MISC: Rebalance infiltration rewards

[catloversg]

Infiltration is one of the most controversial mechanics in Bitburner. Some players love it (and the notorious "auto-infil" scripts) while other players despise it. Every time we make a change in this mechanic, no matter what it is, we always receive negative feedback from players. It's clear that many people love its absurdly high rewards and want to use it as an "I win" button.

PR #2210 tries to make some changes that we have discussed for a long time. The approaches in that PR are good, but the formulas in that PR need to be tuned. After playtesting, I decide to write a detailed analysis of infiltration rewards and the suggestions. This report serves these purposes:

• Balancing is tricky. The result sometimes is the opposite of what we want. Generally speaking, PR 2210 nerfs infiltration rewards, but that PR accidentally significantly buffs the rewards in some cases. For example, at 1x mults (no augmentations), ECorp, which is the location with the highest rewards, currently "only" gives ~221k rep; with the new formulas in that PR, ECorp gives ~859k rep. The balance is even worse when we consider realistic cases (e.g,. having many combat augs). This report analyzes the changes and makes sure that the balancing result is exactly what we want.
• Everybody knows that the balance of infiltration is bad, but nobody explains exactly how bad it is. For example: "It breaks the game", okay, but how and how much? Does it give too much reputation? Too much money? How much is "too much"? If we have to nerf it, how much should we nerf it? 50%? 75%? 99%? In this report, I try to provide numbers and use cases while analyzing the flaws in this mechanic's balance and making balance suggestions.
• Explain why we make these changes and what they really change. At first glance, the nerf looks massive, but if you carefully read this entire report, you will see that the nerf only significantly affects the ridiculous cases (e.g., run auto-infil scripts at stat level 1 to infiltrate ECorp and get enough rep for 150 favor in a few seconds). In most realistic cases, the nerf is fairly small. There are even some cases in which the changes slightly buff the rewards.

Note that in some cases, with big tables, I'll post screenshots of them instead of the text. In the text form, GitHub UI makes it hard to read those tables.

All tables can be generated with scripts in this save file (you have to disable the effect of applyExploit in src\Exploits\applyExploits.ts):
rebalance_infil.gz

Edit: The formulas in #2210 have been changed. For more information, please check that PR. I'll keep the original analysis here unchanged for reference.

Goal

Let's take a look at these videos:

Video 1: "Simulated" manual infil. I run an auto-infil script with some delays between key presses to simulate the behavior of a player playing this mechanic manually.

video1.mp4

Video 2: Auto-infil. This is what the auto-infil looks like.

video2.mp4

Video 3: Auto-infil on steroids.

video3.mp4

Should a mechanic be able to give enough rep for 150 favor in single-digit minutes (or a few seconds in extreme cases)?

The answer is clearly "No". We should nerf the infiltration rewards and make them less ridiculous. However, we should not nerf them too much because:

• Not everybody uses auto-infil. Manual infiltration should still give very good rewards.
• Writing auto-infil scripts is a nice challenge. If a player writes it, they should get worthy rewards.
• If a player absolutely hates waiting for rep and wants to bypass it by any means while not caring about the "balance", we cannot block them from doing it. Bitburner is a single-player open-source game, so they can just edit their save file, run exploit scripts, or make a custom build.

Goals:

• No "infil a few minutes (or seconds) for 150 favor".
• No "hit ECorp at level 1".
• Playing a long session of infiltration (regardless of using auto-infil scripts) is not recommended. Longer session = More nerf.
• Manual infiltration still gives decent rewards.
• Auto-infil still gives worthy rewards.
• "Decent" and "worthy" rewards are based on non-infiltration gain rates.

