Crafting decay?

[Indigo Wyrd]

There is one "decay" in Crafting - the degeneration of Limited Blueprints.
But as for a decay that's "payable" - no, there's none.

But what you do get, many times, are items already decayed, needing repairs.

[Traf Rellik]

I was thinking about this kind of thing last week...

It struck me that you could treat the definition of entropy as a literal replacement for decay as expressed in the infamous "profit = decay" formula.

As an aggregate, the amount returned in loot is post profit by definition (to MA), and post-decay by analogy. This "double-negative" can be resolved by expressing it more simply as "the amount retained by MA is gross profit, and thus paid by systemic decay (or entropy)". The key is defining systemic decay using the "pre-use value minus post-use value". It doesn't matter how that decay occurs or where it originated, the forces of entropy generates (gross) profit by generating systemic decay. Hence bullets, wool, and all items have a simple formula representing the contribution to systemic entropy -- feeding MA's revenue by increasing the loot pool. Any retention of that loot pool is gross profit. Net profit (being what they have after operating expenses, etc...) is of course a subset, hence fueled entirey by decay (a duh! factor). Some times the decay bill is paid at the repair center, other times at the TT terminal. Since you purchase it's "pre-use" value, the decay is nothing more than the difference in what you get back from using it. Without this decay, there would be no (systemic) profit at all (investments or advertising could generate non-systemic profits).

But like all loot pool theories, it's either hogwash, hyperbole, or hype. However, I surmise that you *CAN* draw correllaries to profit retention from the revenue streams that contribute to and deplete the in-game funds, and this really is a matter of looking at little more than this "enhanced" definition of decay and loot pool mechanics.

I'm not sure I said this clearly enough, but that's okay, nobody likes other people's opinion on loot pool theories anyway.