Reactors - Question for Virgil

[UpperKEES]

Great, thanks!

I always put the city 2 blocks away from walls and the border of the map, so I can protect expensive reactors and drones, but now I know it has another advantage. :)

[Karsten75]

Weapons request ammo packets once they drop below a threshold (around 1/3 1/4th full).  They will request packets at twice the rate that structures build (about once every half second).

Sorry to exhume an old thread from the grave, but are you sure about this? I've seen a blaster fire once and then I see Odin City dispense a new energy packet to it. If what you say holds true, then it should fire several times before Odin City dispatches 3 or 4 packets to it. 

Or else, more likely, I'm misunderstanding you.

[UpperKEES]

Probably that ammo packet was requested before. As far as I have seen a packet is sent after a few shots. You can test this by building a disarmed blaster (so it doesn't fire before it's completely charged) and then let it fire once before you disarm it again. I predict it will not get a new ammo packet.

[Karsten75]

I *did* test this. (I should have been doing something else!)

Here is the results:  As per Virgil earlier in thsi thread, each blaster shot takes .2 packets. Thus after 5 shots from a blaster, one packet has been used. A blaster holds 10 ammo packets. It should start requesting packets (again, as per Virgil in this thread) when it is 1/3 to 1/4 empty, - after it consumed 3-4 packets or 15-20 shots.

Check out this example map.

[UpperKEES]

Checked it and it appears to request a new packet after 5 shots, so when 1 packet has been used completely, allowing the new packet to be stored.

[Karsten75]

Isn't that just what I said? And that it does not correspond to what Virgil indicated earlier in this thread? Not that it is critically important.

[UpperKEES]

Well, it doesn't request for new ammo after one shot, but you are right that the threshold apparently isn't 67% or 75%, but just 1 packet (which is 90% for a blaster).

[different55]

I *did* test this. (I should have been doing something else!)

Here is the results:  As per Virgil earlier in thsi thread, each blaster shot takes .2 packets. Thus after 5 shots from a blaster, one packet has been used. A blaster holds 10 ammo packets. It should start requesting packets (again, as per Virgil in this thread) when it is 1/3 to 1/4 empty, - after it consumed 3-4 packets or 15-20 shots.

Check out this example map.

odin city sends packets as they are needed but if the energy drops to 1/3 to 1/4, blaster/mortar/sam/drone/(me) requests twice as much energy/(food). If a blaster is connected to the network by a new collector with 0 ammo then odin will send 1 packet per .5 seconds. If a blaster is connected.... with 1/2 ammo then odin will send 1 packet per second. You're both right.

(aww... shoot. I just realized last post was a month ago :-\ well, no use wasting this much of my life to hit the X. :P

[UpperKEES]

(aww... shoot. I just realized last post was a month ago

When there's something new to add to a topic, that's no problem at all. Karsten's first post at this page is almost 3 months after the previous, so I'm sure he's just kidding.

odin city sends packets as they are needed but if the energy drops to 1/3 to 1/4, blaster/mortar/sam/drone/(me) requests twice as much energy/(food). If a blaster is connected to the network by a new collector with 0 ammo then odin will send 1 packet per .5 seconds. If a blaster is connected.... with 1/2 ammo then odin will send 1 packet per second. You're both right.

I think you are right. Thanks for opening my eyes!

[UpperKEES]

Blasters fire up to 6 times per second.  They hold up to 10 ammo packets. Each time it fires, 0.2 ammo packets are consumed.  So a fully loaded blaster will fire 50 times total on a full charge.

Mortars fire up to 1 time per second.  They hold up to 30 ammo packets.  Each time it fires, 3.4 ammo packets are consumed.  So a fully loaded mortar will fire 8 times on a full charge (with a little bit of energy left over in the tank, but not enough to fire a new round).

SAMS fire up to 1 time per second.  They hold up to 8 ammo packets.  Each time it fires, 4 ammo packets are consumed.  So a fully loaded SAM will fire 2 times on a full charge.

Drones fire up to 0.9 times per second.  They hold 24 ammo packets.  Each time it fires (drops a bomb), 1.6 ammo packets are consumed.  So a fully loaded drone will drop 15 bombs.

This is probably the post that I revisited most over the past 9 months. I am reviving this topic because it does not only provide a lot of useful information, but also a lot of wrong information (just like the wikipedia topic for this game). It's one of the most read topics of this forum, so I figured I better correct it as well as possible with my limited CW knowledge. Please correct me when I'm wrong; my data is just from testing a lot, combined with info from other topics.

Blasters don't fire up to 6 times per second. They fire once per 7 frames, which is 36/7 = 5.14 times per second (with the +15% firing rate upgrade once per 6 frames, which is 36/6 = 6 times per second), see here).

Mortars don't fire up to 1 time per second. They fire once per 105 frames, which is 36/105 = 0.34 times per second = once per 2.92 seconds (with the firing rate upgrade 36/90 = 0.4 times per second = once per 2.5 seconds, but this does not work!). Mortars don't hold 30 packets, but actually have a capacity of 30.6 packets, see here.

I am not sure why the data wasn't correct. Maybe the specifications changed since December 31, 2009?

Edit: Adjusted some data (again)

[Aurzel]

umm you do realise you just said that with the firing rate increase the mortars fire slower?
once per 2.92 seconds
once per 3.33 second

isnt it supposed to be 0.4 times per second

[UpperKEES]

Sharp eye, thanks! Corrected. :)