Cavill: forum

First off, I know this is a little late, but it's been a long time coming. I spent several hours on it last year, didn't finish. Spent a few days this year, and hours writing this up and finally, I got this.

EDIT: The numbers for value per treat/ attack are not correct. I think the error lies somewhere in calculating the revitalize return on hits when combined with dark energy. I'm going to work on this more later, but for now, enjoy my (mostly) correct math. This DOES mean, though, that every energy source is probably profitable. Will edit pictures when I have time.

Halloween Questions and Answers

Question: How many attacks does it take on average to fully upgrade a basket to Nightmarish? (Mostly following Andyman's recommended upgrade path)

Answer: About 2239 attacks

I adjusted basket rates as they changed the whole way through. Feel free to reach out with your own numbers if you disagree with any of my numbers.

Question: How many treats (on average) do I get per attack with a fully upgraded basket? (i.e., Nightmarish and all multipliers)

Answer: 1.724 treats per attack

Note: my final number differs from Proxima's 1.72424 by 0.00024. I believe in Proxima's EV numbers, he forgot to subtract the chance for Cat in Hell to proc from the 120 treat chance giving him an EV of 0.00120 as opposed to my 0.00096. The rest of our numbers agree though

Question: How much energy do I get per treat exchanged?

Answer: With Dark Energy, you get 5. With Freebie, you get 5.5, with Cashback and Freebie, you get 6.05556 (or 6.06)

Question: How many treats will you get per 25 energy, when factoring in Dark Energy?

Answer: With a maxed basket and dark energy, about 2.96 treats per 25e. Up to 3.97 with a 24% revitalize (highest in the game that I'm aware of).

Important note: this is a) assuming perfect conversion of treats. b) this is exchanging in the treats you get after each attack in for more treats, attacking more, exchanging. i.e., this is the "final treat value" of 25e (exhausting/ spending all treats)

Interestingly, a 10% revitalize is worse for your treat gain than using a scary weapon. The reason for this is because, while it increases the number of attacks you can do, it decreases the average number of treats per hit by more than it increases attack counts. Because of this (and for easier viewing), I'm going to exclude it and a few other revit percentages in further graphs.

Question: What is the minimum value of revitalize I would need in order to attack infinitely over Halloween?

Answer: About 62.72%

This was actually the hardest thing for me to solve. I danced around how it would work, since I wasn't sure how the loop would work. It seems obvious to me now, but I kept making incorrect assumptions. I finally settled on "when the effective cost of an attack is equal to the expected energy returned, that's when you'll likely go infinite."

The effective energy per attack is calculated by taking the initial cost of an attack and multiplying by 1 minus the revitalize percentage, so every percent in revitalize is worth a .25 reduction to the energy cost of an attack. This is corroborated by the math for "expected number of attacks," which, for a 10% revit, is not a 10% increase in attacks, but an 11.1111111% increase in the number of attacks. This is because of the repeating geometric series r/(1-r), or because every attack you make gives a 10% chance to give back 1 attack, but those 10% returned attacks also give a 10% chance to return the energy cost, which, when used, is expected to give back 10% of the attacks, and so on and so forth.

Dark energy works kind of like a 42% revitalize weapon.

Oh, and the negative values on the graph there are because you're now getting more energy back than you're spending (with a 63% revit weapon), so the math just stops mathing.

Maximizing Energy Usage Over Halloween

Question: How much energy can I use over the week of Halloween?

Answer: Anywhere from ~3000 (Spending exactly ZERO Torn or real dollars on anything) up to over 30k energy, requiring lucky timing, maxed faction perks, stock blocks totaling over $280 billion and then spending about 500m) - It looks like the sweet spot for value is right around 22k

Not much to be said here. I opted for FHC's both this and last Halloween, giving me probably about 8000 energy between the two years. I finished upgrading my basket and did my first exchange, but my luck has been a bit below average for multipliers and general treat rates (and 15-20 missed attacks). I joined Torn just after Easter, so I couldn't make use of Green Eggs, but those are always the best booster for your energy, no matter what. I also wasn't in a 7*+ candle shop last year or very long this year so I had fewer than half of the needed job points to make full use of Halloween.

For MCS, you're able to redeem it twice during the event, much like how you can use 8 point refills and 800 job points, despite Halloween only being 7 days or 168 hours long.

A 7*+ candle shop and 800 job points (in time for Halloween), will provide you with the BEST value for Halloween.*

*A 10* farm has the greatest maximum potential value since it can give 7 energy per job point, up to 100 per day (and Halloween takes place over the course of eight different days, since it's not midnight to midnight, hence 800 job points or 5600 energy). The issue is that farms star up and down every other week, so most years the farm will only be able to make use of half to 3/4ths of Halloween at most. A good director will try to make sure to line up the planting week with the longer half of Halloweek (so it's a 10* during the majority of Halloween), but if that ends up being any less than 5 of the days of the week, it's net worse than just staying in a 7* candle shop (or 10* game shop). So practically speaking, 7*+ Candle shops are the way to go.

