I've seen some confused ideas about economy, so partly for my benefit, and partly in case it's interesting for anyone else reading, I thought I'd post this. All of it is available from reading around
ef...it's not meant to be new or original, but I wanted to gather everything together in one post.
What is economy
In general, the accepted idea of economy (eco) means how much an item functions (eg damage by a weapon, heal by a fap etc) per pec spent.
This allows you to compare two items with similar function, to see which will cost you least to use.
It doesn't take into account other factors.
So for example a FAP may be very eco to use, but if it only heals 10 HP it's probably not much use during combat. Or, as another example, some weapons have a faster dmg rate than others. Such things are generally
not taken into account in eco comparisons.
Several areas can cause confusion
How to calculate economy of a weapon
The economy of a weapon is the damage done per pec of cost.
This can be calculated as max damage per pec, or as average damage per pec.
In reality, on any given shot, a weapon will do an amount of damage somewhere in the range between the maximum and minimum damage for that person with that weapon.
If the person is not skilled enough, the maximum damage they can do will not be as much as the theoretical maximum for the weapon.
Let's take the common example for a newbie of the Sollomate Opalo, both with and without an A101 amp. For this example, we will consider the weapon as though it is maxed.
First without amp...
Damage per shot ranges from 4.0 to 8.0
This means an average of (4.0 + 8.0) / 2 = 6.0
Cost per shot = ammo cost + weapon decay = 2 + 0.02 = 2.02 pec
Avg dmg / pec = 6.0 / 2.02 = 2.97 HP/pec
Now with the A101 amp
The A101 adds 3 dmg to the maximum
Damage per shot ranges from 5.5 to 11.0
This means an average of (5.5 + 11.0) / 2 = 8.25
Cost per shot = ammo cost + weapon decay + amp decay = 2 + 0.02 + 0.652 = 2.672 pec
Avg dmg / pec = 8.25 / 2.672 = 3.09 HP/pec
Proving incidentally the commonly stated fact that an A101 makes the opalo more economical to use.
The entropedia / pe-wiki eco data
On
entropedia, a weapon lists Dmg/pec. This is calculated using the maximum damage a weapon can do.
So the entropedia data is the best dmg / pec you could do in one shot, if you are skilled enough, and achieve the maximum damage possible for the weapon in that shot.
This is not an average dmg/pec over a hunt.
Here's an example to illustrate the dangers (thanks to Alice for supplying the data)
Player A uses the opalo from the examples above. Damage ranges from 4.0 - 8.0 per shot.
Player B uses the Jester D-1. This also has a max damage of 8. But this is not an SIB weapon, so player B has a minimum damage of 2.2 on this weapon. This varies depending on the player's skills, and this is just an example.
Both weapons cost the same 2.02 pecs per shot in ammo + decay costs.
On entropedia, the dmg/pec is calculated using the max damage of 8 in both cases, so both show 3.96 HP / pec
So you would think they have the same economy? Not true.
Player A (opalo) achieves an average damage of 6.0 HP / shot, as we saw above, so average dmg / pec = 2.97 HP / pec.
Player B (jester) achieves an average damage of (2.2 + 8.0) / 2 = 5.1 HP / shot. So average dmg / pec = 5.1 / 2.02 = 2.52 HP / pec. Less than with the opalo.
Clearly for this player, the opalo is significantly more economical. Suppose they both hunt snable female youngs (40 HP each) on a 10 ped hunt.
Player A (opalo) can hunt 1000 x 2.97 / 40 snables = 74 snables.
Player B (jester) can only hunt 1000 x 2.52 / 40 = 63 snables.
That's 11 more snables with the opalo.
The max damage economy is a useful comparison, but it's important to understand what it leaves out. Even so, if the data is used with care, it is a very valuable source of information.
Effect of final shots
Let's say you're killing a snable male young. This has 20HP.
You use an opalo + A101 and this is maxed. You shoot 2 shots and do damage of 8.5 on the first shot and 10.5 on the second.
Total damage dealt so far: 19 HP.
The mob only has 1 HP left. You shoot again.
With this final shot, you do only 1HP of damage for a cost of 2.672 pec, using the figures from above. You cannot do more than 1 HP of damage, because that's all poor Mr snable has left.
So dmg per pec here = 1 / 2.672 = 0.373 HP/pec. Aaarrrghh - horrible economy.
Even if you could do the max damage every time you shot, the last shot will always be worse than the optimum economy.
This means the mobs you are hunting affect your economy.
The normal solution to the above problem is to use a
finisher. A weapon which may have worse economy than your normal weapon, but deals less damage overall, so the last shot costs less.
