Limited vs Unlimited Armor - an Essay by Legends

Legends

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Inherent Marxus Legends
March 2020 EDIT: Although I am really tempted to go ahead and re-write this entire thing, I am going to try and leave it alone as much as possible, otherwise the rest of the thread just doesn't make any sense... But readers should be aware that at the time I wrote this essay I was not taking into consideration one key point which is that the loot system is apparently compensating for armor decay in the loot of the mob now. Although this had been confirmed by MindArk somewhere in this forum a month or two before I wrote this, I had completely missed it somehow. There was no ill intent with this as some try to imply later in the thread, it was just born out of a lack of knowledge at the time (although it should also be understood that research on this is far from complete and we still don't know exactly how much that compensation actually is). For a fresh new look at things, please check out my 2020 Armor Guide.

Note: This Essay is intended for the average Entropia player, not for ubers or professional hunters who focus on winning events or achieving the greatest economy possible for a specific activity.

It always makes me laugh whenever someone tells me that they will only use Unlimited Armor. I can't help but feel a bit sorry for the poor guy or gal, because it is about as logical as only using Unlimited weapons.

Most (looted) Limited Armor is actually cheaper to use and I'm going to attempt to lay out the main reasons why I think so below.

1. Durability:
I'm sure that most of you have already noticed that the Limited variant of any Armor always has 10,000 more points of Durability than it's Unlimited version, but what does that translate to in terms of PED economy?

When the changes to Armor decay costs were rolled out along with Loot 2.0, some testing was done using very cheap armor pieces in an effort to determine exactly what the new decay costs were. It was found that Limited Armor protects the same amount for ~10% less decay.

So if an Armor set was made available through the Trade Terminal and you could pick between the Limited version or Unlimited version, which one is the better buy and why? Obviously the Limited version would have more value wouldn't it.

2. The total amount of PED tied up into your Armor set:
Let me list some real examples here so that a straight comparison can be made for actual Armors in the game. I'll only use actual sets that have both a Limited and Unlimited version for this. These numbers are crude numbers from my recent observations of the auction and forum sales threads, many of you are likely to disagree with some of the prices given but this is not a price check thread, I'm just listing these for the sake of some examples:

Rascal (M) will cost TT+50 PED = 110.60 PED
Rascal (M,L) is approx 122% of TT = 73.93 PED

Ghost (M) will cost TT+360 PED = 708 PED
Ghost (M,L) is approx 119% of TT = 414.12 PED

Bear (M) will cost TT+1300 PED = 1,802 PED
Bear (M,L) is approx 106% of TT = 532.12 PED

Jarhead (M) will cost TT+1100 PED = 1,479 PED
Jarhead (M,L) is approx 107% of TT = 413.02 PED

Jaguar (M) will cost TT+4,500 PED = 5,106.40 PED
Jaguar (M,L) is approx 111% of TT = 673.10 PED

Angel (M) will cost TT+13,000 PED = 13,363 PED
Angel (M,L) is approx 155% of TT = 562.65 PED

It is so unbelievable to me that great mid-level limited armor sets such as Bear (L), Jarhead (L) and Jaguar (L) can sell for so little! Whenever you can buy a limited piece of Armor for less than 110%, realize that there is greater value in that limited piece of armor then there is in it's Unlimited version, in other words, you will get more protection for your money, because remember, that 10,000 points of Durability difference means the protection costs 10% less decay.

But I digress. The point I was trying to make by comparing the costs of Limited versus Unlimited is that a lot more PED winds up getting tied up into 1 suit of Armor when the Unlimited version is purchased. Aside from the fact that there is no guarantee this Unlimited set will still be worth as much once you decide to sell it (which is very unlikely btw), you have fewer PEDs left over with which to hunt or do other activities in the game, which means you are limiting what activities you can do in the game.

To illustrate this another way, for the cost of 1 Unlimited Jaguar Armor set, I can own a full TT Limited set of Rascal (L), Ghost (L), Bear (L), Jarhead (L), Jaguar (L) and Angel (L), and still have almost 2,500 PED left over to hunt or play with. Which brings me to my next point.

3. Freedom:
When your Unlimited Armor deteriorates, the only thing you can do is repair it. Once repaired, you have a set of Armor which is usable again for a period of time, but it's the same set, and you'll be limited to hunting the same mobs again.

