Sail scoring

	The values used in this article are for the purposes of demonstrating relative values only.
	The actual mechanical values behind the puzzle are undisclosed.

Basic points

Points in sailing are based on balls cleared. Clearing one ball is worth one point. Solid blocks are worth two points. Balls in a target (also called platform) are worth two points.

Consistently clearing 4's without any bonuses removes balls as fast as they come in, however does NOT give acceptable performance. Basic efficiency is based on each ball having a cost of 2 (each drop having a cost of 4), giving plain 4's an efficiency of 50%, while giving single target clears, without any bonus, a 100% efficiency.

[Wyriel] Cost is a confusing term -- one subtracts costs from points/rewards/currency. What is being done here is division, not subtraction. The point is to rescale points per ball so that a score like '1' means 'the same thing' in each puzzle. (1 == 100%). Suppose one manages to come up with a set of 'constants' such that 1 == Good on all puzzles -- this is perhaps possible, as median performance is more stable than outlier performance. It is easily the case that on such a scale an excellent in carpentry is 2 and an incredible is 2.5, whereas an excellent in sails might be 3 and an incredible might be 10.

Puzzling performance is based on percentiles, which is a nonlinear scale (division is a linear transformation) -- in particular, 1% == ultimate == incredible. Dig around in the b-nav threads for developer confirmation (lizthegrey). The incredible mark is the average performance of the bottommost ult -- if there are 1000th sailors, than the 100th best sailor determines exactly how many pts per ball one needs on average to get incredible. A reasonable assumption would be that booched is bottom 1%, incredible is top 1%, and everything else is quartiles (poor is the 25th percentile, good is the 50th percentile, i.e., the median, and excellent is the 75th percentile).

In the proposed system of multipliers (2 for targets/platforms, 2 for obstacles/square blocks, 1 for normal clears), on Viridian in 2007 and 2008, 3.5 pts/ball is incredible by an easy margin. On Midnight it is possible that the cutoff is 4 pts/ball (the efficiency of doing perfect triples on only platforms). Shuranthae-style combos are closer to 7 pts/ball.

Combo factor

In sails, clearing a combo (2 sets -- two rows, or a row and a column at the same time) is believed to not give any bonus. Sails is strictly about the cascades.

[Wyriel] It is also believed to give a bonus, by me. A small one, that is very difficult to notice unless done on a vegas step or later to great excess. In particular, on the 6th step of a combo I might have 5 clears and get huge vegas text. On the 7th step I might have a single clear and get normal size vegas text. On the 8th,9th, and 10th steps I still get vegas text smaller than the text on the 6th step. Text size is correlated with efficiency (points per ball) -- it is not directly proportional to raw score. In particular the size of the text on 'single' and 'double' in a very quickly built multi-vegas is laughably small.

Cascade factor

Cascades in sails are believed to be straight increasing multipliers. The third step in a cascade (triple) is worth 3 times the normal value.

While successive vegases display only "Vegas" it is believed, by those who regularly build them, that the multiplier is not capped at x6, even though the description is.

The main evidence for this is that the "vegas-ults" are normally top of the DR, but not top of the ultimate list -- early grapples and booches are devastating to a full screen multi-vegas, but not to platform heavy triples.

"Platform Bonus"

Clearing a platform as the first step in a cascade gives a small bonus. The exact amount of this is not known.

[Wyriel] It is unlikely that there is such a bonus, as the in-game hints strongly suggest that placing a normal clear in front of a platform is A Good Idea. I think this is an illusion based on looking at text sizes without running numbers.

The efficiency of a single platform is 2 pts/ball. A platform, platform is 3 pts/ball, and a platform,platform,platform is 4 pts/ball. Successive platforms add 1 pt/ball to the efficiency. The first platform, however, adds 2 pt/ball. Getting more points than a platform on the first step is very unlikely, so compared to the size of text one sees for 'Single' for any other kind of single, a platform as first break will be notably larger. Almost always twice as large (if the scaling of font size is linear, which it probably isn't).

Doubles, on the other hand, have a greater range of possibilities -- NN, NP, PN, and PP. The PP is twice as good as the NN, but not twice as good as the very commonly played NP. On the single step of a PP the current points per ball is 1 -- 8 balls, 8 points earned so far. On the single step of an NP the current points per ball is 1/2 -- 8 balls, 4 points earned so far. So on the single step the first combo is twice as good. But on the double step the points per ball of the PP is 3, and for the NP it is 2.5 -- a much smaller relative difference, and so the font sizes of the two 'Double's will be much closer. For a triple, PPP vs. NPP, the 'Triple' of each has an even smaller difference in font size: 4 pts/ball vs. 3 2/3 pts/ball, but the 'Single's will continue to have a large relative difference (a factor of 2 in the pts/ball).

