Competitions

Competition Strategy – Dog Tags

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So this year the dog tag competition is a little different. Each Tag has a score, which increases each time it is stolen, and each tag can be traced to it’s original owner.

So the more times a tag moves around the higher the scores will be.

But the more you target a player the less likely you will grab a tag off them, and you need 250 to get the second honor and this will probably get you 10 points if you hang on to them all until the end.

There are special tags, and you also get 10x the score of your tag if you have it at the end.

Each attack will have a random chance of taking a single tag – regardless of it being a leave/mug/hosp. The chance is further modified by how many times you have gained tags, and also how many times the person you are attacking has lost tags.

Ways to  approach the competition

So how do you get a high score?

Late Entry Theory

Well I suspect the best way is to be a late entry. Let people mug you and attack you can you get left with no tags. Then in the last week or so you start attacking for tags. The tags you get will have higher scores (as they have been around a lot!) and most players will have stopped trying to get tags as they only need to reach 250 to get the merit, not keep 250.

Run and Hide

Travelling overseas, attacking all in site, and travelling again is another, more difficult, strategy. Basically you can’t be attacked while in the air, so less likely to lose your tags. Downside? You have to be around all the time, and you have to time things well to make sure you are there when you land. If you get attacked abroad it can take ages to get out of hosp and then fly before you get put back in again

Play the numbers

You can make about 40-60 attacks a day easily, 3x Xanax is 30, refill and ‘wake up’ energy (12),  FHC (if you can afford it) is 24 and natural energy is about 20. If you are in hospital for 15-45 minutes every time someone tries to steal a tag off you then you are at worst going to lose 2 an hour, 48 a day, so using all your energy every day will put you out ahead (assuming all attacks gain a tag, or lose a tag).

Self Hosp

Easier to self hosp than fly, as it needs less organisation, but it’s the same idea. Attack in batches and then put yourself in hosp somehow (SEDs will get expensive quick, but bad blood bags might be usable).

 

Target Hunting

Of course then there is the issue of finding targets. I normally add ‘collectors’ to my blacklist and just hit each one daily – but with the new system it will probably mean I stop getting tags from them after a week.

Another way is to go through companies, factions or hall of fame lists and just attack each person one by one. If they give you their own tag then don’t hit again, if they give you someone else’s then add them to a rinse and repeat list (until they stop giving).

You can also head to your dog tag page and see who else has been taking tags (any tag that you got from someone other than it’s owner usually). Just wait 4-8 hours between attacks and you will probably get a tag off one of the inbetweeners.

Ideas for making money during the competition

There will be a lot of market movement both early and late in the competition for anything that can be used in attacking or self hosping. Points will probably also rise in value for a bit. So one way to make some cash is to buy and sell as quick as possible.

An alternative method I have been thinking about is by selling tags back to the original holder. Remember they get a bonus for that tag so they may be willing to pay you for it! Bit of a gamble though as you can’t trade them, so beware of scammers 🙁

Updates:

There are a few threads in the forums about how players might get better scores. One suggestion is score farming your tags, swapping between you and a friend over and over.

I’ve not tried this yet, but I imagine two problems: It only takes one outsider to mug you or your buddy to lose the tag, and if you have more tags you may find you and your buddy don’t score farm the same tag before it gets taken by someone else.

If you do go and read the threads make sure you attack some of the posters, they are sure to have tags on them, right?

Gambling

Are you Keno to do some more gambling?

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So Keno is kind of a boring game, but at least it’s easy and quick to play. The idea is simple, you pick between 1 and 10 numbers and then Torn draws 10 numbers randomly. If you are looking for an online platform to play Keno, here is an imp source, that will guide you.

If your numbers match the drawn numbers you can win a prize (if you choose more than 7 numbers you need two matches to win a prize)

Now the odds of this game aren’t good, and they don’t change (unlike blackjack, hi-lo and poker). Here is a table of expected returns:

Picks Return per 1 bet
1 1
2 0.984177215
3 0.973101266
4 0.991303001
5 0.991319016
6 0.99760486
7 0.984712671
8 0.994884466
9 0.995126594
10 0.988061744

As you can see there is no correlation between how many numbers you pick and the odds of winning. The best ‘loss’ is the 6 picks, as you only lose 0.0024 of your stake. But of course your max win is only 4b.

