This is a follow-up to my previous article Exode - Card supply & demand. My thought with this article is to do a deep dive into a subset of cards called "Upgradable". I plan to look at how many of these cards have dropped so far, how much can they be upgraded by burning additional cards and then I will speculate around the cards I think will have good use during game play.
What is an upgradable card?
If you go to the Deck Expert Tool and search for cards with "upgradable" you will find all such cards except one. The final card, Claymore Hyperfighter, you find by searching on "upgradable module". In total there are 61 upgradable cards in the game, of which 28 are common, 23 are rare and 10 are epic rarity. By looking at the source instead of rarity, we can see that 43 cards come from the alpha booster pack, and 9 each from TOM and Rekatron contracts.
How many upgrades are possible?
In the graph above, I have gone through all the upgradable cards, and looked at their stats for how many times they can be upgraded. The x-axis shows the name of the card, and in the middle of the graph I have also indicated whether the card is a alpha booster, TOMs contract or a Rekatron contract. Keep in mind that due to the early state of the game, there are some inconsistencies on the card data, so I may have some mistakes in. In addition, most upgradable cards are relevant for colonization game play, and thus more balancing may be needed after more testing have occurred, which may require adjustments on how upgrades are done.
The first spot is taken by the Galactic Peacemaker, which can be upgraded an incredible 70 times! Being an epic card with only 632 drops in total, gives a limit of only 8 cards that can currently be fully upgraded (floor(632/(70+1))=8), ensuring a good demand of these cards, if the weapon turns out to be popular to use during game play.
In fact all the Rekatron weapons score high on the number of upgrades, followed by most of the TOMs contract cards. Escorts and Starships score relatively good here too, followed by some rare and epic installations. Software score in the middle, and most common colonization & vehicle cards from the alpha booster score low here.
How many cards have dropped?
In total 67314 upgradable cards have dropped at the time of writing, divided into 21998 Alpha cards, 24164 Rekatron contract cards and 21952 TOM contract cards.
By looking at the above graph of number of card drops for all upgradable cards, we can see clear step changes between different clusters. This is just a reflection of their rarity and their sources, e.g. all rare cards from alpha booster packs have similar number of drops. This is what we would expect and nothing to be surprised about.
Some interesting observations:
- Orbital shield, Sabre regiment and Generator TR-100 have the fewest drops with 37, 38 and 40 respectively. I have read several comments in the discord channel from Exode Captains appreciating and seeing value in these cards, so I would expect all of them to have high demand
- It has dropped about as many epic cards from the Rekatron and TOMs contracts, as common cards from the Alpha boosters.
- The largest number of drops is from the Rekatron Firetalker with 6753 drops
How many "Max upgraded" cards can we currently create?
By combining the two data series we previously discussed (how many upgrades is possible, how many cards dropped) we can see how many fully upgraded cards can be created based on current inventory. This should give a good indication of cards where we can expect high demand in the future.
- The rarest "Max upgraded" card is currently the Sabre regiment, followed closely by Octohome and Orbital shield. Currently it has dropped 38 Sabres but 13 are needed for a full upgrade (plus one for the base card), so only 2 cards can currently be upgraded to max!
- Octohome is very rare currently with 51 drops and 14 needed for a full upgrade. The issue with this card is that it will be overshadowed by the Happy Five card, which currently has 640 drops, and offer more habitat for less energy. Octohomes will have a small advantage with 1 extra shielding so possibly it could find some use in very niche scenarios
- Strategic Foodie-Moodie is currently the most common Max Upgraded card with 800 possible maxed out cards. It is a very useful card, and will surely be in demand but the excess supply will probably keep the prices down, and even enable people to drop some extra cards on their colonies for a small cost!
Top 10 list of rarest max upgraded cards
| # | Card | Upgrades | Drops | Max Upgraded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sabre Regiment | 13 | 38 | 2 |
| 2 | Octohome | 14 | 51 | 3 |
| 3 | Orbital Shield | 11 | 37 | 3 |
| 4 | Generator TR-100 | 4 | 40 | 8 |
| 5 | Rekatron Galactic Peacemaker | 70 | 632 | 8 |
| 6 | The Rebellion Secrets | 3 | 51 | 12 |
| 7 | Longsword Squadron | 17 | 256 | 14 |
| 8 | Claymore Hyperfighter | 14 | 273 | 18 |
| 9 | Drachian Mantis | 13 | 278 | 19 |
| 10 | Cruiser Task Force | 12 | 266 | 20 |
The list above is a more detailed look at the 10 rarest max upgraded cards. I expect most cards on this list to maintain a good value, also due to them being strong in their respective niche, even without upgrades!
What else about upgradable cards?
One aspect that I have not covered today is the droppable trait. Droppable means that a card can be dropped to the colony during colonization play by burning the card. This can have a significant effect on supply, and even more so for upgradable cards. Just consider a fully upgraded Foodie Moodie, each drop of those will remove 5 cards from the game! I think this help to set a floor price for some of these cards, but hard to analyze this before colonization game play is out.
I also did not cover the elite cards in this article. But it is clear to me, looking at the data above, that any elite card for a card that needs many upgrades to max out will become very valuable, especially since the elite cards may even allow for more upgrades than their normal counterparts. I will wait with analyzing this aspect until all the traits and features of these elite cards have been released.
Another topic that may warrant its own article is to look at "best in class" cards in each category, and see how many upgrades an inferior card may need to match the better card. As an example, consider a fully upgraded TOM custom with 4 Habitat, 4 shielding and -1 energy, versus a non upgraded Happy five with 5 Habitat, 7 shielding and -3 energy. It is not an exact match, with the happy five having 1 more habitat and 3 more shielding at the cost of 2 more energy, but it may still be interesting to think about what the equilibrium point will be between the cards in this example.
I hope you enjoyed reading the article and as always, feel free to rate the article, provide positive and negative feedback below, educate me on new perspectives and let us have an interesting discussion around this topic!
great article again captain! I love me some graphs and data. something about making information more tangible just gets my hyperdrive upgraded...
Thank you for the feedback! I guess it is one way to "play the game" to analyze and plan ahead while waiting for the whole game to get out. I hope the article can inspire a few pilots to dig deeper, so I am happy to hear you liked it! 😀
Nice stats. Personally, my answer to "Time to upgrade your cards?" is "Not until you need them." Unlike Splinterlands, upgraded eXode cards cannot currently be combined (understandable due to the different upgrade paths). Like Splinterland, upgraded cards can't be split. It would be awful to use most of your cards of a given type to heavily upgrade, for example, one weapon only to realize that you want all of your second or third colony armed.
The best use for the 2nd rarest max upgraded card is to send it directly to the reward pool as a boobie prize.
Upvoted x3
Did I miss something? Can we now upgrade more than just TOM and Rekatron cards?
Also, is it just me, or is the deck expert tool not working for other people as well?