[quote="Prime Lorca [10FH]
So... I typed all that and I'm not going to delete it in case someone finds it useful, but I should have just asked: What are your voyage goals? What other game play modes do you care about, @DavideBooks ?[/quote]
This week's Culber looks like a really, really solid entry to a good viable voyager following the Bylo process ...
- decent traits
- good voyage score
- solid variance score
- great skill combo
--> all of this blows my immortal Merry Men Crusher (a voyage regular for me and also decent Bylo crew, were it not that her voyage totals are a touch bland) out of the water.
@DavideBooks ... as good a place to start as any. only my gruelling weekend work schedule looks to hold me from getting Mirror Culber myself ... bummer.
I apologize if this is considered dense, but unless I'm blind, you've buried the lead. Where is the "tool" linked?
Edit: found it, but could you put it in the original post, please?
Page 1, 6th post for anyone else who looks before @Bylo Band gets a chance to put it at the beginning. We wanted to allow at least a day for people to read Bylo's intro before we moved it to the beginning. It's been a day now.
I'll download this file to openoffice later and test. I've only used it in Sheets and can't comment to it's functionality elsewhere. I'm guessing that the export did it. I had originally built the trait seat tab in excel and it would not import correctly.
I'm working on an added feature for the adjusted rankings tab. I'll have to test a bit before rolling out. I really wanted to get this out before an honor sale, so I went with what was functional.
Ever since Paladin mentioned how the Voyage hazard checks worked, I have been only doing base stat at my starbase. Now I have 3 accounts working on it. I will shortly have all base stats at 5% I stopped doing proficiency which is at 3%.
I do not think it is possible to regularly get 10 hr voyages. So I do not bother with it. But everything you say is what I too was feeling. That is sometimes better to grab a trait then more points on stats for voyage. You do give me the numbers I need to see to do a 10 hr voyage. So I will see if I meet those numbers, if so I will then make sure I have near zero high proficiency crew. But as @Bylo Band mentioned it is hard to leave out Warship EMH EMA. (Android 🙄)
This week's Culber looks like a really, really solid entry to a good viable voyager following the Bylo process ...
- decent traits
- good voyage score
- solid variance score
- great skill combo
--> all of this blows my immortal Merry Men Crusher (a voyage regular for me and also decent Bylo crew, were it not that her voyage totals are a touch bland) out of the water.
You are correct, at least as far as I'm concerned He has a good chance to match a seat-trait, has a low proficiency variance, a pretty strong voyage score, and a useful skill set. Very solid card IMO.
I apologize if this is considered dense, but unless I'm blind, you've buried the lead. Where is the "tool" linked?
Edit: found it, but could you put it in the original post, please?
This was the plan all along, thank you for reminding me. As I'm sure you have surmised, I write these lengthy threads out in advance in my word processor, and then break them up into smaller pieces when I post. When making the original post I slapped a tag at the very top asking people to kindly wait to reply until all the pieces had been posted, but that message had a second function: it ensured that there would be enough characters unused once deleted to include the link to the tool in the original post
-EDIT-
Link to the VVT tool now at the top of the original post.
And just a reminder, on the Read Me page there is a join code for the Discord Server we setup to offer assistance to people with questions/comments about the tool or to consult on voyage related questions
I won't be doing this for every new card, but I wanted to post this as an example of how to use the tool to evaluate crew/cards. The upcoming Reunion Spock and Kirk has been added to the VVT, and here are the updated Top 10 VV in the Command/Science pair (bonuses set to max possible, feature skill both weighted to 30%)
From this alone we can see:
1. Reunion Spock and Kirk will be the new #1 Com/Sci card in the game with regard to Voyage Score by quite a lot.
2. This card will have nearly a 75% chance to hit a seat trait!
3. Has a Variance of 8.2% (not low, but not high either). Worth noting however that this card has about 2% more variance than the next 8 on the list.
In short, this card will be incredible once fused, leveled, and cited up! All I had to do to generate this table was update my copy to get the most up-to-date card listing, set the bonuses to Max Possible on the Bonuses tab, go to the Adjusted Voyage Rankings tab and select Command and Science from the drop down menu at the top (see below) and it did the rest!
I won't be doing this for every new card, but I wanted to post this as an example of how to use the tool to evaluate crew/cards. The upcoming Reunion Spock and Kirk has been added to the VVT, and here are the updated Top 10 VV in the Command/Science pair (bonuses set to max possible, feature skill both weighted to 30%)
From this alone we can see:
1. Reunion Spock and Kirk will be the new #1 Com/Sci card in the game with regard to Voyage Score by quite a lot.
2. This card will have nearly a 75% chance to hit a seat trait!
3. Has a Variance of 8.2% (not low, but not high either). Worth noting however that this card has about 2% more variance than the next 8 on the list.
In short, this card will be incredible once fused, leveled, and cited up! All I had to do to generate this table was update my copy to get the most up-to-date card listing, set the bonuses to Max Possible on the Bonuses tab, go to the Adjusted Voyage Rankings tab and select Command and Science from the drop down menu at the top (see below) and it did the rest!
You left out some stuff on the Top_25s tab.
#2 overall voyage score
#2 combined minimum roll
#7 combined maximum roll
#2 secondary average roll
Appears on both top 25 SCI min and max charts
Then on to other tabs:
#1 main cast voyage total
#3 main cast SCI base
#2 (three-way tie) Trait-Seats for SCI primary
#22 percent chance to match a trait for SCI primary (which is good for non-MED crew)
Then there's the intangible event potential of being a variant of Kirk and Spock.
Spock+Kirk does not appear on the gauntlet tab. That's good for Bylo's system, but bad if gauntlet is one of your favorite game modes.
You can look at crew from a lot of angles. That's why I love the spreadsheet. There's a tab for almost every play style.
For those who were wanting to see an example of The Bylo Voyage System, here you go. This is my current voyage, and my pre-voyage numbers must look quite worrying to folks who use more traditional voyage staffing approaches.
