Getting More for your TT Food! Auction Advice

While I am doing monotonous things like hunting... Yes, to me it is monotonous... I randomly think of things I don't consciously consider, and then I figure ok now I have something to blog about. Which, is why I am posting now.

A lot of people get a lot more markup for things that otherwise are sold to the trade terminal. The reason this works is because if you need a few pecs worth of a certain ingredient in a huge 10 or 20 ped or more per click craft, it's ok to pay 200% for tt food. If you are dropping several peds per click, or in some cases maybe a ped or two, it won't really affect your outcome much at all. You have two options. Buy in bulk so that you can get it "cheap", but why buy 4,000 ingots of lyst when you need 40 of them? Or buy what you need so that all those peds you would otherwise tie up are free for the main ingredients so you can get more clicks in your run.

So, when you are determining what you can get for smaller lots of "tt food"... Consider when you were crafting. What were you buying and what percentages were you paying for your small lots? Chances are similar lots for similar markups will continue to sell. Convenience is a service. Small lots can be convenient. So, the extra markup is the natural cost incurred by convenience, especially since you still have auction fees to contend with.

The only long term profits tend to come from markups. Not always, but, generally. I know the exceptions are rare but I do know of a very small few. Basically if you can make an extra few peds every hunt, thats an extra few peds you won't have to deposit later.

Go through, write down a list of materials youve bought in small quantities and the price range youve paid for them. This will give you a working guide from which to base future listings on. Certain wools and cloths are good for around 120 to 150% in small lots. Leathers.. Wood... Anything you can't generally do something with.

I hope this gives you some encouragement when deciding what to do with your hunting loot. Good luck!

Mining Finders and Returns: What you can do to improve them!

Unfortunately the modifications done to the mining system have destroyed tried and true mining methods. I suspect anyone doing gridline mining will lose their bottom dollar in a hurry. You can no longer just run and drop, turn around and dig up your finds... Simply because mining in such a way won't give you much to dig!!!

This is only one small problem compared to how many new finders there are available.. All of them are L, too. I hope better UL finders are on their way some day. In any event the old tried and true finders are not working as well as they once did in the areas they were great in. Here's how I started fixing this problem:

If you have a bit of a bankroll and want to become a REAL prospector in Entropia (The difference between a prospector and a miner is, a prospector looks for a place good enough to mine and a miner stays in a place that is good enough to mine once it's been found through prospecting) You need to pick a few finders, do a few runs on each in a few of your favorite places.

The result of my doing this has confirmed that indeed some finders work better than others in certain regions. If you regularly suffer heavy losses with one finder, switch to another. Is it better or worse? And keep working your way through finders until you can't find one that gets you any better results.

At present, I am very happy using the F-213 on calypso. It is doing better than my old 105 was after the alterations to the mining profession. I just got tired of bad mining returns and had to do something about it, but the last thing you want to do is buy new finders because you don't know how much ped will be wasted along the way, but I realized I was losing a lot more by not doing what needed done.

You also need to watch the ground. If the ground has the appearance of a certain ore, that ore is probably found there, as I mentioned before. Places that don't look like they would have something probably don't. You can't just keep dropping bombs and expect the system to compensate you.

I suspect results will vary from person to person as to which finder works best due to your play style and skill level... There quite probably is no "one finder fits all" approach. The F-105 USED to be the considered "one finder fits all" but not any more. As soon as someone figures out how to make ends meet, MA moves the ends. It never fails.

I hope this gives you a good starting point in rebooting your successful mining, as it has for me.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Windows 8... Thought this might help some of you.

Ok, so... I got a new laptop. I am very happy with my Acer V3-551G-x419. Runs multiple games at the same time all on highest settings INCLUDING entropia. And it was also a lot cheaper than similar specs on other machines.

But it came with windows 8. Why Microsoft had to make an OS without a start menu I will never know.. I mean the start screen really doesn't do anything useful. It has live tiles that suck bandwidth. It doesn't give you easy access to your utilities tools and other important programs. Windows 8.1 made it a bit easier of course... But I still wanted to be able to hit a button and see all my stuff in a nice list.

