patrol boats vs fighter jets

[Acheron]

Which is the best cannon fodder unit for attacking with?

Out of:

Ranger Attack 2 cost 2000 Casualty rate high
Jeep Attack 2 cost 3500 Casualty rate medium
Fighter Jet Attack 3 cost 4000 casualty rate medium
Patrol Boat Attack 2 cost 7000 casualty rate very low

It seemed to me patrol boat is the best, but I was wondering if anyone had any figures on it.

I have a level 1 infirmary, using UK (might have a modifier on casualty rates). I attacked 13 times with 330 patrol boats and lost 3 patrol boats (along with other units). I'd guess each boat has about a 1 in 1000 chance of being destroyed each battle. (3/13 about 1/4 boat lost per battle with 330 boats, so with about 1000 boats you'd lose about 1 per battle on average).

So for 2000 attack points it costs $7000 per attack. Total cost of all the boats is 7,000,000

2000 attack points in jets only costs 2,666,666, which means their casualty rate could be 1 in 381 and they would be equal to patrol boats in value. Well they'd still be better since they use less slots.

So anyway does anyone know which is better value. I'm starting to think the jets are better and I should have gone with Russia after all.

[Agent Orange]

Why not just use PvP loot instead, if you do a lot of attacking you wind up with it and it's FREE.

[CounterSniper]

Why not just use PvP loot instead, if you do a lot of attacking you wind up with it and it's FREE.


+1 Agent Orange

[JohnnyR]

Jets are better and you shoulda gone with Russia. ;-)

Truly, I pick jets. Patrol boats have low casualty rate, which defeats the purpose of a meat shield. Rangers are pretty good too. Desert Leaders, amphib troopers and minisubs are your farmin pieces. Look 'em up.

And what Agent Orange says. I found out how effective this is when I dropped allies and began collecting PVP loot. It's all I'm losing right now.

[Acheron]

I'm not sure if I believe in the meat shield thing. I've been breaking even at 320 combat boats (I don't have a level 6 shipyard yet) where the number of combat boats I lose is equal to the number of combat boats I buy with valor. But I've been increasing my allies steadily and adding more patrol boats in. So adding extra units doesn't seem to have an effect on the chance of losing a combat boat. Admittedly I haven't tried adding rangers instead. I will try it and see if I get more combat boats.

I could cut my allies down to 60, so I would only attack with 300 combat boats, but really the patrol boats aren't that expensive with so many people sitting around with money outside of their vault (at level 45). The direct pvp loot doesn't seem to last long, I never have more than 3 heavy bombers or citadel tanks. I'm not sure if I like cutting my allies, since that allows people with more allies to attack me easily.

I think the jets are better, but probably all 4 have about the same efficiency. I'm trying to decide now if the inflatable is more efficient than the frigate for attacking with. I'm not interested in the defence score since I can buy transports or medics for that.

I'm farming skill points, I view a skill point as the same as getting a gold indestructible unit.

[Mcdoc]

I have to defend the meat shield theory - whilst some have had major losses with PvP - I had recently acquired over 500 tree snipers and over the last few days have seen them serve as invaluable as I am down to 200 with them being the main thing i see in the casualty report. Funny thing is I will lose one - and get one back as a new loot in the same battle.

I was the one who first posted about lowering the ally count down to 50 and taking advantage of the big loots - but it seems that only worked at lower levels ( under 60 ) and now that I'm LvL 75 - I've upped my allies to 150 - bringing way more unseen loot units into battle - thus not seeing the Tree Sniper in the to 45 units listed - but seeing them as the primary loss in battle.

I'm having a blast knowing that Tree Snipers (which were free to begin with) are pretty much my oly casualty at the moment.

Happy Hunting!

[Acheron]

Ok I'm convinced. I couldn't replace my patrol boats with rangers because the game prefers to take the patrol boats into battle. But I did replace them with fighter jets. I replaced 100 patrol boats with jet fighters and after about 80 battles I've got 360 combat boats, proving that the fighter jets reduced the casualty rate of my combat boats.

My strategy is now going to be fill my army with rangers and dump my spare cash into cruisers, the rangers should draw all the fire from my very low casualty cruisers. Maybe medics on defence to draw fire from the cruisers when I get attacked. I'm actually happy with UK now, since most of my attack points are going to come from my cruisers. Eventually I'll take your advice about farming amphibious troops and mini subs, maybe when I don't have such huge amounts of surplus cash and a tiny vault. The only problem I have now is killing off all my patrol boats, I wish I could sell them.