Lifeforms Tutorial - Question Gathering Thread

    Hey all,


    Please use this thread to ask any questions or pass on any feedback you may have in relation to the Lifeforms update. As outlined here, questions gathered in this thread may be used in our next tutorial video, so don't be shy!


    Questions Asked So Far

    • With the new race Kaelesh, I notice there is a new technology which reduces the black hole chances. How is this percentage applied and is there a formula?
    • Does ship enhancement research improve every ship of that type in the fleet, regardless of whether human or other lifeforms?
      • How will the game keep the enhanced ones separate if fleets get intermingled?
    • Do pirates/aliens scale proportionately with the lifeform techs a player has?
    • When I have 2 same "lifeform research" in the same tier (e.g. High Performance Extractors and Automated Transport Lines), will the effects count additive? How does it count?
    • What is the T18 tech bonus ‘Kaelesh Discoverer Enhancement’ increase gain on successful expeditions actual percentage modifier? Is it the same as the normal discoverer bonus (ie in a 4x speed uni a discoverer gets 600% max find of a collector)?
      • Is this value additive or multiplicative with the base discoverer bonus. Is there a cap to this?
    • With all the bonuses added to buff collectors in the Rock’tal trees, has the 50% crawler bonus hard cap been removed? Or are we just going to hit that cap quickly if we go Rock’tal?
    • Are there any other hidden hard caps on values for any new buildings or techs?
    • The T18 techs require the base class to get the bonus correct? (i.e. Kaelesh Discoverer Enhancer will do nothing if I am a collector)
    • Will [Lifeforms] come to all servers or only on new servers in future?
    • How does life form tech bonus apply, the bonus you get from metropolis, the two buildings from Mecha and from levelling your species, there was mentioned a cap, but no hard numbers.
    • Can you give a rough idea of how many missions one would expect to run before finding one of the races before it can be considered bad luck?
    • In the last tutorial, you talked about gaining experience with the races after the first time you find them and I see the blank xp circle under the human icon, but what does xp with a race actually do?
    • When lifeforms will be implemented on the older servers?
    • What if player does the life form switch during attack to reduce lose when he knows he will lose and transform back after the hit... Will their be life form switch block during attack?
    • What will be the success rate of finding aliens and pirates in expeditions with the kaelesh class? Will there be a change or will it continue to be nerfed?
    • Which APIs or Calculators do you provide for people to work with? How can I currently calculate the speed, the flight times and so on? Which Information will be given in the spy report and in what way can it be used?
    • Is there a lifeform research or building useful for moons? Also, is lifeform tech locked or can it be altered from suggestions?
    • Does GF expect this new lifeforms update to draw in new players or otherwise prolong the healthy life of universes? Or is it purely intended to bring more complexity and intricacy to the game?
    • How lifeforms will help to reduce the gap between premium and non premium players?
    • Do you have some schedule planned for the transition from old server to the lifeforms update?
    • Life form levels (the ones you collect XP for) - How much of an effect do these have, how fast do you collect XP and what sort of level is considered to be the "maximum"?
    • Is food tradeable resource? As in what would the ratio be m-c-d-f?
    • On Humans, despite having enough energy PRODUCED, I can't level up terraformer. I assume because buildings cannot change the amount of energy consumed, and therefore the system considers it "not produced". MY QUESTION IS: why can't I, as a strategy, modulate the buildings' consumption?
    • The three technologies in pos 18, which increase the class bonuses, how do they work? Is the increase intended as a percentage calculated on the bonus or does it actually increase the bonus?
    • Related to technology 18 Kaelesh: In the explanation it says that it also increases the +2 expeditions. How does it apply here? 2 * 100.4% and do you get the third additional slot when you reach the value 3?
    • Will the Lifeform update will add higher breakpoints for better expeditions findings to reward active players?

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    OGame.org & OGame.us Admin

    Edited 5 times, last by Rav3n ().

    Pretty sure it’s a % of a %. So let’s say the chance of a black hole is 5%. Getting that technology to a place where it reduces the chance by 50% would still mean a 2.5% chance of hitting a black hole.

    Do ship enhancement research improve every ship of that type in the fleet, regardless of whether human or other lifeforms? (assuming one might have a mix of all lifeforms) How will the game keep the enhanced ones separate if fleets get intermingled?

    1) what is the T18 tech bonus ‘kaelesh discoverer enhancement’ increase gain on successful expeditions actual percentage modifier? Is it the same as the normal discoverer bonus (ie in a 4x speed uni a discoverer gets 600% max find of a collector)? Is this value additive or multiplicative with the base discoverer bonus. Is there a cap to this?


    2) with all the bonuses added to buff collectors in the rok’tal trees, has the 50% crawler bonus hard cap been removed? Or are we just going to hit that cap quickly if we go rok’tal?


