From time to time I like to bring you some updates on how mining seems to be going...
A lot of spawn areas seem to have shifted around or new spawns of things not typically found in a certain region being found there. I don't know how extensive the changes are, but some are quite pronounced. I can't give you the specifics since my favorite areas are already seeing a huge influx of miners and there are too many theories needing confirmation to decide if more people mining an area is better or worse.. I've seen enough arguments for both. Ultimately, I think it comes down to your equipment and whether it is suited for the region you are mining in or not... I know the F 105 used to be the standard by which miners said ok, we have a good reliable ATH capable finder. However, with the increased mining depths, the F 106 has came out, which now appears to be the new mining standard, but is ridiculously expensive, and I really don't know if it makes that big of a difference between the 105. So, the next logical option is to use eMine or the TK series of finders.
However, it still seems to follow suit that the best finder for ore on RT seems to be the F 103 as most claims tend to be on the shallow side there.
So, just keep an open mind when you are out mining, and it may surprise you what turns up in your inventory after a run.
There was an alicenies shortage that spiraled the price up to around 350%... I was able to cash in on it a little, I could only hit alice in one small region which I relentlessly bombed, but no I did not get rich even at this markup. Now, its back down to the 140 range and maybe lower that we were so accustomed to. Remember when you are crafting, if you aren't worried about crafting markup items, it is more cost effective to only craft TT food that has TT food ingredients!
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Monday, December 10, 2012
Sunday, December 9, 2012
New Crafting Terminal!!!
The interface for my blog has not been working for me until now, so I am going to update the blog as much as I can while I can. We will start with the new crafting terminal:
FEATURES:
-Built in auction access
-Automatically loads all prints and sorts by how many clicks you can make with your materials on your avatar and in your storage (doesn't seem to matter if they are in a book or not)
-Autosell option: It will not auto sell components, only partial condition items. You can set the threshold for what conditions you want to keep... i.e. to sell everything but full TT you set to 100%. so everything under 100% will sell automatically. I wish they would let you go to 101% so that even 100% items could be sold automatically.
-Statistics tracker: Tells you what your tt return is, and gives you a breakdown of how your loot added up. Only problem is they count returned materials as tt return, which is only a problem because when you click the returned materials back in, you end up with an inflated TT value of stuff returned when compared to whats actually left after you are done crafting. It also tells you what % of your clicks were successful. I tend to average between 2 and 10% on full condition crafting success rate, and between 25 and 55% success rate on quantity... Though it does widely vary based on a lot of factors. One thing I did learn though, the hard way: If you don't have a big pedroll, and want to take a gamble on rare L prints paying off... You really don't want to click less than a 10 click L bp on condition... Figure in 10 clicks you will have at least one success. If you click anything smaller, just do quantity.
So... While this is a big improvement over the old terminal... It seems that crafting runs are no where near as consistent in their loot and returns as they used to be. Either you do extremely well once in a while, or unless you have a large run for it to average out you will likely do terribly.
I don't care how much loot I get or don't get. What I do care about is the lack of consistency. There are times, even on quantity, on 100QR prints, that I can go 25 or 50 clicks without a success. I can understand doing that on condition, but seriously, on quantity? And its been heard of there being 200 fails straight on condition clicking. Perhaps people have had worse streaks. So, I really cannot offer an opinion as to how "honest" the crafting system is any more.
I have heard that it is now possible to craft from an android app when you are mobile, but I have yet to see the app and verify in person... Though the interface on the new craft terminal would indeed seem to be configured in such a way as to allow for use on a mobile device.
FEATURES:
-Built in auction access
-Automatically loads all prints and sorts by how many clicks you can make with your materials on your avatar and in your storage (doesn't seem to matter if they are in a book or not)
-Autosell option: It will not auto sell components, only partial condition items. You can set the threshold for what conditions you want to keep... i.e. to sell everything but full TT you set to 100%. so everything under 100% will sell automatically. I wish they would let you go to 101% so that even 100% items could be sold automatically.
-Statistics tracker: Tells you what your tt return is, and gives you a breakdown of how your loot added up. Only problem is they count returned materials as tt return, which is only a problem because when you click the returned materials back in, you end up with an inflated TT value of stuff returned when compared to whats actually left after you are done crafting. It also tells you what % of your clicks were successful. I tend to average between 2 and 10% on full condition crafting success rate, and between 25 and 55% success rate on quantity... Though it does widely vary based on a lot of factors. One thing I did learn though, the hard way: If you don't have a big pedroll, and want to take a gamble on rare L prints paying off... You really don't want to click less than a 10 click L bp on condition... Figure in 10 clicks you will have at least one success. If you click anything smaller, just do quantity.
So... While this is a big improvement over the old terminal... It seems that crafting runs are no where near as consistent in their loot and returns as they used to be. Either you do extremely well once in a while, or unless you have a large run for it to average out you will likely do terribly.
I don't care how much loot I get or don't get. What I do care about is the lack of consistency. There are times, even on quantity, on 100QR prints, that I can go 25 or 50 clicks without a success. I can understand doing that on condition, but seriously, on quantity? And its been heard of there being 200 fails straight on condition clicking. Perhaps people have had worse streaks. So, I really cannot offer an opinion as to how "honest" the crafting system is any more.
I have heard that it is now possible to craft from an android app when you are mobile, but I have yet to see the app and verify in person... Though the interface on the new craft terminal would indeed seem to be configured in such a way as to allow for use on a mobile device.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
MISC ANNOUNCEMENT
I only post this to my blog because a lot of Entropians are bitcoin miners and or otherwise involved with bitcoins... I have found a Bitcoin auction site called BitMit that is too good not to share with you. And there are quite a few items listed considering what a novelty Bitcoins still are. If you click the link it will open in a new window so you won't leave the blog.
I try to keep everything posted to be Entropia related since this is my Entropia blog, but every once in a while there is something I think a lot of you could use or otherwise make extra money with, which is something you can turn into peds and avoid having to sweat.
I try to keep everything posted to be Entropia related since this is my Entropia blog, but every once in a while there is something I think a lot of you could use or otherwise make extra money with, which is something you can turn into peds and avoid having to sweat.
Friday, October 12, 2012
The New VU is AWESOME!
Well.. I am referring to the crafting. I can't speak on the rest of it at the moment... But now you no longer have to look through your prints, no more dragging materials into the crafting window. And no more having to write down your spend on a run and track your returns... There is now a statistics button on your crafting run! If you never liked crafting, I bet you will now!
HOWEVER... I have been warned by an uber crafter that normally does well, that he's gone as much as 60 clicks WITHOUT a success, yes it is on full condition, but it is also a new record for him. So I suspect it may take some time for the loot pools to operate properly.
Hunting loot is supposed to have been rebalanced, but we will see how that goes as well.
HOWEVER... I have been warned by an uber crafter that normally does well, that he's gone as much as 60 clicks WITHOUT a success, yes it is on full condition, but it is also a new record for him. So I suspect it may take some time for the loot pools to operate properly.
Hunting loot is supposed to have been rebalanced, but we will see how that goes as well.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Outrage of the Week: A Land Area with 10% Mining Tax???!!!
Apparently Outback Land Area 64 south of Shinook has 10% mining tax as of this posting, with 3% hunting tax...
Everyone is favoring the hunters, and shafting the miners. Anyone going past 5% on their taxes is ASKING to be boycotted and lose their visitors.
If I ever find that the tax has changed I will update this post or delete it depending on how good the fix is... But seriously... I don't expect anyone will want to mine with giving the owner 10% of their finds... I am sure the land owner will realize they are losing miners, and have to lower the taxes to get them back. If it turns out they are the only source for certain ores on the whole planet, then maybe, maybe they can get away with 10% taxes. But I for one will not be going back there any time soon.
I am not only trying to bring you guys quality information, but I am also trying to take on the role of watchdog. Someone has to, and everyone will benefit from warnings and cautions. I would expect a 5% tax to bring four or five times the business that a 10% tax land area would bring.
Everyone is favoring the hunters, and shafting the miners. Anyone going past 5% on their taxes is ASKING to be boycotted and lose their visitors.
If I ever find that the tax has changed I will update this post or delete it depending on how good the fix is... But seriously... I don't expect anyone will want to mine with giving the owner 10% of their finds... I am sure the land owner will realize they are losing miners, and have to lower the taxes to get them back. If it turns out they are the only source for certain ores on the whole planet, then maybe, maybe they can get away with 10% taxes. But I for one will not be going back there any time soon.
I am not only trying to bring you guys quality information, but I am also trying to take on the role of watchdog. Someone has to, and everyone will benefit from warnings and cautions. I would expect a 5% tax to bring four or five times the business that a 10% tax land area would bring.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Open Letter to the Traders and citizens of Entropia
As long as you export every resource that isn't nailed down from Arkadia and Rocktropia, these economies will not be able to grow. It has become so impossible to mount any kind of crafting effort due to the lack of availability of resources that are FROM these planets exclusively. It is ridiculous. The reason it would appear most people end up on Caly despite what planet they started on, is the simple fact that they have to follow the materials.
I URGE MindArk in their wisdom or lack thereof, to eliminate the bug that allows traders to log out on a mothership and thus not be able to be looted in space, and log back in at their destination. This defeats the purpose of piracy, and the risks of space flight. It is an expoit, but you may call it what you wish. This would help curb some of the malicious exporting all in the name of turning a ped. I mean seriously, raping entire planets economies all for the sake of making a ped or two. Yes, I have been a trader off and on. Yes, I see nothing wrong with trading. But I do not trade in this manner. I do not believe in bleeding a planet dry to the point where crafters cannot support what should be a growing population.
To all of the miners, hunters, crafters, I urge you to be tougher in negotiating with traders. If you simply give in to whatever price they offer, there is nothing but downward pressure on prices. I know most of you including myself need peds now, but it is a vicious cycle that will destroy our abilities to stay afloat in the long run. I've already been forced to take prices far below what is acceptable, and the traders are UNWILLING to negotiate upward in the slightest. This is bad business practice, and if you can't be flexible in trading so as to be fair, then I may have to compile a black list of traders who are unfair and offer what can only be construed as the lowest prices in entropia. And trust me, I do have a few names that need to go on such a list.
Sure, I might upset few people, but I am long past upset myself. Every resource on every planet is shipped out to Calypso. I know why you are doing it. But the economies on these other planets are only a fraction of what they were a year ago. And it is pretty bad when there used to be pages of resources on the auction, but now, there are maybe three or four listings with prices inflated so bad a crafter can't take them seriously.
I will get off my soapbox now... Good luck to everyone... But in the meantime... Traders, I will be watching.
I URGE MindArk in their wisdom or lack thereof, to eliminate the bug that allows traders to log out on a mothership and thus not be able to be looted in space, and log back in at their destination. This defeats the purpose of piracy, and the risks of space flight. It is an expoit, but you may call it what you wish. This would help curb some of the malicious exporting all in the name of turning a ped. I mean seriously, raping entire planets economies all for the sake of making a ped or two. Yes, I have been a trader off and on. Yes, I see nothing wrong with trading. But I do not trade in this manner. I do not believe in bleeding a planet dry to the point where crafters cannot support what should be a growing population.
To all of the miners, hunters, crafters, I urge you to be tougher in negotiating with traders. If you simply give in to whatever price they offer, there is nothing but downward pressure on prices. I know most of you including myself need peds now, but it is a vicious cycle that will destroy our abilities to stay afloat in the long run. I've already been forced to take prices far below what is acceptable, and the traders are UNWILLING to negotiate upward in the slightest. This is bad business practice, and if you can't be flexible in trading so as to be fair, then I may have to compile a black list of traders who are unfair and offer what can only be construed as the lowest prices in entropia. And trust me, I do have a few names that need to go on such a list.
Sure, I might upset few people, but I am long past upset myself. Every resource on every planet is shipped out to Calypso. I know why you are doing it. But the economies on these other planets are only a fraction of what they were a year ago. And it is pretty bad when there used to be pages of resources on the auction, but now, there are maybe three or four listings with prices inflated so bad a crafter can't take them seriously.
I will get off my soapbox now... Good luck to everyone... But in the meantime... Traders, I will be watching.
Rocktropia: L4 Motorhead Global!
Apparenty yes, they actually do global! So I thought I would post my screenshot for those who are curious. I find even if you don't hunt together, being in a team is a big help to loot... But it is a bit depressing to hit a good one and it not show up under your own name on tracker but rather under a team name. But right now loot has been so bad for me that it is a matter of, give me the loot, I will worry about solo globals and hofs later.
Hunting globals are something for me that do not simply happen. I am nearing 10K in loot for Crafting, nearing 10K in loot on tracker for mining... But hunting, solo, I've had abou 140 peds... If I add my team globals and hofs... I maybe, in 5 years time, have had 500 peds in global loot from hunting.
And well... Most of my hunting skills are well above level 20.
But yeah, not bad for a Level 4 Motorhead!
Hunting globals are something for me that do not simply happen. I am nearing 10K in loot for Crafting, nearing 10K in loot on tracker for mining... But hunting, solo, I've had abou 140 peds... If I add my team globals and hofs... I maybe, in 5 years time, have had 500 peds in global loot from hunting.
And well... Most of my hunting skills are well above level 20.
But yeah, not bad for a Level 4 Motorhead!
Rocktropia: Hell Key III L Blueprint For Sale!!!
I plan to take this post down when it sells, but, I was crafting and the print dropped. 47 clicks I think, and it is the only one as of now on Auction. I was going to click it until I seen how many peds we are talking about. Just the Telemans coins themselves that are needed is insane... 4 of them per click, so 5 clicks would be 80 peds just in Telemans coins with markup! Not to mention the other stuff going into it. So...
Given the apparent rarity of this print, I've listed it for the historical buyout of about 20K%, or 100 peds... I think it is a bargain considering the Hell Key III's have good markup, and this is your chance to corner the market. If it does not sell within the week's time, well, at that point I will have an uber crafter I know click it for me and go from there...
It has about 6 and a half more days fom time of this listing on the Rocktropia auction. I do have the bid price starting at 50peds, so buy or bid, is your choice.
I have also listed some shogun armor pieces on the Auction as well, and they are selling fairly fast so if you want them you better get there first!
Thanks for taking the time to read this announcement.
Given the apparent rarity of this print, I've listed it for the historical buyout of about 20K%, or 100 peds... I think it is a bargain considering the Hell Key III's have good markup, and this is your chance to corner the market. If it does not sell within the week's time, well, at that point I will have an uber crafter I know click it for me and go from there...
It has about 6 and a half more days fom time of this listing on the Rocktropia auction. I do have the bid price starting at 50peds, so buy or bid, is your choice.
I have also listed some shogun armor pieces on the Auction as well, and they are selling fairly fast so if you want them you better get there first!
Thanks for taking the time to read this announcement.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Land Area Taxes... My Opinions
I see land owners are becoming greedy and upping their taxes. Is there no sense of competition? I have quit mining on land areas with rates pushed into the 5% bracket. I am sure many of you have to. I have no problem at all with a tax rate in the 2's and 3's. But 1.1% isn't a huge difference you say... No, it's not... But it is enough to determine whether you run a profit or a loss at times.
If land areas who have 5% taxes cut to even 3.5%, I would bet almost anything that your revenues will double.
It's kind of like the paytable on video poker. 6-5 Jacks or Better pays close to 94% on the long run if played properly. Gamblers don't take it seriously. I sure don't. I rather play slot machines than such a bad paytable on video poker. Full pay is 99.56% on the long run, which is a 9-6 Jacks or Better paytable. What does this have to do with land area taxes? A lot...
See...
A casino will actually make more off full pay machines than they will by trying to cut the payback of the machine by altering the pay table. The people who take the game seriously and will spend countless hours on them, will be going somewhere else doing something else, and the game is only making money if someone is running money through it.
Likewise, I do not take 5% land areas seriously. But... If hunting taxes are LOWER than mining taxes... I REFUSE to support that land owner with my mining. The whole game is slanted towards hunting, leaving mining in the dust. And they wonder why there aren't many miners any more. Also... If I come accross your land area and you do not have a list of what ores and enmatters have been found there, I am not likely to stick around. If I know whats there, I know what finder to bring, and whether or not it is worth bothering with.
