Congratulations Bylo!!!
Banjo1012
✭✭✭✭✭
in The Bridge
Awesome!! My good friend finished 8th!! Way to go bro!!
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...but first...
Now about that Gauntlet you're in...
🎊🎉🎇🎆🖖🎇🎆🎉🎊🎂🎂🎂🎂👍👍👍👍👍❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Wednesday when I saw that War Correspondent Jake Sisko was the ranked reward I had the following thought: "Neat! My WCJS is already 3/5, so if I get top 1.5K this weekend I can get a fourth copy there, and then if next week turns out to be a re-run I can get the fifth copy by hitting 400K points!" There was a discussion in another thread a few weeks back about voyages and skill combos and in that thread I had come to the realization that I have a hole in my crew with regard to Dip/Sec, and while I was formulating a plan to cover that hole WCJS made the short list of citation contenders as he would let me cheat in a beefy Dip/Sec combo into a Med position, so realizing an opportunity I committed Wednesday to using this event (and possibly next week's) to immortalize WCJS.
Of course there was no guarantee that next week would be a re-run so I had to make backup plans, and during this strategizing @Banjo1012 gave me my weekly "You should make a run!" encouragement, and it was at that time that I drew up the blueprint for a potential top 25 run to secure two copies of WCJS this week.
The event started at 9:00 AM local time Thursday, and I began the event like I begin all events, asleep. I woke up around 4:00 PM local time a full seven hours after the event had been active, shared my crew for my squad, and then began my charge with a proper kickstart (I normally do a modified kickstart which is about 3 hours slower but a lot cheaper!) and was up to 4K shuttles by 4:30 PM; I had to do the proper kickstart because if I needed to hit top 25 I couldn't afford to leave those early points on the table.
Thursday night came and I was running 4 shuttles only, but running them on 90 minute boosts (I started the event with around 300 of them) to slowly gain ground on the top of the leaderboard to keep hope alive for a run should it be necessary and when I took my Friday morning nap, nearly 24 hours into the event already, I was ranked around 2,000th.
I woke up from my 90 minute nap (this is usual for me on Fridays) to see that Shan had already announced that next week would NOT be a re-run (drat!) but a flashback...(sarcasm)great!(/sarcasm) Now I had to shift gears and begin to chase down the top 25 as there would be no WCJS available from next week's loot table!
So my 4 shuttles instantly became 6 shuttles, and to jumpstart my kickstart I sent out the first two waves of six shuttles with 4* time reducers as I was effectively a full day behind the top of the leaderboard. I kept up the 6 shuttle barrage most of Friday when I made a horrifying discovery; my WCJS was NOT in fact 3/5, but only 2/5, meaning I now had to push even harder because now I needed top 15! A quick check of the standings at the time to see what top 15 looked like, and it was grim indeed, the divide between top 25 and top 15 was pretty severe!
But I was all in so for the second time since the event began, I had to shift gears yet again and push even harder, so by early Saturday morning I had managed to dilute my crew a bit more and push out a 7th shuttle into each volley, and this time I meant business; every cycle I was sending out 7 shuttles with a minimum of 3* time reducers, although I was also sending out 2x reward rounds and then paying to recall them after 90 minutes.
At that point my resource expenditure became extreme as I still had a lot of ground to make up and I had my very slow start to overcome, so I started hemorrhaging shuttle boosts, and every time I thought about it I was paying to recall them early and send them right back out again.
I had managed to crack the top 10 by Sunday morning by basically going all out for a full day, just as I was physically at my end. I had basically only slept 11 hours from Thursday afternoon until Sunday morning (again, pretty typical for me) so I sent out my 7 shuttles ALL with 5* 3x time/2x reward boosts and went for a legit sleep, knowing full well that much of my progress would be undone while everyone else was awake. I woke up early (not on purpose), paid to recall those shuttles early (expensive!) and sent them all back out with 2x reward shuttles...
...long story short, from Sunday afternoon until the event ended, I was awake the entire time and pushing HARD, as once I broke through the log jam around 15th place I found myself up in 8th for most of the way, peaking as high as 6th with an hour left in the event.
