Misconceptions about scarlet spear

[mrhapps]

I've seen a lot of people on these forums stating that space is faster, or more points rewarded than the ground mission. I would like the rectify this partial misconception.

First, lets examine how many runs are required to reach the 5k (10k bonus) cap as this will reward a total of 15k points. For space a full 5 round run will reward you with 1875 scarlet credits, and a ground mission will reward you with 2295 credits for a full run. This means that in order for a space team to max out the score to 5k they would need to run 2.66 space missions. Ground team needs to run 2.17 missions to max 5k points.

Now, time per mission is also an important factor, and it is variable depending on how many people are in your squad. The fastest i have seen the space team go is 20-21 minutes. The fastest i have heard of for the ground team is 25 minutes, the fastest i have personally gone is 29 minutes and that was without going to the condrix before the objective appears as other people have been reported doing. Since this is an optimal comparison i will take the 25 minutes as the time for the ground mission.

what this means is that you need to run 25 minute ground mission 2.17 times, and space mission that takes 20 minutes 2.66 times. This equates to 53.2 minutes for space and 54.25 minutes for ground to max out the 5k (10k bonus)

 

Now, you will see these results and confirm to yourselves, ya space is faster, however, this is not the entire story. Recently -and i'll say its likely because of the forums and maybe region chat saying that space is faster- the result is that there end up being as many, if not more space teams than ground. The consequence of this is that there are not enough kill codes to be sent for the space mission to progress and their mission timer just starts to tick away with no objective being completed. I was in a lobby where the space and ground teams were equal, and i was on a four man squad, it took us 45 minutes to finish one 5 wave murex raid, thats 119.7 minutes for enough murex raid to get you to 5k points. 120 minutes also happens to be 2 hours, and i'm not sure how many of you have noticed but most scarlet spear lobbies finish in 1hr and 30 minutes or so.

So, in conclusion here, both mission types reward about the same amount of points per time spent. This only happens if ground teams are outnumbering space teams by about 30%. For example, if the ground team is 10, and the space team is 7 they will likely reward points at the exact same speed. Another example, if there are 10 ground teams and 10 space teams ground will be faster. Last example, if there is 10 ground and 1 space team, space will be faster.

 

TLDR: Don't go space team if the number of ground teams is about the same as the active number of space teams, it WILL take longer. 

[schilds]

Ground team is more dependent on gear. You need to take down the Condrix's health and kill the sentients. Fastest I've done ground is in 22 minutes.

Going by "optimal" isn't correct here, since I'd wager most people can't do optimal.

 

All that said:

11 minutes ago, mrhapps said:

TLDR: Don't go space team if the number of ground teams is about the same as the active number of space teams, it WILL take longer. 

^ So much this.

[Lazarow]

IM just going to mention taht space is better, not because its faster or give more points, its because its way easier. You only need a limbo in the squad and thats about it, just press 4+2 to win. Whereas on ground you need dps if running all 17 codrixes, you switch from zone hoppinh, murex damaging, sentient killing and beacon defending and thats more work. Also in murex raid you get railjack skill point and people say its a good farm fr them there, and some extra railjack resources. while on earth its the same resources most have thousands by now sitting in their inventory which are mostly useless

[mrhapps]

1 minute ago, schilds said:

Ground team is more dependent on gear. You need to take down the Condrix's health and kill the sentients. Fastest I've done ground is in 22 minutes.

Going by "optimal" isn't correct here, since I'd wager most people can't do optimal.

 

All that said:

^ So much this.

ye, main take-away i want from this is my TLDR. 

 

Just now, Lazarow said:

IM just going to mention taht space is better, not because its faster or give more points, its because its way easier. You only need a limbo in the squad and thats about it, just press 4+2 to win. Whereas on ground you need dps if running all 17 codrixes, you switch from zone hoppinh, murex damaging, sentient killing and beacon defending and thats more work. Also in murex raid you get railjack skill point and people say its a good farm fr them there, and some extra railjack resources. while on earth its the same resources most have thousands by now sitting in their inventory which are mostly useless

you raise some valid points, and i can't disagree with them. What i will say though is that if everyone picks space team because it is easier and better reward wise no one will ever progress in the space mission, it will be infinite waiting until accidental failure. Personally i would rather guaranteed credits for my time spent than a toin coss to whether or not the mission will be completed within the next hour or not.

