The "ammo gets returned" theory

[DoubleWolf]

I should start this with a little disclaimer that I'm not looking to prove or disprove this theory. My only goal is information gathering and to generate discussion as I've seen this topic come about a few times and still have a few questions regarding it. As I'm not yet skilled enough to use, not to mention OWN many of the weapons in Entropia, the only thing I can really do is pose questions to those that can. I'm also going to avoid talking about melee weapons and crafting for the purpose of this thread... brings up more questions which aren't entirely necessary for this discussion.

If you're not already familiar with this theory, it goes something like this:

As you are out shooting your guns (and dropping bombs), you incur two different expenses directly related to these activities, and that is an ammo expense and a decay expense. We all understand that MA (in a round-about way) makes money from decay. Some of the posts from the MA/FPC officials have lead some to believe that what they are implying is that MA keeps the decay and that ammo spent gets either returned to the loot pool or will be returned to the player at some given time (macro or micro level returns).

If this theory holds true, then what that implies to me is that weapons that are very heavy on the ammo side of the ammo/decay ratio should be the best for returns on either the macro or micro level. Likewise weapons that are very decay heavy should be worse for returns.

If returns are on the micro level, it would also throw out the idea that doing anything "eco" is a good strategy. All you would need is a weapon that has a higher ammo to decay ratio and your returns should be much better over time (this doesn't apply to macro returns, but higher ammo to decay ratios would be better for the overall economy... more on that later...).

Some examples of weapons that would be best according to this:
-Omegaton M61A5 Adjusted (23 ammo, 0.12 decay)
-Ravenger Mini-Sweeper V2 (14 ammo, 0.1 decay)
-Cempball-Welch 1/P-1 (6 ammo, 0.06 decay)
-Opalo, D-1, CB5 (2 ammo, 0.02 decay)

Some of the worst weapons:
-Fire Forge DAR 9300 Modified (20 ammo, 17 decay)
-Omegaton ASG-2 Swine Deluxe (24 ammo, 21 decay)
-Marber Tango-Type Plasma Annihilator (23 ammo, 28.5 decay)
-Meckel & Loch PSG-45 Sniper (44 decay, 4 ammo)

There are also a few generalities that can be made here. BLP weapons are usually higher in decay than laser weapons. Limited weapons are typically higher in decay than unlimited weapons.

So I guess what it boils down to is: does any of this even matter?

I've used both weapons that are high on ammo and weapons that are higher on decay and haven't been able to notice a difference in returns. What about you? Have you been able to notice any difference? Have you had the opportunity to use the weapons on those lists and notice a sizable difference between the two? I have to think that the answer is probably no. Might be poll worthy... I think I'd rather you post though, to give more substance than just a yes or no answer...

But this only addresses the micro level returns. The macro level would be hard to quantify. But the one recurring theme is that people say loots are worse now than they used to be, and continue to slide.

The biggest difference in EU today versus EU a few years back is the introduction of (L). As I said earlier, (L) typically has more decay than unL. This would mean that as more and more people switch to (L) for the efficiency, less ammo is being returned to the loot pool than in years past. (L) ends up giving MA a larger chunk of money spent, and less gets returned to players.

Efficiency is great, but now we're becoming more efficient to compete for a dwindling loot pool. The same thing we now depend on to stay competitive is the same thing that's shooting us in the foot. Kinda puts a bad taste in your mouth, doesn't it?

 

[sob]

Dont forget to include melee I dont see why would would exclude it since its a weapon just like the shooters.

Personally I dont think it matters loot wise if you are heavy on decay or ammo. If anything its the damage and speed that counts.

 

[DoubleWolf]

Dont forget to include melee I dont see why would would exclude it since its a weapon just like the shooters.

I made a point of mentioning that I didn't want to talk about it since it's pure decay and there's not really a way to know how much is considered ammo and how much is decay. Does it all go to MA? Does any go to the loot pool? Too many questions that aren't really relevant to the main idea... and can't be answered by any of us...

 

[Igorl]

Its not "only ammo returns" its "some of the decay is taken from you".

Which basically means nothing but - you receive less then you spent.

Simple and clear.

I.

Edit:

The above statement is derived from the MA official answer which sounded like: ... we take only decay. And not all decay but some. jibberish jibberish bla bla....

 

[sob]

I made a point of mentioning that I didn't want to talk about it since it's pure decay and there's not really a way to know how much is considered ammo and how much is decay. Does it all go to MA? Does any go to the loot pool? Too many questions that aren't really relevant to the main idea...

I dont think you can have an honest and constructive discussion if you exclude basically half of the weapons arsenal ingame, no matter if it raises more questions or not.
...Unless you are suggesting, based on some for of data, that the melee system is completly different and separated from weapons that use ammo.

