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80Bit’S C-Bill & Mc Guide: Updated 4/26


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#1 80Bit

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Posted 21 January 2013 - 02:12 AM

Part One: Economic Overview
What are C-Bills?
Posted Image
ComStar Bills, or C-Bills as they are known in game, are the primary currency in MechWarrior Online. C-Bills are the “in-game” currency; which is to say you can only earn C-Bills by playing the game, you cannot buy them directly.

C-Bills are used to buy the following:





New Mechs (Except Hero Mechs).
New equipment.
Mech upgrades (Such as double heat sinks).
Modules.
Some of the Mech paint colors.



How to get C-Bills

There are only two ways to get C-Bills. The first (and best) way is to play matches. A player in a trial or normal mech without premium time will make from 30,000 to 120,000 C-Bills per match. For premium players with a hero mech, that range may increase to 55,000 to 215,000 C-Bills per match. The second way to make C-Bills is to sell mechs or equipment. This route only gets you 50% of the original price of the item though, so be mindful of that before you hit the sell button.

Note: A recent change added a significant “Cadet” C-Bill bonus for new players during their first 25 matches. After your first 25 matches you will have about 8 million C-Bills from this bonus. Starting on your 26th match you will be earning C-Bills at the normal rate.


General Value of C-Bills

To understand the value of C-Bills we need to compare what it takes to get them, and how many you need to get specific things. A typical player will do around 12 matches per hour of play time. A typical player with no premium time or hero mech will also make an average of around 75,000 C-Bills per match. This average will go up or down depending on player skill and play style, but it is a good baseline number to use. With this in mind we can make the following observation.

1 Hour of gameplay with no bonuses ≈ 900,000 C-Bills
1 Hour of gameplay with Hero Mechs ≈ 1,170,000 C-Bills
1 Hour of gameplay with Premium Account ≈ 1,350,000 C-Bills
1 Hour of gameplay with Premium and Hero Mech ≈ 1,620,000 C-Bills


Now that we know what it takes to get C-Bills, we can look at what you can spend them on. This list will give you an idea of how many C-Bills you will need to buy mechs of different sizes, as well as the more major pieces of equipment.

Equipment C-Bill Cost Examples:





Light Mechs: 1,500,000 to 5,500,000
Medium Mechs: 3,000,000 to 7,000,000
Heavy Mechs: 4,800,000 to 10,000,000
Assault Mechs: 6,500,000 to 14,000,000
Weapons: 50,000 to 600,000
Standard Engine: 800,000 to 2,200,000
XL Engine: 2,600,000 to 5,800,000
Double Heat Sinks Upgrade: 1,500,000
ECM: 400,000

From this information we can make a fairly accurate table of how much play time it takes for a non-premium player to earn enough money to buy and equip a new mech.

Playtime Needed To Buy A New Mech:





Light Mech : 5 Hours
Medium Mech: 10 Hours
Heavy Mech: 15 Hours
Assault Mech: 20 Hours


As you can see, even for a free player the time it takes to earn a new mech is not outlandish. The Cadet bonus will help you quickly buy your first mech, and after that someone who plays regularly should be able to buy one or two new mechs every week. Of course, you only have four mech bays to start with, and that is where MC comes into the picture.


What is MC?

MC is the “real money” currency used in MechWarrior Online. You cannot earn MC in the game, you can only buy it for real world money. Most of the things MC can buy are not purchasable with C-Bills.

MC is used to buy the following:





New Mechs (Including Hero Mechs).
New Mech bays.
Premium Account Time.
New paint patterns and colors.
Consumable Module Items.
Vanity cockpit items.
Conversion of Mech Specific XP to Generic XP.



How to get MC

MC can only be obtained through the MechWarrior Online website. The normal cost breakdown is as follows:

25,000 MC - $99.95
12,000 MC - $49.95
6,500 MC - $29.95
3,000 MC - $14.95
1,250 MC - $6.95


Notice that the larger the MC package, the less it costs per MC. Keep this in mind and plan accordingly. The next section will give you an idea of how much MC you will need to get what you want.


