Would you go to war without a revive contract?

Hi All, 

As a reviver and a RW medic here's the strategic logic of a revive contract.

Why do armies send medics with their troops? 

Why not send another soldier? 

Because they want to win the war. 

From a generals perspective a patched solder is another soldier. 

If a medic can revive the same soldier 5x thats 6 soldiers putting down rounds on the enemies before he has to send flowers to the family.

This is the logic RW armies run on. Revive the wounded faster, they are back on the front lines faster. It's a combat multiplyer that no real world combat force ignores. 

Factions are limited to 100 members, but with revives, you can get an effective force of closer to 500. Thats because each soldier can be instantly revived about 5x before the success rate drops too much. 

Here's the example - 

Two armies, BOB and the Roids start with a 100 soldiers each. 

BOB is a plucky band of brothers they look out for each other and they have a revive contract (say with ascelpius). 

The Roids are a warring faction... Free Xanax - gym gains - better stats by a ways... 

War is declared and the bullets start flying. In many battles the first moments can be decisive and it looks that way here. 

Its almost a wipe out. Outgunned BOBs suffer 70 casualties while the Roids have just 30 hospitalised in the first attacks. 

But the medics get busy... And like zombies from a subway, in under a minute BOBs stream out of hospital. The 70 are back to full strength. The Roids are down to 70 men, some of them a bit bloody. 

For the next five minutes spamming attacks continue, another 50 soldiers from BOB mowed down and MEDEVAC'd while 35 Roids are booked into the hospital to wait on public health. 

The revivers keep up their work and BOBs your Uncle they are back at nearly full strength with 95 soldiers standing ready to carry on fighting. 

The Roids are down to 35 and they are looking worse for wear... So it's 95 vs 35 going into round three. 

The BOBs work together 3:1 and still loose 30 soldiers and Roids are down 5. 

That's when it's basically over... 

It's about 15mins into a faction war... 

But BOBs got 70+ faction members fighting fit and the Roids have 5 standing... 

Unfortunately for the Roids they come out of hospital one by one and make easy targets for the BOBs.  

The war goes on for another day or so, but it's over...

The Roids never get the momentum back, never get enough numbers heathly at once to make a difference and honestly it's embarrassing they'd rather stay in hospital... Their time of discharge comes up and they are back on the wrong end of whack a mole. 

Oh and some of them forgot to turn revives off - oops...

Successful hits in the first 15minutes

BOBs 95

Roids 150

Successful hits in the duration of the war

BOBs 347

Roids 150

Having a revive contract gives a faction an incredible tactical advantage over the opposition. 

It gives you more soldiers... But that's only part of it.

It also means you can turn the tide of war, put your enemies on the back foot, push them into cover...

And then do the easy work of never letting them recover. 

Does your faction pay you for hits? I've seen posts on here suggesting the better factions are paying 2-3million/hit. If your out of hospital you can be making money. 

Spending a million to be revived so you can take out 4+ more hits is a sound investment strategically and financially. 

So if you are looking at this and think you might be in the market for a revive contract as an individual soldier or for your faction check out Ascelpius and ask for DocFox. We complete most revive requests in under 10seconds.

Happy warfighting...

I had the privilege of fighting with a faction holding a wall against assault. 

We were contacted mid war - a majority of combatants on both sides were hospitalised or offline. 

We were able to keep those online going... 

5 soldiers - 18 revives at 80% strength

Effectively delivering 23 soldiers to put down rounds on the attacking horde. - more than half the the full strength of the faction. 

Meanwhile faction leadership called for allies and backup... There was a sense the fight was shifting. 

It was exhilarating... Like working in a real Resus room, that sense of patching the wounded as soon as they are brought in. Even better the patients just jump fixed ready to return to their lines nearly everytime! 

Happy warfighting!

If you need revivers - Ascelpius are brilliant.

Without reading the entire post. 

revives are expensive. 90% of wars would run negative with competitive revive contracts, especially after the unionised to raise their prices driving more people away from using them. 

If they slashed their prices in half? I’d maybe consider it for more wars. 

You should read the post :-) - but thanks for engaging! 

Healthcare has its costs sure... Often worth it though. 

One can pay upto 3mil per Merc to hit an enemy during war.

Or revive one of your own for 1xan and they could get a few hits in for the faction. 

As a commander the strategic view has to be getting more soldier on the line and multipling the effectiveness of your biggest hitters. 

Then doing that as economically as possible. 

A consideration is also minimising the enemies effectiveness. If your enemies are engaging high cost mercs for maximum hospital times. You can waste  the 3mil they spend for the cost of 1 Xanax and get your soldier back up immediately. 

War is pricey... No question about it. But a revive contract might have a place in the right circumstances.

And hey you can always haggle... :-) 

Maybe we could do you a discount, maybe it only makes sense for your 5 biggest hitters... 

Yes

A Merc can block an enemy farming a 10r target for 8 hours. That’s potentially 30-40r per hour, meaning 240 respect per person saved. 
for 4mil that’s worth it 

2mil per revive, you can gain 10 respect yourself, if it’s a single farmable target then may be worth it, but odds of someone who knows the game leaving revives on? Very low. 

the cost : reward scale is way off. Once again going back to the point of if they cut their prices to what they used to be? Then more people may consider it 

One can pay upto 3mil per Merc to hit an enemy during war.

you may not be up to date on warring mechanics and ED

A consideration is also minimising the enemies effectiveness. If your enemies are engaging high cost mercs for maximum hospital times. You can waste  the 3mil they spend for the cost of 1 Xanax and get your soldier back up immediately. 

