Read This Before Attacking A Rail - How The System Works

[Salishaz]

Greetings Tenno,

 

[i have modified this post to reflect the best information I have available as of the edit date (7/16/14). If more information becomes available I will modify this original page to reflect the changes.]

 

Things you should know before attacking a rail:

 

-          It takes 75 single missions to do 1% damage to the opponent’s rail. Groups count as one mission for each player. In other words, at this time there appears to be no incentive to run as a group or solo. Both are the same.

 

-          Battle pay is set up as a set amount of credits for a set number of missions. So, 50,000 credits for 75 single Tenno missions (1% rail damage) equals 3.75 Million credits. It takes the money for that instantly. You cannot adjust this rate until it is all spent, at which time your rail is set to 0 reward and you can make a new battle pay distribution. If the rail conflict ends and you still have unspent funds in your battle pay, they are refunded to your clan or alliance vault.

 

Strategy Tip: It kind of sucks when your competition barely outbids you and you are stuck for 750 missions at the same rate. Odds are, you are finished at that point and the conflict is over if they have the funding to consistently outbid your set amount. Again, without people running your rail, you can never change it. Make whatever changes to the rewards, but don’t lock yourself in for 100 runs or something. If you set that many runs too low, you will never get the chance to bump up your bounty. We had one of our members (Dustcloak) stay up all night just watching the rail bounties and adjusting them and I firmly believe he is a major reason we have kept all three of our rails in that conflict period.

 

-          The runs from your clan or alliance are not paid. If you are a clan holding a rail and you are in an alliance, the people in your clan will not get rewards, but your alliance members will get a bounty. This is good in that you are not depleting your own bounty, but it is bad in that your people are grinding in most cases for absolutely no rewards.

 

-          If you do the math. Each rail has an estimated 7500 runs to destroy it. If you offer the following amounts per mission to fully fund the destruction of your opponent’s rail here is what it will cost you in the end:

o   50,000 bounty = 375 Million.

o   25,000 bounty = 187.5 Million.

o   12,500 bounty = 93.75 Million.

o   And a paltry 6,250 credit bounty is still costing you 46,875,000 credits.

 

-          Rails appear to cost roughly 2,500 credits per 1% point to repair. This would make sense, given that calculates out to half the credits needed to build one.

 

-          You have a rest period of 72 hours (48 Hours for Armistice, 24 Hours for Rail Deployment) from the conclusion of your conflict to earn up enough credits to defend it again, against a new opponent with fresh coffers.

 

-          When you change the tax rate on your rail it is locked and cannot be changed again for 24 hours, no exceptions. Be VERY careful about this as it can drastically damage your reputation with the community if you promise one rate and then set it higher. Even if by accident, there is no way to fix this.

 

-          Tenno Specters are now available. The Clan must research the ability to deploy units of these in the Dojo, with an Orokin Lab. There are four tiers of Specter, and each tier takes 3 days to unlock. They must be unlocked in order of least to greatest, so it will take your clan 12 days to complete the requisite research to deploy the most powerful Specters. Clan and/or alliance embers can donate specters to the construction of Specter legions in the Orokin lab.

 

 

May your every mission lead to victory, Tenno.

 

- Salishaz, Warlord of the Shadows of Vengeance

 

 

 

Special thanks to the following Tenno in helping me get the latest numbers,or adding in things I missed:

-PrincessWhite

-LukeAura

-(PS4)cah55555

-Llokii

Edited July 16, 2014 by Salishaz

[Wrathinside]

An hour ago I've checked and seen missions available. Now I see that in less than a day we will have all missions blocked yet again.

DE, hug yourself, get some balls and do something. Ban the clans\refund the rails and let people play your game for once.

[roaddogz]

An hour ago I've checked and seen missions available. Now I see that in less than a day we will have all missions blocked yet again.

DE, hug yourself, get some balls and do something. Ban the clans\refund the rails and let people play your game for once.

People ARE playing the game the way it's meant to be play and because YOU dont like it, it has to change?

[Wrathinside]

Mm... Okay, if the majority likes to see a pointless rail conflict pop up every time with no reward, blocking access to the dark sector for 48 hours... If that is called playing... Good luck. Good game.

[Tulzscha]

Nice comprehensive guide! I'll see if we can get this pinned in the Player Guides thread.

 

Moved to the proper section.