General Value of MC

Since the cost of MC depends on the size of the package you buy, there is no exact dollar to MC ratio. For simplicity we will use the 6500 MC package, which gives us a ratio of about 217MC per US Dollar. The following list will show you the general MC ranges you will deal with for the primary things MC is used for.

Buying a New Mech: ≈ 400MC / $1.84 per 1,000,000 C-Bill cost of mech
New Mech Slot in Mechbay: 300MC / $1.38
Convert 10,000 XP to GXP: 400MC / $1.84
Hero Medium Mech: 3750MC / $17.25
Hero Heavy Mech: 4500MC-5250MC / $20.70 - $24.15
1 Premium "Cool Shot" Module: 15MC / $0.07
Cockpit Items: 100MC-1000MC / $0.46 - $4.60
Camo and Paint: 75MC-1000MC / $0.35 - $4.60
30 Days Premium Time: 2500MC / $11.50




Part Two: Maximize Your C-Bill Gains


How Boost Your C-Bill Gains

There are several things you can do to increase the rate you earn C-Bills. 700,000 C-Bills per hour is a good baseline number, but with the right combination of bonuses and strategy, you can boost this all the way up to around 1,500,000 or even 2,000,000 C-Bills per hour. The following tips are listed in order of how much they impact your C-Bill gains.

1. Premium Account
There is nothing that impacts C-Bill generation as much as having premium time. Premium boosts your C-Bills earned by a flat 50%. So if you did good in a match and earned 100k C-Bills, premium lets you walk away with 150k. Even a mediocre player with premium time is going to earn C-Bills faster than a good player without it. When buying premium time, keep in mind that it counts down regardless of if you are logged in. If you buy 30 days, that time expires exactly 30 days from the time you bought it. Also note that just like buying MC, premium time costs less the more you buy at once. The 1 day, 3 day, and 7 day packages are a horrible value. If you are going to go premium, buy at least 30 days of time, and the cost is much more reasonable.

2. Hero Mech
There are currently eight hero mechs in the game, and more added every month. These unique mechs can only be bought with MC. But they have a powerful feature. All hero mechs have a 30% bonus to C-Bills earned when playing them. Just like premium time, this bonus takes your end of match C-Bill total and adds 30% to it. What’s even better is that this bonus stacks with premium time. If you are on premium and play in a hero mech, you are getting a full 80% more C-Bills for each match. Stacking these two bonuses takes that 900,000 C-Bills per hour figure, and pushes it all the way up to 1,620,000. PGI has recently started running bonus weekends where your Hero mech's C-Bill bonus gets bumped up all the way to 50%, and these weekends are a great time to earn a ton of cash.

3. Play To Win
Recent economy changes have removed the large C-Bill reward for winning a match. You now get a flat 25,000 C-Bills when the match ends, regardless of if you won or lost. However, winning your match is still going to massively increase your C-Bill rewards, for two reasons. First, the winning team gets a “Salvage” bonus typically ranging from 10k to 20k C-Bills, but I have seen it go up into the 40k range. Second, the winning team generally has a lot of kills, which means you are getting a lot more from the kill and kill assist bonuses. The easiest way to accomplish this goal is to play with friends in a premade team. If you only PUG, then make sure you are staying with your team mates and working toward winning the match.

4. Keep It Short And Sweet - Assault Beats Conquest
If your focus is making C-Bills quickly, the assault game mode is the way to go. Conquest mode recently got a tweak that brought the per match C-Bill gains on par with assault mode. But conquest matches still take quite a bit longer than Assault matches on average. PGI recently reported that the average time for assault games was less than four minutes. I don’t know the average length of conquest games, but it is definitely higher than four minutes. Another factor is kill count. Assault games end with the full destruction of the losing team over 90% of the time. But conquest games are now frequently won by points, and those enemy mechs left standing are lost kill and assist C-Bill bonuses, which as you are about to see, are very important.

5. Know Your Bonuses
The final tip for boosting your C-Bills is to know exactly what earns you those C-Bill bonuses at the end of a match. The following shows all the factors that go in to your end of match C-Bill total.