So:

I went to Acer's website looking up other issues, seen a link to go to Pokki. http://www.pokki.com/windows-8-start-menu

It gave me back a real, functional, modernized version of the classic start menu. It is free, do a CUSTOM installation of course on ANY programs you install from anywhere. Seems the standard now is for EVERY company to partner with toolbar and spyware companies. Toolbars will wreck your computer and it's performance.

I am not affiliated with the company, this is not in any way sponsored... I just want to help ease some of everyones frustrations when it comes to Windows 8 bloatware (It is bloatware, 3 gigabyte to patch from 8 to 8.1!!!!)

Everyone Ive said hey, want your start menu back? to Looked at me as if I were nuts.

It is the mission as always of this blog to increase your positive experiences with Entropia and any other areas pertaining to it... And well, if you are happy with your computer you are going to enjoy using it more. And I don't know ANYONE that is happy NOT having a real start menu.

ROCKTROPIA: No Way Out Prison: WARNING

My friend had decided to take a flight to Zomhattan. His computer crashed while he was right over the Island. He had no idea what the island was but he wanted to take a look. Well, he crashed on the island, and when he logged back in, he was in prison.

Seemingly the only way out was to complete the quests, which required clearing the ones he was almost done with that cost an immense amount of time and peds to get that far, so he was very frustrated. We figured he was stuck for good, not wanting to give up his progress on the other quests.

BUT THE GOOD NEWS:

Yes! YOU CAN ESCAPE FROM PRISON

http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?221595-how-to-get-out-of-prison-on-Rocktropia

The instructions provided in the above forum post worked like a charm!

ROCKTROPIA: My Observations

I have spent quite a bit of time on Rocktropia now... And I am very pleased with it there. There are a lot more quests, and the quests are more rewarding than those on Calypso. Instead of Nova and Blazars, they give you things that actually have TT value, or things that lead to more valuable quests. And the quests themselves are not impossible, though it seems getting some of them to trigger is just about impossible.

Things to remember when doing quests:
If you must find an item for a character, lots of times it must be looted.
If you accidentally cancel a quest, some of them are almost impossible to get back because of how the system is structured.
The quests are location specific. If you get a Quest in city of dreams to kill trolls, killing trolls near say the Hyperplex won't count for your totals.

This is going to be a lot of just general information... More specific things coming soon such as what mines in hell have what ores and matters for instance.

The mobs are looting better and more often than I have seen personally on Calypso... It would seem that Rocktropia is geared more towards building a satisfied following of players than fleecing the flock and treating them like gamblers as Calypso tends to do... So safe to say I feel Rocktropia is under better management. I want to also note, that when Neverdie still owned the asteroid, my loots were never crappy. I mean, I would always hit say 5 or 10 claims in a hundred bombs. After Foma took over, I was lucky to hit one in 200 amped or not. And its not surprising now that I am getting good loots in Hell and RT. I might permanently move to rocktropia, who knows... But one things for sure, the mobs sure look a hell of a lot better :D

What I don't like about mining on Rocktropia is, just a small amount of Rocktropia ores is an immense amount of weight, so the only solution to mining for extended periods of time, is simply to build up your strength using Melee weapons so you can carry more.

When visiting Hunt The Thing, or the Arctic as it is known... You can mine, but bombs can't be bought there if memory serves correctly... So you will have to bring some with you. Only stuff I've hit there is Oil and Lyst, though when you get to the refueling base where you engage The Things, there is a construction terminal next to the supply shed on the bigger building. My crafting has been lucky there in the arctic.

Also, I want to point out, that the shotgun from the Arctic is very cheap and effective against the Rocktropia mobs, mostly. But for the bigger mobs, you want a bigger shotgun!

I am going to call it good for now, but I will be bringing you a great deal of new information that is specific to various issues within the coming days. Happy 2012 to all of you!

Sweating: Is It a Waste Of Time? Or Is It Something Everyone Should Do?

Sweating is very slow, and very tedious. I can't stand having to sweat. It is an annoying thing to have to do and gets monotonous very fast. Very big kudos to those of you who have established your Entropia existence by only sweating and not depositing. I can't imagine a slower way to progress, nor can I imagine any harder work than that. But perhaps even those of you who rush straight into depositing are missing out on some valuable benefits from not sweating... So here are my observations and thoughts on the issue. I am not trying to talk anyone into or out of sweating. I am merely trying to answer the question of "Why should I bother?"

