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What's the deal with the price of Ejection System components?
alex284
Member Posts: 366 Arc User
I'm just trying to understand the market a little better here, because it seems to me that ejection systems (the components) are underpriced and have been for a while.
Here is the equation I'm using:
[cost to make 1 ejection system]=([price of rubidium]*2+[price of beta-tachyon]*3)/(1+2*[crit rate])
At current exchange prices and a crit rate of 28% (purple fabrication engineers and lvl 20 engineering), the cost to produce one ejection system is 15,705 ec, and the price on the exchange is 7900.
This isn't just a minor fluctuation - it's been like this for a while, and I've only noticed it on this component. Even as the price of materials has dropped, the price of ejections systems has dropped as well to stay below the cost of making them.
So someone out there is making these for a loss? And has been for months? Why?
Here are some possibilities of what's up, but I don't think they're right:
1. My equation is wrong. Totally possible, but I wouldn't be the one to notice.
2. Someone has a better crit rate than me, but a) purple doffs and lvl 20 should be the highest crit rate, and b) to explain the entire difference, someone would need a crit rate over 100% just to break even.
3. There is some source of ejection systems out there (like RnD packs) that is cheaper, but for some reason it doesn't make other components cheaper.
4. People are just silly selling components that cheap, and have been for months now. For some reason, they're not silly on other components.
Am I missing something here?
Here is the equation I'm using:
[cost to make 1 ejection system]=([price of rubidium]*2+[price of beta-tachyon]*3)/(1+2*[crit rate])
At current exchange prices and a crit rate of 28% (purple fabrication engineers and lvl 20 engineering), the cost to produce one ejection system is 15,705 ec, and the price on the exchange is 7900.
This isn't just a minor fluctuation - it's been like this for a while, and I've only noticed it on this component. Even as the price of materials has dropped, the price of ejections systems has dropped as well to stay below the cost of making them.
So someone out there is making these for a loss? And has been for months? Why?
Here are some possibilities of what's up, but I don't think they're right:
1. My equation is wrong. Totally possible, but I wouldn't be the one to notice.
2. Someone has a better crit rate than me, but a) purple doffs and lvl 20 should be the highest crit rate, and b) to explain the entire difference, someone would need a crit rate over 100% just to break even.
3. There is some source of ejection systems out there (like RnD packs) that is cheaper, but for some reason it doesn't make other components cheaper.
4. People are just silly selling components that cheap, and have been for months now. For some reason, they're not silly on other components.
Am I missing something here?
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Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
I thought of that, but why only for ejection systems and not for, say, rerouting lattices?
Like where? Where can ejection systems be obtained really easily?
Ummm, they can be obtained normally thru the request R&D assistance, but also I believe from another location just cannot remeber where exactly off hand, meaning whether it was from an event or doffing!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Lol, not sure how this is an exploit since I have 7 toons in this account and could just kick off the doff mats assignments on all of them which is normal gameplay. You seem to think people have a lot of accounts to play this game. Yes, some still do (I know someone in PvP that keeps somehow getting banned in these forums), but the incentive to do so has been severely cut down.
By the way, if rare components are that much cheaper than materials, then I'd say try profiting from using them to make superior upgrades. Problem solved.
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STO player since November 2013
Ffs, there is no exploit. People simply run the R&D mat scan missions regularly while playing. And yes some people do that on multiple characters because they have them and can. Just because you don't doesn't make it an exploit.
Aslo the disappearance of those scan missions were unintentional and Bort is already looking into brining them back.
Take off the tinfoil hat, it doens't look good on you.
Gotta agree with this, since when did having multiple characters become an exploit?
I do believe you are required to wear a tin foil hat to play this game.
Fair enough, where, prey tell, do I purchase one (on the cheap).
News to me! Not like i haven't been looking lol
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Delta_Recruitment#Delta_Recruit_and_account_rewards
Account-wide rewards:
Equivalent crafting materials to 2x C-Store
Equivalent crafting materials to 5x C-Store
Just learned last night from a couple friends in our private channel that people were exploiting the hell out of that, and it wasn't just R&D mats; players were making millions of refined dilithium too since 1 of the account-wide rewards was 1k dil.
Create character, get it to level 10, claim delta recruit account-wide rewards, transfer dil through dil exchange, place R&D mats in account bank or mail to yourself. Delete character, rinse and repeat. During the week long bonus XP event we had apparently romulan republic characters would be at least level 10 right after the tutorial when they get to the romulan flotilla where they could claim their DR account rewards.
But today's patch put a damper in this ever happening again, though I think it should have happened many months ago. But as usual they don't fix something until it becomes a major problem.
http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/9623403 This means that even with a bonus XP event it would take a lot longer to get to a point where you can claim those rewards, thus discouraging players from bothering with it (hopefully).
If some players really were making hundreds of thousands or millions of dilithium by exploiting this during the bonus XP week long even I hope some action was taking against them.
