what's the point?

Here's my "problem"

i see people offering 7500+ gc for 5000 gold ore deposits (Zeus)

I see offers of gold ore for 0.5 gc.

That means , that with triple buff, 5000 deposit will bring 15k ore, i.e. 7500gc = equal or less that you can readily sell the deposit for.

Cheapest buffs (badges) to process 5k ore (on lvl 6 fast mine)cost 600gc or more...so the whole thing is a money losing scheme (and i'm assuming the "best" setup - fast lvl6 mine)

So it must be 4 x buffs right?

well 5000 deposit with quad buff makes 20k ore , ie 10k gc which equals price of deposit + price of rainbow buff. (snacks are similar in price)

So...what's the point if you can make the same amount of money just by simply selling the deposit...

I'm sure i'm missing something here....

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Originally Posted by Wujcio

Here's my "problem"

i see people offering 7500+ gc for 5000 gold ore deposits (Zeus)

I see offers of gold ore for 0.5 gc.

That means , that with triple buff, 5000 deposit will bring 15k ore, i.e. 7500gc = equal or less that you can readily sell the deposit for.
[...]
So...what's the point if you can make the same amount of money just by simply selling the deposit...

I'm sure i'm missing something here....

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lol - Welcome to the most greedy world of Zeus server. Most of these 'regular' sellers in the TO will take the shirt off your back - if you let them. There are lots of bogus trades put up to snare the noob/unsuspecting. I have said this before, and it is not likely to change any time soon: The 'regular traders' (most anyway), treat the TO as if their very existence in RL depends on it (Some Wall-Street guys don't try to clean you out as much as in our TO).

Just do what you find best, do not worry about the 'offers' that are ridiculous. Looks like you have done some of your home work already, so you should be fine.

BTW - Don't be shy about posting what you want for what you will pay or think is fair. There are enough reasonable players out there that you are likely to get a bite; I do that all the time. It is just a drag that you can only post so many items at a time without hurting your overhead.

did not mean "bogus" trades... people are offering 7500 gc (and more) to but 5000 ore depo... AND people are offering gold ore at 2 ore to 1 gc ratio. I meant that you can readily sell your ore deposits and buy gold ore at prices that make processing gold ore deposits actually make you lose money, no mater how you do it.

ppl are going to need those big depos for the new mines and with all the free buffs being brought in you can get a lot out of each depo

lets follow the line of reasoning on why this occurs:
Americans fail at math
Zeus is an American server
Gold mining used to make a profit
Too many inexperienced people jumped on the bandwagon
People are slow to change and like to stick to their habitual ways

I wonder how these 5 statements could combine to cause this? It is a real mystery.

well, it's a sad reality...economy is completely out of whack.... deposits cant be cheaper, simply because if there continuously are items offered at the merchant that sell at close to 20gc per gem... why would anyone sell deposits at less than 10gc per gem? (5k ore depo costs 750 gems).

So if not deposits, why wouldn't gold ore sell for more? Simply because it's mainly used to make...gold coins...and if i'm correct, using most efficient buff - badges - on smelters and coinages it takes roughly 950 gc (500 for ore and 450 gc for buffing) to process 1000 ore and produce 1125 gc. Lot's of maintenance for relatively little profit.

I don't think it ever will corrected, to be honest....

are u factoring in a x4 buff on all 3: lvl 6 fast gold mine, lvl 5 gold smelt and lvl 5 coiner? lucky and skilled exp often bring back x4 buffs now, so players consider them 'free'

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Draconus2004

lets follow the line of reasoning on why this occurs:
Americans fail at math
Zeus is an American server
Gold mining used to make a profit
Too many inexperienced people jumped on the bandwagon
People are slow to change and like to stick to their habitual ways

I wonder how these 5 statements could combine to cause this? It is a real mystery.