Faction lists

We sometimes need to take combat multipliers into account, and those multipliers depend on augmentations from different factions. I'll use 7 lists of factions:

• List 1: TianDiHui and CyberSec. Most players start with these factions. TianDiHui is one of the best early factions due to their cheap and strong reputation augs. CyberSec is the earliest hacking faction.
• List 2: List 1 + NiteSec, TheBlackHand, BitRunners. These are the other 3 hacking factions.
• List 3: List 2 + 6 city factions. City factions are easy to join.
• List 4: List 3 + SlumSnakes, Tetrads. These criminal factions are "early" ones. They give cheap combat augs. The other 3 factions in the following lists give incredibly strong combat augs, but those augs are expensive.
• List 5: List 4 + SpeakersForTheDead.
• List 6: List 5 + TheDarkArmy.
• List 7: List 6 + TheSyndicate.

Combat stats: mults and levels

Mults:

Levels (Farming each stat 1 hour at the best gym/university):

list	nfg	avgLvl	str	def	dex	agi	cha
list1	0	165.8	167	167	146	146	203
list1	10	187	188	188	165	165	229
list2	10	203.4	223	194	195	170	235
list2	25	244	268	233	234	204	281
list2	50	328.8	361	314	316	275	378
list3	10	274.6	291	354	295	176	257
list3	25	328.8	349	424	353	211	307
list3	50	443.2	470	572	476	285	413
list4	10	380.4	438	451	502	236	275
list4	25	455	524	540	600	282	329
list4	50	612	705	727	807	380	441
list5	10	765	1376	945	577	652	275
list5	25	915	1646	1130	690	780	329
list5	50	1231.2	2216	1521	928	1050	441
list6	10	1287	3004	1115	1389	652	275
list6	25	1539.6	3594	1334	1661	780	329
list6	50	2071.2	4837	1795	2233	1050	441
list7	10	1718.4	3455	2821	1389	652	275
list7	25	2055.8	4133	3376	1661	780	329
list7	50	2766	5563	4543	2233	1050	441

• Average level < 200: Trivial.
• Average level < 400: Trivial with some cheap combat augs.
• Average level < 600: Trivial with some cheap combat augs and NFG.
• Average level > 800: Require some good combat augs from a strong criminal faction. Note that megacorp factions also offer good combat augs.
• Average level 1000-2000: Attainable with 2 strong criminal factions.

Difficulty

Columns:

• minSec: startingSecurityLevel
• floor: maxClearanceLevel
• "stat-X": the average combat stat levels for difficulty X. For example, with Noodle Bar:
  • stat1 = 144.83: Difficulty <= 1 if Average level >= 144.83
  • stat2 = 42.69: Difficulty <= 2 if Average level >= 42.69
  • stat3 = NaN: Difficulty is always < 3.

Currently, the difficulty scales from 0 (Trivial) to 3 (Impossible). In the following sections, I'll focus on difficulty 1 (Normal), 1.5, and 2 (Hard).

