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!

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!

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...

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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!