Legends' Hunting Blog!

LOOKING AT THE NUMBERS:

Earlier I promised I would write a post to address why I'm taking melee and MindForce skills now in the Codex. It's going to be long but I think it's worth looking at.

1. Weapon options and availability:

When I look at my Tabulated Results on the 3rd page of this thread, after cycling over 9k PED I see that I'm paying more markup then I'm getting back in loot, so the way I see it there's room for improvement there. But when I look at what's available in the auction that I can use with my current skills, most of it has a markup of more than 110%, and when I look at the Melee and MindForce sections, I see a lot of really cheap stuff there. And since I don't really have any other markup costs other then weapons (since I'm using unlimited armor/fap), then I only see one solution for reducing my markup costs, I'm gonna have to switch to Melee and Mindforce for a while.

Although MindForce and melee weapons are not as numerous (a quick check on auction shows that these 2 combined probably only account for about 25% of all the weapons listed), there are many good deals to be had:

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Right now there's 4 Mindforce chips and 9 melee weapons you can buy on the auction for less than 103% buyout, while for laser, there are none (except for an LLP 3 but that's a noob weapon). Not to mention, MindForce chips are abundant in loot, I've looted several nice ones lately which I wouldn't mind using, but I don't have the skills to use them. So I could try to sell them on the auction for about 103%, risk losing the auction fee and then just end up TT'ing them so I can buy a laser rifle at around 113%-116% markup. Makes sense right?

No, I think the ideal scenario is the one where I can use anything I've looted, because a) I'll save myself from having to buy something and paying markup on it, b) I'll have a lot more options available to me when I do have to buy something, I won't be limited to just guns and I'll be able to take advantage of the better deals.

2. Skilling faster:

Okay so I've already made up my mind I want to skill up MindForce and Melee. I could grab the lowest level swords or Mindforce chips available and go all the way back to punys for a while and work on bringing up those skills. That would take a bit of time, I'd probably go up 2-3 levels per day if I was dedicated to it, but in the meantime, none of my other skills would really be increasing. In other words all of that time spent would result in mostly just the 1 skill going up. My defensive skills like Evade/Dodge and my Looting skills would hardly move at all.

I did some quick testing on this today, I went to Camp Icarus and killed about 30-40 Caudatergus Punys (L1), here's what I got for skills:

[System]: You have gained 0.1029 experience in your Weapons Handling skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0481 experience in your Rifle skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0521 experience in your Laser Weaponry Technology skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0608 experience in your Marksmanship skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0481 experience in your Rifle skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0481 experience in your Rifle skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0266 experience in your Anatomy skill
[System]: You have gained 0.1029 experience in your Weapons Handling skill
[System]: You have gained 0.1348 experience in your Ranged Damage Assessment skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0266 experience in your Anatomy skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0674 experience in your Ranged Damage Assessment skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0261 experience in your Laser Weaponry Technology skill

Skills gains were few, the amounts were low, and no attribute, looter or defense skill gains occurred.

Then I went to Boreas and killed about 20 Kerbs (L3-L6) and got these skills:

[System]: You have gained 0.3455 Coolness
[System]: You have gained 0.0467 experience in your Handgun skill
[System]: You have gained 0.1941 Serendipity
[System]: You have gained 0.0877 experience in your Combat Reflexes skill
[System]: You have gained 0.2448 experience in your Marksmanship skill
[System]: You have gained 0.3739 experience in your BLP Weaponry Technology skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0936 experience in your BLP Weaponry Technology skill
[System]: You have gained 0.1865 experience in your Handgun skill
[System]: You have gained 0.1942 Serendipity
[System]: You have gained 0.0936 experience in your BLP Weaponry Technology skill
[System]: You have gained 0.1225 experience in your Marksmanship skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0466 experience in your Handgun skill
[System]: You have gained 0.4669 experience in your BLP Weaponry Technology skill
[System]: You have gained 0.3455 Coolness
[System]: You have gained 0.0467 experience in your Handgun skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0681 experience in your Ranged Damage Assessment skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0467 experience in your Handgun skill
[System]: You have gained 0.1941 Serendipity
[System]: You have gained 0.0936 experience in your BLP Weaponry Technology skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0466 experience in your Handgun skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0681 experience in your Ranged Damage Assessment skill
[System]: You have gained 0.2451 experience in your Marksmanship skill
[System]: Your Agility has improved by 0.0012
[System]: You have gained 0.3454 Coolness
[System]: You have gained 0.1837 experience in your Marksmanship skill
[System]: You have gained 0.4154 experience in your Weapons Handling skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0934 experience in your BLP Weaponry Technology skill
[System]: You have gained 0.3509 experience in your Combat Reflexes skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0936 experience in your BLP Weaponry Technology skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0466 experience in your Handgun skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0268 experience in your Anatomy skill

I got skill gains much more often, probably 3-4 times more often than I did whilst hunting the punys at Camp Icarus, also the gains were larger. Sadly though, in that short test, I still didn't see any looter or defense skill gains, but there was a very small gain in Agility.

Then I went and killed about 15-20 Atrax (L8-L11):

[System]: You have gained 0.0268 experience in your Anatomy skill
[System]: You have gained 0.1941 Serendipity
[System]: You have gained 0.1037 experience in your Weapons Handling skill
[System]: You have gained 0.7202 experience in your Aim skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0467 experience in your Handgun skill
[System]: You have gained 0.1072 experience in your Anatomy skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0612 experience in your Marksmanship skill
[System]: You have gained 0.3454 Coolness
[System]: You have gained 0.1866 experience in your Handgun skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0611 experience in your Marksmanship skill
[System]: You have gained 0.1037 experience in your Weapons Handling skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0937 experience in your Anatomy skill
[System]: You have gained 0.2334 experience in your Handgun skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0936 experience in your BLP Weaponry Technology skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0611 experience in your Marksmanship skill
[System]: You have gained 0.4146 experience in your Weapons Handling skill
[System]: You have gained 0.1201 experience in your Aim skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0681 experience in your Ranged Damage Assessment skill
[System]: You have gained 0.1713 experience in your Skinning skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0681 experience in your Ranged Damage Assessment skill
[System]: You have gained 1.2084 Coolness
[System]: You have gained 0.0936 experience in your BLP Weaponry Technology skill
[System]: You have gained 0.1940 Serendipity
[System]: You have gained 0.3451 Coolness
[System]: You have gained 0.3450 Coolness
[System]: You have gained 0.0611 experience in your Marksmanship skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0937 experience in your BLP Weaponry Technology skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0611 experience in your Marksmanship skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0685 experience in your Athletics skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0268 experience in your Anatomy skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0268 experience in your Anatomy skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0937 experience in your BLP Weaponry Technology skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0937 experience in your BLP Weaponry Technology skill
[System]: You have gained 0.3450 Coolness
[System]: You have gained 0.8729 Serendipity
[System]: You have gained 0.0268 experience in your Anatomy skill
[System]: You have gained 0.3449 Coolness
[System]: You have gained 0.0611 experience in your Marksmanship skill
[System]: You have gained 0.3425 experience in your Skinning skill
[System]: You have gained 0.1430 Courage

[System]: You have gained 0.3449 Coolness
[System]: You have gained 0.1070 experience in your Anatomy skill
[System]: You have gained 0.1711 experience in your Skinning skill
[System]: You have gained 0.3448 Coolness
[System]: You have gained 0.2138 experience in your Marksmanship skill
[System]: You have gained 0.2722 experience in your Ranged Damage Assessment skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0267 experience in your Anatomy skill
[System]: You have gained 0.1710 experience in your Skinning skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0467 experience in your Handgun skill
[System]: You have gained 0.0937 experience in your BLP Weaponry Technology skill
[System]: You have gained 0.2101 experience in your Handgun skill

Now we begin to see some looter and defense skill gains in the form of Skinning and Athletics. Courage is another interesting one to get as it contributes to increasing your health. And I know from experience that the skill gains on these Atrax were only about half as good as they would be on the Allo/Estos I've been hunting which are L14 to L22.

So why does that matter? Well, I don't want to spend days and days hunting just to raise 1 skill, i.e. Mindforce. I want to maximize the skill gains while hunting and the best way to do that is to hunt the highest level mob I can hunt efficiently, that way my looter skills, defense skills, my HP, all that stuff is going to go up as well.

3. An advantageous trade-off:

Let's not forget what I'm giving up which is: Anatomy so I can take melee, and Perception so I can take mindforce. Anatomy contributes 7% to both Animal and Mutant Looter professions. Perception contributes 9% to all 3 Looter profession. But I'm giving those up so I can avoid wasting time on low level mobs and therefore get more Skinning skills while I'm hunting Animals, which contributes 35% to Animal Looter, Scourging skills when hunting Mutants, which contributes 35% to Mutant Looter or Reclaiming skills while hunting Robots, which contributes 35% to Robot Looter.