I barely hit 11K on the Gold skill, I barely hit 11K on the Silver skill, and I only hit 2,900 Starting AM, but I traded that for a 24,147 Tertiary score to compensate, and this was the result.
I hope this demonstration will give confidence to those eager to try this system. Anybody intrigued by this and have a desire to learn or try it out, I am available for consultations
Okay ... so I've had a look at the spreadsheet ... and how some of the findings correlate with what I'd been keeping track of (regarding voyages) for a while in my own spreadsheet.
1. Great clarity and easy-to-follow thought process.
Self-explanatory really ... but it has been really easy to follow the team's thought process from hypothesis to final statement (I feel that the conclusion is up to the individual player to make). If I want to dive deeper into some of the background data I can and it is all very clear how the base data set evolves into a tool for voyage analysis & viability.
An example is ... the difference between Merry Men Crusher and Twilight T'Pol ... it cost me a couple of citations to cite up T'Pol after the mega she was in ... straight away I was throwing her onto voyages and I got a lot of good use out of her (for subsequent events too). However, over time I noticed that the voyages she was on were not very constant. I didn't specifically ID her as a reason, but after making various changes I realised I was never sending her out on 10 hr voyages anymore and where I was sometimes having struggles in consistency, they had gone.
Merry Men Crusher I cited up from 1/5 for her collection ... and where I thought I'd quickly freeze her (just like I had done with Age of Sail Crusher) due to low overall voyage stats ... I still use her frequently on 10 hr voyages to this day.
3. Case Study (my take on) crew evaluation - @DavideBooks
I've stated many times that RAF O'Brien (and Dr. Pollard) are pretty much my favourite voyagers. A third is ol' Leo Da Vinci. So let's have a look at Leo ...
SCI/ENG/MED skill combo with a good voyage total - excellent
Good traits for a high probability of a match (91%) - excellent
Variance - 9.4% - hmm, that doesn't cut Bylo's metrics.
Let's take a look at that last metric ... tab 2: Voyage_Stats
SCI - 5.4% variance - excellent
ENG - 6.4% variance - good
MED - 23.4% vairance ... ah ha, so this pushed Leo over @Bylo Band 's 9% threshold.
--> Would Bylo send Leo on a voyage? I actually do think so ... well, I would, and I probably wouldn't count this as a +9% crew even ... why? The variance comes on his tertiary skill score, so if I'm populating the voyage I could mitigate that by aiming for 100-200 pts more on MED than I would normally aim for, if I want to even take that slight change into account because Leo's probably hitting a trait bonus and both his SCI and ENG scores are really solid (almost equal in wieght).
Anyway ... could be wrong ...
That's all for now ... much more to digest (e.g. the curious case of Jake Sisko) and more ... good stuff all.
I just tried to PM you a thank you @RaraRacing but you are apparently ignoring me In any case, thank you for the exceptionally kind words, and you are correct, I use Leo regularly
Let's take a look at that last metric ... tab 2: Voyage_Stats
SCI - 5.4% variance - excellent
ENG - 6.4% variance - good
MED - 23.4% vairance ... ah ha, so this pushed Leo over @Bylo Band 's 9% threshold.
This is something I wanted to capture in the adjusted rankings table, but didn't know the best format. I could do a "% raw score variance by seat" in the release candidate l'm working on if people think it would be informative. It would be formatted the same as the "odds by seat" trait matches. It will add 4 columns of calculated data and one column of output. I don't think it would slow things down any vs. where they're at now.
Also, haven't forgotten about you @enzo_karotti ... first, I got caught up in learning some basic code to create the new features I'm finishing up. Second, I don't have any open source suites at work and that's where I've spent most of the night. I'm interested to see what each export file type keeps or doesn't.
Sneak peak: Scripts to set the adjusted voyager table to portal only or not, and a column that lets you select or deselect crew (customize to your crew manually). I suspect only Google Sheets will support those features. I am not a verified developer, so it will give you a warning. Instructions on how to use will be in the document.
I just tried to PM you a thank you @RaraRacing but you are apparently ignoring me In any case, thank you for the exceptionally kind words, and you are correct, I use Leo regularly
Hah, yeah ... from a long time back ... I actually have very many forum regulars on ignore ...
No worries, credit where credit's due. Will remove you from ignore.
@JimBerlin ... I'm too tired to be of much use ... stacked with work until the end of next week, too many deadlines.
I'll come back to this when my head is less fuzzy ... but you'll have figured out a solution by then for sure.
I just tried to PM you a thank you @RaraRacing but you are apparently ignoring me In any case, thank you for the exceptionally kind words, and you are correct, I use Leo regularly
*snip*
Hah, yeah ... from a long time back ... I actually have very many forum regulars on ignore ...
*snip*
👀
"In the short run, the game defines the players. But in the long run, it's us players who define the game." — Nicky Case, The Evolution of Trust
New functionality finished, but not live. Should go up tomorrow. Lorca has added to his tabs, as well. Implemented your suggestion @RaraRacing . It will be a separate column in the generated ranking table. Good example is in ENG/COM...Amelia Earhardt's output includes % variance total score (13.2%) and now shows a breakdown (10/8/31) in the next column.
Link in opening post will be updated tomorrow, pending QC testing (Bylo's specialty). I will give a walkthrough for the new features and suggestions for use. Off to test some more and see if exported files are broken.
Edit: Came up with one more feature that opens up use in a new way. Release Sunday now to accommodate testing.
So, the past two voyages I did two things I don't normally do:
- Really, really make sure to hit trait bonuses.
- Only send crew that have under 9% variance score (one exception ... see below).
Voyage 1 - ENG/DIP
Funny enough, as never been my strongest combo (along with ENG/SEC) and it has been my most erratic one considering results.
I forgot to note in which seats they sat, but here is the crew:
Trait bonus indicated with *, ship also had bonus (total 2850) ... One example of where I chose a "poorer" crew was Barclay over EV Suit Spock to get a trait match.
Total stats on tertiary skills : 24,434
Average variance : 6.86%
Stat distribution was a bit wonky, but this was the result:
Voyage 2 - MED/ENG
This is one many people have (had) issues with, I've highlighted it in a Ready Room post ... it has never really been a stumbling block for me, but still.
