Picking up gold & nitra @ level 5

[PET]

Hey there,

is there any point to pick up gold & nitra at level 5 considering that the run will end after this and you will not be able to do any upgrades?

Thanks

[Ares]

They still give XP, and gold can be used for re-rolls. And ofc there's the drop pod upgrades that depend on your resources.

[Hailspork]

Both give xp and probably credits. Gold lets you reroll level-up options.

[Mr.M]

I am pretty sure leftover gold is converted into credits. I can test that

[Hailspork]

Originally posted by Mr.M:

I am pretty sure leftover gold is converted into credits. I can test that

In my testing, credits definitely scale with xp. Gold (leftover or not) gives xp, so it should provide credits... Good luck finding a way to test the contribution of leftover gold vs spent gold.

[Mr.M]

Originally posted by Hailspork:

Originally posted by Mr.M:

I am pretty sure leftover gold is converted into credits. I can test that

In my testing, credits definitely scale with xp. Gold (leftover or not) gives xp, so it should provide credits... Good luck finding a way to test the contribution of leftover gold vs spent gold.

I'll try. A few hazard 1 runs.

[aysa <3]

Like others have said, gold can be used on re-rolls and mining them gives you xp. However, there are also the artifacts that scale off of gold and nitra like the nitrogenic powder and gold tipped bullets which can both be very strong.

[Intra]

I farmed Nitra for my crit bonus and gold for rerolling if I was trying to max a weapon to 12 to get the Overclock unlocked. Otherwise, pretty useless.

[Hailspork]

@Mr M
I just did a level 48 run with 5205 xp and 5107 credits. Hazard 2; still, weird that I'm getting about double yours (particularly since my xp and credits almost match, but I fall between your runs in level)
Didn't track spent vs unspent gold, but I doubt it explains the gap. Looks like something earns xp but not credits; possibly morkite and other quest pickups.

[Hailspork]

Yeah, i'm looking at the Rank XP, not the XP in "Dive Stats" (Dive XP?). Now it makes sense that they're doubled. I know that Rank XP scales with Dive XP (and maybe other things), but clearly not 1:1. FWIW, I'm still looking at my screen, and it was 12,135 dive xp for 5205 rank XP; 472 gold, 211 nitra, 60 other. Probably ~100 unspent gold?
I've also noticed that Credits seems to lag slightly behind Rank XP, but again, not sure of the exact formula. More data -> better model though?

[Hailspork]

More testing would tell us about that lag.
Hazard 1 magama, level 48. 4636 xp, 4571 credits.
430 gold, 193 nitra, 36 misc; about half unspent. 11,474 Dive XP. That's 95% of the Dive XP of my prior run, but 90% of the credits. Similar gold, but much different "Other" ores (almost half). Perhaps those ores strongly impact credits?

[Necrotic]

im getting around 4200 gold and exp 4200 on harzard 1-2-3-4 doesnt matter same gold same exp.

[Hailspork]

Originally posted by Mr.M:

...so we just datamining, huh?

Until we spot an irregularity in the data.... seems like a good method. Which I have!

I did some quick runs of standing in lava:
L1 4 xp, 3 credits, 9 dive xp, 0 mining
L2 65 xp, 68 credits, 20 dive xp, 15 nitra
L2 74 xp, 77 credits, 35 dive xp, 16 nitra
*L2 11 xp, 10 credits, 20 dive xp, 0 mining
*L2 10 xp, 9 credits, 20 dive xp, 0 mining
L2 96 xp, 100 credits, 41 dive xp, 18 gold 3 nitra
L2 20 xp, 10 credits, 35 dive xp, 1 gold
L2 22 xp, 21 credits, 37 dive xp, 3 magnite
L2 18 xp, 16 credits, 24 dive xp, 1 nitra
L3 25 xp, 22 credits, 55 dive xp, 0 mining
L3 38 xp, 38 credits, 61 dive xp, 5 croppa
L3 25 xp, 23 credits, 40 dive xp, 1 nitra
L4 132 xp, 128 credits, 108 dive xp, 18 gold, 2 bismor
*L4 30 xp, 27 credits, 86 dive xp, 0 mining. Gathered xp cubes.

Notice that rows 4 and 5 have the same mining and dive xp, but slightly different results.
It looks to me like credits are correlated with dive xp and mining, but not a direct consequence. The last run seems to confirm it, since in that one, I gathered xp cubes, and the credits/rank xp don't seem to be increased for it.

Magnite seems to bring in more credits than gold, but not xp. Croppa brings in lots of both. I'm sure the rest of them could populate data, but the rarer minerals aren't abundant enough for me to be concerned; killing bugs for a few seconds has more impact than all the rare minerals in an entire run.

If I had to guess, each different bug type has a set amount of rank xp and credits awarded for the killing, NOT the gathering of xp. Additionally, each ore has a bonus to these values based on mining. That would explain the different results with the same xp, the last run I did, and even why your hazard 3 run granted more credits than rank XP (different assortment of bugs!)

I'm going to doubt that the unspent minerals makes an impact beyond their gathering, but I've done enough data mining on the topic to worry about looking further. It makes sense that they're awarding rank xp and credits for what you did, not how you spent/gathered it.

[Hailspork]

L3, 19 xp, 17 credits, 71 dive xp, no mining, 5 flowers (incomplete)
L4, 149 xp, 146 credits, 109 dive xp, 30 gold, 6 flowers (complete)
L4 165 xp, 171 credits, 109 dive xp, 36 gold.
L4 209 xp, 218 credits, 94 dive xp, 44 gold, 4 nitra, SPENT 30 GOLD.

All gold from the 6 flower run came from the objective. Looks like objective is worth the equivalence of mining 30 gold, or close enough to it.
Also, I did that 4th run in this post with spending my gold on level-ups. XP and credits still seem correlated with gold earned, spent or not.

I'm satisfied with these results and considering this issue to be mostly solved:
Credits == bugs killed + resources mined.

Thanks for gathering data with me. And nice job with 841 gold in a single run.

[Hailspork]

Nitra seems to be worth ~4 credits each. Gold is about the same. The difference in mining between your two runs should account for about 3000 credits, and the rest of the difference from killing different bugs?

That's why i went with short runs rather than full runs. Easier to control for variables.

[Mr.M]

Lvl 43, 320 unspent gold: 3000 credits
Lvl 44, 330 spent gold: 3000 credits
Lvl 50, 55 gold: 2500 credits

lvl 55, 5883 xp, 5912 credits (forgot the mining)

Lvl 50, 5219 xp, 5246 credits, 530 gold, 230 nitra, 37 misc
Lvl 20, 4334 xp, 4431 credits, 340 gold, 230 nitra
Lvl 48, 3385 xp, 3142 credits, 240 gold, 120 nitra
Lvl 46, 841 gold (xq), 240 nitra, 7031 xp and 7168 credits

I deleted the old posts to not crowd up the thread

...and my bad, i rounded the values down each time so the values arent entirely correct...