I guess in principle, The difference between 3% and 5% is greed, and greed will never get you anywhere. And I will not support anyone that is greedy. I know land area owners want to make money... But I see almost 0 in the way of effort for marketing and advertising, events, etc. You will only get out of something what you put into it, and just because it's there doesn't mean you will have customers. You have to do something to bring them in, not alienate them and drive them off. I used to mine a lot in miner's heaven. The mobs came in, and sorry, Kanerium or not, I will mine elsewhere.
The success of land areas relies on understanding your customers, why they are going there, and making things so that they don't stop going there. If you make major changes to how you are running things, expect to lose customers... But you should be sure that you will pick up more new ones than old ones you will lose.
If land areas who have 5% taxes cut to even 3.5%, I would bet almost anything that your revenues will double.
It's kind of like the paytable on video poker. 6-5 Jacks or Better pays close to 94% on the long run if played properly. Gamblers don't take it seriously. I sure don't. I rather play slot machines than such a bad paytable on video poker. Full pay is 99.56% on the long run, which is a 9-6 Jacks or Better paytable. What does this have to do with land area taxes? A lot...
See...
A casino will actually make more off full pay machines than they will by trying to cut the payback of the machine by altering the pay table. The people who take the game seriously and will spend countless hours on them, will be going somewhere else doing something else, and the game is only making money if someone is running money through it.
Likewise, I do not take 5% land areas seriously. But... If hunting taxes are LOWER than mining taxes... I REFUSE to support that land owner with my mining. The whole game is slanted towards hunting, leaving mining in the dust. And they wonder why there aren't many miners any more. Also... If I come accross your land area and you do not have a list of what ores and enmatters have been found there, I am not likely to stick around. If I know whats there, I know what finder to bring, and whether or not it is worth bothering with.
I guess in principle, The difference between 3% and 5% is greed, and greed will never get you anywhere. And I will not support anyone that is greedy. I know land area owners want to make money... But I see almost 0 in the way of effort for marketing and advertising, events, etc. You will only get out of something what you put into it, and just because it's there doesn't mean you will have customers. You have to do something to bring them in, not alienate them and drive them off. I used to mine a lot in miner's heaven. The mobs came in, and sorry, Kanerium or not, I will mine elsewhere.
The success of land areas relies on understanding your customers, why they are going there, and making things so that they don't stop going there. If you make major changes to how you are running things, expect to lose customers... But you should be sure that you will pick up more new ones than old ones you will lose.
Complete List of Finder Amplifiers and What They Used to Be
Ok, it took long enough... But here it is... What did the old amps turn into?
Level 1 Amp equivalent to MA-101
Level 2 Amp equivalent to OA-101
Level 3 Amp equivalent to OA-102
Level 4 Amp equivalent to MA-104
Level 5 Amp equivalent to OA-103
Level 6 Amp equivalent to MA-106
Level 7 Amp equivalent to OA-104
Level 8 Amp equivalent to OA-105
Level 9 Amp equivalent to OA-106
Level 10 Amp equivalent to either MA-108 or MA-109, not sure which
Level 11 Amp equivalent to OA-107
Level 12 Amp equivalent to OA-108
Level 13 Amp equivalent to OA-109
So no more guessing for you all... Hopefully this puts things into some perspective for you!
Level 1 Amp equivalent to MA-101
Level 2 Amp equivalent to OA-101
Level 3 Amp equivalent to OA-102
Level 4 Amp equivalent to MA-104
Level 5 Amp equivalent to OA-103
Level 6 Amp equivalent to MA-106
Level 7 Amp equivalent to OA-104
Level 8 Amp equivalent to OA-105
Level 9 Amp equivalent to OA-106
Level 10 Amp equivalent to either MA-108 or MA-109, not sure which
Level 11 Amp equivalent to OA-107
Level 12 Amp equivalent to OA-108
Level 13 Amp equivalent to OA-109
So no more guessing for you all... Hopefully this puts things into some perspective for you!
Arkadia Key 1 Loot!!! My First Treasure Chests!
I am by no means a tough hunter... Most mobs shred me to pieces easily... After running my timer out on the first key, I decided to run clear to the end, kill the boss, and loot the treasure. It took some work running with bad frame rates...
So...
After reviving about 5 times I killed the boss.
Chests... Well... If I wanted robot loot I would have done a beacon!!! I got (17) Robot weapon Grips from the first chest! Yes! I thought it was a bad joke!
Second chest... (796) Robot Low Loss Link Cables worth about what 20 ped... And 5 peds of laser ammo!
I spent 5 peds in ammo, nevermind decay, killing the boss. And well... The other stuff barely covered the key.
So...
Even though that was my best hunting return ever...
IT IS A PAIN FOR ME TO DO IT WITHOUT GAIN!
But... Maybe I will do another when I feel up for it.
But what a thrill, to open my first boxes, by myself, what a feeling of accomplishment! If I can solo the Ark 1 key, you can too!!!
Whatever you do, do not get turned around!!!
I had an hour left on the clock by the time I finished, in case anyone wanted to know!
So...
After reviving about 5 times I killed the boss.
Chests... Well... If I wanted robot loot I would have done a beacon!!! I got (17) Robot weapon Grips from the first chest! Yes! I thought it was a bad joke!
Second chest... (796) Robot Low Loss Link Cables worth about what 20 ped... And 5 peds of laser ammo!
I spent 5 peds in ammo, nevermind decay, killing the boss. And well... The other stuff barely covered the key.
So...
Even though that was my best hunting return ever...
IT IS A PAIN FOR ME TO DO IT WITHOUT GAIN!
But... Maybe I will do another when I feel up for it.
But what a thrill, to open my first boxes, by myself, what a feeling of accomplishment! If I can solo the Ark 1 key, you can too!!!
Whatever you do, do not get turned around!!!
I had an hour left on the clock by the time I finished, in case anyone wanted to know!
Arkadia Key 1: My First Experiences in Aakas
Well... I have ventured back to Ark to finally try the treasurehunting. I am glad to be able to report that my returns are much higher on treasure than doing ores and enmatters, but due to the larger cost per drop, you may need a larger ped roll to be able to absorb the ups and downs of doing treasure only as compared to ore or enmatters. I do not like running combo drops, because like I said before, MA would not have given us the ability to run multiple types on our finders if it didn't add to their profit margin. It is just simple common sense. Also, you have to bear in mind that a finder that is geared for ores in a certain area is not going to be as effective at finding enmats. Every serious miner knows certain tools for certain places to find certain things is what is effective.
But...
I want to say yes, the keys are like the beacons. If you have ANY lag or have to run on reduced settings for normal game play, you probably will NOT be satisfied with your results attempting a key. They are pure bloatware, I mean, I have to shoot in first person with RIGHT CLICKING because frame rate is so low I can't hit anything aiming and shooting, right clicking at least only shoots when a target is lined up!
Do not attempt them with a slow internet connection. Best results, use hard wired. I have less lag on hard wires than with wifi. Also, if your wifi craps out you will lose valuable time.
If your system resources are not sufficient enough to keep up with the key runs, you will crash frequently and often. If this happens, you may attempt compensating by clearing your shader cache in the launcher options. This is what cured the crashing for me.
Last night I attempted doing one of these on dialup at home. BAD idea. Lagged out constantly. Finally it kicked me out and the next morning I log in to find my 20 peds for the key was refunded. NOTE: If you are paying for a higher key, with huge markup, (even though the keys are UL, apparently they are only one time uses, so you do not get them back), and they give you a refund, You better open a support ticket and ask them for the key back due to the high markup. On the ark 1 keys, the +2 peds is nothing really, for the hassle of trying to get them to replace the key and all.
In the ark 1 run, you will have level 2 snakes that I can one or two shot with the herman ark 10. The grasshopper things are pretty much two or three shots, but I am using the CB 13, which one shots everything except for the level 6 Ubos... They are kind of a pain because they hit hard, probably doing acid damage which I am not protected against. You must make it down four levels. Once you reach bottom you go out through the center of the underground complex, and under the big statue, into the other side... You keep going and you will find the treasure room. There will be a bunch of snakes. You must kill 8 of them or 10 of them to spawn the Dahar soldier or whatever it is called. It looks like those same statues standing in the main room with all the doors where you entered the run.
He is very much a pain, I did not have time to defeat him due to about 30 minutes of crashing trying to make it work. And I wasted much unnecessary time... But now I have learned what I must know and will reattempt it. You will find two treasure chests. I am not 100% positive as to whether or not the loot not gotten in the previous run is added to the chests in the next one, but I can only imagine it would be.
A team of noobs should easily handle this run. It is soloable if you just make a team put someone on it that doesn't want to go, and go by yourself, if you have decent weapons, fap, armor and high frame rate. You do respawn fairly close to the boss mob at least, which is good because you can keep running in... But I am not sure also on the mob boss's regeneration or anything, so I may need to do some research at this point.
Those of you that do not have Aakas... You must head towards the southwest of the desert area, but the exact spot can be found on entropedia.info.
Good luck and happy treasure hunting!
But...
I want to say yes, the keys are like the beacons. If you have ANY lag or have to run on reduced settings for normal game play, you probably will NOT be satisfied with your results attempting a key. They are pure bloatware, I mean, I have to shoot in first person with RIGHT CLICKING because frame rate is so low I can't hit anything aiming and shooting, right clicking at least only shoots when a target is lined up!
Do not attempt them with a slow internet connection. Best results, use hard wired. I have less lag on hard wires than with wifi. Also, if your wifi craps out you will lose valuable time.
If your system resources are not sufficient enough to keep up with the key runs, you will crash frequently and often. If this happens, you may attempt compensating by clearing your shader cache in the launcher options. This is what cured the crashing for me.
Last night I attempted doing one of these on dialup at home. BAD idea. Lagged out constantly. Finally it kicked me out and the next morning I log in to find my 20 peds for the key was refunded. NOTE: If you are paying for a higher key, with huge markup, (even though the keys are UL, apparently they are only one time uses, so you do not get them back), and they give you a refund, You better open a support ticket and ask them for the key back due to the high markup. On the ark 1 keys, the +2 peds is nothing really, for the hassle of trying to get them to replace the key and all.
In the ark 1 run, you will have level 2 snakes that I can one or two shot with the herman ark 10. The grasshopper things are pretty much two or three shots, but I am using the CB 13, which one shots everything except for the level 6 Ubos... They are kind of a pain because they hit hard, probably doing acid damage which I am not protected against. You must make it down four levels. Once you reach bottom you go out through the center of the underground complex, and under the big statue, into the other side... You keep going and you will find the treasure room. There will be a bunch of snakes. You must kill 8 of them or 10 of them to spawn the Dahar soldier or whatever it is called. It looks like those same statues standing in the main room with all the doors where you entered the run.
He is very much a pain, I did not have time to defeat him due to about 30 minutes of crashing trying to make it work. And I wasted much unnecessary time... But now I have learned what I must know and will reattempt it. You will find two treasure chests. I am not 100% positive as to whether or not the loot not gotten in the previous run is added to the chests in the next one, but I can only imagine it would be.
A team of noobs should easily handle this run. It is soloable if you just make a team put someone on it that doesn't want to go, and go by yourself, if you have decent weapons, fap, armor and high frame rate. You do respawn fairly close to the boss mob at least, which is good because you can keep running in... But I am not sure also on the mob boss's regeneration or anything, so I may need to do some research at this point.
Those of you that do not have Aakas... You must head towards the southwest of the desert area, but the exact spot can be found on entropedia.info.
Good luck and happy treasure hunting!
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Notice to the Pirates
I do not travel through space often, and when I do, I do not carry any cargo except a few novas and blazars since I figure MA is kind enough to give me such crappy loot that I would return the favor to those of you who like making others miserable by robbing them in space. I mean, seriously, to blow me up a second time RIGHT after I already been looted, what did you think, that I somehow flew into an ATH on the way to a revive terminal? I don't appreciate the decay on my quad wing.
So... Consider this my only warning... Keep wasting your ammo on me, and I hope you enjoy the novas and blazars that I gratefully reward you with for your trouble... At least you are keeping MA solvent wiht your wasted ammo :-)
Space controls are so crappy I don't know how anyone can actually do anything at all in a space craft... Takes me 10 minutes just to get straightened out on the course I want. With that said,,, I am NOT stupid enough to subsidize the pirates by carrying cargo... I am the Goldbaron, NOT the Red Baron!
So... Consider this my only warning... Keep wasting your ammo on me, and I hope you enjoy the novas and blazars that I gratefully reward you with for your trouble... At least you are keeping MA solvent wiht your wasted ammo :-)
Space controls are so crappy I don't know how anyone can actually do anything at all in a space craft... Takes me 10 minutes just to get straightened out on the course I want. With that said,,, I am NOT stupid enough to subsidize the pirates by carrying cargo... I am the Goldbaron, NOT the Red Baron!
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Second Oil Rig on Calypso?
I just read the update notes, and it appears a new oil rig has came into existence. I will comment more on this once I have investigated it personally, and will provide you with more pertinent details regarding it in my future posts.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Arkadia Gold Rush!
I am thinking about heading to Arkadia for their gold rush that is supposed to go live with the next update. There are Arkoins that will be able to be found worth 1 pec each. There will be some alienware PC's that can be found, and some very rare golden keys and their blueprints that will start to drop, and it is advertised you can either use the keys to go treasure hunting or turn them in for 10K peds worth of Arkoins.
So...
Maybe, maybe this is the day that we as treasure hunters have waited for. I very much am anxious to see what turns out to happen on Arkadia during this event. Have they actually succeeded in an idea that will make it worthwhile for us to go there and give treasure hunting a try? I should hope so and it certainly appears to be true.
So...
Maybe, maybe this is the day that we as treasure hunters have waited for. I very much am anxious to see what turns out to happen on Arkadia during this event. Have they actually succeeded in an idea that will make it worthwhile for us to go there and give treasure hunting a try? I should hope so and it certainly appears to be true.
Economies of Scale and How It May Affect Your Results
I wanted to give all of you a new way of looking at your pedrolls...
In a casino, slot machines with higher denominations have a higher payout %. The reason is, even if you keep 10% of a penny it takes a lot of pennies for the casino to make anything. 10% of nothing is still nothing. However... When you have quarters or dollars, the casino can still make lots of money by taking a smaller percentage. The greater the amounts cycled the better returns they can afford to pay.
However, entropia is not a casino... BUT...
The official loss rate is claimed to be around 10 peds per hour of gameplay... Considering a 100 ped deposit might last me 10 hours if I am actively playing the whole time, sometimes a great deal longer or a great deal less, let's just suppose that this is the viable amount. And since no one is guaranteed a global or a hof, and near as I can tell they are randomly distributed and based on your ped turnover in some complicated algorithm... I mean, a person turning a small amount of peds tends to hit smaller hofs and globals than someone turning larger numbers of peds... I would say whatever and however MA decides what % is theirs, the returns are probably all figured out without taking into account hofs and globals.
The premise we are working with is, any time you complain about loot MA replies and says that returns are a %.... A % of what they won't tell you... A % of deposits? Then why do non depositors do pretty good? So it can't be that. A % of ped turnover would be more logical... But lets not hang up on this issue. Regardless we know MA is not in the business to run a loss and they have to make their money somehow, this necessitates it being a negative expectation game, but in how it takes and distributes is from our end, random redistribution of wealth, which I believe strongly is highly based on skill sets and play style. It is possible for someone to know what they are doing to make long term profits over the long run. A person that doesn't know what they are doing will have a lower return.
In any case, whether or not you agree with what I've said so far... If you have 50,000 peds on your ped card, and you are doing 10 ped clicks at the crafting terminal, you can handle the extreme ups and downs without much worry. You will have a greater average return than someone putting in 100 peds at a time playing 50 pec per click crafts. I am of course talking TT values. If you can break even or profit in TT values then you most certainly will profit becuase of markup.
I know one person that ATH's as regularly as you and I global or hof. He has an INSANE ped turnover. Sure, losses are heavy for him some days, but other days his ped card goes up and up. For now I will keep his identity confidential, but he has requested my help in writing a guide which should be made available to everyone soon.
Let us suppose for a moment though that MA really does only average a 10 ped per hour take. For me, playing with a couple hundred peds at a time, it is an extreme % cost. But for someone with 10K peds or up, it is almost nothing.. The problem is the higher the cost of what you are doing the more volatile it can be and the more severe the ups and downs and if you don't have enough peds to survive the down swing, you will have to wait til another session before you might hit something that will rebalance you out.