Assault Game Mode:
Win/Loss/Tie = 25,000
Team Kill = -10,000 * how many teammates you have killed
Component Destroyed = 2,500 * how many components you have destroyed
Enemy Kill = 5,000 * how many enemies you have killed
Enemy Kill Assist =7,500 * how many kill assists you got in the match
Spotting Assist = 2,500 * how many spotting assists you got in the match
TAG/Narc Assist = 2,500 * how many TAG/Narc assists you got in the game
Damage Done = 25 * how much damage you did in the match
Savior Kill = 7,500 * how many enemies you kill that were attacking a heavy damaged ally
Defensive Kill = 7,500 * how many enemies you kill that were capping a base or control point

Conquest Game Mode:
Win/Loss/Tie = 25,000
Team Kill = -10,000 * how many teammates you have killed
Component Destroyed = 1,250 * how many components you have destroyed
Enemy Kill = 2,500 * how many enemies you have killed
Enemy Kill Assist = 3,750 * how many assist you got in the game
Spotting Assist = 1,250 * how many spotting assist you got in the game
TAG/Narc Assist = 1,250 * how many TAG/Narc assists you got in the game
Damage Done = 25 * how much damage you did in the game

Savior Kill = 3,750 * how many enemies you kill that were attacking a heavy damaged ally
Defensive Kill = 3,750 * how many enemies you kill that were capping a base or control point
Resource Bonus = 50 * how many resources you have collected


As you can see, the largest C-Bill bonus is for kill assists. In my testing this was definitely the case, with kill assists account for as many bonus C-Bills as kills, spotting, and component destruction combined.

6. Conclusion - The story of a Flame
To help tie all this information together, let’s consider the story of a Flame pilot whose goal is to make the most C-Bills per hour possible. The Flame is a Hero Dragon mech and this pilot has active premium time, so he is already making 80% more C-Bills from that. He only plays assault mode because he knows he can play a lot more matches per hour that way. He only plays PUG matches, so during his games, he sticks with the group and whatever plan arises. His load out of lasers, SRM missiles, and an AC mean he can sustain damage during the entire match. He brawls with his team and is sure to blast every target of opportunity he has so he does not miss out on any kill assists. When he spots a target with an exposed arm or shoulder, he blasts it off to get the component destruction bonus. He always targets any enemy he sees and earns extra spotting assist C-Bills for his trouble. And finally, if he can see his team is clearly getting wiped out, he does not run and hide. He stays and fights, earning extra damage bonus, and dying faster so he can get on with the next match.

These are of course all just suggestions. No player should do anything they don’t enjoy just to earn some extra C-Bills. I personally play the heck out of conquest mode because it is just a lot more fun for me. But when I need money for a new upgrade or mech, sticking to all the above tips helps me get the C-Bills I need in no time.



Part Three: How to Make Every C-Bill Count

Regardless of how to earn them, once you have a nice stack of C-Bills, you want to make them stretch as far as possible. While there is nothing you can do to reduce the cost of new mechs or equipment, a little smart planning on what you buy can save you a lot of C-Bills over time.

1. Share Equipment Between Mechs
Once you have three or four mechs in your mechbay, you will find you don’t play all of them every day. Most people will typical be playing one or two of their current favorite mechs at a time. Rather than spending C-Bills to fully equip every mech you own, you can save a lot by sharing items between mechs. For example, a single ECM unit can be swapped between all your ECM capable mechs. Modules are another great item to share because of their massive cost. If you have two mech builds that use the same Engine, 10 seconds per match of switching the engine between them can save you 2-5 hours of grinding C-Bills needed to buy a second one.

2. Plan Ahead When Buying XL Engines
The most expensive items in the game are the XL engines. These bulky but light engines are crucial for a lot of mech builds that are otherwise impossible. But the price of entry for these high tech engines is staggering. XL engines will set you back two million to six million C-Bills. Before you drop a huge C-Bill stack on an XL engine, consider two things.
First, can that engine be shared between other mechs you own or plan on owning? Perhaps you are looking at and XL300 for your Jenner, but you own a lot of other light and medium mechs. While it will work out fine for any Jenner you own, it won’t fit on any other light mech chassis, or most of the mediums for that matter. An XL245 on the other hand can be shared between almost all the lights and mediums. The following list shows some of the XL engines that share well.