Sweating was a lot easier Pre-VU 10... I say this because I used to get 10 sweat or so per success... Which actually, makes it not sound so bad as it used to be... Well, Between 5 to 10 I guess is what I used to get. But now, I have to make half a dozen attempts at sweating and then, if I succeed, I only get 1 or 2 bottles?! This is insanity!

But...

You gain athletics, and evade from sweating. Very important defensive skills.  I suspect your other attributes like concentration and intelligence are affected as well. Point is, you gain some very important skills from sweating, that contribute to the other things you do in the game. I begin to wonder if people who have sweated a lot spending the same peds as someone who's never sweated will have better results over the long run.

The defensive skills will help you save money on armor decay. They will eventually get you to the point where you might not even need armor if you get enough of them. I will do some sweating and see what all skills you get from doing it, and I will revise this post and add them here.

If you don't want to die of boredom from having to sweat, just commit yourself to doing it for say 15 or 30 minutes a day, and it's going to add up over a week or two.

The price of sweat should be going up eventually, so long as MA keeps giving us more stuff to craft with it. I have seen the price currently running anywhere between 3 and 5 peds... You won't get rich very fast, but 1K of sweat will get you quite a few rookie bombs and rookie finders, and yes, those do global and hof... Though I have yet to see one ATH :P

Good Luck and Happy Sweating.

Why Some People "Global Spam" While Crafting

I'm not positive how the loot algorithm works... I don't even know if anyone knows as it does indeed appear to be a very dynamic system mingling luck, fortune, timing, random chance, skills, and who knows what else, together.

What I do know is global spam seems only to happen on big ticket items and most times when the crafter has a somewhat long series of clicks with no successes. In a small percentage of cases it can be observed happening to a full quantity crafter... But only seemingly when they have had great losses.

Global spam may make everyone curse and get upset but you gotta realize that thousands of peds can go down the drain before they start global spamming and even see a decent amount of their peds back.

In general you shouldn't worry about globalling... If you focus on profits and efficiency, when you do get one it will be a huge boost to your ped balance.

Cheapest Items To Craft In Entropia

From time to time I will look through my statistics and see what my readers search to find my blog. If I see something I don't feel I have covered, I write a new post on it. Such is the beginnings of this post.

I know some of you don't want to spend 5 or 10 peds a click but may not be sure what the low cost options are. So I will do my best to list some of them. This is all from memory so please bear with me.

COMPONENTS:
Basic Filters are the cheapest to make requiring one lysterium and one oil at a tt cost of 5pecs per click. And yes, they do global and hof.

Standard Dampers require one Lysterium and two Oil for a tt cost of 7pecs per click.

Basic Screws use only one Iron per click which I believe is 24pecs in TT cost and It has been TT food lately. Chances for global or hof are good but the market is so small for these that if Iron can't be purchased for a small markup not to bother.

Basic Sensors require two Belkar and one Blausarium requiring fairly close to 50pecs tt I believe. Demand is ok but again watch material costs or they won't be worth making.

ARMOR:

Settler armors tend only to require Lysterium and Iron which comes out to 50pecs a click and is the cheapest armor I know to craft. After that it starts going up pretty good.. But there can be lots of opportunity for making some good peds if you have the right blueprint.

WEAPONS:

Jester D-1 or Mann MPH are the cheapest weapons to craft but require around 80 pecs to a ped per click if my memory is accurate enough.

FURNITURE:
An interesting profession is the carpenter... While the demand is rather low for most furniture, the blueprints are somewhat uncommon and the right furniture can command a high price... I dunno why but as long as someone wants to buy it who cares :)

I'm not sure of what the costs are for the Nallo Ceiling Lamp but it does require a few copper ingots to make and not sure what the other ingredients are but suffice to say it's at least a ped per click or more. The pall stool is probably a similar cost to make as well but requires boards.