[Morec0]

If only the rest of the community was like you.. Dark Sectors would actually be fun...

 

^

[LukeAura]

Salishaz, you are a gentleman and a scholar.  Thank you for bringing transparency to a topic that has led to many cries of rage, Region chat debates, and many, many angry posts on the forum.

 

I have a question for you, a theory about battle pay rewards. Eclipse and The Joint Forces are two alliances fighting over the Sinai Dark Sector right now.  When first clicking the node for Sinai I found that it's battle pay from Eclipse to be 50,000 credits; I thought that was wonderful so I immediately chose to fight a battle for them.  Upon completing the mission, zero credits were rewarded.  I went with this information to Region chat and was informed that many people encountered the same problem, and upon observation of Sinai over the next few minutes I saw the battle pay fluctuate from 0 to 50,000 multiple times.  My theory is that Eclipse is trying to save it's alliance credits and only offering a few mission's worth of 50,000 credits, letting many people fight for them thinking they will be paid, and only truly have to pay a few, or maybe even only 1 squad for the price of many.  Can you validate this theory of mine, or am I simply being suspicious and paranoid?

Edit: having seen a 20,000 credit reward remain active for 14 seconds total, I'm fairly certain it's a possibility.

This is partially addressed in the Op. 

It's impractical of an alliance to set a large run number, as that means they can be easily outbid and locked in to a losing battle. And because it's set on runs, if people aren't running your side, you'll never be able to change the number.

And they can't dump all their funds in at once, as they can't get that money back once it's gone in to the battlepay pot. 

The system encourages small pots, with large battlepays, with low run sets. 

It's not really the clan's fault. 

 

[Pyrobits]

It's not really the clan's fault. 

 

Yeah, I'm starting to understand that, once I found the site that Wrathinside posted a screenshot of I discovered Eclipse was actually doing runs of 100, pretty generous given that The Joint Forces were doing runs of about 20 at the same time.  And now Eclipse's message on that node is "Dear DE: We wish Battle Pay had a queue system so that everyone gets paid."

[Corrupted_Ertai]

Interesting. 

 

But, I doubt it will make much difference to slowing down the conflicts. The key issue, as I see it, is that 500,000 with 15,000 other resources and 25 Gallium is way too cheap for the current system we have. There is no risk to challenging a Rail, the cost allows Rails to be spammed indefinitely by Clans and Alliances, the benefits of a Rail are what exactly? That you don't get taxed if your Clan controls one? That's nice, but when it's so easy to make a new one it's not really worth it. 

 

Really current set up encourages Alliances to Spam Rails at targets to keep them perpetually locked down until they can be pushed out the system when they drain their coffers for battle pay or have to raise taxes to a degree where they undercut you. IMO Rails should be far more expensive and take longer to produce in the first place, as well as giving benefits to the Alliance controlling the Dark Sector, maybe increase your daily login reward?

 

It should be an investment, at the moment, it looks like it's a bit too easy to construct these enormous superstructures (which calls into question the resource cost and time it takes to build one) so why not attack one "just because" seems to be what keeps happening. Shame really. 

Go figure. Almost seems like the devs set it up so that you have to grind a lot to challenge or keep a rail, and 99% of the time no one will get the bonuses and have easy mode farming nodes with bonus xp. Now why would they do that >.>

[Salishaz]

Salishaz, you are a gentleman and a scholar.  Thank you for bringing transparency to a topic that has led to many cries of rage, Region chat debates, and many, many angry posts on the forum.

 

I have a question for you, a theory about battle pay rewards. Eclipse and The Joint Forces are two alliances fighting over the Sinai Dark Sector right now.  When first clicking the node for Sinai I found that it's battle pay from Eclipse to be 50,000 credits; I thought that was wonderful so I immediately chose to fight a battle for them.  Upon completing the mission, zero credits were rewarded.  I went with this information to Region chat and was informed that many people encountered the same problem, and upon observation of Sinai over the next few minutes I saw the battle pay fluctuate from 0 to 50,000 multiple times.  My theory is that Eclipse is trying to save it's alliance credits and only offering a few mission's worth of 50,000 credits, letting many people fight for them thinking they will be paid, and only truly have to pay a few, or maybe even only 1 squad for the price of many.  Can you validate this theory of mine, or am I simply being suspicious and paranoid?