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*nail on head*

Using 4x buffs on coinages/smelters is a bad idea: 60 cycles per 24 hours means you get 1200 coins for the 4th cycle over 4 days + the worth of 4 days of badges that you save (3 per day x 4 = 12 x 50 gc = 600 coins) so you lose 700 gc by placing rainbow on a lvl5 coinage. (similar loss form stadium snack)

X4 Buff lvl5-lvl6 gold mines- turn 500 gold ore depo (parrot) into 2k gold ore. x3 gold smelters- 2000 gold ore into 3000 bars. x3 coinages- 3000 bars into 2250 gold coin. minus buff cost and coal and time.....

say a rainbow cost 2.5k gc and can process about 5k gold ore deposit on a lvl5-6 fast gold mine. so ONE rainbow will process a pickaxe, turning 5k gold ore depo into 20k gold ore, using badges turning 20k gold ore into 30k bars, badging coinages turning 30k bars into 22.5k gc.... after minusing cost of rainbow, cost of pickaxe,.... SO- it will take 41 badges to turn 20k gold ore into 30k bars (lvl5 smelters) and 62 badges to turn 30k bars into 22.5k gc. Around 103 (1.2k gc per stack) badges used, 1 rainbow buff (2.5kgc) and 1 pickaxe (7.5kgc), 80k coal (400 gc) = 15344 gc. GIVEN YOU DO NOT!!! MISS A BUFF CYCLE,you will make a total profit of 7156gc

wonders how these guys E-Trades accounts look like?

;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Draconus2004

lets follow the line of reasoning on why this occurs:
Americans fail at math
Zeus is an American server
Gold mining used to make a profit
Too many inexperienced people jumped on the bandwagon
People are slow to change and like to stick to their habitual ways

I wonder how these 5 statements could combine to cause this? It is a real mystery.

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Now THAT is good humour. Thumbs up.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Snacknado

X4 Buff lvl5-lvl6 gold mines- turn 500 gold ore depo (parrot) into 2k gold ore. x3 gold smelters- 2000 gold ore into 3000 bars. x3 coinages- 3000 bars into 2250 gold coin. minus buff cost and coal and time.....

say a rainbow cost 2.5k gc and can process about 5k gold ore deposit on a lvl5-6 fast gold mine. so ONE rainbow will process a pickaxe, turning 5k gold ore depo into 20k gold ore, using badges turning 20k gold ore into 30k bars, badging coinages turning 30k bars into 22.5k gc.... after minusing cost of rainbow, cost of pickaxe,.... SO- it will take 41 badges to turn 20k gold ore into 30k bars (lvl5 smelters) and 62 badges to turn 30k bars into 22.5k gc. Around 103 (1.2k gc per stack) badges used, 1 rainbow buff (2.5kgc) and 1 pickaxe (7.5kgc), 80k coal (400 gc) = 15344 gc. GIVEN YOU DO NOT!!! MISS A BUFF CYCLE,you will make a total profit of 7156gc

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So you confirm what i just said in the OP, that instead of waiting for 4 days till pickaxe gets processed, you can just go to the TO and buy ore for the same amount that you spend for the pickaxe + rainbow?
Sounds almost like a not such a terrible deal, except that you had to invest 20k gc into lvl6 mine and 30(?) books into the geo...

As for the rest of the cycle i have also said that there is profit there, just not enough to make rise in gold ore prices possible...


so what is your point?

you said it is a "money losing scheme", but it is not....
and also u said u could make that same amount of money by selling a parrot which is false

if you are going to START making a gold chain now and START collecting and adding books in geologist for a fast gold mine i would recommend NOT doing so, but for the people with ALREADY a gold chain and fast gold mines, it COULD be worth running

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Snacknado

you said it is a "money losing scheme", but it is not....
and also u said u could make that same amount of money by selling a parrot which is false

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if you actually read, i said that processing deposits is a money losing scheme for EVERY scenario other than lvl6 fast mine using a rainbow buff.
even if you have that optimal setup, you're still losing money, because you had to spend 20k for the lvl6 mine, a cost you'll never recuperate, since you're making ZERO profit processing the ore.

