Almost newbie; Stuck on 20 PED balance, can't receive a decent profit

[bananeira]

Good day!
I'm a relative newbie to the game. I bought a sleipnir even before I found a mentor (probably I was lucky with a hunt), graduated on next island (leveled Anatomy on Carabok hunting), flew to different planets (I collected a starter newbie tools/weapons, hunted stages 1-4 of caraboks on the Arkadia and a few stages of other LV4 mobs, monura/hornets etc).

For all the time, I got about 4 globes (the first two were on caraboks ~20 ped) and 4 bonus missions for 20 tokens (I spent them on CDF lvl 3 blp rifles, now I hunt with them).

Actually, the question is this:

I can't figure out how to get at least a small profit from a hunt or another activity if, in order to recover 100% of ammo cost, I need to sell everything in TT, but it's unreasonable to TT some good-markup resources (Snablesnot skin, Exarosaur Leather or some kinds of extractors) in TT, just to buy ammo for a new hunting run.

Many YouTubers say that any activity in EU makes a profit only on long races, and on short ones you can only count on luck (globals/hofs).

I constantly buy ammo for 15-25 ped for a hunt and trying sell loot to a bitt higher than TT (animal muscle oil or 101-101.5%), but what is with a good markup (for example, Snablesnot Skin, Exarosaur Leather - I keep it).
It turns out that I go to zero, a small (sometimes big) minus, but mini-globals save me when it's really tight - but it's rather luck.

I even tried to mine a few days ago with free newbie finders from different planets (I looked / read a lot of guides beforehand) on 15 ped of probes, eventually went into an even greater minus (I dug up a lot of different resources: belkar, melchi, lysterium, cumbriz, crude oil etc; but too few, barely sold them).

I got to a very low balance and deposited 30 ped, in order to return to the hunt again, and not to do sweating for hours.

Who can advise on this?

Or, really, if I want to play without a deposit, I need to make myself a hunreds of peds and only then buy ammo / probes and do something?

Cheers

 

[atomicstorm]

You are in need of reading this: https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forum/index.php?threads/risk-of-ruin-bankroll-management.248797/

As a F2P player, your options are small. You need to partake more in the free activities to buy passive instruments to help sustain your active activities until you can grow your ped card.

For example, go fruit walking or trade small things with what little you have.. to buy Ark underground deeds on the low range, to then in turn use the ped gained to hunt with. Will that take a long time? Sure. But, F2P is F2P. This game isn't really meant for this but it is possible. At least with fruit walking, trading, and sweating.. how well you can do in most of those (maybe not sweating, it's capped) is up to you.

 

[RobBuona]

It will definitely be difficult with such a low balance. However, you also need more markup than the numbers you quoted. Maybe try some Fouls for Foul bones, Daikiba for Orange Paint, or Vixens on Rocktropia for Android Gears.

And you won't be able to sell such small amounts of loot on auction without losing too much to fees, so you should try selling loot in trade chat channels.

 

[Aloisius]

If you really want to play no depo then you should get on a repair crew and become a pilot.

It's nearly impossible to even play this game without a large bankroll. Then you need to manage it. 5$ made a really nice post on this.

I recommend a minimum bankroll of 1000 USD or save your energy because working that hard for .05 dollars an hour is...

 

[bananeira]

You are in need of reading this: https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forum/index.php?threads/risk-of-ruin-bankroll-management.248797/

As a F2P player, your options are small. You need to partake more in the free activities to buy passive instruments to help sustain your active activities until you can grow your ped card.

For example, go fruit walking or trade small things with what little you have.. to buy Ark underground deeds on the low range, to then in turn use the ped gained to hunt with. Will that take a long time? Sure. But, F2P is F2P. This game isn't really meant for this but it is possible. At least with fruit walking, trading, and sweating.. how well you can do in most of those (maybe not sweating, it's capped) is up to you.

