Need Hunting Advice

[Xhodan]

Hello everyone

I have a concern, so lately these past 2 weeks, 14 days. I've been getting returns bellow 80% and even some bellow 50%. I record all my runs religiously as to try and be as eco as possible. I understand that there will be periods of lower returns, I get this, but is it normal for someone to go 2 whole weeks with awful returns?

I'm currently lvl 30 laser sniper hit and 26 ranged laser damage. I try to hunt things under 1k HP, and that deal around 50 or less damage. Last night I was hunting Nexnecis and Traeskeron both with really bad returns. I have been trying a lot of different mobs lately and everything just seems to be going south. I usually hunt Alpha Kerbs, but those have been bad lately too. I use Gremlin armor and have an assort of different plates depending on the mob that I'm killing.

I don't know if I'm just having bad luck or if I'm fighting too high above my level. I use ArMatrix LR-20, I'm maxed with damage and crit on that weapon, pulling close to 50 DPS/second with amp.

 

[Detritus]

If you are truly looking for advice, the first thing anyone will ask for is your logs. 80% returns are common, but if you are getting 50% to me that indicates a short run/ not enough cycled to even out.

 

[LavaSparks]

You should enclose how much peds you have cycled in the period. Killing 160-560 hp mobs, you should cycle 10k + peds before you can tell much about bad/good loots (probably more).

Apart from that, others have suggested that MA turns down the tt return during events like FEN, because they know most players will get higher MU return to cover their losses.

It could also be that the "dynamic return", i.e. the major sine wave for tt return is just on a low these days. Who knows really.

 

[Xhodan]

Nexnecis

Started with 250 PED ammo

Loot return 126.91 PED

Total decay + repair 62.33
items include:
LR-20
P20 extender
sight
scope

Return 43%

This was after close to 2 hours of grinding these guys. I don't do very large hunts, the most I've ever gone on a hunt was around 400 PED.

 

[Xhodan]

Jeez 10k? Lol, I should have stated that I'm a new player. I don't have that much money in game. I have about 2500 ped on my card at any given time.

 

[Evey]

50% returns could mean converting the shrapnel before tracking. I'm not saying you do that, but, if you do, that's wrong. I use part shrap part tt ammo in my hunts and when I run out, I track and write down.
50% is not ok.
Even 80% is still a disaster.... something is very wrong there!

 

[Xhodan]

50% returns could mean converting the shrapnel before tracking. I'm not saying you do that, but, if you do, that's wrong. I use part shrap part tt ammo in my hunts and when I run out, I track and write down.
50% is not ok.
Even 80% is still a disaster.... something is very wrong there!

I usually start with TT and end up with Shrap. I do calculate my return before converting shrap. In this case I did. This was the first round, and at the rate I was going. Didn't feel comfortable going any further. Maybe I just don't know the game well enough to gauge whether to continue going or not.

 

[Haruto Rat]

Any chance you were hunting Nexnecis in a PVP zone?

 

[Xhodan]

Any chance you were hunting Nexnecis in a PVP zone?

I might have been. The little PvP icon would occasionally turn red and then back to yellow depending on where I was. Idk if that has any kind of effect on loot return why would it?

 

[LavaSparks]

Nexnecis

Started with 250 PED ammo

Loot return 126.91 PED

Total decay + repair 62.33
items include:
LR-20
P20 extender
sight
scope

Return 43%

This was after close to 2 hours of grinding these guys. I don't do very large hunts, the most I've ever gone on a hunt was around 400 PED.

The bigger the mob, the fewer the kills per hour (given your LR-20 setup). Nexnecis costs 1.5 ped and up per kill. I'd say you should kill 5k of any mob before you can tell much about the average return. With nexnecis that means cycling 5k x 1.5 = 7500 ped at least. Nexnecis doesn't have a good spawn, so it would take you forever to cycle this much.

Also, get an amp! You will be a lot more eco using any laser amp, but preferably A104 and up if you have the bank roll for it. A103s are cheap and works too (you can buy two of them so you do not need to return and repair them too often).

My suggestion: Kill mobs with less hp. That way, you get to kill more mobs per session (more lottery tickets for the same amount of peds), which will help you towards reaching average return of 90something %.