When your Limited armor deteriorates, you can only TT it. But doing so now leaves you without armor and opens up a world of possibilities. Do you get the exact same armor again or do you try something else? It's up to you to decide what you want to do, you are no longer limited to what can be hunted with that specific set of armor, or burdened with the task now of selling that Unlimited Armor (which can sometimes require a bit of time and effort) to get your PED back so you can move on to something else.

4. A zero-sum game:
Let's say a person bought a set of Bear (M) Armor in 2014 and paid +1.4k PED for it at the time and now, 3 years later decides to sell it and gets +1.3k PED for it.

Let's assume that in the 3 years that this player owned the Armor, he/she spent a total of 5k PEDs repairing the armor. If this player had bought Limited parts from the Auction at an average price of 109% of their TT, the increase of cost for the same protection:

109% cost, minus 110% protection value = -1%

Which means the Limited Bear would have provided him with an additional 50 PED worth of protection over 3 years.

Because he sold his Bear set for 100 PED less then what he paid for it in 2014, the player would have actually saved 150 PEDs over 3 years had he opted to use Limited Bear armor parts instead, and would not have tied up 1,400 PEDs into 1 set of Armor and instead would've been able to enjoy greater freedom of action in the game.

5. Conclusion:
The most economical way to go right now when it comes to armors is to look for and use Looted Limited armor parts which are listed on the auction for prices between 100% and 108%. Notably, here's what's typically available on the Auction House:

- Jaguar (L) parts can often be bought from 102% to 111%
- Martial (L) parts are quite abundant and parts typically go from 100% to 110%
- Tiger (L) parts range from 103% to 112%
- Polaris (L) parts usually fill an entire Auction page, costs between 100% and 108%
- Thunderbird (L) parts are very cheap, 100% to 107% but not always available

Some other examples would include Aurora (L), Boar (L), Bear (L), Jarhead (L) and Ozpyn Beetle (L). These are not quite as available as the others I just mentioned but they are cheap whenever they appear on the Auction, typically, they range from 100% to 108% and are quite useful, i.e. most of them will allow a player to hunt a wide variety of mobs on almost any planet.

Cheers o/

Inherent Legends
 
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so, uh, you put together a shop to sell L armor eh? Main advantage of UL appears to be that once you get the tiers up they stay there.
 
It all comes to convenience and budget for the most part.
I have full sets of stealth and firewall mk3 prints.

I use electric armor about 5% of the time, so I use self made L parts instead of tying up ped in a set of UL tbird. (though i keep toying back and forth with that decision and would likely get tbird again if i had the peds when a set was for sale)

I use cut/stb/imp armor 95% of the time and so I use UL angel instead of self made L stealth.

Convenience has a lot to say for itself....... We are all number crunchers here, but we have to balance time, money(peds), and enjoyment per hour.

We each come to a different solution to the same problem. :p
 
so, uh, you put together a shop to sell L armor eh? Main advantage of UL appears to be that once you get the tiers up they stay there.

Well, this thread really was NOT intended to be a discussion about my shops and what I sell in them. The whole purpose with this thread was simply to share with everyone the conclusions I've reached after spending many hours researching the subject of the economy of armors and how different options compare.

What you've just done above mastermesh is the laziest possible thing: to jump straight to a conclusion that the poster is biased in some way and therefore discredit the entire thing as skewed and/or unreliable... It's lazy because now you don't actually have to evaluate or verify any of this information for yourself, you don't have to think about it, you don't have to change your way of thinking about it... You just discredit it and voila, it's a done deal.

Only problem with this is you are misleading people and doing them a great disservice by denying them information that actually is quite useful for those that want to be more economical about their protection.

Here's what I mean by lazy. Let's start by addressing the first sentence "so, uh, you put together a shop to sell L armor eh?"

1. If you had bothered to do any homework on this at all instead of just jumping straight to conclusions, you would have realized that the implied bias here (towards Limited armors) doesn't actually exist in reality. Because if you had visited any of my armor shops, you would have noticed that I offer both Limited and Unlimited armor sets in them. In fact, in my Robot Armor shop, there are more UL armors then L ones. The Robot Armor shop always has Adj. Nemesis and Adj Vigilante armor sets, both male and female, as well as Mah'ketta and Hunter ME most of the time.

2. If you re-read the first post, you will notice that I tell people to go to the AUCTION, I never once told anyone to come buy their limited armors in any of my shops and frankly I couldn't care less because it's besides the point. The limited looted armors in my shops are not 108% or less and therefore people should look to the AUCTION for the best deals, not my shops.

