#To go or to not go over the merchant coin cap

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

late harness
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Ultimately, the matter of how to net the most coins in the long run is what needs to be settled in my mind, and as a result two questions need answers in my mind right now: is it possible to stay below both the Oil soft cap and the Coins soft cap? And if not, then which is less damaging to waste: Coins or Oil?

To provide some context: outside of events, I exclusively use Oil on 12-4 (a negligible amount goes to META Showdown, but I will ignore that for now). So we're going by 12-4's Oil to Coins ratio, which I have computed to be 350 Oil to 2k coins, roughly.

Over the span of 36 hours, one can have both the refinery and the merchant go from zero to the maximum amount, which is 3.6k Oil and, respectively, 12k coins. 3.6k Oil, provided one only does 12-4, can be used to farm roughly 20k coins, which is more than what the merchant would provide. Based on that, I am asserting that the Refinery's returns are more valuable than those of the Merchant's. Which means, if I had to choose which resource to let overcap of the two, it would be coins.

But that assumes it's even necessary for one to overcap. What way would there be, then, for neither of those to overcap? To really stay below the Coins soft cap, you'd have to not do 12-4, which in turn causes Oil to accumulate, running the risk of it overcapping. But to do 12-4 and use that Oil is to have coins eventually overcap. There is one way to stay below both soft caps, and that is to spend more, but that's not preferable to me and I would avoid that if possible.

To those who are willing to think about this with me, I am sorry for this wall of text. If you made it this far, I would be happy to hear your thoughts.

paper coral
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Oil is more damaging to waste

late harness
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So on that much, I have come to the right conclusion. Now all that needs to be settled is whether or not I can stay below both soft caps without simply increasing how much I spend

paper coral
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You dont have to try that hard for gold

late harness
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If the answer is that it's impossible, then my original conclusion, that overcapping Coins is ideal, is the answer

paper coral
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For me like i grind a LOT

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so no matter how hard i spend its a net positive everyday

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Its actually cursed cuz once you reach 600k coins, every time you try to battle theres a warning msg

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So i had to literally waste gold by accepting a research that cost coins, then terminate, then accept it again

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Over and over until its back down to 400k

late harness
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Yeah, with a mentality of stacking coins sky high, that aspect of one day reaching the hard cap is a real concern, or at least will become a real concern some day

paper coral
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Ye this becomes worse as your account becomes more stacked

late harness
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Though I have picked a range during which I will increase my spending a bit to balance things out. Not in ways that purposefully waste coins, but in ways that previously I might've seen more as luxuries that I normally couldn't afford, and now I can because I'm rich: doing 6 researches at a time, spending more coins every day on PR/DR's, to name some examples

paper coral
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Cuz you will run out of equip to craft

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Run out of equip to level

late harness
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I figure 500k is a good starting point for that

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I'm probably really going to edge on that once I have less banners overall to pull on, once reruns of events I have experienced the debut of come to pass

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Because those constitute banners I don't need to be prepared for, cube or coins wise. Which often means much

paper coral
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Yes

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Thats how i ended up hoarding near thousands of cubes

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Without whaling

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Endgame resources are absolutely cursed

late harness
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Then there's no doubt that, with my current approach, I will one day hit a hard brick ceiling in this game, so to speak, as a result of this over the top minmaxing of my Oil usage

paper coral
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Theres an even more extreme point where

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You run out of backliners to level

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Even with fleet tech

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So you end up doing triple stacked backline to level frontline ships

late harness
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Might be difficult to get MvP's in such scenarios, for instance

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Backline could potentially steal that and effectively waste XP

paper coral
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Its always borderline impossible to mvp control in like 13-1 or 14-1, the best place for cog farming, while trying to max frontline tech

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Cuz frontline tech ships are terrible

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You cant really mvp control unless you straight up lose cuz 13-1 and 14-1 has gimmicks

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And farming cog is like the most important part bc while you are doing fleet tech

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You run out of cog chips insanely fast

late harness
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In my present state, I perceive cog farming as something of a desperate move, because while my coin income would be the same if not better, I wouldn't be able to level ships in need of it because I'd need a proper setup

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Don't know if that still holds true provided I brought the stage to safe threat level

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Basically, I would only really consider it if I needed cogs so badly that I am willing to halt my XP grinding for that extra bit of cog income

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And even then, chances are I would just stall my cog consumption ahead of time, after I notice my cog reserve is starting to get chunked, by 125-ing random ships and leveling those over a period of time, use my vast reserve of cog arrays to buy some time essentially, instead of bringing more ships to 120 from 100

paper coral
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I thought i didnt need to farm cogs when i was at 100k cogs

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Then 1 year later im here at a clean 0

late harness
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And then you forgot about them, just spent them without a first thought, then one day realized, wtf I have 500 cogs now

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or something along those lines

paper coral
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Ye thats what happens when you farm fleet tech

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Its the tax

late harness
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Fair enough. Makes my current amount of 15k feel quite brittle

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Well, an alternative exists of figuring out if it's possible to stall that consumption sufficiently by just leveling more ships to 125

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Which is obviously not as rewarding unless it's a ship you'd use for endgame content, but it's something I guess

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Something like, for every 3 ships at 120, bring one ship to 125

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or however many so that you can continue to spend cogs without thinking and not go broke

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as long as you follow that guideline you came up with

paper coral
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Thats only 24 ships to lvl 125

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Fleet tech has hundreds of ships for you to level

late harness
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well of course, as new OP ships come out, the turn of those comes to get 125'd and older alternatives get replaced, although obviously that alone probably does not put a dent in your array reserve

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So realistically, you'll probably be 125ing more than just 24 ships in your life time. Hell, I reached the 60 count

paper coral
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Yeah something like that

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When you only spend arrays on the best of the best, you still have a net positive income

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It end up hoarding to thousands too

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The same logic applies to research and prototype cores

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Cuz at some point, you only get duplicate ship prints, so you convert them into proto cores and that stacks to thousands

late harness
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Prototype cores, as in, that currency you use to buy retrofit items and UR Bulins, right?

paper coral
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And other rainbow gun blueprints

late harness
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Oh, the other one used in that shop. Right

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Yeah, once you've maxed out every ship, all that remains is to convert all ship prints you might get to currency in that shop and then just spam equipment design selectors, I imagine

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And I guess that lasts you for a while, until it doesn't

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In any case, I think this has been an enlightening convo and I've learned some things. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this matter. I'll keep grinding coins as I have been until now, but all the same acknowledge that the time when I can go no further will come surprisingly soon for me

paper coral
late harness
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In a way, that will come with its own share of perks, such as more simultaneous researches and more coin prints per day, accelerate that PR/DR building a bit. But yeah, that's basically just a way to cope with the hard cap existing