Creeper World 4 – Useful Numbers

Guide for Creeper World 4 – Useful Numbers

Introduction

I created a test map and tested several game mechanics. The map I used is screenshotted below:

Energy cost and resource production tests were done by placing 10+ of a weapon or item and checking the resulting values. Sprayers were slightly more difficult, as the consumption values are not displayed – I had to place/remove sprayers until I saw the stockpile start to decrease or increase.

Energy Production

The Rift Lab produces 1 power on its own.

Towers with a full 121 squares of coverage produce 0.333 power per tower. However, they lose ‘efficiency’ based on the number of links between the tower and the Rift Lab. This loss appears to be logarithmic. After 12 links, a tower was at 86% efficiency.

Mines produce 1 energy.

Small (3×3) solar panels produce 0.2 energy each, while large (5×5) solar panels produce 0.5 energy.

The ERN Portal buff to energy production is a 50% boost (x1.5). It affects the Lab, Towers, and Miners. It does /not/ affect solar panels, which is probably an oversight/bug.

Attaching an ERN module directly to a miner is a 400% boost (x5). This stack multiplicatively with the Portal buff, for a total of 7.5 energy from a miner affected by both.

Results are summarized below:

Resource Production

Relatively straightforward. Blueite and Redron Mineral outcrops produce 0.5 resources each. Miners produce 0.3 resources each. The Mine Production portal buff boosts both by 100% (x2), and the ERN module increases the miner’s production by 400% (x5). They stack multiplicatively. To summarize:

Consumption

At constant fire rate, cannons, mortar, and nullifiers all consume 1 energy.

Sprayers at constant fire rate (or set to ‘always on’) consume 0.60 blueite. Under the effect of an ERN module, this doubles to 1.2 blueite. They behave oddly with fire rate, consuming 0.86 blueite with the portal buff alone and 2.0 blueite with both buffs active.

Effects

Testing equal-sized stacks of AC and creeper against one another resulted in total cancelation, as expected – neither has a ‘hidden’ advantage against the other.

A sprayer set to Always On produced a stack of 72 AC in 30 seconds. This doubled to 144 AC in 30 seconds (commensurate with the increased consumption. However, when tested against an emitter set to produce 144 creepers over 30 seconds, the sprayer easily overwhelmed it. Further testing using a racing track found that an ERN-boosted sprayer was evenly matched against an emitter set to produce 21.7 every 2 seconds. This implies that the unbuffed Sprayer has an actual production rate of roughly 5.4 per second (and thus gives us a conversion of 8.1 productions/per second per unit of Blueite. This means that to match a ‘standard’ emitter with 50 every half second, you would need 12.5 blueite, feeding 19 sprayers. This explains why mortars/cannons/bombers are essential for ‘pushing’ an Anti-creeper front forwards.

Testing a cannon against a 2×2 stack of creeper with a height of 250, I tested a cannon under the following situations:

• Base, with no buffs: 67 seconds.
• With an ERN module: 33 seconds.
• With the ERN Portal fire rate buff: 50 seconds.
• With both ERN buffs: 25 seconds.

From this, I concluded that the fire rate buff is +25% (x1.25), and the ERN module doubles the cannon’s performance.

Cannons, snipers, and sprayer ranges are unaffected by height. Mortars, however, get a higher range with higher /relative/ height.

Further testing needed

I am running some more tests on AC vs. creeper and bomber costs. I will edit when I have the results.

This is all that we can say about Creeper World 4 – Useful Numbers for now. I hope this post helped you. If there is anything that we should add, please let us know via comment below. See you soon!