XL210: Fits every mech in the game.
XL255: Fits almost every mech in the game and is the lightest XL with the full 10 internal heat sinks.
XL300: Fits about half the mechs in the game, and is at a sweet spot for performance, heat sink slots, and weight.
XL340: Largest XL that still fits in a fair number of mechs.


The second consideration when buying an XL engine is based on what mechs you plan on buying in the future. Maybe you want an XL for your Jenner, but are also planning to buy the Raven 3L you keep hearing about. The Raven comes with an XL engine, so you may be able to just use that for your Jenner build and not buy a duplicate XL. The following list shows all the mechs that come with XL engines.

Raven 3L: XL210
Cicada 3M: XL320
Centurion D: XL300
Ilya Muromets: XL280
Cataphract 3D: XL280
Awesome 9M: XL 320
Stalker 5S: XL255
Atlas K: XL 300


3. Think Before You Upgrade
Mech upgrades, such as Double Heat Sinks and Endo-Steel Internals are very valuable tools in your mech building. But these upgrades are also expensive, and one way transactions. If you put on Endo-Steel, and then decide you want it off, not only will you not get your money back, you have to pay even more to switch it back to standard. Ferro Fibrous Armor is another tricky upgrade. Endo-Steel armor always gives you more extra tonnage, and very few mech builds can run both ES and FF at the same time. The bottom line is, fully plan out and research your mech build before you spend C-Bills on something you may not need.

4. Never Sell Equipment
My final piece of advice is simple; never sell your equipment. It may be tempting to convert a weapon you never use into some C-Bills, but if you plan on playing the game over any amount of time, chances are you may just end up buying that weapon back later. That XL engine you pulled out of your AS7-K may be useless to you now, but you will be kicking yourself later if you want it and have to pay millions to get it back. Patches change weapons, new mechs fill niches, and even the much maligned flamer may someday be useful.



Part Four: Spending Your MC Wisely.

Many people who play MWO will never buy any MC. Other than the limiting factor of only four mech bays, there is nothing to keep a free only player from getting just as much out of the game as someone who buys MC by the truckload. However, for those that do choose to buy MC, there are some definitely value considerations on how to spend it. The following list of what to spend your MC is arranged by highest value to lowest.This is a completely opinion based list so be sure to consider the reasoning behind each listing. The only person who can ultimately decide what is worth spending your hard earned money on, is you.

1. Unlocking Mech Bays for 300MC per Bay
Unlocking a new mech bay costs around $1.38 in US Dollars. This is a fairly low price, and if you do not unlock any new mech bays, you will be limited to playing with only 4 of the currently 54 unique mech variants. A great deal of the fun in MWO is building, tweaking, learning, and mastering a new mech. Because of the fairly low price, and how important it is to getting the most out of MWO, I consider unlocking mech bays the best use of MC.

2. Adding Premium Time
Premium time is a great investment that will speed up your C-Bill gain like nothing else. No matter how much MC you have, you still need C-Bills to load out your mechs. Premium time not only boosts your C-Bill gain by 50%, it boosts your XP gain by 50% as well. At about $11.50 for a month worth of premium, the cost is not unreasonable, and the gains are quite high.

3. Buying Hero Mechs
Hero mechs are unique mech variants with a custom paint job and a 30% boost to C-Bills you earn using them. There are currently four hero mechs in the game with a 5th on the way. Unlike premium time, hero mechs are forever, so you can access that 30% bonus any time you want for the rest of your MWO life. But most people don’t want to play with the same mech all the time, and eventually your hero mech may start to feel like a grind to play. Since premium time boosts C-Bills on any mech, hero mechs are just not as good of a value. Of course nothing boosts C-Bill gain like having both at once.

4. Converting XP to GXP
Whenever you earn mech specific XP, you also earn a small amount of general XP, or GXP. While mech XP can only be spent on the mech that earned it, GXP can be spent on any mech you own. More importantly, GXP is the only way to unlock modules on the pilot tree. GXP takes an eternity to earn naturally. But if you want to get your hands on module goodies faster, you can spend MC to convert you XP to GXP. To convert the 15,000 XP needed to unlock the most expensive modules only costs 600MC, or about $2.80. The cost is very reasonable, and it can save you a huge amount of time.

