Hunting Big vs Hunting Small

Many of you know that during the past few weeks, I have been what I term 'Hunting small'. This means using lower end gear. I have been using plated Rascal Armor, A103 amped Opalo and a FAP-50 to hunt Armax (mainly youngs but a few matures and the rare old) north of Fort Troy. There are also Combibos which I regularly kill.

I typicall take 15000 rounds but usually only shoot 11000 of it before my two A103 amps are dead (takes about 2.5 hours to shoot that many rounds this way). After 11k rounds my decay from amps, gun, sight, and armor runs about 70 PEDs. This comes to a total cost of about 180 PEDs per hunt.

Most hunts yield loot worth about 160 PEDs (mostly PEDs but also skins and armax parts) making most hunts a loss of about 20 PEDs. I have however had quite a few nice hunts with the 233 Global containing Bear Thighs (TT+600) coming to mind. Also a couple days ago I got back to Atlas Haven with over 400 PEDs in my pocket. During this time the Combibos have also given my three Vigilante Shins, one I kept the other 2 have been sold for about TT+50 each.

I wish I had kept records of all the hunts but I haven't. I can however say that I am wel ahead as far as PEDs go and the skill gans have been nice. Especially the evade skills as I have to tank the Armax a lot.

On the other hand there is 'Hunting big'. This is where I use Plated Nemesis, A105 amped A-3 Just Mk IV (DAR9300 for tagging) and an EMK-2600 to hunt Armax up to Dominants. In this fashion I g through 15000 rounds in 1 hours with about 75 PEDs decay for a total cost of about 225 PEDs. The returns are horrible. This morning I got back to Atlas Haven with 85 PEDs in loot for a loss of about 140 PEDs.

The most suprising info is the average loot for the Armax (I've been keeping track of them for a while now). After killing 746 Armax Bull Youngs, their average loot is 1.94 PEDs each as opposed to 1.52 for Providers (only 51 kills though) and 2.08 for Guardians (only 41 kills). I need to kill more of the bigger guys but I dont want to waste the PEDs right now. I've only killed 5 Dominant Bulls and they have averaged only 2.30 PEDs.

You will definitely find me North of Fort Troy for a long while.

 

One must also note that the larger mobs do have a greater chance for the big loots. I like to compare mobs to slot machines. Think of lower level mobs as nickel slots, mid level mobs as quarter slots and the big guys as dollar slots. The dollar slots pay out the big jackpots but the trick is to get one of those jackpots before you run out of money.

The quarter slots have been giving me enough little jackpots to pay for my next run.

In slightly related news: Armax Providers and up are 'always loot' creatures meaning you never get the dreaded 'this creature contains no loot' message. Apparently only these types of mobs are capable of the really big ATHs. If I remember correctly from a post on EF, a mobs max loot is 64X their stamina. 'Always loot' creatures can go 4X higher than that. If/when MA releases Armax DNA and a land owner incorporates it, I I believe there very well could be multiple Armax Bull Stalker type mobs on the ATH list. To me Armax are more difficult that comparabe maturity Atrox.

So far I have logged 11 Armax Cow Dominants and all have given loot (1.94 PED average, sigh) so that maturity and up may also be 'always loot.'

 

Until recently the only place I've done this kind of hunting is north of Fort Troy. However, that particular area can sometimes have too many hunters leaving me with mainly Combibos to kill unless I want to run around looking for spawns. I then decided to go the the grey area NE of Atlas to hunt the Armax there (I will call it the Grey Area). There are also young/mature Molisk there (better than Combibos). After 3 fairly long hunts, there were pretty notcible differences in the ammount and type of loots from the Armax.

As previously stated in this thread, I have been making slight profits from hunting in this fashion. However in these three hunts I lost about 50 PEDs per hunt. This would be considered a bad hunt in the Fort Troy area and 3 in a row would be unheard of. Also, the PED ammount of the loots in the Grey Area are suprisingly consistent. When Amax Bull Young loot in that area, over half the time the ammount is either 0.49 or 2.17 PEDs (the Cows give 3.68 and 1.20 but give way too many 0s in between). Nothing like this in the Fort Troy area. Also the Grey Area Armax give MUCH fewer hides than the Fort Troy Armax.

I will do a few more hunts in the Fort Troy area then maybe a few in the Grey Area just to make sure its not a long term fluke. One positive for the Grey Area is the mining is much better there. I only dropped a few bombs while hunting but did get a Sizable Alicenies. Also there is Gazzurdite and Narcanisum to be found there.