Bananas for Beacons

I have finally started doing beacon missions, and have found some surprising results. The surprise was the level of consistant profit you can attain. Here is an example:

8 people each pitch in 20 PED for a 23 PED beacon. This comes to 160PED, or +137. Average ammo/decay/cost for completing is roughly 10PED, probably less in most cases, but lets use this as an extreme. So each person starts out with an expected cost of 30PED total. Each chest contains between 5 and 8 PED cash, and usually some gear of some sort as well. Probably useless TT fodder, but even TT fodder has a value. So lets say an average of 6.5PED per chest. (My own average is slightly higher.) Every single 23PED beacon mission I have been on I have been able to loot AT LEAST 6 chests. This makes for an average of 39PED in cash and junk, and does not count anything that may sell for >TT. This means that for every 23PED beacon mission I go on I make 30% or so on my investment, and the skill gains are just gravy. This tells me that 23PED beacons bought for 160PED are 30% underpriced.

I am not certain where else you can get an almost guarenteed 30% profit in this game. And it scales up nicely for the 25PED and 29PED missions as well, except there your chances of TT+ items increases pushing profits even higher.

Getting a good group together is really the only tough part. Barring that, the profits should be no problem. The one unusual thing that sticks out for me is the question of why this is possible. I mean, profit margins are squeezed everywhere else in the game, why not here?

The answer for me is that beacons come primarily from typically solitary players, the miner class. These people are in general less likely to participate in a group function of this nature, and will happily sell the beacon for less than it's actual profit potential to cover mining losses. The groups doing beacon missions are only too happy to purchase them from them.

Honestly, I think the break even formula hits around something like this:

(Beacon TT Value) * 8 = beacon value.

23PED beacon should be worth 184PED
25PED beacon should be worth 200PED
29PED beacon should be worth 232PED (as PE auction says it is)
35PED beacon should be worth 280PED (as PE auction says it is)
39PED beacon should be worth 312PED (but now the TT+ items are getting huge)
42PED beacon should be worth 336PED (same as above)

So for best profits, run lower level beacon missions because they appear undervalued in auction for the rewards they provide.

Your comments/experiences?

well, i think the auction price of the beacon has always been around the average cash returned from the mission. i know that a lot of people, myself included, have stayed away from them lately because they seem to be more and more buggy. also, as i think you mentioned, its difficult to get a good team together that is willing to obligate themselves to an hour or more of activity. another thing, there seem to be more and more beacons found, and the mission itslef can get old if youve done a few. i think all of these things combined=the current cost of the beacon. the demand is what drives the price, and demand i think has fallen.

our soc has done quite a few beacons and the vast majority of them we loose peds. Not as issue as I buy them for soc events from profits

BUT do not assume you will recover the costs (we've done about 10 recently and only covered costs 2 times (both on 29tt beacons)

I have some 35 (111) and 35 (1111) beacons I'm scared to use as I know the losses will be big

these things should be done for fun and any profits being a big bonus !


expect nothing and you will not be disapointed

Titus Wolf said:

well, i think the auction price of the beacon has always been around the average cash returned from the mission. i know that a lot of people, myself included, have stayed away from them lately because they seem to be more and more buggy. also, as i think you mentioned, its difficult to get a good team together that is willing to obligate themselves to an hour or more of activity. another thing, there seem to be more and more beacons found, and the mission itslef can get old if youve done a few. i think all of these things combined=the current cost of the beacon. the demand is what drives the price, and demand i think has fallen.

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well said, Titus.

Last one we (my soc) did, i think netted maybe 10-12ped over what we paid at auction. 5 of us did the mission and looted every box on way out. We each got about 2ped to cover ammo/repairs.

another idea, if MA is listening...

let the drones drop loot

Do you by any chance have 100's of beacons still needing to be sold?

lol squee... thats a good one. oh.. and btw, i hear that justifier MK1's are more efficient than an amped opallo. just so happens i have a dozen on my wall

Purplebong said:

another idea, if MA is listening...

let the drones drop loot

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No. They should'nt drop more loot, becasue then the beacons would
rise evenmore in price, so we'd be back into the same position as now. MA should drop more beacons to overflood the marked.

My experience is similar to Kygon's, I've only been able to get a profit out of about 25% of the beacon missions I took part so far (something like 30-50 I guess).

