[Guide] Lock-in profits with 1.9X Arc boost for popular GBs

[DeletedUser27525]

Introduction
Forge points and GBs play an important role in the game. A common strategy is to push one's Arc to Lv 80 and lock in profits on GBs. It is well known that locking in empty GBs at low levels and high levels are not profitable and that there is a range of intermediate levels at which locking in 1st or 2nd place is profitable. However, the quantitative behavior has not been documented, which is the purpose of this guide.

Method
The number of FPs to level an empty GB is denoted as F. The 1st place can be locked in at

F1 = Round( F/2 ),​

where the function Round() rounds to the nearest integer. Likewise, the 2nd place can be locked in at

F2 = Round( (F - F1)/2 ).​

The 3rd to 5th places are ignored.

Base rewards for the top two positions are denoted R1 and R2, respectively. Assuming that the donor has already obtained a Lv 80 Arc that gives rewards at 1.9X the base amount, the profit (or loss) of locking in 1st and 2nd place is simply

P1 = Round( R1*1.9 ) - F1
P2 = Round( R2*1.9 ) - F2
​

Numbers for Obs, Zeus, CdM, Alcatraz, Cape, IT, Arc, AO, and Kraken are taken from wikia. The level of a GB is defined as the current level. E.g., a GB in sticks is written as "Lv 0" instead of "Lv 0->1" on wikia. Other GBs are not listed due to incomplete data, but GBs of the same era should have the same results (e.g., ToR should be the same as Obs).

Results
Absolute profit
The profit or loss by locking in 1st and 2nd place is plotted as a function of GB level. We can observe these general trends:

1. No GB is profitable at low levels.
2. Profitability decreases (loss increases) rapidly for the first 10 levels (Lv 0-9).
3. Beyond that, a parabolic-like function takes over, turning loss into profit at some critical level L0, attaining some maximum profitability before dropping back to loss at another critical level L1.
4. The profitable range from L0 to L1 is different for each GB.

For the following graphs, positive means profit and negative means loss. The grey line at 0 indicates break even. The profitable range for 1st place is indicated as [L0-L1].
Obs [38-60]

Zeus [37-61]

CdM [39-59]

Alcatraz [37-61]

Cape [32-69]

IT [29-?]

Arc [29-73]

AO [37-61]

Kraken [38-59]


The following table is a summary for locking in 1st place.

GB	Onset level for profitability L0	Level for maximal profitability	Ending level for profitability L1
Obs	38	48	60
Zeus	37	49	61
CdM	39	49,51	59
Alcatraz	37	50-52	61
Cape	32	53	69
IT	29	54	?
Arc	29	56	73
AO	37	49	61
Kraken	38	51	59

Relative profit
Since at any given level, F is different for GBs in different eras, a fair comparison between the return on investment can be made by evaluating the profit-versus-lock-in ratio. For clarity only the ratio for 1st place is shown, i.e., PR = P1/F1.


The top 3 GBs in descending order of profitability are: IT, Arc, Cape. It is evident that the GBs can be separated into 3 tiers:

• Tier 1: IT, Arc (CE, FE). Maximal profit ratio above 10%. Profit range from Lv 29 to about Lv 73.
  
• Tier 2: Cape (PME). Maximal profit ratio near 10%. Profit range Lv 32 to Lv 69.
• Tier 3: the rest. Maximal profit ratio only around 4%. Profit range from about Lv 38 to about Lv 60.

Due to insufficient data GBs in the following ages have not yet been classified:

• IA (Colosseum, LoA)
• EMA (CoA, HS)
  
• HMA (SMB, ND)
• CA (Deal, FoD)
• IndA (Capitol, RAH)
• ME (SN, Atom)
• TE (Voyager, DT)

 

[DeletedUser29726]

You can get a rough idea of the number you're looking for just looking at the level 10->11 stats for each building. The ones that eventually become easy to get big profits off of have a notably higher % of the levelling cost returned as rewards all the way through. They all follow the same general trend of an increasing % of the levelling cost being returned as rewards until eventually the 2.5% increase in total FP cost per level outstrips the reward FP growth (which i've never been able to come up with a precise formula for but is slightly faster than linear but slower at high levels than the 2.5% exponential growth of total cost). At any rate:



You can see your profit champs top the list with a wide drop off after FE. This is caused by a delay in cost growth in PME and CE where rewards for levelling a building went up but the total cost to level the building did not. Then in AF they realised the problem they created with the arc and restored the rough ratio that was common prior to PME going forward. There's a slight variance whether you sort the list by the total rewarded or only the first place reward, and i'm honestly not sure which models the truth better going forward many levels - but overall the order is about right. You can expect that if someone did powerlevel a dynamic tower or voyager that they'd make for great profit opportunities.

Note that from the perspective of an owner rather than the sniper these %s while they correlate with the amount of savings you can get from help do not represent the overall ease of levelling the building since there's a difference in raw cost which will also correlate with your real cost. The summary for an owner is along the lines of : PME through FE are cheap, and other than this costs to owner are about what you expect with lower age buildings generally costing less to level to any desired target.

 

[DeletedUser29726]

Found L20 data for each age which has a better signal to noise ratio (the level 11 data had PME and TE probably on the edge of rounding down and FE probably on the edge of rounding up - by going to a higher level the rounding to the nearest 5 of whatever formula they use for the first place reward is less significant) :




This shows your FE->PME dropoff. And better emphasises the cliff between PME and 'the rest' which are all sortof in a range where they might reshuffle from level to level depending on how the rounding catches them.

 

[DeletedUser32348]

so ARC - IT and CAPE are the best GBs for sniping. . Thanks.
i did the math for ARC but never did Graphs or run down the numbers on INNO and CAPE