Incendiary Core from Defense Simulator Drop Rate Theory and testing.

[CircleWarrior]

First Nicolas has said the drop rate is unchanged and there is no reason to believe that is not true.
Second Myself and my other players who have run thousands of simulations have seen a sharp drop off in the rate.

Possible Reason.

1st Possible Reason
The drop rate could be a fixed number of I Cores per Sector per Day. So if kabam is going to give away 1000 I cores a day in a sector. The first couple days when only the plat players who accelerated their current builds and had defense strong enough to play lots of levels had higher drop rates. As more people in a sector began getting the simulator and playing simulations the chances of winning one of the 1000 I cores decreased because simply more people were playing. Kabam may not have changed the number of I Cores being dropped the rate for each player decreased.


2nd Possible Reason
The I core could be assigned to a random level in the simulator each simulation. When you simulator is at level 1 or 2 there are a lot fewer level the I core could be behind and there for the drop rate seems higher. As you unlock more level there are more simulations and a lower chance of getting an Icore. Again kabam would not have changed anything but the rate would decrease a lot. Test this you could deconstruct your simulator and start over to see if the drop rate goes up again. I would not recommend doing this unless your willing to test out the idea because i have no way of know if this theory is correct or not.

3rd Possible Reason.
Kabam is going to love me for this idea if people test it. I am only putting it out there because of a personal experience. Yesterday i spend the tournament plat i had been saving. All of it on I cores. Shortly after i did that my drop rate sky rocketed to 1 in 30 to 1 in 60 and after a couple of hours it returned to 1 in like 500. I don't know how kabam would program this but the drop rate could be like to how recently and what amount of plat you spent in the shop. Again i don't recommend you doing this because i have no proof what so ever that this would work. Again if this is the case kabam wouldn't have had to change anything the rate would just naturally decrease the longer you didn't spend plat. I have a feeling in the beginning there was a lot of plat spend to accelerate the builds of the Defense Simulator.


If you have any other idea that could cause the rate to naturally decrease without Kabam changing anything please post them. If you test any of the ideas and are successful or unsuccessful please post your test and your results.

Nicolas if you could confirm or deny the accuracy of any of these ideas i'm sure many people would be very happy. Or even better told us what the drop rate was based on. Like the A1 its nice to know that you need to hit around 400 higher then 1/3 your level and less than your level. Any hints would be greatly appreciated.

[Jimjimmeny]

You have missed the 4th and most probable possible reason

4rd Possible Reason.
There has been no drop off in the rate and it is all down to probability. For example, lets say over the next 10 days it is probable that 10% of players will see a sharp drop, 10% of players will see a sharp increase and 80% of players will see no change. Only the 10% of players seeing the sharp drop will flood the forums with "there seems to be a drop in the rate", causing a total skew of opinion to "There has been a drop in the rate".

I don't know how many times it needs to be said but the drop rate is exactly as it was last week, the week before that, and the week before that. If some players seem to be getting less cores then it is either a misconception or they have just been unlucky.

[Pseudonymicx1]

ive tested theory number 2 and there was no success. rebuilt my simulator to only lvl 1 and have hit the all the sims multiple times (over 200) and no i cores dropped

[Chump]

This is all just observation bias, confirmation bias and selection bias.

[Chump]

Won't let me edit? Anyway, to expand on my earlier point, the drop rate has not changed, neither due to a change of code nor due to the code being such that the drop rate decreases over time.

I had a day and a half of bad luck for icores, hence why I even bothered clicking on this thread. But then I got 2 icores within 6 sims. It's just luck, and it fluctuates a lot.

Anyway, there is a whole deal of selection bias here - we are only getting data from those who choose to enter the thread, and people are more likely to enter a thread that agrees with their observations. If you are currently having good luck with icores, you will likely not enter a thread saying that the drop rate has decreased. Whereas if the thread says the same as you, you will enter and post 'same is happening to me'. If 50% of people are having good luck recently, and 50% having bad luck recently (without overall drop rates changing) then a thread like this one will get much more than 50% agreeing.

There is also confirmation bias. Now that you have convinced yourself that this is true, your perceptions will be altered. You might be getting the same drop rate as before, but you will report a lower drop rate, because thinking something is likely to happen makes you think it is happening.