5. Buying Mech Camo Patterns and Paint
Custom mech paint jobs have recently undergone a cost structure change which has made them much more reasonably priced. The paint jobs have two parts, pattern, and color scheme. Patterns can only be bought with MC. Most of the paint colors can also only be bought with MC, but there is a small set of basic colors that you can buy with C-Bills. Camo Patterns cost depend on the pattern and if you want a one time application, or to unlock it for an entire mech line. For a single application of a normal Camo Pattern, you pay 75MC. This applies the camo once to one mech. Alternatively you can unlock a Camo Pattern for 750MC, which makes it permanently available to all mechs of that chassis (such as all your Dragon). Colors purchases are now global unlocks, and cost 500MC for "basic" colors, and 1000MC for "premium" colors, which are typically brighter and more vibrant. Once you buy a color it is yours forever and can be used on all your mechs. The best time to buy camo and paint is during weekend sales which occur about once a month, and cut the price in half for entire color lines.

6. Buying Cockpit Items
Cockpit items are a complete vanity buy. They range from bobble head dashboard figures you can see as you plod along in your mech, to noble house banners that are not even in view unless you specifically turn to look at them. These items range from 100 to 1000 MC, or from about $0.45 to $4.60 in US Dollars. Other players will only see your items if they spectate you, but the items can at least be traded between mechs, and once you buy them they are yours forever.

7. Buying Non-Hero Mechs
By far the worst use of MC, in my option, is to use it to buy normal mechs. A single mech is going to cost you anywhere from around $10 for lights, to over $30 for assaults. For those prices you could keep yourself in premium time and earn more than enough C-Bills to buy the mechs you want with. If there is a new mech coming into the game soon, try to save up your C-Bills ahead of time so you are not tempted to drop a massive chunk of MC to get it on day one.


Part Five: Sales
Recently PGI has started running increasingly frequent sales events. These events are typically weekend based and run from Friday to the following Tuesday. Almost all of these sales have been MC based so far, effective how much MC only items cost. If you are a patient sort, holding out for these sales events can really make your MC go a lot futher. Here is a list of sales events we have seen so far.

30% off MC cost of a specific Hero mech.
30% off MC cost of specific mechs.
50% off MC cost of a specific paint line (example, all the Cyan paints)
50% off MC cost of specific permanent camo unlocks.
50% off MC cost of specific cockpit items.
30% off MC cost of all paint, permanant camo, and cockpit items.
Double XP to GXP conversion per MC used.
Bonus MC when buying MC (rare, has only happened once so far)




Summary:

Thanks for taking the time to read this guide. While much if this information is already known to most players, hopefully you gained a bit of insight that can help you manage your C-Bills and MC more efficiently. I will do my best to update this guide as economic changes are implemented in the future. Please leave your feedback and I will correct any mistakes. I will read all the replies to this guide and add any other good economy tips the community has to offer.

Edited by 80Bit, 03 June 2013 - 06:28 AM.


#2 John MatriX82

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Posted 21 January 2013 - 02:43 AM

Nice guide.

I'd like to suggest some minor addictions; first: salvage. By destroying/dismembering the whole enemy team, you'll end up in having much less salvage than focusing on coring or, even better, headshotting mechs.

So you should suggest to try to go headshotting enemies if there's any occasion to do that. By headshotting, the rest of the mech (provided it's still in a good shape) you'll have much more salvage, because the items, weapons, engine will be sold for more than a barely dismounted and mangled chassis.

Nice preys are disconnected/afkers mechs still at base. If you manage, sneak to their base and HS them for increased salvage; plus if you manage to kill all of the enemy team with 1 disconnected, the latter will still be safe at base and the game will end before you can go there and HS him.

Second: kill assists. Put it down simply, suggest to shoot at least 1 time all of the enemy mechs you see. Your cbill income will thank. Sometimes I earn more in matches when friendlies steal kills to me and I gather big damages with 7 or 8 assists, than those when I may end up killing 4-5 enemies but not getting the remaining assists.