I ended up in 8th place which felt pretty amazing considering I started 7 hours late and didn't do much for a full day!
I have a lot more to share along with screenshots, I will be back later with more, but I have dadding to do!
I was going to get one copy of Jake on the principle that its a card I already have, he's main cast and top 1500 isn't that hard. I then I had a realization why I'm a mindlessly stockpiling all this crap if I'm not going to spend it? Let's try and do better. I had already obtained Janitor Kirk from last week mostly because I like episode and its Kirk with solid ENG. I bought two packs for the event and got Harris twice. Off to a lukewarm start.
Thursday:
Modified Kick start and then run 4x 90 min shuttles till I get 4k shuttles. Run 7x 3hr Ferengi Shuttles till bedtime. I skip the 5 Seater. The shuttle containing the loaner Garth from my squad leader got a reward doubler, the rest got 3* skill buffs. Wake up once in the middle of the night to reset shuttles.
Friday:
Repeat the same strat. Thaw out some more TOS crew for more options. This comfortably putting me in the top 100 but that's not enough.
Saturday:
At this point I decided I needed more. Switched to running the 6 3-seaters from all factions plus two more 4 seaters. I started of using only two reward doublers but later switched to using them on all shuttles. Thawed out the rest of my useful TOS crew (ie not Amb Spock) and withheld useful high base stat crew from Voyages. Woke up once in the middle of the night to reset shuttles.
Sunday:
Closer to top 25 but knowing that there's whales out there I decided it was time to step on the gas. I started running 12 shuttles all with reward doublers. Usually I would pass 11/12 shuttles. I did this all morning and afternoon until I ran low on doublers. Early evening I had 24 left and I wanted to hold them for overnight. All evening I ran 12 90 minute shuttles. WoW guildmates asked me to tank Mechagon which goofed my timing a little so the last set before bed time were 1hr shuttles. Burned off the remaining doublers overnight (12 and 12).
Monday:
Not wanting to screw around I brute forced it and ran 36 1hr shuttles.
3/5 Jakes, roughly the same amount of sleep I get every night and no dilithium spent. I did spend roughly 250 shuttle rentals and 100 reward doublers. I'm out of the latter. Not bad but I'm also choked that next week is a boring flashback event. The dilithium reward allowed me to buy another event pack. I got a Kirk this time.
If I magically got refunded ALL the resources I dumped into this event I would ABSOLUTELY do it again, it was a LOT of fun. That being said, it took me months and months of careful decision making/hoarding to stockpile those resources, so it will be a while before I can do it again, but wow, it was exciting!
I am not sure you saw it or processed it in your frenzy of activity, but last night when I saw you and I were both active and making runs up the leaderboard I sent you an in game message of encouragement, I was definitely rooting for you. Had you caught me, i would have been happy for you
I hope I gave a satisfactory answer to this in my first "story" above, but I actually did go for Jake on purpose, and I have no regrets at all...but no, I did not lose a bet, lol!
Thank you sir, and thank you for the shared crew victory points
I would also like to thank @(CSF) Jesus Is Lord [••••] and @Haere Lintesereg for the messages of encouragement this weekend, and of course to @Banjo1012 for making me believe.
Gonna settle in a bit and then come back for another story or two, and also a few screen shots!
Congrats on the effort. But for the sake of clarifying for others, there was no chance this was ever going to be a re-run event. And even if it was, the same crew has never appeared both as rank reward and in threshold. Once Jake was announced as the rank reward for this week, it was almost certain that we would have a flashback event.
To summarize event types:
Re-Run: A new 5* is the rank reward the week before. The original 5* is 400k threshold reward.
Flashback: The old 5* is rank reward the week before. There is no 400k threshold reward.
There is no situation where DB offers the same 5* crew in both rank rewards and threshold rewards.
...hitting 8th place triggered both the top 25 and top 15 cheevo (I think it was top 15, it was all a blur TBH) which when combined with the 10x pull I got from the loot table, meant five 10x pulls.