Same thing

I guess it's suitable for the large member faction battle royale type wars.

As a small member Plat faction we mostly rely on our members being self sufficient Merc hits or revives are very much the exception to the rule.

We spent 1.2m on paid outside hits (both bounties) last war and 4 Xanax on revives. 

I can't think with our warring style and member count that a revive contract would be good value for money.

Cheers thanks for your takes. 

How would you assess value for money?

It's situational.

Getting a sneaky revive to break an opponent's chain or kill their bonus hit or an offensive revive to drop a bonus hit on a opposing faction, that represents "value" to me.

Reviving a low level player for a million or more a pop to take them for a non bonus hit is just vanity for me.

And as another commentator has said, if you are against a faction that has any clue about doing competitive (not termed) wars, then they ain't gonna have revives set to on anyway, so it's a moot point.

Would you go to war without a revive contract?

Every week. Metals don't pay enough for mercs or revives.

I'll use bounties, but they only get taken abroad.

Have I got this right? if an enemy Merc (@3mil) stops the enemy farming a 10r gaining 240respect that might be worth 4mil. 

Then if a revive counters that and you can keep farming uninterrupted - then you could leverage that to regain 240respect no? 

And revives generally cost 1 xan or 1 mil. As a Xan is currently 832k most ppl are paying in xan :-) so it is actually less than half the price you quote. 

The cost of protecting that respect is significantly cheaper than the cost of gaining that respect. 

Most large revive factions uninionised into UHC and charge 2mil or 2 xanax per attempt if you want a contract. 

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my faction used to buy revives to farm offliners who forgot to turn them off pretty much every single war back when they were 1xan/1m each, nowdays for 2m each it never happens, the cost simply leaves no profit for the hitter

Ah... 

Well then... You could employ a revive faction that hasn't... 

Say Asclepius... For example... 

They only charge 1 mil/1xan for success and sweat FA for failed attempts..

https://www.torn.com/forums.php#/p=threads&f=10&t=16562082&b=0&a=0

And it's all done through discord... And it's request driven - so even with a contract you only call for a revive when it makes sense... Maybe your best 3 fighters, maybe when your particularly thin on the ground... 

And you can request offensive revives when you do find those rare offline farmable targets

We're too small to generally afford a full on contract and rely on revives on the fly.

With the exception of Asclepius (tip of our hat to you beautiful and always ready wonders), every revive faction demands a down payment to open a contract. I can't justify an expense of 500m 'in case we need you' for 26 members on a war where our entire earnings are 1.9b.

Also politics too often get dragged onto the front lines and I really hate trying to remember whether I'm on good or bad terms with specific revivers/factions/families this week/month/year.

Is a contract with Asclepius worth it? Absofuckinglutely. Feline, Fox, and fam have never been anything short of amazing, gracious, kind, patient, and more than capable.

I'm not going to lie, small faction warfare leaves little to no room for delay or unnecessary expense. In our line of work it's far more effective to rely on healing on demand rather than committing to something we may or may not need (ask Fox, our last five contracts have been negligible at best lol)

If I had a 100 person diamond faction I'd also have my own revive branch.

70% of Torn factions fall through the cracks because we aren't big enough, aren't wealthy enough, aren't known enough, etc etc etc. not everyone can be HoF (although RA is #86) but that doesn't mean they're not valuable clients.

My choochoo derailed, sorry

I've read the entire post and Revan's points are still valid.

I think that the context in which the war is held matters a lot in deciding whether or not revivers are necessary.  If we're warring for profit, 90% of the time, I don't see revivers as worth it.  If we're warring with the idea of win-at-all-costs, then we'd definitely go for revivers.

We used to buy contracts every real war when it was 1 Xanax.   

At 2 per I have bought less than 10 since...total.   Just not cost effective.   Because the cost is no longer worth it our enemies don't do it much either.  With both sides not doing it the need has plummeted. 

Simple fact is at 2 per its not worth it, on top of that most times now that so few are buying during a war I can simply turn them on and get a random free.  With the price too high more and more people do it simply to level it up. 

It's the worst of both worlds for a revive faction.  They charge more than the product is worth so nobody buys, and less are needed because more are free and the need is also reduced because less are bought.   

2m for a 0 risk expenditure of e is just not a fair price.  If you want people to buy it charge a price that is worth paying. 

YES

The main reason why we don't get revive contracts because its not worth it at all anymore. Even when it's 1 xanax per.

Cache values are also dropping. While revives costs still the same.

Most wars are termed anyways and if not termed its one sided and there's no need to add expenses to an already losing or winning battle. 

There's only a handful of equal fights / real wars that will actually require them to get revive contracts.

If you would argue merc hires. It's mostly defensive merc to an afk / offliner fac mate.  We'd rather spend 3m to keep them out of the war to prevent bleeding.  And we cannot spend on both  as that will put the rewards on negative or lower participants payouts..

So yes revive contracts are strategic. But its not cost efficient. And the PRIMARY reason we war is MONEY. So we go for where we can get the most out of it.