"Is my loot any good?"
A word on currencies and the market
impre
Jan 05, 2020
There are several different currencies functioning within the game, there are multiple markets existing for it, some of those markets crossfading, some of them completely separate. The information on this website is based on experiences from PC version of the game. It certainly seems that the amount of hardcore players paying hardcore prices for extremely specific rolls is greater on PC markets, compared to Console ones, which means that the PC prices are quite often more extreme on consoles. Due to various historical reasons, mostly related to breaking the games Terms of Service, the PC version has a lot of items unavailable on consoles circulating, but also potential for cheaply buying duped items, and the whole market prices reduced due to dupes.
The official currencies are:
> Caps, which you get from monsters, for quests, from selling items via Player Vendor Machines, and from selling items to NPC vendors. It's used for camp building, NPC purchases, player to player trade, player to player vending, fast travel, and as a reward/penalty for kill/death in PvP
> Scrip, which is what you get from scrapping unwanted legendary items at Legendary Exchange Machines, available at each train station. You use scrip to roll legendary items at Purveyor Vendor in Berkeley Springs train station.
> Scout badges - two tiers of those, used for unlocking backpack modifications via Scouts questline
The unofficial currencies are:
> Scrip legendaries, legendary items with useless rolls that are being paid for their scrip value, usually at 10 caps per scrip (which means useless 3* weapons that sells for 40 scrip is worth at least 400 caps)
> Ammo, especially 5.56
> Ammo-crafting materials: Lead, Steel, Clothing, Acid
> Fluxes - more info on them
> Certain aid items: nuka quantums, stealthboys, psychobuffs, serums
> Legendary items - some items you can only buy for other legendary items
Judging the item value from new players perspective might be confusing. To understand the pricing, one should understand all the possible niches other players are pursuing, then should understand how many potential buyers are considering the item that you've dropped 'perfect for their purposes', and how many will consider it 'a noticeable improvement'. Without this knowledge, it's actually hard to price items. The most extreme case I stumbled upon was a Bloodied Explosive Faster Reload Combat Rifle (Trade or 30k+) that was being sold for 1.2k caps by level 60 player using nonlegendary Fixer worth 50 caps. Understanding this problem, we've created a tool that aims to help players with pricing their items. It attributes numeric value to each weapon, each legendary effect, and various interactions between different weapons and different legendary effects. It know that Furious Fire Rate VATSless handmade is godroll while Furious Fire Rate VATSless black powder rifle is trash. Simply plug in the item parameters, and it will throw out approximate value of its maxlevel roll.
It's important to know that PvP, even if it interests only a minority, is one of main factors of how pricing is established. For example, release of a Power Armor with Poison effect added to shots fired by its owner caused the prices of Poison Resistance pieces to jump from "meh" into "godroll".
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Article by imprezobus