Officially the system does not remember what you have done previously in terms of having looted big or no loot at all... But... Despite this, there does seem to be a mechanism in place that makes sure when you do hit a big one that it is big enough to recover most of your losses.
The whole point of this post though is not to get into the algorithms of loot, but to point out the more peds you deposit and the bigger you play, the better your returns will be. With a small pedroll it is very easy to be wiped out without even seen a global or a mini.
In a casino, slot machines with higher denominations have a higher payout %. The reason is, even if you keep 10% of a penny it takes a lot of pennies for the casino to make anything. 10% of nothing is still nothing. However... When you have quarters or dollars, the casino can still make lots of money by taking a smaller percentage. The greater the amounts cycled the better returns they can afford to pay.
However, entropia is not a casino... BUT...
The official loss rate is claimed to be around 10 peds per hour of gameplay... Considering a 100 ped deposit might last me 10 hours if I am actively playing the whole time, sometimes a great deal longer or a great deal less, let's just suppose that this is the viable amount. And since no one is guaranteed a global or a hof, and near as I can tell they are randomly distributed and based on your ped turnover in some complicated algorithm... I mean, a person turning a small amount of peds tends to hit smaller hofs and globals than someone turning larger numbers of peds... I would say whatever and however MA decides what % is theirs, the returns are probably all figured out without taking into account hofs and globals.
The premise we are working with is, any time you complain about loot MA replies and says that returns are a %.... A % of what they won't tell you... A % of deposits? Then why do non depositors do pretty good? So it can't be that. A % of ped turnover would be more logical... But lets not hang up on this issue. Regardless we know MA is not in the business to run a loss and they have to make their money somehow, this necessitates it being a negative expectation game, but in how it takes and distributes is from our end, random redistribution of wealth, which I believe strongly is highly based on skill sets and play style. It is possible for someone to know what they are doing to make long term profits over the long run. A person that doesn't know what they are doing will have a lower return.
In any case, whether or not you agree with what I've said so far... If you have 50,000 peds on your ped card, and you are doing 10 ped clicks at the crafting terminal, you can handle the extreme ups and downs without much worry. You will have a greater average return than someone putting in 100 peds at a time playing 50 pec per click crafts. I am of course talking TT values. If you can break even or profit in TT values then you most certainly will profit becuase of markup.
I know one person that ATH's as regularly as you and I global or hof. He has an INSANE ped turnover. Sure, losses are heavy for him some days, but other days his ped card goes up and up. For now I will keep his identity confidential, but he has requested my help in writing a guide which should be made available to everyone soon.
Let us suppose for a moment though that MA really does only average a 10 ped per hour take. For me, playing with a couple hundred peds at a time, it is an extreme % cost. But for someone with 10K peds or up, it is almost nothing.. The problem is the higher the cost of what you are doing the more volatile it can be and the more severe the ups and downs and if you don't have enough peds to survive the down swing, you will have to wait til another session before you might hit something that will rebalance you out.
Officially the system does not remember what you have done previously in terms of having looted big or no loot at all... But... Despite this, there does seem to be a mechanism in place that makes sure when you do hit a big one that it is big enough to recover most of your losses.
The whole point of this post though is not to get into the algorithms of loot, but to point out the more peds you deposit and the bigger you play, the better your returns will be. With a small pedroll it is very easy to be wiped out without even seen a global or a mini.
Friday, August 10, 2012
Extractors! Updated Findings!
Well... I've used the TT extractor for a long time, and sure, I saved a fortune in repairs, but I quit hitting claims over V with just the occasional VIII. We are talking two or three months of mining without anything huge using the TT extractor. Of course Decay and spent peds fuels the loot pool. Once I started using my Extractor 104, Immediately I started hitting IX's and bigger again.
So... If you want to minimize your costs, there seems to be a direct correlation that ends up minimizing your loots as well. The whole theme seems to be the more you are spending the more loot you are likely to hit.
So in mining, I recommend using the highest level extractor you can use and afford to use. If you havn't upgraded past your low level extractors and havn't hit big claims much... Give it a try on a bigger extractor and see what happens. I think you will find it will help a lot!
So... If you want to minimize your costs, there seems to be a direct correlation that ends up minimizing your loots as well. The whole theme seems to be the more you are spending the more loot you are likely to hit.
So in mining, I recommend using the highest level extractor you can use and afford to use. If you havn't upgraded past your low level extractors and havn't hit big claims much... Give it a try on a bigger extractor and see what happens. I think you will find it will help a lot!
Monday, August 6, 2012
CRAFTING: A look at risk vs rewards
I had obtained several HMAP and Fire of Hel bp's, and had about 500 peds to work with, so I decided ok... Time to do what I never have done much... Take a big ticket item (Compared to BSM and Settler Shins, which by the way still hold my personal number 1 hof in crafting, is an uber expensive couple of prints to click... And I did them on full condition. I had a rather remarkable run of luck, was actually somewhat global spamming. No hofs though.
The only logical conclusions that can be drawn:
1. The more expensive the TT clicks are, the more likely a hof or global will happen, and the more often they will happen.
2. If you are going to do full condition, you want to be able to do a significant number of clicks. If you risk everything on just a few, you may hit it big but most likely will go broke. I did a full condition 1600 click run on BSM, it took me 400 clicks before ANYTHING, EVEN RESIDUE on partial successes dropped. Literally 400 dry clicks. Then, I started globalling every few hundred clicks. Had I only did a 400 click run, on full condition, I would have been broke.
3. Yes, it takes nerves of iron on a crap run, but if the run is long enough it will balance out somehow. Unfortunately it might be days or weeks later if you can't run a big enough run :(
4. If you want less volatility and a safer return percentage, keep the slider in the green. As long as it is green, I've always done ok. If I do full condition, its either a really good run or a VERY bad run. So this is why you need a very big run for it to balance out.
5. I think a lot of people start getting disgusted on expensive clicks with little coming out and quit before the big one hits, but, theoretically, you might quit after 500 clicks, but the 5000th click might be the ATH. You just don't know. So, I firmly believe that every click you do, every bomb you drop, every mob you shoot, brings you closer to hitting something big. For one thing, it is statistically impossible to go forever and not hof, and not global if you are turning the peds over.
6. The only way to get big hofs, is to turn over a LOT of ped. And a LOT of clicks. Even on quantity, if you turn over enough ped and clicks, a big one will happen.
I know it is hard to not get discouraged... My best advice if you are ONLY seeking uber hofs and don't care about the item being made, your best returns seem to be doing those prints which A. are done the most, and B. have the lowest Markup on materials. The system is designed to figure everything in TT values, and any markup is simply a user to user transaction, and well... Any markup on any loot is what has come out of someone elses pocket, or yours for that matter.
A lot of this is common sense at least to me... But if any of this information is helpful to anyone in any way, I am glad to have shared it.
The only logical conclusions that can be drawn:
1. The more expensive the TT clicks are, the more likely a hof or global will happen, and the more often they will happen.
2. If you are going to do full condition, you want to be able to do a significant number of clicks. If you risk everything on just a few, you may hit it big but most likely will go broke. I did a full condition 1600 click run on BSM, it took me 400 clicks before ANYTHING, EVEN RESIDUE on partial successes dropped. Literally 400 dry clicks. Then, I started globalling every few hundred clicks. Had I only did a 400 click run, on full condition, I would have been broke.
3. Yes, it takes nerves of iron on a crap run, but if the run is long enough it will balance out somehow. Unfortunately it might be days or weeks later if you can't run a big enough run :(
4. If you want less volatility and a safer return percentage, keep the slider in the green. As long as it is green, I've always done ok. If I do full condition, its either a really good run or a VERY bad run. So this is why you need a very big run for it to balance out.
5. I think a lot of people start getting disgusted on expensive clicks with little coming out and quit before the big one hits, but, theoretically, you might quit after 500 clicks, but the 5000th click might be the ATH. You just don't know. So, I firmly believe that every click you do, every bomb you drop, every mob you shoot, brings you closer to hitting something big. For one thing, it is statistically impossible to go forever and not hof, and not global if you are turning the peds over.
6. The only way to get big hofs, is to turn over a LOT of ped. And a LOT of clicks. Even on quantity, if you turn over enough ped and clicks, a big one will happen.
I know it is hard to not get discouraged... My best advice if you are ONLY seeking uber hofs and don't care about the item being made, your best returns seem to be doing those prints which A. are done the most, and B. have the lowest Markup on materials. The system is designed to figure everything in TT values, and any markup is simply a user to user transaction, and well... Any markup on any loot is what has come out of someone elses pocket, or yours for that matter.
A lot of this is common sense at least to me... But if any of this information is helpful to anyone in any way, I am glad to have shared it.
One region versus Moving All Over
Something for you to think about... In my own experience, and everyone may have some different results too... But just in my own play style I can tell you that focusing on one area and doing 90% of my hunting mining and crafting has done better return wise over the long run than moving from TP to TP to TP and hoping I am in the right place at the right time.
See, it's like this. If I spend all of my time on Treasure Island, then it is safe to say that all of my hofs, globals, and ATH's will be on Treasure Island. If I move around a lot, I won't know where to focus on, and I will waste my resources trying to figure it out.
So, I may have covered this, but when I got my four digit hof of 1322 cobalt... I spent one month solid on Treasure Island. Did ALL of my crafting, hunting, and mining on TI. All of my ped turnover was on TI. What I noticed was, over time, my average loot increased a little, average global sizes increased, frequency increased, not just mining, but crafting too. I hit the hof, and kept doing alright. As soon as I started moving around and TP jumping frequently, returns went BAD. Now, I am starting to focus on one area again, and on the average, it is working better for me.
So,,, If you can't get good returns... I suggest you pick one area, focus on it for maybe a week or two, and just see if something big doesn't happen for you too :-)
Afterall.. You probably won't lose any more than you already have lost!
But if you pick an area, Please note what resources are there, and use a finder appropriate to finding that stuff for best results!
See, it's like this. If I spend all of my time on Treasure Island, then it is safe to say that all of my hofs, globals, and ATH's will be on Treasure Island. If I move around a lot, I won't know where to focus on, and I will waste my resources trying to figure it out.
So, I may have covered this, but when I got my four digit hof of 1322 cobalt... I spent one month solid on Treasure Island. Did ALL of my crafting, hunting, and mining on TI. All of my ped turnover was on TI. What I noticed was, over time, my average loot increased a little, average global sizes increased, frequency increased, not just mining, but crafting too. I hit the hof, and kept doing alright. As soon as I started moving around and TP jumping frequently, returns went BAD. Now, I am starting to focus on one area again, and on the average, it is working better for me.
So,,, If you can't get good returns... I suggest you pick one area, focus on it for maybe a week or two, and just see if something big doesn't happen for you too :-)
Afterall.. You probably won't lose any more than you already have lost!
But if you pick an area, Please note what resources are there, and use a finder appropriate to finding that stuff for best results!
Attributes and Returns... Conclusion
After studying numerous loot versus deposit statistics that I and friends have gathered... It is the opinion of this Blogger and Entropian that Attributes are the main determining factor in your ability to loot well. Skills obviously impact your abilities to do things efficiently, since you can't economically hunt second entities if your skills don't even allow you to max out an Opalo. However, looking back even to my own instance of starting out from scratch... It took me about a year to get my first global I think. The second was 6 months after that, then another 3 months later... But the key thing here is... The higher my intelligence, and other attributes got, the more regularly I have globals and runs that break even or profit.
All the people I know that regularly uber hof or ATH, have attributes well above the 60's... I've deposited a modest amount over the years, and my attributes aren't as high as I would like to see them, but I know the more you spend and the faster you spend it, the faster your attributes go up. Chipping in and out doesn't affect any of them, EXCEPT your health.
So, with this in mind... You will all hit big hofs. It is only a matter of playing LONG enough for them to roll your way... I have only had one four digit hof in my 5 years on Entropia. I knew EVENTUALLY it had to come, and it was a TOTAL surprise when it did. I cannot for the life of me imagine hitting a 5 digit or even a 6 digit, and should something like that happen I may need an ambulance!
But, I think the whole time that it takes for you to start looting big and looting well, is simply the time it takes for you to hit certain amounts of attributes. Skills don't seem to directly influence your loot as much as attributes. And I've looked over the numbers of dozens of avatars and the information they were willing to let me review.
Of course, I can't prove this, and MA can say anything they want, but I feel very strongly that attributes are the key to doing well. The second part of it is of course to ONLY use items you are maxed on. And if you want to go right into using big guns, the skills are pretty much TT food right now for weapons, so get the skills to be able to max them out... I am pretty sure that the skills will pay for themselves with your abilities to use your powerful weapons with maxed ratings.
I've spent the past several months examining trends and relationships between attributes and loots, and have discovered there are certain ratios that tend to manifest themselves... And if I can make the data more organized and presentable, I will probably gladly make it public via my blog, but for now... Just keep it in your mind and think about it. I may not be 100% right, but I know for a fact I am not 100% wrong either!!!
EU is dynamic. If one thing is changed, any number of other outcomes are changed. Together, all the people playing and doing the things they do, makes up the algorithms that govern how loot is distributed. If everyone were to go back say 10 minutes in time, and do something completely different than they did 10 minutes ago, I am pretty you would not see ANYTHING happen the same the second time through. It is a complex universe that we play in.
I really don't believe all theories are completely wrong, rather that some are more true than others at one time or another. MA probably modifies things from time to time so that when a theory is right on the money, it will end up appearing false so people will form new theories... So my own theory is, perhaps MA changes how things work from time to time just so no one cracks the system.
I think I have rambled enough for now, but I look forward to bringing you all some new and exciting posts to read! Thanks so much for making this blog a success... We've just passed 25,000 views!!!
All the people I know that regularly uber hof or ATH, have attributes well above the 60's... I've deposited a modest amount over the years, and my attributes aren't as high as I would like to see them, but I know the more you spend and the faster you spend it, the faster your attributes go up. Chipping in and out doesn't affect any of them, EXCEPT your health.
So, with this in mind... You will all hit big hofs. It is only a matter of playing LONG enough for them to roll your way... I have only had one four digit hof in my 5 years on Entropia. I knew EVENTUALLY it had to come, and it was a TOTAL surprise when it did. I cannot for the life of me imagine hitting a 5 digit or even a 6 digit, and should something like that happen I may need an ambulance!
But, I think the whole time that it takes for you to start looting big and looting well, is simply the time it takes for you to hit certain amounts of attributes. Skills don't seem to directly influence your loot as much as attributes. And I've looked over the numbers of dozens of avatars and the information they were willing to let me review.
Of course, I can't prove this, and MA can say anything they want, but I feel very strongly that attributes are the key to doing well. The second part of it is of course to ONLY use items you are maxed on. And if you want to go right into using big guns, the skills are pretty much TT food right now for weapons, so get the skills to be able to max them out... I am pretty sure that the skills will pay for themselves with your abilities to use your powerful weapons with maxed ratings.
I've spent the past several months examining trends and relationships between attributes and loots, and have discovered there are certain ratios that tend to manifest themselves... And if I can make the data more organized and presentable, I will probably gladly make it public via my blog, but for now... Just keep it in your mind and think about it. I may not be 100% right, but I know for a fact I am not 100% wrong either!!!
EU is dynamic. If one thing is changed, any number of other outcomes are changed. Together, all the people playing and doing the things they do, makes up the algorithms that govern how loot is distributed. If everyone were to go back say 10 minutes in time, and do something completely different than they did 10 minutes ago, I am pretty you would not see ANYTHING happen the same the second time through. It is a complex universe that we play in.
I really don't believe all theories are completely wrong, rather that some are more true than others at one time or another. MA probably modifies things from time to time so that when a theory is right on the money, it will end up appearing false so people will form new theories... So my own theory is, perhaps MA changes how things work from time to time just so no one cracks the system.
I think I have rambled enough for now, but I look forward to bringing you all some new and exciting posts to read! Thanks so much for making this blog a success... We've just passed 25,000 views!!!
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
It has been a while, Lots of stuff to start posting!