Edit: having seen a 20,000 credit reward remain active for 14 seconds total, I'm fairly certain it's a possibility.

 

Sorry it took so long to respond. I was offline for a while with silly things like work, family, making food, etc. :)

 

What is happening there is that they are putting up a large amount for say 5 missions. The next 5 people to complete those missions will get that amount, and then the battle pay is exhausted. We never really ran into this because we would put in 100-300 runs at a time. I actually never knew this would be a problem, but I am glad we never jacked anyone around like that.

[Pyrobits]

Sorry it took so long to respond. I was offline for a while with silly things like work, family, making food, etc. :)

 

What is happening there is that they are putting up a large amount for say 5 missions. The next 5 people to complete those missions will get that amount, and then the battle pay is exhausted. We never really ran into this because we would put in 100-300 runs at a time. I actually never knew this would be a problem, but I am glad we never jacked anyone around like that.

 

Things seem to have leveled out fairly well, I'm consistently seeing 100+ mission tickets on that same node now.  It's Interesting to see this economic experiment play itself out now that I'm less filled with rage and more so with curiosity.

And, for the record four hours is pretty incredible turnaround; Thanks.

[Minifig3D]

I see most of you talking about the cost/rewards for these rails. Honestly, I just saw the rails as a contest between clans for who gets to appear on the starchart/leader-board. After playing quite a few Dark Sector missions, I don't see the appeal. Woohoo, infested and more experience points. Big whoop. You can get a similar mission by going to the Derelict. The Rail conflict missions, however, are a unique mission type that you can't play anywhere else. The Spectres are a blast to try to defeat with sub-par weapons and the void-style levelset is still a blast to play rather than the same generic level as the rest of the levels on that planet. Basically, I don't see why people are so upset that the Dark sectors are locked up most of the time when the rail missions are so much more fun.

[LukeAura]

I see most of you talking about the cost/rewards for these rails. Honestly, I just saw the rails as a contest between clans for who gets to appear on the starchart/leader-board. After playing quite a few Dark Sector missions, I don't see the appeal. Woohoo, infested and more experience points. Big whoop. You can get a similar mission by going to the Derelict. 

All the tilesets are represented.

All levels of infested, not just high end.

Better exp

Can farm all resources against infested, with bonus to drop

Doesn't require a key

There are a lot of reasons to go to Dark Sectors, and I'm sure a lot of people would rather see them open than contested every 24 hours.

 

[Salishaz]

I see most of you talking about the cost/rewards for these rails. Honestly, I just saw the rails as a contest between clans for who gets to appear on the starchart/leader-board. After playing quite a few Dark Sector missions, I don't see the appeal. Woohoo, infested and more experience points. Big whoop. You can get a similar mission by going to the Derelict. The Rail conflict missions, however, are a unique mission type that you can't play anywhere else. The Spectres are a blast to try to defeat with sub-par weapons and the void-style levelset is still a blast to play rather than the same generic level as the rest of the levels on that planet. Basically, I don't see why people are so upset that the Dark sectors are locked up most of the time when the rail missions are so much more fun.

 

I think you have a really good point here. They are a unique mission type with mission specific enemies, and that is never a bad thing.

 

I think the thing people are getting at is that they want to get to those high reward missions. I am not sure, but my suspicion is that you are one of the better players that likely doesn't need the added boosters from these infested missions. I know none of the people in my clan do. We will run ODS missions for an hour just to kill time and passively level stuff.

 

There are those, however, that could really use the extra help the bonuses provide. They are the more casual players that play four or five missions a night. I could see these missions being a huge help to them.

 

A big reason I find them frustrating is that they are a chore to me. We had to do them to defend our rails and when you have to, it gets really, really, profoundly old very quickly.

Edited April 17, 2014 by Salishaz

[Minifig3D]

Well in that case, what if they had 3 options for rails that are being contested? Defend the current rail, fight for the attacking rail, or play the Dark sector mission using the currently deployed rail. That way everyone is happy. 

[Darzk]

3 Solutions, IMO, to the DS's being basically unplayable -

 

1. let us play the dark sector OR the conflict, with DS taxes etc going to the prior owner

2. include a cooldown on conflicts, or make it longer if there is one so the mission is available more often than contested

3. make attacking much quicker and make the timer 24 hrs

[Sh1n3y]

Anyone here know how the clan's alliances collect the funds required for the battle pay?