[MykeBlack]

I think it is probably just random chance that some people are not getting any cores. I've been hitting the sims for the past 3 days, about 300 missions of varying degrees of difficulty, nearly all completed with 3 stars without a single icore. Maybe it is just back luck on my part, or maybe higher level players (I'm lvl 6k) have a lower chance of getting them. Whatever the case, its not worth making theories based on a statistically weak number of observations.

On the plus side, I've now managed to tweak my base design to get the most out of what guns I have. If only I had few icores, I could really beef up my defense with some heavyweights in the corners

[Chump]

@ Myke - Whilst I can approve of Level 1 heavyweight turrets in corners, I would deffinitely recommend keeping them protected when they are level 12 (put one on the outside when doing defense sims, but otherwise keep em in the centre)

I'm assuming you've not spent many C cores on turrets?

Compare a level 12 heavyweight turret compared to level 9 of all the other turrets.

Turret compared to | Times higher health | Times higher damage/second| Times higher range
Gun........................|..........11.9........ ......|..................67.5...................|. ...........1.2
Concussion.............|............9.7........... ...|...................54.....................|... .........1.29
Tesla.....................|............13......... ......|...................6.8....................| ............2.04
*X1 excluded because there is no definitive damage/second. But it has more health and does less damage than a tesla, so my point will work for X1s too.
What you'll notice, is that your heavyweight turrets actually do a lot more damage than your gun and concussion turrets, but don't really have all that much more health. They are also as good to keep at the back as your tesla turrets, because their additional range will mean that they get a lot more time firing than a tesla would.

tl;dr - Heavyweight turrets high health is mostly useful for defense sims. For making your base hard to destroy, heavyweight turrets are there to do damage, not to take damage.

[alysdexia]

@ Myke - Whilst I can approve of Level 1 heavyweight turrets in corners, I would deffinitely recommend keeping them protected when they are level 12 (put one on the outside when doing defense sims, but otherwise keep em in the centre)

I'm assuming you've not spent many C cores on turrets?

Compare a level 12 heavyweight turret compared to level 9 of all the other turrets.

Turret compared to | Times higher health | Times higher damage/second| Times higher range
Gun........................|..........11.9........ ......|..................67.5...................|. ...........1.2
Concussion.............|............9.7........... ...|...................54.....................|... .........1.29
Tesla.....................|............13......... ......|...................6.8....................| ............2.04
*X1 excluded because there is no definitive damage/second. But it has more health and does less damage than a tesla, so my point will work for X1s too.
What you'll notice, is that your heavyweight turrets actually do a lot more damage than your gun and concussion turrets, but don't really have all that much more health. They are also as good to keep at the back as your tesla turrets, because their additional range will mean that they get a lot more time firing than a tesla would.

tl;dr - Heavyweight turrets high health is mostly useful for defense sims. For making your base hard to destroy, heavyweight turrets are there to do damage, not to take damage.

They are only protected if there are a ring of turrets at your rim to distract bombas and other troops. Otherwise it fails. How are 10 to 13 times health not that much more?

Damage of X-1 (dependent on whether there was a patch to target groups instead of their fronts--otherwise, half of this):
OOOXXXOOO
OXXXXXXXO
OXXXXXXXO
XXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXX
OXXXXXXXO
OXXXXXXXO
OOOXXXOOO

(61 tiles of splash--the fewer troops in your warp, the thinner they are and they wouldn't all fit in range; more usual hits are 20s for shrikes and 40s or 50s for marines after they spread out.)

[newbee158]

I believe that the third reason is a good guess.when you start your profile,you get 10 platinum right?I spent that,and got a few I cores over the next couple of weeks.I didn't do that many sims either.Now I am doing hundreds of sims,and no I cores.Havent spent any platinum since that first 10.

[Gaurang]

I am simply getting I cores at a rate of 1:100. It doesn't matter with the sim level you're playing..Just get more stars. I have started from L1 and doing all levels onwards...You can get 3stars on lower levels easily. So the more you get stars and the more you do sims you will get I cores regularly. It is only my opinion though.