Google has changed Bloggers interface, and has made it "bloatware" which pretty much means I can't do anything with it on my dial-up connection. So, I am going to persist and keep trying to post new stuff since I know there are a lot of people that rely on this blog, and many thanks to all for the kind words and compliments over the past few months.
Stay tuned over the next few days for many new posts... I've had a lot of time to think about many things and test some theories, and I am happy to bring you the results shortly!
Stay tuned over the next few days for many new posts... I've had a lot of time to think about many things and test some theories, and I am happy to bring you the results shortly!
Monday, April 30, 2012
What Bigfoot, Gold, and HOF's all have in Common!
The Bigfoot scoffers and skeptics always ask well... How is it possible such a large animal can hide with 6 billion people roaming the earth, and with all the modern technology... Airplanes, Helicopters, Satellites... Well, it is the same reason why it is very hard to find the rich gold veins that the old timers missed. And it might even be the same reason why it takes us so long to hit a hof or a global.
You see... Consider the world in which we live. Most of it is inhospitable to humans. A large portion of that which man does travel, is only infrequently traveled and sparsely inhabited. Much of this portion of the world is covered by timber, brush and other natural formations. There will always be rich mineral deposits left to be found simply because if there is a billion dollars in gold sitting 15 feet below where you stand, you would not know it, and it would take a lot of money to simply drill a hole to see whats there. In many cases, there is no outward sign that anything valuable is present, except where a prospector has a hunch and takes a chance.
The sheer size of our world, and the amount of crap that keeps us from seeing what is there is why so much of it is left hidden and undiscovered. It is why mysteries abound in a technologically advanced civilization.
So... When you consider that the Hof and ATH is about as hard to find as a Bigfoot or a world class gold deposit, look at the sheer size of Entropia. Being in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing while in that right place, all come together to give you your results. Hoffing is not simply a matter of buying it. I've tried to buy hofs, I can't even buy a global. It doesn't work that way. If you keep doing what you are doing, eventually you will hit the right RNG sequence and it will crap out a golden egg. That's all. But if you know what you should be doing and where you should be doing it, your losses will be reduced and your chances increased.
Consider there are thousands of areas you could try mining or hunting in EU. Many dozens of mobs to choose from. Once you do decide on what and where to hunt, you then have the decide as you go decision of which mobs in this group do I shoot. I hear plenty of reports from hunters who were done, but before they could leave the area they were attacked, defended themselves and globalled or hoffed.
The point I am trying to convey is a bit complicated and some of you might not understand what I'm saying... But I cannot simplify it any more than I have. It is simply a large game, and things that are rare are easily well hidden for those who know where to look.
You see... Consider the world in which we live. Most of it is inhospitable to humans. A large portion of that which man does travel, is only infrequently traveled and sparsely inhabited. Much of this portion of the world is covered by timber, brush and other natural formations. There will always be rich mineral deposits left to be found simply because if there is a billion dollars in gold sitting 15 feet below where you stand, you would not know it, and it would take a lot of money to simply drill a hole to see whats there. In many cases, there is no outward sign that anything valuable is present, except where a prospector has a hunch and takes a chance.
The sheer size of our world, and the amount of crap that keeps us from seeing what is there is why so much of it is left hidden and undiscovered. It is why mysteries abound in a technologically advanced civilization.
So... When you consider that the Hof and ATH is about as hard to find as a Bigfoot or a world class gold deposit, look at the sheer size of Entropia. Being in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing while in that right place, all come together to give you your results. Hoffing is not simply a matter of buying it. I've tried to buy hofs, I can't even buy a global. It doesn't work that way. If you keep doing what you are doing, eventually you will hit the right RNG sequence and it will crap out a golden egg. That's all. But if you know what you should be doing and where you should be doing it, your losses will be reduced and your chances increased.
Consider there are thousands of areas you could try mining or hunting in EU. Many dozens of mobs to choose from. Once you do decide on what and where to hunt, you then have the decide as you go decision of which mobs in this group do I shoot. I hear plenty of reports from hunters who were done, but before they could leave the area they were attacked, defended themselves and globalled or hoffed.
The point I am trying to convey is a bit complicated and some of you might not understand what I'm saying... But I cannot simplify it any more than I have. It is simply a large game, and things that are rare are easily well hidden for those who know where to look.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
MINERS HEAVEN Land Area RUINED for mining!
Well... There is a Land Area that I always forget the number but numbers aren't important. We all know it as Miners Heaven, and it is north of Z's little farm. This has been a favorite globalling ground of mine for half a year. No longer is this the case.
I thought I'd go and try a run there, and wow, I tp jumped and landed on Armax Bulls. Then I read the message window for entering the land area, and it says something along of the lines "Low agro mob coming soon." Maybe for some of you they don't agro. For me they do. Not only that, I could not find a spot in the whole LA where there was one blast radius clear of mobs that I could safely mine. If I have to defensively mine, it lowers my overall return because my hunting loot is always much worse than my mining loot. And right now even that is about 10% of total spend if I am lucky. Mining is just a bad activity for whatever reason right now. Not saying some of you won't get lucky. If most people are running with amps now, I would suspect that most of the loot pool has shifted to paying off those amped miners.
It is with great sorrow that I make this announcement. I would like to petition the land owner to at least consider thinning out the mob density. I am now forced to mine in other more friendly land areas. Even the land area south west of Akmuul TP is more miner friendly, because there is a large gap usually between the trox and I can mine safely there most of the time.
Perhaps they will see that their hunting taxes have not offset the losses in mining revenue and make the necessary adjustments.
I thought I'd go and try a run there, and wow, I tp jumped and landed on Armax Bulls. Then I read the message window for entering the land area, and it says something along of the lines "Low agro mob coming soon." Maybe for some of you they don't agro. For me they do. Not only that, I could not find a spot in the whole LA where there was one blast radius clear of mobs that I could safely mine. If I have to defensively mine, it lowers my overall return because my hunting loot is always much worse than my mining loot. And right now even that is about 10% of total spend if I am lucky. Mining is just a bad activity for whatever reason right now. Not saying some of you won't get lucky. If most people are running with amps now, I would suspect that most of the loot pool has shifted to paying off those amped miners.
It is with great sorrow that I make this announcement. I would like to petition the land owner to at least consider thinning out the mob density. I am now forced to mine in other more friendly land areas. Even the land area south west of Akmuul TP is more miner friendly, because there is a large gap usually between the trox and I can mine safely there most of the time.
Perhaps they will see that their hunting taxes have not offset the losses in mining revenue and make the necessary adjustments.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
ALERT! NEW AH SCAM WARNING
This may not be a NEW scam, BUT it is increasing in noticeability and I know someone who bought an L gun for a three digit sum that was BROKEN. It would seem unscrupulous sellers are listing their broken L items and getting market value on them and or maybe more than that from people think they are UL items.
Before buying something with very low condition that is L, ALWAYS look at the info. If it says minimum condition is 3%, then multiply the total max condition by .03. So 120 ped item would have a min condition of 3.60 peds. If the item has a value around the minimum, MAKE SURE that it is unlimited and repairable, and if it is L, do not buy it! You will end up with a very expensive display trophy for your apartment if you have one!
I only post this warning because we are broke enough with MA's crappy loot right now, we don't need bad sellers ripping us off to boot. IF everyone stops falling for this trick, then they will get tired of spending the auction fees to list broken items and we will effectively have this shut down and under control. It is doubtless MA will do anything about it, since they only seem to send a general response that says please read forums or articles or guides and learn how to improve your playing experience. I call BS. They seem perfectly happy to offer safe harbor to exploiters and scammers as long as it doesn't come out of THEIR pocket. Oh, don't get me wrong as soon as someone does something that hits MA's pocket book, I guarantee they will put a stop to it like the time deposits were messed up and people were depositing but the processor wasn't debiting their cards. They went through and traced every counterfeit ped, reversed trades and purchases, etc.
If you have been taken advantage of in this manner, PLEASE fill out a ticket and complain to MA. If enough of us make it clear we are tired of this crap, maybe they will do something. Broken L items should NOT be sellable... At least until such time as broken items become useable in blueprints.. It would be nice if you could put a broken gun into your refiner and have it break down into crafting materials. Then it wouldn't be SO bad... But they would have to change the name from CB19 to BROKEN CB19... SOMETHING would have to be put in the name or description alerting us it is broken and not useable.
This is the Goldbaron signing off... And in the mean time... Caveat Emptor!
Before buying something with very low condition that is L, ALWAYS look at the info. If it says minimum condition is 3%, then multiply the total max condition by .03. So 120 ped item would have a min condition of 3.60 peds. If the item has a value around the minimum, MAKE SURE that it is unlimited and repairable, and if it is L, do not buy it! You will end up with a very expensive display trophy for your apartment if you have one!
I only post this warning because we are broke enough with MA's crappy loot right now, we don't need bad sellers ripping us off to boot. IF everyone stops falling for this trick, then they will get tired of spending the auction fees to list broken items and we will effectively have this shut down and under control. It is doubtless MA will do anything about it, since they only seem to send a general response that says please read forums or articles or guides and learn how to improve your playing experience. I call BS. They seem perfectly happy to offer safe harbor to exploiters and scammers as long as it doesn't come out of THEIR pocket. Oh, don't get me wrong as soon as someone does something that hits MA's pocket book, I guarantee they will put a stop to it like the time deposits were messed up and people were depositing but the processor wasn't debiting their cards. They went through and traced every counterfeit ped, reversed trades and purchases, etc.
If you have been taken advantage of in this manner, PLEASE fill out a ticket and complain to MA. If enough of us make it clear we are tired of this crap, maybe they will do something. Broken L items should NOT be sellable... At least until such time as broken items become useable in blueprints.. It would be nice if you could put a broken gun into your refiner and have it break down into crafting materials. Then it wouldn't be SO bad... But they would have to change the name from CB19 to BROKEN CB19... SOMETHING would have to be put in the name or description alerting us it is broken and not useable.
This is the Goldbaron signing off... And in the mean time... Caveat Emptor!
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
LOOT: Does it REALLY not matter where you are playing??
It has been said that MA has balanced all loots accross the universe so that it *doesnt* matter where you are at you still will get whatever loot you have coming to you. I very much would like to state my opinion here, in that everything I've done indicates the truth is to the contrary.
I moved to Rocktropia, spent several months there. Loot was decent. I could play a few days on a hundred peds. I decided to move back to Calypso for a while. I hit only one global and by the end of that mining run of 100 peds, I was still down 40 after markup on the whole return. Most mining, hunting, and crafting resulted in 10% to 20% returns the entire month I was back on Calypso.
I am getting 50% to 80% returns on my Rocktropia runs. I also loot better quality stuff, higher markup, etc. I still have not had but a few globals on RT so far, but I have hopes a hof is coming soon. It does no good to have everything you could possibly need to buy available if everything you do with it results in a 90% loss. So I would rather import everything I need through traders and have a chance at playing a while than stick around such a cold, tightened down loot pool as Calypso.
You can make your own decision though. Are you getting similar loots on every planet you've been to? Or are some more favorable to you than others? I suspect there are far more variables than we will ever know about, but at least I can work towards some loftier goals being on Rocktropia.
The bottom line is... If loot is bad doing what you are doing, if it is bad where you are at... You need to change something. You may need to change mobs, maybe crafting terminals. I do know of one terminal in particular that I get as close to a 0% return as I've ever had, and many people avoid it because it that bad for them to. But it is a machine that has paid off ATH's, and we suspect that is the reason it is broken. I am convinced that every location has it's own loot cycles independent of other locations. Where one area may be paying, another few areas could be taking, and being in the right place at the right time seems to be paramount in importance.
I moved to Rocktropia, spent several months there. Loot was decent. I could play a few days on a hundred peds. I decided to move back to Calypso for a while. I hit only one global and by the end of that mining run of 100 peds, I was still down 40 after markup on the whole return. Most mining, hunting, and crafting resulted in 10% to 20% returns the entire month I was back on Calypso.
I am getting 50% to 80% returns on my Rocktropia runs. I also loot better quality stuff, higher markup, etc. I still have not had but a few globals on RT so far, but I have hopes a hof is coming soon. It does no good to have everything you could possibly need to buy available if everything you do with it results in a 90% loss. So I would rather import everything I need through traders and have a chance at playing a while than stick around such a cold, tightened down loot pool as Calypso.
You can make your own decision though. Are you getting similar loots on every planet you've been to? Or are some more favorable to you than others? I suspect there are far more variables than we will ever know about, but at least I can work towards some loftier goals being on Rocktropia.
The bottom line is... If loot is bad doing what you are doing, if it is bad where you are at... You need to change something. You may need to change mobs, maybe crafting terminals. I do know of one terminal in particular that I get as close to a 0% return as I've ever had, and many people avoid it because it that bad for them to. But it is a machine that has paid off ATH's, and we suspect that is the reason it is broken. I am convinced that every location has it's own loot cycles independent of other locations. Where one area may be paying, another few areas could be taking, and being in the right place at the right time seems to be paramount in importance.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
A Little Bit of Entropia Humor
I've had a lot of idle time to think about some funny things with Entropia... So... Here we go :-) I would post about more serious matters but I figured it wouldn't hurt to lighten things up before I do. Bad enough as funny as these things are, they are serious!
You know you are addicted to Entropia when you go to Starbucks and walk out empty handed because you think the markup on their coffee is too high and not worth 75 peds for a drink that will be gone in 15 minutes.
You know you are addicted to Entropia when you start figuring that your job paying minimum wage isn't so bad, simply because working even a miserable job is less work than sweating and pays better!
Have you ever complained about putting a few peds of oil in your sleipnir, yet are accustomed to putting hundreds of peds in gasoline in your car in real life?
Question: How do you treasure hunt in Entropia?
Answer: Convince the devs to finally finish it so we can!
I seriously had a lot more jokes I wanted to post but eh, I can't remember them. It's been a long and stressful month or so. And what makes it even longer is a couple weeks what little playing I did get to do on Entropia, I couldn't break much out of the 10% to 30% returns even with markup... My only guess as to the bad loots is, those ATH's must have been cashed out finally and now the servers are doing their balancing act. Hopefully after I download the new VU loot will be better. I mean seriously... I would rather have no loot than poor loot.
I am currently figuring out what my next posts are going to be, but I will roll them out here in a day or so, so stay tuned! And many thanks to my devoted readers, and my apologies for a long dryspell without posts.
You know you are addicted to Entropia when you go to Starbucks and walk out empty handed because you think the markup on their coffee is too high and not worth 75 peds for a drink that will be gone in 15 minutes.
You know you are addicted to Entropia when you start figuring that your job paying minimum wage isn't so bad, simply because working even a miserable job is less work than sweating and pays better!
Have you ever complained about putting a few peds of oil in your sleipnir, yet are accustomed to putting hundreds of peds in gasoline in your car in real life?
Question: How do you treasure hunt in Entropia?
Answer: Convince the devs to finally finish it so we can!
I seriously had a lot more jokes I wanted to post but eh, I can't remember them. It's been a long and stressful month or so. And what makes it even longer is a couple weeks what little playing I did get to do on Entropia, I couldn't break much out of the 10% to 30% returns even with markup... My only guess as to the bad loots is, those ATH's must have been cashed out finally and now the servers are doing their balancing act. Hopefully after I download the new VU loot will be better. I mean seriously... I would rather have no loot than poor loot.
I am currently figuring out what my next posts are going to be, but I will roll them out here in a day or so, so stay tuned! And many thanks to my devoted readers, and my apologies for a long dryspell without posts.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
PRESS RELEASE: Next Island Mutant Boar!!!
I am pleased to publish the first press release ever on my blog...
Location: Morion Outpost
Origin: First Wave geneticist Dr. Paul Kylon predicted -- quite accurately, as it turns out -- that robots like 1314-Mary and 2922-Fyodor would not be best suited to the tropical climate on Nesoi Makaron, and he proposed modified hyper intelligent papoo as assistants to the Elysian colonists. To this end, he and his assistant Bess Mackenzie genetically altered some of the papoo to create tamer, more intelligent, talking papoo. Sebastian, at the Papoo Village, is one example.
Pleased with their success, Kylon and Mackenzie next altered the local village boar, hoping to create a domesticated herd for easier hunting. Unfortunately, the DNA of these boar was just different enough from Earth's animals to create an unintended result. Instead of a docile, domesticated boar, they created a more aggressive version.
