In the Vulcan Sub Zero game I have been learning to attack and cap. Caretaker and Dynnari believe in an attack macro using 9999 figs. What is the signifigance of using that number?

Also, I noticed that I sometimes ping my figs down way low when going for the cap before the ship is capped. How many figs would be the max amount one should allow himself to loose before giving up on cap and going for destroy?

On thing I HAVE learned is, that before attacking manually, to check for the defence fig count. Sometimes the enemy gets off a round between your attacks thereby lowing his fig count (or yours) more than you have calculated for to attack with. If you don't catch that, you might hit with too many figs and destroy rather than zero fig him or end up attacking with all your figs against a stronger enemy.

my strategy for using macros and capping ships:
depends 100% on the edits and 100% on the situation.
for ex:
its the beginning of the game, i am in a scout, just going for quick kills, capping a merf or a cruiser, really, not worth my time, getting their ppt cash is much more important.
so i'll set up my macro to use a 250 fig wave. (or the max i can have in my current attack ship)
however, you must always use discretion (which you can only learn from experience)
know if its a trap, know if it is worth your figs to get the kill, know if you should go for the pod or if you can spend that extra second to get the #SD#.
however, in end game situations.
when i go hunting a person, i see the ship they are usually in, or are in at the time, i get in the appropriate attack ship, and i set up macro's to cap their ship and poof their pod.
sure, if they get off a shot or two, it will screw up your plans, but that is why you suprise them and don't give them a chance to respond.
second ex:
i was playin a game, me and k3 vs traitor and EP.
i knew they were gonna outcash us pre-mobile.
so the key was to slow them down.
the most effecient way for them to furb, was to twarp the colt (in these edits) to the nearest class 0 and manually furb.
i found where they were cashing, went to the nearest class 0, photoned in under their fig, and sat on the port.
i set up a couple macros to pop off and kill.
then when they logged on, i waited a bit for them to get rolling, and i popped off, droped some limps, and sat back on the port.
bang, i get a limp hit, i pop off, and pod traitor.
should i have surrounded? no.
why?
because 15 seconds later, EP twarped in, and i podded him.
if i had surrounded, EP would have known i was on the prowl.
so what i accomplished was getting a whole crap load of their cash, popping their 2 best ships, and set them both back to pods. another time (in that game) EP was busting up at dock.
he thought he would be clever and fill up on corbo while he did it and have 0 figs or shields so i'd go poof.
so i set my macro to send 1 fig.

i appreciated the start up cash.

so in conclusion,
your macro depends on who you are fighting, how you are fighting, and what you wish to accomplish by fighting.
ay9999* is a default macro because it is basic.
of course when you bring planets into the equation, fighting becomes completely different.

I use 9999 because most ships support atleast a 9999 wave, so I don't have to change it between games. That way I can plan how many ftrs... 30k? 3-taps of the old macro.

Slim, gotta question for you... how do you macro a cap? Never gotten that figured out, I mean if you don't know the # of ftrs they'll have ahead of time. Any idea?

heh, depends on which F key I hit...lol
and Slim is right ( I hate to admit it ) but it all depends on who they are, what ship there in and what ship ur in. Depending on the ships, I'll set a mac to cap it. although I did one by hand the other day, impressed myself, typed it all right under pressure, not a cap, but podded his Butt, was hittin max my ship could use and didn't even know his battle odds, and he didn't have enough corb to pod me...don't remember where I read it, probley at Traitors site, but macs are the way to go, and if ur puttin in 9999, and ur ship can send a 40k wave, I'll nail u if my ship can too.
U want a better more detailed explnation, hit me on ICQ....
and there is another trick out there I haven't seen used since the last time I used it, to mess the enemy's attack up. hmm, maybe I better leave that lost and forgotton...heh heh

sorry Traitor, I should have put a link....
http://www.tw-cabal.com/

nevermind. heh.

Well, the 9999 is just for the default attack macro. If I'm planning
the attack then yea, max ftr wave makes more sense... for casual "Whoa?
Where'd you come from?" type attacks there's a handful of scripts out
there that seem to be more flexible.

Hmm. For caps I usually assign ck shipcap to a key. But that's really
freaking slow. If you don't know the number of ftrs ahead of time, or
the number of shields, how can you macro the cap? I don't see anything
about that on tw-cabal. Maybe I missed it tho.

If anyone knows how to cap a ship with a macro (with a high rate of
success) without reading the shields or the ftrs, or without making
too many assumptions (full shields? I rarely carry full shields)
do tell.

ay1^m ^may1^m ^may1^m ^may1^m ^may1^m ^may1^m ^may1^m ^m

use that after his figs are lowered if your on a corp. the corp. protection will stop it from poofing the ship.

The 9999 in most macs is probably to maximize the number of figs you use each round after you get under 10000 figs think about it this way if your mac was 10000 each round after you get below 10k figs you next round will be 1000 then 100 then 10 then 1 where if it was set to 9999 it would go something like 9999 then 999 then 99 then 9.

quote:Originally posted by Speed Demon

ay1^m ^may1^m ^may1^m ^may1^m ^may1^m ^may1^m ^may1^m ^m

use that after his figs are lowered if your on a corp. the corp. protection will stop it from poofing the ship.