[Thelamaking]

So the 2.17 * Time of run -  isn't really correct since the majority of the points are located in the later part of the run.

You need to get 7 starting Condrixes which is around 40% of the run full time (7/17 - which also isn't tru since the starting Condrixes might be very slightly marginally faster - not very noticeable with a full kitted out team tho).

Besides, 25min on Ground is a great run. And 20min on Space does seem a bit below average.

 

 

Edited April 1, 2020 by Thelamaking

[Voltage]

I've done space in ~12 minutes and my fastest ground in 19:04 (my usual average would be just under or around 20 minutes). Space is more score per minute as you can theoretically complete 4 Flotillas and get 40,000 bonus on top of the 20,000 from doing 4 flotillas at 5,000 a piece in a single rotation. Ground can only complete a maximum of 30,000 bonus on top of 15,000 from 3 flotillas. Ground is way more reliable and less buggy though.

Edited April 1, 2020 by Voltage

[DragoonStorm1]

16 minutes ago, Voltage said:

I've done space in ~12 minutes and my fastest ground in 19:04 (my usual average would be just under 20 minutes). Space is more score per minute as you can theoretically complete 4 Flotillas and get 40,000 bonus on top of the 20,000 from doing 4 flotillas at 5,000 a piece in a single rotation. Ground can only complete a maximum of 30,000 bonus on top of 15,000 from 3 flotillas. Ground is way more reliable and less buggy though.

Those are some insane speeds there

But yes, fastest Space run i've had is 16 minutes, fastest Ground run being 27 minutes (before the condrix HP nerf tho)
and OP's math is off because it doesn't count for the reward scaling. Credits are not homogeneously distributed among the minutes.

But like you said, there's the fact that space can benefit greatly from finishing flotilla and moving on to next, plus your mission progress counts towards flotilla progress and is not a coin toss in the dark, for whether you will get your bonus, as it is for people farming ground teams. 

[mrhapps]

22 minutes ago, Thelamaking said:

So the 2.17 * Time of run -  isn't really correct since the majority of the points are located in the later part of the run.

You need to get 7 starting Condrixes which is around 40% of the run full time (7/17 - which also isn't tru since the starting Condrixes might be very slightly marginally faster - not very noticeable with a full kitted out team tho).

Besides, 25min on Ground is a great run. And 20min on Space does seem a bit below average.

 

 

while it is true that there are more points delivered at the end of the 17 ways, it is also true that the enemies live longer. It might be more like 20-30% since early rounds go a bit faster, but i was just doing it in a more simplistic manner since the space mission also has a scaling reward so they can cancel each other out. First mission giving you 105 points, second 240 points etc.

[Voltage]

12 minutes ago, DragoonStorm1 said:

But like you said, there's the fact that space can benefit greatly from finishing flotilla and moving on to next, plus your mission progress counts towards flotilla progress and is not a coin toss in the dark, for whether you will get your bonus, as it is for people farming ground teams. 

The reliability of ground makes it more compelling in my opinion. I have been doing nothing but ground and have raked in quite a large sum of score and points and have avoided almost all frustrations from Railjack bugs, host migrations for the most part, crashing, waiting on Kill Codes, headaches, etc.

Edited April 1, 2020 by Voltage

[Thelamaking]

27 minutes ago, mrhapps said:

while it is true that there are more points delivered at the end of the 17 ways, it is also true that the enemies live longer. It might be more like 20-30% since early rounds go a bit faster, but i was just doing it in a more simplistic manner since the space mission also has a scaling reward so they can cancel each other out. First mission giving you 105 points, second 240 points etc.

Point scaling effect is likely "stronger" on Space.

Not sure about the exact amount of points per round in Space. I am pretty sure you need to start the 5th Murex to break 5k (4th is, I do think 1210? Not sure) - so it would be safe to assume you need 3 almost full runs - not even sure you can break out with something like x/9 codes uploaded and go home.

Edited April 1, 2020 by Thelamaking

[SQLOwns]

Doesn't really matter, sadly, the event is already dead.