 

If a single clan, does it come out of their vault? If it does come out of the vault, how do you put money into the vault for this purpose?

 

If an alliance, how do each of the clans contribute towards this fund for battle pay?

[Corrupted_Ertai]

This is a simple fix. Put a 7 day build time on rails, double their cost, and keep the 24 hour deploy timer. Simple as that. The problem right now is that it costs relatively nothing to build them and they are VERY spammable. There is no way you should be able to produce them faster than you can produce a warframe. This is just idiot logic. 

[Salishaz]

Anyone here know how the clan's alliances collect the funds required for the battle pay?

 

If a single clan, does it come out of their vault? If it does come out of the vault, how do you put money into the vault for this purpose?

 

If an alliance, how do each of the clans contribute towards this fund for battle pay?

 

If you are in an alliance there is an alliance vault money comes out of. If you are in a clan it comes from the clan vault. you can contribute to either of these through your Treasury Kiosk in your clan hall (if you have built one). If you are in an alliance you have the choice between dropping funds in the alliance coffers or the clan coffers.

 

Victory to you, Tenno!

 

-Salishaz

[Monolake]

[...]

. If it is a 0% rail, (admittedly like ours, #fulldisclosure) and you want your name on the solar map just realize what you have to do to take it before you have angered the whole community for locking up that rail.

 

May your every mission lead to victory, Tenno.

 

 

- Salishaz, Warlord of the Shadows of Vengeance

 

Thank you for the info. And respect for keeping your word to leave the tax at 0%, unlike Eclipse.

[Sh1n3y]

If you are in an alliance there is an alliance vault money comes out of. If you are in a clan it comes from the clan vault. you can contribute to either of these through your Treasury Kiosk in your clan hall (if you have built one). If you are in an alliance you have the choice between dropping funds in the alliance coffers or the clan coffers.

 

Victory to you, Tenno!

 

-Salishaz

Thank you! Very knowledgable.

[Salishaz]

Thank you for the info. And respect for keeping your word to leave the tax at 0%, unlike Eclipse.

 

Integrity is not something I will abandon because of a few credits in a game. Even if we lose the rails, we have our character intact.

[Kartumterek]

This is a simple fix. Put a 7 day build time on rails, double their cost, and keep the 24 hour deploy timer. Simple as that. The problem right now is that it costs relatively nothing to build them and they are VERY spammable. There is no way you should be able to produce them faster than you can produce a warframe. This is just idiot logic. 

 

cause no plat rushing on frames amirite

[Corrupted_Ertai]

cause no plat rushing on frames amirite

If someone wants to pay for progress to rush a suit or even buy it outright then so be it. Not my cup of tea but ok.

 

Solar rails are not individual progress. They affect literally every other player in the games ability to access certain parts of the star map. To put it plainly they are just too easy to troll with. There is a very good reason you can't plat rush a rail, and on THAT qualification they are still way too easy to obtain and deploy for every 15 year old warlord who feels his epeen isn't big enough yet. That is a glaring flaw in design of this entire system. 

 

Don't expect it to change though. Too much plat being spent on resources in the market to build and repair the damn things. Have fun with repair costs for everyone who wants or wants to keep a rail. You will not get a chance to farm for them as long as you are running missions to win a conflict, and you definitely won't be collecting tribute.

[0xCAFE]

With the new patch, can anyone confirm how much HP a rail now has?

 

Any info on how much each 1% of credit tax brings into the clan/alliance coffers?

 

Edited for spelling.

Edited April 18, 2014 by 0xCAFE

[Salishaz]

With the new patch, can anyone confirm how much HP a rail now has?

 

Any info on how much each 1% of credit tax brings into the clan/alliance coffers?

 

Edited for spelling.

 

I have heard different things about the amount of HP. One person said they reduced the general HP pool, another said they made the Tenno runs do 10HP/run rather than 1HP/run, but as far as I can tell, nobody knows.

 

As far as how much you get from 1% taxation, it is not much at all. We have never given any tax to anyone other than ourselves, but I did a few 100% tax runs (I set the clan tax to 100%...kinda by accident but kinda not...long story) with my clanmates and EVERYTHING went to the clan vault. Barely anything was taken in ultimately though. We did the equivalent of about 1,000 regular 1% runs and it barely moved our vault numbers at all.

 

I hope this helps,

 

-Salishaz