Attachments:
OA-101 Light requires about 5 peds per click... 101 is awful close to 10 peds per click... So 1000 peds will buy you 100 clicks or so.

There are all kinds of attachments but I feel the best value is in ore and enmatter amps.

VEHICLES:
I only mention this so you don't get your hopes up, the cost of the blueprints often reaches tens of peds per click since the blueprints are limited and the QR tells you how many clicks are in the blueprint. And then you have who knows how many peds in parts... So skill up and carefully research as just like GM or Chrysler, you've got a lot of production costs before you can stock your showroom.

I hope I've covered everything important enough to cover however entropedia.info can give you the whole database that you can examine any way you want to. Good luck!

So you want to move... Things to know:

With the advent of new planets, most recently arkadia... Www.planetarkadia.com for more info... I thought I would give you a few tips that you should remember so you don't make what is supposed to be a permanent move only to find you have to go back to where you came from. I know my friends are wanting and perhaps already have moved to Arkadia.

If you want to move I suggest the following:

If the planet is somewhat new, Truro find out the supply and demand situation so that you can supply yourself more cheaply to get you by a little while in your new environment. If you can't get ore amps chaply on your new planet, it will save you money stocking up before you go.

Storage in my entropia experience has never been linked between planets. You want to have all your storage moved into your avatar. Check all your tabs.

Check the auction house and maybe pull any unsold items or perhaps listed items... This will prevent you from having to pay transport fees.

All your current items should work in your new home so don't have a moving sale if you don't need to.

Be sure to read the forums for any information you might need to know about your new home before moving because if anyone made a mistake they are sure to post about it.

I know this is basic stuff but we usually forget the basic stuff in our haste to accomplish something. From one oldtime colonist to a noob, go to arkadia young man!

What you need to know about crafting profits:

I feel it necessary to summarize these most important points...

1. Markup on resources increases how much you needto make to turn a profit so buy as low as possible.

2. Markup on finished goods definitely means a big difference so always sell for as much as you can. Also try to sell in person because half ped auction fees add up to big money in a years time.

3. Don't get greedy. Be satisfied with slow and steady gains.

4. Dont expect a hof or global is due and keep losing peds tryingto get it. If a run is very bad, move to another terminal or log back in in a few minutes. You would be amazed how much this has helped me. On the other hand if you have thousands of clicks to do then don't worry my runs have always averaged out if they are long enough.

5. Understand that globals and hofs are not profit rather they help smooth our a very volatile run.

6. Watch the orders regularly... I once saw orders for bam at around 280% at a time when it was about 190% market value... Rarely happens but on things not used or made much the orders can be significantly high if someone needs them badly.

7. You can almost always get a good deal on materials and ores by placing orders :) this significantly helps the quest for profits.

This should help you but I'll always add more info as I have it available.

Limited Armor vs Unlimited Armor

There is debate on which is better... Limited or Unlimited...

Experience and research has shown to me that  the decay is much slower, a LOT slower on most limited armors versus equivalent unlimited armors. Notice the durability numbers... The lower the durability the faster it will decay. L armor has insanely high durability.

Sure, Unlimited can be repaired.... But is wearing your armor out four or five times faster any more efficient than paying a few hundred percent markup on a good armor and having it last forever? :-) And if you pick the right armors, you can actually get far more value and use than you would out of an unlimited armor.

People make the excuse "My armor might break in battle"... Hmmm... I've never had a piece of L armor long enough to wear it out! That's how durable the stuff is!!! But you just keep an eye on your condition, and when it gets close, purchase replacements.

L also has the benefit of keeping more peds in players pockets, versus just dumping the peds straight into the repair terminal and into MA's cybernetic oblivion, since we don't know WHAT their percentage goes to them and what percentage goes to the loot pool... And I maintain there IS a "loot pool" because if they awarded more loot than peds were spent in the game, then we would have uber inflation like all the free MMO's have because millions of game dollars is what you have in a POOR PERSONs account... You would have lots of people running around with lots of peds! Not true in EU! Sure, there are "millionaires" in Entropia... But not hundreds of thousands of them like in other games! :-) This is reflective of a sustainable system that X amount spent - Y amount equals the amount of Loot that goes into the loot pool, Y being MAs cut. Sure, I can;t prove it, but the evidence does not indicate an oversupply of peds!