The crew used are:
CMD - RAF O'Brien* (5.4) ; Dr. Pollard* (6.5)
DIP - Away Team Neelix* (7,2) ; Satin Dress Lily* (8.4)
SEC - Temporal Prisoner Chakotay* (7.0) ; Merry Men Crusher (4.5) (only crew without bonus)
SCI - Q as God* (5.8) ; Leonardo Da Vinci* (9.4)
ENG - Determined Janeway* (5.7) ; Ishan Chaye Sisko* (7.8)
MED - Indulgent Seven* (7,2) ; Medic Jett Reno* (7.9).
Ship - no bonus (bloomin' Tholian!) - starting AM 2775 (a beaut if I would have had the ship bonus too).
O'Brien gave me the thumbs up and we set off ...
Leo was the only +9% crew ... but see discussion in thread above, he's actually lop-sided in variance. Crusher the only crew without trait bonus and it was impossible to get a matching crew there who was of any use.
Total stats on tertiary skills : 24.246
Average variance : 6.90%
This was the result:
Conclusion
So ... the main changes I made with what I would normally do is that I would normally consider the likes of The Caretaker for the second voyage.
Sure, only two voyages here ... but these are the crew I normally end up using a lot no matter what ... anyway, I just wanted to post some examples by someone not related to the project (outsider perspective as it were) ... this system works if you want steady 10 hr voyages without worries of them crashing at 9 hrs and 57 minutes.
So, the past two voyages I did two things I don't normally do:
- Really, really make sure to hit trait bonuses.
- Only send crew that have under 9% variance score (one exception ... see below).
Voyage 1 - ENG/DIP
Funny enough, as never been my strongest combo (along with ENG/SEC) and it has been my most erratic one considering results.
I forgot to note in which seats they sat, but here is the crew:
Trait bonus indicated with *, ship also had bonus (total 2850) ... One example of where I chose a "poorer" crew was Barclay over EV Suit Spock to get a trait match.
Total stats on tertiary skills : 24,434
Average variance : 6.86%
Stat distribution was a bit wonky, but this was the result:
Voyage 2 - MED/ENG
This is one many people have (had) issues with, I've highlighted it in a Ready Room post ... it has never really been a stumbling block for me, but still.
The crew used are:
CMD - RAF O'Brien* (5.4) ; Dr. Pollard* (6.5)
DIP - Away Team Neelix* (7,2) ; Satin Dress Lily* (8.4)
SEC - Temporal Prisoner Chakotay* (7.0) ; Merry Men Crusher (4.5) (only crew without bonus)
SCI - Q as God* (5.8) ; Leonardo Da Vinci* (9.4)
ENG - Determined Janeway* (5.7) ; Ishan Chaye Sisko* (7.8)
MED - Indulgent Seven* (7,2) ; Medic Jett Reno* (7.9).
Ship - no bonus (bloomin' Tholian!) - starting AM 2775 (a beaut if I would have had the ship bonus too).
O'Brien gave me the thumbs up and we set off ...
Leo was the only +9% crew ... but see discussion in thread above, he's actually lop-sided in variance. Crusher the only crew without trait bonus and it was impossible to get a matching crew there who was of any use.
Total stats on tertiary skills : 24.246
Average variance : 6.90%
This was the result:
Conclusion
So ... the main changes I made with what I would normally do is that I would normally consider the likes of The Caretaker for the second voyage.
Sure, only two voyages here ... but these are the crew I normally end up using a lot no matter what ... anyway, I just wanted to post some examples by someone not related to the project (outsider perspective as it were) ... this system works if you want steady 10 hr voyages without worries of them crashing at 9 hrs and 57 minutes.
@Dirk Gunderson and I both have a tremendous appreciation for "Thumbs Up" O'Brien (I am TOTALLY going to start calling him that BTW!), we never really compared notes before we started working together and it turned out we were both doing basically the same thing with our voyages, and we both use Thumbs Up O'Brien a lot, he is absolutely somebody I consider an unsung voyage hero. He's not great at anything, but he is solid across the board, I suspect you'll be getting a lot more thumbs up in the future!
And thank you for sharing these results, it means a great deal to me personally. It is one thing to take chances, try new things, and make "risky" decisions for myself, but it was not easy for me to write this all up because once I post something like this publicly, I am effectively assuming responsibility for everyone who reads it and that is not something I do lightly. I do these things out of a desire to help, a desire to do good, a desire to uplift and empower, and as a result I worry that my advice may cause harm, so it really does uplift my spirit to see successes
So, the past two voyages I did two things I don't normally do:
- Really, really make sure to hit trait bonuses.
- Only send crew that have under 9% variance score (one exception ... see below).
Voyage 1 - ENG/DIP
Funny enough, as never been my strongest combo (along with ENG/SEC) and it has been my most erratic one considering results.
I forgot to note in which seats they sat, but here is the crew:
Trait bonus indicated with *, ship also had bonus (total 2850) ... One example of where I chose a "poorer" crew was Barclay over EV Suit Spock to get a trait match.
Total stats on tertiary skills : 24,434
Average variance : 6.86%
Stat distribution was a bit wonky, but this was the result:
Voyage 2 - MED/ENG
This is one many people have (had) issues with, I've highlighted it in a Ready Room post ... it has never really been a stumbling block for me, but still.
The crew used are:
CMD - RAF O'Brien* (5.4) ; Dr. Pollard* (6.5)
DIP - Away Team Neelix* (7,2) ; Satin Dress Lily* (8.4)
SEC - Temporal Prisoner Chakotay* (7.0) ; Merry Men Crusher (4.5) (only crew without bonus)
SCI - Q as God* (5.8) ; Leonardo Da Vinci* (9.4)
ENG - Determined Janeway* (5.7) ; Ishan Chaye Sisko* (7.8)
MED - Indulgent Seven* (7,2) ; Medic Jett Reno* (7.9).
Ship - no bonus (bloomin' Tholian!) - starting AM 2775 (a beaut if I would have had the ship bonus too).
