Forums → Games → GemCraft CS: gem combining schemes competition

What is the best combine method found, for any base?

0.49 is max growth speed for pure orange gem when it's combined from 16 base gems.

It's not exactly 16, but I found a way to get 0.493 growth rate with 15.41x cost.

HOW??? I studied those things for months with psorek and to get over 0.493 growth I need at least 30 base orange gems, did you use the gem of eternity in that combine or what?
Our latest 16-combine has a growth of 0.4910790, I'm 99.9999% sure you can't do better with pure O, but if you can, please, post your method.

Link to our work, would you need that: https://github.com/gemforce-team/gemforce

It's a bit complicated, here goes:
Start off with 16-combine, but save a copy. I'll call this copy gem A, and the results of 16-combine B. (So A is, for example, your initial grade 1, and B is your G5 equivalent gem.)

Before starting, save a copy of gem B. This will be your gem A in the next combine.

A gem: 7 + 2 + (2 + 2) = 13A (Result is grade 4.)
B gem: 7 + 2 + 2 + ((1 + 13A) + 13A + (13A + 13A)) = Result_gem

Now, Result_gem is gem B and your copy of the original gem B is now gem A. Repeat.

I tested this method on black and on yellow gems. It works better than 16-combine for both. (Are there better methods for those colors?)

Sorry, I have several problems understanding this, what is "7"?
I suppose it's 7=2+1+1+1+1+1.
I parsed it, looks much more like a 64 combine, no wonders it's better than 16c, our 64c has a growth of 0.4958547, better than yours.

Could you come to the irc channel #gemcraft (using https://kiwiirc.com/client) to explain it to us better?
And yes, there are better methods for black and yellow, but I compute full managem/killgem combines, so I can't give you a number right now.

Yes, 7 = 2 + 1 + 1 + 1 +1 +1.
What do you mean by 'parsed it'?

Not surprising that it resembles a higher combine.
If you could get and post the best known growth of other colors for 16-combine, that would be nice. (Or reference to where I can find them.)

The chat doesn't work on my phone, so I can't come, at least now.

Start off with 16-combine, but save a copy. I'll call this copy gem A, and the results of 16-combine B. (So A is, for example, your initial grade 1, and B is your G5 equivalent gem.)

Before starting, save a copy of gem B. This will be your gem A in the next combine.

A gem: 7 + 2 + (2 + 2) = 13A (Result is grade 4.)
B gem: 7 + 2 + 2 + ((1 + 13A) + 13A + (13A + 13A)) = Result_gem

Now, Result_gem is gem B and your copy of the original gem B is now gem A. Repeat.

If I'm reading that right .. your 'B' gem is nothing more than an A gem that has undergone a 64 gem combine. A is the starting gem, right? And B is the end result (for that iteration).

You are simply taking your base gem, putting it through a 13 combine, duping it a few times, and then using those dupes and other copies of the original gem to perform a 64 gem upgrade.

It is fairly common knowledge that 64 gem upgrade is stronger than 16 gem upgrade - to the point that, with the same initial gems, two sequential 64 gem upgrades make a stronger gem than three sequential 16 gem upgrades. That is important because those two things, 3x16c and 2x64c, both bring the initial gem up the same amount of cost and grade-equivalency.

No, one iteration of my method is a little bit less of a cost increase than 16-combine. So it is not a 64-combine method.

This is how I break down one iteration of your recipe :

If A is your starting gem, then what you said to do is :
Final = AA+A+A+A+A+A+AA+AA+(A+13A+13A+(13A+13A))
And that 13A is AA+A+A+A+A+A+AA+(AA+AA)

If you count all the A's in that, you get 64. That makes this a 64-combine. There are 13 in the 13A. That's simple enough, and the reason for the designation of 13A. So, you get 2+1+1+1+1+1+2+2+1+13+13+13+13 which happens to total 64.

(By the way, most of the time we use the letter G to represent the Gem. If its a specific gem grade, g1, g2, g7, etc. For general upgrading, just the letter g suffices to represent the base gem.)

You didn't read my method properly. The 13A in my method are from combing the base gem of the PREVIOUS iteration, not the current base gem. A 13A gem there is cheaper than a single B gem. (Current base gem.)

I have still problems understanding your combine, I get the same result as Astro, and you combine results very weak, but I guess we are doing something wrong.

Let's do an experiment, do your combine on a gem, maybe several times (let it be any color you wish, it's not a problem for my program, orange will be easier for me, though), then post your resulting gem along your relevant skill levels (e.g true colors and component skill) then I can see how it actually compares with the recipes from our program.

Thank for your interest in nonstandard gem recipes
12345ieee

Ok .. so ...

You dupe the base gem. You then do a 16c on the base gem and call that Gem B. And a 13c on the other base gem, calling it 13A.

You then use the B in the 7+2+2+((1+13A)+13A+(13A+13A)).