See, buying L armor supports the crafters, who in turn buy from the miners and hunters. Sure, we can buy UL items, but if a crafter sells to one person, they won't sell the same piece of armor to them again unless it is sold by the owner and needs to be repurchased later, or is accidentally TTed. L armor will eventually wear out and then it is no longer in the game and a new one has to be produced.

I think if you pencil it all out, it will become obvious in most cases that the extra markup on L items is still more cost effective than buying a UL version and having to repair it, considering the faster decay rate.

But then there is the argument that the more peds you spend the faster, the bigger and better globals and hofs you get... This seems to be true, I mean, look at what people hit with OA 109,s but they are dropping 10 peds TT per bomb drop too..  I would assume it works with armor and ammo and weapons while hunting...

If you are trying to hunt economically, my experience is Limited is better. If you want something you can repair, and don't care about the decay, and expect it will improve your loots, then you will most likely want UL.

Money Management: Tips, Advice, and Why You Need To

Entropia is a lot like the real life. If you want to do something you have to budget for it and if you want your balance to grow, then you have to use care and caution to nurture your balance and it's growth. the basis of this post is, it is easier to save your way to a fortune than to win a fortune!

The number one tip I can give you is to take a few percent of every loot you get and pull it off your ped card and put it into storage. Over time if you don't touch this you will have a big pile of Peds. The idea is to save at least as much as mindark is making off of you. Very soon... Sooner than you think, you will realize you have enough peds to buy a shop or maybe even a land area!

If you budget 100 peds for a hunt, keep track of all costs so you can see what percent you got back... I would say any returns over 80% are good and at that point maybe run again or do something else. Split your profits and save some of them too.

Get every last pec you can out of things you loot and sell... Every extra pec you get is one less pec you eventually might have to deposit.

I do not advise buying things you don't need.

Do not over pay for something if you can get it cheaper elsewhere.

The only guaranteed profit is in trading or owning land. Crafting can be profitable but see my next post for details on why I say that!

If you save peds and don't touch them eventually you can buy whatever you really want even land! If you keep cycling all of your peds, eventually MA will get them!

Things I Would Do If I Started Over: Beginners Tips!

I often wondered what I would do if I had to start over from scratch. If I knew when I was a noob what I know now, what would be the important lessons learned? What things would I have done to avoid wasting peds? Well... The good news is, I have some answers that I feel sharing with you new players should help you out...

CRAFTING:

If I had it to do again, I would have started off with a 100 QR Blueprint... Seriously, it makes a HUGE difference. Try a run on a 100 QR bp, then do a run on a 1 QR bp and compare your results. You save a ton of peds by not having to skill up the blue print when you are at zero skills.

I would have probably started off with Basic Sheet Metal. The Metallurgy skill is a huge boost to mining. I think you will agree once you start obtaining this skill. Besides that, BSM has a HUGE demand, all those 101's that are always being crafted, take a LOT of it. Alicenies and Narcanisum alwasy have good markup usually, and that means BSM does too, and I find it is easy to turn a profit on BSM.

I would also have bought a few hundred points of skill in Engineering perhaps. Engineering is by far the most useful of the crafting skills, it is used in all crafting. Every little bit of skill you gain increases your average returns... It may only be slight increases, but after a while, you go from averaging four or five sheets of BSM per click to averaging eight to ten of them. At least this is what I have observed. Every bit of experience tells me that skills and bp QR affect your results.

If you are new, and prefer not to sweat, crafting basic filters isn't a bad deal because it is the cheapest thing in the game to craft.... 100 peds would let you buy nearly 2K clicks depending on what you pay in markup. 100 QR Basic Filters BP's usually can be found from 15 to 30 Peds usually. Sometimes I have seen them under 15 Peds.

MINING:

If I had it to do over again... I would  have started with enmatters, skilled up my geology from surveying... After I hit say level 10 or so in Survey, I would probably begin my search for ores.

I would also not have trade terminaled the few odd stones I'd have every once in a while that I couldn't refine. Over time, I am sure I've lost hundreds of peds in markup from doing this... Believe it or not, a few pecs can add up to being the cause of your being broke!