The crew pulls were straight honor, but the ship schematics were a bit more impressive, as they allowed for this!
Not only will I now get the full "Spore Drive" AM voyage bonus, but I FINALLY got level 10 on the T'Ong!!!!! Seriously, I had basically given up on that ship!
Will report back again later!
You are very welcome my friend. My brain is yours to pick
So as you've read, at three different stages in this event I ramped up my effort, and throughout the event I kept myself busy by doing a lot of chores around the house to keep my mind distracted from constantly checking the leaderboard or wondering if it was time to check/recall shuttles, by spending time with my wife and kids, and at times by literally playing 3 video games at once! At several points during this weekend I was actively playing STT/plotting STT shuttle strategies, playing a second mobile game (I started playing from an ad I watched in STT just for something to do during downtimes), and actively questing in Elder Scrolls Online! It was pretty crazy keeping all of that straight in my head, but I had to do it to keep myself from over-thinking the need to constantly monitor my shuttles.
But then a really, REALLY annoying thing kept happening. ALL weekend long, like clockwork, every 2 hours somebody would knock me down the leaderboard in Admiral Arena, and I had to stop everything and win my way back into my prefered parking area. Friday, Saturday, AND Sunday all 10 of my Arena tickets were spent fighting my way back up every 2 hours, it was like constantly getting bitten by a mosquito! I'd compulsively check the current standings in Arena, see I had fallen 500 spots again, loudly proclaim something like, "Those jackals!" and then win my spot back, only to do it again EVERY 2 hours ALL weekend! I was like, "Hey, I've got a lot of irons in the fire already, would you all mind painting that bullseye on someone else's ship for a few days?!"
Why thank you
I'll PM you.
During the final 40 hours or so when I was pushing out 7 shuttles non-stop, due to having several immortalized TOS legends plus Garth plus event Kirk, it just so happened that I was able to shove Harris AND event Chekov in the same 3-seater to get the success chance to 92% without any boosting, but I noticed that it was failing 100% using this setup:
(I didn't screenshot every one, but I did get the last two failures pictured here)
After it failed 4 times in a row I complained to Banjo via message, then it failed a 5th time in a row, and then a 6th! Fearing "some kind of" bug or glitch or whatever I made the choice to bench Professor Sato (that same shuttle had been running earlier in the event with Harris, Chekov, and Sulu of the Body and been just fine) and replace her with High Roller Sisko.
I was starting to freak out BIG TIME because I was in an intense race with about 5 other captains in the top 12 at the time and was investing quite a lot of resources into an alleged 92% shuttle with TWO actual event crew and having it fail literally 100% of the time! It is worth mentioning that during this same interval I was running an 85% shuttle with two Kirks and Dahar Master Koloth and a 77% shuttle with Sulu of the Body, that Scared Scotty, a third TOS 4* I'm forgetting, and F.O. Burnham and they were actually doing very well, so either my Chekov/Harris/Sato shuttle was having the worst RNG in recorded history or something hinky was going on.
Happy to report that the Harris/Chekov/Sisko shuttle performed quite admirably
I didn't notice anything similar myself. My 3-seaters were pretty consistently succeeding using the same crew. I do have a few rules I stick to:
1-Never put two or more event crew on the same shuttle. 3-seaters were usually Event/Bonus/5|5 Crew. The sixth shuttle used 5|5 Gunslinger Uhura since she's my best SEC TOS crew.
2-The loaner crewmember always gets the best friends.
3-Try to always use the best two stats. The lack of DIP/SCI seats meant Chekov always got slotted in a DIP/CMD seat. I assumed that the AND seats were working correctly although perhaps I shouldn't. Harris is weak enough that he always got a CMD/DIP seat.
Admittedly things got swapped around a little usually when I did the Romulans. 5/6 of the 3-seat shuttles were roughly the same. One of the Romulans had an END/CMD seat for Janitor Kirk. Sometimes he and Harris would swap friends depending on which shuttle came out. I didn't really keep track like you did. Success chances were 92-96%.