Gear Buying Guide
I have created a guide to help you decide where you should by gear from. It compares the cost of gear in crystals to the costs of each individual store for that piece. Any feedback is appreciated, it is a work in prepared and will be updated over time, so feel free to check back! https://www.shatteredorder.com/gearguide/
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Howdy, Stranger!
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As 120 Energy cost 50 Crystals, what is this referencing, please?
EDIT: You also list the Mk 8 BioTech Implant Salvage Component without showing the 10 Energy battle (9-E DS), or the 20 Energy Hard node (9-C DS).
Is this an item that has yet to be updated?
I haven’t recorded any drop rate for gold gear like that, so I didn’t put it in the spreadsheet. I am also extremely confident that farming it from nodes is far more expensive... perhaps in V2 I will put a red N/A in the energy farming spot for those.
So it's based on the Energy refill amount, thanks.
120 Energy is 50 crystals, so 10 Energy has a cost of 4.1 crystals?
Are you also taking the 375 free Energy per day into consideration? If not, then that would seem to lower the price quite a bit.
The lay-out hurts my eyes, while i'm sure there's usefull info in there i didn't stick around to find out. This could very well be a "me problem" though.
No it wouldn't. Why do you say that?
Surely the cost per unit is how many you can receive which, if farming, depends on how many battles you can do.
If you spend 50 crystals you gain an additional 120 Energy, taking your total amount of Energy for that day to 495.
Therefore the crystal refresh cost in isolation is not a true representation of your income to Energy expenditure in that day.
If I can easily farm it, maybe even without spending crystals on a refresh, why would I even consider buying it from the store? Wouldn't that be a waste of crystals and, therefore, a highly inefficient way to go about it?
Thought that was the whole point, to show which method is the most efficient and effective? Not simply which is the cheaper crystal cost.
It could be a cheaper crystal cost in Energy refreshes than buying it from the store, but if I can secure a decent amount per day without any crystal expenditure, then that is the most efficient model & is also the most important information that this could provide.
Where is the concrete benefit?
What you are trying to find out is exactly WHERE you want to spend crystals and currency.
An example:
I want to farm a Stun Cuff. I need 50 salvages, at a drop rate of roughly 1 in 6. To determine where I want to get this, I need to know where spending crystals is the most efficient. 1400 in shipments, but only (according to the guide) 1073.5 if I farm them and buy energy refreshes instead (at 50 each). From this we can infer that it is better to farm the Stun Cuff than straight up buy it (although it will take over 7 days vs instant in shipments).
Yes, we can farm faster by also expending our free energy on Stun Cuff farming, but that is not the point of this guide at all. If you were to include that free energy, the entire calculation for what is a more efficient way to spend your crystals, would be thrown out of the window.
How else than in crystal cost can you express efficiency ?
No, free energy is not taken into consideration, since it is clearly the cheapest method of getting gear. I chose 50 crystal refreshes because it has an associated cost. And 100 crystal refreshes would simply double the cost, making shipment purchases the more effective method.
I appreciate your feedback and will be reformatting it in a day or two! Hope you will revisit the site this weekend and check it out. What exactly about the format was the issue? Others have mentioned the purple and gold are very difficult to read over the Blue, so that will certainly be changed. Anything other ideas that would make it easier to read would be appreciated.
The benefit is there is a limited number of resources, and having a lot on where to allocate those is helpful. Converting costs of everything into a single currency (which I have done here with crystals being the base currency) allows you to determine where has the best exchange rate on what. It’s not apples to pears, it’s more like converting currency across countries and comparing prices of an iPhone here to an iPhone there.
I would like that too, good idea. Wouldn’t be that hard, safe to assume each piece has equal chance of appearing, just need to know how many pieces can appear in each spot. Would need some serious reformatting to add that, certainly possible tho.
So, if I can get 4 from 120 with 50 crystal refresh Energy + another 8 from the free Energy, then my total income, still with an expenditure of 50 crystals, is 12, not 4.
This changes the crystal cost per unit & therefore whether or not the store purchase is more efficient or relevant than the farming.
