HOW MUCH?! (In game Store prices rant)

[Knarf]

I'm in a system where I get a 5% discount and I noticed that I can buy parts for an Enforcer in the store. I have an Enforcer in storage and I thought, for a moment, about buying the parts for another one.

Then I noticed the prices. HOLY COW!

The "parts" cost $494,000 each and I would need 3 of them. That is $1,482,000 for the shiny new Enforcer.

So I think to myself, "It's OK, if I don't use it; I can just sell it. So I look at the SELLING tab to see what the WHOLE mech would sell for.

[Mod edit: language] My entire, assembled, Enforcer would sell for just $430,080. That is less than what ONE part would cost. So even if I had 2 parts in Storage and wanted to purchase the third part to complete the Mech, that ONE part would cost more that I would make by selling the completed mech. I would actually LOSE MONEY by completing and selling the mech. That's silly. Or stupid. You decide.

 

[Nakkivene]

Well they're running a business.

What I find weird is that you can't sell mech parts yourself, but whatever.

 

[Pode]

I don't care how badass you tell me your mechanic friend is, I'm not paying you dealer price for a car he welded together from parts of three wrecked cars. Good luck finding someone who will.

 

[HurricaneSG]

"Welcome to MechStop, 400k... best i can do!"

 

[Kereminde]

Silly or stupid?

I'm gonna go with "seller's market" for them. After all, Mechs are supposedly rare.

 

[mjbroekman]

Not sure where you got the idea that you should be able to buy pieces from the store and sell back a completed mech for a profit...but **shrug**. If I buy parts from the store to build a mech, it's because I'm going to use the heck out of it, not sell it back.

It's the same with equipment. The sale price is about 10% of what you would pay to buy from the store.

Game reason why: Because you get the equipment (and mechs) for free on the battlefield.
Lore reason why: Because Darius can't negotiate good deals worth a damn.

 

[Nakkivene]

Lore reason why: Because Darius can't negotiate good deals worth a damn.

If he could, you would be the medium laser king. Eventually you'd quit the mercenary life and just run an used medium laser business.

 

[Edmon]

If he could, you would be the medium laser king. Eventually you'd quit the mercenary life and just run an used medium laser business.

Gotta have a shop that sells AC/2. It'll work, I swear.

 

[AncientRaig]

Just one of the downsides of the way HBS did salvage and the economy. Outside of buying the occasional + weapon, the market is pretty useless.

 

[Kereminde]

Just one of the downsides of the way HBS did salvage and the economy. Outside of buying the occasional + weapon, the market is pretty useless.

I disagree. It's just less useful the longer your career runs. Early on it kinda works out to patch up mechs with missing equipment

 

[AncientRaig]

I disagree. It's just less useful the longer your career runs. Early on it kinda works out to patch up mechs with missing equipment

I never really had to use the store for anything. I think I used it to pick up an AC10 for my Centurion in my first playthrough, and maybe an AC2 for my Blackjack when it lost an arm. Other than that, you get enough parts from mission salvage that you shouldn't really ever need to buy common parts from the store other than maybe JJs or the occasional heat sink. But even that only lasted until I did the first story mission.

It's the result of a combination of having very limited store inventories, no real operating costs for the size of the unit you're operating, and nothing really good in the store other than advanced weapons and special equipment like gyros or cockpit mods. I've never found mechs heavier than what I'm currently operating in a store outside of the ones in the story (and usually by the time they come around I don't need those mechs anymore), or even many mechs in general. Which annoyed me, because sometimes the random spawns don't get you the mechs you want (example, I have the worst luck trying to get Catapults. No idea why.), and you can't go to the market to search for one.

 

[EmptyPepsiCan]

[Mod edit: language] My entire, assembled, Enforcer would sell for just $430,080. That is less than what ONE part would cost. So even if I had 2 parts in Storage and wanted to purchase the third part to complete the Mech, that ONE part would cost more that I would make by selling the completed mech. I would actually LOSE MONEY by completing and selling the mech. That's silly. Or stupid. You decide.

