Legacy Hangar and the Ship Upgrades

[Linuxizer]

I'm going back to free-to-play so I'll write some stuff now.

 

Legacy Hangar

 

Legacy hangar is a good idea and should have been done from the beginning. Perhaps even account hangar. But what can be done now, three years later? Aside from the effort required, there is the question of what is a fair way to convert a player's existing, multiple hangars into a single legacy or account hangar. If the redundant ships are just eliminated, there should be some kind of refund. It's not just the time and effort players already spent on upgrading their ships, but also the cosmetic items, and possibly multiple CM ships as well. If the redundant ships are retained but serve no useful purpose, it's still a slap in the face to loyal customers. Perhaps let players choose between the current character's ships and another character's ships, with the former giving out greater rewards (credits, XP, comms, etc.).

 

An easier thing to do would be Bound to Legacy for the daily and weekly tokens (probably exclude the token from the Introduction quest). This wouldn't help new players much though.

 

If we are stuck with this upgrade system, just much difference do the upgrades make and how long does it take to upgrade?

 

Effect of Upgrades

 

I would guesstimate a mastered ship has something like double the firepower of a stock ship. A level 5 Light Laser Cannon does about 38% more damage than a level 0 Light Laser Cannon. The other components also contribute directly or indirectly. Overall it varies a lot with the match situation. In contrast, an experienced player in a stock ship typically produces something like 5 times as much damage as a new player (or 10 times in a mastered ship).

 

Just How Long?

 

Just how long does it take to master all 12 ships on a new character? It's long in terms of time, but could be not too long relatively in terms of matches. About 89 matches, if you play a certain way. This includes saving all Ship Requisition tokens until you have all 12 ships, playing no more than 1 match per day, and no more matches per week than to complete the Weekly quest. The first priority is to accumulate 45,000 Fleet Requisitions to buy the 10 ships you don't get for free, then get 147,500 to 160,500 Ship Requisitions on each ship to master it. Use the default crew members or companions you unlock in Class Quests until you have all 12 ships.

 

It's 89 matches if you have a 100% win rate and earn 2200 Ship Requisitions and 330 Fleet Requisitions per match, like this:

 

• 1 match to complete the Introduction quest for 330 + 5000 = 5330 FR.
  
• 21 Weekly quests and 84 Daily quests for 84 x 330 + 21 x 625 = +40,845 FR.
  
• Buy the next ship whenever you have 5000 FR, and fly the new ship about 5 matches.
  
• Buy the 12th ship in the 21st week.
  
• Apply all 84 Minor Ship Requisition tokens and all 21 Major Ship Requisition tokens for 84 x 938 + 21 x 3125 = +144,417 SR per ship.
  
• 4 more matches on the 12th ship to get 4 x 2200 + 4 x 938 + 1 x 3125 = +15,677 SR.
  
• The 12th ship has 160,094 SR which should be enough if you can keep even one default component choice and upgrade from that. The other 11 ships have at least 162,294 SR each if you flew each one for 5 matches.
  

 

The 2200 SR per match is not too hard if you have a subscription or a pass for the +50% subscriber bonus. I don't think the +10% bonus from a CM ship is worth it. You may switch ships in the middle of every match to maximize the daily double requisition bonus. You can't do that on the 12th ship so pick one with good choice of default components as the last. 100% win rate is hard so here are the results for other win rates, and SR and FR per match:

 

2200 SR, 330 FR per match

100% win rate -> 89 matches

75% win rate -> 95 matches

50% win rate -> 104 matches

25% win rate -> 110 matches

0% win rate -> 120 matches

 

1600 SR, 240 FR per match

100% win rate -> 105 matches

75% win rate -> 108 matches

50% win rate -> 118 matches

25% win rate -> 128 matches

0% win rate -> 148 matches

 

1000 SR, 150 FR per match

100% win rate -> 133 matches

75% win rate -> 138 matches

50% win rate -> 148 matches

25% win rate -> 157 matches

0% win rate -> 176 matches

 

My last character did it in 127 matches without completely following the daily/weekly scheme described above, and without a subscription for half the time.

 

Here are some additional details of numbers I used.

 

Average number of matches to complete the Weekly quest:

100% win rate -> 4 matches

75% win rate -> 4.28 matches

50% win rate -> 4.89 matches

25% win rate -> 5.76 matches

0% win rate -> 7 matches

 

Probability of completing the Daily quest on the first (and only) match of the day (could be carried over from the previous day or week):

100% win rate -> 100%

75% win rate -> 80.47%

50% win rate -> 68.75%

25% win rate -> 60.16%

0% win rate -> 50.00%

[StrawHatryano]

Thanks for leaving this here. I wanted to start upgrading my gsf and this will help.

