CrabSchool: Library Read

Math in Plain English

Will Still Cause Headaches

There is a lot of math in the game, and hundreds if not thousand of crab-hours have been spent reverse engineering and analyzing data to figure out how things work. There are many detailed math posts on Reddit, which will be linked throughout this if you want even more of a headache. The point of this article was to try and explain things in a way that anyone can understand.

This article is broken up into a whole section of the Library if you just want to reference a specific section.

Damage

This is the most complicated part of the game, because it is also the main aspect - you do damage to kill reptiles and advance to harder reptiles and more damage, etc. Here's what you need to know:

BASE DAMAGE the minimum amount of damage that a crab will do.

This is listed on the Crab tab as damage (Dmg).
For queens, it is listed as "DPS" which is 1/4th of their damage. To know their damage, you can multiply that DPS number by 4.

CRITICAL RATE the chance that your crab will perform a critical hit (purple damage) instead of just the base damage (red).

This is also listed on the Crab tab.
For queens, click on their picture to see their individual statistics.
The ability Smokescreen will raise your critical rate.
Going above 100% critical rate has no additional bonuses - a crab can only crit once. Some games might give a damage bonus for a rate above 100% but not this game.

CRITICAL DAMAGE When a crab criticals, their BASE DAMAGE is multiplied by their Crit Dmg multiplier.

Shown in the same place as Crit Rate.
Some places in the game list Critical Damage as a percentage increase.
The base Critical Multiplier is 5x. Every "100%" increase will add an additional 5x to the multiplier.
So a buff that gives you 1000% bonus to crit damage means your base damage will be multiplied by 50 due to that buff.

GEMS The more gems you get, the bigger bonus you get.

Bonuses are shown in your Gems panel.
Filling up Gem sets multiply that bonus. A completed colour set multiplies things by 5.
Filling up all three Gem sets (aka a Full Set) adds another multiplier of 5 on top of the individual set bonus.
A common mistake is to think Full Set bonus (5x) multiplies with the individual set bonus (5x) to total 25x. They add together, not multiply. 10x total.
More information on gems Here

MUTATIONS There are several mutations that can impact the damage of your crab.

All mutations add to BASE DAMAGE as their primary bonus. They either add to a specific colour, or to All (the yellow sets).
You can see the total Mutation increase to your crab damage at the top of the Mutation tab.
The percentage listed at the top of the tab is the individual colour plus the +All Dmg percentage in one number.
Some mutations add to your CRITICAL DAMAGE multipliers. These are listed as +All Amethyst Critical Dmg, etc. or +All Critical Dmg.
You will see these bonuses reflected in the crab tab statistics as you buy more mutations.
Mutations that say +All but do not have a colour means it applies to all colours. Generally these give less bonus with each level purchased because they impact all colours, but they are still important.
See This Library Section for more information on Mutations.

EVOLUTIONS As you level your crabs you will choose Evolutions.

These can add to your Base Damage, Crit Rate, Crit Damage, or Damage to Bosses.
See Here for more information on Evolutions.

GENES The gene tree has several sources that can increase your damage.

See This Library Section for more information on Genes.

ABILITIES AND SKILLS Your Abilities tab has different buffs that you can activate, many of which will have an impact on your damage, crit rate, etc.

See This Library Section for more information on Abilities and their Talents.

In addition, as you level your queens, you purchase QUEEN SKILLS, some of which can increase your Base Damage, Crit Rate, Crit Damage, etc.
There is no specific Library article on Skills as there are no choices to be made for them - you simply buy them as they become available. Clicking on each individual queen will show a list of her Skills and what bonus they provide.

KING CRAB PARTS The new mini-game Land of Reptiles can boost your damage in the main game with special Magma parts.
JADE SCARAB BONUS The new monthly event to collect Runes and power up your Jade Beetle can boost your main game stats quite a lot.
OTHER There are some miscellaneous items to consider.

Crab Evolutions have a statistic for "Dmg to Boss" which is additional damage when your crab hits a boss reptile.
Queen Frenzy talent "Alpha Hunter" does additional damage when facing bosses.
Genetic Split talent "Bubble Shield" and Colossal Crab talent "Crab Guardian" give an ability called Bubble Shield which adds 25% damage on top of everything else.

Damage In General - or TL;DR

You can consider everything in the list to be important and drive your crabs towards higher and higher damage. Boosting each source of damage as high as you can will help you get further. Many of the above are multiplied together to take your damage into stupidly high numbers.

BUT.. WHAT MUTATION/GENE PATH/EVOLUTION SHOULD I CHOOSE!!!????

Sorry, I'm not going to tell you how to play the game. Really now, what fun would that be? The purpose of this information is so you have an understanding of the various parts of the game. There are guides available that will tell you exactly how to play the game if you choose to find them.

Trivia

The numbers CrabWar uses are stupidly high. They start with thousand (K), million (M), billion (B), trillion (T), then they go into an alphabetical progression Aa, Ab, Ac... up to Az, then Ba, Bb, Bc... etc etc. You may not think anything of this as they are just letters that progress higher, right? Read here to see why this is amazing.

