Yomo Kimyata

I really enjoyed my Dark/Atomic that won my Pick My Blaster contest. Check out this thread (and there are a lot more great ideas in there):

I have two arguments *for* flipping (buying low and selling high without changing anything in the process) but they really aren't that relevant specifically for HC's player-run economy. 1. It keeps the system liquid so that sellers always have a buyer and buyers (hopefully) always have a seller. I'd argue against myself on this point though, because supply is so extraordinarily easy to come by on HC that for the most part it is much more profitable just to make more of something rather than flip it and take the 10% transaction tax. 2. It's a price-finding system, so that people will bid creep and undersell in market PvP (lol) until they reach a competitive equilibrium point, which in theory is good for both buyers and sellers. I just don't see that much economic PvP though, so a wide bid-offer spread stays wide and the market makers get rich because no one is willing to compete with them. So yeah, for the most part, when I flip (which I really don't do very often. There is usually some crafting and converting involved as well.) I'm mainly just doing it for egregious profit rather than for the good of the economy. This, this is so true it brings a tear to my eye. Nicely done again, @Ukase. The only reason flipping works (or any variation of buying things on the cheap) is that sellers dump their goods in order to insta-sell. And then they complain that they aren't getting enough for them, or that they are not going to the people who really need them.

Nice write-up! I differ slightly on my budgeting (generally budget 10 converters *on average*, I value converters at 66,666 or 1mm for 15, and I will generally sell anything that will gross 2mm or above), but your converting chain is dead on what I would have done.

The most expensive item in the game! Everybody should own 1-3!

Some questions about what you like to do: 1. Do you want to be challenged and die occasionally, or would you rather rampage risklessly like a chainsaw through bamboo? 2. Do you prefer to fight a small number of opponents that are tough, or large crowds of easy ones? 3. You've tried melee. Do you want to stick with that or try something ranged? 4. Do you want to fight AVs solo, or would you prefer to fight EBs?

My bad.

Reason 8.675,309 to not insta-sell everything at 5. That is a sale that will rarely go to someone in genuine need, and will almost always go to a nefarious mustache-twirling marketeer.

I would be surprised if a bid of 2mm for any of the pieces wasn't filled within a few hours.

To the problem that your new friend is having: If he is from I2, then the whole invention system and the auction house will be new to him. I suggest he runs the in-game University tutorial on crafting so he knows how to do that. I suggest also checking out one or more guides on how the /AH works (although I admit the one I wrote may not be as newby -friendly as it could be). To the idea that there is no supply: Poppycock. These things trade all the time. I buy and sell GotA every marketing day. If the problem is that there is no supply at the price he wants to pay, then he needs to either pay up to buy it instantly, put in good bids that will fill in short order, or figure out a way to create them. Just like every other item in the game. To the (implied) idea that items should be priced according to their "inherent value" rather than their value as a LotG delivery vehicle: *shrug* This is the downside of practically free converters. If converters didn't exist, then GotA would probably be a little cheaper, LotG would be a LOT more expensive. But there is no way to put aside cheap IOs for someone who "really wants it as is". I'd be happy to set him up with a full set or two if he asks, but I don't see a way to circumvent the bidding queue for "intent".

If you want endurance issues solved, I’d put perf shifter proc in both superior conditioning and physical perfection, and then add the perf shifter end mod in PP (and in stamina). The only reason for more slots would be recharge reduction set bonuses, and I would probably pursue those elsewhere. Like taking torrent and putting in ff recharge.

Aha! Not nearly as much as I did... Although only 1/10 of the ones I relisted sold.

I assume you are talking about me in your edit, and guilty as charged. I don't mess around with numina's however, for one simple reason. I rarely use them and I don't feel like I can sell 50-100 of them in a day for a 2-3mm+ profit. I guess that's two reasons.

I'm sorry bro/sis/hugester. Thinking good thoughts about you.

It's an "oh shit!" button that gets a lot of use on my iron corruptor.