Typical Halloween Setup:

With the exception of the FHC's (as you'll see a little later on), I think this is what most people should strive for. A 7* Candle shop, again, massively valuable. The best money you can spend is on xanax, then point refills. Donator status is about half as good as points, then finally cans and FHC's are about 25x less efficient ($/E) than xanax. This is basically my own setup, except I didn't have enough job points.

Maximum Energy Pool Possible (annually):

The really incredible thing about this is that this is technically ANNUALLY REPLICABLE (minus the farm/ books). That's an absurd amount of E. Mouthwatering. The only way that to feasibly increase this for a single year is to go inactive for the whole year except Halloween.

If you swap the Candle Shop for a Farm, it's -1600E, or 29670 for Can/ F2F and 29790 for FHC/ UE.

But even without any books, it's still a crazy 23390e every year. Only luck involved are OD's and 2 green eggs. Doable and not uncommon.

The only way to actually have more energy than this is

1. come back after a long period of inactivity with 100 special refills and use them all (and have the rest of the setup be the same)
2. changing out the Candle Shop for a Television Network and saving for multiple years. I'll make another post after this one covering all of this, but I figure it diverges too much from the focus of this post.

Maximizing Profit Over Halloween

Full Cost Analysis of Cans vs FHC:

Looks like a great spot to be is Red Cow/ Rockstar range. Half as expensive as FHC's, ~75% as much e. Really rad. Regrettably, rendering this now really reveals how -slowly- I wrote this.

The only ways to get more energy for Halloween than an FHC (without reading a book) is to be in a Restaurant, but that only gives an additional 1080e (plus 2400e from the 3e job special), so it's better to do Candle Shop/ FHC's than Restaurant/ Cans. That being said, Voracity makes all cans more cost-effective than FHC's except when reading Ugly Energy.

Value of Your Attacks:

This should be the most important graph. This is the profit maximizing graph. Since we all do Halloween to make money, right? (Looks at everyone that's summoned M'aol) RIGHT?

Using this 9999 treat exchange, we get an average value of 739k per treat.

Breakdown of Booster Cooldown:

$739k avg treat value, No faction perks

If your faction has minimal Voracity perks, you'll get the most value out of Cans of Munster or Crocozade, but FHC's still give amazing profit if you own the 24% revit MP5 (but for most people, FHC's are a net loss of money, as are cans of Taurine Elite)

$739k avg treat value, Full Faction Voracity

So even with full voracity, (this tracks, actually, based on the cost analysis of Cans vs FHC's) Taurine Elite only make a profit above 12% revitalize. But now it is 100% clear, Red Cows provide the best value

How much profit can I expect from Halloween?

Energy Sources Everyone should be using:

(Lowest $ cost and opportunity cost energy sources)

The lowest value I got was $688,787 for exchanges using market value at the end of Halloween (basically the worst time to sell). The highest was $926,194 if you had exchanged basically at the beginning of Halloween. As far as maximum selling value, I feel like I remember seeing somewhere that expected value per treat can reach 1.5m. I'm not sure about that, but I plugged it in for fun.

I also ran plugged in for highest net and gross profits, just so people could compare to what Torn.report and similar trackers show. I think this shows that I probably did my math right (always potential for mistakes with this many moving parts).

Note: the "Low opportunity cost" image has net profits, rather than gross. Considering that people routinely report making over 2b, and I think sometimes over 3b, this feels about right, if perhaps a bit low, but at this point I can't be arsed to spend any more time on this.

Possible sources of error may come from upgrades such as mortal coil/ inflation, different reported market values, inactivity refills, the actual exchange outcome and of course exchange efficiency.

Conclusion:

Once you've unlocked your maxed-out basket, you can easily expect to take home over 1.5b in profit every Halloweek.

Your best options are:

1. Get in a Candle Shop at least 80 days in advance (number of days is 800/ star-level of the shop)
2. Stack xanax, save your newsletter and green eggs, have 240 points and ~30 xanax
3. Maintain donor status over the event, and have 1-3 stock blocks of MCS
4. Use either Cans of Crocozade, Munster or Red Cow
5. Get in a faction that can have maximum voracity (or as close to it as you can)
6. Revitalize guns are optional. I wouldn't recommend buying one unless you plan on using it year-round

If you disagree with any of my findings or can spot any errors let me know. If you would like to take a look at the math in depth, send me a message and I'll send back my formulas and methodology.