    3) are there any other hidden hard caps on values for any new buildings or techs?


    4) the T18 techs require the base class to get the bonus correct? (Ie kaelesh discoverer enhancer will do nothing if I am a collector)

    Quote from bloodyneck92

    1) what is the T18 tech bonus ‘kaelesh discoverer enhancement’ increase gain on successful expeditions actual percentage modifier? Is it the same as the normal discoverer bonus (ie in a 4x speed uni a discoverer gets 600% max find of a collector)? Is this value additive or multiplicative with the base discoverer bonus. Is there a cap to this?


    2) with all the bonuses added to buff collectors in the rok’tal trees, has the 50% crawler bonus hard cap been removed? Or are we just going to hit that cap quickly if we go rok’tal?


    3) are there any other hidden hard caps on values for any new buildings or techs?


    4) the T18 techs require the base class to get the bonus correct? (Ie kaelesh discoverer enhancer will do nothing if I am a collector)

    I'm still largely unclear what the Disco enhancement does...I have not tested that tech.


    2) the 50% cap on crawlers is still the cap so if you're already maxed out on crawlers this tech doesn't do anything besides lower energy consumption.


    3) I believe all the research related techs are capped at 99% for time reduction and those which have cost reduction are capped at 50%...in fact I think anything with cost reduction is capped at 50%... there are a bunch of hidden caps.


    4) unclear on this...haven't tested it

    1) yeah we’ll need numbers on that as it appears that will be the best form of late game growth then. Uncapped expedition numbers with even better rewards, imagine sending out 30 simultaneous expo waves that all have 50x the base cap. It will be absurd if my understanding is correct.


    2) that’s ridiculous, collectors could already hit 50% cap before this update. This does nothing to help them except reach that cap sooner. Maybe best for mid to early late game growth but it will fall off a cliff compared to others when you get capped.


    3) thanks, Hopefully they can shed more light on these hidden caps.


    4) I’m almost certain that’s how it works but I guess we’ll see.


    Ugh the numbers behind this aren’t looking promising long term. Collectors seem to get out paced, discoverers reign supreme, and generals get fast fleets strong fleets but you’ll be vastly outnumbered compared to your opponents (at the top end of the ranks at least) meaning you’re essentially a great bully to weaker opponents but irrelevant to the top tier as targets become harder and harder to find and ranks 1-50 grow too large for you to hit.

    Quote from fumei921

    2 Same.png


    Wanna ask about Lifeform Research


    When I have 2 same "lifeform research" in the same tier as above, will the effects count additive ? How does it counts ?

    so if I'm understanding your question right, you're asking if you have two planets set up this way, how is it calculated? Each life form research is account wide. If a tech bonus is 0.06% per level like most of the resource producing ones are now, then having 6 levels on each planet will result in a 0.36% increase per planet and across 10 planets would result in a 3.6% increase...the more planets you have with that tech, the more it stacks...

    1) so having talked to a couple people...the Kaelesh Discover Bonus isn't applied directly to the formula for expedition finds...its calculated on its own and added to it. I haven't seen any evidence thus far that expeditions are broken in v9 so this would seem to support that. Instead it seems like Disco class is now relevant later in the game.


    2) ehh it could be worse. I agree with you but on the other hand uncapped crawlers would be the exact nightmare people dreaded with v7. There are other options in that slot. Personally I'll be going with Artificial Swarm Intelligence from the Mecha tree in order to get an additional 0.06% metal, crystal and deut per level.


    3) All the caps are listed. Go through Prongs posts...specifically the ones where he talks about rebalancing this version...there is an excel spreadsheet there that shows all the buildings, techs, how they scale and what caps if any there are...


    4) turns out you don't have to be disco in order to take advantage of it...just checked.


    I can promise you collectors do not get out paced...instead it brings disco class up as a viable alternative later into the game....without running numbers collector still probably wins by the time you're maxing out crawlers.

    How does life form tech bonus apply, the bonus you get from metropolis, the two buildings from mecha and from leveling your species, there was mentioned a cap, but no hard numbers. and it does not appear in the LF excel spreadsheet.


    what exactly is the enhancement techs applied to, does the kaelesh increase the +10% planet size on colonization.

    Edited once, last by Rafiki ().

    Quote from johocknut

    so if I'm understanding your question right, you're asking if you have two planets set up this way, how is it calculated? Each life form research is account wide. If a tech bonus is 0.06% per level like most of the resource producing ones are now, then having 6 levels on each planet will result in a 0.36% increase per planet and across 10 planets would result in a 3.6% increase...the more planets you have with that tech, the more it stacks...