HUNTING:

I have spent so much at hunting with so little loot out of it, I don't even WANT to comment on this category... But I for the sake of completeness...

I would have started out with an Isis CB5 (L)... They are cheap, last a long time despite being (L). They shoot faster than their Trade Terminal laser counterpart too. I favor BLP over laser any day.

I would not have gone hunting EXPECTING to get any loot, therefore not be disappointed when I didn't get any which was most of the time.

I would actually have not bothered with hunting... And instead put all those resources towards crafting and mining.

The mobs that I feel deserve the most effort and have had the best outlook as for loots, are as follows: Molisk, Argonauts, Exarasaurs (don't laugh, I have probably had more loot from these than anything else), and Drones... The Generation 1's are easy enough to kill, just have a moderately good weapon and a little armor. The mobs I would avoid? Feffoids, nothing has looted worse for me than a Feff. I consider Atrox and Atrax neither good nor bad... They either will loot or they wont.

MISCELLANEOUS:

-Do NOT lend ANYONE that you do not know in REAL LIFE anything of value, Unless you can afford to lose it.

-DO NOT fall for people saying they will give you skills if you provide empty implants. If you think they are serious and true, then ASK FOR COLLATERAL!

-Do NOT join someone's team hunt without looking the loot parameters first. It used to be very easy to be taken advantage of through unscrupulous loot settings.

-DO listen to local chats, eavesdropping sometimes can provide useful information.

LAST NOTES:

If you don't agree with what I've written, that is ok. These are things based on my own hindsight, experience and observation that I wish I would have known sooner. Everyone could write their own such list and have it read differently than everyone else. The point of this is to get everyone thinking, and if you are thinking, you will be more careful and hopefully more successful in the long run. If it helps you, great. If not, well, hopefully some of my other posts will :-)

HELP: I've Played For Years Without a Global! Suggestions For Getting One!

It took me six months to get my first global. After that, they came in somewhat regularly. But that was crafting. Then my first mining global took FOREVER. It finally came. Then, you know? It took me about 3 years to get my first hunting global, and keep in mind, I have hunted so much that I have 2.5K in Rifle, Laser, and BLP from skilling... Not to mention what I have in Anatomy. But only one global on a Drone Gen 1. All my globals and hofs in hunting come while I am in a team... So much for solo recognition :( Look me up on http://www.entropiatracker.com/... Goldbaron Goldbaron357 Maximus... Notice my stats for mining and crafting? Then look at hunting. Pitiful ain't it?

HUNTING: If you don't care about whether or not you get the recognition and credit, find someone who isn't even hunting but doesn't mind you adding them to a team... Even if they are hunting, you can do what you want and not really make it a team hunt if they agree... By being in a team, your chances to global and hof go up exponentially. The theory I come to is this: Teams spend more in decay, more in ammo, plus the loots GENERALLY are split, therefore they must be larger on average. If you each do your own thing, you get your full share of what is in the mobs you kill. I know, why can't I get a solo global or hof? It is frustrating, and I will spend hundreds of peds trying to, but it just ain't happening. The one global I got musta been a glitch in the system.

MINING: I recommend you use say a Ziplex Z5 finder, MAYBE a Z10 at a place like Akmuul, or say New Switzerland. Run a few hundred bombs... See what kind of results you are getting, if you are doing ok, just keep running and the globals will come in. It's all about how many bombs you drop, and each area has certain ores, and each finder is better at finding those certain ores... So most miners do in fact have a finder for each different area they mine based on their experience. Now, it is observable that most towers I have seen screenies of, happened with an OF-105... As did my 906 ped or whatever it was hof on Gazzurdite... In fact, I still have faith that Treasure Island North is still a good chance at something great... Nice thing about TI is, it is the only place I am known to have found Cobalt, which has VERY nice markup usually. If you want to improve your returns, and your chance at a global/hof... I recommend using one level of amp for every 10 levels of prospecting or surveying skill depending on what you are doing. This is what an uber miner I know did, and he was always towering and hoffing all over the place. I notice if I use an amp that is bigger than a tenth of my skill, then my returns are cut in half on average.