This is also probably why there are so many 999 stacks of materials in the exchange causing their prices to go down.
Edit: Even without a bonus XP event it was apparently still worthwhile for some players to do this.
I'm only posting this info because the "exploit" was fixed and because people have been wanting to know for quite a while just WTF has been going on. I only wish I knew about this a lot sooner because I would have reported it.
Oh and, because of the greediness of some players, this will probably impact their decisions for any possible future Delta Recruit or similar events on what types of rewards to give us. Obligatory "This is why we can't have nice things".
EDIT: Just to clarify, I tested it out. I created a new KDF character a few days ago (bonus xp event) and skipped all the prologue. I was instantly level 10 which unlocked delta rewards before they were fixed. I spent a mere 2 minutes after that killing 2 guys before having access to Qo'nos social zone where you can get delta rewards. Now, had the exploit not been fixed, I would have had access to 8000 REFINED dilithium and over a dozen purple mats plus blues and tons of parts which one could easily funnel over to a main. Imagine in 5 minutes getting all of these goodies, deleting that char, creating a new one and repeating the process. Apparently tons of people did this during the last several xp events.
There is no tin foil hat on this one. There WAS an exploit, but thankfully, it's gone.
Now yes the Delta recruit thing can be considered an exploit which was fixed. beyond this there are tons of ways to get r&d mats. you have lockboxes, the cstore, scanning missions, doff missions, now admirality in some cases, and several others ways to get mats. Unless you're selling parts then there should be no complaints about the components going for cheap. It's fairly easy to get mats in this game. personally I'm not complaining as imo some of the mats needed to come back down to earth.
simply having a ton of toons however is no exploit.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
This wasn't about having many characters on your account though. It was about constantly creating a character, getting it to level 10 quickly, claim the delta recruit account rewards, transfer stuff, delete the character and start over. My friend in game said he made about 1 million refined dilithum doing this during the recent bonus XP week. And among the delta recruit account rewards was a bunch of R&D materials and components.
Although it might be rather easy to get materials and components through normal gameplay, it was no where near the amount people were getting from the delta recruit account rewards exploit. If it wasn't for the exploit there would probably be a whole lot less materials and components in the exchange.
So even after I pointed out how the exploit was done (since it was just fixed) you still don't think there was an exploit?
You either didn't know about it or you were using it yourself and didn't want others to know about it thinking you'd be the only one gaining an advantage from it. Well either way, it's pretty obvious that a lot of people were doing it and something had to be done about it. How else would you explain the sudden decision to increase the level requirement to 20 for claiming delta recruit account unlocks, without any explanation for the decision? If there was no exploit, why would they have even bothered making it take longer to claim those rewards?
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
But many on here defended these 999 trolls. To the rescue!!!
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
That's why i divided by 2 times the crit rate.
I hear the others saying that there are ways to get these components outside of crafting them, but I'm also wondering why this is such a recent change, like the last couple of months. Prices were fairly stable for a while. Also, if these missions are gone, why haven't the prices shot back up?
Well, if there is an exploit (or a trick that would give more than doffing does), I guess no one's going to tell me here. And buying components instead of mats to make kits does save me a lot of clicking.
I understand what the exploit was and I get it that you could get a ton of stuff from it. Like I said it's stupid easy to get r&d mats in this game even without the exploit now. Things were going to crash back down to earth sooner or later anyways. once people ran out of things they needed to upgrade, there's less demand. once more supply was injected through the r&d cstore packs, that was going to force prices lower as demand stayed the same. more supply was was injected through lockboxes having r&d packs in them, thus more supply yet again forcing prices even lower. There are some people in this game that open a metric TRIBBLE ton of lockboxes and by extension pick up a ton of r&d boxes. Then enter the doff missions that can reward r&d mats and the packs you get at the end of missions that can also be sold on the exchange. You vastly overestimate the effect of said exploit. the prices were already well on their way down to where they are now, this exploit was minimal.
Like I said it's entirely possible to get high amounts of materials and it's by no means an exploit. What I'm seeing here is people complaining that they're not making as much ec as they used to and wanting restrictions.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
What is MOST likely or at least the biggest contributor to the depression of mat/component pricing is that the crafting system has been out for some time now and people are at a high enough levels that A) They can crit on crafting and
You don't create a new delta recruit, you create a normal alt and claim all delta recruit rewards at level 10 (now 20).
I don't see it as an exploit, I prefer creative use of game mechanics, and since cryptic just nerfed it instead of outright ban people it looks like that.
An exploit by definition is using a product in a way not intended by the producer. That does not have to be a bad thing, nor does it have to be forbidden. Many exploits are a-ok. This one I don't think is because it gets a bit against the RPG part of the genre.
It's just farming, you still need to get a character to level 20, that's what 2 hours? 3 hours? to get 1000 dilithium and some crafting materials which will get you what? 2-3 millions? there are easier, faster and more entertaining ways to do so.