I was playing around with a level 9 Rankulas last night to see how strong its nanite swarms were. I had 2 points in Combat Nanite Swarm, 4 points Support Nanite Swarm, 1 point in Assault Nanite Swarm, and 2 points in Greater Nanite Swarm.
I parked the Rankulas at the star (so that I could have essentially unlimited antimatter) and started pushing out nanite swarms as fast as I could. I was able to keep 6 combat swarms, 3 support swarms, and 2 assault swarms going continuously (a total of 11 swarms). Then I fired off Greater Nanite Swarm and the 11 swarms were sucked into a single greater swarm.
The greater swarm had stats similar to a level 1 capital ship - around 3000 health, 1500 shields, and did about 40 dps (26 x 1.55 i.e. a 55% damage output). The problem is that this greater swarm is much less powerful than the 11 swarms sucked up to create it. The 6 combat swarms were each doing about 15 dps (7 x 2.25 i.e. 125% damage increase) which is more than double what the greater swarm does. Worse yet, the greater swarm doesn't have a repair ability so I lost 60 hull/sec worth of repair (300 x 3 / 15 sec). And this doesn't even count the 2 assault swarm that I also lost.
After 3 minutes, the greater swarm disappeared in the same way as the other swarms. It didn't have any advantage in this regard over other swarms. Overall creating the greater swarm greatly reduced the effectiveness of the Rankulas over the next 2 minutes (until it could put out new combat, support, and assault swarms).
I also tried just creating a single combat swarm and then turning it into a greater swarm. This was somewhat effective as the new greater swarm had about 2.5 times the hull and shields of the combat swarm and did 27 dps (26 x 1.05) verses 15 dps (7 x 2.25) for the combat swarm. However, this is a pretty small benefit for a level 6 ability and once you have 2-3 swarms on the field, the greater swarm quickly becomes less effective than the swarms it sucks in.
The Rankulas is a pretty good ship (especially the support swarms) but I'm missing the purpose of its level 6 ability. Does anyone have any insight into this ability that I've missed?
The GNS is not supposed to disappear. It's a bug, known by now I suppose since someone else also posted a thread about it.
You are right by the way about the GNS not beig as strong as the other swarms are seperately. THe strong point of the GNS is basically that it cannot disappear over time (at least that should be its strong point). So you don't need antimatter to keep it sustained while being able to crete an infinite number of them costing zero fleet supply.
The purpose of the Greater Nanite Swarm is to never work properly, despite the devs best efforts. Really though I do hope this thing gets to a state where it works cause its kind of cool
I saw the thread about it being a bug. The thing is though, I was under the impression that it was changed intentionally. Goa had a post a couple of months back about taking the Rankulas to a star and just spamming out greater swarms. These things are probably worth 1.5 - 2 Kodiaks each (if they were to stay alive) so in a half hour you could have 300-400 fleet supply worth of them for no cost and no maintenance. I figured the developers changed them to go away after 3 minutes based on those comments.
They could limit them to something like 15, would be better than the time limit.
Hm that does explain why they disappear indeed. They should put the duration in the ability description then, so there won't be any misunderstandings about it in the future. If they put the duration to 300 I'd vote for making the GNS more powerful than it currently is since it consumes all your handy utility swarms.
If they lasted for 10 minutes (and didn't consume themselves when a new one was created), they could be really good with the way they work now. That way you could keep 6-7 of them going at a time.
BTW, I absolutely love your avatar.
So does the ability make a better swarm if it absorbs more smaller swarms? If not, I'd recommend limiting it to cause the 3 other types to all combine (One of each) instead, as well as having a max number of permanent Greater Swarms for each Rankulas. 3 maybe? Upgradeable to 5 with rank 2? Or maybe a number based on each Rankulas level kinda like they do with Strikecraft...
-Twi
It does, but the greater swarm is only marginally better for each swarm it sucks up. How it works is that the 'base' greater swarm starts off with 1180 hull, 700 shields, and does 26 dps (this is on the second level). For every swarm that gets sucked up, the greater swarm gets an additional 145 hull, 90 shields, and does an extra 5% damage. For the max of 11 swarms sucked up it can have 2775 hull, 1690 shields, and 26 dps x 1.55 (55% damage increase).
You can create a greater swarm without sucking up any swarms (if the Rankulas doesn't have any active swarms) and it gets the base stats. This ability also will suck up a greater swarm if the Rankulas already has one and treat it just like any other sucked up swarm. This means you can only have 1 greater swarm at a time.
Edit: One additional note - the Greater Nanite Swarm ability only sucks up swarms in the current gravity well. It is possible to have 2 going at once if you send the first one to another gravity well before you create the second.
Wow that is really dumb I did not know that lol
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