 

[sob]

Its not "only ammo returns" its "some of the decay is taken from you".

Which basically means nothing but - you receive less then you spent.

Simple and clear.

I.

Edit:

The above statement is derived from the MA official answer which sounded like: ... we take only decay. And not all decay but some. jibberish jibberish bla bla....

I think when MA said they earned money from decay they were just making something up, or they get decay from things like scanners, FAP, armor ect... or they have this internal fictional "decay" of some % on everything that has a turnover ingame.

 

[DoubleWolf]

I dont think you can have an honest and constructive discussion if you exclude basically half of the weapons arsenal ingame, no matter if it raises more questions or not.
...Unless you are suggesting, based on some for of data, that the melee system is completly different and separated from weapons that use ammo.

I agree that disregarding half the weapons seems a little silly, but yeah, I really am only suggesting it for the data since the theory says that ammo goes to the loot pool/player and decay goes to MA. We have no way to know exactly how melee works or have any numbers to compare against, so all we really have for these purposes are ranged weapons.

And I'm not suggesting that everything I said is how it works. I don't entirely believe it myself, but the introduction of (L) and the seemed reduction in overall loots make me curious...

 

[milduser]

The loot distribution is in Marco's power. If he does not disclose how it works, we WILL never know. Everything else is PURE speculation. The only official answer you ever get is: EU is dynamic. So keep guessing... Thats your spare time job..

 

[DoubleWolf]

So keep guessing... Thats your spare time job..

Or keep discussing, hypothesizing, testing and verifying...

 

[florin]

so what about melee and amplifiers like A101?...i think not, unstable theory..
I do think that loot is loot, no mather who gets it..
When a mob spawns it has certain amount of loot in it or after you kill it server generates it but nothing related to decay/ammo ..

 

[Witte]

I personally think that only decay that is not directly transformed into damage is not recycled. That means stuff like armor, fap, attachments, tp-chips, focus chips, refiners and what I forgot. The reason I think this is because it about reflects the average return over all avatars. It also fits in the business model of ~1$/hour. But this will remain speculation until MA makes this public knowledge.

 

[rhogenbe]

There has been some research on EF from which was concluded that the average return was based on damage done to kill a mob (within certain limits).
So the more eco your weapon is (higher damage/pec) the better your average return is. This is the reason why the most eco weapons tend to be the most expensive in markup.

Have a look at the following threads:
Some utterly insane tests
Weapons for single hunts
How to analyze loot
Hunting loot

Cheers
Siam

 

[aridash]

...We all understand that MA (in a round-about way) makes money from decay. Some of the posts from the MA/FPC officials have lead some to believe that what they are implying is that MA keeps the decay...

SOME of the decay. why ignore the quotes that say this? it common sence anyway, for a start thats the only way to accommodate melee, secondly it means BLP and Lasers are on an equal footing. as highlighted, if this wasnt the case, eco would be pointless and smallest decay more important. a Loudmouth would lead to better return than a Korss400.

actually though it is interesting that while people the follow law of eco, they will also shun or dislike higher decay weapons, even though they might have same or higher eco value. i can not understand this, if eco is most important then whether the damage is done from decay or ammo is irrelevant.

back to the question of has anyone tried, i have used a range of low or high decay BLP and not noticed any difference, in fact i cant say ive noticed the difference between supposedly "low" and "normal" eco either. maybe the runs have been too short to show up the +/- 5%, but one run you can be down with a 60-70% return and another hof and be up with 200% or more back so theres too much noise really.

 

[rhogenbe]

Remember the bug where EU said something like your ammo stack needs repair because it has to low TT value. (I have forgotten the exact text)

This would hint that the game sees ammo used as decay. This would make sense since then fire weapons and melee weapons get viewed in the same way.

Weapon decay + ammo used (decay) = total decay used to do damage to a mob.

Cheers
Siam

 

[Darkaner]

Remember the bug where EU said something like your ammo stack needs repair because it has to low TT value. (I have forgotten the exact text)

This would hint that the game sees ammo used as decay. This would make sense since then fire weapons and melee weapons get viewed in the same way.

Weapon decay + ammo used (decay) = total decay used to do damage to a mob.

Cheers
Siam

Not sure about that error message, but yes I agree with the idea. One piece of ammo decays 1 pec, a bomb decays 1 ped etc.

If you think of it like that, the phrase "Ma takes a part of the decay" becomes a lot more believable.

 

[aridash]

hmm.....

important semantics raised there. i'd say that ammo is clearly consumed rather than decayed, the former meaning used up while the latter meaning to wear out, break down. but then we look at mining and crafting where there is relativly miniscule decay nearly all consumption and wonder where the revenue is?

if MA have no such view of the difference and see it all as decay, this would answer alot really.