So in the end, it's quite likely that I'll actually end up ahead on my Looter professions doing it this way (in terms of time spent on hunting), though it seems counter-intuitive at first glance.

Conclusion:

Some have said in this forum the only skills that matter and that you should take in the Codex is Alertness, Perception, Anatomy, etc... Just the ones that contribute to your Looter professions. And the reasoning behind that is that your Looter profession has a direct impact on your loot returns. Fine, we all want more loot, I get it.

Well, the quickest way to raise your Looter Professions is by wielding the biggest weapon you can wield and hunting the highest level mob you can hunt, always. Because the frequency and amount of skill you get is directly tied to the level of the mob you are hunting. So taking Combat Skills might not be a stupid idea after all.

If you want to learn more about this, here is a thread where this subject was researched:

How Hunting Skill Gains Work
 
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Creature #1: Allophyl (L14-L18)
Creature #2: Estophyl (L20-L23)
Location: Livas Heights
My Animal Looter level: 22.25
My Evade level: 21.48
Rings: Athenic (L) and Aeglic (L)
Weapon #1 (efficiency): EWE EP-41 Military, Adjusted + A105 Hyper/LR1+B8/B4 (61%)
Weapon #2 (efficiency): Mirath Long Shot (L) + A101/LR1/B8 (61.6%)
Weapons decay (incl. attachments): 279.50 PED
Armor/FAP decay: 9.29 PED (Phantom + 4C)
Total ammo spent: 988.21 PED
Total spent on hunt (w/mu): 1277 PED

Hunting run duration: ~ 4 hours
Globals/HoFs: 52 PED
Items looted: Neopsion 20 Mindforce Implant
Items TT value (~markup value): 5.11 (+2.50 markup)
Stackables: 1082.97 PED (incl. 3.60 Focus Lens, 5.40 Surface Hardener)
Net returns (w/mu): 1090.58 PED or 85.4%
Loot quality, i.e. % shrapnel: 63% of loot tt was shrapnel
Profit/Cost per hour: -46.60 PED/hour

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Another pathetic hunt on the Allo/Estos with a ~200 PED loss, I kind of had a feeling it would be bad, the global chat was real quiet, didn't seem like anyone was hitting anything worthwhile. I just had to finish this 5k mission. Now that it's done, I'll be taking a break from them and probably just work on my Mindforce.

Acquisitions: A friend in-game has been kind enough to lend me his EWE EP-41 Military Adjusted so I can do a few runs with it and reduce my markup costs.

Hunting style: Eco and slow, to try and mitigate volatility. Only one shot with the Mirath Long Shot to get the mob's aggro, then use the EP-41 Military Adjusted handgun after that.

Defense: Relying solely on armor, no fapping.

Notable: I hadn't looted any unlimited items in quite a while, and although this implant doesn't have much markup, I'm still glad I got it as it is something I will be able to use for a while as I skill my mindforce.

What I learned: If you have a feeling loot isn't going to be any good, it probably won't be...

Achievements: I took Cryogenics in the Codex and went up almost 4 full levels, from 7.34 to 11.14, in my Cryogenic (Hit) profession. Finished the 5k Allo/Esto Iron mission, took the 19.79 Athletics and reached level 22 Evader and level 16 Dodger.
 
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5k Allo/Esto Tabulated Results (~35 hours of hunting)

AvgEff%ShrapDef%MU-inPED-inLoot-outTT-ReturnMU-outNet AmtNet-%
65.2%58.8%0.9%10.5013451536114%12.50+203115%
64.4%71.4%0.9%5.7014431604111.2%7.32+168111.7%
65.1%68%0.74%9.841396116083%0-23683%
65.1%64%0.66%18.842755262495.2%2.70-12895.3%
61.8%67%0.9%12.272134209698.2%9-2998.6%
60.4%68%0.86%8.121444124486.2%0-20086.2%
61.3%63%0.7%01287108884.5%2.50-196.584.7%
63.3%65.74%0.81%65.2711,80411,35296.17%34-418.5*96.46%

*: This Net Amt isn't accurate on the table because I forgot that I used Universal Ammo for all my hunts, which means it was converted from shrapnel at a rate of 101%. So the actual PED-In is 11,711, therefore the TT-Return is actually 96.93% and the Net Amt should be -325.50.

The MU column here only shows the markup on items looted (armor parts, guns, mindforce chips...), not on the markup value of the stackables. I have been working on figuring out what all the stackable loot items I have gotten are and how much I can actually get out of them and this is what it looks like:

Focus Lens Component: ~27.50 profit
Surface Hardner Component: ~3.00 profit
Diluted Mineral Extractor: 12.15 profit
Basic Stone Extractor: 1.09 profit
Basic Cloth Extractor: not worth putting on auction, need bigger stack
Animal Adrenal oil: 5.59 profit (I tt'ed a lot of it at first)
DNA Fragment A: not worth putting on auction, need bigger stack
Paint Can (Brown): 6.01 profit
Paint Can (Olive): 10.72 profit
Paint Can (Umber): 4.04 profit
Socket 3 Component: 2.62 (not really worth putting on auction)
Socket 4 Component: 1.31 (not really worth putting on auction)
Allophyl skin: debating what to do with it...
Animal Hide: tt'ed it all
Soft Hide: tt'ed it all
Animal Eye oil: tt'ed it all

The amounts shown are the profit I made after deducting the auction fees. Some of this stuff has sold already and some of it is still on the auction.

So if we add this up now, we can get a more accurate result for this 5k Allo/Esto grind:

Loot TT Out of the mob was:
11,352​
Markup on the items looted:
34​
Profit on Stackables looted:
74​
TOTAL loot value with markup:
11,460

The total amount spent (incl. mu paid) was 11,804 PED, however all of the ammo I used for this grind was Universal Ammo, which means it was converted from shrapnel at a rate of 101%. This is often overlooked, but the extra 1% ammo you get from converting shrapnel is free ammo that you did not have to buy with your PED card. This extra 1% needs to be removed from the total amount of PED spent on this hunt:

9,356 PED spent on ammo / 1.01
93​
Real total for PED spent (11,804 - 93):
11,711​

In order to figure out the Net Return %, I'll take my Total loot value number and divide it by my Real total spent number to get the percent ratio:

Total loot value → 11,460 / 11,711 ← Real total spent
97.86%

Now, I wanted to acquire more Athletics skill, it's the reason I did this Iron mission to begin with, and aside from getting it this way, my only other option would have been to purchase it from someone else on the auction, and there I would have payed ~1100% for it. So let's take this just one step further and see what it would look like if we factored in the value of the Athletics skill I received:

TOTAL Looted (incl. mu):
11,460​
19.79 Athletics @ 1100%:
217.69​
(11,460+218)/11,711
99.72%​

The Net Return when including all the markup and the value of the Athletics is 99.72%

This is about as precise as I can get it because I really didn't keep track of all the skills I got from the Codex, so I'm going to leave it there for now :)
 
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Interesting log, I check it out everytime you post new results. This time though i didn't quite understand how you counted the price of the skill, since ESI MU is over 900%, and you can't sell the skill without buying the implant first.

And btw, do you think skills may be included in loot calculation algorithms, could they be counted as returns? And I know it's widely believed that they are not, but anyway, what do you think?
 
Interesting log, I check it out everytime you post new results. This time though i didn't quite understand how you counted the price of the skill, since ESI MU is over 900%, and you can't sell the skill without buying the implant first.

And btw, do you think skills may be included in loot calculation algorithms, could they be counted as returns? And I know it's widely believed that they are not, but anyway, what do you think?

Hey thanks SoberPhil :)

I often don't look at something I've gained or acquired in the game as "how much could I get for it if I sold it", I think that's a limited view. I prefer to look at it in terms of "how much did I save by acquiring it this way as opposed to purchasing it", I think that's more fair, especially when it's something you wanted to acquire.

I wanted to acquire more Athletics skill, it's the reason I did this Iron mission to begin with, and aside from getting it this way, my only other option would have been to purchase it from someone else on the auction, and there I would have payed ~1100% for it. So that's what I used for my calculations.

Of course that is a controversial way to look at it. That's why I made sure I got to the 97.86% Net Return first, which is probably what the majority of hunters would consider to be the real Returns (TT Return + MU on looted items and materials).

So basicly you got 3 different ways you can look at this:

Total loot TT → 11,352 / 11,711 ← Real total spent
96.93%​
Total loot w/MU → 11,460 / 11,711 ← Real total spent
97.86%​
Loot w/MU + Skills → 11,678 / 11,711 ← Real total spent
99.72%​

Normally I would not include the Skills. I did the math on it here just out of curiosity and also because these skills were awarded as part of an old Iron mission that's no longer available.

--
As for the other question, if I understood correctly: "does the system consider the skill rewards as part of the returns?"

I would say no. Seems to me that is just a separate standalone system which MindArk has put in place to give players a goal, an incentive, something to grind towards. It keeps people hunting and gives players a sense of accomplishment when the reward is received. Without it, it's pretty boring, you keep shooting and shooting and killing mobs and aside from the loot events, nothing else different ever happens... Pretty boring really. When I started playing, we didn't have all these Iron missions, or any missions for that matter.

