I actually spent a lot of time reading word by word every single piece of official information over the last 8 years or so.You don't have to be bright or dumb to understand it, you just have to pay attention and read it carefully and understand it.
My observation since loot 2.0 is that over 85% of player base doesn't read dev notes and those 15% who read it 99% of them misinterpret what Mindark stated.
I advise people to read and find their way.
Did you check the guy global list?
A lot of players a year old still accepting efficiency like "more efficiency will increase my average damage" =D.. you tells for few weeks guy to read MA notes. I dont tells that is wrong, but sound like a lawyer to say "this is written in the law, just read the laws"... ie. everyone need practice to understand what MA tell us... and also there has no notes about the return in last 6 months, but we know there has changes. If the point 6 months ago was to hunt long time for good %, now the things are for short. If we hunt now long time the system fuk us totally..and all new players trying to complete a mission of thousands mobs, totally s*x. And these changes are not in the notes my friend.
To OP..
1st.. Noone will tells you the truth publicy by two reasons.. there has alot old players which dont understand why some players are 250+ lvl with half of their time in game.. and the secound is simple, if this 200+ tells you how to make return of 99% publicy, everyone will start to do the same... ie. thats not good for MA even for the economy. Thats why you dont have answers which you looking for.
There is simple example from wich you can start to learn the hunting..
Looks you are in Arkadia, so buy a TT Rifle and go kill 100 Young Zaduls.. only youngs, becouse they are ~100 HP with their HP regen.
*Cost to kill.. how much you will spend for this hunt run is the point of this. *Leave the loot return for the test, every time will be different.
After you do this save your data..
Go kill 10 HP Caraboks.. again 100 of them. But multilyplay their cost to kill by 10 to be equal with Zaduls hunt.
So the first anwer you looking for is this difference. The next answer is defensive skill and healing tools. For biger mobs you need better skills otherwise you pay more. Many players will tell you that the decay enter in the calculation, and they will be right, but that dont change the fact that you will spend more for kill.
Arkadia is good place to start learning the game becouse for the low mobs you will no need armor and heal and with their result some players learing another just shoot them.
Test the game in long duration not only in few hunts. The example above is for 100 mobs, so how much you will kills this week.. month. And like you see the noobs beleave that when they have alot loss they will hit some big after a time. And again they will be right.. but when, when you have 5k loss you will hit 1k or 2k.. or 5k? Ask them when.
Check the Mess* globals and equal them with yours. He kill 2-3k HP mobs while your mobs are 400 HP.. but the globals looks similar.. so looks you should be more rich than him =)
A week ago i test my defensive skills on 100 Atrox the result is 15 pec.. if you make this test, check your armor decay and healing tool.. but dont mess the things. The example above is only for cost to kill.
1st mistake is Dynamic rate.. everyone know about it, but no one use it in their calculation. 0.95% .. 0.89%.. 0.80%.. 0.85%.. 110%. Depends of your playtime you can be lucky or not today.. so.
2nd mistake is the mob loot that noob choosing. You got lucky with Arkadia, but unlucky for underground there. Mostly noob players buying very expensive amp A101, the price now is above 300ped, and they gona to hunt Kerberos.. i.e. Kerb loot MU is similar as shrapnels, you no need more efficiency for 101% MU loot! So the Mobs choise is very important after you know how to decrease your cost to kill.
3rd Hunting mobs which are not so popular mostly means more loss if you dont have practice. Therefore is your problem i guess. If you hunt mobs while others do, be sure your % will be much better.
The compilation of success in game include many things, dont be afraid to test the different weapons attachments even to oneshoot mobs. You cant found the ballance if you dont know which one is good and bad.
My advice is keep on focus only one diapason of mobs HP for the next months, depends of your wallet and dont jump above, compare with your own old hunts, while you start to make profit, then try to find better.
Good luck!