 

[rhogenbe]

I found the reference i was looking for:

What is Ammo-Condition ???

It was like:

You Light Weapon Cells is close to minimum condition

That was what made me think that MA looks at ammo usage as decay.

Cheers
Siam

 

[Darkaner]

I found the reference i was looking for:

What is Ammo-Condition ???

It was like:

You Light Weapon Cells is close to minimum condition

That was what made me think that MA looks at ammo usage as decay.

Cheers
Siam

Very interesting. Quote from that thread:

happens to me when my ammo reaches around 30k, so i guess it's just a bug with 3% limit and counting full ammo as 1000k

 

[DoubleWolf]

Weapon decay + ammo used (decay) = total decay used to do damage to a mob.

And that's the way I've always thought of it. Decay is just the reduction of peds in the system. Any peds spent into the system count as decay. Whether that be from ranged weapons, melee, mining or crafting. Then MA just takes a pre-determined chunk of that, but it's not weapon or activity specific.

I've seen this theory come up a few times in discussions though so I just wanted to point out some of the evidence for and against. The micro level weapon example I brought up I don't think holds much water, but looking at it as what contributes to the loot pool and the introduction of (L) and it gets a little interesting.

 

[JohnCapital]

And how does this relate to MF weapons?

Is the ME used seen as ammo, decay, or both? Does it get a "bonus", since it's the only "ammo" that has built in price increase above TT price, even if you mine/sweat/refine your own?

Folks talk about decay vs ammo all the time. Standard, because most hunt laser/blp and even some plasma.

They often forget about melee, because it's harder to figure.

They always forget nerveblast/firestorm, because most folks are just too scared to even try it.

And then there's rockets. Ammo has to be collected via hunting. Is that ammo treated similar to MF?

Find the theory that covers all weapons, and you may be close to the truth.

 

[rhogenbe]

And how does this relate to MF weapons?

Is the ME used seen as ammo, decay, or both? Does it get a "bonus", since it's the only "ammo" that has built in price increase above TT price, even if you mine/sweat/refine your own?

Folks talk about decay vs ammo all the time. Standard, because most hunt laser/blp and even some plasma.

They often forget about melee, because it's harder to figure.

They always forget nerveblast/firestorm, because most folks are just too scared to even try it.

And then there's rockets. Ammo has to be collected via hunting. Is that ammo treated similar to MF?

Find the theory that covers all weapons, and you may be close to the truth.

Enter PvP3 or PvP4 and you get the answer for ME.

The only stackable items that are not looted according to the message are ammo, bombs/probes and ped stacks.
But if you happen to get killed you see that your ME stack is still there.
As thus it is seen as ammo. And as you use it it will count as decay.

Same for rockets.

The interesting question you ask if a markup on ME/rockets will be taken into account. I do not think that is the case.
If the ammo usage is viewed as decay then this would be comparable with L weapons decaying. I have not seen any evidence in any of the tests that suggest that markup of the decay of L gear is returned in the loot.
But mayby it should be tested somehow.

Cheers
Siam

 

[JohnCapital]

Enter PvP3 or PvP4 and you get the answer for ME.

Don't need to do that. Just look at a chip stat. ME used stat is same location for ammo used

My fault, Rhogenbe. ME is obviously ammo. I was asking if ME was viewed as ammo or not, in regards to this theory, not exactly from MA's POV. (Although this theory is trying to figure that last part out.)

The interesting question you ask if a markup on ME/rockets will be taken into account. I do not think that is the case.

I wasn't meaning markup, in the "sales" sense. (I do not believe MU factors into loot calculations in any case.) I meant markup as in cost to make. ME requires refiner decay to make. I highly doubt that decay makes it into the calculations of how much loot you get back. And that's not even counting cost of procuring sweat+FN, even if you get it yourself.

BLP and laser ammo are straight from the TT, no work nor excess decay involved. ME is not so. So does MF hunting get a "bonus" for this fact? (At least implant decay is 1:1 ratio and trackable) Are the estimated minimum costs of ammo production figured into MF hunting? If so, then it's OK to hunt MF. If not, it's very uneco regardless of which loot theory you subscribe to.

 

[rhogenbe]

If you refer to for instance nerve blast/firestorm chips i think the fact that ME has a markup has been taken into account when they created the decay of the nerve blast/firestorm chips. The markup of ME is partly caused by the refiner decay.

Say we have a look at the medium nerve blast chip:
1.1 pec decay
5 ME as ammo
max damage 36
interesting enough i can not find any exact decay numbers for the NeoPsion Mindforce Implants on entropedia. (I will test my BD this evening and fill it on entropedia) The estimate is 1 pec.

Following calculation assumes the maxed ideal situation for usage (pro level 100 in hit and dmg).