I think the way things are now are a huge improvement from the way they used to be. A new player can move up the levels a lot quicker then ever before, and the Looter Professions, if I understood correctly the mechanics, are designed to bring stability to your returns as your PED turnover rises higher and higher.

Cheers o/

Legends
 
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Creature #1: Kerberos (L2-L7)
Location: Boreas
My Animal Looter level: 22.38
My Evade level: 22.00
Rings: Athenic (L) and Aeglic (L)
Weapon #1 (efficiency): Kinetic nano 4 (L) + Kinetic amp 1 - (58.6%)
Weapon #2 (efficiency): Electric nano 4 (L) + Kinetic amp 1 - (60.3%)
Weapon #3 (efficiency): Cryogenic nano 3 (L) - (58%)
Weapon #4 (efficiency): Lacerating nano 3 (L) - (59%)
Weapons decay (incl. attachments): 49.53 PED (+0.40 mu)
Armor/FAP decay: 6.87 PED (Phantom)
Total ammo spent: 691.10 PED (698 universal ammo)
Total spent on hunt (w/mu): 747.90 PED

Hunting run duration: ~ 5.5 hours
Globals/HoFs: 11, 10 and 51
Items looted: none
Items TT value (~markup value): N/A
Stackables: 611.27 PED (incl. 165 Muscle oil, 1.49 Inferior Cloth ext.)
Net returns (w/mu): 617 PED or 82.5%
Loot quality, i.e. % shrapnel: 65% of loot tt was shrapnel
Profit/Cost per hour: -24 PED/hour

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At this point I'm pretty sure I've got 'Cursed Avatar Syndrome'. I didn't think it was possible to lose 25 PED/hour hunting these guys, that seems expensive for such a small mob.

Acquisitions: Saw this in a shop and just had to buy it: Cryo nano 3 (L) - 24 ped tt for 25.02 (104.25%). It's perfect for my current Cryo level, so I'll get some good use out of it.

Hunting style: Eco and slow, to try and mitigate volatility. It's a bit slow using the Kinetic 4 + amp on the Level 6 Kerbs, I could use a bigger amp or a bigger chip, but need to skill a bit more.

Defense: Relying solely on armor, no fapping.

Notable: my Pyro-Kinetic (Hit) went up 1 full level, my Electro-Kinetic (Hit) went up almost 2 full levels and my Cryogenic (Hit) went up almost 1 level. Obviously I was using the Electric and Kinetic chips more, since they are the most powerful I have right now, so that's why Electro-Kinetic went up more. I'll be taking mostly Pyro now in the Codex to try and catch that one up.

What I learned: my last 3 hunts have just been really bad as far as returns go. I understand why the 'personal loot pool' theory keeps coming back again and again in this forum, it's so tantalizing to assume that the loot engine must have some sort of bias... During my hunt, there was at least one guy there over-amping the Kerbs, dunno if this could have some sort of loot pool 'draining' effect... Probably not, but it's hard to re-conciliate such poor returns, on a hunt that took place over 5.5 hours. I have to admit, I don't really understand how MindArk can imagine that players will 'enjoy' this type of result. The Kerberos loot doesn't really have any markup in it so why hunt them? Maybe I'll try something else soon.
 
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Try the kerbs at fort lahar instead.
It's mono maturity. Providers only.
That way you won't get the multi's in the youngs and the crap on the olds.

Also, the providers can give a real swirl fest!
 
Creature: Kerberos (L2-L7)
Location: Boreas
My Animal Looter level: 22.43
My Evade level: 22.01
Rings: Athenic (L) and Aeglic (L)
Weapon #1 (efficiency): Kinetic nano 4 (L) + Kinetic amp 1 - (58.6%)
Weapon #2 (efficiency): Electric nano 4 (L) + Kinetic amp 1 - (60.3%)
Weapon #3 (efficiency): Cryogenic nano 3 (L) - (58%)
Weapon #4 (efficiency): Lacerating nano 3 (L) - (59%)
Weapons decay (incl. attachments): 19.42 PED (+0.35 markup)
Armor/FAP decay: 5.07 PED (Phantom)
Total ammo spent: 596.23 PED
Total spent on hunt (w/mu): 621.07 PED

Hunting run duration: ~ 4.5 hours
Globals/HoFs: 12, 68, 25 and 13
Items looted: none
Items TT value (~markup value): N/A
Stackables: 602.02 PED
Net returns (w/mu): 605 PED or 97.4%
Loot quality, i.e. % shrapnel: 68% of loot tt was shrapnel
Profit/Cost per hour: -3.50 PED/hour

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Right on the long-term average with this one at 97%. I'll take that any day over the previous 82.5% ...

Hunting style: still skilling my mindforce combat.

Defense: just wearing 5 pieces of armor, no fapping.

Achievements: level 15 Electro Kinetic (Hit), level 9 Pyrokinetic (Hit), and level 11 jammer.

Try the kerbs at fort lahar instead.
It's mono maturity. Providers only.
That way you won't get the multi's in the youngs and the crap on the olds.

Also, the providers can give a real swirl fest!

Yeah, I could give that a try and see if I can have more stability with those. However I gotta tell you, I've never been a big believer in the so-called 'maturity volatility', to me what it comes down to is simply whether you're getting decent multipliers or not. If you are, it doesn't really matter what maturity you hit them on, your returns will be good, and if not well, they'll be bad...

This is a small sample size right now but let's take a look at what I've got so far on the Kerbs at Boreas:

Date
Lvl 2
Lvl 3
Lvl 4
Lvl 5
Lvl 6
Globals / hour
% Return
20 Jan
0​
3​
0​
0​
0​
3​
119%​
2 Feb
0​
2​
1​
0​
0​
0.55​
103%​
8 Feb
0​
2​
0​
1​
0​
0.55​
82.5%​
9 Feb
2​
0​
0​
1​
1​
0.9​
97%​

The biggest Global on this grid is on the 2nd of February off of a Mature (L3), which was 134 PED. On the 9th of February, I have more Globals per hour, even got one on a Guardian (L5) and one on a Dominant (L6), which did not happen on any of the other hunting runs, and yet my returns were lower than on the 2nd. So what that tells me is the multis I hit were just all crap really...
 
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Creature #1: Kerberos (L6)
Location: Jurra Plateau
My Animal Looter level: 22.41
My Evade level: 22.02
Rings: Athenic (L) and Aeglic (L)
Weapon #1 (efficiency): Kinetic nano 4 (L) + Kinetic amp 1 - (58.6%)
Weapon #2 (efficiency): Electric nano 4 (L) + Kinetic amp 1 - (60.3%)
Weapons decay (incl. attachments): 24.85 PED (+0.53 mu)
Armor/FAP decay: 10.81 PED (Phantom)
Total ammo spent: 745.05 PED (752.50 universal ammo)
Total spent on hunt (w/mu): 781.24 PED

Hunting run duration: ~ 4 hours
Globals/HoFs: none
Items looted: none
Items TT value (~markup value): N/A
Stackables: 623.04 PED (adding ~1.5% mu by default on other than shrap)
Net returns (w/mu): 628 PED or 80.4%
Loot quality, i.e. % shrapnel: 66% of loot tt was shrapnel
Profit/Cost per hour: -38 PED/hour

--
The 'Cursed Avatar Syndrome' continues. A new low has been found for the Kerbs.

Hunting style: Eco and slow, to try and mitigate volatility. It's a bit slow using the Kinetic 4 + amp on the Level 6 Kerbs, I could use a bigger amp or a bigger chip, but need to skill a bit more still.

Defense: Relying solely on armor, no fapping.

What I learned: the loot engine is quite stingy with me now. MindArk is heartless to have made it possible for a hunter to experience such despicable results over a week-end of hunting, my last 4 hunts, over 18 hours of hunting, have all been losses. I'm completely discouraged now. During my last 4 hour hunt, there were 2 Kerb Alpha globals and at least 4 Kerb Dominant globals, and I couldn't even get one, in over 4 hours of hunting. Just plain disgusted with this right now...

Achievements: level 5 Translocator, level 6 Telepath, level 16 Electro Kinetic (Hit), level 10 Pyro Kinetic (Hit).


PS: so much for that 'maturity volatility' theory...
 
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When you calculate your final returns+Markup, considering that shrapnel can be converted into Universal Ammo, I would include in your calculations also the value of the shrapnel *1.01 (=101% conversion of shrapnel TT into universal ammo).

Imo it's very probable that MindArk include the shrapnel conversion into their model for the hunting returns of any player : they created that "shrapnel" on purpose.


If you manage to reach an AVERAGE hunting return of 99%, supposing -on purpose- theorically that your loot is all shrapnel, then the "real" hunting return becomes 99.99% (include the 101% shrapnel conversion).

-->Then the real gain, for such an efficient player, obviously comes from the Markup of all the looted items (I mean all those items different from shrapnel : since, leaving theory and entering real world, in our loots we have shrapnel + some other items, sometimes quite valuable).