I've long used the guideline that "any rare" I can acquire for under 500k is a good one. I wanted to put that to the test. So I put in bids at 500k on all kinds of lvl 31 rares. Some don't fill (like Lotg). Some pretty much instafill. Anyway, let's just say it's pretty easy to acquire a large number of rares at or below that price (and if you are converting uncommon recipes to rare IOs, WAY below that price level.) Yesterday, I took 100 of these assorted rares, converted each one once by rarity, not even looking at what it converted into. Each converter cost me 66,666, each IO cost me 500,000 for a total cost of 566,666. I listed each IO at 629,629 to ensure that I would get a profit if it sold. 41/100 insta sold. Less than 24 hours later, 94/100 were sold. Proceeds after taxes were 136,308,658 on an investment of 56,666,600 for a profit of almost 80mm inf and a 140.5% return overnight. That is without knowing anything about which IOs are valuable or not, or using strategy while converting. Just blindly converting once and dumping them. Small sample set, I know.

Salvage is never free, it's an opportunity cost (although usually a very small one.) If I'm going to craft up 50-100 Unbreakable Guard: Resistance, I'm not going to wait until I pick up 50-100 Reactive Gas, and neither are you. Nor am I going to hold onto an Alien Blood Sample when I can sell it to "the market" and buy it back at roughly the same price. Of course there is a bid-offer spread, but I'm working on the pretty valid assumption that I can buy as much white salvage as I want at any time at 250, as much yellow as I want within a day at 1,000, and as much orange salvage as I want within a day or two at 500-600k. I can also rely on being able to sell at those levels (at least). That's the economic and accounting way to look at it, and that's generally how I use it in practice. Let's assume lvl 20 UG: Res to minimize crafting costs: Cost of recipe: 2.6mm Cost of salvage: 2*250+1*1000+1*500000 = 501,500 Crafting cost: 34,500 Total expenditure to make lvl 20 UG: Res IO = 3,136,000. I rounded that up to 3.2mm because it's not a slam dunk to buy rares at 500k, but we'll use this number. Sell it at 3mm, net 2.7mm, take a 436k loss. Sell it at 4mm, net 3.6mm, make a 264k profit. Sell it at 5mm, net 4.5mm, make a 1.364mm profit. Your profit tanks if you use a higher level recipe. I think you are looking at the recipe as free. Well, it's definitely not free to whoever is spending the inf on it!

I'm a firm believer that any build is soloable, but that said, I'd probably focus on the primaries that don't have team buffs.

Heh! I don't think that's (intended to be) such an egregiously low bid. Say it costs 600k for the salvage and crafting costs, so you have Unbreakable: Resistance IO at a cost basis of 3.2mm. Sell it for 5mm and that's 1.3mm profit; sell it for 4mm and you're down to 400k profit. Seems like a lot of work for the inf to me.

Everyone wants a free option.

Some recent relevant discussions:

Like when two factions are "fighting" each other until you show up, then they start buffing each other in order to take you out? That is some real BS there!

If by “pets” you mean other players, I’m so with you.

Your comment from another thread reminded me. The arbitrager in me looked at the Steadfast 3% IO market (which was trading 5mm or so) a year and change ago and wondered why anyone would sell 100 merits to sell 300 converters for 21mm before taxes when they could buy 5 lvl 10 recipes, craft and sell for 25mm before taxes. So I’ve pretty much been putting in a ~4mm cap on those for a year or so. Just to keep people from spending merits there.

Here's what I have been doing on Reunion: I have a Villain Base called The Estate that is run by Estate Executor. My protagonist, however, is a xxx/FF solo corruptor named Heir Apparent. He (or she (or huge) ) cannot use the AH or the AE, but vendors are fair game. Any items that can be put in storage in the base are good, but you have to put them there, because once Heir Apparent dies, they're deleted without transferring anything. This means that inf goes away, since you cannot store that in a base. The first two heirs passed away relatively early, but the third is beginning to produce. So when I think of it I sock a few things away for the next generation, like low level SOs. In the end, the difficult part is not dying, since due to the ease of getting converters through merits, there are very few items that can't be created eventually. But unless it is put in storage, it's gone when the character dies.

I’m probably younger than people think I am, but I’m definitely old enough to not read through a ten-page thread for someone else! I’m at that cusp that when I tell kids to get off my lawn, I’m no longer doing it ironically. I actually want them to get off my lawn.