O'Brien gave me the thumbs up and we set off ...
Leo was the only +9% crew ... but see discussion in thread above, he's actually lop-sided in variance. Crusher the only crew without trait bonus and it was impossible to get a matching crew there who was of any use.
Total stats on tertiary skills : 24.246
Average variance : 6.90%
This was the result:
Conclusion
So ... the main changes I made with what I would normally do is that I would normally consider the likes of The Caretaker for the second voyage.
Sure, only two voyages here ... but these are the crew I normally end up using a lot no matter what ... anyway, I just wanted to post some examples by someone not related to the project (outsider perspective as it were) ... this system works if you want steady 10 hr voyages without worries of them crashing at 9 hrs and 57 minutes.
@Dirk Gunderson and I both have a tremendous appreciation for "Thumbs Up" O'Brien (I am TOTALLY going to start calling him that BTW!), we never really compared notes before we started working together and it turned out we were both doing basically the same thing with our voyages, and we both use Thumbs Up O'Brien a lot, he is absolutely somebody I consider an unsung voyage hero. He's not great at anything, but he is solid across the board, I suspect you'll be getting a lot more thumbs up in the future!
And thank you for sharing these results, it means a great deal to me personally. It is one thing to take chances, try new things, and make "risky" decisions for myself, but it was not easy for me to write this all up because once I post something like this publicly, I am effectively assuming responsibility for everyone who reads it and that is not something I do lightly. I do these things out of a desire to help, a desire to do good, a desire to uplift and empower, and as a result I worry that my advice may cause harm, so it really does uplift my spirit to see successes
Hah ... yes, know what you mean ... In some of my Ready Room posts I've been a bit "bullish" at times, more to evoke a discussion (though that doesn't happen much there) than that I 100% believe in what I've stated ... there's a lot of nuance in more approaches, as is the case with what you've done here ...
A player can straight up say "no crew above 9%" but then they might not fully understand the underlying system ... see Leo da Vinci, or Mambo Picard (8.1% variance - but a lot "riskier" to toss onto a voyage actually - Mambo is the opposite of Leo.)
Oh ... RAF O'Brien was cited up first when citations were initially introduced, he's been a key for me since.
I'll be using the spreadsheet you and your team made to steer my next Crew Retrieval ... tomorrow ... I wasn't sure who to pick up/add stars to, but I've narrowed it down to two options ... Tuxedo Nog (1/5) and Bounty Hunter Mudd (1/5) ... there are more reasons:
- I can get both using minimal (cheap) Polestars
- They are both part of (multiple) collections
- Mudd has been on the fringes of a good citation target when I take my own voyage metrics into account (which is based on the 5*s I own) and with his addition to the Costumed collection, it has made him a viable target for me (I try to only go for collection crew - North Star T'Pol was my previous one).
- My other collection options are too "expensive" or 2-skillers (e.g. Mirror Landry).
So ... the work done is influencing more than just how I populate voyages.
EDIT: can post my next voyage ... SCI/MED ... and another doozy for the Bylo method.
Thanks those of you who gave suggestions. I've been trying to use this the past days, but I've been getting bad ship choices and my unexpected 6 hour drive to Las Cruces for work have not helped. I'm going to add O'Brien to my lost of crew to obtain. I was generally hitting 10 hour voyages, anyway. I was unknowingly doing most of Bylo's strategy. But once in a while I missed the mark by a small margin.
Ladies and Gents, thanks for the positive comments so far. I only joined up with Bylo and Lorca on this 8 days ago, so they had all of the major work done beforehand. I got brought on after pitching my idea for the adjusted rankings and having the traits already broken out for all of the crew. It’s been a whirlwind push to get pen to paper, so to speak, and get a functional tool out in case an honor sale did come the week of the 15th.
Write up broken into sections and hidden behind spoilers for easy digestion. Restrictions on character limits make this necessary... If you run across any issues, contact me through messages here or on the linked discord server. Scripts confirmed to be working.This release is most certainly not going to work on other platforms for some functionality, so please use Google Sheets.
Why I wanted a separate tool from what was already available…
I have been using the available community resources for about a year now. They have helped take my game to the next level. Thanks to all who have shared their knowledge freely. I wanted to share this complementary tool meant to help with crew retrieval/citation decisions, and building more consistent voyages, in the same spirit.
The available rankings I had seen were not set up in a format that had the information I thought I needed. In my mind, there had to be a way to calculate how much time a crew added to a voyage given their score. AM boosts via traits complicated that, so I finally settled on adjusting just the raw scores and then showing other info separately for consideration. All this was by hand initially.
Fast forward 6 months and an honor sale is now on the horizon. So, I started working on the odds to match traits in voyages. Bylo invited me to look at what he, Lorca, Dirk, and Banjo had done and a whirlwind of learning and work took place to get this into everyone’s hands.
Now that it’s functional and I’ve had time to think, I’ve taken one suggestion to integrate into my portion’s output (thanks @RaraRacing ), added some useful scripts, and helped implement a way to restrict crew in a few places. Let me walk you through what’s changed, what’s new, how to use the new functions, and how it all comes together to give you something better than before.
- Version history, changelog, and usage notice added
- Sheets within spreadsheet reordered for ease of use
- Retrieval_Targets added
- Columns added to Your_Voyage to enable referencing for trait matching feature
- Trait matching enabled via checkboxes and traits assigned on a per seat basis. Doing so restricts the list of crew that can be selected in the dropdown. Invalid input will not cause an error. Values will still be output, but the crew name cell will have a warning flag (little red triangle in top right of cell).
- New input cell in Adjusted_Voyage_Rankings: Restriction by Trait (allows limiting of crew pool by a single trait)
- Columns added to Adjusted_Voyage_Rankings sheet to support new output column: % Variance by Skill
- Columns added to Adjusted_Voyage_Rankings sheet to support filtering results by portal availability and manual selection/deselection of crew
- Scripts added to the Adjusted_Voyage_Rankings sheet:
1) Set to portal crew only
2) Set to portal & non-portal crew
3) Uncheck all crew
4) Check all crew
5) Reset to default
- Indicator for active script, if any, added
- New sheet, Retrieval_Targets, added. Features the same information as Top_25s, but only considers crew available in the portal.