Unless the loot balancing was changed recently (and I have to admit our last 35 pedder was a profit too, although small) I think it would be a safe thing not to look at beacons as a positive cash flow thing.

Take care,
BB

Rival said:

Each chest contains between 5 and 8 PED cash, and usually some gear of some sort as well.
...
Every single 23PED beacon mission I have been on I have been able to loot AT LEAST 6 chests.

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I guess you have been very lucky. I only done 3 beacons and around 50% of the boxes I loot are empty

Last one I went on (think it was a 25 pedder) we all used amped opalos and loot had never been so terrible before. Around 60 ped total.

EyeContact said:

I guess you have been very lucky. I only done 3 beacons and around 50% of the boxes I loot are empty

Last one I went on (think it was a 25 pedder) we all used amped opalos and loot had never been so terrible before. Around 60 ped total.

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I think you might have opened boxes that was already looted by someone else then...

Rival said:

...Each chest contains between 5 and 8 PED cash, and usually some gear of some sort as well. Probably useless TT fodder, but even TT fodder has a value. So lets say an average of 6.5PED per chest. (My own average is slightly higher.)
...

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Hmm... I've had far lower loots than average of 6.5 PED per chest. I think you've been lucky.
(or maybe I've been unlucky...? Wouldn't be the first time)

Well, Rival, my opinion is that it is too soon for you to jump into the assumption that beacons are under-evaluated. U just made a couple ones and you were lucky. From personal experience, practically all my beacons gave absolutely no profits, except for one that had some nice tiger thighs. Beacons are for fun. For example, 2 nights ago, me and 6 other guys of my soc went to one of 23 peds. The beacon was mine and I only asked 14 ped each, which makes 98 ped total for the beacon (way under the price at auctions). In the end, we got a total loot of 94 peds, lol. The worst trip I've made so far, as usually it yields around 110-120 peds of loot. The fact that you found a lot of containers with loot was pure luck, as sometimes, entire levels have nothing (it's rare, but it happens.. happened to me once). And no, that's not because someone already opened it, because our trips are planned in such a way that everybody knows what level is theirs, how many containers there are, and where.

Cheers,

Naifas

on 2nd last beacon we had 5 or 6 boxes opened that were empty

Vedder said:

I think you might have opened boxes that was already looted by someone else then...

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Hehe, good point, but not the case. We do one floor each.

Ahh beacons. I love 'em. I can probably speak here as a bit of an expert, as in my prime we used to do at least 1 beacon per day, if not more!

We've done every TT at some point or other, and had a few profits and a few losses. I'd estimate that we probably exceeded 200 beacons. Now, taking the vast profits we had on some into account, we probably broke even in the end. But we had a few missions where we looted multiple tiger parts, and various other cool stuff.

I'd say that 70% of the beacons we ever did were NOT profitable. We found that most of them paid the cost of the beacon only, which we were fine with. However, on 35-42ped beacons where you use a LOT more ammo, it makes each trip very expensive indeed!

We found that days where we got profit were good days to continue doing beacons (as we'd often get 2-3 in a row with good profit). On days we did badly, it was a very good idea to quit!

I remember one particular day when we opened all the boxes to find two (yeah that's right -- TWO!!) boxes with any loot in them, totalling about 15PED!! So in conclusion, sometimes the beacons can suck, and others they can be great, just like anything else in the game.

We personally did them for fun, not profit, and we found them to be great for that. I have pretty good memories of us doing 23-29PED beacons in nothing but our underwear using non-amped opalos! If you want an exciting trip I highly recommend it! Bring somebody with a res chip

Noggin said:

[...] I have pretty good memories of us doing 23-29PED beacons in nothing but our underwear using non-amped opalos! If you want an exciting trip I highly recommend it! Bring somebody with a res chip

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Oh my that was loads of fun!!!
I did another one with a couple friends recently... as Noggin said, bring someone with a ResChip!

P.

we Noggin do a low TT beacon as a tester would you say that if the loot on it sucks then a larger TT will also suck and vis versa?

yep prices are stable atm i hope boxes have given us 14/15 ped last time we broke even as many didnt contain a thing but had 5 ped box runs too and atm there are almost no beacons to get :S they gotta increase the drop