name	minSec	floor	stat1	stat1.5	stat2	stat2.5	stat3
Noodle Bar	2.5	5	144.83	92.280	42.690	NaN	NaN
Joe's Guns	3.13	5	213.86	158.85	105.71	55.204	9.5186
Omega Soft	3.2	10	221.69	166.45	113.01	62.067	15.391
NetLink Te	3.29	6	231.79	176.27	122.48	71.003	23.283
CompuTek	3.59	15	265.77	209.40	154.52	101.56	51.320
Alpha Ente	3.62	10	269.20	212.75	157.77	104.67	54.231
LexoCorp	4.35	15	353.75	295.59	238.55	182.85	128.82
Carmichael	4.66	15	390.32	331.53	273.77	217.21	162.10
SysCore Se	4.77	18	403.37	344.38	286.38	229.54	174.09
Rho Constr	5.02	5	433.21	373.76	315.25	257.80	201.62
Nova Medic	5.02	12	433.21	373.76	315.25	257.80	201.62
Aevum Poli	5.35	6	472.90	412.90	353.75	295.59	238.55
Storm Tech	5.38	25	476.53	416.47	357.28	299.05	241.94
VitaLife	5.52	25	493.48	433.21	373.76	315.25	257.80
Watchdog S	5.85	7	533.68	472.90	412.90	353.75	295.59
Global Pha	5.9	20	539.80	478.95	418.86	359.63	301.36
DeltaOne	5.9	12	539.80	478.95	418.86	359.63	301.36
Universal	5.9	12	539.80	478.95	418.86	359.63	301.36
Omnia Cybe	6	22	552.05	491.06	430.81	371.40	312.93
Icarus Mic	6.02	17	554.51	493.48	433.21	373.76	315.25
DefComm	7.18	17	698.61	636.09	574.18	512.93	452.41
Helios Lab	7.28	18	711.18	648.55	586.51	525.13	464.45
OmniTek In	7.74	25	769.30	706.15	643.56	581.58	520.25
Galactic C	7.89	12	788.35	725.04	662.28	600.11	538.57
AeroCorp	8.18	12	825.31	761.69	698.61	636.09	574.18
Four Sigma	8.18	25	825.31	761.69	698.61	636.09	574.18
Bachman &	8.19	15	826.58	762.96	699.87	637.34	575.41
NWO	8.53	50	870.13	806.17	742.71	679.79	617.45
Clarke Inc	9.55	18	1002.1	937.15	872.70	808.72	745.24
Blade Indu	10.59	25	1138.4	1072.6	1007.3	942.33	877.84
Solaris Sp	12.59	18	1405.1	1337.9	1271.0	1204.5	1138.4
Fulcrum Te	15.54	25	1807.7	1738.8	1670.1	1601.7	1533.6
KuaiGong I	16.25	25	1906.0	1836.7	1767.7	1698.9	1630.4
MegaCorp	16.36	31	1921.3	1852.0	1782.8	1714.0	1645.4
ECorp	17.02	37	2013.3	1943.6	1874.1	1804.9	1736.0

Based on the previous section (combat stats), we can split locations into these groups:

• Early: minSec < 4. Can be done even without any combat augs.
• Mid1: minSec 4-6. Can be done with cheap combat augs and some NFGs.
• Mid2: minSec 7-9. Need some good combat augs, but not too many.
• Late: minSec > 9. Need good combat augs.

Reputation gain rate

The reputation gain rate is one of the most important balancing points of Bitburner. Farming money is trivial with a batcher or any semi-decent hacking scripts, but there are not many ways to boost reputation gain rate (strong endgame mechanics usually provide some ways to work around this bottleneck). If we want to tune infiltration's rewards properly, we have to know what a normal reputation gain rate is.

Assume that the player has all reputation augs:

hackLevel	nfg	rep/s	rep/s+share(1PB)
100	25	1.5544	2.3304
100	50	1.9935	2.9887
100	75	2.5567	3.8330
250	25	3.8783	5.8144
250	50	4.9739	7.4569
250	75	6.3791	9.5635
500	25	7.7514	11.621
500	50	9.9412	14.904
500	75	12.750	19.114
1000	25	15.498	23.234
1000	50	19.876	29.798
1000	75	25.491	38.216
1500	25	23.244	34.847
1500	50	29.810	44.692
1500	75	38.232	57.317
2000	25	30.990	46.461
2000	50	39.745	59.586
2000	75	50.973	76.419
2500	25	38.737	58.074
2500	50	49.680	74.480
2500	75	63.714	95.520

• In the very early stage (hack 100), even with an unrealistic number of augs (25 NFGs + all rep augs), rep/s is very low (1.5544/s).
• At hack 500 and 50 NFGs, rep/s is still single-digit (9.9412/s).
• At hack 1500 and 50 NFGs, rep/s is ~30/s (29.810/s).
• At hack 2500 and 50 NFGs, rep/s is ~50/s (49.680/s).
• At hack 2500, 75 NFGs, ns.share (1PB), rep/s is still less than 100/s (95.520/s).