Figured I'd provide corroboration to explain the $8.7b mugged by this guy

05:25:45 - 21/10/24 EliteTrades initiated a trade with you titled "trade" [view]

05:25:53 - 21/10/24 EliteTrades added some Dumbbells to a trade with you [view]

05:29:18 - 21/10/24 You used some Ipecac Syrup going to the hospital for 1h 15m

05:29:22 - 21/10/24 EliteTrades removed some Dumbbells from a trade with you [view]

05:30:04 - 21/10/24 EliteTrades canceled the trade with you

He removes the dumbbells 4 seconds after I ipecac? It's almost like he was waiting to attack me or something 😱

I really despise buymuggers and scamers. 1674 enemies and counting, will only increase as he keeps doing this.

So I've been tracking my skill and skill gain for the last few races.

Here are the results (skip past pictures for numbers summary)

Total races:

Speedway 80 - 60

Speedway 100 - 46

Docks 100 - 40

Speedway 81 - 8

Average Skill gain per day

Biggest skill jump (gain per day)

Speedway 100 - 3/37, 1.76 gain per day, going from 14.31 to 14.37 skill. I have confirmed, this actually happened. No missed races, no accidental data entry or incorrect calculation. I think it has something to do with my lowish skill at the time and very high placement on a fairly packed race, along with most likely some pretty lucky skill rounding. Coincidentally (or not?), this is my best time on Speedway 100, 49:08.40, which is quite good since my average is about 49:35

Clearly Speedway gives the best rates, much better than Docks (nearly twice as much), but it does look like Docks gives the best XP per race, so it's great for overnighters or set-it and forget it. I haven't looked into races with more racers for most. This is all of my data, so I'll have to investigate Two islands, withdrawal, convict, etc to figure out if there are any better skill-per-day or skill-per-race set ups.

The worst skill gain

(Speedway 80) On the same day as my best, a few races later. This strengthens my theory that I had some lucky/ interesting rounding, but the numbers are correct. (14.56 -> 14.57, but this race, I got 6/6, so not a lot of racers, last place, shorter race)

There are two races among the 100-lap Speedway races that had a much worse rate of skill gain, one in the 80's, thus excluding "outliers" (including the best race) the averages look like this:

Note: I did not account for the set-up/ wait time for the races. If you can get into a race "NOW" then you probably should, preferring, of course, longer Speedway races, but I think it's more important to go for quick start (5-10 minutes) than race size (30+ if possible), since a 30 minute wait is basically the time it takes to finish a race, and even if you gained 0.02 skill in both races you "attend" in that time, you would almost always beat out the individual race. Spam it, it's better.

Note 2: there are some data entries that ended up being incorrect after I verified (looked into them more), so I fixed those for the tables of averages, but I couldn't be bothered to color the data table (I colored the text of all skill gain per day values 1.1 and above)

TL;DR - Go read you lazy bastard, this is a text-based RPG

TL;DR2 - Spam Speedway 100. Don't start a new race, idiot. Just join one that has 10-30 people. There's gonna be a new one when you finish, too. Docks 100 overnight, Edomondo NSX or Volt GT. Veloria LFA for Speedway.

I don't know how old you are (irl) but you'll find that some people genuinely just do things that don't follow logically for most of us. Nothing to do about it, it's just the way it is.

Anyways, it sounds like that's the case here. Some people just like to troll and be jacka**es.

Only thing I would say is maybe just try to only use your meds when you really want to get out of the hospital and do stuff for a second. It's hard if you don't have a ton of cash either.

The number one thing, however, KEEP YOUR REVIVES ON! You should be fairly easy to revive since you're low-level and it's for bounties. I've been revived quite a few times thanks to keeping that on and it's helped out a lot.

The unfortunate thing is that $100k for a bounty is very rewarding, but relatively speaking, it's not expensive to place bounties on you like this, if they really want to (150k cost for each bounty, if about 3 hours for each bounty, 8 bounties each day = 1.2m per day. Definitely sustainable for someone with a networth of 3b+)

Funny enough, you've probably done the right thing by coming to the community. When you can't do anything personally, and you think you've exhausted all other avenues, go Global. You might get a response from him, where he posts and explains himself. Otherwise--especially if he DOESN'T explain himself--he'll probably be bountied and mugged unless he comes up with a good reason. That may dissuade him, or do nothiing. Someone that's determined enough can do something like this indefinitely. But I hope that it stops and that you can finally, properly enjoy the game, doing drugs, working out and getting mugged for millions.

Good luck here in Torn! R+ from me, this kind of thing should be addressed.

Bump, looking for a new driller/ motor hand

Traded, quick and efficient communication, no hassle. R+

Only question remaining: What will he do about it?

ou7laws [871738]

Total networth

ou7laws,$32,829,273,015

Looks like either begging the devs or paying out of pocket, which, thankfully, he CAN do.