Some of the new features require no explanation to be used, like the Retrieval_Targets sheet. We’ve tried to make everything as self-explanatory as possible along the way, but may have fallen short. Let’s look at each new feature.
Part 1/3 - Your Voyage
Your_Voyage update:
Two columns of the crew input portion now feature checkboxes to enforce trait matching (Column b), and a drop-down menu to allow selection of traits in each seat (Column C). Enabling the trait match in a row changes the list of available crew that will drop down in the Crew Name column. If you check the box for a row, you can cause invalid input, but don’t worry…it still will display scores and no errors are created. A warning flag in top right of Crew Name cell will be displayed. If you want to see the full list of crew matching your chosen seat-trait combo, scroll right to Columns AU through BF. This will only feature trait matches if the corresponding box is checked in Column B.
New input cell asks you to specify a trait to restrict by. Set to NONE (default) to not apply any restriction. Only voyage traits are available. Since we are not limiting what the tertiary skill is, the pool is not restricted. You can look for the best hunter by SCI/MED, but may not have the option to use them in a seat that matches your trait (CMD & SEC in this instance).
Output table has two additions. First, the title now auto-updates with the weighting scheme, whereas before only the list length and skills were displayed. Second, % variance is broken down by skill, as well. For example, in ENG/CMD Amelia Earhart has a good adjusted voyage score, but has the highest % variance in the top 25. This is deceiving, though, because the majority of her variance comes in her tertiary skill.
Column O now features checkboxes to manually select/deselect crew for table generation. One could use this in a number of different ways. Examples include, selecting only your current legendary crew to see who will get the most ROI for a cite, removing crew with “bad” numbers relative to your goals, or simply removing all of that one crew’s variants because you hate them with a passion.
A number of scripts have been added to enhance functionality and make common tasks easier.
1) Set to portal crew only – changes the query for table generation to look at portal status
2) Set to portal & non-portal crew – changes the query for table generation to ignore portal status
3) Uncheck all crew
4) Check all crew
5) Reset to default – 2/4 combined
A script status has also been added to indicate the current active script, if any.
To use the scripts, you will be required to give authorization with your google account to run an unverified script. I do not meet the requirements to get verified (I own no domain and don’t have a privacy policy within). The scripts can only edit the document Viable Voyager Tool 1.1.0. Only first use requires sign in, but you must be signed into google sheets to run them. Directions on how to authorize are in the document in the “How to Use Scripts” link. For more information see: https://developers.google.com/apps-script/guides/client-verification
If further scripts are added in the future, you will be required to sign in on first use after changes.
Version control implemented with version history and changelog/release notes. Info link added in the sheet to make it easy to access the changelog with detailed descriptions in the AVR tab. Read Me also features a version number now and history at the bottom right.
Now that there is a way to remove non-portal crew and manually select/deselect in the Adjusted Voyage Rankings, that tab can be used to cater to your personal goals. Looking to map out cites, or retrieval targets, or push your voyages higher or to be more reliable? It’s all there if you want it.
I’m suggesting one additional way to use this I don't think anyone covered. Your Voyage and Adjusted Voyage Rankings are now next to each other in the sheet order, making it easy to switch back and forth between them. Doing so, I’ve been constructing “dream voyages” because I don’t have the roster to currently push up to 12 hours like some of you mythical creatures out there.
Is your score lower than your target in a particular skill? Switch to the rankings tab and generate a list based on that skill. E.g. My DIP/ENG voyage is DIP heavy. I switch to the rankings tab, set the weights to 35/25 for ENG/DIP, favoring higher ENG. Use the output rankings as a who’s who to plug into the voyage. Or, if you need a tertiary bumped higher, input that instead of DIP as the secondary. Adding the “Restriction by Trait” function allows you to narrow down even further to the trait matches to guarantee most AM. Using that, I was able to dial in a 10k/10k/20k (no bonuses) voyage with full AM. If you were to check only your crew in the Adjusted Voyage Rankings, you would have a list custom tailored to your roster to help design your voyage.
My voyage went short today. Trying to see if your voyage proficiency observations are why but it doesn’t seem like my high prof Surak and Locutus had anything to do with it. Just not enough engineering. Unless my engineering people have too much proficiency range?
Comments
So... I typed all that and I'm not going to delete it in case someone finds it useful, but I should have just asked: What are your voyage goals? What other game play modes do you care about, @DavideBooks ?[/quote]
This week's Culber looks like a really, really solid entry to a good viable voyager following the Bylo process ...
- decent traits
- good voyage score
- solid variance score
- great skill combo
--> all of this blows my immortal Merry Men Crusher (a voyage regular for me and also decent Bylo crew, were it not that her voyage totals are a touch bland) out of the water.
@DavideBooks ... as good a place to start as any.
Edit: found it, but could you put it in the original post, please?
Page 1, 6th post for anyone else who looks before @Bylo Band gets a chance to put it at the beginning. We wanted to allow at least a day for people to read Bylo's intro before we moved it to the beginning. It's been a day now.
Regards
I'm working on an added feature for the adjusted rankings tab. I'll have to test a bit before rolling out. I really wanted to get this out before an honor sale, so I went with what was functional.
Ever since Paladin mentioned how the Voyage hazard checks worked, I have been only doing base stat at my starbase. Now I have 3 accounts working on it. I will shortly have all base stats at 5% I stopped doing proficiency which is at 3%.
I do not think it is possible to regularly get 10 hr voyages. So I do not bother with it. But everything you say is what I too was feeling. That is sometimes better to grab a trait then more points on stats for voyage. You do give me the numbers I need to see to do a 10 hr voyage. So I will see if I meet those numbers, if so I will then make sure I have near zero high proficiency crew. But as @Bylo Band mentioned it is hard to leave out Warship EMH EMA. (Android 🙄)
Also as @Prime Lorca [10FH] mentioned about proficiency and MED.