Monday, February 27, 2012
ATTENTION: Planet Partners with Press Releases
Due to a recent comment on a blog post from Next Island, I figured the easiest way to reply for now to their inquiry was just to post this information here for anyone who consequently wishes to share their press releases with me to find.
This blog has been highly successful and my readers very supportive and in light of that I will certainly continue to bring you the best and freshest information I can. I have the best group of readers a writer could ask for. A lot has been going on at home so I have been somewhat absent from EU and my blog. I do plan to make up for this in the next week or two!
In the mean time... Any planet partner and even MindArk and it's subsidiaries are free to submit their press releases to me for publication in this blog. I feel greatly honored that I would be asked... And yes, I am a form of "Press", but it didn't really hit me until today.
Any information you would like me to share with my readers, press releases, public announcements, etc, please direct the emails to goldbaron357 (at) gmail (dot) com. Just replace the parenthesis and words in them with the appropriate symbols since this will cut down on email harvesting and prevent too much additional spam!
Within 24 hours your information will be posted here on the blog!
This blog has been highly successful and my readers very supportive and in light of that I will certainly continue to bring you the best and freshest information I can. I have the best group of readers a writer could ask for. A lot has been going on at home so I have been somewhat absent from EU and my blog. I do plan to make up for this in the next week or two!
In the mean time... Any planet partner and even MindArk and it's subsidiaries are free to submit their press releases to me for publication in this blog. I feel greatly honored that I would be asked... And yes, I am a form of "Press", but it didn't really hit me until today.
Any information you would like me to share with my readers, press releases, public announcements, etc, please direct the emails to goldbaron357 (at) gmail (dot) com. Just replace the parenthesis and words in them with the appropriate symbols since this will cut down on email harvesting and prevent too much additional spam!
Within 24 hours your information will be posted here on the blog!
Friday, February 10, 2012
Tier Rates Discovery! I Just Found Something Out!
I couldn't wait to share this! I just realized that every item has a different tier rate. They seem to be randomly generated when crafted, made, or otherwise created in the game. I just did a run of finders, compared the rates between all of them. Some had tiers in the 100's, others had tiers clear down to 8 :P
I can't tell you what to do with this information, but what I can say is, if you want a certain gun or a certain finder with a certain tier, keep looking or crafting! It will probably be out there!
I can't tell you what to do with this information, but what I can say is, if you want a certain gun or a certain finder with a certain tier, keep looking or crafting! It will probably be out there!
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
ANNOUNCEMENT: 1st Book Published by This Author!!!
Normally... I hate to post anything not related to Entropia in this blog. Even though once in a while I have been I promise to keep it only to a very minimum amount. For me, this is quite big news... My start as an author, hopefully. I have lots of ideas I want to publish but it will take time and work. I am pondering say, writing a guide about Entropia for the things I have not revealed. For instance, I know where to go with the F105 and hit ONLY Niksarium every claim. The only thing that will happen if I were to give that to everyone would be the Niks market might get flooded and or MA will change the spawns so this is no longer true. Some things just aren't profitable for me to share.I know there is a lot of free information out there... My blog is one such resource. 99% of everything I know, I post... Well... Let me put it this way... When I post something, I do not hold back any info. There is no "This is the way it is" and at the same time thinking "But on the other hand..." I don't do that. If there is something I don't want to share, I won't even let anyone know I know it. You may find the link to my book on the right side tool bar, can't miss it... Unless I set it up wrong :P
But the above is just an example as to why there is always some information we must keep to ourselves. Once the golden goose is exposed for all to see... MA moves or changes the goose. No... It is not an exploit, let's be perfectly clear. I buy my bombs, and lose a crapload of them like everyone else does... But when you are needing Niksarium for crafting, why buy it when you can mine it whenever you want not worrying about hitting lysterium or belkar because the only thing on that spot is Niksarium. However... Out of fairness... I will give two hints. If you can figure it out, bully for you:
Hint 1: The area is guarded by Motorheads on Rocktropia.
Hint 2: It is not a very large region.
Hint 3: If you hit something besides Niks, it definitely isn't the same spot.
So... Having said all that... I need to get back to work on some things, and think about my plans for the next couple days, I still need to get Entropia updated, all I have been doing is writing and creating graphics for the past week...
But the above is just an example as to why there is always some information we must keep to ourselves. Once the golden goose is exposed for all to see... MA moves or changes the goose. No... It is not an exploit, let's be perfectly clear. I buy my bombs, and lose a crapload of them like everyone else does... But when you are needing Niksarium for crafting, why buy it when you can mine it whenever you want not worrying about hitting lysterium or belkar because the only thing on that spot is Niksarium. However... Out of fairness... I will give two hints. If you can figure it out, bully for you:
Hint 1: The area is guarded by Motorheads on Rocktropia.
Hint 2: It is not a very large region.
Hint 3: If you hit something besides Niks, it definitely isn't the same spot.
So... Having said all that... I need to get back to work on some things, and think about my plans for the next couple days, I still need to get Entropia updated, all I have been doing is writing and creating graphics for the past week...
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Treasure Hunting Arkadia: Will It Ever Be Released?
I am GREATLY frustrated. The KEY element ensuring the success and driving the anticipation behind Arkadia was TREASURE HUNTING. I remember last year the release date was expected to be August. Obviously that didn't happen. But guess what?! I just read on the forums that the new expected date of arrival is JUNE OF THIS YEAR! Well... Multiply it by a few more years and it MIGHT be out by then.
You can't advertise something that isn't true. Arkadia is NOT a treasure hunting MMO. It WILL be if they ever get off their a$$e$ and make it happen. If they are having trouble figuring out what items to make as treasure, and what can be done with them, well, just listen to everyone's suggestions!
I think it would be great, especially with gold at $1,750 an ounce, to slip a few 1 gram, or 1/10th ounce bars of gold into the loot pool to be found while treasure hunting, and ship them out. This would be a great way to kickstart the treasure hunting. And the cost of a one ounce bar of silver to slip in the loot pool would only be about $35 right now... So you give a few hundred peds in real treasure to your prospectors... Do you know how popular this would make Arkadia? Virtual treasure is fine, but it seems to me, if you have a real cash economy, you might as well throw in some real treasures as well.. I mean, they throw in laptops to the mining pool... SERIOUSLY!
There are so many great things that can be done... IF THEY DON'T SCREW IT UP. Please voice your ideas to their development team... If you like any of mine, the more of you passing them on the more likely they will listen to popular demand. The old adage in business is, the customer is always right. Customer choices and habits, also desires dictate what directions companies will take their products. Otherwise, if you run your company the same way a government operates, you might put snorkels on airplanes!!! It is ridiculous and an inefficient waste of resources. But that's what happens when companies don't listen to their customers.
I am sorry to ramble. I see a lot of hits coming in from people wanting to know about Arkadia and the treasure hunting. It is very irritating to me that it is not here. I went to Arkadia because I thought that next vu it would be out and I wanted to be there the first day and see what could be found. But it never happened. And I lost too many peds waiting to see. I also had a bad experience with eBay and a customer, you may check my eBay blog to read about that if you are curious.
But... Now that I have vented... Let's get back to business as usual, shall we?
Also, I want to thank all of you for making this blog a big success. The traffic I generate on a daily basis here is mind blowing for me. Never in a hundred years did I expect to start a blog or site that would bring in upwards of 200 hits on a good day most of them unique. If you have a website you would like to advertise, I am willing to negotiate terms to give you your own placement for your ad on this blog for a month, or a year at a time. It will cost, but where else do you have such a niche of targeted traffic? Otherwise I will just keep running the current ads.
I plan to streamline the look of this blog soon, but I am currently authoring several books that will be released on Kindle, hence you may have noticed my poll. I expect to upload my first finished book to Amazon today. It is about real life gold prospecting, and no doubt a post on it will soon follow on my prospecting blog.
Just as our environment has random variables, and certain laws of physics... The fact that Entropia is a computer program does not negate the fact that it too is an environment much like our own, with certain rules and laws that govern how it operates. This leads to peculiar and unique patterns in prospecting there too. It is not as scientific as real life prospecting is, but somehow, I can't help but feel my vast knowledge and love of prospecting has translated into my success where prospecting in Entropia is concerned.
It is further sad to note... That after running my sluice box for an hour, the dollar amount present in the cleanup even from poor gravel, is anywhere from 50 to 200 peds worth, and my best day of prospecting in todays value yielded what would have been around 3800 peds in game if I were to have sold and deposited my gold.
But still... There is a unique excitement in seeing those large roman numerals showing up on your finder. It isn't the same as seeing a nugget in your pan... But unfortunately may be the closest thing you will ever experience to hitting the motherlode.
You can't advertise something that isn't true. Arkadia is NOT a treasure hunting MMO. It WILL be if they ever get off their a$$e$ and make it happen. If they are having trouble figuring out what items to make as treasure, and what can be done with them, well, just listen to everyone's suggestions!
I think it would be great, especially with gold at $1,750 an ounce, to slip a few 1 gram, or 1/10th ounce bars of gold into the loot pool to be found while treasure hunting, and ship them out. This would be a great way to kickstart the treasure hunting. And the cost of a one ounce bar of silver to slip in the loot pool would only be about $35 right now... So you give a few hundred peds in real treasure to your prospectors... Do you know how popular this would make Arkadia? Virtual treasure is fine, but it seems to me, if you have a real cash economy, you might as well throw in some real treasures as well.. I mean, they throw in laptops to the mining pool... SERIOUSLY!
There are so many great things that can be done... IF THEY DON'T SCREW IT UP. Please voice your ideas to their development team... If you like any of mine, the more of you passing them on the more likely they will listen to popular demand. The old adage in business is, the customer is always right. Customer choices and habits, also desires dictate what directions companies will take their products. Otherwise, if you run your company the same way a government operates, you might put snorkels on airplanes!!! It is ridiculous and an inefficient waste of resources. But that's what happens when companies don't listen to their customers.
I am sorry to ramble. I see a lot of hits coming in from people wanting to know about Arkadia and the treasure hunting. It is very irritating to me that it is not here. I went to Arkadia because I thought that next vu it would be out and I wanted to be there the first day and see what could be found. But it never happened. And I lost too many peds waiting to see. I also had a bad experience with eBay and a customer, you may check my eBay blog to read about that if you are curious.
But... Now that I have vented... Let's get back to business as usual, shall we?
Also, I want to thank all of you for making this blog a big success. The traffic I generate on a daily basis here is mind blowing for me. Never in a hundred years did I expect to start a blog or site that would bring in upwards of 200 hits on a good day most of them unique. If you have a website you would like to advertise, I am willing to negotiate terms to give you your own placement for your ad on this blog for a month, or a year at a time. It will cost, but where else do you have such a niche of targeted traffic? Otherwise I will just keep running the current ads.
I plan to streamline the look of this blog soon, but I am currently authoring several books that will be released on Kindle, hence you may have noticed my poll. I expect to upload my first finished book to Amazon today. It is about real life gold prospecting, and no doubt a post on it will soon follow on my prospecting blog.
Just as our environment has random variables, and certain laws of physics... The fact that Entropia is a computer program does not negate the fact that it too is an environment much like our own, with certain rules and laws that govern how it operates. This leads to peculiar and unique patterns in prospecting there too. It is not as scientific as real life prospecting is, but somehow, I can't help but feel my vast knowledge and love of prospecting has translated into my success where prospecting in Entropia is concerned.
It is further sad to note... That after running my sluice box for an hour, the dollar amount present in the cleanup even from poor gravel, is anywhere from 50 to 200 peds worth, and my best day of prospecting in todays value yielded what would have been around 3800 peds in game if I were to have sold and deposited my gold.
But still... There is a unique excitement in seeing those large roman numerals showing up on your finder. It isn't the same as seeing a nugget in your pan... But unfortunately may be the closest thing you will ever experience to hitting the motherlode.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
The differences between Globals, Hofs, and ATH's
I suppose, this is a simple subject, but for those new here, it is a valid question. Since I want to be as thorough and complete as possible in my blogging, I figure I should make a quick post explaining these differences. As always, feel free to browse my blog archive for any valuable information you might use. I promise not to delete old posts. I will update them if there are errors or new information that has came to light, but I will not delete anything. Even if something is obsolete, I suppose I will leave it for the sake of having a working history. I mean, I still have questions about a lot of things in the older versions that don't apply now.
Ok... Enough rambling.
A global is any single loot over 50 peds. It is rarely a single item giving you the global (except in mining), but rather, hunting, it can be eye oil or animal muscle oil, or both, or it could be a 50 ped weapon or a fap! But anything over 50 peds is a global. How they figured 50 peds I'll never know, but it seems to be a key threshold. Those of you who have never globalled have probably missed it by a few peds.
A HOF is simply getting a global that is larger than the 100th largest global in the last 24 hours.
An ATH is an All Time High, that not only is a HOF, but is large enough that it actually beat out one of the top 100 previously highest loots for that profession in Entropia's history!
So... With that sad... I must mention the recent 217+K Ped #1 ATH Mining that was hit recently by Elle eSoul Beast, details of it are of course found on the Calypso Forums. It is the single largest loot in all of EU.
Well... Let me stop here before you say "But what about that Rugaritz tower"... Well... All of the above is computed by the TT value. NOT marked up value. In all probabilities, that fluke of a Ruga tower that was hit for some 19K peds I think it was, with markup, HAD to have been the single largest loot in EU. I could be wrong... But then it brings to mind also the Atrox egg that someone looted and Neverdie owned for a while, I dunno who owns it now, and I have never heard anything about it in a long time... Who knows when it will hatch... Maybe it already has, I haven't spent a lot of time on the forums... But see... That is all MARKUP... It means it does not come from MindArk's pocket, it comes from another player's pocket.
If ONLY TT value existed... Without a doubt Entropia would be a negative expectation game. Everyone would eventually be broke and need to deposit, good luck streaks not withstanding... But designing in the skills, and the markup, no longer is it a game of pure chance. The art of trading and negotiating comes into play. The needing to know where to go with what finders to hit what ore. What each ore is worth on the open market. Is it rare or common is a question that makes a whole world of difference.
So just because you didn't global or HOF doesn't mean you didn't strike it rich.
Ok... Enough rambling.
A global is any single loot over 50 peds. It is rarely a single item giving you the global (except in mining), but rather, hunting, it can be eye oil or animal muscle oil, or both, or it could be a 50 ped weapon or a fap! But anything over 50 peds is a global. How they figured 50 peds I'll never know, but it seems to be a key threshold. Those of you who have never globalled have probably missed it by a few peds.
A HOF is simply getting a global that is larger than the 100th largest global in the last 24 hours.
An ATH is an All Time High, that not only is a HOF, but is large enough that it actually beat out one of the top 100 previously highest loots for that profession in Entropia's history!
So... With that sad... I must mention the recent 217+K Ped #1 ATH Mining that was hit recently by Elle eSoul Beast, details of it are of course found on the Calypso Forums. It is the single largest loot in all of EU.
Well... Let me stop here before you say "But what about that Rugaritz tower"... Well... All of the above is computed by the TT value. NOT marked up value. In all probabilities, that fluke of a Ruga tower that was hit for some 19K peds I think it was, with markup, HAD to have been the single largest loot in EU. I could be wrong... But then it brings to mind also the Atrox egg that someone looted and Neverdie owned for a while, I dunno who owns it now, and I have never heard anything about it in a long time... Who knows when it will hatch... Maybe it already has, I haven't spent a lot of time on the forums... But see... That is all MARKUP... It means it does not come from MindArk's pocket, it comes from another player's pocket.
If ONLY TT value existed... Without a doubt Entropia would be a negative expectation game. Everyone would eventually be broke and need to deposit, good luck streaks not withstanding... But designing in the skills, and the markup, no longer is it a game of pure chance. The art of trading and negotiating comes into play. The needing to know where to go with what finders to hit what ore. What each ore is worth on the open market. Is it rare or common is a question that makes a whole world of difference.
So just because you didn't global or HOF doesn't mean you didn't strike it rich.
The Reality of Myths and Theories In the Dynamic Universe
Everyone has their own theories, and legends, and myths that they swear by as the gospel truth of Entropia. Let me be clear. I do not dispute the validity of any of them, because statistically they are all partly true, it's only a matter of degree. But let me go further in the hopes that this will help you to see everything the way it really is.