You know that if someone doesn't have armory access, that doesn't happen. Right? Right?

I feel like that was pretty obvious as the source of insurance. Surely you can't think I'm that stupid. Or, you are aware that banking perms and armory access are separate, right? Giving you the benefit of the doubt here...

By far the best eliminations read I've seen, one of the best-written and most soulful posts I've read here on Torn as well; it actually engaged me and was inspiring.

Beautiful

My faction leader personally holds onto most of the extra money beyond ~2b thanks to our own minor vault thief years ago.

I think this is completely acceptable since people really shouldn't have more than 1b in a faction EVER, unless you're in the middle of transferring enormous balances and you don't want to do a ghost trade (i.e., if it'll take more than a few hours).

He uses it for more stock dividends and such, but most importantly, he keeps it safe

I would only ever do this kind of thing (give them vault access) if I knew the person irl. That way I could head over to their house, punch them in the face and break their phone, and/ or also commandeer the account to get the money back. A few days fedded (for account sharing, I assume) would be worth 22b and repairing the damage.

If you DID have much more in the vault, one thing you could do is "insure" it by having people keep large amounts of valuable weaponry / armor in the faction armory.

I have 2-3b worth (no actual idea, but easily over 2b just in RW and possibly several billion in value in HQ grey weapons and armor) in the vault. That's not the case for all of our bankers, we also have trust for long-term players, but if I were to ever do a vault theft, my faction leader could easily just be like "okay, bye, I has your stuff."

Please, feel free to make stupid decisions, but have SOME kind of insurance.

My "guide" to Beggars can't be choosers and Mental Block

I had a very useful (possibly best possible outcome, both for testing, info, and making money) for Beggars can't be choosers today

Bus terminal - beggars can't be choosers - 1x therm, 3x kero, FT - 6 int ig - reached full int at ~40% (didn't see perfectly)

FR driving at 54%, arrive 97%, BARELY made 100% burn. It was struggling, it decayed right as it hit 100% - 580k

Basically, first responders (FR) arrived at 97% and yet it still barely reached 100% burn ... Compare this to my earlier attempt (550k payout, 1x thermite, 3x kerosene, FT, 2x FT), where FR arrived at 80%, I still hit 100% burn with momentum to spare (~5 seconds of burning while FR were putting out the fire before it ultimately decayed).

At 14k/N, it seems like this is probably the edge of reliability. I believe a better FT roll (starting with 7+ intensity) would allow for more FR time (after arrival), but this indicates that this is very close to the edge of efficiency.

Also, this seems to indicate that building up intensity probably eats through a LOT of momentum OR the FT stokes add a lot of momentum. Though, reality is likely somewhere in the middle (since FT stokes add both intensity and momentum)

I've also been using Bus terminal (End of the line) where it's a "see how much you can burn" job to try to figure out ways to still complete this job even if FR start driving immediately.

The main thing here is the Sept 1 job:

Bus terminal - end of the line - 1x therm, 2x kero, FT, 1x FT - 5,7 int ig

Finished burn (100%) and lost primary area intensity simultaneously, which, considering it it had one abysmal roll and one meh roll, I think is fine/ good for testing things in the future

Conclusions

We can confidently say that the bare minimum nerve requirements for Beggars Can't be Choosers are 30 N and that if FR fight the fire AT ALL, you will need more than 2 kerosene (likely 3+). If FR start driving before ~50%, you might need to stoke close to the end (I recommend kerosene). And if FR start coming before 25% (if you used 30N), you WILL need to stoke. I'm unsure what is best, though. I assume kerosene. Will continue testing as I go, naturally.

I appreciate anyone that openly speaks out and goes against the grain and tries to create a discussion around the "established wisdom," so, thank you for expressing your thoughts.

I won't say you're wrong, because for a decent portion of my early game, I almost didn't use the bank, instead opting for a lot of trading/ buying + selling on the old market (which was way better for that!)... I was able to *almost* maintain my networth during this time while 5-dvd happy jumping almost every day while paying another 7.5m daily for trains in a 10-star Adult Novelties... I think I would've been better off just investing it all, or saving it for trading.

The difference in your stats between beginning and end of hard happy jumping is about 3 months, max, I believe, thanks to time "saved" by exiting jump range (and entering E-training range). The purpose of happy jumping is to grow your stats as fast as possible, right? To save time? After about 1m TBS (or ~250k in each stat), it's worth it to just switch to 3 xanax daily.

By my count you've done 13(?) 5-dvd happy jumps. Just quick numbers here, since I'm on my phone

13 * 5 = 65 * 4m per dvd (discounted rate) = 260m

13 * 4 = 52 * 850k per xanax = 85m

13 * 30 points = 650 points * 31k per point = 20m

Perhaps I shouldn't include the cost of points or xanax, since common wisdom is to tell you to spend that energy immediately, regardless...