Thanks @Dirk Gunderson @Bylo Band @Banjo1012 @Prime Lorca [10FH] and @JimBerlin . Hope I did not miss anyone, but if so again thanks to you all
You are correct, at least as far as I'm concerned
This was the plan all along, thank you for reminding me. As I'm sure you have surmised, I write these lengthy threads out in advance in my word processor, and then break them up into smaller pieces when I post. When making the original post I slapped a tag at the very top asking people to kindly wait to reply until all the pieces had been posted, but that message had a second function: it ensured that there would be enough characters unused once deleted to include the link to the tool in the original post
-EDIT-
Link to the VVT tool now at the top of the original post.
And just a reminder, on the Read Me page there is a join code for the Discord Server we setup to offer assistance to people with questions/comments about the tool or to consult on voyage related questions
From this alone we can see:
1. Reunion Spock and Kirk will be the new #1 Com/Sci card in the game with regard to Voyage Score by quite a lot.
2. This card will have nearly a 75% chance to hit a seat trait!
3. Has a Variance of 8.2% (not low, but not high either). Worth noting however that this card has about 2% more variance than the next 8 on the list.
In short, this card will be incredible once fused, leveled, and cited up! All I had to do to generate this table was update my copy to get the most up-to-date card listing, set the bonuses to Max Possible on the Bonuses tab, go to the Adjusted Voyage Rankings tab and select Command and Science from the drop down menu at the top (see below) and it did the rest!
You left out some stuff on the Top_25s tab.
#2 overall voyage score
#2 combined minimum roll
#7 combined maximum roll
#2 secondary average roll
Appears on both top 25 SCI min and max charts
Then on to other tabs:
#1 main cast voyage total
#3 main cast SCI base
#2 (three-way tie) Trait-Seats for SCI primary
#22 percent chance to match a trait for SCI primary (which is good for non-MED crew)
Then there's the intangible event potential of being a variant of Kirk and Spock.
Spock+Kirk does not appear on the gauntlet tab. That's good for Bylo's system, but bad if gauntlet is one of your favorite game modes.
You can look at crew from a lot of angles. That's why I love the spreadsheet. There's a tab for almost every play style.
I barely hit 11K on the Gold skill, I barely hit 11K on the Silver skill, and I only hit 2,900 Starting AM, but I traded that for a 24,147 Tertiary score to compensate, and this was the result.
I hope this demonstration will give confidence to those eager to try this system. Anybody intrigued by this and have a desire to learn or try it out, I am available for consultations
1. Great clarity and easy-to-follow thought process.
Self-explanatory really ... but it has been really easy to follow the team's thought process from hypothesis to final statement (I feel that the conclusion is up to the individual player to make). If I want to dive deeper into some of the background data I can and it is all very clear how the base data set evolves into a tool for voyage analysis & viability.
2. It has provided new insight into how I've personally been evaluating crew.
I've always been a proponent of a more stat-balanced approach to voyages (as can be seen here ... https://forum.disruptorbeam.com/stt/discussion/16130/crew-management-for-voyages-during-events ... and here ... https://forum.disruptorbeam.com/stt/discussion/16909/how-to-populating-cmd-med-and-eng-med-the-difficult-ones-voyages ... and here ... https://forum.disruptorbeam.com/stt/discussion/14834/ray-s-law-of-ten-hour-voyages ).
So, it is funny to see how changes in the perception of my own crew have probably been driven by some of the statements made here. I had not been able to quantify them, they were just a "feeling".
An example is ... the difference between Merry Men Crusher and Twilight T'Pol ... it cost me a couple of citations to cite up T'Pol after the mega she was in ... straight away I was throwing her onto voyages and I got a lot of good use out of her (for subsequent events too). However, over time I noticed that the voyages she was on were not very constant. I didn't specifically ID her as a reason, but after making various changes I realised I was never sending her out on 10 hr voyages anymore and where I was sometimes having struggles in consistency, they had gone.
Merry Men Crusher I cited up from 1/5 for her collection ... and where I thought I'd quickly freeze her (just like I had done with Age of Sail Crusher) due to low overall voyage stats ... I still use her frequently on 10 hr voyages to this day.
3. Case Study (my take on) crew evaluation - @DavideBooks
I've stated many times that RAF O'Brien (and Dr. Pollard) are pretty much my favourite voyagers. A third is ol' Leo Da Vinci. So let's have a look at Leo ...
SCI/ENG/MED skill combo with a good voyage total - excellent
Good traits for a high probability of a match (91%) - excellent
Variance - 9.4% - hmm, that doesn't cut Bylo's metrics.
Let's take a look at that last metric ... tab 2: Voyage_Stats
SCI - 5.4% variance - excellent
ENG - 6.4% variance - good
MED - 23.4% vairance ... ah ha, so this pushed Leo over @Bylo Band 's 9% threshold.
--> Would Bylo send Leo on a voyage? I actually do think so ... well, I would, and I probably wouldn't count this as a +9% crew even ... why? The variance comes on his tertiary skill score, so if I'm populating the voyage I could mitigate that by aiming for 100-200 pts more on MED than I would normally aim for, if I want to even take that slight change into account because Leo's probably hitting a trait bonus and both his SCI and ENG scores are really solid (almost equal in wieght).
Anyway ... could be wrong ...
That's all for now ... much more to digest (e.g. the curious case of Jake Sisko) and more ... good stuff all.
This is something I wanted to capture in the adjusted rankings table, but didn't know the best format. I could do a "% raw score variance by seat" in the release candidate l'm working on if people think it would be informative. It would be formatted the same as the "odds by seat" trait matches. It will add 4 columns of calculated data and one column of output. I don't think it would slow things down any vs. where they're at now.
Also, haven't forgotten about you @enzo_karotti ... first, I got caught up in learning some basic code to create the new features I'm finishing up. Second, I don't have any open source suites at work and that's where I've spent most of the night. I'm interested to see what each export file type keeps or doesn't.