Infiltration time

Each time the player infiltrates, they have to complete a number of "floors" (maxClearanceLevel). In order to calculate the reputation gain rate of infiltration, we have to find the average time of each floor.

Raw data:

SlashGame
  Trivial: { window: 800 },
  Normal: { window: 500 },
  Hard: { window: 350 },
  Impossible: { window: 250 },
BracketGame
  Trivial: { timer: 8000, min: 2, max: 3 },
  Normal: { timer: 6000, min: 4, max: 5 },
  Hard: { timer: 4000, min: 4, max: 6 },
  Impossible: { timer: 2500, min: 7, max: 7 },
BackwardGame
  Trivial: { timer: 16000, min: 3, max: 4 },
  Normal: { timer: 12500, min: 2, max: 3 },
  Hard: { timer: 15000, min: 3, max: 4 },
  Impossible: { timer: 8000, min: 4, max: 4 },
BribeGame
  Trivial: { timer: 12000, size: 6 },
  Normal: { timer: 9000, size: 8 },
  Hard: { timer: 5000, size: 9 },
  Impossible: { timer: 2500, size: 12 },
CheatCodeGame
  Trivial: { timer: 13000, min: 6, max: 8 },
  Normal: { timer: 7000, min: 7, max: 8 },
  Hard: { timer: 5000, min: 8, max: 9 },
  Impossible: { timer: 3000, min: 9, max: 10 },
Cyberpunk2077Game
  Trivial: { timer: 12500, width: 3, height: 3, symbols: 6 },
  Normal: { timer: 15000, width: 4, height: 4, symbols: 7 },
  Hard: { timer: 12500, width: 5, height: 5, symbols: 8 },
  Impossible: { timer: 10000, width: 6, height: 6, symbols: 9 },
MinesweeperGame
  Trivial: { timer: 15000, width: 3, height: 3, mines: 4 },
  Normal: { timer: 15000, width: 4, height: 4, mines: 7 },
  Hard: { timer: 15000, width: 5, height: 5, mines: 11 },
  Impossible: { timer: 15000, width: 6, height: 6, mines: 15 },
WireCuttingGame
  Trivial: { timer: 9000, wiresmin: 4, wiresmax: 4, rules: 2 },
  Normal: { timer: 7000, wiresmin: 6, wiresmax: 6, rules: 2 },
  Hard: { timer: 5000, wiresmin: 8, wiresmax: 8, rules: 3 },
  Impossible: { timer: 4000, wiresmin: 9, wiresmax: 9, rules: 4 },

Each game has a window timer that is the maximum allowable time for the player to complete the game.

SlashGame is a bit complicated. The player has to wait until the "guard" phase finishes.

const distractedTime = newDifficulty.window * (hasWKSharmonizer ? 1.3 : 1);
const alertedTime = 250;
const guardingTime = Math.random() * 3250 + 1500 - (distractedTime + alertedTime);

On average, guardingTime is 0.5 * 3250 + 1500 - window - 250.

SlashGame
  Trivial: { guardingTime: 2075 },
  Normal: { guardingTime: 2375 },
  Hard: { guardingTime: 2525 },
  Impossible: { guardingTime: 2625 },

The average of guardingTime between Normal and Hard is 2450. Let's say the player needs 100ms to react.

• SlashGame: 2450 + 100 = 2550

With other games, let's use the average value of "Normal" and "Hard" as the average window timer.