Here's a quick sample of 5 dvd jumping, starting from 1k stats in Deep Burn (6 gym dots, the top medium gym) - since it's probably not your exact situation, results may vary.

Assuming 1150e spent each "training session"

Maxed PI (4225 happy) plus maxed staff (800 happy -> this is very useful extra happy, almost the value of 1/3 a dvd at 1/30th the cost)

(This was all taken from my personal modifications to Vladar's calculator, very useful even in its default state, though)

Final stat total 245,012

Or, it'll take you (realistically) at least 10 jumps in each stat (50 dvds each, 200 total, ~900m) to exit jumping range (reach about 250k).

Same setup as before, but using 1 edvd per jump, instead of 5

(Ending 10x 1-edvd jumps at 100543 stats)

Next 10:

Final stat total 265,209, 20 edvds, or 80 total (360m)

Assuming ~1.5 days per jump, you're spending 4 extra edvds each jump (about 540m) to save ~15 days per stat, or 2 months of "time boost" ... Call it 3 months to account for differences in gym options, jumping consistency, OD's, etc, assuming you're able to sustain "hard jumping."

Alternatively, if you're not able to sustain "hard jumping," you're better off doing 1-dvd jumps consistently (every 1-2 days) for 9m MAX (cost of 4 xanax + 30 pts + 1 edvd) rather than 27m (cost of 5 dvds + 4 xanax + 30 pts)

Just remember, Torn is basically a number simulator. Lots of people here LOVE math (myself included), so there has been a lot of work done on "optimizing" gameplay (or "big number make brain go whirrr"). You're not wrong for wanting to do the best you can and offering/ considering an alternative option to banking, but I believe most people would suggest you take the "other option" for happy jumping, since happy jumping is temporary, banking is forever. (Or something like that)

Don't be afraid to talk things out with your friends and faction mates here. There's lots of knowledge swimming around in our minds that we can't really apply to real life, so, we're all here to give you advice, no matter how crappy. But two minds are better than one, so keep asking questions!

Good luck and all the best in your Torn journey. Training becomes less interesting once it's 3x xanax per day, but crime gets WAY better once you get to the later ones... I'm here to have fun. Making money is one way to have fun, but not everyone has the ability to focus or accomplish things like others can, and not everyone cares about a lot of the game as much as others.

I can't say if maxing out your bank merits is the best thing right now. Definitely should lock some money away so you can't lose it and let it grow, but it's understandably aggravating not being able to use it. Be smart, test things out, experiment. I gave you an alternative to standard happy jumping that will probably get you out of happy jumping faster and let you focus (and spend your money) on other things! Banking is nice because it's passive, mindless, and easy. Torn runs on money. You'll be happier with your progress by having money in a year than having an additional 1m battle stats (I assume).

Good luck, have fun, and avoid pointless arguments.

Sweet! Thanks for trying that. 

Since potassium nitrate starts with high initial intensity, I suspect you got a below-average flamethrower roll (it looks like you started with 5 intensity, which is high for a single kerosene, but low for potassium nitrate or thermite).

I'm currently tracking my results on the range of flamethrower ignitions. I think it might be a perfectly smooth curve where anywhere between the max and min FT outcome is possible, such as "+22.5% strength" and it's not just "add 1-10" ... Still need to test and I'm also not sure if the flamethrower adds both momentum and intensity in the same amount or separately (and thus leading to one result) or if a low initial intensity could be coupled with high momentum from the FT, so there can be realistically almost any possible result (within the max and min range).

It's all just data collection for me right now

Can confirm that you can do Private Security (Beat the Odds) with just 20N - 1x kerosene, FT, st 1x FT - one thing to note, though, with this, 1) I believe I had BAD RNG for my FT rolls, but it's hard to tell since this is a flammability 2 target. 2) it took over 1 minutes for first responders to START driving, thus, with a 30 second response time, this probably isn't viable unless they're called late (the 55% burn is a full burn, no interference at all)

If anyone hasn't done it for today, could you test out placing 1x Potassium Nitrate, then igniting with flamethrower? Can you take note of if the flame starts out small/ medium/ large yellow, or orange/ red?

This is the next recipe I want to try, just, I was on autopilot today and placed the kerosene without thinking.

And if you don't think it'll reach 50% before firefighters show up, you can stoke with Hydrogen for a pretty simple/ easy 20-nerve solution.