Engines:
I'd take away xl 340 (because you'd need to buy it intentionally). Useful engines are those with 25x dividers, so it's fine really most of what you suggest, but the best engine ratings usually are 250, 275 (280 if xl, the weight should be the same), 300 (obvious as you suggested), 325, 350, 375.

This because they allow several more HS engine slots.

By this, useful XLs to keep from bought mechs are 280, 300, 255 (weights the same of a 250), 210. Throw away 320's, for that 5 of missing rating, you can't fit a third heatsink/dhs that a 325 would :(

Those above are minor observations to an outstanding guide :(

Edited by John MatriX82, 21 January 2013 - 02:51 AM.


#3 Ursh

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Posted 21 January 2013 - 05:27 AM

Xl 300 can be used in quite a few mechs, such as jenners, catapults, cataphract, dragons, and cicadas


Also, if you have spare mc and really want a big xl, buy the centurion cn-
9D, not the atlas as-7k.
If you are new and want to shortcut.

Edited by Ursh, 21 January 2013 - 05:32 AM.


#4 80Bit

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Posted 21 January 2013 - 12:08 PM

View PostJohn MatriX82, on 21 January 2013 - 02:43 AM, said:

Nice guide.

I'd like to suggest some minor addictions; first: salvage. By destroying/dismembering the whole enemy team, you'll end up in having much less salvage than focusing on coring or, even better, headshotting mechs.

So you should suggest to try to go headshotting enemies if there's any occasion to do that. By headshotting, the rest of the mech (provided it's still in a good shape) you'll have much more salvage, because the items, weapons, engine will be sold for more than a barely dismounted and mangled chassis.

Nice preys are disconnected/afkers mechs still at base. If you manage, sneak to their base and HS them for increased salvage; plus if you manage to kill all of the enemy team with 1 disconnected, the latter will still be safe at base and the game will end before you can go there and HS him.

Second: kill assists. Put it down simply, suggest to shoot at least 1 time all of the enemy mechs you see. Your cbill income will thank. Sometimes I earn more in matches when friendlies steal kills to me and I gather big damages with 7 or 8 assists, than those when I may end up killing 4-5 enemies but not getting the remaining assists.

Engines:
I'd take away xl 340 (because you'd need to buy it intentionally). Useful engines are those with 25x dividers, so it's fine really most of what you suggest, but the best engine ratings usually are 250, 275 (280 if xl, the weight should be the same), 300 (obvious as you suggested), 325, 350, 375.

This because they allow several more HS engine slots.

By this, useful XLs to keep from bought mechs are 280, 300, 255 (weights the same of a 250), 210. Throw away 320's, for that 5 of missing rating, you can't fit a third heatsink/dhs that a 325 would :P

Those above are minor observations to an outstanding guide :)


Thank you for the feedback.

First your point on Salvage is totally valid. This guide is intended to be applicable to average players that may have trouble getting headshots, and will lose, on average, slightly more than half their matches, and thus earn no salvage. If you are a good player and are playing with a team, and win more than 70% of so of your matches, then salvage is indeed more profitable than component destruction. If you are a PUG player like most though and loose half your matches, the component destruction bonus ends up being more profitable, because you still get it even if your team loses.

Second, you are right that kill assist is the number one money earner. I tried to make that clear in my guide but I may go back to emphasize the point more.

Third, you are also right about the XL engines. I listed engines only taking in to account economical advantage, not performance advantage. It is true that the 15/50/75/00 engines are definitely the most efficient to use. However not all of these play well across mechs. The XL340 is indeed inferior to the XL350. But the 340 fits in 19 different mechs, and the 350 only fits in 11 mechs. I was not trying to get into item reviews in the guide, but I may add a disclaimer so people understand that while some XLs fit in more mechs, others are more efficient.

Thank you for helping clarify those points.

#5 John MatriX82

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Posted 21 January 2013 - 04:34 PM

Mine were just minor tweaks/suggestions to a really well written and complete work :). It should be definitely pinned.