I will add an example of my own: I killed 50 rextelum the other day. They cost 5-8 ped each or so. I ended up with a 100 ped loss (60-70 % return). Why? Mostly because of the low sample. Now compare this run with my Foul IRON (16k kills), with 96 % return! Foul Young have 100 hp, and with dense spawn, so I can kill 20 fouls in the time I use to kill 1 rextelum. It helps with getting returns near expected average.

 

[Detritus]

Jeez 10k? Lol, I should have stated that I'm a new player. I don't have that much money in game. I have about 2500 ped on my card at any given time.

10k cycled, not necessarily a 10k run. But as Lava pointed out above, I think you have far too short of a run for that mob, you didn't give yourself a chance to hit a balancing multiplier. Someone more experienced can chime in on real numbers, but I would target your runs at around 500 kills (or better), and go for mobs you can drop in less than 10 shots. Then extrapolate your time/budget from that.

 

[Xhodan]

The bigger the mob, the fewer the kills per hour (given your LR-20 setup). Nexnecis costs 1.5 ped and up per kill. I'd say you should kill 5k of any mob before you can tell much about the average return. With nexnecis that means cycling 5k x 1.5 = 7500 ped at least. Nexnecis doesn't have a good spawn, so it would take you forever to cycle this much.

Also, get an amp! You will be a lot more eco using any laser amp, but preferably A104 and up if you have the bank roll for it. A103s are cheap and works too (you can buy two of them so you do not need to return and repair them too often).

My suggestion: Kill mobs with less hp. That way, you get to kill more mobs per session (more lottery tickets for the same amount of peds), which will help you towards reaching average return of 90something %.

I will add an example of my own: I killed 50 rextelum the other day. They cost 5-8 ped each or so. I ended up with a 100 ped loss (60-70 % return). Why? Mostly because of the low sample. Now compare this run with my Foul IRON (16k kills), with 96 % return! Foul Young have 100 hp, and with dense spawn, so I can kill 20 fouls in the time I use to kill 1 rextelum. It helps with getting returns near expected average.

Thank you for the example. I worry sometimes though if I fight things with a lot less HP that I'll be overspending to kill. What would you say is too low HP, bellow 200?

 

[Haruto Rat]

I might have been. The little PvP icon would occasionally turn red and then back to yellow depending on where I was. Idk if that has any kind of effect on loot return why would it?

In PVP, you spend ammo shooting into air. It's possible that part of ammo was simply wasted.

 

[BackBone]

If your runs are between 250-400 PEDs, you are hunting mobs with too much HP. If we take an average of 3 dmg/PEC and a run of around 500 mobs, each mob should have between 150-240 HP. I would advise Berycled, Argo, Molisk, etc. Those mobs have good Iron Missions.

Edit: Oh, and please buy an A103, its very cheap and will speed up your runs while increasing the efficiency. (only one problem - it lasts for a measly 1800 shots. With armatrix LR20 will last around 40 minutes)

 

[Venture Bros]

Best advice is find markup, AKA don't hunt on calypso, land of the low MU oils and nothing else...

 

[Xhodan]

Best advice is find markup, AKA don't hunt on calypso, land of the low MU oils and nothing else...

cant think of any low hp mob that has decent MU. Maybe mourners? I hunt those from time to time, they drop body fat, but not often.

 

[GoNi]

cant think of any low hp mob that has decent MU. Maybe mourners? I hunt those from time to time, they drop body fat, but not often.

The problem here is, if someone tells you in public which low mobs drop nice MU, a lot players start hunting this mob, and then this MU is gone in no time.

So try and error.

Get your ammo, use it all on same mob, check what you get in loots, especially MU.

If it is good, you found the mob, if not switch to next mob.

Repeat untill you found "your" mob, hunt this as long as you get the nice MU, and if it drops below a critical value, switch mob.

 

[Daimon Frey]

cant think of any low hp mob that has decent MU. Maybe mourners? I hunt those from time to time, they drop body fat, but not often.

You hunt too big mobs on that budget for sure. As ppl mentioned above you need to kill many k mobs before loot returns stabilize.