So, if I have understood it right, I need to make a deposits and spend peds from these investments in a smart way in order to continue my active activities (if I don't receive any glob/hof yet)?

or I need to spend a huge amount of time doing passives like sweating/gathering if I don't want to make a depo?

It sounds very obvious, but I just thought earlier that I could somehow trickyly bypass the need for a deposit and play with an amount from MU on the items.
But I was faced with such a situation that small volumes plus losses during a short-term hunt make themselves felt.

 

[atomicstorm]

So, if I have understood it right, I need to make a deposits and spend peds from these investments in a smart way in order to continue my active activities (if I don't receive any glob/hof yet)?

or I need to spend a huge amount of time doing passives like sweating/gathering if I don't want to make a depo?

It sounds very obvious, but I just thought earlier that I could somehow trickyly bypass the need for a deposit and play with an amount from MU on the items.
But I was faced with such a situation that small volumes plus losses during a short-term hunt make themselves felt.

It's possible but takes skill and is harder outside of events. Even in events, you need more than 20ped so best start to gear up and work on building your avatar. At the very minimum, you need to be able to grind cat 01.

 

[Aloisius]

Yup and to be honest - you won't get a big HOF playing low level mobs. There used to be a chance to win big but the odds are so bad now it probably isn't even possible. I think it was Evey that says max multiplyer loots = 3500x but I never seen one of those. Or even know anyone that did. Skilling up is the best possible choice.

 

[Kerham]

Maybe try some Fouls for Foul bones, Daikiba for Orange Paint, or Vixens on Rocktropia for Android Gears.

Neither of those work anymore and is this way since 4 years or, in some cases, even more. That's why ubers have no clue what they're talking about when spreading advices left and right, simply because they haven't visited lower mobs for years, in some cases for a decade. Example given, in a small run of 200 peds I saw the overwhelming quantity of 30 pec foul bones. They might have some MU, but that is only because they're rare, just look how many people are (not) crafting clothes. Because nowadays gambling is done on EP4. Generally every kind of MU you might think of available to low-mid players will only make-up for about 1%. Shrapnel will give another 0.8% or so and the rest of the loss is tax to the game.

For OP, buddy, life is hard. In order to correctly asses MU which actually works, you have to look, on par with the MU of the item, at the turnover on auction. If you have 1 ped of something worth 150% but the whole turnover of that something is 100 ped per week, you can safely tt it and spare your time and emotions. If you spent some 60 peds to get it, even more so. If you're only one person and you have 1 ped of something which such small turnover and there are so many people at icarus.. see where is this going?

Paint can work (orange, blue, yellow, green) per player activity, Meaning, if people are motivated to stay ingame, there will be some ped there, because yea why not paint your sleipnir somehow, is a neat thing. And if thousands of people do stay online for weeks and weeks and have what to do, yes is something to keep an eye on. Same reasoning on a bit higher levels for makeup material. Can be a flop, can work, worth following.

Your best bet at that level is swunting for blazaar and nova. Particularly blazaar, 19 ped per k if i am not mistaken, but nova is not too shabby either. Everything which you can't sell will just drain your card. Pick fruits and stones and sell to resellers, sell sweat to whoever, but keep every bit of blazaar and nova for yourself and stack it for sellable qty on auction. Check auction fee, calculate what is eating off your ped, see what blueprints or something else (like tiering) are those things used in and correlate with other stuff. Like, if bp X uses nova and something else, check how something else is selling, check if said craftable item is globalling (so is being crafted) etc etc All this to establish the one thing you need to know very well, what stack size sells well for you. And generally get in the habit of doing this.. "compounded research" so to say for everything. Not all % are equal, turnover is king.

Ref mining, is out of discussion with that budget, If you have minimum drop 0,5tt (unamped enmatter) and a hitrate of 30%ish in average, you'll run straight into the wall, exactly as described by atomic in that great thread mentioned, abount bankroll. Rookie finder from tt with deflated cost can't work with current markups. If blau/lyst/oil would be towards 110%, would be a thing at least, but is not the case.