It is a dynamic universe. It means that every little thing everyone does or doesn't do for any number of reasons affects the outcome in the end for everyone. How many of you have globalled or hoffed on your last bomb, or your last click before you were broke? WHAT IF you would have TTd that pile of loot instead of selling it for markup? All it takes is that little difference to keep you from surviving long enough to hit a big one. Especially when you compound it every time you do this.
Well... Let me get more down to my point. It is not that there aren't 100% true theories. But it would seem that they are not true for everyone, and there is a simple reason of this. Everyone plays the game differently. What works for you may not work for me. It can be a combination of Skills, Equipment, and Habit that make a certain theory work.
If all things are equal, which they are hardly ever, then yes, I am sure what works for me will work for you 100% of the time. Because I only make theories that for me, work without fail. As long as they work, I don't care if it is only coincidence, because if I do things differently, I am toast.
You don't have to believe me on this, I don't care if you do or not. Some people will who have experienced this phenomenon. I don't know how or why it works for me but it does. There are certain people who craft ore amps that if I ONLY buy and use their amps, those mining runs will either Global, Break Even, or Profit, but never losses. If I use ANYONE elses amps, I will usually get bad returns. I would dismiss it as coincidence, or luck of the draw, or whatever, except that I was so determined this couldn't be happening, that I have ran about two dozen runs til now, using their amps, and it's true for me 100%.
You might ask why I don't always run their amps if they do so good then. It is a valid point after all. Well, the plain and simple truth of it is, I am not a large depositor, and only when I hof or global a lot unamped, will I have the peds to buy amps. And I do not always have the opportunity to buy from my "lucky crafters" as it were.
But all I am saying is... This has happened to me. I don't guarantee it will happen to you, and I do no other people it has happened for as well. But I am sure you DO have theories of your own that seem to work great for you, but when I try, there's no way they will ever work. It doesn't make the theory less true. It just means that you have to stick to whatever works. It would seem that the algorythms used by Entropia, are able to react to our style of play, and the only time I suffer heavy losses is when I do something I would never ever think of doing, and know I shouldn't do, but for the sake of fun and taking risks, I do anyways.
No one knows for sure how the software works. All their trade secrets I am convinced are server side, though,, I really do wonder about pre VU9.... My internet went down and before I realized there was no connection I had dropped 20 bombs. When I relogged, those 20 bombs were gone, and there as sure as I am sitting here was not a working connection. It would seem now that is fixed because it will just keep searching and not let me drop more bombs and after few seconds it will say connection has been lost and then yeah.
The best way to take in the theories is trial and error. If it doesn't work, figure out what you are doing wrong, if it still doesn't work, try another theory. It pretty much works out that having even a bad plan is more rewarding and productive than no plan at all.
And I know this is not my typical blog post. But theories are a HUGE part of Entropia, for better or worse. I am mainly interested in convincing you to keep an open mind, and decide for yourself what works and what doesn't. Because what makes one person rich, most surely will make another person poor.
It is a dynamic universe. It means that every little thing everyone does or doesn't do for any number of reasons affects the outcome in the end for everyone. How many of you have globalled or hoffed on your last bomb, or your last click before you were broke? WHAT IF you would have TTd that pile of loot instead of selling it for markup? All it takes is that little difference to keep you from surviving long enough to hit a big one. Especially when you compound it every time you do this.
Well... Let me get more down to my point. It is not that there aren't 100% true theories. But it would seem that they are not true for everyone, and there is a simple reason of this. Everyone plays the game differently. What works for you may not work for me. It can be a combination of Skills, Equipment, and Habit that make a certain theory work.
If all things are equal, which they are hardly ever, then yes, I am sure what works for me will work for you 100% of the time. Because I only make theories that for me, work without fail. As long as they work, I don't care if it is only coincidence, because if I do things differently, I am toast.
You don't have to believe me on this, I don't care if you do or not. Some people will who have experienced this phenomenon. I don't know how or why it works for me but it does. There are certain people who craft ore amps that if I ONLY buy and use their amps, those mining runs will either Global, Break Even, or Profit, but never losses. If I use ANYONE elses amps, I will usually get bad returns. I would dismiss it as coincidence, or luck of the draw, or whatever, except that I was so determined this couldn't be happening, that I have ran about two dozen runs til now, using their amps, and it's true for me 100%.
You might ask why I don't always run their amps if they do so good then. It is a valid point after all. Well, the plain and simple truth of it is, I am not a large depositor, and only when I hof or global a lot unamped, will I have the peds to buy amps. And I do not always have the opportunity to buy from my "lucky crafters" as it were.
But all I am saying is... This has happened to me. I don't guarantee it will happen to you, and I do no other people it has happened for as well. But I am sure you DO have theories of your own that seem to work great for you, but when I try, there's no way they will ever work. It doesn't make the theory less true. It just means that you have to stick to whatever works. It would seem that the algorythms used by Entropia, are able to react to our style of play, and the only time I suffer heavy losses is when I do something I would never ever think of doing, and know I shouldn't do, but for the sake of fun and taking risks, I do anyways.
No one knows for sure how the software works. All their trade secrets I am convinced are server side, though,, I really do wonder about pre VU9.... My internet went down and before I realized there was no connection I had dropped 20 bombs. When I relogged, those 20 bombs were gone, and there as sure as I am sitting here was not a working connection. It would seem now that is fixed because it will just keep searching and not let me drop more bombs and after few seconds it will say connection has been lost and then yeah.
The best way to take in the theories is trial and error. If it doesn't work, figure out what you are doing wrong, if it still doesn't work, try another theory. It pretty much works out that having even a bad plan is more rewarding and productive than no plan at all.
And I know this is not my typical blog post. But theories are a HUGE part of Entropia, for better or worse. I am mainly interested in convincing you to keep an open mind, and decide for yourself what works and what doesn't. Because what makes one person rich, most surely will make another person poor.
ROCKTROPIA: Why I Recommend Crafting Here
The blueprints that drop are going to be related to the planet on which you are crafting. Rocktropia has not had very many blueprints drop. It is my opinion that Rocktropia has had WAY less new blueprints drop than on any other planet, and all that hunting loot eventually will be used in something. The only way to discover these prints, is to craft on Rocktropia. I know, it is still a long shot, but... The odds are better given the low number of crafters here.
The main opportunity I see is, so far, the items are proving superior to their counterparts from other planets because of their ingredients required to produce, versus their efficiency. For example... The D Class mining amplifier on Rocktropia, is equivalent to a Level 8 from Calypso. But the TT cost per click is only a third of that of the Level 8. Though you will have quite expensive markup trying to get the parts, but it STILL comes out cheaper than the Caly version. Though it is quite possible that your successes will have a lower TT value, therefore increasing the amount of residue needed, but no big deal right? Have you tried buying a level 8? I'd much rather pay for the residue to make a full TT D class... But the other side of the coin is, the description suggests that the D class MIGHT only work on Hell and Rocktropia, but I have not confirmed this.
If you can get a high value item print to drop, and if you have the peds, you can capitalize on it quite nicely before it becomes wide spread.
I further advise crafting at locations other than Lagoon, several people have reported crap luck there including myself. I do best crafting in Hell or on Studio Street at the old club. Good luck!
The main opportunity I see is, so far, the items are proving superior to their counterparts from other planets because of their ingredients required to produce, versus their efficiency. For example... The D Class mining amplifier on Rocktropia, is equivalent to a Level 8 from Calypso. But the TT cost per click is only a third of that of the Level 8. Though you will have quite expensive markup trying to get the parts, but it STILL comes out cheaper than the Caly version. Though it is quite possible that your successes will have a lower TT value, therefore increasing the amount of residue needed, but no big deal right? Have you tried buying a level 8? I'd much rather pay for the residue to make a full TT D class... But the other side of the coin is, the description suggests that the D class MIGHT only work on Hell and Rocktropia, but I have not confirmed this.
If you can get a high value item print to drop, and if you have the peds, you can capitalize on it quite nicely before it becomes wide spread.
I further advise crafting at locations other than Lagoon, several people have reported crap luck there including myself. I do best crafting in Hell or on Studio Street at the old club. Good luck!
MINING: Extractor Efficiency
The economics of extraction is not something most of us think about. We know that bigger extractors pull a little more ore and faster clicks, so we assume bigger is better. I was shocked to read that someone said that the TT extractors are the most economic. So, I made time to do the research, and astonishingly, the TT extractor is ALMOST the most efficient extractor in the game. This is in terms of amount of decay to pull a given amount of ore out of the ground. Yes, it might take a long time to pull a claim using TT extractor... But in many cases it has at least two to three times the efficiency per pec than the other extractors.
The only extractor shown to be more efficient than the Caly TT extractor is the Rockripper 1.
This research is based on the database at Entropedia... But I must admit, yes, it is there for all to see. Check it out for yourself, go to entropedia.info, and click mining, then excavators, and look at the efficiency per pec.. How many of you considered this aspect of mining? I certainly hadn't given it a second thought. But I DID notice that when mining globals, it would cost more decay on my 104 than the TT extractor. This I did notice. It seems that there is a consistent tradeoff between efficiency and time. In all things. Faster shooting guns cost more in decay. Faster extractors cost more in decay. And, since L blueprints even have the highest success ratings of any print, it can be said that they TOO cost more in decay for faster success.
I encourage you all to have a look at the data yourself. I know some of you worry about SIB. In this case, don't. Mining does not have any real impact on your prospecting, at least not until you are super high level. Also, I want to point out: Using a smaller extractor means it takes a LOT more clicks to get a claim out. This results in MORE skill gains. So you will actually be skilling faster using the TT extractor, it's just a matter of can you bear the slow pace. Though, the excavator speed enhancers might be a great idea for the TT extractor.
I have also stumbled onto a few more ideas too that I want to bring to your attention, but I will give them some more thought before I start posting them. Good luck and thanks for reading!
The only extractor shown to be more efficient than the Caly TT extractor is the Rockripper 1.
This research is based on the database at Entropedia... But I must admit, yes, it is there for all to see. Check it out for yourself, go to entropedia.info, and click mining, then excavators, and look at the efficiency per pec.. How many of you considered this aspect of mining? I certainly hadn't given it a second thought. But I DID notice that when mining globals, it would cost more decay on my 104 than the TT extractor. This I did notice. It seems that there is a consistent tradeoff between efficiency and time. In all things. Faster shooting guns cost more in decay. Faster extractors cost more in decay. And, since L blueprints even have the highest success ratings of any print, it can be said that they TOO cost more in decay for faster success.
I encourage you all to have a look at the data yourself. I know some of you worry about SIB. In this case, don't. Mining does not have any real impact on your prospecting, at least not until you are super high level. Also, I want to point out: Using a smaller extractor means it takes a LOT more clicks to get a claim out. This results in MORE skill gains. So you will actually be skilling faster using the TT extractor, it's just a matter of can you bear the slow pace. Though, the excavator speed enhancers might be a great idea for the TT extractor.
I have also stumbled onto a few more ideas too that I want to bring to your attention, but I will give them some more thought before I start posting them. Good luck and thanks for reading!
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Advice: Containers & Organizing Your Blueprints
Well..+This+is+not+what+I+would+consider+a+high+priority+topic%2C+but+when+a+writer+has+an+idea+he+hasn%27t+covered+and+one+that+most+people+don%27t+think+about%2C+he+does+what+he+knows+best...+Write%21%0D%0A%0D%0AI+have+probably+120+items+in+my+inventory+on+my+character+at+any+given+time.+100+of+those+items+are+blueprints%2C+and+blueprint+books.+I+don%27t+like+going+anywhere+without+my+entire+collection...+But+as+the+Entropiaverse+expands%2C+some+day+it+won%27t+be+possible+and+I+must+form+a+new+plan.%0D%0A%0D%0AWell...+You+remember+those+christmas+boxes+you+got%3F+If+you+didn%27t+get+one+the+MU+is+pretty+low+for+it+actually+being+a+container%2C+and+containers+command+HUGE+prices+on+Entropia%2C+but+for+a+good+reason.+See%2C+item+limitations.+Also%2C+it+takes+forever+for+inventories+and+storage+to+load+if+you+have+too+much+stuff+in+a+given+window.+Now+if+only+they+would+let+us+label+the+boxes+so+we+can+know+what+we+put+in+which+one+without+having+to+go+through+them+one+by+one+til+we+find+the+box+we+need.%0D%0A%0D%0AYou+might+decide+to+put+all+your+calypso+prints+in+one+box%2C+and+other+planets+in+their+respective+boxes.+Or+maybe+they+all+fit+in+one+box.+Up+to+you.%0D%0A%0D%0ABut...+When+you+have+complex+items+you+want+to+craft...+I+find+that+containers+make+budgeting+for+your+crafting+run+much+simpler.+Suppose+you+are+hunting+for+materials+to+craft+with.+You+simply+put+what+you+need+in+your+container+and+then+there+is+no+risk+of+TTing+something+accidentally.+And+by+putting+each+project+in+it%27s+own+box%2C+you+don%27t+have+to+worry+about+not+having+all+your+materials+when+you+go+to+craft.+Nothing+worse+than+getting+all+set+up+at+the+terminal%2C+to+find+that+you+are+missing+one+ingredient+or+another.%0D%0A%0D%0AThe+possibilities+are+enbxbox%n8rtemUiite+honest...+And+being+more+organized+has+actually+made+my+gaming+experience+many+times+better%21
Announcement: General Blog News
You may have noticed some changes to my blog. I am toying with many ideas at once, and eventually plan a total overhaul of this blog. New design, new looks, new graphics, I want to streamline it and make it more... Appealing to the eye.
You may notice changes from day to day, or maybe hour to hour as I move things around, or change themes and layouts. This is a work in progress for me. However, the access to my articles and content here will never be interrupted.
I have a lot of great plans in store for this blog. But I do not wish to let out any of my plans lest someone steal my ideas... But as progress is made, I will make appropriate announcements.
I am still waiting an opportunity to update Entropia... So until I do, you can be sure I will catch up on my blog posts. I really am trying to think of anything that I haven't written about yet that would be helpful to my readers. I know I havn't told you everything yet, though I am constantly trying.
Stay tuned over the next few days for some new and hopefully exciting posts!
You may notice changes from day to day, or maybe hour to hour as I move things around, or change themes and layouts. This is a work in progress for me. However, the access to my articles and content here will never be interrupted.
I have a lot of great plans in store for this blog. But I do not wish to let out any of my plans lest someone steal my ideas... But as progress is made, I will make appropriate announcements.
I am still waiting an opportunity to update Entropia... So until I do, you can be sure I will catch up on my blog posts. I really am trying to think of anything that I haven't written about yet that would be helpful to my readers. I know I havn't told you everything yet, though I am constantly trying.
Stay tuned over the next few days for some new and hopefully exciting posts!
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Turning Crafting into a Calculated Risk
I've just discovered that Entropia Tracker allows you to check ubers on all the various items and mobs. You can set the threshold to 1,000 ped to 10,000 ped if you want. When you run the report, it tells you the recent ubers over that amount you've chosen for that item, how many days and hours since the last one went, how many peds of globals/hofs turned over since then on that item, and how long it has currently been since the last uber.
There is no way to say for certain that ANYTHING is overdue.. However, it would be foolish to say on any given item that an Uber will NEVER hit... Therefore, the next most logical conclusion is to say, the longer the amount of time and the more peds cycled on an item without an Uber, the closer it is getting to the time an Uber will hit!
I guess what I am saying is, if more peds have been cycled and more time elapsed than is normal for an uber on that item for that amount, then, in all likelihood, it is overdue. But many factors play into who is going to get it when it hits. What is your blueprint QR... What are your skills. How many people are crafting it right now. And part of it is simply being on the right crafting machine at the right time.
Now, it is a documented fact, that I know someone who ATH'd on a crafting machine that virtually a whole soc was using to craft on because it was a good machine. Since it paid out that ATH, very few people that I know of who use that machine have had a good crafting run on it since. This doesn't prove anything, to be sure... But... Every server has a hot and cold cycle. Not all places in EU are hot at the same time, not all are cold either. I had dropped like 30 NRF's on TI, then moved to Shinook and first drop gave me a 50 ped alferix. Well, the conclusion is simple. TI's loot was on a take cycle, and Shinook was paying out, and the server seen an imbalance and crapped out my global.
