Question on alien upgrades

Longtooth · August 2002

<div class="IPBDescription">I dont know what to put here.</div>So there are 3 alien upgrade chambers, defence,movement,and one more I forget at the moment. Now my question is cam you only get 1 upgrade from each chamber?

Longtooth · August 2002

Oh yes and I already know that this topic was discussed before but this question was never clearly awnsered. and also do you lose your upgrades when you die?

DruBo · August 2002

stealth is the other one, and I believe there can be up to 3 upgrades from each, but I may very well be wrong. any PTs care to comment?

Longtooth · August 2002

I know there are 3 in each chamber what I mean is are you able to get more than 1 from each chamber?

coil · August 2002

The third upgrade chamber is Sensory. From each type of chamber you can evolve one of three possible options. When you die, you respawn with a clean slate and can choose different options.

Soooo you can be a level3 and take adrenaline (movement), but respawn, go level1, and evolve Silence instead.

Longtooth · August 2002

So would it be possible(but very improbable) to have every upgrade on one alien? Or are you only allowed 1 upgrade from each chamber?

humbaba · August 2002

1 upgrade from each tower set. IE: 1 upgrade from defensive chamber, 1 upgrade from sensory, and one from motion. A total of 9 upgrades of which 3 can be chosen.

Longtooth · August 2002

Thats the awnser I was looking for thanks humbaba.

HBNayr · August 2002

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (coil @ Aug. 02 2002,19:12)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">The third upgrade chamber is Sensory. From each type of chamber you can evolve one of three possible options. When you die, you respawn with a clean slate and can choose different options.

Soooo you can be a level3 and take adrenaline (movement), but respawn, go level1, and evolve Silence instead.</td></tr></table>
I thought coil answered it rather nicely.

-Ryan!

"Bad men live that they may eat and drink,
whereas good men eat and drink that they may live."
-- Socrates

TiCK · August 2002

Actually, how I read coil's response, is that out of all the skills available to you, you can only pick 1 each time you respawn.

HBNayr · August 2002

"From each type of chamber you can evolve one...option."

Three chambers, one from each...

No matter. The question has been answered.

-Ryan!

"A woman's appetite is twice that of a man's;
her sexual desire, four times; her intelligence, eight times."
-- Sanskrit proverb

Longtooth · August 2002

*removed off-topic post*

coil · August 2002

Sheesh. Actually, writing it, I found it very difficult to describe exactly how it works... but Humbaba did it for me. (:

Random side note:
5 aliens, 3 different upgrade chambers, each with 3 options
5x3x3x3 = 135 possible alien combinations!

Freemantle · August 2002

I'm an idiot and have no math skills. I have deleted my own post.

Longtooth · August 2002

Grrr...Molecular, I did make this topic, shouldn't I be allowed to lead it off topic if I choose?

Gwahir · August 2002

I'm guessing the extra *3 is because of the added possibilities with each hive?

so to be more complete, 5 aliens, 3 upgrade chambers, 3 options from each (choose one only), and anywhere from 1-3 hives. hmmmm I'll edit this later when I've actually decided to put this through set theory to make sure it's so simple

edit: having just looked at the stories, it may be the number of chambers not hives, someone help me out here eh? It might be necessary info.

re-edit: I'll just assume chambers. Since you may only choose one upgrade out of three per chamber, that's 3c1 = 3. For any one upgrade, you have 3 possible states. Also you won't necessarily have any chambers available, or just haven't upgraded, that makes a summation from 0 to 3 on used chambers. So with each single type of chamber, there are 3*3 = 9 forms of upgrades, and 5 aliens to combine with, that makes 5*{[x=0,3]E(x*9)} = 270 possible combinations

coil · August 2002

Well, here's the full breakdown.
5 alien classes x (3 defensive upgrade choices x 3 levels of upgrade) x (3 movement x 3 levels) x (3 sensory x 3 levels)

= 3,645 possible combinations of alien, upgrades, and ability levels.