• BracketGame: 5000
• BackwardGame: 13750
• BribeGame: 7000
• CheatCodeGame: 6000
• Cyberpunk2077Game: 13750
• MinesweeperGame: 17000 (The memory phase of MinesweeperGame lasts 2 seconds). Edit: 17000 is wrong. It should be 15000. The time of the memory phase is included in the time of the entire minigame. It does not affect the final average value of all games too much, so I won't change the following numbers.
• WireCuttingGame: 6000

Assume that the player needs 70% of that time to complete each game:

• BracketGame: 3500
• BackwardGame: 9625
• BribeGame: 4900
• CheatCodeGame: 4200
• Cyberpunk2077Game: 9625
• MinesweeperGame: 11900 (The memory phase of MinesweeperGame lasts 2 seconds)
• WireCuttingGame: 4200

We have:

• SlashGame: 2550
• BracketGame: 3500
• BackwardGame: 9625
• BribeGame: 4900
• CheatCodeGame: 4200
• Cyberpunk2077Game: 9625
• MinesweeperGame: 11900
• WireCuttingGame: 4200

The average is 6312.5. After each floor, there is a countdown that lasts 900ms.

With the above calculation, I'll assume that each floor lasts 7 seconds on average.

Infiltration reputation

Columns:

• sec/i: Total seconds per infiltration
• min/i: Total minutes per infiltration

name	minSec	floor	sec/i	min/i	stat1	stat1.5	stat2	rep/s	rep
Noodle Bar	2.5	5	35	0.583	144.83	92.280	42.690	36.944	1293.1
Joe's Guns	3.13	5	35	0.583	213.86	158.85	105.71	61.988	2169.6
Omega Soft	3.2	10	70	1.17	221.69	166.45	113.01	68.554	4798.8
NetLink Te	3.29	6	42	0.700	231.79	176.27	122.48	70.223	2949.4
CompuTek	3.59	15	105	1.75	265.77	209.40	154.52	93.891	9858.6
Alpha Ente	3.62	10	70	1.17	269.20	212.75	157.77	91.063	6374.4
LexoCorp	4.35	15	105	1.75	353.75	295.59	238.55	133.44	14012
Carmichael	4.66	15	105	1.75	390.32	331.53	273.77	144.93	15218
SysCore Se	4.77	18	126	2.10	403.37	344.38	286.38	153.57	19349
Rho Constr	5.02	5	35	0.583	433.21	373.76	315.25	143.46	5021.2
Nova Medic	5.02	12	84	1.40	433.21	373.76	315.25	153.81	12920
Aevum Poli	5.35	6	42	0.700	472.90	412.90	353.75	156.40	6568.9
Storm Tech	5.38	25	175	2.92	476.53	416.47	357.28	190.22	33289
VitaLife	5.52	25	175	2.92	493.48	433.21	373.76	196.18	34331
Watchdog S	5.85	7	49	0.817	533.68	472.90	412.90	175.84	8616.3
Global Pha	5.9	20	140	2.33	539.80	478.95	418.86	202.18	28305
DeltaOne	5.9	12	84	1.40	539.80	478.95	418.86	186.71	15684
Universal	5.9	12	84	1.40	539.80	478.95	418.86	186.71	15684
Omnia Cybe	6	22	154	2.57	552.05	491.06	430.81	210.45	32409
Icarus Mic	6.02	17	119	1.98	554.51	493.48	433.21	201.03	23923
DefComm	7.18	17	119	1.98	698.61	636.09	574.18	248.37	29556
Helios Lab	7.28	18	126	2.10	711.18	648.55	586.51	255.05	32137
OmniTek In	7.74	25	175	2.92	769.30	706.15	643.56	294.32	51505
Galactic C	7.89	12	84	1.40	788.35	725.04	662.28	264.63	22229
AeroCorp	8.18	12	84	1.40	825.31	761.69	698.61	276.34	23213
Four Sigma	8.18	25	175	2.92	825.31	761.69	698.61	314.50	55038
Bachman &	8.19	15	105	1.75	826.58	762.96	699.87	285.13	29939
NWO	8.53	50	350	5.83	870.13	806.17	742.71	424.13	1.4844e+5
Clarke Inc	9.55	18	126	2.10	1002.1	937.15	872.70	353.25	44509
Blade Indu	10.59	25	175	2.92	1138.4	1072.6	1007.3	428.74	75030
Solaris Sp	12.59	18	126	2.10	1405.1	1337.9	1271.0	492.16	62012
Fulcrum Te	15.54	25	175	2.92	1807.7	1738.8	1670.1	679.30	1.1888e+5
KuaiGong I	16.25	25	175	2.92	1906.0	1836.7	1767.7	716.72	1.2543e+5
MegaCorp	16.36	31	217	3.62	1921.3	1852.0	1782.8	766.99	1.6644e+5
ECorp	17.02	37	259	4.32	2013.3	1943.6	1874.1	853.75	2.2112e+5