 

[Rumsponge]

It’s a game, not a charity. Either you pay money to play the game, or you work at providing a service to other players to earn a small in-game income. You can stand around and do P2P trading. I did that long ago and made some profit from it. It’s kind of boring, but so are most jobs.

 

[bananeira]

It’s a game, not a charity. Either you pay money to play the game, or you work at providing a service to other players to earn a small in-game income. You can stand around and do P2P trading. I did that long ago and made some profit from it. It’s kind of boring, but so are most jobs.

Yeah, I understand it.
Just want to ask if I'm right.

So, in order to enjoy the game and try to make some profit from in-game activities I need to have decent amount of starter funds...and the fastest way is to make a deposit, not to do sweating 24h.

Because I really want to enhance my shortblade skills, try some mining, high-lvl mob hunting, crafting and other
I don't want to do it like "making a deposit - spend all of ped balance and received nothing".

That's why I started this topic to clarify if I understand the situation right, because I need to TT all my Muscle oil, Animal hides and other basic mats in order to refund my ammo,

Thanks to all for answers!

 

[Ted]

To be clear: MOST players don't make a profit in this game. And it is really hard to play without depositing. If everyone was making a profit, where should the money come from? The uniqueness of this game is that after the developers take their cut to pay for further development and servers you are actually playing against the other players using your wits and pure luck. Understand this and you will have a great time in here if you so choose.

 

[strakkan]

Neither of those work anymore and is this way since 4 years or, in some cases, even more. That's why ubers have no clue what they're talking about when spreading advices left and right, simply because they haven't visited lower mobs for years, in some cases for a decade. Example given, in a small run of 200 peds I saw the overwhelming quantity of 30 pec foul bones. They might have some MU, but that is only because they're rare, just look how many people are (not) crafting clothes. Because nowadays gambling is done on EP4. Generally every kind of MU you might think of available to low-mid players will only make-up for about 1%. Shrapnel will give another 0.8% or so and the rest of the loss is tax to the game.

For OP, buddy, life is hard. In order to correctly asses MU which actually works, you have to look, on par with the MU of the item, at the turnover on auction. If you have 1 ped of something worth 150% but the whole turnover of that something is 100 ped per week, you can safely tt it and spare your time and emotions. If you spent some 60 peds to get it, even more so. If you're only one person and you have 1 ped of something which such small turnover and there are so many people at icarus.. see where is this going?

Paint can work (orange, blue, yellow, green) per player activity, Meaning, if people are motivated to stay ingame, there will be some ped there, because yea why not paint your sleipnir somehow, is a neat thing. And if thousands of people do stay online for weeks and weeks and have what to do, yes is something to keep an eye on. Same reasoning on a bit higher levels for makeup material. Can be a flop, can work, worth following.

Your best bet at that level is swunting for blazaar and nova. Particularly blazaar, 19 ped per k if i am not mistaken, but nova is not too shabby either. Everything which you can't sell will just drain your card. Pick fruits and stones and sell to resellers, sell sweat to whoever, but keep every bit of blazaar and nova for yourself and stack it for sellable qty on auction. Check auction fee, calculate what is eating off your ped, see what blueprints or something else (like tiering) are those things used in and correlate with other stuff. Like, if bp X uses nova and something else, check how something else is selling, check if said craftable item is globalling (so is being crafted) etc etc All this to establish the one thing you need to know very well, what stack size sells well for you. And generally get in the habit of doing this.. "compounded research" so to say for everything. Not all % are equal, turnover is king.

Ref mining, is out of discussion with that budget, If you have minimum drop 0,5tt (unamped enmatter) and a hitrate of 30%ish in average, you'll run straight into the wall, exactly as described by atomic in that great thread mentioned, abount bankroll. Rookie finder from tt with deflated cost can't work with current markups. If blau/lyst/oil would be towards 110%, would be a thing at least, but is not the case.