3. If this post was really about selling armors and making money, as you seem to imply in your first sentence above, then I would have a bias towards selling people CRAFTED Limited armors because these are the most profitable sales in my opinion (and I do sell Crafted armors in my shops as well). But, once again, if you just re-read the first post, you'll discover that there is no mention whatsoever about Crafted Limited armors, this post is strictly about what I have discovered to be the absolute best deal when it comes to armors, the cheap (less than 108% mu) Looted Limited armor parts on the Auction.

If there is a bias, it's not the bias that you think. It would have to be a bias towards armor in general as opposed to healing tools. If someone declared in this thread that I have a bias towards armors and that this post does not consider the economy of healing tools, I would have to agree with them. But if you notice the title, it's quite clear that this is a post strictly about armors, more specifically limited vs unlimited armors.

Please, do your homework next time mastermesh, before you go and try to discredit someone's hard work with one sentence, it's not doing anyone any good.

Legends
 
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You argument does make sense when using the numbers provided, I know you stated that you were just using numbers based on your observations, but you only cited sets where the limited version was very close to to your number of 7.7%, and as you also stated once a durability enhancer is added, OR the increased utility a defense enhancer is added, all your math goes out the window. You also only sited numbers for when you sell your armor at a loss, not break even, or heaven forbid even profit.

Lets also not forget, what happens when one of your pieces of limited armor breaks and you can not find one on the auction, or they are super expensive. The economy side of the argument goes out the window again.


Each set has a time and purpose, like you said, for the more casual gamer who does not grind day in and out, limited is probably the best option so their peds are not tied up and can do more varieties. But for someone with no budget issues, or has long-term plans or goals, or like you cited needs armor like angel (160%) or even shadow (200%) the economy again holds no ground.


Also, you and i had a long talk yesterday, personally, any craft-able limited armor you make will not be sold for under your cost. And you also explained to me, in detail i might add, that the prices we see on the auction do not reflect the cost to craft and are usually people who do not know prices or need Ped fast. With that said, the only reliable way to replace limited armor that breaks would be from a crafter, which according to your math, would make your entire argument on the economic savings of limited armor moot. So the only option a player would have is to overpay or postpone their hunting until they get a piece for the right price. OR tie up extra peds in extra pieces whenever they see them in the auction for a good price, and freeing up peds to play was supposed to be one of the benefits to limited armor.


Again, everything is relative and depends on each person and their playstyle, but if a person has the peds to invest in an unlimited set, I would think that is the smarter way to go in terms of long term savings. If that is the only factor in the decision.
 
Xanato,

The limited armors that I am more specifically referring to (for a very reasonable price on the auction) are looted armors, not crafted. Bear, Boar, Jaguar, Tiger, Martial, Aurora, Polaris, Thunderbird, and a few more, are all LOOTED armors and are very cheap on the auction typically.

The crafted armors that I told you were being sold on the auction under what their true cost to craft are usually just 'one of' used parts. You will see some uncommon pieces sometimes like for example a Lich part, or an Aquila armor part, sell for 'cheap' relative to what the true cost to craft that piece of armor is. Those parts you will have to check the auction everyday for a long time to acquire. But the looted armors are almost always available on the auction.

The first post in this thread is mostly referring to those limited armors that are LOOTED, not crafted.

When the armor piece breaks, it's true that a replacement part might not be available on the auction. For most of the armors I mentioned above, availability is sporadic, but for some it is pretty constant, Aurora and Polaris are usually abundant on the auction and very cheap. Also, the protection you get from Bear and Boar are so close that they could be mixed, same goes for Jaguar and Tiger, they even look similar too.

If I was hunting these days I would proceed in this way: search for and acquire cheap armor parts and put together a full set, then once I have a set, research what I can hunt effectively with it. Most people do it the other way around.

But remember, this post is about saving money on armor, and just like any other activity in Entropia, if you want to save money, you have to be willing to put in a little time and effort.

Legends
 
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Mindark gave us a free set of armor a few months back in the form of extra HP.

Good points in OP. L armor is more economical. Especially if you get the all round armor a.r.c. patrol from cyrene which can be bought with shrapnel, so you harldy pay any markup.
 
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Mindark gave us a free set of armor a few months back in the form of extra HP.

Good points in OP. L armor is more economical. Especially if you get the all round armor a.r.c. patrol from cyrene which can be bought with shrapnel, so you harldy pay any markup.

