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?
