Experiment 212.22 Value of Epic Items

Background

Under an equal sell factor of 0,6 (and additionally, economy factor of 2, reputation, and social skill) the sell value of the Darkblazer Range Gauss Rifle was surprisingly seen different in Tau Station and Spirit of New York City, respectively, 3486,6 and 4001,4 credits. Non-epic items had the same sell value. This means that items without a visible value in their unique URL might have unexpectedly different sell values in Vendors from different stations, under the same sell factor.

Objectives

• To explore if items without an available value in their unique URL have sell values unrelated to the sell factor.
• To further explore the relationship between the (a) sell value of items without an available value, (b) sell factor, (c) economy factor, (d) station's level, and (e) fuel price, under the same Revered Reputation and Exceptional Social Stat Ranking.

Method

Items

Considering:

• Items sold with bonds in Vendors — Epic armors, Epic weapons, and Epic, Uncommon and Common stims —, don't have their value available.
• Epic items in Vendors are sold with bonds; there are no epic items sold with credits.

A group of seven items were selected according to the following criteria:

1) Value available as control — BasicC99 (Common Tier 1 Weapon, value of 100 credits)
2) Value not available
2.1) Epic Rarity
2.1.1) For sale in Vendors, bought with bonds — Amber Aegis: BD30 (Tier 2 Armor)
2.1.2) Not for sale in Vendors
2.1.2.1) Known to drop from recent campaigns — Anti-Ballistic Harness (Tier 1 Armor)
2.1.2.1.1) Additionally, the item that triggered this test — Darkblazer Range Gauss Rifle (Tier 2 Weapon)
2.1.2.2) Not know to drop, bought with real currency — Sol’s Soliloquy: Oscillating bladed club (Tier 6 Weapon)
3) Two additional items — one epic and one non-epic — were selected by convenience, so that simultaneous data collected by a second member could be used
3.1) Non-epic, for sale in Vendors, bought with credits, not knonw to drop — Fair Game Series Combat Rifle (Tier 5 Weapon)
3.2) Epic, not for sale in Vendors, known to drop from campaigns — Magnus Burnshield (Tier 5 Armor)

Procedure

• Retrieve from a station its fuel price, economy factor, sell factor, and sel values of all items.
• Retrieve data from all stations at least from two different systems.
• All measures done with Revered Reputation and Exceptional Social Stat.
• Results in a spreadsheet.
• Further analysis in following tables.

Results

Table 1
Overall Data Collection

Table 2
Proportion of the Value Variation from Day 212.24 to 212.25 GCT

Epic item	Variation
Amber Aegis: BD30	1,195
Anti-Ballistic Harness	1,037
Darkblazer Range Gauss Rifle	1,195
Sol’s Soliloquy: Oscillating bladed club	0,998
Magnus Burnshield	1,195

Table 3
Sell Factor and Reverse-Calculated Epic Values Variations per Day

Day	Average sell factor	Variation in sell factor	Variation in epic values
212.23	0,269	-	+
212.24	0,340	+	-
212.25	0,396	+	+
212.26	0,216	-	-

Note. The average sell factor was obtained from stations with data collected in that day, but not in all stations, so therefore is might not be a good proxy for all Universe.

Table 4
Proportional Variations of Fuel Price at Tau Station and Value of the Anti-Ballistic Harness

Day	Fuel price variation	Value variation
212.23	0,952	1,000
212.24	0,576	0,574
212.25	1,038	1,037

Table 5
Proportional Variation at 212.25 GCT of Fuel Price at Caen Stronghold and Value of Epic Items

Day	Fuel price variation	Epic items variation
212.25	1,195	1,195

Note. The Amber Aegis: BD30, Darkblazer Range Gauss Rifle, and Magnus Burnshield change in equal proportion.

Conclusions

• At any given day, reverse-calculated values (using sell factor) seem to be the same in all stations with variable sell factors.
• Only epic items seem to have fluctuating reverse-calculated values.
• Variations of the reverse-calculated values of epic items are independent of sell factors — i.e., sell factor can decrease, but reverse-calculated value increase, and vice-versa.
• At any given day, the sell value of epic items seems to be consistent with the sell factor across stations — e.g., a sell factor of 0,15 in several stations results in the same sell value.
• Not all epics seem to update they value every day — e.g., the Sol’s Soliloquy: Oscillating bladed club seem to have less fluctuations.
• Daily updates of reverse-calculated values seem to be consistent across epic items — i.e., if there's an increase, all epic items increase their value or remain the same; inversely if there's a decrease, then all decrease or remain the same.
• The proportion of the value variation seems to be similar in some in epics, but not in all — e.g., the Amber Aegis: BD30, Darkblazer Range Gauss Rifle, and Magnus Burnshield change in equal proportion, but not the Anti-Ballistic Harness and Sol’s Soliloquy: Oscillating bladed club (Table 2 as an example).
• Although for a given day the values are consistent across the sell factor, the overall sell factor across all stations doesn't seem to be the cause as (a) the small sample doesn't support (Table 3), and (b) most importantly not all epic values change equally (Table 2).
• Overall, fuel price and career factor don't seem to be related to value variation. However some coincidences were shown (Table 4).

Major Speculations for Further Testing

• The value of an epic is vinculated to a station (Table 4). Maybe to a station where it drops or the same tier. The Anti-Ballistic Harness is Tier 1, as Tau Station, and as Nouveau Limoges, the station where it dropped the last three times. If so, Sol’s Soliloquy: Oscillating bladed club (Tier 6 Weapon; not know to drop; bought with real currency) have to be related to any Tier 6 YZ Ceti station — Asimov Freehold, Cape Verde Stronghold, or Spirit of New York City.
• The only station that showed the exact variation as epic values was Caen Stronghold (a Tier 3, Freebooter station), so maybe is not only tier, but maybe other factors are also at play, or even random station attribution (Table 5). Further data from this station should be retrieved.
• Finally, price fluctuations can be a daily random feature or maybe a bug or a programming error.

This experiment was ended at 212.26 GCT so that this preliminary results can be shared, discussed, and for the next experiment to include all new insights. Also, at 212.25 GCT a new game update was done with considerable implications for data collection.