[phalczen]

I got this from one of Siraka's threads (or was it Vexxial) during the DvL event. It may help you decide how to spend ship requisition when starting out in GSF altogether or just on a fresh toon:

 

T1 Bomber Rampart/Razorwire:

http://dulfy.net/2013/11/16/swtor-galactic-starfighter/?link=dGEAAAADAwYDBQAAAACAAgABgACAAAACAAHgAgA=

1500 beacon

2500 charged plating to level 1

6000 full deflection armor

1000 seismic mine to level 1

1000 concussion mine to level 1

 

(1250) fleet to get structural support defense crewman

 

So with only 12,000 ship req and 1250 fleet req you already have a nearly full meta charged plating Razorwire/Rampart that can DOMINATE as part of a TEAM. Really the only important upgrade missing here is armor penetration on heavy laser cannons, but you are at probably 80% strength compared to a mastered version. This is the best domination support ship. Get a team and go win.

 

 

T2 Bomber Legion/Warcarrier

http://dulfy.net/2013/11/16/swtor-galactic-starfighter/?link=dGEAAAAAAwYDAwABAAKAAAAAgAEAAgACAAEAAQA=

2000 seeker mines to level 1

3000 railgun drone to level 1

 

With only 5000 requistion you already have the best TDM support ship. You've still got 10,000 requisition to play with to your heart's content. You will eventually want level 4 seeker mines for the extra speed upgrade, but this ship is about 80% strength compared to the mastered ship. Get a team and go win.

 

 

T1 Gunship Mangler/Quarrel:

http://dulfy.net/2013/11/16/swtor-galactic-starfighter/?link=dGEAAAAIAgYDBBEAAAHgAgABwAAAAQACAAAAAcA=

3500 barrel roll to level 2

2500 regeneration extender 2

8500 slug railgun to level 3

 

13,500 requisition and you can be a sniper for your team, with the ability to kill turrets for your teammate T1 Bomber Rampart/Razowire (since he won't have the upgrade for heavy laser cannon armor pen yet). Again, get a team.

 

You can even req this up at the same time as a T1 Bomber Rampart/Razorwire since you can use your 5000 fleet req intro mission to buy both of these 2500 ships.

 

 

T1 Novadive/Blackbolt

http://dulfy.net/2013/11/16/swtor-galactic-starfighter/?link=dGEAAAEMAAECBQsBAACAAsABgAIAAAAAwAIAAAA=

1000 rocket pod to level 1

3500 barrel roll to level 2

3000 target telemetry to level 1

2000 regular lasers to level 0

1500 distortion field to level 0

2500 lighweight armor to level 2

 

13,500 requisition for a ship with crazy high DPS and 31% evasion. Scouts take a bit longer to hit their gear ceiling, but this ship is still about 60% as strong as mastered. If you are part of a team, this will do a terrific job at hunting gunships to take pressure off your team, especially your T1 Bomber Rampart/Razorwire (domination).

 

[Lavaar]

That was definitely Siraka's mathscape there phalczen, I remember him racking his brain to figure out just the right components, and we were both surprised by the results and how quickly, with the right information, a stock player can get his or her ships into fighting shape.

 

Siraka and I have done it many times over, and after a certain point you develop the understanding on what works for you at what time, and your pain tolerance for flying stock while saving the tokens, or waiting to spend them. We realized there are only a few major component upgrades that make a lot of difference and, with these components, players can be competitive enough to compete at super-serious quality matchups with only minor disadvantages over mastered ships.

[RickDagles]

We had a pretty good discussion about that post on the SRW website. Some people had a few personal preference differences on how they upgrade their stock ships. Check it out http://shadowlandsreconnaissancewing.enjin.com/forum/m/34025565/viewthread/27942472-new-players-effective-early-game-ship-builds

[Verain]

I like that you SRW guys put some math behind the "hey, generally you just need these things" posts. That's excellent, and ty. Build guides have normally lacked purchase priority except in rare cases.

 

 

As far as legacy hangar: I think a gameplay reason for not doing this is the idea that your new character shouldn't have a full hangar. I don't know if that's important in the world of character boosts, however. I think the technical reason is that GSF is implemented rather differently than most of the character options in the game. Even the things that should pretty obviously be in legacy (assuming your intention was to prevent player power from bleeding over to alts)- notably, ALL cosmetic items, statistics, and very probably the locked/unlocked state of cartel ships- are not handled in legacy. It's a fine idea, and better suited for today's SWTOR than SWTOR of even a year ago, but it really seems like the best we can hope for is "patches unrelated to GSF don't break GSF for very long". Barring dev communication, at least, which could change expectations. Or really, barring the mere existence of GSF devs.