So I've been trying to figure out/ create a categorization system for flames and I've been using this chart from Emforus' arson guide:

Flame intensity: 0 (dead), 1 (tiny yellow), 2 (small yellow), 3 (growing yellow), 4 (partial yellow), 5 (full yellow), 6 (growing orange), 7 (big orange), 8 (full orange), 9 (low red), 10 (big red), 11 (full/ max red)

This system (more specifically, learning how to "read the flames") has helped me immensely with predicting burn percent, limiting nerve overspending and making sure I have a minimum intensity to be able to utilize all the momentum contained in each the fuel.

(I recommend reading the sections labeled 'intensity' and 'momentum' -- they helped me a lot)

How does this relate to "Beggars can't be choosers" and other stupid-ass 100% burn arson jobs? Well, not that much, mostly just (a general conclusion) that I've found stoking early (if you intend to stoke at all) helps a ton to build up early intensity and NOT burn through the momentum, so it can save fuel (the flames "jumping around") for spreading to secondary and tertiary areas. You should stoke immediately with everything except Hydrogen (and sort of stoking a little later with Oxygen, meaning ~10-15 seconds instead of the 1-3 seconds with everything else). Hydrogen should be saved for as late as possible when momentum is gone but intensity is at its max, since it adds virtually no momentum but adds a decent amount of intensity, and spreads intensity AND momentum across all areas (which is efficient for intensity, inefficient for momentum).

Next, continuing, this is a link Emforus' own chart/ reference sheet for rurality, response time, flammability and size.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTZFpyrREJMqORZfK4vPg6xK5B5VUsqCtexxzYTK9X5JAfjnWBwQPbVZI_kcgazgair0EspRI51DVme/pubhtml?gid=738243478&single=true

I found it by going to Emforus' post, at the bottom, the link under KingLouis' name and the link KingLouis posted to Emforus' data. His tool is also very helpful/ nice to use.

I've been using this reference sheet to put in a guess/ estimate of how much I would need to burn before first responders (FR) started driving to the job in order to be confident about the burn result (especially for 100% burns).

First I'll just show my results for my last two "Beggars can't be choosers" and "Mental Block" jobs.

I know, this won't help the price of kerosene at all, sorry guys.

One thing I've been focusing on is tracking how much is burned between when FR are first dispatched to when they arrive (and how much is burned after they arrive/ how quickly does the momentum die down)

Beggars can't be choosers:

Bus terminal - beggars can't be choosers - 100% - 1x thermite, 3x kero, FT, 1x FT (maybe 2x FT), 6,8,9 int? FR driving at 33%, arrival at 80%. Had ~5? seconds of time after reaching peak burn before it lost peak intensity... I assume, then, that means ~70-75% may be the lowest allowed for their arrival, meaning if they start driving before 22%, you might need to stoke with kero or such in order to make it. 550k 100%

Bus terminal - 1x therm, 3x kero, FT, 1-2x FT, (up to orange intensity, minimum), 1x kero (maybe; stoke kero when on 4 or 5 pips if FR come before 25%)

6,8 int, ig, st. FR driving at 83%, hit 100% at 3 pips (start of 3 pips). FR arrived, 6 seconds dampening before loss of full intensity. (Final tally: 1x therm, 3x kero, FT, 1x FT)

Just to help you read that, 6,8,9 int means 6,8,9 intensity on each stoke (with the flamethrower - FT) meaning when I ignited the job, it hit 6 intensity, then my first stoke jumped to 8 and my second got me to 9. Ig means ignite/ ignition, st means stoke.

FR driving at 33% means the first responders were dispatched when the job had achieved about 33% burn and they arrived at 80%, meaning a) the job burned about 47% while they they were driving and b) FR were actively putting out the flame while it continued to burn 20% more - successfully finishing the job. For the more experienced ones, you know that the last percent - from 99% to 100% is often the hardest to get. Sometimes it feels like you have to spend 20 nerve and 100k just to get it. I'm going to bold this because it's important if you do not have full red in all areas, the job will not hit 100%. It's that important/ that difficult. So seeing it hit 100% after FR had been there for about 30 seconds left me amazed. 

Next a bit of math:

For both of these jobs, I've had tons of trouble getting them to burn enough because of the f*king response time. The response time means "FR start driving and start fighting the fire in that much time." This is independent of how long it starts for them to START driving, but once they start, both of these jobs take 30 seconds to arrive.

For the mathematically savvy of you, you might notice that the "Max burn rate" column has a "per second" unit. That's specifically percent burn per second. In other words, at their base level, both the bus terminal and Hospital can expect to burn ~24% and 36% of the target, respectively, from the time that FR are dispatched to when they arrive.

You might ask "but hey, you said that you burned from 33% to 80% in that first Bus terminal job. What gives?" Thermite. It's description/ tooltip says "Increases the rate of damage sustained by targets in Arson." I assume this means it's doubled. I'm not sure if 1 is a 100% increase, 2 is 200%, etc or if each is a simple x2 max damage rate. In any case, based on it burning 47% (33% -> 80%), I'd have to assume it's actually 48%, or double the 24% base, meaning 1x thermite doubles the rate of damage. For the hospital it means from FR dispatch to arrival (with thermite being used), the target will burn 72%.