The entire calculation, as you call it, is not entire in it's current form, so is not a true representation of the value or efficiency of farming vs store purchases. It's only an accurate representation of spending 120 Energy, which is 1/4 of the available amount.
In order to represent the true value, the free Energy needs to be taken into account, or the rate for 50 crystals needs to be multiplied by 4.
This also only focusses on Salvage, which is the less efficient way to purchase with crystals anyway.
Buying the completed piece is better value.
Take Mk 5 AK/T Salvage vs crafted Prototype:
1274 crystals crafted.
700 crystals for 25 Salvage, 560 crystals for 20 Salvage, or 1400 crystals plus assembly cost for fully crafted if buying Salvage in either amount.
Excellent point, I will need to adjust that. I think the MK5 Thermals and Stun Guns are the only ones that fall in that category.
I am really not trying to be obstructive with my comments, my intention is only to help.
I didn’t get the impression that you were, I appreciate the feedback! I’m sure there is a ton that I have missed and will be revising over time.
I personally dislike black background, white letters. Maybe it's a problem on my end, but the letters don't seem to be displaying correctly when zoomed out. Zooming in and a change to the collour patern would probably fix the issue on my end.
Makes sense. I’m the opposite, I prefer the white letters on black writing lol makes my phone less bright at night. I’m not a big fan of the way I had to embed the darn thing on the site. I will see how else I can make it show on the site. Clicking the downloadable version may be easier to view.
The idea of adding "free" energy to the calculation of farming is still completely incorrect. If you continue that line of reasoning, the most efficient way to get anything is by simply waiting for free energy, as that saves up crystals. That is simply not the case. What people are looking for is how to best spend their precious crystals.
The question of whether it is better to buy a refresh or keep your crystals to buy a piece of gear is what is relevant. You can easily calculate how many free Stun Guns you can farm with your free energy, those are not at all relevant (the drop rate is useful information though). As I said, if you include those, that would imply you ALSO need to include the free Carbanti's from challenges, the free Holo Projectors you buy with credits, the free Stun Cuffs you get from each TW, etcetera.
What you ask for is simply mathematically not a relevant factor, and would distort the entire calculation.
It's stated aim is to provide a comparison between farming (with crystal refresh included) & the various store purchase options.
If I have misunderstood and not recognised that to be purely on the crystal refresh value, then my apologies, but that still doesn't feel like a true or accurate representation of farming vs store purchase, to me.
The equation is to show comparable crystal cost per salvage unit. You're saying that because Energy refresh costs crystals it is therefore a critical part of the equation, but free Energy does not, so is not.
I understand what you're saying.
Simply waiting for free energy has zero crystal cost per unit so is not comparable, in isolation.
This is different to my asking if 4 salvage for cost of 50 crystals, is not a higher unit cost than 12 salvage for a cost of 50 crystals. That is taking it in collaboration, rather than isolation.
Challenges etc do not share any common revenue generation cost with either method, farming or store purchase, as they have no revenue generation cost, so they obviously cannot be included.
Agree that the drop rate is the important part, but these are stated as not being accurate. This has taken 1 drop rate and generically applied to all comparable tier items. Now, don't get me wrong, I understand that extrapolation, but it's not necessarily true or accurate.
No, no it would not. These are not earned by the same method so have no relevance in the equation.
They are, effectively, an external factor.
It is entirely relevant from the point of view which I held when originally viewing.
Now, with the benefit of your first paragraph here, I can see that the guide is not for the situation I expected.
Thank you.
Still doesn't change the fact that the crafted piece at 1274 is less cost & a more efficient method.
Or did I misinterpret what you said ?
What it means is that you spent the crystals on Energy & that with the total amount of Energy you got, including the 50 crystal refresh, you received 12.
The 50 crystals themselves did not get you any. The Energy that they bought did.
As the Energy, not the crystal, therefore has a direct correlation with the acquisition of the salvage unit, then my point was that all Energy expenditure (Should add "only if including a crystal refresh") should be included to give an accurate representation of which crystal expenditure has the better proportional return.
Essentially, you spent 50 crystals on Energy. With the Energy that you received in the period (240 + 45 x3 + 120) you gained 12, at a total cost of 50 crystals.