Effect of markup
On a limited item, decay is not repairable at TT rates. In this case, markup affects economy.
Here's an example with the VIVO T5 (L) Fap.
The decay on the T5 is 1.607 pec per use giving a max heal of 18.3 HP.
But remember that the actual average heal over many uses will be less - you don't always get the maximum.
For this example, let's take the minimum heal to be 75% of the maximum. If skills aren't high enough, you won't get this level of healing, but for this example, we'll assume they are.
So max heal of T5 = 18.3
Min heal = 75% of 18.3 = 13.7
Average heal = (18.3 + 13.7) /2 = 16 HP.
Remember the decay of 1.607 pec per use. If you could buy at TT price, this would mean you could heal on average 16 / 1.607 = 9.96 HP / pec.
Looks good
Now we add in the markup.
Markup is around 113% (peauction.com)
So now the cost of the whole fap is 13% higher than the TT price, which means each use of the fap costs 13% more.
Decay therefore costs 1.607 x 1.13 = 1.816pec / heal.
So economy is now 16 / 1.816 = 8.81 HP / pec.
Not looking quite so nice.
(Actually it's still quite good compared to FAP-xx type faps and it has SIB too)
Effect of HA
Suppose you are back to killing Mr snable young with your opalo again.
You shoot and do damage of 5.0 and 7.0 on the 1st 2 shots.
Then the 3rd shot you miss.
4th shot you do 8.0 and exactly kill him.
Total damage dealt: 20 HP
Total cost: 4 shots @ 2.02 pec per shot = 8.08
Dmg / pec on this kill = 20 / 8.08 = 2.48 HP/pec
Not as good as the opalo is supposed to do (2.97 HP/pec, see above) even though the shots that counted were slightly above average.
Why?
A missed shot does not damage, but still costs you 2.02 pec. Even more if you use an amp.
The standard eco figures do not take missed shots into account. Typically, even if you have 10 / 10 HA on a weapon, you will still miss some shots, which lowers your eco when using that weapon. The lower your HA, the worse your eco will be with that weapon.
Effect of skills on damage range
Now let's look at another player who is unable to achieve the maximum damage on an opalo, because their skills are not as high.
Their damage range on this weapon is from 3.3 to 6.6
Even if they never miss, the average damage per shot is only (3.3 + 6.6) / 2 = 4.95
But the cost is still 2.02 pec
Dmg / pec for this player is only 2.45 HP / pec
The theoretical maximum figures for a weapon's economy don't apply to every player. If you have lower skills and cannot achieve the theoretical maximum damange range, that weapon will have lower eco for you.
Mindforce (MF) economy
One common confusion surrounds economy of MF. I'll just make a plain statement here before going into the details:
MF is not generally economical for hunting, compared to a gun
Why?
Go back to the original definition of economy above. Economy includes all the costs resulting from one use of the item.
In the case of MF chips, the decay figures on entropedia are the decay of the chip.
They don't include:
- decay of the implant
- a share of the implant insert/removal cost
Also unlike weapon ammo, MF ammo is not available from the TT. MF uses mind essence (ME) as ammo, which is generally bought from other players at 200-220% of TT value (today's prices).
And as always, remember that the actual damage achieved on average is not the maximum - you don't always achieve the maximum damage.
I won't go into detailed calculations here - they are in several places on
EF if anyone wants to see some examples.
But in summary, most of the cost of using MF is the mind essence, so a 200% price for ME means pretty much that the economy is half what it looks like from entropedia.
When you take these into account as well, the cost per use of an MF chip turns out to be much worse than a typical non-MF weapon.
A final note
Of course eco is not all there is...often a less eco weapon or item is better to use because it gives specifically desired skills, or is just more fun to use.
You could argue that armour decay is relevant to weapon use cost, but it isn't generally included, for the simple reason that armour decay is different for each person, depending on their evade level, the armour they are using, the mobs hunted and so on.
Also a weapon that deals more damage per second will kill a mob quicker, so it has less chance to heal while you kill it. But again, this is not normally included in eco calculations, since it is not part of the cost of using the weapon.
In other words, there is more to hunting economically than just the plain cost per use figures. Each person needs to adapt the figures to their own situation.
However, weapon or item economy is simply results achieved (dmg / heal) per ped of cost.
So with some careful thought about common problems/errors, published eco figures do allow you to compare the effectiveness of different weapons or tools, if all other factors remain the same.
I hope this provides some useful info to other ppl. It certainly answers some questions I remember having when I started. If there's more that can be said on this topic, that I should add, please tell me.