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!

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.

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!

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!!!

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!

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.

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.