Flip that and look from the other side: You spent 50 crystals on Energy. With that 120 Energy you did not receive any salvage, but with the other Energy you still recouped 12. Are the crystals suddenly worthless? No, because they provided Energy which is an accumulative part of the collective RNG that drives the drop rate.
Sorry, not being ignorant or dismissive.
Did post a response, but it's disappeared. Hopefully it will return & provide you my answer.
Long & short of it was that crystals spent on a refresh do not get you any salvage. They get you Energy.
Energy gets you the salvage, so Energy is the base cost.
Spending 50 crystals to gather 4 with the 120 Energy is simply too narrow a perspective.
An analogy would be that it's a bit like doing 10 battles & complaining that the quoted drop rate isn't correct because you didn't receive the respective % amount.
Extrapolate that over a large number and you will find that you probably did.
Using the logic you suggest, spending 120 crystals on Energy but not receiving any salvage is suddenly going to bring the drop rate to zero.
It's an accumulative amount of Energy spent that provides the drop rates. Not an accumulative amount of crystals.
As it is an accumulative amount & the direct correlation between Energy spent & salvage received is clearly identifiable, but there is none between crystals spent on refreshes & salvage received other than via the Energy that the crystals provide, I was therefore suggesting that all Energy be taken into consideration to provide an accurate farming rate.
My mistake was, as I wrote in my post above, not recognising fully that it's purely comparing the value of a crystal refresh with a purchase from the store.
Again, thank you for clearing that up.
But anyway, the point of the guide is more to give a reference of what is good and bad value is from each the Guild, Guild Events, and Shard stores. With using the prices of crystals as a common reference point. The drop rate stuff and that cost was actually added after as additional information for finding where good value is.
Also difficult with drop data since no one actually knows what the programmed % is.
I disagree with all energy being taken into consideration because if you split it up, you will still end up with the same drop rates, theoretically over the long run. Plus, someone may do shards with their free energy and only use refreshes for gear or some other breakdown.
As you say, it's refreshingly pleasant to be able to have a conversation without that.
I think, from my perspective, it's because I'm not afraid to be shown that I am wrong. Not because of ego, but because I welcome it when I am, as a learning experience.
Let us take the case of the Stun Cuff. I want to get a Stun Cuff for my Gear 9 CUP. What is the absolute best way to go about it according to the guide:
1) If we have plenty of shard currency, it is best to just wait it out and buy it here 9 times, giving us 54 Stun Cuffs for 1674 shards. This might take ages though.
2) If we want it really fast, the best way is to buy it in its entirety from the Shipments. We spend 1400 crystals, which is top price, but we have it very quickly.
3) We have limited crystals, so we want to maximize our Stun Cuff / Crystal rate. If we spend 150 crystals per day, we are going to spend roughly 1100 crystals in total on our Stun Cuff, and it will take us 7 days.
You say: yes, but if I add my free energy, I can double that ! This means, I spend only 550 crystals and it takes me less than 4 days.
While that is definitely true, and useful to know so we can plan accordingly, it is information we can extract from the data that is given to us in a simple way. (And that is really what it is all about). Because if we would NOT spend our free energy on it, we would still have our free energy, to either farm more stun cuffs, or do something else with entirely.
I agree that the free energy has value, but it exists independently of what you are farming. In math terms, we can express it like this:
X = free energy
Y = refreshed energy
If Z is a full stun cuff, then your equation would be aX + bY = Z. Whereas ours is bY = Z. The thing is, that we do not just ignore the aX (or just X) term, we just make abstraction of it.
The point is that we always have X, and X says absolutely nothing about how efficient it would be to farm with additional Y. In fact, we need to look at how efficient it is to spend crystals on everything, before we can actually determine what the value of X really is, and what piece of gear we should be farming with our X to maximize our use of it. We do that by eliminating X from the equation, and then later seeing what we are going to use it for.
This leads to the simplest model, with the least variables. In your case, incorporating free energy is almost trivial now (you can get the result you personally desire with a single equation with two variables), whereas the reverse would be much more complicated. I think.