“Profit” Should Be Struck From The EU Dictionary

General
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Selling loot or crafted items for markup (MU) feels like profit, but it really isn’t. MU is just part of your return on what you already spent. You’ve already paid for ammo, decay, crafting attempts, and time. When something sells above TT, that extra value is just helping offset those costs, not creating anything new.

It can look like you’re ahead on a sale, but overall you might still be under what you put in. Average return in game is usually around 90–95% of what you invest. MU can help close that gap, but it doesn’t turn it into actual profit.

It just means you’re losing less or maybe breaking even over time.

In EU you’ve basically got three professions: hunting, mining, and crafting. Hunting is the least expensive and mostly about pulling raw materials from loot to sell to crafters.

Mining does the same in a different way, but you can burn through 150 PED in probes fast and not have much to show for it.

Crafting is the hardest to get into, needing a lot of resources, components, textures, paint, and it’s all RNG based.

So yeah, MU matters across all of it, but it’s not the same as profit in any real sense. Honestly, “profit” is probably the wrong word for EU. Selling with MU isn’t the same as actually coming out ahead.

If you want to play low cost without going broke, you need self control, discipline, and to understand how to play eco. I’ll get into that in another post.

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Trading & reselling is the only “profession” that can profit.

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I was thinking about the returns you posted using your software - yes you got closer to 90% than me, but it took you more money spent. Spend more to get better returns, but overall more loss in a way.

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New players that get into the game get have expectations when we talk about profit and loss thinking, “If I play well, I’ll make money,” which is unlikely in any game. MindArk keeps the lights on because we spend money to play.

You may have losses and gains on specific items but take into consideration this isn’t anything more than a game. Having the correct mindset encourages new players to stay.

One point to clear up, every player has their own strategy and perspective. I want to be helpful especially to new players with elevated dreams but I don’t force others to accept my opinion as gospel. My posts are intended to get others interested and responding. I want them to open up about their play style and teach us all what we don’t know. If you know things that are different than my approach, by all means explain them to us. That’s what it will take to make Entropia Forums the authoritative source all players need including me.

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Yeah. that’s how the promised “95%” is achieved, you need to hunt tens of thousands of the same mob.

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Most players play blissfully ignorant, without tracking and then talk about profits. Hope for profit, belief of game owning you something and assumptions lead to talk about profits and rage quits.

If you tell said person they are wrong about how game works, they get angry. You can indeed play for fun and ignore cost and tracking. But you still should know where it leads.

I doubt we could get rid of words, assumptions, rumors and hear says, beliefs and stupidity without enforcing mandatory tracking.

Play the way you want, but never assume everyone else play the same or view the game from same perspective.

You are in control, always.

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Here…here…I was just expressing a principle I personally play by. You can’t play effectively without understanding how the economy works nor would I suggest such an idea. I intend to offer some tips on the forum on eco and how to do it without going through all the pain I went through. I hope new players find it helpful.

One thought: You are in control of your cost and behavior, not your returns (RNG is)…

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Never cared about profit, it’s a game, I play cause I like a little bit of gamble, win or lose doesn’t really matter that much unless you are an addict. Plus, I liked the sci-fi setting.

Anyone that come into this game to make money is a clown, and their parents failed their education.

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You are competing with a multitude of players who don’t need their money and either willingly accept the loss as payment for their entertainment, or who may complain but keep doing the same thing over and over like addicts. On top of that, the buyer market doesn’t scale up to the extent that stuff gets produced. And lastly, anyone with lower than top-end skills has higher production costs than those in the first place. Hence nobody gets to sell loot above or even just at the true cost of production. It’s a market environment of permanent price dumping.

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That’s a bit …much.

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IF you would care, you’d know it’s not gambling. You can’t win TT game, so you actualy pay to play. :grin:

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This is the kind of thing both new players and veterans need to talk about more. Everyone’s going to have their own angle, sure, but getting different viewpoints out there helps people figure out how they want to approach the game. Especially new players. It can stop the wrong mindset before it starts.

MU isn’t profit. It’s just return recovery. The goal isn’t to make income — it’s to break even so you can run another round and keep playing without burning through your PED. Small deposits, like $20–$50 a month, are plenty to keep a good loop going.

If you can stretch your PED, keep your returns steady, use MU smartly, and avoid wasting PED on bad healing or inefficient weapons, your reward is simply more hours of gameplay per dollar. Go in with realistic expectations and you won’t fall into the trap of overinvesting or trying to keep up with whales who play on a completely different budget.

For example, the Frontier armor set from the webshop is one of the most eco setups I’ve ever used. I hunt L4–L5 Merps and Snarksnot for Animal Eye Oil and Basic Stone Extractor while pushing my Codex. My UL knife costs about 2 PED to repair and lasts forever. The armor decay is tiny — when I repair everything, I usually pay around 11 PED and get two to three hours of gameplay out of it.

During that time I pick up a pile of Animal Eye Oil, Basic Stone Extractor I can sell for MU, and steady Codex progress. I slapped Armor Mk. 5B plates on the Frontier set and those mobs barely touch me. I use a Restoration Chip 1 (UL) to heal and skill Bioregenesis when I need it.

Played like this, a new player can have a great time without spending much money. It’s a simple, low‑stress loop that works.

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IF you dont mind me asking? Do you track your returns?

CH Hunting logs archive

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No, I don’t mind you asking. Truthfully, I don’t see many posts like yours where you keep an accounting of hunting stats — it’s interesting to see someone actually doing it.

I use Artemis to track profit/loss per hunt, but it doesn’t cover mining or crafting. I really wish there was a tool that separated everything cleanly instead of expecting me to do it manually. As far as I know, nothing like that exists.

You can track everything manually as long as you don’t mix activities, but that’s not always easy to do.

There’s more than one way to skin a cat as the expression goes to see if you are hunting eco. First, when you pick up a weapon, look at the total number of shots you have available. That tells you a lot. If the number sinks, then your weapon is a PED sink and meant for large prey. Only use that weapon if you expect to get large returns or are chasing Globals (I never do).

Also open up the information Details tab on the weapon and see the amount of damage it does and the range. It may say something like 3.9 HP to 5 HP or something if it’s a low level weapon. That’s also important. The more damage, the more ammo you are using.

Also, use the weapon for a whole hunting session and track it with Artemis. Don’t mine. Don’t craft. You can sweat but just kill the prey. When the weapon and armor needs repaired go to a terminal and click repair All. That loads everything you have used including any healing tools into the repair machine and repairs it. Examine total repair cost. If it’s expensive, you need to make an adjustment somewhere. If it’s cheap your hunting eco.

Your logs would probably be even more helpful if they included loot tables as to what drops from what mob in what location at what level. Just a suggestion.

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Yeah, i know what you mean. I’v done little bit of mining and crafting, but it’s mostly been related to missions. Have separated logs for those.

Alot easier to focus on one profession, progress, tracking, budget and time wise. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Made a minor edit to my post to make a couple suggestions to new players. Hope it’s helpful.

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Just minimise your losses and when your good day comes you will turn a profit. It is even possible to have an exceptional streak and cover back entire lifetime of losses and run +TT overall.

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Good luck in your profit today.

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Its no point Oaki. They are stuck with same mindset for 15-20 years.

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