Let's compare:

• Noodle Bar: Combat ~100 (Trivial even without augs): 36.944/s
• Joe's Guns: Combat ~150 (Trivial even without augs): 61.988/s
• LexoCorp: Combat ~300 (Trivial with some cheap combat augs): 133.44/s
• DefComm: Combat ~600 (Trivial with some cheap combat augs and NFG): 248.37/s
• NWO: Combat ~800 (Require some good combat augs from a strong criminal faction): 424.13/s
• ECorp: Combat ~1900 (Attainable with 2 strong criminal factions): 853.75/s

With:

• Hack 100 + 25 NFGs + all rep augs: 1.5544/s
• Hack 250 + 25 NFGs + all rep augs: 3.8783/s
• Hack 500 + 50 NFGs + all rep augs: 9.9412/s
• Hack 1500 + 50 NFGs + all rep augs: 29.810/s
• Hack 2500 + 50 NFGs + all rep augs: 49.680/s
• Hack 2500 + 75 NFGs + all rep augs + ns.share (1PB): 95.520/s

It's clear that infiltration rep gain rate is ridiculous, even with "only" manual infiltration (no auto-infil).

Infiltration reputation - With mults

The current infiltration rewards scale with mults. High mults = Low rewards. This is unintuitive, and we often see many players misunderstand how the rewards scale.

Quote from the current documentation:

The most common misconception of infiltration rewards is that they depend on skill levels. This is wrong. The rewards do **NOT** depend on skill levels. They depend on stats' multipliers. When you install augmentations that improve stats' multipliers, the rewards are reduced.

In some special cases, you may observe this behavior: When you install augmentations or soft reset, your skill levels drop to 1 and infiltration rewards are increased. Some players mistakenly think that this is why infiltrations should be done with low stats to optimize the rewards. This is totally wrong. Again, infiltration rewards do **NOT** depend on skill levels. In these special cases, the rewards are increased because stats' **multipliers** are reduced due to losing bonuses from other mechanics (IPvGO and some endgame mechanics).

Let's see how the rewards scale with different faction lists (after installing all augs from those factions):

• Rewards drop when mults reach a threshold.
• When they drop, they drop significantly.
• Hard locations = Higher threshold.
• Rewards of the hardest locations do not drop even with all augs from all criminal factions. They only drop when the player installs more strong combat augs from megacorp factions.

Infiltration money and SOA reputation

Money reward is okay. SoARep may be okay.

With SoARep, we also have to consider #250. On one hand, I agree that it's weird not to take the number of floors into account. With the current formula, locations with a low number of floors are much better than ones with a high number of floors (e.g., "Joe's Guns" is very good at the early game, and "Rho Construction" is the best location). On the other hand, with the suggestion of "market demand multiplier" in PR 2210, this will not be a problem anymore.

"5min-r" is the total reputation if infiltrating non-stop in 5 minutes.
"5min-r/s" is the average reputation per second if infiltrating non-stop in 5 minutes.

With the new "market demand multiplier", I think we don't need to tune the SoARep formula. If the player rarely infiltrates, they can "exploit" this quirk to get high SoA rep with low stats on easy locations. This can be seen as a trick, in the same way "joesguns" is the best exp farm target. If they infiltrate nonstop, those easy locations are not the best targets anymore.

PR 2210

You should check #2210 for basic information.

