Quantity Vs. Condition, Components or Items?

I apologize first and foremost for my extended absense. Due to circumstances beyond my control I have been away from my computer, and my blog. Do not fear, for Goldbaron is here!

The big debate is, what is better? Condition? Quantity? And does the slider affect only Items or Components too? Afterall, shouldn't "Quantity" mean you would get more of an item? You might be surprised at the answers that I have found over tens of thousands of clicks.

Quantity will ensure that you have the most successful clicks, while if you slide over to Condition, your item crafted will have a higher value but you will have fewer of them... EXCEPT, components have no condition, which leads to confusion... Even among my friends, I debate with them over the slider. Since they have no condition you would expect that Quantity is what you want to use... Well.... Yes and no.

If you craft components, say, Basic Sheet Metal, hereafter referred to as BSM, on full quantity, you may average 5 sheets per successful click. And you will get quite a few successful clicks, and residue drops will be smaller, say a few units of residue at a time. If you slide say, until your bar is in between green and yellow, your residue values will drop in the double and triple digits regularly. Your BSM per success on average would rise to say 8 to 10 sheets, but it will be longer between successes. Since you don't have condition on BSM, you are compensated through larger residue drops and more units of the item. So quantity doesn't mean that you will get more units of the item, it means you will get more successes. If you craft items, then yes, quantity really means quantity. Condition on items will give you a higher TT value success, but there is a strategy important to your success that I will reveal later in this posting.

When you craft items, you have some choices. Do I make L or non L items? Quantity or Condition? Well... It depends on your goal... If you are skilling, it perhaps is best to go with non L items. They tend to be TT food or at least easy to obtain materials for and cheap to make usually. My best returns have been with the highest available QR blueprint I can find, and with setting the slider at the point where it is at the bottom of the green, i.e. perfectly lined up with the bottom of the box to the right of the slider. This will give you a good shot at big residue drops and good globals/hofs, but won't give you such a bad success rate as to be a gamble whether or not you will make anything.

If you wish to try full condition crafting, which I have had great success with, but usually only when I have 80QR bp and higher, 100QR is recommended for best returns... Beware you can go 20 or 30 clicks without a drop... But on BSM, I usually get 3 peds worth of residue and 50 sheets of BSM per success on full condition. Full condition also earns you skills faster, and your bp skills up faster... But it can deal you devestating losses, but at the same time give you a shot at a much bigger hof or global.

If you see someone global spamming as it is called, they are likely crafting full condition, or else they have had a super long cold streak and it's finally warmed up for them.

If you craft limited items, check to see if their market value is good, and if they are in good demand. If so, you can profit by crafting on full quantity, and use residue... This will give you full TT limited items, and say you craft an ore amp worth 75 Peds, say 10 Peds was crafted value, and 65 Peds residue used. Say your residue cost you 105%. The amp sells for 115%. You have gained 10% of the TT value as profit over the cost of the residue. This is why people make limited items, and why residue is in demand. If you are crafting something with 500% markup, and paying 105% for residue, it is a no brainer... You are turning near TT food into uber profit!

If you craft at quantity, yes, you will global, but it might take you longer, however, globals usually mean profit for you. If you are crafting condition, you might need globals or hofs just to break even. It's kind of like a slot machine... The cost to play is more on condition but the rewards greater. Quantity would be equal to say, playing the nickel machines at the casino.

One more thing... Always try to get the most you can for your items. This benefits everyone by keeping prices up, including yourself. Do not TT anything that you can get markup for even if you have to visit a trader. Those few percents you will gain add up in the long run to much smaller losses.

Metallurgy Skills and Prospecting: What it means to you!

How many of you craft AND mine? How many of you have checked your mining skills and wonder why it shows "Metallurgy" "1"... I learned accidentally that Metallurgy is in fact a mining skill used in prospecting, that you do not gain through prospecting or mining! In fact, you only gain it by working with metals, i.e. crafting metal components.

If you wish to skill up in prospecting while crafting, you may want to making something very cheap (in terms of markup) such as Basic Screws, all they take is Iron ingots, and Iron is pretty much TT food right now, which coincidentally the screws basically are too. This is good for skilling, because it means you are not losing your markups from only getting TT food as a loot. It is possible to craft something with higher markup ingredients only to sell it at a big loss or end up holding it for so long waiting for it to sell that you can't do anything with your PEDs tied up.

My other favorite metal component to craft is Basic Sheet Metal... The reason is, it has a very high demand, since all those OA 101 lights and I believe the OA 101's require generous amounts of BSM per click. So, the markup is usually very nice on it, but my advice is, never to sell it for the orders. I have always been able to get 10 to 20 points higher markup listing it for a buyout higher than the order prices, and this is almost always needed to get a good return on the metal unless good residue drops are hit.

The reason I want to point out Metallurgy... I found my returns from mining actually went up over time as my Metallurgy skills did too. It wasn't until I had a decent amount of Metallurgy that I actually hit my first level XX deposit, 904 peds of Gazzurdite, maybe it was 906 or 908, I can't remember exactly, but I know it was one of those three. And last I checked on entropedia, Metallurgy had a decent size impact on prospecting... You know how they show the chart with the % effect each skill has on your overall prospecting.

I just find it helpful to do one thing that affects many things, in this case, crafting can help your prospecting too! I hope someone finds this helpful... And if not, well, stay tuned, I will bring you every tip and trick I know of! Thanks for reading!