Nobody will tell you their profitable mob in public or even private msg. Finding such mob is a lot of work testing different mobs. You could probably start your test with mobs commonly know as having some nice MU items like arkadia's halix or rocktropia vixens. Halix young is 20 or 30HP - way more appropriate for you budget and I heard ppl break even on them long term. Vixen are nice too, excluding 10HP ones with poor overcrowded spawn, you can hunt 50HP ones - except for high MU vixen gears they also drop robot parts like weapon grip that have some MU too. Don't worry about about 'overspending on small mobs' - that's called overkill and no longer exists after 2.0 release.

Agree with advice above, general rule is to avoid caly if you are new player.

Also very important, find good mentor that have experience in hunting - you either don't have any or he's bad mentor so kick him.

 

[LavaSparks]

Thank you for the example. I worry sometimes though if I fight things with a lot less HP that I'll be overspending to kill. What would you say is too low HP, bellow 200?

I overkilled those fouls big time. You do get return for overkill, at least up to 200 % of minimum kill cost. But your loot.composition may suffer.

 

[Xhodan]

Earlier it was mentioned, something about a multiplier while hunting. What exactly is this, and is it measurable in any way?

 

[Elmurfud]

Multiplier is cost to kill a mob multiplied with a number...the bigger the number,the bigger the multiplier..example of this 1 ped to kill a mon with a 500 multiplier on it= 500 ped hof. That's what min-globals,globals,hofs and ath are,multipliers of cost to kill that mob.
No offence mate,but you know very little about this game and hunting it seems...as others said,find a mentor that knows stuff,because hunting is way more complex then "get this gun and start shooting".Tbh you're lucky you haven't blown your account yet

 

[Xhodan]

Multiplier is cost to kill a mob multiplied with a number...the bigger the number,the bigger the multiplier..example of this 1 ped to kill a mon with a 500 multiplier on it= 500 ped hof. That's what min-globals,globals,hofs and ath are,multipliers of cost to kill that mob.
No offence mate,but you know very little about this game and hunting it seems...as others said,find a mentor that knows stuff,because hunting is way more complex then "get this gun and start shooting".Tbh you're lucky you haven't blown your account yet

I'm not offended, I really appreciate all the help you guys have given. I had a mentor and finished the mentorship. They didn't help me though, in fact they haven't logged in ever since I signed up and finished.

I appreciate the concern too, I came to the forum because I had a feeling I was doing something wrong and I was. I feel a lot more confident now in what I need to change.

 

[Anthas]

Just to reiterate what has been said before.
1). you’re doing WAY to small of hunts for mobs that’s size. To be honest, at lr-20 level, you should be hunting a max of 1 ped mobs, and more appropriately would be 200-250 hp.
2). Get rid of that scope and sight if you’re still using it. The .1% eff gain is less than 0.01% increased loot return, so it’s costing you more than it’s helping. Remember Efficency helps your tt return, but does absolutely nothing for quality of loot, so high efficiency will not mean more MU. That’s what DPP does.
3). Don’t worry about overkill or “being eco” that doesn’t really exist anymore. Now using a marb bravo to hunt punies would be crossing the line, but kill cost is returned in loot, no longer static return based upon mob hp x variable %, so a little overkill doesn’t do any harm.
4). Don’t sell after 1 run. Grind away your ped card over a period of time, then sell the larger stacks to maximize profit. Example, muscle oil is 103%. On 50 ped put into auction, you’re going to pay 50 pec for fee, and 50 ped x 103% = 51.5 ped, but you can’t list for pec amounts so it must either go higher than mu to 104% (risk not selling) or go to 102% (lose profit) so now you’re going to sell for 51 ped, get hit for 50 pec, and only make 50 pec off it. Now you’re at 101%. But if you save up 500 ped, you sell for 103%, that’s 515 ped, minus listing cost is now 14.5 ped profit or 102.9%. Quite a bit better by just stacking up loot for a while.

And last. Stop hunting keeps. They are garbage mobs for loot, and no, muscle oil is NOT good to focus on selling (just good for this explanation)

Keep shooting and eventually it will even out.

GL and may Lootius be with you.

 

[madnar]

These advices should be stickied so all new players read it...

I got similar advices from my soc mate...
Few months ago, i realized i agreed and followed with some of his advices, but not all, and my ped card was pretty much melting down...

Now i blindly follow advices he told me, understanding a bit(!) how things works and now there is different story with my ped card

Also, sorry to hear that You had such a @%$#^* of a mentor...

Gl