Unfortunately the NPC that trades ARC Patrol on Cyrene is almost always out of Chest Guards and Caps. But it does have great all-around protection, very good armor, I try to keep it in stock at the Monria Armor Shop but it's a challenge.

Legends
 
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this is a sales thread, not an information thread. It is just plain morally wrong. Its just a small fraction of the long story about armors. Of course the mentioned numbers seem to be correct, but is nowhere near reflecting the real situation of a hunter in EU. Let this guy pity all of you for a lifetime and find your pride in it!

Newbies, Ocassional players, let me give you an advice: Go and finish your mentorship and get a real armor for free, one thats made for you. Later on you put armor plates on it, tier it and you gonna have fun and never have to care about broken armor pieces again. If you are unsure about your choice of armor, ask somebody who this thread is not addressed to. This guys doent seem to have the slightest idea what he is talking about... he just want to sell his armors

Angel and Ghost for newbies and occasionals yeah right fffsss
 
Angel and Ghost for newbies and occasionals yeah right fffsss

Angel is a mid level armor at best these days.

Ghost is a trash noob armor...

Arkon
 
Angel is a mid level armor at best these days.

Ghost is a trash noob armor...

Arkon

Someone say armors? Still buying those Zombie unL M feet...:D
Anyway to the point, Jaguar L is a great way to hunt, I've done it myself :D problem is parts and planets. Finding the right parts for the right mu on the right planet is a lot of hassle sometimes...

Ghost is just fine for casual hunts. Nowadays with low decay ghost is again a lot more often used.:laugh:
Angel is still a mid-high end armor. Anything that costs over 5 k ped a set is IMO.
 
Just stumbled upon this thread and wanted to point out that its super biased. Some points are good and valid but anything that is bad about L armor is overlooked.

If less experienced people read this thread i hope they do their research and dont just blindly trust biased OP.

Few points that are overlooked are:
When L armor breaks u tt it, min tt value is 3% from full. So lets say angel set tted at its min condition is 9ped + MU lost on it. This is smth u never get back.
L armor doesnt lose protection when it deteriotes, its a good and bad thing. So in reality u lose more on decay on L than on UL unless you repair your UL armor after each hit.
Not gonna even mention tiering, avalability and etc.
Anyone is better of with UL sets for daily grinds, L is good for thos occasional hunts on elemental or high hitting mobs. High end UL armors are for hardcore grinders (not many left since 2.0, wonder why?!)
 
Hello duncis, it seems that you missed this reply of mine a little further down the first page of this thread.

Well, this thread really was NOT intended to be a discussion about my shops and what I sell in them. The whole purpose with this thread was simply to share with everyone the conclusions I've reached after spending many hours researching the subject of the economy of armors and how different options compare.

What you've just done above mastermesh is the laziest possible thing: to jump straight to a conclusion that the poster is biased in some way and therefore discredit the entire thing as skewed and/or unreliable... It's lazy because now you don't actually have to evaluate or verify any of this information for yourself, you don't have to think about it, you don't have to change your way of thinking about it... You just discredit it and voila, it's a done deal.

Only problem with this is you are misleading people and doing them a great disservice by denying them information that actually is quite useful for those that want to be more economical about their protection.

Here's what I mean by lazy. Let's start by addressing the first sentence "so, uh, you put together a shop to sell L armor eh?"

1. If you had bothered to do any homework on this at all instead of just jumping straight to conclusions, you would have realized that the implied bias here (towards Limited armors) doesn't actually exist in reality. Because if you had visited any of my armor shops, you would have noticed that I offer both Limited and Unlimited armor sets in them. In fact, in my Robot Armor shop, there are more UL armors then L ones. The Robot Armor shop always has Adj. Nemesis and Adj Vigilante armor sets, both male and female, as well as Mah'ketta and Hunter ME most of the time.

2. If you re-read the first post, you will notice that I tell people to go to the AUCTION, I never once told anyone to come buy their limited armors in any of my shops and frankly I couldn't care less because it's besides the point. The limited looted armors in my shops are not 108% or less and therefore people should look to the AUCTION for the best deals, not my shops.

3. If this post was really about selling armors and making money, as you seem to imply in your first sentence above, then I would have a bias towards selling people CRAFTED Limited armors because these are the most profitable sales in my opinion (and I do sell Crafted armors in my shops as well). But, once again, if you just re-read the first post, you'll discover that there is no mention whatsoever about Crafted Limited armors, this post is strictly about what I have discovered to be the absolute best deal when it comes to armors, the cheap (less than 108% mu) Looted Limited armor parts on the Auction.