Also, crafting metal components gave me metallurgy, after I gained significant amounts of it, my mining returns, and variety of ores found gone up. Now I regularly find stuff I never dreamed I would. Another rule of thumb, if you can't hit anything in 10 bombs, change locations!!! But also, I want to say that if you are amping, it would behoove you to amp all your drops and not just pick and choose. Why risk missing your first tower? And it's never failed to give me about the same return either way, percentage wise. And remember, with markups, it is easy sometimes to run a profit while mining, just pay attention to what the traders are actually giving you... And if you have enough of something, maybe auction is a good idea, but be competitive.. If you are too far out of the ballpark, you wont sell it and your peds will be tied up for a while.

CRAFTING:  If you really are having a hard time globalling... My advice is this... Take something like Basic Sheet Metal... Get a decent QR blueprint... Try to do runs of at least 400 clicks, and you should average at LEAST 5 sheets per click... If your average is above that, you should be close to profit mode with markup. You will global if you do enough clicks. I have globalled a lot on BSM. And just the other day on a basic screws blueprint that I skilled from 1QR, I hit a 80 some ped I think global after hitting just under 40 QR. Iron should still be close to TT food, screws pretty much are TT food, like three items in the whole game require them, so yeah... But it is easy as it just needs Iron :-) Set the autoclick and give'er Hell! If you are DESPERATE to get a global... Try to get a 100QR blueprint, say with screws or bsm... RUN ON FULL CONDITION. After hundreds of clicks you should have some nice residue drops and globals too! But I only recommend full condition IF you have a 100QR blueprint. The losses at lower QR's are staggering, at least for me, though it does skill a blueprint up quicker than on Quantity.

SILENT GLOBALS: The name of the game is making peds... And lots of times, you will find that you have had a silent global, sure you only got a couple peds of Dunkel, but hey, you are talking about 50 peds right there! So you can get a smaller amount in TT, but the markup makes it add up right for you. I know, it's not the same as hearing the bells trumpets and whistles, but don't look Mindark in the mouth when it comes to loot :-)

I will post more advice on this, and other topics as fast as I can. I want to get my inventory of information to the point where I've answered every question and provided advice for everything. I may never get there, but I will have fun trying. Please subscribe if you would like to keep up to date on everything I post, or check back from time to time. Who knows, I might start running some contests before too long! And if you found this blog helpful, please feel free to share with your friends!

Welcome to my Entropia blog!

There are a lot of people wondering where the best places to mine what are, or what items they should craft, what skills to focus on... I am here to help. I have been an Entropian since summer of 2007... Hard to believe my avatar will be four years old :( Time goes by so very fast.

I have done a lot, I have tried a lot. I have experimented with theories. I have studied statistics. I have successfully been in profit mode numerous time... But like all of us do, I get greedy from time to time and want to go big or go home... I have not hit it big on there yet.

I am not perhaps widely known in EU yet, as fame has not reached me. However, I have done some trading part time as well... And if you must know, my identity in EU is Goldbaron Goldbaron357 Maximus. Goldbaron is a nickname I've always used since I am a real life gold prospector... Yes, I have caught the gold fever, and one of the main attractions to Entropia is the fact it is a real cash economy, and one that I can mine all year round in regardless of the weather, though it is nothing like actually being out there and finding real gold! My gold prospecting blog if it interests you is located at http://goldbaron.blogspot.com/.

I plan to post anywhere from two to four times a week, depending on what material I have to bring to your attention. I don't want to go for quantity, I just want to have quality. Information that you can depend on.

As for hunting on Planet Calypso, my advice is, DONT. I have several thousand peds worth of crafting and mining globals and hofs, but despite hitting levels in the 20's for weaponry from hunting, I have but one global hunting and it was only a 50 some pedder. As compared to a level XX gazzurdite on TI North a couple years ago, which gave me 904 peds in TT value. That is my biggest hit to date. Don't let my small numbers fool you though. I would rather hit constant profits than to hit a few big finds in between big losses.

Over the next couple days expect new posts from me, in an effort to get this blog underway, and attract some readers.