Non-Player Kills 2607
TO Carriers: 5 (lower than before, but my rank and mix of npcs differs).
Blade Harvesters: 10 (2x TO , that's normal).
Labpods: 0 (this is odd, should have got at least one?)

Behold the fact that most commons have the same spawn weight. Data Analyzer is 75% spawn rate of normal commons. Due to the large zolazin impact, in fact the labpod which is representative of the spawn rate for TO Carrier, Labpod, and Dark Arms (which were just not recorded accurately) is about 1:600 instead of 1:300 (the blade harvester also is 2x the spawn rate of those). This proves finally that npc mix DOES affect the rare spawn rate, as there are more commons weighted into the mix, diluting the weight of the rare spawns. As soon as I hit 350 (this was taken before that) and flamehawks it became apparent that I needed to go Drannik Fixer and eliminate zolazins from the mix (also to get +2 easy npc slots), in the long run this will almost double my rare drop rate. Obviously this removes drannik archivists; but keeping chron shifter and data analyzer in there dilutes the flamehawks, so I am keeping those.

Sample size matters. It's totally possible to get no Rogue Labpods and a few TO troop Carriers if their extremely low odds are the same. I never quite understood statistical significance but this is what I'm talking about. When it's a really low probability I think you need a very large sample size to accurately estimate the true chance.

I think it is true that chances for NPCs have changed a lot and the spawn rate hasn't stayed constant but this could just be my luck. In two or three days I got 6 Hallowed Bane, all dropping tricks. Then for the next two days I dropped about 13,500 energy and didn't see a single one, but other people in my legion did.

I have a much larger study from pre-reset that proves that with only matched npcs, the drop rate of those three rares are 0.33%, about 1:300-330 . Taking the estimated weightings of all the extra commons into account, it does make sense. For example , if each common was weighted as 100, and a certain rare at 1 , if you had 1 common then the rare would be 1 in 101, if you had 4 commons it would drop to 1 in 401. The same principle applies here; each npc appears to have a certain weight, as some are eliminated from the mix (say, lower fixed rank ones drop off as you rank higher), your rare drop rate increases. This happens also with fairly common "rare" bosses that you outrank. Zolazins dilute the mix heavily at 40-45% spawn rate overall, that made it fairly clear to me how the spawn system is working when I compared it to my previous studies.

Binary, have you noticed any spawn rate change since the Bane NPC's appeared ? I'm asking because I haven't seen a troop carrier in like 5 days and a rogue lab pod every other day. NPC bosses seems to have dropped spawn rate as well. Might be luck but I don't think you can get unlucky for a week.

Also, just to clarify it. You're saying that keeping Rogue Data Analyzers open is detrimental to the spawn rate of troop carriers and other goodies NPCs ? That's what I'm understanding from your last posts.

Someone in my legion asked me whether Rogue Data Analysers were more common today but what I noticed was lots of Crimson Tyrants on my NPC blitz. I've not had a TO Troop Carrier in a couple of days but I've had more in the last two weeks than in a few months. I got loads of Toxic Purifiers last week. 1 or 2 a day. Then from Wednesday I don't think I've seen any.

It's hard to work out a true pattern without lots of data. Unlikely things such as 5 or 6 Crimson Tyrants when I'd usually only see 1 or 2 in a blitz are still possible.

This is why big sample sizes and avoiding subjective validation problems are key to picking apart the way the probabilities work.

Re: rogue data analyser and reducing chances of TO Troop Carriers
The reason people keep Rogue Data Analysers in their NPC pool is because they reduce he chancea of flamehawls and assassins. They also slightly reduce the chance of a TO Troop Carrier but they reduce the chance of the common ships a lot more. As a common ship they're harder to kill than the average ship but have a good XP erward and the extra RP ain't too bad either.

To maximise your chances of finding a TO Troop Carrier you need the most number of easy to kill ships. Easy ships die in fewer clicks which increases the chances of finding elusive rares.

If my thinking is right.....above rank 400, when you stop seeing Crimson Hawks, there's Shadin Chargers, Dark Runners, Shadin Raptors, Ionic Battleship...that's all the easy commons I can think of but I feel like I'#m missing one. CTP ships take about as many hits as a Rogue Data Analyser. Assassins and Flamehawks take more. Assasins take 15-16 hits and flamehawks 12 for me to kill. The easy ships I can kill in 4 hits usually and shadin chargers sometimes in 2 (raptors in 3).

Bah...I can't work this out. I think it's better to leave them in though.

Non-Player Kills 888

have 5 terraformers

Raptors and Ionics drop out around rank 450. Analyzers and Chron shifters are fixed rank so they get easier but they dilute the commons, and also the rares to the same degree. This is usually helpful at higher ranks. Personally, I kept analyzers for the RP drops, it accounts for about 12% of my spawns but it's worth it. I am getting about 1 in 350 spawn rate on TO Carrier and such. It doesn't seem lower than it has historically.

See http://galaxylegion.com/wiki/index.php/ ... roximation for weightings estimates. These are relative, so if you have more possibilities, then each one will actually occur a lower % of the time.

Wondering if anyone has any more recent data...
Just did a 920 npc run and recorded numbers (Had enough scan to see everything and have no mission npcs in my pool)

Thanks for this updated information.

would you mind posting at which ranks you started/stopped each killing spree? so like rank 600-602 1200 npc's killed and list what they are or whatever

cause i have a suspicious feeling that rates change through different level ranks. i ranked from 400-500 pretty much non stop on npc's and got ZERO build extractors. not one.

That's certainly true to some extent. I believe Chloron is a higher level player, and therefore his NPC pool would be smaller. If you have more possible NPCs, there is a smaller chance of seeing any particular one.

Using some pooled data and the wiki link (http://galaxylegion.com/wiki/index.php/ ... roximation) , this is the best guess (end game/high rank, 100-399 scan, no mission npcs):

NPC Weight (relative, most common = 10000) / average of samples:

10000 (Class 1 x 3) = Crimson Flamehawk, Sha'din Charger, Dark Runner
8225 (Class 2 x 2) = Stryll Assassin, Rogue Tech Collector
1325 (Class 3 x 2) = Stryll Trapper, Dark Trafficker
570 (Class 4) = Sha'din Penetrator
407 (Class 5 x 2) = RSL Siege Cannon, Sha'din Shockfighter
325 (Class 6) = Lazuli Harrower
275 (Class 7 x 5) = Mylarai Extractor, RSL Confinement Center, Blade Harvester, Dark Eluder, Sabre Gunship
170 (Class 8) = Lazuli Fabrication Plant
117 (Class 9 x 5) = Dark Arms Carrier, Rogue LabPod, Sha'din Envoy, Crimson Scythe, T.O. Troop Carrier
90 = Silthion Queen
38 = Telarys Carrier
28 = Rogue Experimenter

But really what everyone wants to know about is terraformers. ~560k kills from rank ~1650 to 2200 = ~1200 terraformers, which is about 1 in 465 spawns. That range is about 45% of the total XP for rank 2200 and hitting everything near its damage cap and mixing in some non-npc activities. It's impossible to get that ratio at lower ranks since the minimum number of hits is higher on matched npcs at lower ranks and there are fixed rank enemies thrown in, so I can say reliably that the 'lifetime' terraformers (to rank 2200) for a player is under 2500 (even at a really high attack per rank).