If there is a bias, it's not the bias that you think. It would have to be a bias towards armor in general as opposed to healing tools. If someone declared in this thread that I have a bias towards armors and that this post does not consider the economy of healing tools, I would have to agree with them. But if you notice the title, it's quite clear that this is a post strictly about armors, more specifically limited vs unlimited armors.

Please, do your homework next time mastermesh, before you go and try to discredit someone's hard work with one sentence, it's not doing anyone any good.

Legends

Being perfectly honest, this really isn't intended as a sales thread. I'm really sorry that some of you feel that's all it is.

A tremendous amount of research went into it and when I decided to get into the Armor business, I wanted to find out what was more economical to use, because that is what I care about most and I thought that a lot of other hunters felt the same way as me. In this thread I've laid out the results of that research.

I've created this thread for the benefit of all, not for my own benefit. But let the haters hate I guess...

For those that are interested to know what's more economical to use, the looted armor on the auction that sells under 108% is the most economical, notably right now there are quite a few, i.e. Bear, Boar, Jaguar, Tiger, Martial, Aurora, Polaris, Thunderbird, Jarhead, Ozpyn Beetle, etc... these are all great choices and ACTUALLY COST LESS IN DECAY THAN ANY UNLIMITED ARMOR!

The only inconvenience is that you have to keep buying replacement parts because you can't repair them. But as I've said before, to save money in Entropia requires a bit of time and effort.

Parlog:
Completing your discipleship and obtaining your graduation armor is of course good advice, however, the fact remains, Adjusted Pixie and Musca Adjusted only have 2800 points of Durability and so will cost about 8% more in decay to use than any limited armor, so the cheap looted armor on the auction, again, is cheaper to use. Truth is, and I know this sounds counter intuitive, it would be wiser to sell your graduation armor and buy limited Thunderbird, Aurora, Bear, Jarhead or Ozpyn Beetle armor parts on the auction for 102% or less (quite easy to do). You would save quite a bit if you did and your armor would be top shelf and would allow you to hunt a wider variety of mobs.

If you need an armor that is stronger than those I mentioned above and plan on grinding a lot of mobs with it, then I agree, it would be wise to get yourself an unlimited set, for example, Angel, Shadow, RX OpTac, Eon, Carramone, etc...

If you don't care about economy than the advice in this thread is not for you.

Legends
 
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Great thread !!!

Glad you made the L vs UL also as I did with finders.

With armor its all about using the right armor at the right mob, so is using the right depth at the right place when mining.

Even with depth enhancers those are cheaper in use then the L finders, dunno if you tested that out on armor with def enhancers I suppose, cause depth enhancers break a lot faster on L finders than on UL finders?

Also having all the Tiers unlock is such a huge advantage like the def enhancers on the armor :)
 
Great thread !!!

Glad you made the L vs UL also as I did with finders.

With armor its all about using the right armor at the right mob, so is using the right depth at the right place when mining.

Even with depth enhancers those are cheaper in use then the L finders, dunno if you tested that out on armor with def enhancers I suppose, cause depth enhancers break a lot faster on L finders than on UL finders?

Also having all the Tiers unlock is such a huge advantage like the def enhancers on the armor :)

Thanks LeeLoo :)

I agree, having the ability to add defense enhancers is a very nice advantage, however, I should caution you about the costs involved in tiering armors:

Once it is time to tier your UL armor up to 4, you will discover that in many cases, it will cost you roughly about as much as the actual set of armor costs. For example, tiering a set of Jarhead (M) from 3.9 to 4 is over 1k ped...

Is it really worth it? If instead of tiering my Jarhead (M) from 3.9 to 4 I sold my set for about tt+1200 ped, added that to the 1k ped I didn't spend on tiering, and now I'd have 2,200 ped to spend.

Some might think that tiering it to 4 is still worth it, and it might be, but I just wanted to point out that at some point, the cost of it will become prohibitive. So if anyone ever buys one of these lower level UL sets thinking they will just keep tiering it all the way to 10, think again.

Legends

PS: This information will need to be re-evaluated after the changes to tiering and enhancers announced today by MA are implemented. I suspect that tiering all the way up to 10 will become much more palatable and maybe even worth it.
 
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