And you're right about the xl 340 fitting in many mechs, it's that by reading it looked like it was "one of the best engines" which may be right for many, but sometimes it's more profitable to run 25 subdivided ratings.
Or at least, since many mechs halts at 340 (as you rightly said), maybe a 325 xl is more efficient in terms of weight savings/firepower, a 340 (on a cataphract for instance) is useful "only" for making the mech faster.

And about headshotting you're right, probably for 100% pug players component is better also for the extra XP given, but whenever you can perform an HS or more during a match, it may have more impact on the team income.

#6 Denniz0229

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Posted 22 January 2013 - 01:38 AM

Really nice guide!

helped me alot in understanding how to get cbills faster.


also, where do i buy premium time? cause the button is just greyed out for me, so i can't click it to add time.

#7 John MatriX82

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Posted 22 January 2013 - 02:12 AM

View PostDenniz0229, on 22 January 2013 - 01:38 AM, said:

Really nice guide!

helped me alot in understanding how to get cbills faster.


also, where do i buy premium time? cause the button is just greyed out for me, so i can't click it to add time.


You need to add MCs, by buying one of the packs above. Once your MCs are bound to your account you can then add the premium time you wish. Usually the worth MCs price for premium time is 1 month, below the exchange is rather bad

#8 Ravennus

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Posted 22 January 2013 - 02:22 AM

Awesome! Thanks for this!


My only minor issue is.... you recommend Assault over all else.
For the most part I agree, but there is an added wrinkle you didn't mention which I think is relevant.

Capping on Assault.

I can be making great Cbills per Hour doing Assault, and then hit a string of matches where it seems that all anyone wants to do is cap.
Mind you, this is solo PUGing, which I understand is part of the problem.

Ideally the capping is over quickly so I can get on to another match, but sometimes it is a long drawn out affair which rivals my longest Conquest matches.


It's hard to quantify, and seems to come down to luck.
But nothing gets me changing over to Conquest faster than 2 or 3 Assault matches which end up with super low cbills (even on a victory).

#9 MrLiNcH

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Posted 22 January 2013 - 06:31 AM

Very nice guide! Until I see a hero mech I really like (Flame is this close...), premium time a day at a time seems to me much more cost effective to gaining extra c-bills.

But I have one criticism with your earnings per hour. At 12 per hour, that means about a 5 min match. Unless you're purposefully rushing through matches and disconnecting after deaths and picking a new mech, there's no way you'd get that many in. I think more realistically is 7 or 8. 8 minute matches plus some time in between rounds for tweaking or general break.

Then again maybe I'm just a slow player, =)

#10 80Bit

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Posted 22 January 2013 - 08:55 AM

View PostRavennus, on 22 January 2013 - 02:22 AM, said:

Awesome! Thanks for this!


My only minor issue is.... you recommend Assault over all else.
For the most part I agree, but there is an added wrinkle you didn't mention which I think is relevant.

Capping on Assault.

I can be making great Cbills per Hour doing Assault, and then hit a string of matches where it seems that all anyone wants to do is cap.
Mind you, this is solo PUGing, which I understand is part of the problem.

Ideally the capping is over quickly so I can get on to another match, but sometimes it is a long drawn out affair which rivals my longest Conquest matches.


It's hard to quantify, and seems to come down to luck.
But nothing gets me changing over to Conquest faster than 2 or 3 Assault matches which end up with super low cbills (even on a victory).


You have a good point and I will go back and mentioned it in the guide. The good news is that Conquest is now fairly close to Assault in profitability, because long matches are by definition earning you more C-Bills from the resource bonus. I personally love Conquest. But even though Assault matches draw out on occasional they are still over a lot faster on average. And even if some matches are won by capture, the captures are typical early game base trades. 25,000 - 45,000 C-Bills for 90 seconds of play is still a pretty good return.

#11 80Bit

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Posted 23 January 2013 - 04:39 PM

MrLinch,

12 rounds an hour is definitely doable, but only when you are in "farm" mode. I never advocate trying to die fast though.

#12 Seth

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Posted 25 January 2013 - 09:32 PM

With 80Bit's permission, I used much of the content of this well written guide to update the C-Bill and MC page of the MWO-wiki. Thanks 80Bit!