Gwahir · August 2002

I think that would be the case if you could get all the upgrades, but you can't.

Fam · August 2002

Heh. I am thick.

Comprox · August 2002

Well, after discussin in IRC, e corrected ourselfs to

5 alien classes x (3 defensive upgrade choices x 4 levels of upgrade) x (3 movement x 4 levels) x (3 sensory x 4 levels) = 8640

coil · August 2002

deleted because my math was wrong. (:

KungFuSquirrel · August 2002

actually, coil's wrong, it should be -4- levels of upgrades. That covers an alien that has 0, 1, 2, or 3 levels of any given ability. Which increases the number of possibilities.

humbaba · August 2002

Well, regardless . . it's a lot.

Gwahir · August 2002

found an error in my math

providing the lack of any further mistakes
new possible equation is

5*{[x=0,3]E(9^x)} = 4100

been a while since last semester, still might be wrong but, heh.

coil · August 2002

Gwahir: hives have nothing to do with the level of upgrade; they only define what can be built, what can be evolved to, and what levels are available.

Gwahir · August 2002

if you noted in my previous post, I said I assumed chambers

humbaba · August 2002

YEs. I am going to tie it all together with a grand synopsis. Aliens have the ability to build up to 3 hives. The number of hives affects what attacks each class has and how many classes are available to the team. Every alien is always alowed whatever weapon is in weapon slot 1 (IE: Bite for bob, spit for lvl 2). Weapon slot 2 is available for 1 hive (IE: Parasite for bob). Weapons slot 3 is available with 2 hives (such as umbra for lvl 4 or leap for lvl 1). You get the idea. The alien team has the ability to build 3 different types of upgrade chamber. They have 3 levels of upgrade, level 1 upgrade for 1 chamber, level 2 upgrade for 2 chambers, and level 3 upgrade for 3 or more chambers of the same type (IE: 3 defensive chambers means level 3 carapace, redemption, or regeneration). They can evolve up to level 5 when they have three hives. up to level 4 with 2 hives. And level 3 with 1 hive. With no hives, only bob and lvl 2 are available. Lets see . . I think that about does it. Any questions?

Gwahir · August 2002

for the purposes of allowing all upgrades assume 3 hives

Gwahir · August 2002

coil and I discussed the topic in IRC, he agreed with most of my findings but found I missed differentiating the different types of chambers. So we have a modification of the equation taking them into account

5 + 5*9 + 5*9 + 5*9 + 5*9^2 + 5*9^2 + 5*9^2 + 5*9^3

coil · August 2002

Ok, Gwahir and I finally figured it out... had to dispense with the fancy formulas and just crunch out some numbers. For the purpose of explanation, D=defensive chamber, M=movement chamber, and S=sensory chamber. 5 = the number of alien classes. 9 = 3 upgrades, times 3 possible levels of upgrade.

With NO CHAMBERS AVAILABLE:
5

With ONE CHAMBER AVAILABLE, aliens can go D, M, or S.
D: 5x9 = 45
M: 5x9 = 45
S: 5x9 = 45

With TWO CHAMBERS AVAILABLE:
D & M: 5x9x9 = 405
D & S: 5x9x9 = 405
M & S: 5x9x9 = 405

With THREE CHAMBERS AVAILABLE:
D & M & S: 5x9x9x9 = 3,645

When you add all those options together, the grand total is
FIVE THOUSAND POSSIBLE ALIEN COMBINATIONS. Nice.

BTW, any math wiz who can translate that into a succinct mathematical formula, please do so.

Gwahir · August 2002

got it

5*{[X=0,3]SUM((3cX)*9^X)}

edit: note that 3cX is "3 choose X"
it's an equation that will tell you how many combinations are in a set where you have in this case 3 available, and you want to choose x from that (this eliminates separating it out into individual cases as was done in the previous post). Also note that this is not used if the order matters, in that case you would use permutation not choose.

Question on alien upgrades

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