As a side note, consider that even items with a very low markup (<101%) can be converted into shrapnel (that is commonly sold at 100.4% or 100.5%), and then converted into Universal Ammo.
Suppose that You have 100 ped of a looted item whose markup is a mere 100.5% (note that many people complain for those looted items whose markup is below 101% : they instead would prefer ONLY shrapnel in their loots, often making a mistake).

-->Those 100 ped of our example, if properly sold become 100.5 ped (as said, in this example the markup is just 100.5%) : then you buy 100 ped of shrapnel paying it 100.4 or 100.5 ped, then You convert it, having finally 101 ped of universal ammo (or even more than 101 ped), even though your starting loot had a markup well below 101% (100.5% in this example).

Also, if we want to add a bit of optimization, the markup of the items fluctuates in time, see for example how the value of animal oils fluctuates yearly.
So 1 item that now has a very low markup, maybe after some time will grow interestingly.



Paul
 
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Creature #1: Feffoids (L17-L19)
Location: Fort Fury
Creature #2: Allo/Esto (L14-L22)
Location: Livas Heights
Creature #3: Atrax (L13-L23)
Location: East Scylla Mountains
My Mutant Looter level: 13.95
My Evade level: 22.04
Rings: Athenic (L) and Aeglic (L)
Weapon #1 (efficiency): ArMatrix LR-25 (L) + A103/LR1/B8/P15 - (67.2%)
Weapon #2 (efficiency): EP-41 Military Adj. + A103/LR1+B8/B4 - (61.3%)
Weapons decay (incl. attachments): 109.16 PED (+0.40 mu)
Armor/FAP decay: 4.73 PED (Phantom+plates)
Total ammo spent: 500 PED (weapon cells from tt)
Total spent on hunt (w/mu): 614.29 PED

Hunting run duration: ~ 2 hours
Globals/HoFs: none
Items looted: Electric nano 1 (L)
Items TT value (~markup value): 3.35 (+0.50 mu)
Stackables: 477.29 PED (adding ~1.5% on other than shrap)
Net returns (w/mu): 483 PED or 78.6%
Loot quality, i.e. % shrapnel: 69% of loot tt was shrapnel
Profit/Cost per hour: -66 PED/hour

--
Acquisitions: ArMatrix LR-25 (L) for 58 (105.45%)

Hunting style: High(er) efficiency hunting using ArMatrix.

Defense: Relying solely on armor, no fapping.

What I learned: immediately after the last Kerberos hunt I did, I wanted to just see if changing mobs/location and going back to ArMatrix might reveal something about one's hunting loot returns. Sadly, it looks like when you are experiencing bad loot returns, there is really little you can do to stop it aside from just logging out and taking a break... If that's the case, the term 'Cursed Avatar Syndrome' is quite fitting.

Jambon seems to be describing this very phenomenon in his rant here. The question is, how to break the curse? Changing mobs and location didn't seem to work, changing weapons and efficiency had no effect either... My last 5 hunts, over 20 hours of hunting was just losses and have cost me about $3.25/hour. That's $65. In 20 hours, lost. And I'm not even hunting a large mob, just Kerbs mostly, a bit of Feffoid (level 17-19), Allo/Esto (14-22)... If I can't find sustainability at these levels, why move any higher? A lot of question marks at this stage...

And let's not forget that almost every one of my hunts has been over 4 hours long. The reason I'm doing these long hunts is to reduce volatility. The law of averages in a game of chance states that over time, if you do it long enough, your results should fall back to the mean average.

If what MindArk has stated is true, i.e. that the mean average hunting loot return was intended to be around 97%, then I cannot do otherwise than to conclude that 4 hour long hunts will not be long enough, and 20 hours of hunting is much too small of a sample size to reach that average. That's kind of disappointing because at my hunting level, I find it difficult to push through when each hunt I do is just a $13 loss on average.

Anyways, it seems only time will eventually break the 'Cursed Avatar Syndrome', I will be patient and I will proceed in a cautious manner.
 
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Creature: Atrax (L8-L12)
Location: between Livas Heights and Camp Pheonix
My Animal Looter level: 22.58
My Evade level: 22.06
Rings: Athenic (L) and Aeglic (L)
Tagger: Mirath Long Shot (L) + A101/LR1+B8/B8/P15 (62.3%)
Weapon #1 (efficiency): Kinetic Nano 4 (L) + Kinetic 1 (L) - (58.6%)
Weapon #2 (efficiency): Lacerating Nano 4 (L) + Kinetic 1 (L) - (60.5%)
Weapon #3 (efficiency): Cryogenic Nano 3 (L) + Kinetic 1 (L) - (58.9%)
Weapon #4 (efficiency): Lacerating Nano 3 (L) + Kinetic 1 (L) - (61.3%)
Weapons decay (incl. attachments): 46.17 PED (+1.73 markup)
Armor/FAP decay: 90.40 PED (Phantom+plates)
Total ammo spent: 1299.03 PED
Total spent on hunt (w/mu): 1437.33 PED

Hunting run duration: ~ 10 hours
Globals/HoFs: 59 PED
Items looted: Combustive Nano 4 (L)
Items TT value (~markup value): 25.69 PED (+1.71 markup)
Stackables: 1321.38 PED (adding ~1.5% on other than shrap)
Net returns (w/mu): 1348.78 PED or 94.3%
Loot quality, i.e. % shrapnel: 66% of loot tt was shrapnel
Profit/Cost per hour: -8 PED/hour

index.php

Quite a bit better than the last couple of hunts but still negative.

Hunting style: still skilling mindforce. This is a very dense spawn, which I think is designed for skilling support weapons (rocket launchers). I try to stick to the edge and tag them one at a time using the Mirath Long Shot but at some point have to walk into the spawn area and end up getting swarmed eventually. Not good for the armor repair bill.

Defense: Relying on armor, but had to fap a couple of times (especially at the end when my armor was decayed a lot). The armor decay is over 6% of the total cost of this hunt. That is much higher then all of my other hunts, obviously I'm getting swarmed way too much by these guys, and on top of that, it takes me a bit too long to kill them with the chips I'm using.

What I learned: My Evade and my Animal Looter is hardly going up. I need to look for something a bit bigger cause this feels like a waste of time.

Achievements: Was using mostly the Cryogenic and Lacerating chips so my Cryogenic (Hit) went up almost 4 full levels on this hunt. Also I took Longblades twice in the Codex, and Pyrokinesis twice as well, so Swordsman (Hit) went up 1 level and Pyrokinetic (Hit), 1.5 levels. Now that my Pyro is above 12, I can use the 2 Combustive Nano 4 chips I've looted recently.
 
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Just the same

Hi,

Your log is very similar to my results in hunting past weeks. At the moment i'm experiencing a long bad period of bad loot, although for some it would seem normal as the game is "dynamic" and you need high turnover and high count of mobs killed to even out. I came back to the game two months ago, at about 40K PED turnover i'm at 92.4% TT return. Markup as always on those mobs are sh*t. I did cyrene mission for R.E.F.U.R.B.I.S.H.E.D FAP in this time, did some Arkadia hunting. Most of the hunting was done on low level mobs - argo's, fauls, atrax, nusul, but also on atrox (as i have 5K Iron to finish at 3K/5K for 15 Evade) and ambulimax.

I used A-3 Justifier Mk. II, Adjusted + A106 for most hunting. At the moment I hunt with Armatrix LR-30 (L) + A106 to get my rifle skills higher, i use pills from boxes to increase fire rate and crit hit (i'm not even counting them in for TT return), ArMatrix LP-25/30 pistols and also use a finisher.

I'm lvl 21 animal looter, lvl 20 evade, lvl 39 laser sniper.

And pas two weeks is the fastest going down with almost none TT profit runs. So yeah, it's hard to pass those bad times, i hope it improves.

I wish you best of luck :)
 
Hi,

Your log is very similar to my results in hunting past weeks. At the moment i'm experiencing a long bad period of bad loot, although for some it would seem normal as the game is "dynamic" and you need high turnover and high count of mobs killed to even out. I came back to the game two months ago, at about 40K PED turnover i'm at 92.4% TT return. Markup as always on those mobs are sh*t. I did cyrene mission for R.E.F.U.R.B.I.S.H.E.D FAP in this time, did some Arkadia hunting. Most of the hunting was done on low level mobs - argo's, fauls, atrax, nusul, but also on atrox (as i have 5K Iron to finish at 3K/5K for 15 Evade) and ambulimax.

I used A-3 Justifier Mk. II, Adjusted + A106 for most hunting. At the moment I hunt with Armatrix LR-30 (L) + A106 to get my rifle skills higher, i use pills from boxes to increase fire rate and crit hit (i'm not even counting them in for TT return), ArMatrix LP-25/30 pistols and also use a finisher.

I'm lvl 21 animal looter, lvl 20 evade, lvl 39 laser sniper.

And pas two weeks is the fastest going down with almost none TT profit runs. So yeah, it's hard to pass those bad times, i hope it improves.