#13 MuonNeutrino

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Posted 26 January 2013 - 05:25 PM

There's an interesting point about premium time that isn't generally recognized but can alter which premium time package is the best to choose. The obvious difference between the packages is the differing amounts of time you get for each MC:

1 day (24 hr) @ 250 MC = 10.4 MC per hour
3 days (72 hr) @ 650 MC = 9.0 MC per hour
7 days (168 hr) @ 1250 = 7.4 MC per hour
30 days (720 hr) @ 2500 MC = 3.5 MC per hour

At first glance, it does seem that the 30 day package is by far the best value. However, it's important to note that you aren't actually getting the benefits of a full 720 hours of premium time if you buy a month's worth - it sounds obvious, but you aren't actually benefiting from premium time while you're not playing the game! Therefore, you'll only get the benefits of however many hours of that premium time you actually spend playing. Therefore, if you want to figure out what amount of premium time is actually the most efficient for you, you have to take your playing habits and patterns into account.

For example, let's assume that some player plays two hours of MWO each evening during the week and 6 hours each on saturday and sunday - I can't speak for everyone, but I'd consider that a fairly intensive playing schedule. Assuming that four weekends fall during the 30 day period, that's a total of 92 hours played. In other words, for that 30 day period the amount of MC per hour of *used* premium time is 27.2!

Meanwhile, if you plan ahead it's not impossible to imagine actually playing for up to 15-16 hours of a 24 hour period - i.e. playing 6 hours friday night, sleeping for 8 hours, and then playing another 10 hours on saturday, with an hour or so in there lost to eating/restroom breaks/etc. This is what I did with the free day of premium time they handed out a while back - and yes, I have no life, but it illustrates the point. If you buy one day of premium time and then play for 15 hours of it, in this case the amount of MC per hour of used premium time is only 16.7 - in other words, almost 40% less than the 30 day case above. If the sort of marathon session is something you don't mind doing occasionally (or maybe even something you would have done anyway, depending on exactly how little of a life you actually have! :P), it can be a much more efficient use of MC than buying a full month of premium time.

It all depends on how you're most comfortable playing. It's possible to play for a larger proportion of a short period of premium time in a way that just isn't feasible for the longer periods, but it depends on whether you'd *want* to play that way. For example, while it might be possible to do a similar thing with the 3 day package over a long weekend, I don't think I'd actually enjoy (or probably even be *able to*) playing the game for three days straight. Meanwhile, the 30 day package *does* have the benefits of being able to play whenever you feel like it. Nevertheless, though, for me at least I'd be much more likely to occasionally clear out a weekend and buy a 1 day pack than to buy a full 30 days.

Edited by MuonNeutrino, 26 January 2013 - 05:25 PM.


#14 Rat of the Legion Vega

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Posted 27 January 2013 - 06:45 AM

Another tiny correction: you said other player's can't see your cockpit vanity items, but in fact team mates can when spectating if they die before you.

#15 Psikez

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Posted 27 January 2013 - 07:01 AM

Very well written guide, kudos op

#16 80Bit

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Posted 31 January 2013 - 12:31 AM

View PostMuonNeutrino, on 26 January 2013 - 05:25 PM, said:

There's an interesting point about premium time that isn't generally recognized ...


You make a great point MuonNeutrino. When you look at it that way, buying the shorter premium packages really may make sense for some people. I personally enjoy the convenience of not feeling rushed to pack my play time, for people who only get to play on their days off, it looks like it really can be viable. Thanks for bringing this up. If I revise the guide I will add this point in there.

#17 80Bit

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Posted 15 April 2013 - 11:35 AM

Updated the guide to reflect recent changes to the game.

Update List:
Changed average C-Bill earning numbers to reflect new Savior Kill and Defensive Kill bonuses.
Added information on consumables.
Updated information and prices for camo and color unlocks.
Changed XL250 recommendation to XL255.
Added info about sales.
Added info about C-Bill bonus weekends for Hero Mechs.

#18 80Bit

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Posted 26 April 2013 - 08:40 PM

Added part 5 to give information about sales events. If I missed any sales info please let me know.

Edited by 80Bit, 26 April 2013 - 08:41 PM.






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