Even if there is a bonus, it is certainly the case that an NPP is better than a PP -- adding a single normal clear to the front is always a good idea. In fact, adding as many normal clears as you can in front of the platforms is a great idea unless grapple/port/etc. is about to happen.

Sample effective scores

A pair of fixed spots used with the first piece to create a 4 in a row is worth 2 points for the piece played, and 4 points for the two fixed pieces, giving 6 points for a cost of 4. This is 150% efficiency, and sparkly. It goes without saying that this is not maintainable, but is more of an initial luck factor. Moreover one loses the sparkly very fast, as it is only 6 points -- the very next move reduces the efficiency to below 100%. A different/better use for these is to setup a cheaper trigger for a cascade; perhaps pulling of a triple using 5 drops instead of 6, for example.

Scoring a simple double into a platform will score 4 for the single, and 8*2 for 4 pieces in a platform, for 20 points earned, and a cost (assuming no waste) of 16 points (8 balls). This is 125% efficiency, but will be hard to maintain.

If only half of the balls that land can be used in a platform, then even with a double, each ball will score 4 (2 for being in a platform, 2 for being doubled), with a cost of 4. This looks like 100% efficiency, but the trigger for the double will NOT score that much. A typical set up will be 2 pairs, with one waste, to set up the platform, and four more pairs to set up the trigger and double. This is 6 drops (12 balls, 24 total cost), scoring 20 points. While this gives an efficiency of less than 100%, this is usually enough for yellow sails (note that this will vary from ocean to ocean). It can be done in 4 drops, but one has to get just the right drops. On the other hand, one can setup two of these at once using 4 drops each, and the final efficiency will be the same. Using 4 drops would get 125% efficiency.

Cascading a platform to a platform for a double, with the same setup (2 pairs plus one waste per platform, a 5th pair to trigger) will score 8 plus 16 = 24 points, plus a small platform bonus for the first platform (probably 4 points), or 28 points for a cost of 5 drops (20 points), or 140%. Or 120% if there is no platform bonus. It can be done in 4 drops if one is lucky or builds multiple combos at once. The perfect platform double, with no platform bonus, has an efficiency of 24/16, or 150%. One can also reuse the 'waste' pieces from prior combos as free moves in order to eventually end up with a series of, effectively, perfect double platform combos.

Finally, a plain triple onto a platform, with no platform cascades, will generate 4 + 8 + 24, at a cost of 2 drops to set up the platform, and 6 drops to set up the single and double trigger. This is 8 drops, or a cost of 32, and a score of 36, for an efficiency of 112.5%. Note that this is not as good as the two platform double. Again, it can be done in 6 drops through luck or planning, especially in the long-term. 36/24 is 150% efficiency, and is as good as the perfect platform double.

The "ultimate triple" is a plain single onto a platform followed by a platform. This is 4 + 16 + 24 = 44 points. If one can do this in the absolute minimum drops, in the long-term, then that is 6 drops or a cost of 24, which works out to about 188% efficiency.

Finally, a V^4, or a quad-vegas, should be worth 4 + 8 + 16 + ... + 36 = 180 pts. If done perfectly, which is unlikely, that is 18 drops or a cost of 72. If one were to do 22 drops instead, at a cost of 88, the efficiency works out to just over 200%. Throwing a platform into the combo anywhere boosts efficiency nicely, especially ending on one. If one does not play super fast, this is a sufficient number of points to be sparkly all by itself (even against 30 drops it has an efficiency of 150%), meaning that one would have a full 3 minutes of sparkly sails before it would be necessary to break another combo.

Notice that it is very important to make scores by cascading from platform to platform, reducing waste (luck or multiple combo builds), and recycling waste. Or one can build insanely large.

Long-term scoring

Sailing does not generate a score on most moves. High end sailors will generate a large scoring move occasionally, with lots of zero scores inbetween. As long as the total of the scores in the scoring frame (the last three minutes) is sufficient, the indicator will stay sparkly.

General comments

Although regarding each ball as a cost of 2 makes the numbers all come out as integers, this is the only case where efficiencies around 100% are sufficient or nearly sufficient to keep a sparkly indicator. Most likely, a better view is to regard each drop as a cost of 3 or 3.5, as then the efficiency percentage for a sparkly indicator is more inline with the percentages needed in other puzzles.

Important disclaimer: All point values used within these pages reflect relative values and weights as determined by players. No developer has commented on the current accuracy of any of these. Any forum post from developers that gave point scoring information is from pre-release days (pre-Midnight), and potentially has been changed. In particular, sailing (at least) has been known to have had major changes to scoring at least once. Use at your own risk. Past performance is no guarantee of future potential. Scoring may be changed in any update. Star levels do change the challenges that you face, and may change the scoring; the same play at different star levels may score differently. While this is known to be true in bilge, it potentially may be true in any puzzle.