that perhaps the developers stopped running them for so long to evaluate how they worked and made changes. I am going in with zero expectations.
I am basing this on absolutely nothing concrete, but it would not shock me if there was a revamp to the expedition portion of the event. I keep thinking that perhaps the developers stopped running them for so long to evaluate how they worked and made changes. I am going in with zero expectations.
We've seen 0 indication of DB bothering with tweaking expedition events. They just hide them because they don't make enough money and bring them out when they feel people complain too much about not having them.
What interests me more are that skirmish events have now become hybrids with the skirmish in part 1. DB knows part 2 is where they make their money with everyone fighting for rank. If DB is now putting a skirmish in part 1 with an expedition in part 2, then skirmish events are generating even less income for DB than expedition events. With that performance, I wouldn't expect skirmish events to last much longer.
I am basing this on absolutely nothing concrete, but it would not shock me if there was a revamp to the expedition portion of the event. I keep thinking that perhaps the developers stopped running them for so long to evaluate how they worked and made changes. I am going in with zero expectations.
We've seen 0 indication of DB bothering with tweaking expedition events. They just hide them because they don't make enough money and bring them out when they feel people complain too much about not having them.
What interests me more are that skirmish events have now become hybrids with the skirmish in part 1. DB knows part 2 is where they make their money with everyone fighting for rank. If DB is now putting a skirmish in part 1 with an expedition in part 2, then skirmish events are generating even less income for DB than expedition events. With that performance, I wouldn't expect skirmish events to last much longer.
We get two token Expedition events a year now, roughly six months apart. The effort vs. revenue ratio likely isn’t close to what we see in the others and I imagine DB throws them out there as a change of pace more than anything.
However, I don’t know that it is safe to say that Skirmishes are doomed due to low revenues because next week’s hybrid puts the Skirmish first. They seem like they aren’t really more involved to create than Faction or Galaxy events and I would be surprised if they didn’t get some burst of player spending from the bonus rewards. Perhaps not as much as you might see from the new monetization options for Factions or the excessive chron/equipment burn of Galaxy events, but I would be surprised if the effort vs. revenue ratio was closer to Faction and Galaxy events rather than being behind even Expeditions.
Hybridizing Skirmish events makes sense - it’s something I suggested months ago to break up the grind involved over four days of ship battles - and although I agree it would be curious to put the Skirmish first on a normal weekend, even DB has to have learned that observation of the Christmas holiday is going to have an effect on the frantic competition that would normally be present at the end of an event. Expedition events are about as low-key as they get in this game (as long as DB doesn’t drop a bunch of extra tickets, of course) and in light of the number of people who will be busy with family for the holiday, I think this particular order is the better choice. If we see a lot of Skirmish/Faction hybrids over Skirmish/Galaxy, Galaxy/Skirmish, or Faction/Skirmish hybrids (or straight Skirmish events, for that matter) over the coming months, the question of the profitability of Skirmish events may yet be called into question.
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Edit: I will guess 505k will be the cutoff.
Cutoff was close to 500k
It shows how tight the field was.
I finished with 504.5K BTW
My WaldoMag account was in that 530k area too @DavideBooks
My rank was 650. Wish I remembered what VP I had maybe it was 530k
Captain of the voyage vessels: Queen of Bashir, Landsknecht, and Sunspear, the first luxury starship cruiseliners.
Amenities include wifi, fully-functioning holodecks, a full-service bar, 3 party decks, a Trill spa, and a business centre.
Fun fact: The ships are propelled by bouncy castle technology.
VP during this time period were 516,740 (last event, where I believe the rank-1000 cutoff was almost exactly 500,000) and 528,661 (this event, where it seems from above to have likely been about the same). The thin range of VP from rank 600/700 to rank 1000 is pretty shallow, so I expect these curves would be a lot steeper had I started a little lower in rank. I'd estimate that my extra 15K-30K "safety margin" cost me ~180 chrons (last event) and ~320 chrons (this event) that I technically didn't need to spend.
The orange curves show the actual rank at each time (I did not add VP), and the grey curves show the forecasted final rank based on extrapolating the last few minutes' decline. The orange lines are curved upwards (and the grey forecasts trend upward, rather than staying flat) showing the increase in others' VP accrual rate (presumably crit turn-ins) towards the end. There is clearly a change around 10 minutes before event end, but at these ranks, the population "holding back" is small enough to keep it in the safe zone. Much further into the rank 700-1000 pack and I'm sure it would be a different story.
The upward curve is enough to say that forecasts ~30 min out or so are likely to be optimistic in Galaxies.
Not super-useful, but the more data the merrier!
I was at 505k VP and finished 967th. So 500k was right about on the money, like usual.
We've seen 0 indication of DB bothering with tweaking expedition events. They just hide them because they don't make enough money and bring them out when they feel people complain too much about not having them.
What interests me more are that skirmish events have now become hybrids with the skirmish in part 1. DB knows part 2 is where they make their money with everyone fighting for rank. If DB is now putting a skirmish in part 1 with an expedition in part 2, then skirmish events are generating even less income for DB than expedition events. With that performance, I wouldn't expect skirmish events to last much longer.
We get two token Expedition events a year now, roughly six months apart. The effort vs. revenue ratio likely isn’t close to what we see in the others and I imagine DB throws them out there as a change of pace more than anything.
However, I don’t know that it is safe to say that Skirmishes are doomed due to low revenues because next week’s hybrid puts the Skirmish first. They seem like they aren’t really more involved to create than Faction or Galaxy events and I would be surprised if they didn’t get some burst of player spending from the bonus rewards. Perhaps not as much as you might see from the new monetization options for Factions or the excessive chron/equipment burn of Galaxy events, but I would be surprised if the effort vs. revenue ratio was closer to Faction and Galaxy events rather than being behind even Expeditions.
Hybridizing Skirmish events makes sense - it’s something I suggested months ago to break up the grind involved over four days of ship battles - and although I agree it would be curious to put the Skirmish first on a normal weekend, even DB has to have learned that observation of the Christmas holiday is going to have an effect on the frantic competition that would normally be present at the end of an event. Expedition events are about as low-key as they get in this game (as long as DB doesn’t drop a bunch of extra tickets, of course) and in light of the number of people who will be busy with family for the holiday, I think this particular order is the better choice. If we see a lot of Skirmish/Faction hybrids over Skirmish/Galaxy, Galaxy/Skirmish, or Faction/Skirmish hybrids (or straight Skirmish events, for that matter) over the coming months, the question of the profitability of Skirmish events may yet be called into question.