How are activity calculated?

Game Discussion Realistic Battle
61

I just finished watching the two other replays you sent me. The Vietnam replay you sent me consists of three kills, so I am not sure what you are trying to convey.

Regarding the other three replays, the first has enemies in close proximity and he is shot down without doing anything; the second has enemies in close proximity and he fires a missile before being shot down; and the third has him firing missiles at enemies from beyond visual range before being shot down. My assumption is that you need to be close to the enemies and do something other than take off to start the activity time, and that firing at enemies from beyond visual range and not hitting anyone will result in no activity time. However, this is solely based on my observations of the three replays you sent me.

The remaining five questions, which you have compacted into one paragraph, are not directly related to this post, and I do not have comments for them.

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62

I didn’t send you any additional replays. You’ve confused me with someone else there.

If your assumption is right, and proximity to enemies does produce activity time again (if not score), that would be a change back to the score-model from before the 2021 changes, which removed all proximity bonuses, with long explanations from Smin and Stona here on why they did that. I would personally check that that’s true before spreading possibly false information contradicting Gaijin official announcements here.

The OG question really was, “how to I avoid getting a 0 SL game now”? Knowing whether firing a single countermeasure produces activity time > 0, if it does, so you could count on getting some SL for being killed instead of zero if you popped a CM (or fired one bullet) as soon as you got in the air IS directly relevant. This should be obvious information of value to players, including OP.

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63

My mistake, I meant the replays you sent to the other player, one of which had 3 kills.

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64

Those were intended to be the same two games as OP was talking about. If I had the wrong Vietnam game link that was unintentional, and I’ll correct it to the right one when I can confirm.

EDIT: I’ve fixed the two links for two games a day apart. To be clear that’s the only two that I thought needed to be talked about. And you’re wrong, it’s not weapon firing that made the difference because weapons are fired in both games.

  1. Kamchatka Game, 10 Jan (replay)
    Plane: F-16A ADF
    Summary of activity:
    3:40: Fires countermeasures
    3:46: Destroyed (135 Score)
    Activity %: 44. Battle activity 0, SL 0

  2. Vietnam Game, 9 Jan (replay)
    Plane: F-16A ADF
    Summary of activity:
    3:50 Fires one missile (miss)
    3:55: Fires countermeasures
    3:59: Destroyed (135 Score)
    Activity %: 42. Battle activity: >0, SL: 849 (+171 for the win)

So a missile or a flare launch doesn’t add to activity time either.

The two possibilities that are left are the two differences between the games already highlighted as possibilities. In the Vietnam game the player is flying very low for most of it. And significantly closer to enemies. So it seems either we get activity time in game at the moment for low flight, and/or proximity to enemies, but not getting killed or firing weapons, or countermeasures, or taking off. And if you don’t do at least one thing that gets you activity time, you are guaranteed to get zero SL rewards for that game. So it would really be good to know what those things actually are.

Here for reference is the 2021 Stona post where they said proximity rewards had actually been “removed” and why.

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65

I talked about 3 replays. When did it even become 2 games?

Personally, I will not be concerned or spend too much time on this since without a premium account and not performing useful activities (e.g., kills, assists, etc.) in battles, you will not earn anything. The activity time is always there as long as you do something worthwhile (and I have never had a problem with this previously). It is pointless to try to pin down minor details, spending hours debating here comparing two games with zero kills and assists to figure out why one has activity time while the other does not.

If you think there is a bug, feel free to report it.

66

With respect, you’re wrong again.

(There were only ever two game replays that OP brought up. I have no idea why you think there are three.)

No one is saying there’s a bug here. Understanding the activity time mechanic and how it works is absolutely useful to the player base and has never been satisfactorily explained by the company. People on this forum have literally spent months over the years trying to figure it out from replays. If proximity to enemies still actually increases your net rewards, despite company statements, which OP’s observation suggests, knowing that is of material benefit to all players, as we would all make more SL if we knew the parameters of that and adjusted our gameplay accordingly.

