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How many Fleas does it take to kill a Detriment? (Plus other philosophical questions about sacrificing many smaller units to kill even bigger units.)

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Although hypothetically speaking, I might need, say, a minimum of only 171 Fleas (which is a mere 3420 metal) to bring down a lone Detriment, from experience, I'd say at least 600 Fleas (which is a 12000 metal investment) are sufficient to bring down a lone Detriment, and that's because I didn't take into account various factors, such as that the Detriment's gauss guns penetrate through multiple targets, or that, when Fleas die, they explode, harming other Fleas nearby, or that not all of the Fleas are able to get close enough to the Detriment to be able to do damage to it, to name a few.

Still, that was an interesting exercise in comparing unit values between masses of tiny units compared to individual units that are much bigger, and could easily overkill the smaller units, so here are a few more questions to ask yourselves:

How many Fleas, Darts, or Glaives does it take to kill a:
- Knight
- Thug
- Ravager
- Halberd
- Hermit
- Blitz
- Minotaur
- Grizzly
- Cyclops
- Paladin
- Detriment
Edit:
- Stinger
- Lucifer
+1 / -0
5 years ago
quote:

How many Fleas, Darts, or Glaives does it take to kill a:
- Thug
- Ravager
- Halberd
- Hermit
- Minotaur
- Cyclops


1 with good micro, because you can dodge their slow projectiles.
+1 / -0
5 years ago
Ah, good point, but what if you can't afford the attention necessary to micromanage your units in question, and instead have to amass them, then send them after the unit in question while your attention is focused elsewhere?
+0 / -0
5 years ago
1 with good micro is an option you can take on an all-in scenario of desperately defending your base while your army is already commanded with a sequence of orders to thrash the enemy base but in most scenarios and cases it really isn't applicable since a good enemy always has riots to assist in base thrashing but fleas sure are very cost effective and useful when you are rushed with a bunch of those assault units.
+0 / -0
5 years ago
I have calculated that 7 Fleas should be enough to kill 1 Stinger. 6 would be enough if it was not necessary to overcome the range difference which the Stinger can use to reload partially. This can be true if the Stinger's shot line is blocked by units or terrain.
+1 / -0
5 years ago
DErankBrackman: Sounds pretty much right.

I've calculated that the Stinger, which has a range of 620 elmo, outranges the Flea, which has a range of 155 elmo, by 465 elmo, meaning that the Flea, which has a speed of 144 elmo/second, would take 3.23 seconds to close the distance with the longer-ranged Stinger. However, once a Flea gets close enough to the Stinger to be able to shoot at it, it can do 42 damage-per-second to the Stinger, which means that, by the time the Stinger's cooldown period of 4.5 seconds is finished, it would've taken 189 damage from each single Flea during that time. Given that the Stinger only has 2475 HP, it wouldn't likely survive if at least 5 Fleas manage to get close enough to attack it, since it could only manage to kill 4 Fleas (plus one or two Fleas that were killed while closing the distance towards the Stinger) before finally succumbing to them.

However, will 7 Fleas (which cost 140 metal, compared to the Stinger's 420 metal cost, which is thrice the cost of the 7 Fleas) "really" be enough to bring down one Stinger? After all, in practice, I needed way more than 171 Fleas to bring down a single Detriment, since the Fleas' death explosions were harming my other Fleas, and since I didn't take into account the Detriment's piercing gauss guns. Likewise, I wouldn't be surprised to find the Stinger killing more than 1 Flea at a time per shot, since its laser would continue to shoot at things behind whatever it kills (and that's in addition to the Fleas' death explosion damage).

With metal costs that high, would it be better to attack the Stinger with, say, a Sling, which costs 130 metal? Sure, a single Sling would take at least 99 seconds to kill the Stinger (as opposed to the less than 30 seconds needed for the 7 Fleas), but it wouldn't need to sacrifice itself to get the job done, since it outranges the Stinger.
+0 / -0
5 years ago
I made a plot of theoretical number of small units (glaive=116.12903 dps and flea=42.28 dps) required to kill a single big unit, assuming the big unit kills a single unit on each shot, all of the small units remaining are dealing continuous damage to the big unit, and the big unit gets a "free" kill at the start.

x-axis is the strength of the big unit in hp/killtime (so Stinger is 2475/4.5=550); y-axis is the number of small units required.



This is only a simplification of what would actually happen of course, and thus is at best an approximation. If you want to take into account things like dodging projectiles or range differences or AoE damage, the easiest way is to make it actually happen yourself instead of trying to simulate it by thinking about it. Like using /give 10 spiderscout, /give turretheavylaser 1 or something.
+2 / -0
5 years ago
How many glaives does it take to kill a redback?
+0 / -0
5 years ago
Most likely way more in metal's worth than is needed to build a single Redback.
+0 / -0
5 years ago
How many fleas does it take to kill an outlaw?
+1 / -0
5 years ago
Perhaps some Fleas could get lucky and close the distance with the Outlaw by surrounding the Outlaw, and timing their charges just after the pulses dissipate? Even then, however, I'd guess a minimum of 99 Fleas would be needed, and keep in mind that that's a best case scenario. Fleas lack the range, speed, and health to normally survive an Outlaw's Disruptor Pulsar weapon to even be able to get a shot off.
+0 / -0


5 years ago
An out-of-controll Skuttle thrown from a newton ramp is flying towards your damaged Dante. You have a hold-fired Archer trapped ina Placeholder field near a low-altitude part of Skuttle's trajectory. Setting the Archer to fire at will cause it to shoot at the Skuttle, nudging its trajectory to instead impact into an ally's Fusion Reactor with a dozen Fleas parked in its blast radius.

Do you change the fire state? Is it teamkill if you do?
+12 / -0
5 years ago
EErankAdminAnarchid: Personally, chances are that I'd be too busy to even notice that a Skuttle was being flung into my damaged Dante, let alone that there's an Archer nearby that could've been used to redirect the Skuttle elsewhere, and since my reaction time isn't something that I'd write home about, if it was me controlling the Archer, I'd probably do nothing about it and let the Skuttle fly into the Dante anyways, even if I was willing to redirect at an allied Fusion Reactor by having the Archer redirect the Skuttle. I'd much rather focus on macromanaging my forces than micromanaging a small group of important units (though as my previous matches seem to indicate, it seems like I'm not focusing enough on macromanaging my economy than I'd like to do).

By the way, I'd most likely have my Archers' fire state set to fire-at-will mode by default, though I still probably wouldn't have noticed if they redirected the flying Skuttle at an allied Fusion Reactor until it's too late.
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5 years ago
How much fleas you need to kill 100 pyro?
+0 / -0
5 years ago
Lately, I did an experiment to see if I could take out an enemy Detriment with Glaives or Bandits supported by Aspis and Iris (totaling almost 11,000 metal's worth), and well, here are the results of my experiment, though I wish I was able to share the replay with you guys.
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5 years ago
Another Question:

How many games it takes to learn to play and get good?
+0 / -0
5 years ago
4402
+0 / -0


5 years ago
I'd expect Glaives would be a fairly poor choice due to their awful range, I'd recommend aegis+skirmisher of some sort.
+0 / -0

5 years ago
quote:
How many games it takes to learn to play and get good?

Its not enough with just games. There is brain needed.
+0 / -0