[Tamatu]

2 hours ago, mrhapps said:

Now, time per mission is also an important factor, and it is variable depending on how many people are in your squad. The fastest i have seen the space team go is 20-21 minutes. The fastest i have heard of for the ground team is 25 minutes, the fastest i have personally gone is 29 minutes and that was without going to the condrix before the objective appears as other people have been reported doing.

You overestimate those numbers way too much, even with pubs ground takes less than 25min for sure, space is also a lot faster than what you described.

2 hours ago, mrhapps said:

what this means is that you need to run 25 minute ground mission 2.17 times, and space mission that takes 20 minutes 2.66 times. This equates to 53.2 minutes for space and 54.25 minutes for ground to max out the 5k (10k bonus)

You can't just multiply it like that. The varying time in the first few seconds while you get there adds to the clock, the points scale slowly up, and you can't really get 0.17 run's worth of points exaclty.

[BDMblue]

Space does not take 25 min. It’s 9 uploads at 100% speed. Or 45 at 100% +30 x 4 seconds max time between.  It’s maybe 10-13 min a run.

[Pooroldude]

Space is ~15minutes

Ground is ~35minutes

😕

 

[mrhapps]

3 hours ago, BDMblue said:

Space does not take 25 min. It’s 9 uploads at 100% speed. Or 45 at 100% +30 x 4 seconds max time between.  It’s maybe 10-13 min a run.

i think you are forgetting about the 10km travel time and boarding crews you have to deal with (which a lot of people i get crewed with happen to ignore). Also if you read carefully i said space takes about 20 minutes, not 25. If you really think that doing a FULL murex raid takes less than 15minutes i'd like to see video of that where you go the full 5 waves.

26 minutes ago, Pooroldude said:

Space is ~15minutes

Ground is ~35minutes

😕

 

it's funny, everyone keeps posting different times for both ground and space. It seems i got right around the real average ground time and overestimated the space time by a bit, but i don't think i'm wrong in that the point per time ratio is nearly identical for both ground and space in the real world scenarios.

[Pooroldude]

Well you are right only because bugs thrive in space, session issues, ui blackouts, repair spots hidden by invading ship doodad, satellites double tapped by high level ships(bug? or just intended).

 

[.-Dark]

I can easily get the 5000 (most i got in one flotila was ~9000) milestone doing space missions, but for the ground mission i'm more dependent on the team. I bring Limbo and i can kill the Condrix up to round 9, but after that, it's all about the dps frames and how well they perform.

So math and theorycrafting doesn't matter because you get another team every time you travel to Space/Earth and they will perform differently.

 

 

Edited April 2, 2020 by Afte3rDark

[TheLexiConArtist]

Using my experience in solo as a baseline, the following time ranges were in play:

Ground (Pre-Condrix health nerf): 80-85 minutes

Ground (Post-health nerf): ~65 minutes

Space: ~25-40 minutes (heavily depending on how much the boarding parties want to waste my life)

 

If you bring a squad, the Condrix's single-source DPS softcapping doesn't hold you back as much, and you can have some beefy buffing lads without leaving your link vulnerable. It is far less solo-friendly than space is, despite DE's claim to the contrary.

As a result, the 2-3x time taken as a solo players is narrowed significantly. Also due to oplink speed scaling positively on player count (i.e. punishing incomplete squads just because).

Given the score differences, it takes a solo player optimistically 200% the time to run a full ground mission which accrues 122.4% score. This is why space is better for time investment in the solo case. However, due to DEsign issues, only 6 (or 7 at a stretch) squads are actually capable of reaching 5000 points in space runs before the wave is forcibly ended.

[0_The_F00l]

Not entirely correct,

Ground teams cannot do too much advanced preparation , they can at best wait and hope that where they stand is where the condrix appears next which can a few minutes and just be under 30 minutes..

The space teams however can split the squads and actually head to the next part of  the objective (one or two defend the last few codes being uploaded and one pilot heads to the satellite for pickup (after dropping one player at the nearest murex)

If the necessary intrinsics are maxed in the squad you can cut down a full run time to 15 minutes theoretically as it usually takes 2 to 3 minutes to get to the next objective (which is just another ship which is clearly visible) which can be done in parallel. and with the teleporting option it can be made instantaneous.