Kerham always writes well tought through post and has a very direct way to say the truth .
As a player that has been around since 2002 I can tell you it takes ALOT of hard work and also some luck to actually make profit in the universe. Hours of following auctions or market for trends and a bankroll big enough to sit through bad times when markup is down the drain.
Alot of what could be marketdriven gameplay has been driven out by MA wanting the peds for themselfs so people get alot of items in Strongboxes that takes depositing to open. too much crafting is done clicking for EP and it doesnt generate a single ped into the market.
Want to sit around and make sure money in EU ? Deposit and buy either a landarea or the diffrent shares that game has to offer. Trading is also decent safe to do but offcourse with a risk MA changes something that plummets market for your holdings.
Its a hard universe. For most of us !

Regards
Strakkan

 

[SoberPhil]

Everything written above is absolutely true, it comes down to this: the game is free to explore, but pay to play and enjoy.

However, there are certain things you can do that will help you stay afloat without having to do any sweating. Go to Next Island, there's three daily papoo missions you can complete easily, each pays an equivalent of about 2 PED. There's a puny boar daily as well that will reward you with chips you can sell for a bit of markup. While doing these you'll be grinding codex for additional skills while also finding fruits, stones and dung at the same time, collecting those is also part of a mission that has BPs as rewards you can sell for a few PED if you're lucky. Ask about those and other missions in planet chat once you get to NI, the community there is very helpful.

 

[Kerham]

Arkadia Moon also has something with free ammo I think?

 

[wizz]

[/QUOTE]

Yup and to be honest - you won't get a big HOF playing low level mobs. There used to be a chance to win big but the odds are so bad now it probably isn't even possible. I think it was Evey that says max multiplyer loots = 3500x but I never seen one of those. Or even know anyone that did. Skilling up is the best possible choice.

a 1600 ped merry snarg comes close I guess
160 HP mob. So around 40 pec to kill?

It was my welcome back hof after 3 years of inactivity in 2016.

So yeah, 3500x is possible

 

[wizz]

Good day!
I'm a relative newbie to the game. I bought a sleipnir even before I found a mentor (probably I was lucky with a hunt), graduated on next island (leveled Anatomy on Carabok hunting), flew to different planets (I collected a starter newbie tools/weapons, hunted stages 1-4 of caraboks on the Arkadia and a few stages of other LV4 mobs, monura/hornets etc).

For all the time, I got about 4 globes (the first two were on caraboks ~20 ped) and 4 bonus missions for 20 tokens (I spent them on CDF lvl 3 blp rifles, now I hunt with them).

Actually, the question is this:

I can't figure out how to get at least a small profit from a hunt or another activity if, in order to recover 100% of ammo cost, I need to sell everything in TT, but it's unreasonable to TT some good-markup resources (Snablesnot skin, Exarosaur Leather or some kinds of extractors) in TT, just to buy ammo for a new hunting run.

Many YouTubers say that any activity in EU makes a profit only on long races, and on short ones you can only count on luck (globals/hofs).

I constantly buy ammo for 15-25 ped for a hunt and trying sell loot to a bitt higher than TT (animal muscle oil or 101-101.5%), but what is with a good markup (for example, Snablesnot Skin, Exarosaur Leather - I keep it).
It turns out that I go to zero, a small (sometimes big) minus, but mini-globals save me when it's really tight - but it's rather luck.

I even tried to mine a few days ago with free newbie finders from different planets (I looked / read a lot of guides beforehand) on 15 ped of probes, eventually went into an even greater minus (I dug up a lot of different resources: belkar, melchi, lysterium, cumbriz, crude oil etc; but too few, barely sold them).

I got to a very low balance and deposited 30 ped, in order to return to the hunt again, and not to do sweating for hours.

Who can advise on this?

Or, really, if I want to play without a deposit, I need to make myself a hunreds of peds and only then buy ammo / probes and do something?

Cheers

Your mentor forgot to tell you 1 very important thing:

"Expect to always lose".