Personally if I have no time to do slots or blackjack I play Keno with 10 numbers – As the prize and odds of the top prize are the best, even though in the long run I lose more than 9 numbers. The trick here is to win the jackpot before you’ve played 10b worth of games, so is better to try to play in casino games online with options like lucky tiger casino that specialize in this area.

Here is the winnings table:

Picks/Matches 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1 8
2 2 38
3 2 7 80
4 2 3 10 300
5 1.5 3 5 50 2b
6 1.5 2 4 10 200 4b
7 0 3 10 25 150 1000 5b
8 0 2 7 20 200 500 1b 10b
9 0 2 5 10 70 200 1b 10b 10b
10 0 1.5 3 10 50 500 5b 10b 10b 10b

If you do play good luck!

Income

Stockmarket and the mysteries of profit

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The stockmarket is a great way to make money without risking a mugging. But it isn’t all plain sailing, and there are of course a few ways to make money from it. Before we get on to that though here is my disclaimer: The below is only intended to be a discussion of possible tactics, and I will not be liable for any financial loss you incur! (I would of course be very happy to liable for your profits)

So there are three ways I use to make money at stocks:

Buy Low Sell High (well duh!)
Benefit block hoarding
Buy Lower and just sell

Buy Low Sell High

The traditional method – and the one that most people think of when they talk about any kind of market trading. Of course it’s not as simple as that though, for starters how much do you want to make before you sell? On torn we can effectively use a high frequency trading strategy as prices only change every 15 minutes. So if you are in a position to always be there for those changes you can push the sell button at the best time.

Buying:

Now I still use the original torn stock exchange pricing scheme as a guide for buying price. If you weren’t around for the first TCSE the benefit blocks were done by price, not by shares held. So what I do is equate those numbers with the new shares required number and that is the price I expect the share to jump around. Some shares have drastically changed and this doesn’t apply, but for the most part it still works:

Stock Code Original BB New BB Price My Price
TCB 1000 1.5 666.67 633.33
CNC 3000 5 600.00 570.00
MCS 350 1.75 200.00 550.00
WLT 5000 9 555.56 527.78
IIL 35 0.1 350.00 500.00
BAG 800 3 266.67 500.00
SYM 250 0.5 500.00 475.00
SYS 1500 3 500.00 475.00
TCSB 2000 4 500.00 475.00
LSC 50 0.1 500.00 475.00
TCHS 50 0.15 333.33 400.00
TCM 250 1 250.00 380.00
FHC 750 2 375.00 356.25
HRG 500 1.5 333.33 316.67
YAZ 50 1 50.00 300.00
WSSB 30 0.1 300.00 285.00
TCP 200 1 200.00 280.00
ISTC 25 0.1 250.00 237.50
TCC 75 0.35 214.29 203.57
TCT 25 0.125 200.00 190.00
GRN 100 0.5 200.00 190.00
EWM 400 2 200.00 190.00
SLAG 300 1.5 200.00 190.00
EVL 350 1.75 200.00 190.00
TMI 1000 6 166.67 158.33
IOU 500 3 166.67 158.33
MSG 25 0.3 83.33 150.00
PRN 45 1.5 30.00 130.00
ELBT 600 5 120.00 114.00
TGP 200 2.5 80.00 100.00

Selling

Of course before every deciding what to buy I check the stock graph, usually for a year period, for an idea of how it’s moving. Anything older than a year can be a bit misleading – changes in game can change the demand for a stock, or can influence how often players do an action that improves/reduces the price of that stock. Here is WLT for example, one of my favorites, with a red line at my buying price.

WLT-stock-graph

 

Personally I like to try and make 1% off of any share purchase I make. And with any luck I can do this within 3 days of buying. But timing the selling can be tricky – remember there are a hundred others trying to do the same. With WLT I often see them sell out at about 560 per share (yes, above my buy price guide), and I actually buy at around 565 normally. They go up to 600 on the rare occasion, so there is plenty of room for selling.