I really do believe you have to be in the right place at the right time doing the right things at the right time to stand a chance of getting an uber. This gives it the appearance of being accidental when it does finally happen, because it is only by chance that you will be doing all the right things at the one magical moment.
So... I just wanted to share the excitement over a new possibly useful tool I found, and perhaps a new way at figuring out what to craft, since that is a common question I am faced with.
And yes... EVEN BASIC FILTERS HAVE HAD FOUR DIGIT HOFS. Just as surely as I have witnessed non-mutant chirpies having four digits too.
There is no way to say for certain that ANYTHING is overdue.. However, it would be foolish to say on any given item that an Uber will NEVER hit... Therefore, the next most logical conclusion is to say, the longer the amount of time and the more peds cycled on an item without an Uber, the closer it is getting to the time an Uber will hit!
I guess what I am saying is, if more peds have been cycled and more time elapsed than is normal for an uber on that item for that amount, then, in all likelihood, it is overdue. But many factors play into who is going to get it when it hits. What is your blueprint QR... What are your skills. How many people are crafting it right now. And part of it is simply being on the right crafting machine at the right time.
Now, it is a documented fact, that I know someone who ATH'd on a crafting machine that virtually a whole soc was using to craft on because it was a good machine. Since it paid out that ATH, very few people that I know of who use that machine have had a good crafting run on it since. This doesn't prove anything, to be sure... But... Every server has a hot and cold cycle. Not all places in EU are hot at the same time, not all are cold either. I had dropped like 30 NRF's on TI, then moved to Shinook and first drop gave me a 50 ped alferix. Well, the conclusion is simple. TI's loot was on a take cycle, and Shinook was paying out, and the server seen an imbalance and crapped out my global.
I really do believe you have to be in the right place at the right time doing the right things at the right time to stand a chance of getting an uber. This gives it the appearance of being accidental when it does finally happen, because it is only by chance that you will be doing all the right things at the one magical moment.
So... I just wanted to share the excitement over a new possibly useful tool I found, and perhaps a new way at figuring out what to craft, since that is a common question I am faced with.
And yes... EVEN BASIC FILTERS HAVE HAD FOUR DIGIT HOFS. Just as surely as I have witnessed non-mutant chirpies having four digits too.
January 2012: Review of the Planets
Well.. I got to thinking about the various planets and how a person might decide just one to start on. Without having already played, who's to know which planet is best for you? So, I thought I would write a general post covering each of the planets and what they have to offer. I am trying to be as objective and unbiased as possible. I have no vested interest in Calypso, Rocktropia, or Arkadia. I am not their investor, or otherwise affiliated with them. I don't even own Calypso Land Deeds. I am however a qualified and experienced Speech and Interview judge, so I am used to judging what I see in a fair manner.
Calypso:
Features: The flagship planet of the Entropia Universe. Has the strongest most developed economy, the largest population. In general, most of the professions do well here. However, I have decided to rank the planets according to what they seem geared best for.
Crafting: 10/10 (Widest access to materials, and markets for your crafted goods.)
Hunting: 9/10 (Largest variety of mobs, from noob to uber, but item drop rates suck)
Mining: 8/10 (Could be better, could be worse, but is perhaps the most balanced, and has best market for selling your ores and enmatters.)
Quests: 2/10 (Unless you do the 10K Bronze, the quest rewards suck)
Noob Friendly: 5/10 (It is hard to start as a noob here, you can't own the oil rig, sweat prices are depressed, the quests don't give you anything but nova and blazar fragments unless you spend a lot doing them. In short, deposit, or die of boredom.)
ROCKtropia:
Features: Rock and Roll themed planet. Large variety of easy mobs for beginners. Large variety of uber mobs for ubers. Ores and Enmatters that are specific only to this planet. Large array of rewarding and fairly easy quests. Is home to HELL and Artic.
Crafting: 5/10 (Many materials hard to come by for doing larger runs. Poor market for reselling your crafted goods unless you own a shop or stand in lagoon advertising all day, seems a lot of people here don't know how to use the Auction house.)
Hunting: 9/10 (Noob mobs are SUPER easy, some of the tough mobs are super easy too, but some of the tough mobs are uber tough. Why I give it 9/10 is hunting loot markups, large variety of super easy to super tough mobs, and in general, I get literally 5 to 10 times the items I've ever looted on Calypso.)
Mining: 8/10 (I only give it 8 because of lack of sustainable demand for mined resources. It can be quite a challenge selling your ores fast. I wanted to give it a 10 because deposits are shallow and easily hit with shallow finders, and THERE IS NO COST TO GO TO HELL unlike trying to get to F.O.M.A.)
Quests: 10/10 (Some of the mission chains are still in their infancy, however, of the ones in existence, there is actually TT value on the rewards! You don't get novas and blazars... You get high markup goodies! The Thing gives you 50 pec TT helicopter and 50 pec TT truck, and couple peds in weapons faps and ammo! RT quests give you gold coin worth 5K% to 25K% MU (5 peds to 25 peds per K), Rocktropia Records (10 to the pec) And items that help you gain other quests, like police badge and radio which together are worth like 20 peds mu. When I first arrived, it took me a week to do all the beginner quests to familiarize myself with the place before I even really did any ped spending!)
Noob Friendly: 10/10 (The people here are VERY friendly and helpful. The quests are SUPER easy for non depositing noobs especially the Artic The Thing quest, and a lot of the beginning mobs drop good loot for being one shot opalo mobs. Sweating might be tougher, but sweat is about a ped or two per K higher than on Caly)
Arkadia:
Features: Well... In my opinion, they are a LONG ways from reaching my satisfaction. They have FAILED thus far to bring out Treasure Hunting. They had claimed I believe last August to have it implemented, but NOPE. And this is what everyone was waiting for!
Crafting: 7/10 (I only put it at 7 because many of the prints require a huge number of different ingredients making it a nightmare to try and click them, However the Auction seems to be a slight bit stronger here for selling crafted items than on Rocktropia.)
Hunting: 5/10 (Well... I figure 5 was low enough, it is a failing grade. You have to be pretty uber to hunt even the low level mobs any more... And the loot is astonishingly crappy. It's not just my own experience, but failing treasure hunting, I know several people who refuse to go back to Arkadia until everything is as promised. I have no idea what they expect you to hunt here as a total noob. The Tiarak are about the only mob I can kill.)
Mining: 6/10 (It started out great mining here to be quite honest. But hit rates are way down now, if I wanted 1 in 10 bombs to hit, I'd go to Hell where sure, 1 in 10 is a very good ratio when you are talking X's and higher! Also, there isn't the best market for trying to sell your ores either, and I havn't seen enough traders when I've needed them.)
Quests: ?/10 (I don't think I have even found a mission broker here but I haven't looked for them either, so I can't really comment on this part of it.)
Noob Friendly: 5/10 (I just don't see the great opportunities that Rocktropia, or even Calypso have to offer. Lacking totally noob mobs for the noobs, I have no choice but to give it a low rating. I may be wrong, I am not an Ark expert, but this is what I see.)
Next Island:
I have only been to Next Island once, and never returned. It is definitely more noob friendly than Arkadia and maybe even Calypso, but there's nothing really spectacular here as far as I am concerned. I really am not in a position to make any comments regarding the game play here since for me it's nearly a year since I was there. I like to think it's came a long ways since they began. I am told though that Ancient Greece is good for cheap Melee skills! At the time I was there, loots were on par with Calypso for Mining, Hunting, wasn't maybe as good, but I am sure that's all changed.
As things improve or get worse over time, I will come back from time to time and update this listing for your benefit. This is mainly intended as a quick guide for you to look at your needs and wants, and possibly help you decide where you want to concentrate your energies. I mean, it's obvious. If all you want to do is craft, start on Calypso. This is just made as a tool that offers a second opinion where one is desired. If the management of these properties that I have reviewed do not like my scores, then they should read and take heed... If Ark will ever introduce Treasure Hunting, I will probably give them 10/10! I mean seriously folks! Treasure hunting! A new concept, yet they are dragging their feet... It just doesn't make sense to me. They have a veritable gold mine within their grasp, but slowly the golden goose is dying and wasting away. Soon, Ark might be a ghost town. Rocktropia has a lot of work left to be done, but at least they are putting quality into it. Calypso, is booming and needs room to expand, but this is why we need to get the other planets economies roaring to life, so that people have viable alternatives to go to.
I wish you all luck, and if you are choosing which planet to begin on, give it some careful thought :-) And you don't have to just take my advice for it.
Calypso:
Features: The flagship planet of the Entropia Universe. Has the strongest most developed economy, the largest population. In general, most of the professions do well here. However, I have decided to rank the planets according to what they seem geared best for.
Crafting: 10/10 (Widest access to materials, and markets for your crafted goods.)
Hunting: 9/10 (Largest variety of mobs, from noob to uber, but item drop rates suck)
Mining: 8/10 (Could be better, could be worse, but is perhaps the most balanced, and has best market for selling your ores and enmatters.)
Quests: 2/10 (Unless you do the 10K Bronze, the quest rewards suck)
Noob Friendly: 5/10 (It is hard to start as a noob here, you can't own the oil rig, sweat prices are depressed, the quests don't give you anything but nova and blazar fragments unless you spend a lot doing them. In short, deposit, or die of boredom.)
ROCKtropia:
Features: Rock and Roll themed planet. Large variety of easy mobs for beginners. Large variety of uber mobs for ubers. Ores and Enmatters that are specific only to this planet. Large array of rewarding and fairly easy quests. Is home to HELL and Artic.
Crafting: 5/10 (Many materials hard to come by for doing larger runs. Poor market for reselling your crafted goods unless you own a shop or stand in lagoon advertising all day, seems a lot of people here don't know how to use the Auction house.)
Hunting: 9/10 (Noob mobs are SUPER easy, some of the tough mobs are super easy too, but some of the tough mobs are uber tough. Why I give it 9/10 is hunting loot markups, large variety of super easy to super tough mobs, and in general, I get literally 5 to 10 times the items I've ever looted on Calypso.)
Mining: 8/10 (I only give it 8 because of lack of sustainable demand for mined resources. It can be quite a challenge selling your ores fast. I wanted to give it a 10 because deposits are shallow and easily hit with shallow finders, and THERE IS NO COST TO GO TO HELL unlike trying to get to F.O.M.A.)
Quests: 10/10 (Some of the mission chains are still in their infancy, however, of the ones in existence, there is actually TT value on the rewards! You don't get novas and blazars... You get high markup goodies! The Thing gives you 50 pec TT helicopter and 50 pec TT truck, and couple peds in weapons faps and ammo! RT quests give you gold coin worth 5K% to 25K% MU (5 peds to 25 peds per K), Rocktropia Records (10 to the pec) And items that help you gain other quests, like police badge and radio which together are worth like 20 peds mu. When I first arrived, it took me a week to do all the beginner quests to familiarize myself with the place before I even really did any ped spending!)
Noob Friendly: 10/10 (The people here are VERY friendly and helpful. The quests are SUPER easy for non depositing noobs especially the Artic The Thing quest, and a lot of the beginning mobs drop good loot for being one shot opalo mobs. Sweating might be tougher, but sweat is about a ped or two per K higher than on Caly)
Arkadia:
Features: Well... In my opinion, they are a LONG ways from reaching my satisfaction. They have FAILED thus far to bring out Treasure Hunting. They had claimed I believe last August to have it implemented, but NOPE. And this is what everyone was waiting for!
Crafting: 7/10 (I only put it at 7 because many of the prints require a huge number of different ingredients making it a nightmare to try and click them, However the Auction seems to be a slight bit stronger here for selling crafted items than on Rocktropia.)
Hunting: 5/10 (Well... I figure 5 was low enough, it is a failing grade. You have to be pretty uber to hunt even the low level mobs any more... And the loot is astonishingly crappy. It's not just my own experience, but failing treasure hunting, I know several people who refuse to go back to Arkadia until everything is as promised. I have no idea what they expect you to hunt here as a total noob. The Tiarak are about the only mob I can kill.)
Mining: 6/10 (It started out great mining here to be quite honest. But hit rates are way down now, if I wanted 1 in 10 bombs to hit, I'd go to Hell where sure, 1 in 10 is a very good ratio when you are talking X's and higher! Also, there isn't the best market for trying to sell your ores either, and I havn't seen enough traders when I've needed them.)
Quests: ?/10 (I don't think I have even found a mission broker here but I haven't looked for them either, so I can't really comment on this part of it.)
Noob Friendly: 5/10 (I just don't see the great opportunities that Rocktropia, or even Calypso have to offer. Lacking totally noob mobs for the noobs, I have no choice but to give it a low rating. I may be wrong, I am not an Ark expert, but this is what I see.)
Next Island:
I have only been to Next Island once, and never returned. It is definitely more noob friendly than Arkadia and maybe even Calypso, but there's nothing really spectacular here as far as I am concerned. I really am not in a position to make any comments regarding the game play here since for me it's nearly a year since I was there. I like to think it's came a long ways since they began. I am told though that Ancient Greece is good for cheap Melee skills! At the time I was there, loots were on par with Calypso for Mining, Hunting, wasn't maybe as good, but I am sure that's all changed.
As things improve or get worse over time, I will come back from time to time and update this listing for your benefit. This is mainly intended as a quick guide for you to look at your needs and wants, and possibly help you decide where you want to concentrate your energies. I mean, it's obvious. If all you want to do is craft, start on Calypso. This is just made as a tool that offers a second opinion where one is desired. If the management of these properties that I have reviewed do not like my scores, then they should read and take heed... If Ark will ever introduce Treasure Hunting, I will probably give them 10/10! I mean seriously folks! Treasure hunting! A new concept, yet they are dragging their feet... It just doesn't make sense to me. They have a veritable gold mine within their grasp, but slowly the golden goose is dying and wasting away. Soon, Ark might be a ghost town. Rocktropia has a lot of work left to be done, but at least they are putting quality into it. Calypso, is booming and needs room to expand, but this is why we need to get the other planets economies roaring to life, so that people have viable alternatives to go to.
I wish you all luck, and if you are choosing which planet to begin on, give it some careful thought :-) And you don't have to just take my advice for it.
AUCTION HOUSE: Clarification on Placing and Filling Orders
The weak economies of Arkadia and Rocktropia are in dire need of supply and demand. Yes, the supply is there, but it does not do any good for the crafters if the materials and ores are all trade terminaled. But, it is a huge risk to post large amounts of listings and ores, and have to wait for them to sell when you want to keep playing but have no peds. So my goal here, is to encourage you crafters to place orders for the materials you need... It tells the people selling their materials that ok, I have a market for it. In order for crafting to be viable, we must convince people not to TT any of the materials we need, or we really can't craft. Those of you who do thousands of click runs on calypso... You have the benefit of a steady flow of ores from the huge economy, and from the asteroid, and all other destinations. Calypso is the lifeblood of EU. But I want to see all the other planets become viable as well.
So... In order to place an order... You must click the orders tab. Then, you must click on the "available" tab. In order to find the item you wish to order (no L items may be ordered), you must go through the list one page or 10 pages at a time, and select your item. Then, you may place an order for it, it costs 1 ped per day of the listing regardless of quantity or peds ordered of that item. You set the maximum markup you will pay, and the WHOLE amount for that order will be deducted from your ped card.
If you order 100 narcanisum at 125%... And someone sells 90 ingots at 120%, the 5% difference is refunded to your ped card at the time you purchase those ingots. You have the option of leaving the remaining amount of the order up, or you may take it down early to obtain the rest of the funds that are still reserved for it.
Please bear in mind, it is not economically feasible for people to fill orders below 105%, the exceptions are for residues in large quantities. However, refined oil, the refiner decay alone brings the cost of this to 105%, so a note here: NEVER fill orders for oil for less than 105% unless you like throwing away peds! I've learned this from doing!
And a reminder...
TO FILL orders...
Click the orders tab. You may search if there is a lot of listings, or browse... Or sort by markup... When you find an order you wish to fill... Your listing MUST have the same quantity or less, and be AT that markup or under in order for the order to fill (buy out price). If you do NOT meet these requirements, the order will not fill.
Orders can change from hour to hour, minute to minute, day to day. What isn't ordered now, may command a huge price tomorrow because someone wants to do an emergency crafting run on something.