I wish you best of luck :)

92.4 % seems about right With Your looter and efficiency.

Legend talks about average return. He forgets that a few players with Extreme turnover and high tt Return (97-99 %) skews the average. For 95 % of the player base, it would make more sense to have MA give out the median Return - something they'll never do.

Get Your looter to 40, get Your efficiency up +10, and you'll have +2 % right there. Stop shooting big mobs With high regen With low DPS, and you'll do better. 40k turnover on Atrox is nothing. 40k turnover on small argo or foul would give you a higher tt Return % (unless you're Lucky and hit big on atrox - probability says you won't).
 
Hi,

Your log is very similar to my results in hunting past weeks. At the moment i'm experiencing a long bad period of bad loot, although for some it would seem normal as the game is "dynamic" and you need high turnover and high count of mobs killed to even out. I came back to the game two months ago, at about 40K PED turnover i'm at 92.4% TT return. Markup as always on those mobs are sh*t. I did cyrene mission for R.E.F.U.R.B.I.S.H.E.D FAP in this time, did some Arkadia hunting. Most of the hunting was done on low level mobs - argo's, fauls, atrax, nusul, but also on atrox (as i have 5K Iron to finish at 3K/5K for 15 Evade) and ambulimax.

I used A-3 Justifier Mk. II, Adjusted + A106 for most hunting. At the moment I hunt with Armatrix LR-30 (L) + A106 to get my rifle skills higher, i use pills from boxes to increase fire rate and crit hit (i'm not even counting them in for TT return), ArMatrix LP-25/30 pistols and also use a finisher.

I'm lvl 21 animal looter, lvl 20 evade, lvl 39 laser sniper.

And pas two weeks is the fastest going down with almost none TT profit runs. So yeah, it's hard to pass those bad times, i hope it improves.

I wish you best of luck :)

Hey Devoted,

Thanks for sharing and for the words of encouragement :)

Legends
 
Creature: Primordial Longu (L17-L31)
Location: East Scylla Mountains
My Animal Looter level: 22.69 (ended at 22.98)
My Evade level: 22.10 (ended at 22.25)
Rings: Athenic (L) and Aeglic (L)
Weapon #1 (efficiency): ArMatrix LR-25 (L) + A105 Hyper/LR1+B8/P15 (66.2%)
Weapon #2 (efficiency): EWE EP-41 Military, Adjusted + A103/LR1/B8 - (59.8%)
Weapons decay (incl. attachments): 646.33 PED (+2.63 markup)
Damage Enhancers: 22.40 cost (14 broke)
Armor decay: 38.80 PED (+1.18 markup on limited parts)
FAP decay: 7.94 PED
Total ammo spent: 3090 PED
Total spent on hunt (w/mu): 3809.28 PED

Hunting run duration: ~ 11 hours
Globals/HoFs: 50 and 53
Items looted: none
Items TT value (~markup value): N/A
Stackables: 3246.60 PED (45.60 output amps, 5.60 tier 7, 3.41 basic leather extractor...)
Net returns (w/mu): 3301 PED or 86.66%
Loot quality, i.e. % shrapnel: 73% of loot tt was shrapnel
Profit/Cost per hour: -46 PED/hour

index.php

I don't know what I'm supposed to say about this anymore... Thanks MA for not giving me another BS 79% return I guess..? I managed to find about 55 PED worth of markup in my loot, but that hardly makes a difference. I was surprised at just how many Output Amplifiers I got, but I guess that explains why the markup on Output Amps is free falling; the rate at which they drop is just nuts.

Hunting: This spawn is very well distributed, not too dense or too sparse, and the Primordial Longu don't aggro that easily so at the end I was just using the handgun (cause the ArMatrix rifle was almost done) and never had more than 1 mob on me at a time. When I started the hunt I wasn't using any Damage Enhancers, but when I saw how slow it was to kill the Guardians and Dominants, I decided to add them (the EWE EP-41 Military Adjusted is tier 7), thinking the savings on defensive costs would make up for it. Now that I look at this, in hindsight, I should have just used an LR-35 instead, probably would have worked much better.

Defense: For the Young and Mature, no problem, I usually kill them before they hit me, but for the Guardians and Dominants, it takes a bit longer and sometimes I have to heal... So that is not ideal, but overall the defensive costs including the fapping still only adds up to about 1.3% of the hunt total cost, which I think is quite acceptable. The armor I used was a mix of things, I had Martial (L) + 5B, as well as a couple pieces of Eon (L) (which is really cheap on the auction btw), a pair of Chronicle (L) gloves (also very cheap), so I added up all the decay and added a markup amount based on 105% for all the limited parts I used. The FAP is an EMT-Kit Ek-2600 which I know is really not eco to use but that's all I have right now. I think it's about 10 PEC per heal so in an 11 hour hunt, I healed about 80 times, or 7 times / hour. The armor did most of the work.

What I learned: 22.40 PED, that is the total markup cost of the 14 Dmg Enhancers that broke on the handgun. I don't think it was worth it. If I hadn't used the enhancers, maybe I would have fapped a little more, but not for 22 PED more... My theory on weapon enhancers goes something like this: Dmg Enhancers are for increasing DPS, Accuracy Enhancers are for raising DPP and thus loot composition quality, Economy Enhancers are to make your high-mu limited weapon last longer, Range Enhancers are so you can save on defensive costs when you are hunting a mob where there is no other choice then to use very high-mu armor, like Daspletor for example, or Eomon.

Achievements: Level 39 laser pistoleer (Hit), Level 36 blp pistoleer (Hit). Completed the first 8 stages for Primordial Longu, I took Longblades a few times in the Codex and went up almost 3 levels, am now Level 17 Swordsman (Hit), took Pyrokinesis in the Codex a few times as well and that also has gone up almost 3 full levels, am now Level 15 Pyro Kinetic (Hit). My Evader and my Looter professions went up a bit but honestly I expected them to go up more then that given that this mob was higher level.
 
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...it takes a bit longer and sometimes I have to heal... So that is not ideal, it takes a bit longer and sometimes I have to heal... So that is not ideal,...

If you intent to skill up, to be able to hunt bigger, shouldn't you not also skill up your healing?
 
If you intent to skill up, to be able to hunt bigger, shouldn't you not also skill up your healing?

Sure, that's a good point. There's so much I could say about this... I'll try to break down my reasoning why I'm doing things the way I'm doing them below:

1. My goals:

As per the first post in this Blog:

Thank you for checking out this Hunting Blog where I will share the details my Hunting adventures in Entropia with everyone. First things first, here are my goals and the main reasons why I'm doing this:

1. I want to get back into hunting again
2. I want to learn and get better and smarter as I progress
3. I want to figure out how to do it in a sustainable way...

Probably the #1 thing I put a lot of emphasis on in any of the choices I make is about economy and the actual cost to use certain things. This might all be in vain in a game of chance but I always thought that it might be possible to have a bit of an edge by paying attention to these things and playing more eco then the average player. So part of 'figuring out how to do it in a sustainable way', for me, is figuring out what all the most sensible and economical tools and weapons are.

Yes, I have been putting some emphasis on skilling, but I'm just trying to skill up my Looter and Evade professions mostly. The Melee and Mindforce I keep talking about, that's just to give me more options when I'm shopping for weapons (and more options for Mayhem as well, if I ever do participate in those). I don't really have a goal or intention to hunt bigger mobs right now, especially when I'm already losing my ass just on level ~20 mobs...

2. Being eco on Defense:

When it comes to defensive costs, you basically have 2 choices, Armor, Healing tools, or any combination of these 2, but that's pretty much it. The costs of protection using armor is as follows:

For the Limited armor, the cost of protection is: 21.978 hp / pec
While for Unlimited, with 10,000 less Durability, it is: 20.4081 hp / pec

As for healing tools and FAPs, well, if you go to Entropiawiki.com and compare all the Medical Tools currently available the first thing you will notice is that the majority of healing tools that have an economy higher than 20 hp heal/pec are unlimited and cost thousands of PED. (tip: click on the 'Eco' column to organize them from highest to lowest eco, descending)

There is a case to be made for the new limited Restoration chips but the markup on them is gonna have to drop to about 400% before they are worth using (at which point I believe the Eco on them will work out to be right around the 20 hp heal/pec that armor has).

3. Armor is more practical to use

Some will probably say that I'm biased because I sell armors, and that might be true, but in my opinion, Armors have always been more practical to use, for a few reasons:

- No skills required for using any armor, even high-level armors
- No need to stop shooting to heal yourself
- Nice Buffs available on some unlimited sets
- Better affordability at my level

The unfortunate thing playing this way is that I need to use different armors for different mobs and switch plates and so on and so forth, it's kind of tedious, but I'd rather do that then spend $400 on an Adjusted Resto Chip. My thinking on this might change eventually but for now, that's my position.

--
All that said though, you do have a point wizz, thanks for bringing it up. The only thing I see worth skilling for right now is those new Restoration Chips and so I will look into acquiring a mindforce healing chip to help skill up my Biotropic a bit.


