Answers
This post was made/edited after Post #25.
Thanks to everyone who posted in this thread.
Sadly, knowing everything below doesn’t really help you become much more eco. The info here only covers the easy half of understanding loot! The more difficult half, e.g. when you will global, or when you will come out of a bad loot cycle, I know far less about!
Anyway, most of the stuff below has been determined by knowing about “loot classes”.
Forming loot conclusions (or any wider loot theories) without first understanding loot classes is a pointless exercise, so I will try to summarize loot classes as fast as possible. It's an extension of "bond theory" as far as I can see.
Loot Class Introduction
All loots from all mobs on all planets, for all players, fit into “classes” (i.e. ranges) as follows. Each class has a lower and upper limit, and an average value. Loots are scattered randomly within each class, so they are not weighted towards any particular place within the class. [I am not actually sure that loots are 100% random within the class they have been assigned to, but for the sake of this article, assume they are.]
| Class | Average Value (PEC) |
| Class N | 0 PEC |
| Class F | 0.0195 PEC |
| Class 1 | about 7 PEC per 100 HP |
| Class 2 | about 13 PEC per 100 HP |
| Class 3 | about 29 PEC per 100 HP |
| Class 4 | about 160 PEC per 100 HP |
| Class 5 | about 370 PEC per 100 HP |
| Class 6+ | everything above Class 5 |
To explain the table above, Class N means “no loots”, and Class F means “fragments”. Blazar and Nova fragments are always looted in a random number between 10 and 29 inclusive, so the average (for all mobs that drop fragments) is 19.5.
Class 1 is the first “proper loot” class. When loots go above Class 5 their classes start to merge with each other - and also become quite rare - so I have simply clumped these together as “Class 6+”.
Many different variables adjust these average values up and down. When this happens, all classes (except for Classes N and F that are fixed) are adjusted up or down by the same percentage.
If you are hunting very economically you will see loots with slightly lower average PEC values than I have shown above, because MA knows you are hunting economically. Similarly, if you hunt with poor eco, these average values will increase.
The main variables that affect loot classes are discussed below (except for regen which I haven’t covered).
Loot Class Frequencies
The frequency of receiving a loot in each class is not the same for all mobs. For example, some big mobs never give you a Class N or F loot, mobs with less than 15 HP never give you a Class 1 loot, and Toulan mobs don’t drop fragments.
However, the frequency of the higher groups is fairly similar between all mobs. So if we group the first four classes together to account for these oddities, we can say – approximately – for all mobs:
| Class | Percentage of loots |
| Class NF12 | 40.9 |
| Class 3 | 54.3 |
| Class 4 | 1.9 |
| Class 5 | 1.8 |
| Class 6+ | 0.7 |
| Other | 0.4 |
To explain the table above, Classes NF123 are the rubbish loots that annoy us. Classes 4 and up are the minis/globals/multipliers. “Other” denotes loots that fall outside all loot classes, some due to oddities in the loot server, and more due to errors in my (manual) recording.
The frequency of loots for any given mob will not be exactly as above, but won’t be far off.
As an approximate rule of thumb, mobs with over 1500 HP will give globals for all their Class 5 loots. This is why they are popular grinding mobs. Mobs with over 5000 HP will give globals for all their Class 4 loots.
I don’t know why MA dishes out loot in classes, and why these classes exist with such values and frequencies. I thought I would crack this… but no, it’s still a mystery to me. If anyone can spot anything mathematically significant in the numbers of the two tables above then get in touch.
Anyway, let’s get on with it.
1. Does using a 3.00 dpp weapon give me better average loot than using a 2.00 dpp weapon - over the long term?
A. Yes
Average values of loot classes clearly change when using bad eco and good eco weapons. Loot classes have lower average values when you use a more eco weapon combo, but this change certainly does not fully account for all of the higher eco. See question 5 for more info. [As per comments made in this thread, I should have used the phrase “overall percentage returns” rather than “average loot” in the question text.]
2. Approximately, how much of my overkill costs are given back to me in loot?
C. Nothing
If you kill very small mobs in one shot with a massive gun, and then with a smaller gun, you will see no difference in loot classes. Even when using a truly huge weapon and the mob has 1HP, and the shot is a crit, and your overkill is enormous…. loot will not improve.
3. Approximately, how much of my armor decay costs are given back to me in loot?
A. More than half
You are compensated in loot for the majority of your armor decay, around three-quarters, and this always happens in the loot of the mob that hits you. None of this compensation gets carried over to the next mob. You can test yourself with large armor and small mobs; you will see values of loot in each class rise relative to your armor decay. Wearing crazy big armor in a hunting event on small mobs will give you a massive advantage (at the expense of your eco) if you let them aggro you to build up armor decay.
4. Approximately, how much of my healing costs are given back to me in loot?
B. Less than half, but not nothing
I saw marginally better loot in the next “loot operation” following a heal - but not a great deal. Heals between kills gave better loot in the following mob. The compensation was small, averaging about 10%, but it was very definitely there. You can test this yourself with a largish fap and small mobs, but as mentioned by Haruto Rat, these tests are difficult to get right because of regen, so you have to count the number of hits you do, or time the kills. In my tests I either healed only between kills, or counted the shots I needed to kill a certain number of mobs – in both tests - and checked they were the same afterwards.