Sneak peak: Scripts to set the adjusted voyager table to portal only or not, and a column that lets you select or deselect crew (customize to your crew manually). I suspect only Google Sheets will support those features. I am not a verified developer, so it will give you a warning. Instructions on how to use will be in the document.
Hah, yeah ... from a long time back ... I actually have very many forum regulars on ignore ...
No worries, credit where credit's due.
@JimBerlin ... I'm too tired to be of much use ... stacked with work until the end of next week, too many deadlines.
I'll come back to this when my head is less fuzzy ... but you'll have figured out a solution by then for sure.
Link in opening post will be updated tomorrow, pending QC testing (Bylo's specialty). I will give a walkthrough for the new features and suggestions for use. Off to test some more and see if exported files are broken.
Edit: Came up with one more feature that opens up use in a new way. Release Sunday now to accommodate testing.
- Really, really make sure to hit trait bonuses.
- Only send crew that have under 9% variance score (one exception ... see below).
Voyage 1 - ENG/DIP
Funny enough, as never been my strongest combo (along with ENG/SEC) and it has been my most erratic one considering results.
I forgot to note in which seats they sat, but here is the crew:
Borg Queen* (6.2) ; Science Officer Spock* (6.2) ; Determined Janeway* (5.7) ; Temporal Prisoner Chakotay* (7.0) ; Protomorphosis Barclay* (5.8) ; Xindi Insectoid (5.4) ; Queen Po* (7.0) ; Ishan Chaye Sisko (7.8) ; Admiral Forrest (7.9) ; Satin Dress Lily (8.4) ; Soji* (7.0) and Medic Jett Reno* (7.9).
Trait bonus indicated with *, ship also had bonus (total 2850) ... One example of where I chose a "poorer" crew was Barclay over EV Suit Spock to get a trait match.
Total stats on tertiary skills : 24,434
Average variance : 6.86%
Stat distribution was a bit wonky, but this was the result:
Voyage 2 - MED/ENG
This is one many people have (had) issues with, I've highlighted it in a Ready Room post ... it has never really been a stumbling block for me, but still.
The crew used are:
CMD - RAF O'Brien* (5.4) ; Dr. Pollard* (6.5)
DIP - Away Team Neelix* (7,2) ; Satin Dress Lily* (8.4)
SEC - Temporal Prisoner Chakotay* (7.0) ; Merry Men Crusher (4.5) (only crew without bonus)
SCI - Q as God* (5.8) ; Leonardo Da Vinci* (9.4)
ENG - Determined Janeway* (5.7) ; Ishan Chaye Sisko* (7.8)
MED - Indulgent Seven* (7,2) ; Medic Jett Reno* (7.9).
Ship - no bonus (bloomin' Tholian!) - starting AM 2775 (a beaut if I would have had the ship bonus too).
O'Brien gave me the thumbs up and we set off ...
Leo was the only +9% crew ... but see discussion in thread above, he's actually lop-sided in variance. Crusher the only crew without trait bonus and it was impossible to get a matching crew there who was of any use.
Total stats on tertiary skills : 24.246
Average variance : 6.90%
This was the result:
Conclusion
So ... the main changes I made with what I would normally do is that I would normally consider the likes of The Caretaker for the second voyage.
Sure, only two voyages here ... but these are the crew I normally end up using a lot no matter what ... anyway, I just wanted to post some examples by someone not related to the project (outsider perspective as it were) ... this system works if you want steady 10 hr voyages without worries of them crashing at 9 hrs and 57 minutes.
@Dirk Gunderson and I both have a tremendous appreciation for "Thumbs Up" O'Brien (I am TOTALLY going to start calling him that BTW!), we never really compared notes before we started working together and it turned out we were both doing basically the same thing with our voyages, and we both use Thumbs Up O'Brien a lot, he is absolutely somebody I consider an unsung voyage hero. He's not great at anything, but he is solid across the board, I suspect you'll be getting a lot more thumbs up in the future!
And thank you for sharing these results, it means a great deal to me personally. It is one thing to take chances, try new things, and make "risky" decisions for myself, but it was not easy for me to write this all up because once I post something like this publicly, I am effectively assuming responsibility for everyone who reads it and that is not something I do lightly. I do these things out of a desire to help, a desire to do good, a desire to uplift and empower, and as a result I worry that my advice may cause harm, so it really does uplift my spirit to see successes
Hah ... yes, know what you mean ... In some of my Ready Room posts I've been a bit "bullish" at times, more to evoke a discussion (though that doesn't happen much there) than that I 100% believe in what I've stated ... there's a lot of nuance in more approaches, as is the case with what you've done here ...
A player can straight up say "no crew above 9%" but then they might not fully understand the underlying system ... see Leo da Vinci, or Mambo Picard (8.1% variance - but a lot "riskier" to toss onto a voyage actually - Mambo is the opposite of Leo.)
Oh ... RAF O'Brien was cited up first when citations were initially introduced, he's been a key for me since.
I'll be using the spreadsheet you and your team made to steer my next Crew Retrieval ... tomorrow ... I wasn't sure who to pick up/add stars to, but I've narrowed it down to two options ... Tuxedo Nog (1/5) and Bounty Hunter Mudd (1/5) ... there are more reasons:
- I can get both using minimal (cheap) Polestars
- They are both part of (multiple) collections
- Mudd has been on the fringes of a good citation target when I take my own voyage metrics into account (which is based on the 5*s I own) and with his addition to the Costumed collection, it has made him a viable target for me (I try to only go for collection crew - North Star T'Pol was my previous one).
- My other collection options are too "expensive" or 2-skillers (e.g. Mirror Landry).
So ... the work done is influencing more than just how I populate voyages.
EDIT: can post my next voyage ... SCI/MED ... and another doozy for the Bylo method.
Feature Update!
Link to new version: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FxdGCLD_XWZkcHPc1PO-ihWRhBftaMaWfvVV6XNsPrg/edit?usp=sharing
(OP edited to reflect new version)
Ladies and Gents, thanks for the positive comments so far. I only joined up with Bylo and Lorca on this 8 days ago, so they had all of the major work done beforehand. I got brought on after pitching my idea for the adjusted rankings and having the traits already broken out for all of the crew. It’s been a whirlwind push to get pen to paper, so to speak, and get a functional tool out in case an honor sale did come the week of the 15th.