And of course, i will make more money selling parrots, than processing them. there are readily available offers to buy deposits for 7500k gc i've seen offers of 7800 gc ...and these were offers, i.e. 0 effort on my side. Instantaneously selling deposits is marginally more profitable than having to wait for 4 days for ore to get processed :>

There are alot more production chains in this game which have a higher loss in profit margin than a gold chain

I have told my guild, trade, and friends repeatedly: ONLY HAVE A FEW fast gold mines (unless you have 50 or 60 coinages). The rest should be level 3 rebuilt, x3 buffed mines. I generate far better profit per day on my rebuilt mines then I would using 8 lvl 6 fast mines and then sleeping them 75% of the time or selling excess ore. If i am on the ball, I rebuild the 6 disposable mines once per day ~, using 2 31 point specced geos. Level 3 for both fast and slow.

We see this time and time again - a single sector of the economy becomes both profitable and popular, too many people pile on, prices collapse/production costs rise, and people complain the whole economy is broken when really its just a single chain, or part of a single chain. Notable collapses have occurred to Brew, Bread, Coal, Coin, Beans, Granite, Sausage, and expert weapons in the past all because they got too popular with too many people hopping on a bandwagon that couldn't support their weight.

And don't forget to include the cost of leveling your gold chain to level 5 when doing your profit/loss analysis ;-)

for some people- they already made their money back on upgrades, so that would be in a separate part of the equation. Some people were able to finish their upgrades when granite was still under 2 gc per, so it will vary for everyone, that is another reason why i said- "if you are going to START making a gold chain now and START collecting and adding books in geologist for a fast gold mine i would recommend NOT doing so, but for the people with ALREADY a gold chain and fast gold mines, it COULD be worth running"

Truism: While it is absolutely true that many idiots [insert action here], it is further true that not all who [insert action here] are idiots.

Pricing of Rainbow Snows in the examples in this thread is somewhat invalid, given that if those using them 'as free' on their gold chains, were they put on the market, would catastrophically reduce their price, since the market for them is kinda thin as it is. (On Zeus, at least, they can lose 20% of their value with less than a page) Prices would likely stabilize just above the adjust price for badges but that is really a side issue. There is a substantial argument for niche-inefficiencies avoiding mainstream-collapsing-bubbles (cornish hen daily vs a cow twice a decade, for those needing analogies); and, if nature is any example; niches are a staggeringly successful strategy when combined with even a small degree of adaptability.

That said, I don't think anyone is going to argue that a gold chain is either the "best" way to make money or even the "easiest" -- if they try, I have dibs laughing them off the forums -- but it is a nice hobby and a profitable sideline. It must be said, though, that the line between 'hobby' and 'sideline' is the difference between 'I have a pair of smelters and coiners' and 'my entire island's development revolves around this monster' -- and I speak at someone who's island is 92% devoted to supporting a gold chain. It's a nice 12.5k-to-15k-daily-profit sideline (at least in my setup) but still just a sideline.

It must also be said that efficiency is only one component in any decision, there is also risk and variance tolerance, planning requirements, even simple enjoyment. And some folks are just good at some things and not in others -- I've a buddy who's island is an ungodly monument to manufacturing but he dislikes the TO-dance, so he sells me things in the millions-of for a truckload of coins and I head off to the TO to slake the thirst of the many: he could make substantially more, but his time/not-needing-to-take-aspirin is worth it the difference in coin.

If someone wants to start one, there's no reason not to; however, doing it to any size it comes with some long-term strategy attached. I had to weather a plethora of significant (some fairly catastrophic) changes to my other coin-generating endeavors (just passed my 1yr mark) however the building of a gold chain I invested in very early on (I was in my late 20s) made sure I weathered all of them easily (i.e., insulation from market-shock). It's really a matter of how robust you want your plan B or plan C to be -- you don't need a bomb-shelter every day, after all.

So the advice for someone looking to do more than play around is simple: It is absolutely not for everyone; talk to someone competent about how to balance the costs properly or you'll hate yourself later; never consider it your A-plan; don't think for a second it's a quick return-on-investment; it's not the best way to get coin (except in rare circumstance); your island will exist to support it; no, really, it will; and even with all that, it can still a lot of fun to build and that's what games are supposed to be :p But, seriously, consider very, very carefully before you do more than just have a couple pretty buildings you run now-and-again.