For the next iteration, you do a 13c on the previous iteration's Gem B, to get the Gem 13A for the new iteration.

Skills : all the OLD maximums of 45+15. Gems were looked at while in the gem box, which should not make any difference, seeing as the only use for pure gems like this is in amplifiers.
G1 Orange : 6 Mana, 71-142 damage, 5.6 range, 0.54 shots/sec, 3.71 leech.
16c G1 Orange : 816 Mana, 395-902 damage, 7.6 range, 0.91 shots/sec, 14.49 leech.
2x16c G1 Orange : 13776 Mana, 2106-5513 damage, 10.2 range, 1.52 shots/sec, 113.08 leech

13c G1 Orange : 654 Mana, 344-784 damage, 7.4 range, 0.9 shots/sec, 13.08 leech
Suuper G1 Orange : 13128 Mana, 2033-5326 damage, 10.1 range, 1.52 shots/sec, 111.01 leech

To be perfectly honest, I don't see the point. Yes, the 13A you use is cheaper than a single one of the B gems, but it is also weaker. That weakness diminishes the power of the resulting gem as compared to the "traditional" 16c. Unless the growth picks up on subsequent iterations, this method will not equal the 16c.

Or am I still reading your recipe incorrectly?

Yes, looks like you got it. You're correct that it's weaker per upgrade, but if you do the math you'll see it has a higher growth rate. And it's cheaper.
Though it is more tedious...

@12345ieee: Does the above post give enough detail?

Having learnt the 64c, and put a couple 1024c recipes into a readable, and usable, format .. your variant on the 16c is not exactly tedious.

I'm not sold on your variant though.

What about it do you not like/are not sure about?
It is cheaper than 16c, and has a faster growth rate. Other than how simple or tedious it is, what puts it at a disadvantage?

I can post gems out through it (even to grade 30+) if you aren't sure you're doing it correctly.

I was FINALLY able to reproduce your result!
I was wrong before, it's not a 64-combine.

The extended scheme for this (puling in the 13c and 16c recipes) results:

(((((((((((((((((2o+o)+o)+o)+o)+o)+2o)+2o)+((2o+o)+2o))+((((((((2o+o)+o)+o)+o)+o)+2o)+2o)+((2o+o)+2o)))+((((((((2o+o)+o)+o)+o)+o)+2o)+2o)+((2o+o)+2o)))+((((((((2o+o)+o)+o)+o)+o)+2o)+2o)+((2o+o)+2o)))+((((((((2o+o)+o)+o)+o)+o)+2o)+2o)+((2o+o)+2o)))+((((((((2o+o)+o)+o)+o)+o)+2o)+2o)+((2o+o)+2o)))+((((((((2o+o)+o)+o)+o)+o)+2o)+2o)+((2o+o)+2o)))+(((((((((2o+o)+o)+o)+o)+o)+2o)+2o)+((2o+o)+2o))+((((((((2o+o)+o)+o)+o)+o)+2o)+2o)+((2o+o)+2o))))+(((((((((2o+o)+o)+o)+o)+o)+2o)+2o)+((2o+o)+2o))+((((((((2o+o)+o)+o)+o)+o)+2o)+2o)+((2o+o)+2o))))+(((((((((((2o+o)+o)+o)+o)+o)+2o)+2o)+((2o+o)+2o))+(((((((2o+o)+o)+o)+o)+o)+2o)+3o))+(((((((2o+o)+o)+o)+o)+o)+2o)+3o))+((((((((2o+o)+o)+o)+o)+o)+2o)+3o)+(((((((2o+o)+o)+o)+o)+o)+2o)+3o))))

where o is the base gem you do the 13c and 16c combine on and then go on to upgrade.
While this is a valid upgrade method and is very good in terms of difficulty against attained growth, the way you compute the growth is wrong.

As it is defined (and there are mathematical reasons it is defined this way, I can state them if you want) the growth is:

G=log(power_of_gem_after_combine/power_of_gem_before_combine)/log(length_of_combine)

where the combine is written in a way that only uses gem_before_combine and no other gems.

The way to correctly write your combine to compute growth is at the beginning of my post.
If you count the gems you can see your combine is actually a 244-combine over the base o gem and its growth is:

G = log(14.949983)/log(244) = 0.492018809

where the 14.949983 is taken from my program that gets gem stats from parenthesis, but you can confirm this in game from Astro's data:
113.8/3.71/2=14.973045822 they differ of 0.3%, a rounding error (the extra /2 is to remove the g7 100% bonus).

So, for the conclusion: your recipe is better than 16c, but it's NOT a ~16c, it's a 244c (and not the best 244c by a long shot), but is a very easy to execute 244c, that is a plus.
Using optimal 32c already beats yours, at a growth of 0.4934647.

Thank for your interest in nonstandard gem combining
12345ieee