Min combat stats

This is a good idea. No more "hit ECorp at level 1". However, I think MaxDif = 4.5 is too high.

name	minSec	floor	stat1	stat1.5	stat2	stat2.5	stat3	stat3.5	stat4	stat4.5
Noodle Bar	2.5	5	144.83	92.280	42.690	NaN	NaN	NaN	NaN	NaN
Joe's Guns	3.13	5	213.86	158.85	105.71	55.204	9.5186	NaN	NaN	NaN
Omega Soft	3.2	10	221.69	166.45	113.01	62.067	15.391	NaN	NaN	NaN
NetLink Te	3.29	6	231.79	176.27	122.48	71.003	23.283	NaN	NaN	NaN
CompuTek	3.59	15	265.77	209.40	154.52	101.56	51.320	6.3109	NaN	NaN
Alpha Ente	3.62	10	269.20	212.75	157.77	104.67	54.231	8.7047	NaN	NaN
LexoCorp	4.35	15	353.75	295.59	238.55	182.85	128.82	77.025	28.705	NaN
Carmichael	4.66	15	390.32	331.53	273.77	217.21	162.10	108.83	58.136	12.001
SysCore Se	4.77	18	403.37	344.38	286.38	229.54	174.09	120.37	69.007	21.502
Rho Constr	5.02	5	433.21	373.76	315.25	257.80	201.62	146.98	94.334	44.594
Nova Medic	5.02	12	433.21	373.76	315.25	257.80	201.62	146.98	94.334	44.594
Aevum Poli	5.35	6	472.90	412.90	353.75	295.59	238.55	182.85	128.82	77.025
Storm Tech	5.38	25	476.53	416.47	357.28	299.05	241.94	186.15	132.01	80.053
VitaLife	5.52	25	493.48	433.21	373.76	315.25	257.80	201.62	146.98	94.334
Watchdog S	5.85	7	533.68	472.90	412.90	353.75	295.59	238.55	182.85	128.82
Global Pha	5.9	20	539.80	478.95	418.86	359.63	301.36	244.20	188.35	134.14
DeltaOne	5.9	12	539.80	478.95	418.86	359.63	301.36	244.20	188.35	134.14
Universal	5.9	12	539.80	478.95	418.86	359.63	301.36	244.20	188.35	134.14
Omnia Cybe	6	22	552.05	491.06	430.81	371.40	312.93	255.53	199.40	144.83
Icarus Mic	6.02	17	554.51	493.48	433.21	373.76	315.25	257.80	201.62	146.98
DefComm	7.18	17	698.61	636.09	574.18	512.93	452.41	392.69	333.86	276.06
Helios Lab	7.28	18	711.18	648.55	586.51	525.13	464.45	404.56	345.55	287.53
OmniTek In	7.74	25	769.30	706.15	643.56	581.58	520.25	459.63	399.81	340.87
Galactic C	7.89	12	788.35	725.04	662.28	600.11	538.57	477.74	417.67	358.45
AeroCorp	8.18	12	825.31	761.69	698.61	636.09	574.18	512.93	452.41	392.69
Four Sigma	8.18	25	825.31	761.69	698.61	636.09	574.18	512.93	452.41	392.69
Bachman &	8.19	15	826.58	762.96	699.87	637.34	575.41	514.15	453.61	393.87
NWO	8.53	50	870.13	806.17	742.71	679.79	617.45	555.74	494.70	434.40
Clarke Inc	9.55	18	1002.1	937.15	872.70	808.72	745.24	682.30	619.93	558.19
Blade Indu	10.59	25	1138.4	1072.6	1007.3	942.33	877.84	813.82	750.30	687.31
Solaris Sp	12.59	18	1405.1	1337.9	1271.0	1204.5	1138.4	1072.6	1007.3	942.33
Fulcrum Te	15.54	25	1807.7	1738.8	1670.1	1601.7	1533.6	1465.8	1398.3	1331.2
KuaiGong I	16.25	25	1906.0	1836.7	1767.7	1698.9	1630.4	1562.2	1494.2	1426.6
MegaCorp	16.36	31	1921.3	1852.0	1782.8	1714.0	1645.4	1577.2	1509.2	1441.5
ECorp	17.02	37	2013.3	1943.6	1874.1	1804.9	1736.0	1667.3	1599.0	1530.9