Deeper Damage Math

Reptile Health

As noted in the the Riverbed article, every reptile within the same 10m game "level" has the same health.
Golden Reptiles have the same health as regular reptiles.
Bosses work on a rotation of easy (10m) to hard (50m) then go back to easy (60m) and scale up to hard (100m) again - repeating this cycle forever.
Boss health is 60% more than a normal reptile's health, multiplied for each step of difficulty.
The difficulty progression for a boss is 1.6, 3.2, 4.8, 6.4, and 8 times the reptile health.
The mutation Scythe Walkers can cut boss health in half when maxed out.
This is why it may seem some bosses are super hard (at 50m and 00m) and then the one immediately after them seems very easy (at 10m and 60m).
Fun Fact: with "Scythe Walkers" maxed out, the easier bosses (10m, 60m) actually have less health than the reptiles you killed to get to them.
The absolute maximum speed that you can kill a reptile is approximately every 1.2 seconds, or 50 per minute.

Deeper Health Math

Health

Gold

As noted in the the Riverbed article, every reptile within the same 10m game "level" drops the same amount of gold. This is the "base" gold drop for that game level, also referred to as "normal reptile gold". There are two exceptions.
Golden reptiles drop 10 times the gold that a normal reptile drops.
Bosses drop gold equal to twice the normal reptile gold, multiplied for each step of difficulty.
With that in mind, the bosses drop 2, 4, 6, 8, or 10 times normal reptile gold.
Crab Evolutions can increase the amount of gold dropped by reptiiles.
Queen Skills can increase the amount of gold dropped by reptiles. This number, added with the Crab Evolution bonus, can be viewed on your Statistics screen in game.
In the Gene tree are Gold Drop genes that increase the amount of gold you receive.
In the Gene Lab are Gold Luster upgrades that increase the amount of gold you receive.
There is a buff available at all times for watching an Ad or spending pearls called Claw of Midas. It boosts all reptile gold by another 50-150%.
There are several mutations that can increase different aspects of the gold you receive. This part can be confusing so I will break it down below.
•The monthly Jade Scarab event has gold bonus Runes that increase the amount of gold you receive.
All of the above are multiplied together to give you a big mass of gold.

Base Reptile Gold, also "Normal" Reptile Gold

This amount is dropped by normal (non-gold, non-boss) reptiles.
As noted, it is the same for all reptiles within the same 10 meter span of riverbed (game level)
This amount is used as a basis for the ability Golden Leech, and the gene Gilded Leech.
This amount is used as a basis for genes Emerald Strand and Midas Swarm
This amount is used by yellow butterflies as well as the Golden Ray shop item.
This amount is used to determine your starting gold if you perform Ecdysis after you have levelled up Jade Tipped Pincers.
The mutations Cerulean Walkers and Stalagmite Walkers increase this amount when used directly by one of the above conditions.

Golden Reptile Gold

Golden reptiles drop 10x the base reptile gold. That base is NOT impacted by the "Cerulean Walkers" mutation.
The mutations Violet Tipped Pincers and Stalagmite Walkers increase this amount of gold dropped by this reptile.
The mutation Ember Tipped Pincers increases the chance that you will see a Golden Reptile.
The base chance to see a Golden Reptile is 2%. To achieve 100% chance, you need level 245 of Ember Tipped Pincers

Boss Gold

A boss drops gold equal to 2x normal reptile gold multiplied by their difficulty.
As noted previously in the health section, they have five difficulty levels, so the gold multiplier is between 2x and 10x the normal base gold for that level.
As with Golden Reptiles, the normal base used to multiply boss gold is NOT impacted by "Cerulean Walkers" mutation.
The mutations Red Devil Carapace and Stalagmite Walkers increase this amount of gold dropped by the boss reptile.
The gene Golden Boss gives you a 30% chance to see a "Golden Boss" which drops 10 times the gold.

Golden Leech

This is an activated ability as well as a random reward from a Yellow Butterfly.
For every tap during the Leech, you gain gold equal to a percentage of the Normal Reptile gold.
It does not matter if you are leeching from a Gold Reptile, a Boss, or a Gold Boss, the leech draws from the base Normal Reptile Gold.
The mutation Cerulean Walkers DOES have an impact on the amount of gold the Leech gets.
Additional mutations Stalagmite Carapace and Stalagmite Walkers further enhance the gold received.
The gene Gilded Leech causes the reptile to poop out a nugget of gold with every tap that is equal to 2% of the gold leeched so far.

Other Gold-Related Items

The mutation Solar Flare Pincers reduces upgrade costs by up to 50% which is almost like doubling your gold for most purchases of levels and skills.
The gene Emerald Strand causes the reptile to spit out 1% Normal Reptile Gold (modified) every time an emerald crab or queen criticals.
The gene Midas Swarm causes the reptile to spit out 2% Normal Reptile Gold (modified) every time a crab in the Shadow Swarm hits.