Forums → Games → GemCraft CS: gem combining schemes competition

Some of you could have read my post on reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/Gemcraft/comments/2385eg/sc_about_gem_combining_mechanics_and_why_we/) in which I explain how does gem combining works. But one of conclusions I've made â" "Try to avoid combining one color gems of different grades" â" is correct only in theory, since if you combine one color gems of different grades your gem's attack speed will suffer a lot. But in practice attack speed is capped by 30 shots per second.

So, in practice you can get some gain in specials (if your gem's attack speed is greater than 30 sps) by using special combining schemes, e.g. (((G20 + G20) + G20) + G20) instead of ((G20 + G20) + (G20 + G20)). By this post I want to start new funny competition â" for best combining scheme for Black and Orange! To set the new record you can post your G60 gem analogue (i.e. gem with the same cost as G60 gem), but since your scheme may not allow you to make G60 gem analogue, it will be better to post your ~G60 gem and a special value (let call it "growth speed&quot, which is:

log(result_gem_special / base_gem_special) / log(n) (n is number of identical base gems combined into resulted gem)

Let say you have base pure gem x and combining scheme g(x1, x2, ..., xn) (g(x1, x2, ..., xn) combines n input gems into one resulting gem). Then "growth value" will be (log(special(y) / special(x)) / log(n)), where y = f(x) = g(x, x, ..., x). You need to find such a scheme g(x1, ..., xn), which has maximum "growth value". Since G7+ gems have extra bonuses and gems lower than G7 have not, please, use only G7+ gems as your base gems to calculate "growth value".

Why I'm starting such a competition?

Because optimal combining schemes for Orange and Black is Holy Grail for all Gemcraft SC players. Growth values for standard combining are ~0.4647 for orange and ~0.1243 for black for total ~0.589 for Black/Orange. That means, that if you grade your B/O gem up, it's manaleech power will be 2 ^ 0.589 = 1.5042x, and after 80 grading ups it will be ~152'913'823'388'742x. But if we could find schemes, which will show even e.g. 0.51 and 0.14 growth values, if you grade your B/O gem up according to those schemes, it's manaleech power will be 2 ^ 0.65 = ~1.57x per grade, and after 80 grading ups it will be ~4'503'599'627'370'509x. So, G81 gem will leech 30x more mana and it will be 30x less time to get G100 gem and beat the endurance even without WoE and shrines

I will start:

Orange G61 analogue

Orange growth value


Black G61 analogue


Black growth value


Total groth: 0.62851
scheme_G81_manaleech / standard_G81_manaleech = 2 ^ (0.62851 * 80) / 2 ^ (0.589 * 80) = 8.94x