Ground does not get this benefit.

Ground does get the benefit that they don't depend on others to progress.

 

These are also optimal times i mentioned and due to the scaling nature of the points very few will be able to take the casual approach on ground , where space can be done a lot more easily as it does not need any actual damage output.

[BDMblue]

4 hours ago, mrhapps said:

i think you are forgetting about the 10km travel time and boarding crews you have to deal with (which a lot of people i get crewed with happen to ignore). Also if you read carefully i said space takes about 20 minutes, not 25. If you really think that doing a FULL murex raid takes less than 15minutes i'd like to see video of that where you go the full 5 waves.

it's funny, everyone keeps posting different times for both ground and space. It seems i got right around the real average ground time and overestimated the space time by a bit, but i don't think i'm wrong in that the point per time ratio is nearly identical for both ground and space in the real world scenarios.

If your ship is slow ya, but with a booster it goes about 1500-2000 km/sec

[Acos]

Ground feels faster; Space teams are so incredibly boring that I become very aware of the amount of time the mission is taking and age inappropriately as a response. Sentients need a way to break the Limbo meta. 

[SneakyErvin]

10 hours ago, mrhapps said:

i think you are forgetting about the 10km travel time and boarding crews you have to deal with (which a lot of people i get crewed with happen to ignore). Also if you read carefully i said space takes about 20 minutes, not 25. If you really think that doing a FULL murex raid takes less than 15minutes i'd like to see video of that where you go the full 5 waves.

it's funny, everyone keeps posting different times for both ground and space. It seems i got right around the real average ground time and overestimated the space time by a bit, but i don't think i'm wrong in that the point per time ratio is nearly identical for both ground and space in the real world scenarios.

The thing is, the 20 minute time in space isnt an optimal time, it is something you can do quite regularly with a random pug since there is no dps check involved. For ground to come anywhere close you need a more or less organized group with the right damage type to take out the scaling condrix health asap aswell as the scaling amount of sentients that must be killed in order for things to progress.

I've done plenty of both types in pugs. Space has been painless and fast outside of two runs that were slow due to an underperforming RJ (when it came to speed) and a captain that wasnt used to being a pilot it seems. On ground I've had several pugs that have been slower than going solo, since the people havent cared about damage types and so on. Both places have bugs that slow things down, like codes not being recieved properly and condrixes not opening due to potato hosts.

In pre-made teams you are probably correct that they are very close and ground may even be better since it has no outside source that can impact you negatiely, like competing for codes. But when it comes to avarage gameplay space is a clear winner since it is just that much more pug friendly, to the point where a space pug matches a ground pre-made closely.

 

Edited April 2, 2020 by SneakyErvin

[lukasystem]

On solo it takes me about 25 minutes for space since my railjack's got fastest engine possible and parking it below the murex means 90% of the time i don't need to deal with boarders, on a squad that number basically is reduced by a half for me (due to 4oplinks getting 100% faster scanning),  considering average players, it's about 15 minutes or so the amount of time It usually takes for my squad to repell the 5 rounds.

On another post i replied, by calculating these numbers, on a single lobby, 4 separated solo players doing space mission on optimal performance takes less time to reach the 100 murex than a single squad of 4 players, on space, and provided the amount of ground missions are higher.

Ground missions need too much effort and preparation compared to space, so yeah, space is faster on farming method overall, but if the aim is the 100 murex, it's not the best idea to go more space missions than ground on the lobby, so mostly it depends on how much one cares for a bonus reward, and sometimes people just don't get the whole picture and go either ground or space regardless of situation, and then ask themselves "why the heck are we not getting any progress on the murex/ why the heck i'm not receiving any kill codes?"

Overall i think the event was poorly designed, specially considering that ground mission is hardest than space, and thus allowing rank 3 players, that, probably will rather just go ground missions, is non-productive, just thinking about a rank 3 player having to deal with sentients makes me worry about what's on a designers brain.

Edited April 2, 2020 by lukasystem

[(PSN)TrollyThyTrinity]

16 hours ago, SQLOwns said:

Doesn't really matter, sadly, the event is already dead.

in your mind yea people didn't even get it yet and wont have most of the same problems. that's not fully accurate