PS: note that there is missing information still on those Restoration Chips in the wiki, but just going on what we have so far, I'm assuming that they will all be very similar in economy.
 
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I don't know what I'm supposed to say about this anymore... Thanks MA for not giving me another BS 79% return I guess..? I managed to find about 55 PED worth of markup in my loot, but that hardly makes a difference. I was surprised at just how many Output Amplifiers I got, but I guess that explains why the markup on Output Amps is free falling; the rate at which they drop is just nuts.

Dude, I like reading your log. It's real Nice, With lots of interesting details. Even so, you don't get it. 86 % Return after shooting so few mobs (2-4 ped cost each means ~1000 kills only) cannot land on average. It will most probably be below average return, or in case of a big global, quite above average.

Turnover means sh*t, it's the amount of loot events that counts. MA said it themselves, and the Law of big numbers does apply.
 
Dude, I like reading your log. It's real Nice, With lots of interesting details. Even so, you don't get it. 86 % Return after shooting so few mobs (2-4 ped cost each means ~1000 kills only) cannot land on average. It will most probably be below average return, or in case of a big global, quite above average.

Turnover means sh*t, it's the amount of loot events that counts. MA said it themselves, and the Law of big numbers does apply.

Thanks LavaSparks. My dismay in the results is not just on this one hunt, it's on the overall picture, the last 30 hours of hunting have all been losses, not a single run showing profits at the end, not on TT, not on markup either. I understand your point about the number of loot events, and I haven't really bothered to count what all of these hunts add up to in terms of mob kills, but I know it's up there, over 3.5k I would say.

To put it another way, here's how it looks for me right now:

40 PED profit, 40 PED loss, 120 PED loss, 200 PED profit, 167 PED profit, 236 PED loss, 128 PED loss, 68 PED profit, 30 PED loss, 17 PED profit, 200 PED loss, 200 PED loss, 138 PED loss, 18 PED loss, 160 PED loss, 134 PED loss, 90 PED loss, 506 PED loss

Simplified further:

profit-loss-loss-profit-profit-loss-loss-profit-loss-profit-loss-loss-loss-loss-loss-loss-loss-loss

8 hunts in a row now, totaling 31 hours of hunting I believe...

I don't think that's going to do much to encourage newer players to keep going. There has to be some positive returns here and there otherwise people will just quit, to do otherwise would just be insanity, i.e. doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Anyway, I'm taking the night off Entropia so I can tabulate all of my results into one grid and then we can all look it over and have a clearer picture of where things stand for me. Watch for that, it should be posted here in the next few hours.

And btw, I don't think it's fair that you say that 'I don't get it', I do get it, I know it's a game of chance and I've spoken about the law of averages right here in this very blog. I'm just really disappointed at my shitty luck lately, that's all. And if I really didn't get it, then I would have stopped hunting already, but I know that things will likely turn around for me eventually, I just think it's taking too long for that to happen. If things haven't turned around by the time I get to 30k PED turnover (10k mobs) then I might consider stopping.

And this is a blog, not just a hunting log, so I've given myself that extra freedom to express my thoughts and my feelings about things, so if I criticize MA or the loot system, it's just a part of the experience, and I'm pretty sure that this feeling is normal tbh, I don't think anyone is going to really, honestly think that I'm being unfair feeling this way about it, anyone else would feel just the same looking at these results.
 
Simplified further:

profit-loss-loss-profit-profit-loss-loss-profit-loss-profit-loss-loss-loss-loss-loss-loss-loss-loss


And btw, I don't think it's fair that you say that 'I don't get it', I do get it, I know it's a game of chance and I've spoken about the law of averages right here in this very blog. I'm just really disappointed at my shitty luck lately, that's all. And if I really didn't get it, then I would have stopped hunting already, but I know that things will likely turn around for me eventually, I just think it's taking too long for that to happen. If things haven't turned around by the time I get to 30k PED turnover (10k mobs) then I might consider stopping.

Maybe I wasn't fair, and I didn't mean to be rude in any case, so sorry about that.

Your profit/loss stats doesn't look that bad imho. The game has it's good and bad return periods over the year/monty/week. That's why you need to stop if you hunt 10 hours straight and there's just nothing good coming out of the mobs. Spacing the hunting over the whole year, with fairly equal turnover in all 4 seasons will reduce risk of ruin. But this is something you know already.

What you haven't accounted for is the fairly low number of kills (10k). I have a record of killing 60k molisk, and let me tell you only two of the many many runs came out >100 % tt. I only do runs of 3k kills and more, and none have gone below 91 % Return (I have one record of a 1k kills run, 86 % Return). I hit a 1000x multi for the first time in December, and this helped my total tt return up by 2 %, so until all those multis are inside a big sample, your average will stay in the lower 90s. After 60k kills I have also gotten 3x nemesis parts, With a total of 250 MU, so those covered the average loss of a 5k kill (5k ped) run. I'm still in the red - as I should be - and I'm happy With that since tt Return has stabilized somewhere in the 95 % range.

Servers need to be paid, employees as well :smoke:
 
Creature: Atrox (L17-L29)
Location: Jurra Plateau
My Animal Looter level: 22.98
My Evade level: 22.25
Rings: Athenic (L) and Aeglic (L)
Weapon #1 (efficiency): ArMatrix LR-25 (L) + A105 Hyper/LR1+B8/P15 (66.2%)
Weapon #2 (efficiency): EWE EP-41 Military, Adjusted + A105 Hyper/LR1/B8 - (61%)
Weapon #3 (efficiency): Isis LBC 25 (L) + Bull Tac30/LR1/B8 - (57.5%)
Weapons decay (incl. attachments): 257.25 PED (+0.42 markup)
Armor decay: 11.09 PED (Phantom+5B)
Total ammo spent: 997 PED (1006.95 Uni Ammo)
Total spent on hunt (w/mu): 1265.76 PED

Hunting run duration: ~ 2.5 hours
Globals/HoFs: 156, 62 and 58
Items looted: Valentine Shirt (M)
Items TT value (~markup value): 0.19 (+6)
Stackables (~mu): 1241.92 PED (+5.50 PED)
Net returns (w/mu): 1253.61 PED or 99%
Loot quality, i.e. % shrapnel: 71% of loot tt was shrapnel
Profit/Cost per hour: -5 PED/hour

Note: I started out with an A103 on the handgun and once the ArMatrix LR-25 was done I switched to the Isis LBC 25 and put the A105 Hypercharged on the handgun.

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I don't mind results like this. It was nice to get some swirlies, the Primordial Longu really didn't give me any yesterday (only 2 in 11 hours).

Hunting: No Damage Enhancers on the EP-41.

Defense: The Atrox take a bit longer to kill due to their higher HP, but 11.09 decay on the armor is still under 1%, so that's fine. No fapping was required, actually I'd say I was over-protected with the Phantom+5B setup and didn't get to take advantage of free health regen, so in a longer hunting run, this might add up to some extra defense costs that aren't truly necessary. If/when I hunt these again I'll try Phantom+5A and see how that goes, might have to step it down to 3A even, we'll see.

Notable: there seemed to be a loot wave during this hunt, on the Atrox specifically. Seemed like out of every 4 or 5 globals, one of them was on Atrox. I saw a few nice ones on Atrox Old, around 190 PED, and a 240 on a Provider. Mine were Young, Mature and Young again. I also seemed to notice, both yesterday and today that around 18:00 there was bonus shrap more often...? I'm not really sure about this but I'm going to try and pay more attention to it. It could just be due to more PvP activity going on in-game though.

What I learned: The Atrox loot doesn't seem to have any markup in it, that's disappointing.

Achievements: level 42 Laser Sniper (hit), level 23 Animal Looter.

From now on I will try and figure out a fair markup value for my stackables and add it in there in parenthesis. I feel it's not fair to not provide it when I'm actually putting a lot of that stuff on auction and/or stockpiling in storage to sell later. This should help to arrive at a more accurate Net Return % for the run.
 
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Tabulated Results
MobAvgEff%ShrapDef%MU-inPED-inLoot-outTT%MU-outNet AmtNet-%
Berycled59.5%--3%0.56508546107.5%5+43108.5%
Foul59%57.4%1%0327.5029088.5%1.00-36.5088.8%
Drones59.5%77.4%1%1.00623.550681%1.75-11581.5%
Allo/Esto65.2%58.8%0.9%10.5013401536114.6%12.50+208115.5%
Allo/Esto64.4%71.4%0.9%5.7014321604112%7.32+179112.5%
Allo/Esto65.1%68%0.74%9.841385116083.8%0-22583.8%
Allo/Esto65.1%64%0.66%18.842738262495.8%2.70-11195.9%
Feffoid61.8%71%0.5%5.789651040107.8%0+75.5107.8%
Allo/Esto61.8%67%0.9%12.272119209698.9%3-2099%
Kerberos61.1%59%1.1%1.63618638103.2%1.85+22103.6%
Allo/Esto60.4%68%0.9%8.121432124487%0-18887%
Allo/Esto61.3%63%0.7%01277108885.2%2.50-18685.4%
Kerberos59%65%0.9%0.4074861181.7%6-13182.5%
Kerberos59%68%0.8%0.3562160297%3-1697.4%
Kerberos59.5%66%1.4%0.5378162379.8%5-15380.4%
(various)64.2%69%0.8%0.4061448178.3%2.50-13178.7%
Atrax60.3%66%6.3%1.731437134793.7%8-8294.3%
PrimLongu63%73%1.3%26.203809324785.2%54-50886.7%
Atrox61.5%71%0.9%0.421266124298%11.50-1299%

* some of the numbers in this table have been rounded in order to conserve space.

