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Lesson 3.3The three you can buy
Surge, Smoke and Anchor. Fifty, eighty and a hundred coins, and every one of them pays you like a gift.
Prefer to listen? This is the same lesson, word for word. The text below is the transcript.
This lesson prepares you to: Quote the price, duration and effect of each bought power up, and say who the coins go to.
The shelf
Three power ups can be bought with coins. Any viewer can buy them, and they do not expire once bought.
| Power up | Cost | Runs for | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Surge | 50 coins | 15s | Roughly one gift in three scores 3x |
| Smoke | 80 coins | 15s | The other side cannot see your score |
| Anchor | 100 coins | 10s | The other side cannot start a new power up |
Surge, and why it is one gift in three
Surge does not triple everything for fifteen seconds. It gives each gift arriving in that window a roughly 30% chance of scoring triple. Whether a particular gift is one of the lucky ones is worked out from that gift's own identifier, not from dice.
That sounds like a technicality and it is the reason the whole system can be trusted. The same gift always produces the same result, both copies of the API agree without having to talk to each other, and any battle can be replayed later and score identically. Randomness would have made all three of those impossible.
Two multipliers never stack. If more than one is running, exactly one applies: the strongest that fires for that gift. Stacking is where multiplier systems stop being explainable, and we would rather you be able to explain yours.
Smoke hides, it does not take
Smoke stops the other side and their viewers seeing your score for fifteen seconds. It is worth being exact about what happens underneath, because creators worry about this one.
Nothing is taken away. Every point is still there and still counting the whole time. When Smoke clears, the true figure appears in full, including everything that landed while it was hidden. Nobody's support is erased, and nobody's gift is wasted.
You always see your own number. The hiding is one directional, and each side is sent its own view of the board, because what you are allowed to see depends on which side you are on.
Anchor stops them acting
An Anchor lands on the other side and stops them starting anything new for ten seconds. Anything they already had running keeps running. It does not touch their score, their gifts or their earnings.
It can be refused. A side that is already anchored cannot be anchored again, and a side holding a Shield cannot be anchored at all.
The coins go to the host being backed, never the one being anchored
When a viewer spends coins on an Anchor, those coins pay the host they are backing. They never pay the creator on the receiving end. Paying your rival to attack them would be an own goal with a straight face, so the code sends the money to your own side and it is written to stay that way.
Every power up pays you
Here is the part most creators miss. Activating a power up on your live credits you diamonds exactly like a gift would, at the power up's full coin value. A Surge is 50 coins, so it is 50 diamonds of gross value to you, settled the same way and at the same split as any gift.
Surge at 50 coins = 50 diamonds gross = $0.25 to you at the 50% base.
So a power up is not a distraction from your earnings. It is a purchase on your live, and it is paid to you on the same rails as everything else.
Next: the three you cannot buy at any price, and how a battle hands them out.