You make a good point theWhitecain on prices collapsing if no one used snows on coinages - but FOR NOW, prices dictate they are not worth using there (and i doubt they fall anywhere near badge in efficiency for gold chain). This is from a pure min/max standpoint, where there is a definitive right and wrong answer. I can understand how personal gameplay preference dictates using setups not min/max. However, when we point towards something as "the best way", we tend to be using a min/max scenario.

The issue with rainbow snows collapsing quickly though is pretty much determined by the ability to only post "1" of them. Any item that you can only post "1" of (deposit/building/buff) is going to have more cutthroat pricing (whether to buy or sell) then other items.

Finally - cost of upgrade - does not factor into profit margins. That is a sunk cost, that there is no way to get it back. No matter how much you wish, that granite and coin for upgrades is GONE. Now BEFORE you build something, the ROI is certainly a factor to consider (but not uncommon for many lvl 4 to 5 upgrades to have way over a year for their ROI, if ever).

who really cares it's just pixels....IMO if you got the stuff and want to build it go for it. I'm sure your advice is great if they were trying to get thier poetfolio straight but at the end of the day it's still a game....Settler on ppl Settler on!!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Troll-Phu

who really cares it's just pixels....IMO if you got the stuff and want to build it go for it. I'm sure your advice is great if they were trying to get thier poetfolio straight but at the end of the day it's still a game....Settler on ppl Settler on!!!

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from the person who claimed pixels when others rage quit?

attempted to claim pixels* and FAILED!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Draconus2004

from the person who claimed pixels when others rage quit?

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lol i egg ppl on to RAGE QUIT...big difference

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wujcio

if you actually read, i said that processing deposits is a money losing scheme for EVERY scenario other than lvl6 fast mine using a rainbow buff.
even if you have that optimal setup, you're still losing money, because you had to spend 20k for the lvl6 mine, a cost you'll never recuperate, since you're making ZERO profit processing the ore.

And of course, i will make more money selling parrots, than processing them. there are readily available offers to buy deposits for 7500k gc i've seen offers of 7800 gc ...and these were offers, i.e. 0 effort on my side. Instantaneously selling deposits is marginally more profitable than having to wait for 4 days for ore to get processed :>

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You are right, and Snacknado is right as well. It all depends on how many gold smelter you have (plus coinages) and if you are able or not to buy the gold ore necessary to keep them running. I'm not sure what's the definition of a big gold chain, but I will assume 25-30 smelters make a decent one. You will need more then 30k gold ore/day. If you can buy it, then YES, better profit rather then buying deposits. But if you cant, then you have 2 options - buy depos and still make a profit or sleep the gold smelters (and maybe some coinages as well) and look at how beautiful they are while resting.

Amend lines 1 & 2 for a more reasonable assessment.

Zeus is the 'North American' server. and it is not 'Americans' that fail at math. It is Americans who have entitlement expectations. They want what is owed them, and they want it now.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Draconus2004

lets follow the line of reasoning on why this occurs:
Americans fail at math
Zeus is an American server
Gold mining used to make a profit
Too many inexperienced people jumped on the bandwagon
People are slow to change and like to stick to their habitual ways

I wonder how these 5 statements could combine to cause this? It is a real mystery.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by EpsilonSilver

Amend lines 1 & 2 for a more reasonable assessment.

Zeus is the 'North American' server. and it is not 'Americans' that fail at math. It is Americans who have entitlement expectations. They want what is owed them, and they want it now.

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Do tell me - is the server or BBs for the server in canada? No. Thus, it could be considered an american server. Could I add a lack of patience as a line? certainly wouldn't be to out of place.

call me dumb but it does show a little US flag on the login page? last i cheched there's no "north amerian" flag. but it has been some time since they kicked me out of school

INS needs to stop the canadian immigration to our server.