** there's 74 PED of loot markup missing in the table above, which came from the stackables I got from the 5k Allo/Estos I did. This was not tracked for each individual hunt at the time, it was tabulated afterwards, which is why it's missing from the table.


TOTALs:

Hours of hunting: ~93 hours

Amount of PEDs cycled: 24,041 PEDs
Spent on markup: 104.27 PEDs

TT value of loot: 22,525 PEDs
TT value Returned: 93.69%

Loot markup: 202 PEDs (128+74)
Net Returns w/markup: 22,727 PEDs
Net Returns: -1,314 or 94.53%

Profit/Cost per hour: -14 PED/hour


My thoughts: I can see that I ended up getting more markup out of the mobs (about 2 times more) then I actually put into them, which is great because that's what I was hoping to do. I also see that the difference the loot markup is doing is less than 1% on my Net Returns, which tells me that the loot I'm getting from what I'm hunting has very little markup in it. This will likely be my focus going forward; increasing the markup in my loot and thereby reach that coveted 97-98% Net Return.

Overall though, 94.53% isn't bad, I'm not going to complain about it. In addition to the Returns stated above, I also got 19.79 PED of Athletics (5k Allo/Esto) and 1.56 PED of Evade (500 Atrox). I have actually learned a lot during these 93 hours of hunting and I plan on writing a seperate post in the near future to share some of these insights.
 
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Creature: Itumatrox (L14-L23)
Location: Fort Ares
My Animal Looter level: 23.06
My Evade level: 22.46
Rings: Athenic (L) and Aeglic (L)
Weapon #1 (efficiency): Combustive nano 4 (L) + Kinetic Amp 3 (L) - (60.3%)
Weapon #2 (efficiency): Electric nano 5 (L) + Kinetic Amp 3 (L) - (62.7%)
Weapons decay (incl. attachments): 18.15 PED (+1.78 markup)
Armor decay (Polaris + 5B): 16.85 PED (+0.13 mu)
FAP decay: 5.66
Total ammo spent: 522 PED
Total spent on hunt (w/mu): 564.57 PED

Hunting run duration: ~ 4 hours
Globals/HoFs: none
Items looted: none
Items TT value (~markup value): N/A
Stackables: 415.45 PED (+2.35 mu)
Net returns (w/mu): 417.80 PED or 74%
Loot quality, i.e. % shrapnel: 62% of loot tt was shrapnel
Profit/Cost per hour: -37 PED/hour

--
I had the idea to use Polaris armor to hunt Itumatrox and when I was acquiring Teleporters the other day at the bottom right corner of the map, I noticed that there were some low level ones at Myrene Island and Cayuze while flying over. So I started this hunt at Myrene Island (hunting tax there is set to 0%) but found that I was wasting a lot of time looking for Itumatrox since they were so far and few between and mixed with Atrox and Mermoth. I then went to Cayuze (hunting tax there also set to 0%) and hunted them there for a bit but didn't like that there were Araneatrox there mixed in (and Bristlehogs), so I ended up wasting a lot of time looking for a good spawn. Some of the locations in Entropiawiki.com are wrong, I flew to some of those locations and didn't find any Itumatrox there. Finally I just went to Fort Ares and tried to avoid the Alphas and Old Alphas as best I could so as not to run up a huge FAP decay bill.

Acquisitions: 3xNeopsion Kinetic Amplifier 3 (L) for 125%

Hunting style: Still just skilling mindforce.

Defense: Defense costs incurred are 4% of the total hunt costs. The problem is that the weapons (mindforce chips) I'm using are too weak for these guys and I'm taking too many hits before killing them. I should be hunting weaker mobs with these chips but this was my first time trying the Itumatrox and I wasn't sure how it would go, now I know.

What I learned: I can hunt the Itumatrox without incurring much markup costs since Polaris armor can easily be obtained from auction for around 101%. Unfortunately, there doesn't really seem to be any markup in their loot either, so it doesn't really matter. I'll try to get 110% for my Itumatrox skin, which will help a bit, but I'll have to save it until I have a decent stack.

Achievements: level 18 Pyro Kinetic (Hit).
 
Creature #1: Trooper (L21-L27)
Creature #2: Warrior (L20-L26)
Location: Jurra Plateau
My Robot Looter level: 12.69
My Dodge level: 16.29
Rings: Athenic (L) and Aeglic (L)
Weapon #1 (efficiency): ArMatrix LR-35 (L) + A103/LR1+B8/P15 (67.3%)
Weapon #2 (efficiency): EWE EP-41 Military, Adjusted + A103/LR1+B8/B4 (61.3%)
Weapons decay (incl. attachments): 275.89 PED (+5.34 markup)
Armor decay: 69.97 PED (Adj. Jag+6A)
Fapping: 1.77 (+0.62 markup)
Total ammo spent: 1498.75 PED (1513.72 Uni Ammo)
Total spent on hunt (w/mu): 1852.34 PED

Hunting run duration: ~6 hours
Globals/HoFs: 170 PED
Items looted: Regen chip 5 (L), Vigilante Harness (F), 1xGeneric Nano Adjuster
Items TT value (~markup value): 32.81 (+46 markup)
Stackables (~mu): 1888.52 PED (+15 markup)
Net returns (w/mu): 1982.33 PED or 107%
Loot quality, i.e. % shrapnel: 82% of loot tt was shrapnel
Profit/Cost per hour: +21 PED/hour

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Wow, I got a piece of unlimited armor, I honestly cannot remember the last time that happened...

Acquisitions: ArMatrix LR-35 (L) for 113.33%, Restoration chip 1 (L) for 320%, ArMatrix Extender P15 for 101.33%

Hunting: The EP-41 Military is a decent gun for these guys but it has a short range so I still had to have a good tagger that would deal a reasonable amount of damage while they are coming towards me. Since I'm far from having maxed the LR-40 yet, LR-35 is the best one that's available to me. The idea is to aggro one by one and try and kill them fast so as to avoid taking excessive amounts of damage. In an ideal world I'd have something much more powerful to take care of the occasional L26 Warrior and L27 Trooper but I don't have anything better than that right now, so I just have to take the time it takes and heal as required.

Defense: Defense costs incurred are almost 4% of the total hunt costs. This is a bit more than I'd like, mainly due to the L26 & L27 taking so long to kill. But the majority of the costs are incurred on the Armor, as opposed to healing, which is good because the armor setup is unlimited and that saves me from incurring markup costs. The Restoration chip is great and very cheap to use, but Resto chip 1 (L) is a bit weak. Unfortunately I don't yet have the Biotropic skills to use Resto chip 2 (L), so it'll have to do for now.

What I learned: The loot quality I got was terrible, I think this might be the highest ratio of Shrapnel I've ever gotten, I wonder why that is... MA stated earlier that Looter professions only affect returns, not loot composition, so that can't be it. Interestingly enough, my second worst hunt for loot quality was on Drones, so maybe bots in general just drop lots of shrapnel when compared with animals? I was hoping for more Robot Filters, the amount I got was not very good...

Notable: The 170 PED global was on one of those L27 Troopers, you can see in the screenshot that my Resto chip was going, which was happening on almost every L26 and L27 bot.

Achievements: Level 13 Robot Looter, level 18 Swordsman (Hit), level 12 Jammer
 
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Yes, Troopers, Warriors, Droka and Drones drop a lot of shrapnel, i believe this is not because of efficiency, but rather their loot is just balanced to be this way - similar to Atrox. I killed a few thousand Droka's with LR-35 quite fast and efficient and got ~75% shrapnel in loot.

Creature #1: Trooper (L21-L27)
Creature #2: Warrior (L20-L26)
Location: Jurra Plateau
My Robot Looter level: 12.69
My Dodge level: 16.29
Rings: Athenic (L) and Aeglic (L)
Weapon #1 (efficiency): ArMatrix LR-35 (L) + A103/LR1+B8/P15 (67.3%)
Weapon #2 (efficiency): EWE EP-41 Military, Adjusted + A103/LR1+B8/B4 (61.3%)
Weapons decay (incl. attachments): 275.89 PED (+5.34 markup)
Armor decay: 69.97 PED (Adj. Jag+6A)
Fapping: 1.77 (+0.62 markup)
Total ammo spent: 1498.75 PED (1513.72 Uni Ammo)
Total spent on hunt (w/mu): 1852.34 PED

Hunting run duration: ~6 hours
Globals/HoFs: 170 PED
Items looted: Regen chip 5 (L), Vigilante Harness (F), 1xGeneric Nano Adjuster
Items TT value (~markup value): 32.81 (+46 markup)
Stackables (~mu): 1888.52 PED (+15 markup)
Net returns (w/mu): 1982.33 PED or 107%
Loot quality, i.e. % shrapnel: 82% of loot tt was shrapnel
Profit/Cost per hour: +21 PED/hour

bots.jpg

Wow, I got a piece of unlimited armor, I honestly cannot remember the last time that happened...

