You will laugh, I'm out of power cells...

Hey guys,

there were many posts about how useless the power cells are. We made a lot of fun about it, but now I came to the point that I'm almost out of epic power cells and soon won't be able to evolve epic items. After making some calculations I want to share the results about epic power cells "economy balance".

Here is the situation: I'm f2p playing MK6 shooter and I have currently 99 epic power cells. I have never scrapped epic items that were evolved to at least T2. I have been playing since June-July 2017, so about 9-10 months and for the whole time evolved only following epic items (marked green):

Spoiler: Screenshot with all evolved epic items

Spoiler: Screenshot with amount of epic power cells

With the data (see below) about how many power cells is needed for every evolution it was easy calculate, how many epic power cells I got for the whole time of playing BB: 389

Spoiler: Epic power cell for every evolution

Epic T1->T2: 10 epic power cells
Epic T2->T3: 20 epic power cells
Epic T3->T4: 30 epic power cells
Epic T4->T5: 40 epic power cells

please correct me if the data is wrong

It is also easy to calculate how many epic power cells is needed to evolve 8 items (as for MK6/MK7 shooter) up to tier 4 and 5: 480 and 800 respectively

So after 9-10 months of playing it is not even theoretically possible to evolve all 8 items even to tier 4 just because of the epic power cells (389 < 480), even if to concentrate only on these 8 items and do not evolve any other (e.g. if you want to try new weapons or ships). And it is not even a half of those 800 epic power cells to get all items to tier 5.

I've tried to verify these results (may be I'm just very unlucky with epic power cells) and used data of another well known f2p shooter - Bittersteel from his stream on YT at 12.03.2018 (@BITTERSTEEL I hope you don't mind. If yes just let me know, I will edit it out).
I don't know if he has ever scrapped epic items that were evolved to at least tier 2, but let's assume that not. Here is Bittersteel's data for the calculation:

Spoiler: Screenshot with all evolved epic items

Spoiler: Screenshot with amount of epic power cells

Bittersteel got 519 epic power cells for the whole time he is in the game and this is almost 2 years (!). So even after two years it is not possible for f2p to get all items to epic t5 just because of the power cells!

I just wanted to ask devs, if this is may be too harsh? Or it was the intention at the global launch when the power cells were first introduced to the game?
I know that power cells should slow down our progress and let p2w players to be there where they are. But even without this it is already very hard to make upgrades (find dupes, grind parts, gold, sugar), may be power cells are very imbalanced right now?

P.S. In the post I wrote about calculations, find them under the spoiler. They are given in form of the code for Scilab-script, but I think they are simple and still understandable.

Spoiler: Calculation of the amount of power cells you ever get (Bittersteel's data is in the example)

clear
clc

// *** Input data ***
//amount of epic power cells needed to evolve items (per tier)
e_T2 = 10 //from T1 to T2
e_T3 = 20 //from T2 to T3
e_T4 = 30 //from T3 to T4
e_T5 = 40 //from T4 to T5

e_inv = 129 //amount of epic power cells you currently have
//(see inventory)

T2 = 1 //amount of T2 epic items in your possesion
T3 = 0 //amount of T3 epic items in your possesion
T4 = 3 //amount of T4 epic items in your possesion
T5 = 2 //amount of T5 epic items in your possesion

n = 8 //amount of items that is equipped on your ship
//(e.g. 8 for MK6 shooter)

// *** calculate the overall amount of epic power cells needed for every tier ***
e_T2_sum = e_T2 //to evolve from T1 to T2
e_T3_sum = e_T2_sum + e_T3 //to evolve from T1 to T3
e_T4_sum = e_T3_sum + e_T4 //to evolve from T1 to T4
e_T5_sum = e_T4_sum + e_T5 //to evolve from T1 to T5

// *** calculate the overall amount of epic power cells that was ever get for the whole time ***
e_sum = e_inv + T2 * e_T2_sum + T3 * e_T3_sum + T4 * e_T4_sum + T5 * e_T5_sum