Write up broken into sections and hidden behind spoilers for easy digestion. Restrictions on character limits make this necessary... If you run across any issues, contact me through messages here or on the linked discord server. Scripts confirmed to be working.This release is most certainly not going to work on other platforms for some functionality, so please use Google Sheets.
The available rankings I had seen were not set up in a format that had the information I thought I needed. In my mind, there had to be a way to calculate how much time a crew added to a voyage given their score. AM boosts via traits complicated that, so I finally settled on adjusting just the raw scores and then showing other info separately for consideration. All this was by hand initially.
Fast forward 6 months and an honor sale is now on the horizon. So, I started working on the odds to match traits in voyages. Bylo invited me to look at what he, Lorca, Dirk, and Banjo had done and a whirlwind of learning and work took place to get this into everyone’s hands.
- Sheets within spreadsheet reordered for ease of use
- Retrieval_Targets added
- Columns added to Your_Voyage to enable referencing for trait matching feature
- Trait matching enabled via checkboxes and traits assigned on a per seat basis. Doing so restricts the list of crew that can be selected in the dropdown. Invalid input will not cause an error. Values will still be output, but the crew name cell will have a warning flag (little red triangle in top right of cell).
- New input cell in Adjusted_Voyage_Rankings: Restriction by Trait (allows limiting of crew pool by a single trait)
- Columns added to Adjusted_Voyage_Rankings sheet to support new output column: % Variance by Skill
- Columns added to Adjusted_Voyage_Rankings sheet to support filtering results by portal availability and manual selection/deselection of crew
- Scripts added to the Adjusted_Voyage_Rankings sheet:
1) Set to portal crew only
2) Set to portal & non-portal crew
3) Uncheck all crew
4) Check all crew
5) Reset to default
- Indicator for active script, if any, added
- New sheet, Retrieval_Targets, added. Features the same information as Top_25s, but only considers crew available in the portal.
Some of the new features require no explanation to be used, like the Retrieval_Targets sheet. We’ve tried to make everything as self-explanatory as possible along the way, but may have fallen short. Let’s look at each new feature.
Part 1/3 - Your Voyage
Two columns of the crew input portion now feature checkboxes to enforce trait matching (Column b), and a drop-down menu to allow selection of traits in each seat (Column C). Enabling the trait match in a row changes the list of available crew that will drop down in the Crew Name column. If you check the box for a row, you can cause invalid input, but don’t worry…it still will display scores and no errors are created. A warning flag in top right of Crew Name cell will be displayed. If you want to see the full list of crew matching your chosen seat-trait combo, scroll right to Columns AU through BF. This will only feature trait matches if the corresponding box is checked in Column B.
Part 2/3 - Adjusted_Voyage_Rankings
New input cell asks you to specify a trait to restrict by. Set to NONE (default) to not apply any restriction. Only voyage traits are available. Since we are not limiting what the tertiary skill is, the pool is not restricted. You can look for the best hunter by SCI/MED, but may not have the option to use them in a seat that matches your trait (CMD & SEC in this instance).
Output table has two additions. First, the title now auto-updates with the weighting scheme, whereas before only the list length and skills were displayed. Second, % variance is broken down by skill, as well. For example, in ENG/CMD Amelia Earhart has a good adjusted voyage score, but has the highest % variance in the top 25. This is deceiving, though, because the majority of her variance comes in her tertiary skill.
Column O now features checkboxes to manually select/deselect crew for table generation. One could use this in a number of different ways. Examples include, selecting only your current legendary crew to see who will get the most ROI for a cite, removing crew with “bad” numbers relative to your goals, or simply removing all of that one crew’s variants because you hate them with a passion.
Column AQ now contains portal status.
Part 3/3 - Scripts & Version Control
1) Set to portal crew only – changes the query for table generation to look at portal status
2) Set to portal & non-portal crew – changes the query for table generation to ignore portal status
3) Uncheck all crew
4) Check all crew
5) Reset to default – 2/4 combined
A script status has also been added to indicate the current active script, if any.
To use the scripts, you will be required to give authorization with your google account to run an unverified script. I do not meet the requirements to get verified (I own no domain and don’t have a privacy policy within). The scripts can only edit the document Viable Voyager Tool 1.1.0. Only first use requires sign in, but you must be signed into google sheets to run them. Directions on how to authorize are in the document in the “How to Use Scripts” link. For more information see: https://developers.google.com/apps-script/guides/client-verification
If further scripts are added in the future, you will be required to sign in on first use after changes.
Version control implemented with version history and changelog/release notes. Info link added in the sheet to make it easy to access the changelog with detailed descriptions in the AVR tab. Read Me also features a version number now and history at the bottom right.
I’m suggesting one additional way to use this I don't think anyone covered. Your Voyage and Adjusted Voyage Rankings are now next to each other in the sheet order, making it easy to switch back and forth between them. Doing so, I’ve been constructing “dream voyages” because I don’t have the roster to currently push up to 12 hours like some of you mythical creatures out there.
Is your score lower than your target in a particular skill? Switch to the rankings tab and generate a list based on that skill. E.g. My DIP/ENG voyage is DIP heavy. I switch to the rankings tab, set the weights to 35/25 for ENG/DIP, favoring higher ENG. Use the output rankings as a who’s who to plug into the voyage. Or, if you need a tertiary bumped higher, input that instead of DIP as the secondary. Adding the “Restriction by Trait” function allows you to narrow down even further to the trait matches to guarantee most AM. Using that, I was able to dial in a 10k/10k/20k (no bonuses) voyage with full AM. If you were to check only your crew in the Adjusted Voyage Rankings, you would have a list custom tailored to your roster to help design your voyage.
My voyage went short today. Trying to see if your voyage proficiency observations are why but it doesn’t seem like my high prof Surak and Locutus had anything to do with it. Just not enough engineering. Unless my engineering people have too much proficiency range?