The fact you are intellectually uncurious about how this game works despite your position is really neither here nor there to anyone. If you don’t want to participate, let the rest of us run this down, let the player base learn, and don’t block our self-education. If nothing else, stop giving out bad information, like the fact firing a missile was what made the difference here, since missiles were fired in both games.

67

Death compensation stops you from losing money, that’s it.
If you earned zero SL, that means it’s working as it didn’t go negative.

68

Again, the original question had nothing to do with death compensation. It was why two basically identical missions had an activity time of >0 and 0, one day apart.

Because the SL reward is based on activity time x activity%, that means the OP got 0 SL for the second mission (Kamchatka). I’ve posted links to the replays and put up a digest of exactly what happens in both missions.

The only obvious difference between the two missions, other than proximity to the ground, is that in the mission with activity time >0, the player was in closer physical proximity to other players.

If true, that means that there is still at least a marginal SL advantage to be gained by playing closer to other players, even though the company said they removed that feature in 2021, and many people have asked for it to be brought back since.

69

Bruce was right. I used improper term to describe this which caused confusion.

70

Please edit OP and we will see less replies on wrong point of topic, otherwise your be wasting everyones time because each time someone replies to the thread it gets bumped back to the top and readers will think there is new information when in fact its just a reply to wrong topic.

71

Thank you Bruce.

72

Is the new OP suffice to avoid further confusions?

73

What ever you think m8, how about. “How is activity calculated‽” then watch this tread grow 😆

74

Good idea. I’ll modify the OP

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75

Done

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76

I did another experiment, in this match, I fired lot of missiles and they all miss, I stayed low to the ground and close to my enemy, less then 3km sometime, when I get killed, I receive 1400SL dur to activity time.
Here is the link:
https://warthunder.com/en/tournament/replay/158861309748184371
The map is vietnam.
So, I think stay low or stay close to your enemy gives you activity time

77

No worries. The fact you had two replays that are so similar with different results shows an aspect of a key hidden game formula (Activity Time) that no one had ever noticed in the two years since the last major changes to the rewards formulas… very interesting stuff.

If we go with the most-likely thesis that this is a residual proximity benefit leftover from before those changes, the next question would be, proximity to what, and how close, to start the activity time counter ticking. I would focus any further research anyone does on that. In the replay that did have activity time, you had hostile planes and AI within a kilometer, in the one without you had a few thousand metres of separation I believe.

It’d be very interesting to know what the ground and naval ranges for this would be, as well as air, again assuming that’s what we’re seeing here. Because if simply getting within a certain range circle adds time to your activity time “timer” (and presumably going farther away stops it?), that could have SL-positive impacts (albeit probably small ones) for ANY level of player success and any mode, not just your unfortunate no-kill deaths you shared here. It’s even possible players who prefer knife-fighting have been actually making significantly more SL as a group than long-distance snipers as a result of this all along, and we just never knew (because we were told that feature was removed).

I think we can rule out there was any big change between the 9th and 10th. I suggested “flying low” is the other thing that could have turned on your activity time timer, but that seems less likely than the proximity explanation. If anyone wants to look at those two replays and come up with another hypothesis, do it quick, as server replay links never last long.

78

Two more matches were played in my F-16. Here is the first replay:
https://warthunder.com/en/tournament/replay/158865368492285444
As you can see, I get killed without hitting anything, But I managed to stay within a close proximity of an enemy for a short time in a head on attack. I got killed by a missile fired from a jet far away. that gives me no activity time.
Here is the second replay:
https://warthunder.com/en/tournament/replay/158867803738746181
I get killed while chasing an enemy. So it seems that activity time accumulated when you are chasing an enemy with in a proximity. This needs further investigation.
One thing is not ruled out is the distance between you and the enemy that killed you. In the first replay. I was killed by a R27ET, in the second replay, I was killed by a R73, the distance may also impact the activity time, therefore, requires further investigation.
In this replay:
https://warthunder.com/en/tournament/replay/158873958426891116
I got killed by JAS39 from behind with heat seeking missiles, I receive zero.
So, I think a conclusion can be drawn: activity time is based on the time you are chasing an enemy with in a certain distance.
I think this activity time calculation algorithm is good for props or first and second generation fighters, when it comes to third generation fighters with BVR capability and all aspect missiles, the activity time, if is still there, should be action based not position based as many engagements are done from far away.