My analyses of "Hospital - mental block"

Hospital - mental block - 1x thermite, 2x kero, FT, 1x FT - 1 think 7 or 8 then 10 intensity on ignition then stoke. For FT rolls, I think both were bad. Anyways I believe that due to damage rates and such, you can expect a hospital to burn ~75% in the time it takes for FR to start driving to arriving, therefore, if you see FR driving before ~20%, it might be smart to stoke with kerosene (or FT) right before FR arrive - 100% 510k

Hospital - mental block - 100% - 1x therm, 2x kero, FT, 1x FT
8,10 int ig, st. 86% FR, driving, after 20 seconds of burn + 5 seconds after FR arrival, had first int decay (in primary only) - 590k, 100%

My conclusion of ~75% for the hospital is probably exactly 72% (note 2x 36%, the base rate for hospital with 30 sec response time and 1.2%/sec) but I don't know if FR immediately start fighting the fire (to the second) or not. 

My conclusion, then, is to actively watch these jobs as they burn. If first responders are dispatched too quickly, they WILL kill your fire. So fight the firefighters. I suggested using kerosene if you've more than 25% left on Beggars (meaning it's already burned 75% by the time FR should arrive) and just about any % left for Mental block (it has less momentum). Another thing to note is that you want to build up the intensity QUICK. This means get it to 8+, or full orange or any red, within a few seconds - this typically requires stoking immediately, sometimes 2-3 times. You don't know how soon they'll be on their way, but if they come before ~20% burn, pay attention because they might just be able to kill the fire before it finishes. So if you notice they came a bit quickly, don't be afraid to stoke with kerosene or your FT before they get there.

Yeah, that stinks. I tried it again today and got EXACTLY 66%, so I figure we still need to figure out the spread.

A good hack for those %-burn jobs is, if you're a bit under, just use 1x hydrogen (this means you can't just leave it). I'm going to try 3x kerosene -> ignite FT -> stoke 1x gas immediately. Previous tests (with a lighter) show that stoking immediately is better than a little later. I believe this is thanks to the immediate intensity growth and the little bit of spread they provide. I'll let you know how it goes. I think a good benchmark is "if you can do it with a lighter, the flamethrower will always work."

My previous iterations of 3x kerosene, 1x gas have 72% and 81%, so my runs are 66%, 72% and 81%. Did you get exactly 55%, or did you stoke before it stalled? Or did you 'delete' the job after it failed?

I think I'm going to try 3x kerosene -> ignite lighter -> stoke 1x gas, just to see how close that gets. I expect to have to use hydrogen or oxygen to finish it off, but I figure knowing what the "minimum" is will be good for understanding FT range better.

Yes, there are massive improvements available for electrical substation. I've learned to love kerosene lol.

On the last one, I wanted to see if stoking with kerosene helps add momentum better than having it placed initially (and available for immediate intensity/ momentum). I did a different test with just gasoline:

My conclusion is that, for certain, at the very least for size 2 targets with flammability 4 (though I've been assuming it holds for all targets), it is better to stoke IMMEDIATELY with gasoline than to wait at all. I plan to run tests on stoking with gasoline 1s up to ~30s after ignition to try and build a model for it all.

As a result of these tests, my conclusions are: 1) always place kerosene before ignition and maybe sometimes if you need extra momentum in the primary area for a 100% burn. and 2) it is better at some point to place gasoline after ignition (I've assumed asap), so I don't know if 2x kerosene, ignite w FT, stoke 2x gas would do it. Or maybe just 2x kero, 2x gas, ignite w FT. I want to keep running 3x kero, 1x gas, ignite FT to see if it would ever fail, but both of those burned 72% and 81%, and I had noted that the flamethrower ignition seemed weak on the 72%, so this might be "solved" for maximum consistency and reliability already. Nonetheless, for searching:

Electrical substation (Wired for war)

Place: 3x kerosene, 1x gasoline

Ignite: Flamethrower

No idea how you're expecting anywhere close to 200k with this burn. I could maybe see it with a really lucky FT roll, a perfectly optimized stoke, slow response time, and a generous client... Curious what the burn % range on this is.

I ignited with the flamethrower and it burned enough to increase intensity once after the first tick, which is when I think I should've stoked with methane. My guess is I would've made it close to 73% burn if I had stoked then, but I can't imagine much higher. I had gotten 150k before with the same technique but a lesser burn (60%), so I know I got shafted on the pay today. I assume 140k is the -10% result, probably 160k is the average and 180k is the +10% result (max pay) for this technique, barring incredible luck on your ignition.