In that case, you're prepared for 99,9% of your hunting runs. And the 0,1% of the runs that you do profit, cheerish those!!

The only thing you can do is to minimize your losses. Or compensate your losses with deed returns or things like trading.

 

[Deemer]

Good day!
I'm a relative newbie to the game. I bought a sleipnir even before I found a mentor (probably I was lucky with a hunt), graduated on next island (leveled Anatomy on Carabok hunting), flew to different planets (I collected a starter newbie tools/weapons, hunted stages 1-4 of caraboks on the Arkadia and a few stages of other LV4 mobs, monura/hornets etc).

With this budget, Rocktopia is the best place for you.
There is a daily mission for the hunt, whose reward is 3 ped. Enough to cover the loss of 20 peds you have on the hunt. But if you do not have a big loss then you will slowly increase your ped balance.
As others have written, there are places where there are daily missions, but I think this is the best at the moment because you are developing your hunting skills. You are already familiar with Markup, the Auction ... through active play you can move forward, while the other places are just missions with a small reward that steal your time.

Arkadia is a good place for newcomers, but only if they have deposited and have a ped to spend to raise their level faster, otherwise the process is loss of time. I mean swunt the low mobs there.

Check out the skills section of the Auction House. There has not Sweatgatering or Fruit walking skills, but there has a lot skills for sale in active professions.

 

[SoberPhil]

There is a daily mission for the hunt, whose reward is 3 ped. Enough to cover the loss of 20 peds you have on the hunt. But if you do not have a big loss then you will slowly increase your ped balance.

Vixen daily is a good one as well, these mobs have good MU in them. But there's one big problem with that mission: in order to complete the daily, you have to kill 20 AIs which spawn somewhat randomly when vixens are being hunted. The issue is that there's a bunch of players (gonna refrain from calling them names) who just stand there, don't shoot any vixens, wait for you to spawn an AI (since they spawn after vixens are killed) and then shoot it. This is extremely irritating, because you hunt, they get to complete their daily. If they were shooting vixens like everybody else then the AIs are FFA, but they just stand there and wait for you to do the job for them. I managed to complete this mission a few times then left the place, man this made me so angry.

Arkadia Moon also has something with free ammo I think?

Yes, you need to run from tower to tower for like 20 minutes maybe and the reward is 2 PED universal ammo, not sure of the mission is still active tho since I haven't been there for a very long time.

 

[Deemer]

Vixen daily is a good one as well, these mobs have good MU in them. But there's one big problem with that mission: in order to complete the daily, you have to kill 20 AIs which spawn somewhat randomly when vixens are being hunted. The issue is that there's a bunch of players (gonna refrain from calling them names) who just stand there, don't shoot any vixens, wait for you to spawn an AI (since they spawn after vixens are killed) and then shoot it. This is extremely irritating, because you hunt, they get to complete their daily. If they were shooting vixens like everybody else then the AIs are FFA, but they just stand there and wait for you to do the job for them. I managed to complete this mission a few times then left the place, man this made me so angry.

There is a negative moments and the player is not just one. But a player adapts to the situation. I can write a dissertation on the topic you started supported by the necessary visual aids, but I don't see the point for two reasons. 1st Ludvig will remove the post... 2nd Ludvig will remove the post...

Compared to the ped balance, the positives can be much more.
Vixens often hit with low dmg, which has a good effect on the evade.
A Pistol (SA) can be purchased from The Thing and is perfect for the Vixens, but it also affects an active profession that can be sold after the player has collected 1900 points. These pads can be an added bonus after a month.

The mission can be make again after 16h when you finish(if im not wrong). Enough time to make for a day and to pick tomorrow again.

- Vixen gears MU is ~400%. Secondary loot are 110-150%. For the freelancers this is the best place for me. Much better than sweating or walking.

Anyway, this is just my position. I focus on active play, but everyone has a choice and can go for fruit or sweat.