Difficulty 3 is tuned as the hardest difficulty. Most players cannot infiltrate at this difficulty. If a player has incredibly fast reflexes and extremely good memory, they can choose harder locations for better rewards. If we want to set a min combat stat value, we should choose one that is near 3. I recommend setting it to 3.5 instead of 4.5.

Reputation

PR 2210 accidentally buffs the rewards significantly, especially with hard locations. The flaw is in calculateRawDiff and calculateReward. calculateRawDiff is capped at 3. When it's "uncapped" for "Min combat stats", it accidentally buffs the result of calculateReward. This leads to the massive increase in hard locations.

I suggest different formulas in proposal.js. I tune them with these goals in mind:

• Nerf rewards, especially ones in hard locations.
• Nerf scales with minSec. Easy = Small nerf. Hard = Big nerf.
• Reduce the "slope" of reward increase based on minSec (I'm not sure how to describe this behavior). Currently, the reward increases really fast due to Math.pow(startingSecurityLevel, 1.2). You can check "rep/s" column to see this behavior.
• Easy locations still give extremely good rewards. Many players love infiltration because it generates tons of rep even in very early stages, so I don't want to nerf infiltration too much in these stages.
• Hard locations still give good rewards.
• Use the normal rep gain rate (see the previous section) as the baseline.

Columns:

• "rep": Current reputation
• "pr2210Rep": PR 2210's reputation
• "recRep": my recommended formula's reputation
• "ratio": recRep/rep

Analysis:

• Early locations (minSec < 4; Can be done even without any combat augs): The reward is still much higher than the normal rep gain rate in early stages.
  • Noodle Bar: 14.798/s.
  • Joe's Guns: 24.277/s
  • Hack 100 + 25 NFGs + all rep augs: 1.5544/s
  • Hack 250 + 25 NFGs + all rep augs: 3.8783/s
  • Hack 500 + 50 NFGs + all rep augs: 9.9412/s
• Mid1+Mid2 locations: The reward is still better than the normal rep gain rate.
  • LexoCorp (minSec = 4.35; stat1.5 = 295.59): 42.774/s
  • Hack 1500 + 50 NFGs + all rep augs: 29.810/s
  • DefComm (minSec = 7.18; stat1.5 = 636.09): 56.230/s
  • Hack 2500 + 50 NFGs + all rep augs: 49.680/s
• Late (hardest) locations: The reward is still better than the normal rep gain rate.
  • ECorp (minSec = 17.02; stat1.5 = 1943.6): 107.03
  • Hack 2500 + 75 NFGs + all rep augs + ns.share (1PB): 95.520/s
• Easy = Small nerf. Hard = Big nerf. (Check "rep/recRep" column)
• The reward steadily increases with minSec instead of having a big jump in hard locations.
• Fix problems that I mentioned in "Infiltration reputation - With mults" (check the second table). Currently, with augs (mults > 1), the reward is nerfed heavily when the mults reach a threshold, like I said. With the new formulas, the reward does not scale with mults anymore. As you can see in the second table, the nerf is only heavy in the hardest locations. With easy and mid locations, the nerf is fairly small. If you compare "list7" and "recRep", you will see that the new rep gain rate is even slightly buffed in easy and mid locations.

Market demand multiplier

The formula is okay. If we compare "30min-r/s" and "60min-r/s" with the hacking reputation gain rate, we can see that it nerfs long-session infiltration, but the reward is still very good.

[d0sboots]

Excellent in depth analysis.