Acquisitions: ArMatrix LR-35 (L) for 113.33%, Restoration chip 1 (L) for 320%, ArMatrix Extender P15 for 101.33%

Hunting: The EP-41 Military is a decent gun for these guys but it has a short range so I still had to have a good tagger that would deal a reasonable amount of damage while they are coming towards me. Since I'm far from having maxed the LR-40 yet, LR-35 is the best one that's available to me. The idea is to aggro one by one and try and kill them fast so as to avoid taking excessive amounts of damage. In an ideal world I'd have something much more powerful to take care of the occasional L26 Warrior and L27 Trooper but I don't have anything better than that right now, so I just have to take the time it takes and heal as required.

Defense: Defense costs incurred are almost 4% of the total hunt costs. This is a bit more than I'd like, mainly due to the L26 & L27 taking so long to kill. But the majority of the costs are incurred on the Armor, as opposed to healing, which is good because the armor setup is unlimited and that saves me from incurring markup costs. The Restoration chip is great and very cheap to use, but Resto chip 1 (L) is a bit weak. Unfortunately I don't yet have the Biotropic skills to use Resto chip 2 (L), so it'll have to do for now.

What I learned: The loot quality I got was terrible, I think this might be the highest ratio of Shrapnel I've ever gotten, I wonder why that is... MA stated earlier that Looter professions only affect returns, not loot composition, so that can't be it. Interestingly enough, my second worst hunt for loot quality was on Drones, so maybe bots in general just drop lots of shrapnel when compared with animals? I was hoping for more Robot Filters, the amount I got was not very good...

Notable: The 170 PED global was on one of those L27 Troopers, you can see in the screenshot that my Resto chip was going, which was happening on almost every L26 and L27 bot.

Achievements: Level 13 Robot Looter, level 18 Swordsman (Hit), level 12 Jammer
 
711, you can move this one to the new Blogs section, I think that would be it's rightful place.
 
Good job on maintaining this hunting log, perhaps the most efficient one ive seen in a while.keep it up?
 
It's been a long time since I've entered anything in here so I've decided I will track the completion of my Longtooth Iron just for the hell of it.

Creature: Longtooth (L14-L16)
Location: Fort Argus
My Animal Looter level: 25.07
My Evade level: 24.11
Rings: Athenic (L) and Ares (L)
Tagger #1 (efficiency): JUELZ MIC-Killa SG-1 (L) (54.4%)
Tagger #2 (efficiency): Isis LBC-25 (L) + ArMatrix B-amp 28P + LR1/B8 + B4 - (66.3%)
Weapon #3 (efficiency): ArMatrix BP-30 (L) + ArMatrix B-amp 20P + LR1/B8 + B8 + P20 - (70.3%)
Weapon #4 (efficiency): ArMatrix BP-35 (L) + ArMatrix B-amp 25P + LR1/B8 + B8 + P20 - (71.4%)
Weapons decay (incl. attachments): 494.21 PED (+63.61 markup)
FAPs: 2.40 (+0.45 markup)
Armor decay: 62.81 PED (+3.86 markup)
Total ammo spent: 4,999 PED
Total spent on hunt (w/mu): 5,626.34 PED

Hunting run duration: ~ 9.5 hours
Globals/HoFs: 116, 85, 197, 186, 124, 77, 52, 52, 96, 69, 103 and 52
Items looted: none
Items TT value (~markup value): N/A
Stackables (~mu): 4,976.56 PED (+120 PED)
Net returns (w/mu): 5,096.56 PED or 90.6%
Loot quality, i.e. % shrapnel: 77% of loot tt was shrapnel
Profit/Cost per hour: -56 PED/hour

Note: I used Damage enhancers on these guns as they tiered up which causes Efficiency to drop. The Efficiency shown is without Damage enhancers.

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At the start of this hunt I had 165/3000 kills. I had 1075/3000 when I ended. So about 100/hour on this hunt.

Hunting: Working on catching up my BLP. The JUELZ I only used occasionally when the LBC-25 didn't reach. At the beginning of the hunt my Ranged BLP (dmg) was at 39.43, so since the BP-35 wasn't maxed yet I decided to just use a BP-30 until I reach level 40 but that one is a bit weak on the Longtooth Old. I burned through one and a half BP-30, then took BLP Weaponry Tech in the Codex and had the BP-35 pretty much maxed out so I switched and started using it instead with a 25P amp.

Defense: I just grabbed whatever armor pieces and plates I could find in my inventory that I thought would work, ended up using 3 parts of Jarhead w/5B plates, a pair of Adj Boar foot, Ghoul arms, Ozpyn Force thighs and Aquila shins. Worked ok but in the last couple of hours of the hunt I noticed I was using my Resto chip more often. Defensive costs were only ~1.2% for this hunt so that's fine.

Achievements: level 42 Laser Pistoleer (hit), level 46 Laser Sniper (Hit), level 17 Biotropic, level 40 BLP Pistoleer (hit), level 40 Ranged BLP (dmg), level 44 BLP Sniper (hit) and level 26 Swordsman (dmg).

It's hard to tell sometimes during a hunt if you are making a profit or losing. Many times during this hunt I was thinking to myself I should have a nice profit at the end of it cause I had a lot of globals (12 globals in total, more than 1 every hour). So I was actually a bit surprised to see once I totaled everything that I had actually lost over 500 PED. I guess it's a bit mis-leading when you get a bunch of 50-60 PED globals during a hunt where the mob costs 5-6 PED to kill, that's only an x10 multi, but the trumpets and the fireworks make you feel like you hit a jackpot. I think these global thresholds should be revisited... There shouldn't be any trumpets for anything less than an x20.
 
Creature: Longtooth (L14-L16)
Location: Fort Argus
My Animal Looter level: 25.41
My Evade level: 24.22
Rings: Athenic (L) and Ares (L)
Tagger #1 (efficiency): Isis LBC-25 (L) + ArMatrix B-amp 28P + LR1/B8 + B4 - (66.3%)
Tagger #2 (efficiency): ArMatrix LR-35 (L) + A103 + LR1/B8 + B4 + P20 - (67.4%)
Weapon #3 (efficiency): ArMatrix BP-35 (L) + ArMatrix B-amp 25P + LR1/B8 + B8 + P20 - (71.4%)
Weapon #4 (efficiency): ArMatrix LP-35 (L) + ArMatrix L-amp 25B + LR1/B8 + B8 + P20 - (71.3%)
Weapons decay (incl. attachments): 570.16 PED (+76.56 markup)
FAPs (using Restoration chip 1 (L)): 0.15 (+0.30 markup)
Armor decay: 57.58 PED (+2.85 markup)
Total ammo spent: 5,685.27 PED
Total spent on hunt (w/mu): 6,392.87 PED

Hunting run duration: ~ 9.5 hours
Globals/HoFs: 108, 56, 97, 88, 60, 74, 118, 62, 126, 62, 58, 73, 185, 106 and 63
Items looted: CalyTrek CR Soul Mk. 2, E.L.M Edition (L), Omegaton Igni L1010 (L), Emik S60, E.L.M Edition (L), Electric Attack nanochip 6 (L), Martial Foot guards (M,L), Martial Foot guards (F,L).
Items TT value (~markup value): 235.91 (+58.61 markup)
Stackables (~mu): 5,814.96 PED (+131 PED)
Net returns (w/mu): 6,240.48 PED or 97.6%
Loot quality, i.e. % shrapnel: 73.4% of loot tt was shrapnel
Profit/Cost per hour: -16 PED/hour

Note: I used Damage enhancers on these guns as they tiered up which causes Efficiency to drop. The Efficiency shown is without Damage enhancers.

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At the start of this hunt I had 1075/3000 kills. I had 2115/3000 when I ended. So about 110/hour which is a little bit faster than yesterday.

Hunting: I burned through 2 and a half BP-35s. When I ran out of those I switched over to LP-35s.

Defense: On this run I managed to reduce my defensive costs down to less than 1% (0.95%). This is mostly due to the increased dps as compared to what I was using yesterday.

Achievements: level 26 Swordsman (hit), level 31 Pyro Kinetic (dmg), level 30 Cryogenic (dmg), level 44 Ranged Laser (dmg) and level 18 Dodger. I'm looking forward to having the LR-40 maxed so I can start using it, just one more level to go on the laser (dmg).

I got a lot of items today in my loot, that was nice. Returns were much better too, 97.6% net returns is pretty good, hopefully the trend will continue tomorrow. I have less than 900 Longtooths left to kill to wrap up this Iron mission, that should take me about 8 hours to do.
 
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