I have a result (place 1x kerosene, ignite FT, stoke 1x hydrogen (6s), 1x methane (58s) ) where I reached 95% burn for a 240k payout, but it's still lower $/N, so...

In other news, new record for Mental Block:

Using only 30N. I think it might be better to swap the 1x gas place to stoke after kerosene to help with early spread, but I'm not sure.

I could've just gotten a really good FT roll, but I feel like stoking with kerosene after ignition helped it to start out super energetic.

One thing to note: First responders arrived at around 97% burn with lots of momentum/ energy still in the flames. If any earlier, I think you'd need to stoke with 1x kerosene in order to maintain primary area momentum long enough. It was probably about as close as you could get.

Quick, easy, best price on the market!

To beat a dead horse, until the very last message from OP, it looks like him suggesting winners (SHAT) take 60% split. If not for the last bit "we get 60%", it would be the most obvious thing for *stronger* faction to *win* and *get better split*.

I don't know if Offertory has a history of being illiterate, but if they were just skimming, I could totally see them reading/ interpreting as "unnecessary details"/ "normal terms"/ "rehashing what was already said."

I'm no fan of SHAT. Notorious scammers, esp Off, but it genuinely seems like he was blindsided/ surprised by the proposition that OP/ cipher would take 60%. Sure, if it were my faction leader or me or lots of respectable people, they'd see they made a mistake (accidentally agreed to a deal that didn't favor them) and would have sent them money. But I think, in his own mind, Offertory didn't agree to that deal, thus, he's under no obligation to fulfill those terms.

If cipher is so pressed for the extra 1b, they can always hold SHAT hostage and win it, just like they could've done during the war, unless they want to prove that it doesn't matter that much or it's not that valuable to them or they couldn't actually have won it, so terming was their best chance at making very much at all (as stated by OP).

R+ for drama, but it wasn't the scammy BS I was expecting of SHAT, so just slightly disappointed

So I've searched for the worst... Yours isn't, though insane, I believe this one is:

https://www.torn.com/forums.php#/p=threads&f=2&t=16499892&b=0&a=0&start=20&to=26399129

Bump, just made size upgrade, need 3 employees

Bump, looking for a new driller/ motor hand

Going through your suggestions, I agree and disagree 'piecewisely'

1 - 100% agree. No matter how you got there, 100 RS is worthy of merit bars. There should also be merit bars for other racing-related things

2 - 75% agree. I think the variety could come by tweaking the tracks a little more, but it might be more practical to just add some tracks that let other cars shine. That being said, I'm pretty sure you need specific upgrades for each track, so while the NSX reigns supreme, it's not just a singular set of upgrades that provide the best performance. Plus, it would be kind of tedious to get 311 racing points for 16 different cars

3 - No. It's a hodgepodge of random effects, justified by its flavor text: "After a press event at the Torn City raceway, a top racing driver takes you around a few of his favorite tracks, sharing with you valuable racing tips and advice." It has an explanation. It makes enough sense. Keep it

4 - Also, basically no. 5 years is an obnoxious amount of time to get to 100RS, even with how try-hard dedicated we Tornians are. In my small analysis I found 100-lap Speedway races (speedway in general) was fastest at providing RS. I didn't really try to account for the slowdown that happens in skill gain as you level up (will do that after I have more data), but from skill 11 to ~20, average skill gain is up to 1 per day, if you're racing all day long, on the best track. That seems fair enough to me. My guess is that it'll taper off a fair bit, but less so than crime skill, else we may be looking at 3-5 years of practically non-stop racing as well.

5 - yes. Simple, good.

6 - clarifying. Popularity is based on weekly sales in comparison to the top company. Nothing "generates" popularity. It's just an output number. Now, some kind of a sales boost or advertising or customer loyalty boost would be wonderful and I wholeheartedly agree with this. I think the advertising budget boost would be the most practical, since it would be a way to forego spending as much on advertising. I would also think that the boost should last for a single day and either there is a cap on the number of times it can apply in a single day (so a single or three race wins is as valuable as 15+)

My suggestions:

1 - Make racing skill more impactful. Make the random variance have less of an effect. Or something, idk

2 - Allow players to exchange job points in a mechanics shop or car dealership for racing skill, since it is such a grind. Maybe make it 0.25 just like the press pass, with the same idea of getting to ride around with a pro driver. To balance it, perhaps 25-50 job points is fair, since it would massively boost skill at the upper levels. (so just passively, you would gain 1 RS every 10-20 days in a 10* company)

I will be continuing my analysis since I spent time in official races (both to build up racing points and to measure the RS gain in official races)

Bump. Potentially offering up to 100k/ EE for those whose stats are really good