79

What do I have to do to get “no SL loss insurance”? Premium alone won’t do that.

80

Thanks for the added replays. I think I figured it out. Here’s the summary of your OP’s first two games plus these last three. All are very similar games with no scoring event other than being killed:

problem solved
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In the table above, the five games OP did to test this are identified (click on the table to enlarge):
End Time: End Time on the game as the reporting player sees it. Activity Time: given as either zero or more than zero (since that’s all we’re given after the end-game replay is closed)
SL: SL earnings before modification for winning/losing
RP: RP earnings before modification for winning/losing
Activity%: as per the score card
Replay Start Time: Start of the game on the replay server (as I see it time-zone wise)
Duration: How long the entire match was
Time of Death: Time the death of the vehicle is noted in the chat
Time to Pilot Death: Time after before the damage silhouette disappears, either due to pilot death or total uncontrollability. Wreckage is falling and burning, but a gun can still be fired, etc.

The two key columns are “SL” and “Time to Pilot Death.” In all cases where activity time was zero, the destruction of the plane was near instantaneous. There was no time for the damage profile of the plane to show up.

In the two cases where activity time was greater than zero, resulting in some SL being paid out, total destruction of the plane was delayed; the plane had been recorded as killed but was still in some sense controllable, pilot was alive and still had a control surface to operate or a weapon to fire.

Further, the SL payout for the flaming plane wreck that fell before completely “dying” 8 seconds after the death was recorded was double the one of the plane that fell for 3 seconds before dying, measured to when the damage silhouette disappears.

We know from previous company statements that SL payout ~ (Activity Time) x (Battle Activity %). Since we can see all cases here the Battle Activity % was close to the same 42% (for only getting killed and nothing else), we know SL payout should be linear with the unknown variable of Activity Time.

So yep, Activity Time has nothing to do with proximity, or weapon release, as was suggested by volunteer Gaijin staff. But you do get increments of Activity Time for falling on fire while still having some control over your vehicle it seems.

In the case of missiles and other forms of instantaneous destruction, because the death itself gets no activity time added, that means it’s possible to get 0 base SL for the mission (RP is not affected) in Air RB, or possibly other modes where you choose to leave after one death, even though you would have gotten score for being killed (since score only influences Battle Activity%, and if Activity Time = 0 you’re multiplying by zero, above).

That in turn would mean there’s an argument for flying your “deadstick” plane as long as possible if you’re not completely dead, because every second you manage to keep it in the air is adding to your SL as a multiplier on the other score and activity actions you’ve done with that life, including the death itself. It’s not a huge effect on your earnings, if you’ve done anything at all else with that life other than die, but it’s definitely not zero.

It would be interesting to evaluate the effect in the case of vehicles less prone to instantaneous damage, like tanks and ships. But it does seem clear that Activity Time, that mystery variable in the rewards function, does count the time it takes you to die after you’re destroyed.

Here’s the replay links for all five games in the chart above if anyone wants to check my work. There were some typos in some of my previous links that led to some confusion, for which I apologize. I’ve triple-checked these, with the help of OP, who I’d say deserves some credit for bringing up what might have seemed like a silly question but actually revealed something about the game’s rewards formula that wasn’t publicly known before.

Game 1 (Vietnam)
Game 2 (Kamchatka)
Game 3 (Pyrenees)
Game 4 (Sinai)
Game 5 (Pyrenees)

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