So eco is without markup 36 / (1.1 + 5 + 1) = 5.07 which is extremely high compared to most other weapons. One can assume that MA intended the eco to be around 4 when markup of ME is included.

4 = 36 / (1.1 + 5 * markupME + 1)
Which leads to markupME = 138%

And the medium nerve blast chip is not the one with the highest 'raw' eco.

So i would presume that MA decided not to do a correction factor/bonus on the loot for the markup of ME but to put it into the decay if the chip in question. Which for me makes sense since building a lot of exceptions into the loot mechanism would generate a lot of overhead in an auction which most likely is executed several millions of times a day.

The cheapest way to use mindforce would be to sweat your own sweat (which makes it free) refine it yourself with the best possible refiner you can afford. The force nexus has a markup of approx 124%? This results in ME with refining cost of around 127% or so. (0.031 pec decay for the worst refiner)

Cheers
Siam

 

[wizz]

Or keep discussing, hypothesizing, testing and verifying...

and once we verified it, MA will change it...

 

[JingyiDai]

lol yeh and take it back with interest rate lol

 

[Legion]

One thing about if makrup is taken into account or not.. If it wasnt taken into account, how CRAPPY returns wouldnt you get if you get a gun with a 200 or eveen 500% markup? say tt of the gun is 100 ped, markup 500% = 500 ped go hunt with that and you HAVE to get really good loot the even break even.

So in my eyes yes markup is taken into account, atleast to some extent.

 

[Witte]

and once we verified it, MA will change it...

I don't think MA will change it just because we know how it works. Only when we can exploit it, but that isn't likely, as that would mean their model is flawed.

One thing about if makrup is taken into account or not.. If it wasnt taken into account, how CRAPPY returns wouldnt you get if you get a gun with a 200 or eveen 500% markup? say tt of the gun is 100 ped, markup 500% = 500 ped go hunt with that and you HAVE to get really good loot the even break even.

So in my eyes yes markup is taken into account, atleast to some extent.

If you want to hunt with extremely high markup weapons your hunts are going to be extremely costly. Why MA should compensate for that by giving you more loot beats me, MA isn't social security. Besides it would introduce an extreme security risk, as markup can be manipulated.

 

[aridash]

One thing about if makrup is taken into account or not.. If it wasnt taken into account, how CRAPPY returns wouldnt you get if you get a gun with a 200 or eveen 500% markup? say tt of the gun is 100 ped, markup 500% = 500 ped go hunt with that and you HAVE to get really good loot the even break even.

So in my eyes yes markup is taken into account, atleast to some extent.

thats not MA's problem though. it's the player's.

this extreme example demonstrates exactly why loot can not account for markup, since it would potentially have to adjust itself so much depending on what we pay for somthing. it could also be open to exploit. what markup would the system use, from the auction history? for some weapons there is no markup listed. track every trade and calculate, in which case why isnt that in the history info? how about teams, three people one with 200% markup item, one with 150% one with 110%, how does it calculate, with an average or weighted average on damage? what about the forth member who used unlimited weapon, do they drag down the average loot that run? all this is then calculated on the fly upon "loot" being clicked.

 

[Legion]

thats not MA's problem though. it's the player's.

this extreme example demonstrates exactly why loot can not account for markup, since it would potentially have to adjust itself so much depending on what we pay for somthing. it could also be open to exploit. what markup would the system use, from the auction history? for some weapons there is no markup listed. track every trade and calculate, in which case why isnt that in the history info? how about teams, three people one with 200% markup item, one with 150% one with 110%, how does it calculate, with an average or weighted average on damage? what about the forth member who used unlimited weapon, do they drag down the average loot that run? all this is then calculated on the fly upon "loot" being clicked.

Well i dunno how it's done but i belive it to be taken into account in some way atleast. I have been hunting with 119% markup guns and 250% markup guns and i dont really see any real difference in the loot, ie i get the same back as i put in including the markup sort of.

It could be done in such a way as MA has regulated the droprate of guns to expect a certain markup on them and this markup is already taken into account sort of.

 

[shoti]

One thing about if makrup is taken into account or not.. If it wasnt taken into account, how CRAPPY returns wouldnt you get if you get a gun with a 200 or eveen 500% markup? say tt of the gun is 100 ped, markup 500% = 500 ped go hunt with that and you HAVE to get really good loot the even break even.

So in my eyes yes markup is taken into account, atleast to some extent.[/QUOTET]

That what makes your loot/return value close in both categories ( crapy TT junk with a same value as highly MU loot ) is rarity of some items in loot ,wchich cause big MU on that kind of things. Rarity itself is reason of MU not effect of adjusting value of loot to any reasonable value ( 90% TT as some say )