The 9999 in most macs is probably to maximize the number of figs you use each round after you get under 10000 figs think about it this way if your mac was 10000 each round after you get below 10k figs you next round will be 1000 then 100 then 10 then 1 where if it was set to 9999 it would go something like 9999 then 999 then 99 then 9.



THAT I didn't know. If, when runing out of figs, the number the macro sends is lowered one decimal place, then it makes since then to use the 9 instead of any other number in order to attack with the max amount you can when the rounding down starts. Also thanks SD for the macro.

Now, one of the questions I asked is still unanswered. How many times should I ping the enemy at 1 fig per attack before surrounding it and going on until later like a dog would with his bone?

if he's not at keys none, surround him first, then mac his butt, a #SD# is normally better than a pod, ship cap or not, u still get the cash and he's normally outta the game till tern... I say normally cause I been playin a few death matches with no delay for re entering...

really if he's not at keys u got time to surround him and set a mac to cap him/her
but sometimes its hard to tell...

quote:Originally posted by Zarkahn

really if he's not at keys u got time to surround him and set a mac to cap him/her
but sometimes its hard to tell...

In the game I was learning to do this my ship had an IG so I didn't need to surround but I kept pinging with 1 fig and they kept dropping like flies before a ship cap message was sent. My question is how many figs should I allow myself to lose before burying the ship or pod in figs to come back to later or giving up entirely? Not all ships are as hard as others to ping. Might be a quirk in the way defense formula is sat up that TW uses to determine how many figs it takes to cap. I've tried capping by calculating and it was same way.

lets say
E=enemy
Y=you
both in the same ship, 2.0 offensive odds, 1.0 defensive odds.
[E(figs) + E(shields)]x E(defensive odds)
we'll say 100k figs, 10k shields, at 1.0 def odds
Y(max fig wave) x Y(off odds)
we'll say 20k attack wave and 2.0 off odds (100k figs total)
so in one attack, i do 40k damage to him.
(unless using ay9999* in which case i will only do 19998 per attack)
it takes you .25 seconds to complete an attack with no ship delay.
ok, to the capping math.
i want to cap his ship, then pop his pod.
so i have to do approx 110k damage to him.
ay20000*
your basic one, doing 40k damage, lets double it
ay20000* ay20000*
now that is 80k damage, we now only have 30k left.
ay20000* ay20000* ay15000*
we are now doing 110k damage to his ship.
*****(NOTE)*****
you make the assumption that they have full figs/shields depending on, again, who they are, age of game, how well they are doing, etc...
when i hunt, i KNOW who/what i am hunting.
ALSO!!!
VERY IMPORTANT.
there is a random variable in the attack formula.
i've done some study on his, and am not going to go into any detail, just know that just because you attack with 100 figs (with above odds) does NOT mean you will do 200 damage.
*****(END NOTE)*****

now, i do *NOT* use this macro, i take into account the random variable, and i adjust my macro accordingly, but will not do so for the example as i dont want to get confusing.
so to cap the ship, and kill the pod:
ay20000* ay20000* ay15000* any9999*

this is basic, no safeties, no random variable.
but, that is 4 attacks.
1 second (assuming you ping less than .250)
that is not much time for him to react.
now, lets use the example of using ay9999*
ay9999* takes off approx. 20k damage.
ay9999* ay9999* ay9999* ay9999* ay9999* ay5000* ay9999*
so to kill him, it's going to take 1.75 seconds.
(again, no safeties, nice ping, no randomness, and optimal conditions)
so, if lets say he has a ay20000* ay20000* ay20000* type macro, and he gets it off during that 1.25 seconds... you are more than likely going to die, or it will be a stalemate at the end and you both will get away with nothing but alignment to show for it.

again, take all of this with a grain of salt, it's just a generic example to show the general idea of how to cap a ship with a macro.
there *is* a bit more too it, but that comes with experience.

hope that helps a bit.

Akor,
I think the point of pinging alien ships is to provoke them into
attacking. Several of those ships have g-bonus, so if you have
a planet in the sector and can provoke them into launching an
attack, you'll waste their ftrs cheaper than if you tried to just
attack them. With the IG on, they can't get out. So you can empty
their ftrs, then cap them, without a challenge.

quote:Originally posted by Singularity

Akor,
I think the point of pinging alien ships is to provoke them into
attacking. Several of those ships have g-bonus, so if you have
a planet in the sector and can provoke them into launching an
attack, you'll waste their ftrs cheaper than if you tried to just
attack them. With the IG on, they can't get out. So you can empty
their ftrs, then cap them, without a challenge.

What's a G-bonus?

And when pinging them when they have 0 figs, it seemed like I was wasting way to many figs on one. So when do you say, enough is enough and go on to the next ship? No one seems to have an answer for that yet.