So... In order to place an order... You must click the orders tab. Then, you must click on the "available" tab. In order to find the item you wish to order (no L items may be ordered), you must go through the list one page or 10 pages at a time, and select your item. Then, you may place an order for it, it costs 1 ped per day of the listing regardless of quantity or peds ordered of that item. You set the maximum markup you will pay, and the WHOLE amount for that order will be deducted from your ped card.
If you order 100 narcanisum at 125%... And someone sells 90 ingots at 120%, the 5% difference is refunded to your ped card at the time you purchase those ingots. You have the option of leaving the remaining amount of the order up, or you may take it down early to obtain the rest of the funds that are still reserved for it.
Please bear in mind, it is not economically feasible for people to fill orders below 105%, the exceptions are for residues in large quantities. However, refined oil, the refiner decay alone brings the cost of this to 105%, so a note here: NEVER fill orders for oil for less than 105% unless you like throwing away peds! I've learned this from doing!
And a reminder...
TO FILL orders...
Click the orders tab. You may search if there is a lot of listings, or browse... Or sort by markup... When you find an order you wish to fill... Your listing MUST have the same quantity or less, and be AT that markup or under in order for the order to fill (buy out price). If you do NOT meet these requirements, the order will not fill.
Orders can change from hour to hour, minute to minute, day to day. What isn't ordered now, may command a huge price tomorrow because someone wants to do an emergency crafting run on something.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Recent Land Deed ROI and Observations
Land deeds I am told have hit 6 peds this last week in dividends. However, I wanted to report that during Merry Mayhem the dividends plummeted I am told to as little as 50 pecs, at which point some people got upset and sold out... Logic might suggest Merry Mayhem would be more profitable than normal times, however... Being limited to what, 30 hours of gameplay or something like that... All I know is I would have maxed it out in less than two days, is why I never do Merry Mayhem...
See.. Only the people who have a lot of peds will take part in Merry Mayhem. And by limiting the hours participants can play, that limits how many peds will be spent, and taken in by MindArk. Most of the players not bound by the time limitations are people busy sweating or otherwise low budget players. The breadwinners are forced to ration their play time by the contest rules, so it does not surprise me that the dividends sank to an incredible low.
Of course, after Merry Mayhem, we seen the ROI's return to normal 5 ped range. And, now, we see some growth. It is quite possible as Entropia becomes more popular, that we will see 10 ped dividends before the year is out.
However... EVEN at 50 pecs per share... That's 5 cents on $100 per week... You still are beating the savings account interest paid by banks. Not to mention when you consider what the ROI on a normal payout is, 50 cents or 60 cents a week. Savings accounts MAYBE pay half a percent per year. Think about it. If I had $100,000 in a savings account, I sure as hell wouldn't let the banks use it and pay me pitiful interest rates. I'd make the first priority to own
See.. Only the people who have a lot of peds will take part in Merry Mayhem. And by limiting the hours participants can play, that limits how many peds will be spent, and taken in by MindArk. Most of the players not bound by the time limitations are people busy sweating or otherwise low budget players. The breadwinners are forced to ration their play time by the contest rules, so it does not surprise me that the dividends sank to an incredible low.
Of course, after Merry Mayhem, we seen the ROI's return to normal 5 ped range. And, now, we see some growth. It is quite possible as Entropia becomes more popular, that we will see 10 ped dividends before the year is out.
However... EVEN at 50 pecs per share... That's 5 cents on $100 per week... You still are beating the savings account interest paid by banks. Not to mention when you consider what the ROI on a normal payout is, 50 cents or 60 cents a week. Savings accounts MAYBE pay half a percent per year. Think about it. If I had $100,000 in a savings account, I sure as hell wouldn't let the banks use it and pay me pitiful interest rates. I'd make the first priority to own
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Sweating and Synchronization Mindforce Chips
It just occurred to me I should post about the subject of sweating and the use of Synchronization chips. The estimated cost to continuously give yourself the concentration boost, is around half a ped per hour. Assuming 3 peds per K of sweat, that is about 175 to 200 extra sweat per hour you must collect JUST to break even and see any benefit.
So, before I go any further, let's talk about what the Synchronization chip does. When you are hit with the effect from this mindforce chip, for 5 minutes you gain increased concentration and focus, so that when mobs hit you, your concentration isn't broken and your sweating is successful. As opposed to getting interrupted every time you are hit. But it consumes mindforce to do this.
Traditionally, most people sweat a very large mob in large groups, say at Neas. This negates the need for any concentration buffs, since only one person in the group is under attack at any given moment, and everyone else is able to sweat uninterrupted. But for the lone sweater, every time you are hit, you lose concentration, and your sweat attempt is wasted.
So... If you sweat in large groups, the synchronization chip is a waste. But... If you sweat by yourself, I can see the benefits of having it. Every click that starts pulling sweat, succeeds regardless of being hit or not. But if you are being hit, it takes much longer for the sweat cycle to finish. It is quite possible that you might not even get enough extra sweat from the successes to pay for the mindforce for this chip.
But I can tell you straight up... If you take advantage of group sweating, you are only throwing away your peds if you use the synchronization chips.
So, before I go any further, let's talk about what the Synchronization chip does. When you are hit with the effect from this mindforce chip, for 5 minutes you gain increased concentration and focus, so that when mobs hit you, your concentration isn't broken and your sweating is successful. As opposed to getting interrupted every time you are hit. But it consumes mindforce to do this.
Traditionally, most people sweat a very large mob in large groups, say at Neas. This negates the need for any concentration buffs, since only one person in the group is under attack at any given moment, and everyone else is able to sweat uninterrupted. But for the lone sweater, every time you are hit, you lose concentration, and your sweat attempt is wasted.
So... If you sweat in large groups, the synchronization chip is a waste. But... If you sweat by yourself, I can see the benefits of having it. Every click that starts pulling sweat, succeeds regardless of being hit or not. But if you are being hit, it takes much longer for the sweat cycle to finish. It is quite possible that you might not even get enough extra sweat from the successes to pay for the mindforce for this chip.
But I can tell you straight up... If you take advantage of group sweating, you are only throwing away your peds if you use the synchronization chips.
Monday, January 23, 2012
New Planets, New Frontiers, New Opportunities
It was recounted to me a couple years ago how many of what we would now call "Ubers", the ones running around with 5 and 6 digits of markup on their weapons armor and other tools... Made their pile of Peds simply by having started early on, in the beginning of Entropia. It is unknown how many people are included in this group, but I often wonder when I see screenshots of hofs with astronomical ped balances... How'd they do it? Simple... A lot of what USED to be just every day cheap items, became scarce but highly desireable when the Entropia Universe took off and became more and more populated. There was a... Boom in markups and demand for things, especially weapons. I am told some players capitalized on this drastic rise in prices that occured many years ago already.
It was probably 2009 when I was told of this. The source of the information came from a player who himself had done this, taken advantage of common things becoming uncommon and valuable. It is quite possible that same person may actually read this and maybe not remember having talked to me about it... But I want to open everyones eyes to the future. NOW is the furthest back in time we will ever be. How's that for something to ponder?
Right now we are seeing infant worlds, much how Calypso started out to be sure... Except there is a huge difference. Calypso did not have other planets already successful from which to spinoff and use as a foundation. Rocktropia, Arkadia, Next Island... All are able to lean on Calypso, a well established economy and solid player base. There is no way that any planet will fail so long as this strong foundation remains. However, there is still great opportunity.
Over the years, many tools, weapons, have been changed, or eliminated. Some things quit dropping. And some of those items are worth a great fortune in peds to the lucky few who own them.We do not know what Rocktropia weapons or tools will become rare or valuable... Certainly, it will do so to a lesser extent than was seen in the earlier days of Entropia... But nothing is 100% right at the beginning. Take a look at your favorite television series. Compare say, seasons one and two, to seasons five or seven... Don't you notice something? The components making up that show begin to grow together and flow more smoothly, while at the beginning, no one knew for sure what direction things would take. If you compare the early days of Entropia to now... You can definitely see the point I am making here. Things have came together smoothly for Calypso. But now, we embark on the other planets journeys. It will take a few years, but they will get them ironed out.
Right now, yes, there is a lot of loot out there that has no use at present. Hopefully this will be fixed. But learn the lesson that has already been observed... Android Gears were dropping by the piles, but there was no use for them so they were TTd. Now their drop rate is so low that they command a 6200% markup on orders. The same thing can happen with other components that are dropping.
But what I am really writing about now is this: Look to the future. Based on what you know... What items do you feel are going to be valuable and needed perhaps by yourself or someone else? What weapons are cheap now but have the potential of going up a lot? I know L weapons make it a moot point... Being L, they are no longer items so much as they are commodities. A half condition Isis CB5 (L) at 250% is no different from a full condition Isis CB5 (L) at 200%. It's a commodity. It comes down to X gun is only worth about Y markup. Unlimited items and tools and weapons is where there is a lot of room for profits. For instance... No one in their right mind would hunt with a L weapon that costs 10K% MU. But... A UL weapon that is +5K peds... + 100K peds... If it is worth it to the person that has the money, and they want it bad enough, they can keep it as long as it suits them.
The message I am trying to put out to all of you is this:
You will probably not see ridiculous price increases especially in light of the bad economy and also with more planets, there being more competition between "brands", and what may be expensive from one planet's product line, the equivalent may be much cheaper from another planet, and people will always compare. But there will still be a few items of which only a few will ever exist, and these, if you can get them early enough, and hang on to them, there is profit to be had.
But when looking at items, always bear in mind that all as it is now, shall not forever remain. Those items you refused to hold onto might be a small gold mine some day like those Android Gears... Or... Maybe that 800% ore will turn to TT food as has happened before too. But at TT prices, one can only go up!
Also... I speak this last paragraph from my own experience... If you are doing so badly that you find yourself TTing things you wouldnt have dreamt of TTing... It's too late and your luck is too bad for that few peds to save you. Rather, you should find other sources of peds, that those items will be of more value to you later than now.
It was probably 2009 when I was told of this. The source of the information came from a player who himself had done this, taken advantage of common things becoming uncommon and valuable. It is quite possible that same person may actually read this and maybe not remember having talked to me about it... But I want to open everyones eyes to the future. NOW is the furthest back in time we will ever be. How's that for something to ponder?
Right now we are seeing infant worlds, much how Calypso started out to be sure... Except there is a huge difference. Calypso did not have other planets already successful from which to spinoff and use as a foundation. Rocktropia, Arkadia, Next Island... All are able to lean on Calypso, a well established economy and solid player base. There is no way that any planet will fail so long as this strong foundation remains. However, there is still great opportunity.
Over the years, many tools, weapons, have been changed, or eliminated. Some things quit dropping. And some of those items are worth a great fortune in peds to the lucky few who own them.We do not know what Rocktropia weapons or tools will become rare or valuable... Certainly, it will do so to a lesser extent than was seen in the earlier days of Entropia... But nothing is 100% right at the beginning. Take a look at your favorite television series. Compare say, seasons one and two, to seasons five or seven... Don't you notice something? The components making up that show begin to grow together and flow more smoothly, while at the beginning, no one knew for sure what direction things would take. If you compare the early days of Entropia to now... You can definitely see the point I am making here. Things have came together smoothly for Calypso. But now, we embark on the other planets journeys. It will take a few years, but they will get them ironed out.
Right now, yes, there is a lot of loot out there that has no use at present. Hopefully this will be fixed. But learn the lesson that has already been observed... Android Gears were dropping by the piles, but there was no use for them so they were TTd. Now their drop rate is so low that they command a 6200% markup on orders. The same thing can happen with other components that are dropping.
But what I am really writing about now is this: Look to the future. Based on what you know... What items do you feel are going to be valuable and needed perhaps by yourself or someone else? What weapons are cheap now but have the potential of going up a lot? I know L weapons make it a moot point... Being L, they are no longer items so much as they are commodities. A half condition Isis CB5 (L) at 250% is no different from a full condition Isis CB5 (L) at 200%. It's a commodity. It comes down to X gun is only worth about Y markup. Unlimited items and tools and weapons is where there is a lot of room for profits. For instance... No one in their right mind would hunt with a L weapon that costs 10K% MU. But... A UL weapon that is +5K peds... + 100K peds... If it is worth it to the person that has the money, and they want it bad enough, they can keep it as long as it suits them.
The message I am trying to put out to all of you is this:
You will probably not see ridiculous price increases especially in light of the bad economy and also with more planets, there being more competition between "brands", and what may be expensive from one planet's product line, the equivalent may be much cheaper from another planet, and people will always compare. But there will still be a few items of which only a few will ever exist, and these, if you can get them early enough, and hang on to them, there is profit to be had.
But when looking at items, always bear in mind that all as it is now, shall not forever remain. Those items you refused to hold onto might be a small gold mine some day like those Android Gears... Or... Maybe that 800% ore will turn to TT food as has happened before too. But at TT prices, one can only go up!
Also... I speak this last paragraph from my own experience... If you are doing so badly that you find yourself TTing things you wouldnt have dreamt of TTing... It's too late and your luck is too bad for that few peds to save you. Rather, you should find other sources of peds, that those items will be of more value to you later than now.
Friday, January 20, 2012
ROCKTROPIA: Things You Should Never TT
It is a challenge to be a crafter on Rocktropia. There is inadequate supply of materials unless at great expense because few people are using the auction house, and shopkeepers are not keeping enough supply of common necessities or their prices are so ridiculous you cannot do business with them. Further, a lot of you are TTing high markup loot because you can't find buyers...
Here's a list of things that you SHOULD NOT TT but rather list on AH or fill orders with because no only do you need the peds, but crafters need the items!
Silver Party Flasks - Average MU around 150 to 250%.
Silver Shakers - Average Orders 150 to 200%
Vixen Android Gears - Very low supply very high demand, Average MU 6K% on orders.
ROCKtropia Gold Coins - Valued at 10 pecs for 100, MU is around 5K to 10K% (10 peds per K)
Rocktropia Records - 10 pecs per hundred as well, MU has been 500%, and is needed for Creative Juice.
ORES... You should never TT any ores in high demand, such as Gazzurdite and Alternative. Traders are somewhat common and anywhere there is a large group of people at least ask if they need any of your ores, someone I am sure will buy. I know it is going to take time to develop the economy on Rocktropia, but it will thrive soon enough.
IF YOU HAVE TRANSPORTATION TO CALY THAT IS SAFE:
You should stockpile Basic Target Assessment Units, they drop by the bushel on Rocktropia, and command a great markup on Calypso, usually a lot of orders for them on AH too.
Mindforce chips are also perhaps something worth taking back to caly. I never get them to drop for me on Caly, but here on RT, I get several a day without fail no matter how small a hunting run I do.
Regardless of what you have, you should always check orders on auction house especially if it something you are wanting to TT. The only way things will boom is if people can get the materials they need and put few extra peds into your pocket as well.
Here's a list of things that you SHOULD NOT TT but rather list on AH or fill orders with because no only do you need the peds, but crafters need the items!
Silver Party Flasks - Average MU around 150 to 250%.
Silver Shakers - Average Orders 150 to 200%
Vixen Android Gears - Very low supply very high demand, Average MU 6K% on orders.
ROCKtropia Gold Coins - Valued at 10 pecs for 100, MU is around 5K to 10K% (10 peds per K)
Rocktropia Records - 10 pecs per hundred as well, MU has been 500%, and is needed for Creative Juice.
ORES... You should never TT any ores in high demand, such as Gazzurdite and Alternative. Traders are somewhat common and anywhere there is a large group of people at least ask if they need any of your ores, someone I am sure will buy. I know it is going to take time to develop the economy on Rocktropia, but it will thrive soon enough.
IF YOU HAVE TRANSPORTATION TO CALY THAT IS SAFE:
You should stockpile Basic Target Assessment Units, they drop by the bushel on Rocktropia, and command a great markup on Calypso, usually a lot of orders for them on AH too.
Mindforce chips are also perhaps something worth taking back to caly. I never get them to drop for me on Caly, but here on RT, I get several a day without fail no matter how small a hunting run I do.
Regardless of what you have, you should always check orders on auction house especially if it something you are wanting to TT. The only way things will boom is if people can get the materials they need and put few extra peds into your pocket as well.
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