Continues from: Dove's Hunting Tips Part 2: Selecting the right Mob Ok so we have now chosen a weapon that we are maxed on and decided on a mob, for the purposes of explaining this part segmented thread I selected the Arkadian mob Halix, maturity range is young to old and I am using a Herman CAP-TT (L) Laser pistol from the Trade Terminal. I have 1 hour of hunting time. I used a loot pill, I like these because they auto collect the loot for me, enabling me to pretty much just click the next target button, while watching Netflix. This process make the grind time pass faster. The standard Loot pill lasts for 1 hour and it thus (for me) acts as a timer too, when the pill runs out, I take a smoke break / leg stretch. Post Hunt results, after 1 hour of killing (no armour used). Now that I have completed my hunt, I have essentially turned my Ped (cash) from ammo into loot, I cant buy anything with loot and now it is my intent to turn it back into Ped, and hopefully make a further profit on it, by attempting to maximize my return, I can do this in a few ways: Trade Terminal: I could contently accept the 2.04 profit,run to the TT and shove it all back, accepting a value of 33.16 Ped. Traders: I could barter with a trader to sell it on, keep in mind that a Trader is a another player and that they too are trying to make a profit, by selling it on. I thus would not expect a top return for my loot and could end up earning anything between the TT value to the max MU, thus between 33.16 to 34.69 Ped. (Profit range from 2.04 to 3.57 Ped) Traders: have different motivations, some try to buy bulk cheap and sell it on in stacks sizes that are in demand with manufactures. Others may pay you that little extra to be able to complete a stack to a certain size, that may be required for a mission or hand in. The latter is less likely. Most traders pay TT value or a small MU, depending on how much they need your loot, their customer base or just how much they like you. It is still better to sell to a trader than to the Trade terminal, because this indirectly will affect you. The less loot that is circulating in the economy, the more the economy suffers. Crafters may stop crafting, craft less, craft different items or relocate to a planet with a better economy, if materials are not available, you as a hunter or miner feed that economy. If crafters craft less, you will struggle to find weapons, armour or have difficulty selling loot, so keep that loot in circulation. Do not TT it. Auction: We could try and cut out the middle man (Trader), in 3 ways. Auction Orders: Browse the auction orders to see if anyone wants what we have, and if they are offering a MU that is acceptable to us. (Auction fee applies) Auction Offer: Offer it for sale on the auction and see if anyone wants to buy it. (Auction fee applies) Self Auction / sale: Monitor the trade channels, for someone that wants what we have, or offer what we have on the channel. (Note: on Planet Arkadia the [#arktrade] channel is used for trading, DO NOT trade in the main [#arkadia] channel, players regard it as off topic / spam, and may not even warn you, but just put you on ignore. Thus limiting future chances of networking or customer base. Specialized Customer: Another way to go about for certain items i.e. Halix Tail, is to go find the customer. By using the Entropia Bob The Builder site, you could establish what items are made using Halix Tail, The Items are: Blueprints that use Halix Tail, next you could try and establish who the crafters are that click those BPs. This can be done by looking at the HOF list, keeping an eye on the Global pop-ups, Searching the shops, advertising on the forums, or you could dig their name out using Entropia Life, lets say that Halix tails are used for making BLP Amps [Rage 20 (L)], Entropia Life will reflect who has been making these amps like this (Note that EL only records those who have Globals while crafting, this is good for us, because it is likely that they craft these more often and in higher volume, thus this is the person we want) From this we can see that [Snake Slither Hellfire] is highly likely to want what we are selling AND could be a routine customer, also for other items, we might want to make friends with this bloke, but be careful not to be too friendly, there is a line between friendly business, and annoying someone who is trying to go about his own business. Other ways, may include: Manufacturing: I would NOT recommend you use your own loot to craft items, specialize and stick with it. Hand ins: There is an alternative to manufacturing, that completely eliminates crafting losses. An example of this is making Sal'diresh's Vault Keys, and then selling the Key or using it for another hunt. Stack Sizes: Stack size of the item you are trying to sell makes a huge difference. Example: For [Snake Slither Hellfire] to craft a [Rage 20 (L)] he needs 5 tails just for 1 attempt, so us trying to sell him 1 tail, will probably just annoy him. So, what we do is stick that tail in our storage, until we have a feasible sized stack to sell i.e. 100 Tails. This creates a problem, because the value of that tail (+MU) is now no longer accessible to us in the game. So we need to work out a budget, that will allow us to cycle Ped and enable us to get the maximum return on our hunt / investment. Supplementing the hunt: We could take up Sweating, the combining of Sweating and hunting is referred to as Swunting and works like this: 1. Scan the creature once (This gives us skill) 2. Sweat the creature until it is dry (More skill and also sweat to sell, to offset any loot losses or bolster our profit) 3. Kill it and loot it. 4. Another option to killing it is to tame it, more skill and also, we still get the loot and a pet too. On a rare occasion it may be possible to find a pet that has substantial value, but we would need the appropriate skill to tame it. (Paying attention while Hunting will also reward us with fruit, stones and dung that can be picked up and sold.) On to Part 4: The Budget and PED Cycling.