// *** calculate the overall amount of epic power cells to evolve every item of your ship to T5 epic ***
e_sum_T5_req = n * e_T5_sum
e_sum_T4_req = n * e_T4_sum

// *** output ***
printf('For the whole time you have been playing BB you got %i epic power cells \n', e_sum)
printf('To get every item of your ship to epic T4 %i epic power cells is needed \n', e_sum_T4_req)
printf('To get every item of your ship to epic T5 %i epic power cells is needed \n ', e_sum_T5_req)

 

Yes and the point is that even after 2 years it won't be possible to evolve all of the ship's items to T5 and this is not players' fault, it is just because how it is "balanced" now.
To obtain more epic power cells you can use Porthos' guide:
Evolving rares to T2 and scrapping them gives 1(!) epic power cell guaranteed. But still for example to become 40 epic power cells for T4->T5 upgrade it is necessary to combine 40 rare items, than find 40 dupes for them (so at least 80 rares in sum), then evolve them to at least level 11 and then scrap. This is just waaayyy too much.

 

Just play guild raffle, if you actually want the power cells then you can’t lose.

 

Yes, those 389 epic power cells that I got does include the power cells from raffle. Still very unbalanced.

 

It's damn annoying, but since I started my rare farm(and spending every pearl I get on inventory space) I've been doing okay-ish with power cells.

 

Guys, @YerJokinArnYer, @Stelmo, if you give me the info I can calculate how effective was the epic power cell grind. We can see which method (scrapping uncommons or scrapping rares) works better. If you want just fill "???" with your data and I'll post the results:

e_inv = ??? //amount of epic power cells you currently have

T2 = ??? //amount of T2 epic items in your possesion (including scrapped if applicable)
T3 = ??? //amount of T3 epic items in your possesion (including scrapped if applicable)
T4 = ??? //amount of T4 epic items in your possesion (including scrapped if applicable)
T5 = ??? //amount of T5 epic items in your possesion (including scrapped if applicable)

 

Nice link thanks. So according to post #42 from behumble: scrapping 400 commons for 2.000.000 gold gave 4 epic power cells. Hence 1 epic power cell costs 500.000 gold by scrapping commons. While 50 epic parts cost "only" 605.000 gold...

 

I agree that you get both (power cells and parts), but I focus on the power cells just to show how hard to get them even compare to epic dupes and epic parts.

 

Wow this is a good result. Scrapping commons is pretty effective

 

I've no idea man, but rare duplicates come fast once you have a big enough stash of singles.

For every level 11 rare you scrap you get :
At worst 5/10 parts towards a new one, minimum 1 epic power cell (which are annoyingly sometimes upgraded to lego) and about 3/4 of the blue parts back that you used to build it.
It costs hardly any gold and not too much sugar.

I'm 100% f2p with 3 T5 epics, 3 T4, 4 T3 and a couple T2.
Currently back up to 61 cells, soon spent on something sexy

I'm pretty sure that scrapping T2 rares is more efficient, and definitely more economical. Not counting inventory expansion costs that is..

 

Thanks for the data. So your overall amount of epic power cells is 681. How long are you in the game?

 

Since I was just a boy man, it's been forever. I've been around longer than the power cells have

I've only recently had to start farming them though, and between the raffle and the farm I seem to make just about as many as I can use.

 

That means (@devs) that an f2p player that grinds cells from the very first day of introducing them into the game still didn't get those 800 epic power cells just even theoretically to be able to upgrade 8 items to T5. This is a nonsense.

 

I'm not so sure man.. I've only been farming cells for a few weeks and I was down to 0.
Since then I've spent 40 on T5 tritorps and I'm back up to 60 again, about to build a T5 excannon from scratch. I'm sure I'll have the 40 I need for the last evo by the time I get it up there.

That's not to say I think the system is a good one. I think it's ridiculous.