When you hit sell your shares go in to a queue to be sold, the first available get sold first, so if you are the last to hit sell you will be waiting the longest. You can bet that if I hit sell at 571 (my intended profit) I will end up waiting three days or more and at that point I could be further in profit, or sometimes back where I started. If I hit sell at 568 though I could be in the middle of that queue. The price normally keeps on rising and people still buy at 570 hoping it will get to the 600 mark.

That of course is the other method of trying to make money at stocks. It’s not an easy one, shares stop selling the higher they go, and a lot of ‘big profit hunters’ end up hanging on to shares for a month or two to make 10% profit. If you compare the two methods and estimate I make 1% a week on an initial 100m, compared to 10% in 8 weeks, you would think I am missing out on 1.7% profit. But it’s important to remember the risks involved. In a year I may fail to make 1% on about 10% of my purchases. I would imagine a big profit hunter will fail on at least double that.

Benefit Block Hoarding

If you have plenty of spare cash around and want to lock it up, keep it safe, and still make a small profit then BB blocks are the one for you. There are three types of benefit as I see it

  • Cash dividends
  • Item dividends
  • Game modifiers

The biggest money spinners are the Item dividends – they pay out once a week normally and the item prices are often quote good compared to the benefit cost. FHC for example is a 12m item every week, compared to 750m cost

Stock Benefit Cost Weekly payout % Gain
HRG Random Houses 500 10 2
LSC Lotto Vouchers 50 0.9 1.8
FHC FHC 750 12 1.6
SYM Drug packs 350 4.5 1.285714
TCHS Med packs 50 0.5 1
PRN EDVDs 270 2.5 0.925926
EMW Grenades 490 1.3 0.265306
SLAG Lawyer Cards 350 0.7 0.2

Cash dividends are poor – they rarely pay out, and when they do they are quite small compared to the block cost. TMI for example gave me 45m every 3 months or so. This is about 1.2m per week for a 1b cost.

Stock Cost Payout % Gain (3m/1w)
TMI 1000 45 4.5 / 0.375
IOU 450 20 4.44 / 0.37
TCSB 2500 90 3.6 / 0.3
GRN 100 3 3 / 0.25
TCC 75 2 2.66 / 0.22

Game modifiers are all dependent on how you quantify things. CNC for example is good for oil rig owners, but won’t benefit anyone else, and if you own a rig it probably gives you 10% profit per day (5-6m) for the 2.5-3b investment. MCS gives 300 energy randomly, maybe once a week, but for me 300 energy could be 2 FHC (24m) or 12 mugs (12-100m).

Cash benefits:

Stock Benefit Worth
TCB Better bank rate 5m a week?
MCS Random energy 24m a week?
WLT Quicker travel 14m a week?
YAZ Free Banner Ads Up to 3.5m a week
ELBT 10% off house upgrades Property sales dependant

Company Owner benefits:

Stock Benefit Worth
CNC Oil rig profit / cost reduction Up to 35m a week?
TCP 10% company profits Up to 7m a day
TGP Increased Advertising Unknown
SYS Hacking Protection Not quantifiable

Other:

Stock Benefit Worth
IIL Reduced virus coding time Minimal
BAG Unknown Unknown
TCM Reduced Car Upgrade Costs Minimal
ISTC No Education Money Cost Minimal
WSSB No Education Energy Cost Minimal
TCT Free personal Adverts Minimal
EVL Random Happy Minimal
MSG Free classified ads Minimal

Trusted friends

There is of course another route to making money this way. But only if you have trust in another player 110%. Buy shares and get someone else to hold them for you. I do this with some of my closest in game friends, they get to keep 1 in every 3 items/dividends, and if they end up making enough money they can buy the shares off me.

Buy Lower and Just Sell

An alternative way of making money is by offering to buy shares off others at a discount rate. Often people want to get the money out of their shares quickly, and waiting for them to sell on the open market isn’t an option. This is a good opportunity for a player with time and money to buy them cheaper than market price (80-99% of cost). Once bought you put them on the market to sell like any other share, but you are gambling that they will sell before the price drops below what you paid for them.

 

So that is the low down on the stock market. If you need to make some cash to invest then read about how I would make some capital in my article Simple ways to make money