    You didn't get my point, as the pic shows:


    2 Same.png

    I have 2 "Enhanced Production Technologies" (Tier 1 Research)

    and 2 "Enhanced Production Technologies" (Tier 2 Research) all in the same planet.


    Tier 1 : Level 7 (0.42%) & level 5 (0.30%)

    Tier 2 : Level 5 (0.30%) & level 4 (0.24%)

    My question is : for that planet, the tech bonus% should be ?

    1. 0.42+0.3+0.3+0.24 which is 1.26% ?

    2. 0.42+0.3 which is 0.72% ? ( just count the top one )

    3. none of above, something else. ( may we know the formula? )

    Thank you for the answering.

    A very good question and while this will most likely come up in the tutorial video, it's quite easy to get your own answer as well! If you pull up your resource settings page, you should see an option for player bonuses, as shown here:

    pasted-from-clipboard.png


    On the Player Bonuses page, you'll be able to see the total boosts that all of your techs are providing. You can also select the drop-down menu to see a breakdown of your boosts per planet:

    pasted-from-clipboard.png


    As for the specific formulas, while they're a bit complicated in places, they can all be found here: https://ogame.comastuff.com/LFMaster.xlsx. In short, they are cumulative, whether it's across various planets or even just on the same one, it all adds up.

    If you see this, the image broke!
    OGame.org & OGame.us Admin

    I am sure you don't want to spoil the odds, but can you give a rough idea of how many missions one would expect to run before finding one of the races before it can be considered bad luck? Like I am just kind of curious if my 45 missions (that is that I sent a fleet to every planet in my system and 1 system away since there is a week cool down) is bad luck or if I was seriously underestimating how early I could start really exploring the new content.


    Also in the last tutorial, you talked about gaining experience with the races after the first time you find them and I see the blank xp circle under the human icon, but what does xp with a race actually do?

    Quote from cjames1001

    I am sure you don't want to spoil the odds, but can you give a rough idea of how many missions one would expect to run before finding one of the races before it can be considered bad luck? Like I am just kind of curious if my 45 missions (that is that I sent a fleet to every planet in my system and 1 system away since there is a week cool down) is bad luck or if I was seriously underestimating how early I could start really exploring the new content.

    For me, I found all 4 races after sending 100 exploration ships roughly.

    Quote from cjames1001

    I am sure you don't want to spoil the odds, but can you give a rough idea of how many missions one would expect to run before finding one of the races before it can be considered bad luck? Like I am just kind of curious if my 45 missions (that is that I sent a fleet to every planet in my system and 1 system away since there is a week cool down) is bad luck or if I was seriously underestimating how early I could start really exploring the new content.


    Also in the last tutorial, you talked about gaining experience with the races after the first time you find them and I see the blank xp circle under the human icon, but what does xp with a race actually do?

    It took me 70ish to find the 4th but I had 3/4 20 in and got multiples of them before ever finding the 4th.

    That being said, your res is MUCH better spent on planet development early on. the bonuses from lifeforms are small percentages, they need many planets to be simultaneously running the techs, they need a medium level of techs on each planet, and they need higher level mines/Higher percentage expos/higher research levels etc to really start to shine.

    If I went back and started over in the new uni I wouldn't even begin searching for lifeforms until probably around 100k points and honestly I might even consider holding off until 1 Million or more points but that's just me.

    Quote from bloodyneck92
    Quote from cjames1001

    I am sure you don't want to spoil the odds, but can you give a rough idea of how many missions one would expect to run before finding one of the races before it can be considered bad luck? Like I am just kind of curious if my 45 missions (that is that I sent a fleet to every planet in my system and 1 system away since there is a week cool down) is bad luck or if I was seriously underestimating how early I could start really exploring the new content.


    Also in the last tutorial, you talked about gaining experience with the races after the first time you find them and I see the blank xp circle under the human icon, but what does xp with a race actually do?

    It took me 70ish to find the 4th but I had 3/4 20 in and got multiples of them before ever finding the 4th.

    That being said, your res is MUCH better spent on planet development early on. the bonuses from lifeforms are small percentages, they need many planets to be simultaneously running the techs, they need a medium level of techs on each planet, and they need higher level mines/Higher percentage expos/higher research levels etc to really start to shine.

    If I went back and started over in the new uni I wouldn't even begin searching for lifeforms until probably around 100k points and honestly I might even consider holding off until 1 Million or more points but that's just me.

    Yeah, I am sure it is far better to ignore it for a long time, but honestly there is no real point in playing the new universe in my opinion if you are not going to dip your toe in the content that makes it new. The first little bit (unlocking the ability to look for new lifeforms and getting the first resource increase) barely costs anything (under 30 total points) and adds a lot of fun new toys to play with.