5. Approximately, how much of the extra cost of using a terribly uneco weapon (e.g. 1.50 dpp) is given back in loot?
A. It can be as much as half - but it varies depending on exactly how uneco it is
MindArk knows your weapon combo eco and increases the average loot in each class (on each loot) if it looks bad – using a non-linear sliding scale. This is very easy to test with a range of uneco weapons on the same mob, e.g. 1.5 dpp, 2.0 dpp, 2.5 dpp, 3.0 dpp etc. For example, if you use a weapon combo with a headline eco of 1.5 dpp, you actually do over 2.2 dpp because MA feels sorry that you are so dim. If your weapon combo does much more than about 2.8 dpp, the compensation is very small indeed. [This was tested and confirmed by Ardorj many years ago on the Arkadia forum, without using loot classes; just by killing hundreds of mobs.]
Obviously you should use a more eco weapon in the first place, rather than use an uneco weapon and be happy that some of your losses are coming back at you.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The average hunter will get globals more frequently with an uneco weapon (or weapon combo) on certain mobs, because this weapon will take part or all of a loot class over the global threshold. This is the reason why we have had so many threads here about eco because some people are thinking in terms of “more overall loot” (eco) and some are thinking in terms of “higher single loots” (number of globals). This is the foundation of “Does eco matter?” forum arguments.
6. If you hunt on taxed land with 3% tax, and compare your returns to the same mobs untaxed, which of the following is true:
A. Each individual loot is approximately 3% lower on the taxed land
Hunting the same mob on taxed and untaxed land results in you getting 3% less loot every time you kill the taxed version of the mob. You can test with Ambulimax Young as an example. [I am aware that this works slightly differently when mining because there are no ores/enmatters with very low TT values to make this work nicely.]
7. How does the average loot from a 1500 HP mob compare to the average loot from a 500 HP mob?
B. It is less than 3 times as high
The drop-off isn’t massive as HP goes up, but something bad seems to happen somewhere between 500 HP and 1500 HP - and by 3000 HP you are very obviously getting less loot per unit HP. It is difficult to put figures on because your gear will change as the mob HP goes up. When I was testing, my eco got lower as I tested on bigger mobs (up to 3500 HP) so you would have expected my loot to get higher if anything, due to armor decay, regen, heals etc. But no.
I think this is one reason why the average mid-range hunter starts to see peds fly away once he starts grinding e.g. Atrox and up, and why eco players generally stick to smaller mobs. Svarag mentions below that skill gains might be the trade-off. Or maybe MA sees larger mobs as mainly for team hunting, which is inherently more eco – less armor and fap decay, less overkill and less regen. Or maybe to prevent players with extremely eco setups making 1000s of peds every day. Or maybe just to screw the players with money to deposit. Form your own conclusion…
8. Approximately, what percentage of loots fall below your cost to kill?
C. 95%
Everything that isn’t a mini/global/multiplier is a losing loot. So about 19 loots in 20 will lose you PEDs (Classes NF123), and 1 loot in 20 will be a nice loot that makes you PEDs (Classes 456+). The only exception is if you are using an extremely economic setup; in this case you might see some loots in Class 3 sneak marginally over your cost to kill the mob.
IMPORTANT NOTE: One way to see if you have an economic setup is to see if the higher end of your Class 3 loots get up as high as your cost to kill; there is a relationship between your long term projected returns on a mob, and how the upper end of your Class 3 loots compare to your cost to kill. So by killing as little as 50 mobs (same maturity) you can work out how good your REAL eco is – you simply need to compare your results to 50 kills of a few others things.
9a. What is the TT value of the smallest possible loot - not a "no loot" or "fragments-only loot" - that you can receive (in PEC, complete with decimal places) ?
Answer: The lowest possible “normal loot” is 1.00 PEC.
For some reason, the game never gives you anything less than this seemingly arbitrary minimum, except for fragments and no loots. [My suspicion is that this contributes to loot being slightly bugged downwards for mobs with less than about 10HP, and massively bugged for 1HP mobs on Next Island.]
9b. What is the only mob in the game that can give you this exact TT value of loot?
Answer: Gallard (15 HP, Arkadia)
Mobs with 13 HP and less, such as Caraboks and Monuras, don’t give a Class 1 loot because that would take the loot below the minimum 1.00 PEC threshold. And mobs with 20HP start their Class 1 loots from about 1.40 PEC. I believe the Gallard is the only mob with between 14 and 19 HP inclusive, and therefore is the only mob that can sometimes give 1.00 PEC in a Class 1 loot. I included this question to try to entice someone out of the woodwork who also knew everything above.
Summary
Every time you hit a mob, take a hit yourself, heal, or let a mob regen (not covered here), your loot is adjusted accordingly. I am fairly sure that there are many other factors - that may or may not include enhancers, sights, scopes, taggers, finishers, rings, pills, team hunting dynamics, and possible “enhanced Kerberos loot” to keep new players keen. Surely this is making the loot server’s code so complicated that MA want to start again with Loot 2.0…?
Anyway, there we are. I manually logged 26289 loots between December 2016 and March 2017 to bring you this. But you can confirm everything above with a total of about 1000 kills if you only study the largest group, Class 3. You can do about 120 kills - 60 kills with and 60 without one change of setup - and that is usually plenty to get a rough idea because half of those loots will be in Class 3.
One further note… I believe MA can change the frequencies of loots in Classes 4, 5 and 6+ for certain periods of time, in a way that evens out to a defined average. I suspect this is the foundation for good and bad loot periods… just my 2 PEC.
Well done to
Me Really Never who scored highest in the survey with 5 points. The average was 2.9 points. Well done to Fforest for not attempting it!
Feel free to PM me in game with any follow-up.
Have fun!
Forrest