We go out into the Universe and harvest weapons, components, and mech parts in completely absurd quantities. If the stores didn't chisel us then we'd all be billionaires and losing the game would be literally impossible. So yeah, the prices we get for our stuff are stupidly, offensively low, especially considering the risk we take collecting it, but it has to be that way.

 

[AncientRaig]

We go out into the Universe and harvest weapons, components, and mech parts in completely absurd quantities. If the stores didn't chisel us then we'd all be billionaires and losing the game would be literally impossible. So yeah, the prices we get for our stuff are stupidly, offensively low, especially considering the risk we take collecting it, but it has to be that way.

It wouldn't have to be that way if they had made the operating costs higher. Running a company the size of the one you do in this game costs several million c-bills a cycle, possibly more since the Argo is *HUGE* compared to most dropships that a merc unit would operate.

 

[TripleStrengthMisnomer]

Gotta have a shop that sells AC/2. It'll work, I swear.

It already did. He retired to a tropical island in the new biome...you see...it went down like this....dusty AC/2s and racks of ammo packed like cordwood in all his warehouses....bills were coming due and he was a few months from bankruptcy....then...I swear, it was the oddest thing....you see, this dude by the name of Edmon comes charging in through the front door (and that was odd in itself because he hadn't had a customer in months).

So anyway....lost my train of thought...where was I? Right .....so this Edmon dude , he pivots to the left and the right, eyes all agog...and he blurts out...I'LL TAKE THEM! ALL OF THEM!....and so he does..... doesn't even ask for shipping, receipts, nothin'...just marches his mechs right into the warehouses and fills every ballistic hardpoint on 'em with AC/2s and ammo bins...then carries off the rest still in crates....you'll never see the likes of it again friends......

 

[BrianDavion]

I do think they need to re-examine how stores work in this game and maybe tweek em a bit. at the very least it'd be nice not having to run around the periphary trying to find an AC 10 for my centurion

 

[EmptyPepsiCan]

It wouldn't have to be that way if they had made the operating costs higher. Running a company the size of the one you do in this game costs several million c-bills a cycle, possibly more since the Argo is *HUGE* compared to most dropships that a merc unit would operate.

True enough, but what's the difference?

 

[AncientRaig]

True enough, but what's the difference?

Well, if you actually had higher operating costs the individual contract payments wouldn't really be able to cover it. So you'd be able to raise the selling price of items to compensate. Sure, late game when the more difficult, better paying contracts are common, the "becoming super rich" problem might crop up, but that's inevitable anyway in vanilla unless you just burn cash going from one end of the map to the other over and over again without taking a single mission for months and in the early game it would not only add some risk of actually running out of money, but allow for something resembling an economy to exist.

 

[BrianDavion]

well if we're going to talk about that that amount of salvage we get in general is nuts, we outta be getting less salvage and the mechs we see being less impressive, given the part of the map we're on anything bigger then a Shadowhawk outta be extremely rare. heck mechs should be rare. the early missions where you fight 3 tanks and a locust are proably truer to the area then the later missions

 

[Kereminde]

This was not my experience starting a Career mode game, nor when I began fresh. I tended to be dinged on small pieces of equipment more often than taking a loss.

It was the first game, non-Ironman, and where I spent a *long* time farming CBills and seeking specific Mech parts as salvage . . . where I had no scarcity issues.

Maybe I'm a terrible player, but early on I was grateful the store existed. And in Ironman, anything I lose is gone, no "well shoot restart the mission" because I had a misclick or just had someone snipe a head off with a JagerMech's ACs. (Taurian stool that one.)

Streamers early on have similar issues. So I guess that clinches it as "terrible at the game".

All the same, farming lots of stuff and assembling your endgame team? That's when the store stops mattering. Around . . . Three skull missions

 

[SQW]

OP is using 3-part salvage. Disqualified!

Why are people complaining about the shops still? It's not a economy sim and if the price reflect lore then mech scarcity in lore means you'll never see an assault mech in the 3 years of career mode.