Earning Energy Credits

Okay, 6 months into the game, one character to VA, and another that just hit RA,LH. I'm starting to think I have a very thick skull. After seeing the numbers that were being tossed around for the Pride Auction, I must be doing something wrong.

I find myself draining every subsystem I have for every Energy Credit I can get my hands on, and it never seems enough to outfit my character at the rank-ups. Okay, I apologize for the horrible analogy to checking under the cushions for lost pennies, but it was the best I could come up with.

Does anybody have some tips on the best ways to at least earn enough to keep my ship and away team fully equipped?

The proper way to sell things on the exchange is as follows. Put the item in the buy section, remove any buff from the line, and search by price. Cut the lowest price by a small amount (larger prices cut more). Except for common foods that should help the most, common foods just use the replicator. Make sure your selling old kits, they dont bond anymore. When i first rank up i usually have some marks from previous rank to fill new slots in my ships. I usually only buy kits, 1 blue melee for boff, and blue shield/phys armor for melee boff to start my new rank with. Until va most of my gear is whatever i can get with marks, dont bother with rare/very rare. The rare stuff i do have is from redoing FE's. The FE missions i am sick of because of that: Mine Enemy(ground blue armor), 1st Devidian (blue ground psi shield), Night of the comet (fed type 3 rifle), Frozen (rom dis rifle), and the Breen ship set.

Dont forget to treat boffs you dont want just like gear on the exchange, and always filter for rarity (when they get that fixed).

P.S. does anyone know if you can get more than one of either the proton gun or freeze ray?

Also, if you're not using them for crafting, auction off some particle traces. I just netted a quick 250k for a starving LtC by selling a single trace. (Yes, I know, you can also donate those to the fleet crafting group.)

I always thought I was doing OK for energy credits, too, until I saw the amounts being spent at this year's Pride auction. Usually I've been winding up my VA's with 2-4 million, but apparently that's chump change compared to my fleetmates. :)

I guess the financial side of things is a whole other mini-game within the game. Sometimes I get bored with going back to starbase when my inventory fills up, and I don't get top dollar for my goodies. Other times I spend so much time at the auction house it seems I don't get to play. There must be a happy medium somewhere.

If you have multiple alts, one thing you can do is make sure you start a bunch of auctions from one toon before you take a break from that toon. The auctions will work themselves out while you're playing another toon, and then when you check back in with the first toon, you may already be rich!

I'm looking forward to hearing others' suggestions, so I can buy me a fleet officer next year! But which one? They're all so adorable! ;)

Hey guys...

Crafting is definitely the way to go. What I'll do is jump on the exchange and click items like, "Personal Weapons". Once the results pop up, I just click Next, Next, Next until I get to the end where the most expensive items are. Look over those results and see if there's anything that be crafted. Whip up a few of the items, and pop them on the exchange for a few thousand less than what everyone else is asking for. Then sit back and be patient. Some of them will sell immediately, some may take a day or so, and some will end up returning to you as someone's undercut your pricing.

Just pop 'em back up for a lower price, and check out the different items up for sale. I usually look at:

1. Personal Weapons
2. Ship Weapons
3. Ship Deflectors
4. Consoles (each class)

Hope that helps!
Christian

Quote by Seannewboy

The proper way to sell things on the exchange is as follows. Put the item in the buy section, remove any buff from the line, and search by price.

I usually only remove the buffs from the search line if I don't get any hits from my initial search for the full item description. That way you're looking at what other identical items are selling for. If it's a kit, you really do need to specify the rarity (once they fix that again) to get an apples-to-apples price comparison, since kit names don't change based on rarity.

When I was first starting out, I read someone's suggestion to undercut the lowest price you find by 20%, just to make sure yours sells. I don't always do that, but I always put in a price that looks significantly lower. If the lowest price is 2000, I will do 1950, or 1800, or whatever my mood dictates. But I usually don't go 1999.

Another thing I've done is searched for rare and very rare items that other people have put up at ridiculously low prices. I'll snap those up and turn a quick profit sometimes. (Oops, maybe I shouldn't have given away that secret. Now it will be harder to find the bargains.) I figure some of them are just people being nice to the newbies, so I try not to abuse their kindness. I'll usually still price these items at a good price. Just not quite as good. (Hmm, maybe I'm part Ferengi?)

Data farming, sell one or two rares a week and you can make good money

Thank you everyone for the tips. My first run through with my VA Tac, I did sell the Data Samples as the primary way of making money (we weren't part of Stonewall back then). But as we've been levelling up our second toons, Mikey has been supplying a third with this Data Samples so he could max out crafting so he can help with the Crafting Corps.

I never thought to just look for rare items put up for the cheap. I have snatched up inexpensive rare items when I am looking for a price range for something I am trying to sell. I may have to try that from time to time as some of the stuff I have finally sells.

Some of the attributes like [Dis],[Pla], or [KB] aren't very popular and aren't sold on the exchange often. A lot of people will assume that cause their Phaser Rifle Mk X [KB] is the only one on the exchange, it's very rare, so they price it high, when actually no one else every bothers to sell it. If you remove the modifiers, you can match the lowest price for that type of weapon. I don't undercut. Undercutting is one of the worst parts of an MMO and it just makes it hard for all sellers. I just match the lowest price that's currently up. That way all the sellers get an even chance to sell their goods.

Crafting is a great way to make money if you have the thought and fortitude to check the Exchange and compare prices and what not. The only reason why I have as much money as I do is cause when the Aegis set was put in-game, I spent the day crafting and making as many as I could possibly. At the time, each set sold for about 2 Million ECs.

When I level an alt, I buy white parts for super cheap. I don't waste Energy Credits on stuff that I'll be selling in a week. The bonus with whites is that they don't usually bind so I can sell them after I'm done with the rank. Most the time I get all the money I spent back, if not a little extra. I try to do Explores and what not so I can get most of my gear from Vendors instead of having to buy any gear with ECs. I sell pretty much drop I get that isn't white or just bad on the Exchange and sell the rest at Vendors. You get almost nothing when you Recycle them. If I'm near Deferi or ESD, I'll go to the Deferi Outpost or the Captain's Table to sell my stuff (lol) cause the vendors there give a better price when buying stuff. I think ESD is better for that. Generally, when I'm done leveling an alt, he has 1 to 3 million energy credits in his wallets that he made all himself.

You aren't poor. You're normal. We have a few people in the fleet that are incredibly wealthy in-game and become very generous during Pride season. I'm no where nearly as wealthy as them. I bought one item for 9 Million Energy Credits and I'm feeling the hurt, lol.

Do what i do, check the exchange for uncommon saurians with the space trait efficient. Sometimes you'll find them cheap sold by people who don't know, but they will sell for about 30 million usually. I've done it a number of times.

Quote by NicholasJohn16

I sell pretty much drop I get that isn't white or just bad on the Exchange and sell the rest at Vendors. You get almost nothing when you Recycle them. If I'm near Deferi or ESD, I'll go to the Deferi Outpost or the Captain's Table to sell my stuff (lol) cause the vendors there give a better price when buying stuff.

Really?! During our first leveling run on our mains, after my upteenth run to ESD to sell, I checked the vendor's price compared to the Replicator and I could have sworn they were the exact same (mind you I don't have access to the Captain's Table). Maybe I was mistaken, I'm going to have to check again next time I'm back at ESD or DS9.

Wow Sarge! Thank you for taking the time to post all of this great information. I'm sure a lot of fleeties will benefit for your (and every one else's) experience. I really appreciate everyone who took the time to contribute to this thread!