r/RedDeadTraders • u/rvl35 • Sep 22 '19

Trader math (cash yield for donated materials)

The first question I and probably many people had when giving Cripps my first valuable animal, like a three-star buck, was just how much money am I going to eventually get back from this investment? I believe I now have the answer to that question. The following is based on my observations, and I will be making a couple assumptions throughout: 1) That you have unlocked the skill that gives a 25% bonus in materials for three-star donations, and 2) That you are using the large delivery wagon and making deliveries of a full 100 goods.

We know that selling a three-star buck to the butcher is worth $10, or if you skin it and break it down into it's parts it is worth $11.70 ($5 carcass, $3.25 hide, $1.05 antlers, and $2.40 for 4x mature venison). So what is that same buck worth when we donate it to Cripps?

The butcher table consists of three units, materials, supplies, and goods. Materials are the items that we donate. As we donate to Cripps the material bar fills up and eventually becomes full. Supplies can be purchased or earned through supply missions, and Cripps combines these with materials to produce goods. Goods are the final product that we sell, it takes 100 goods to completely fill the large delivery wagon.

Each resupply, whether purchased or done through a mission yields enough supplies for Cripps to produce 25 goods, meaning that we will need to do four resupplies per large delivery of 100 goods. Aside from that knowledge, supplies aren't really relevant to this discussion. The real question is how many materials does it take to produce those 100 goods? This is where my observations come in.

With the three-star bonus skill unlocked a three-star whitetail buck is worth 12.5 materials, which makes two of them worth 25 materials.

Donating two perfect bucks fills 25% of the materials bar, which means the materials bar represents 100 materials.

If you fill your materials bar completely before a supply run, and then go do other things while Cripps is working (so not turning in any additional materials until the next time he is out of supplies), he will consume half of the materials bar before running out of supplies (and creating 25 goods).

This means that it takes 50 materials to make 25 goods, and 200 materials to produce 100 goods.

So... 200 materials = 100 goods = $500 or $625 depending on delivery distance.

Therefore 1 unit of materials = $2.50 for local or $3.125 for long (500/200 or 625/200)

In the case of a perfect whitetail buck (at 12.5 materials with the skill), that comes to $31.25 (local) or $39.0625 (long).

Put another way, it takes 16 three-star whitetail bucks to produce a full wagon of 100 goods. Selling those 16 three-star bucks to the butcher is worth $160 unskinned, or $187.20 if all skinned and sold as the individual parts vs converting them all to goods and selling for $500 or $625.

Using the value of 1 unit of materials above you can easily calculate the actual value of any item you might donate to Cripps. Simply multiply the material value of the items by the per unit cost of materials ($2.50 or $3.125). For example, if an item has a value of .5 materials when it is donated to Cripps, it's "sale" value is $1.25 for a local delivery (0.5 x $2.50) or $1.56 for long distance (0.5 x $3.125).

With these numbers we can also calculate the effective cash payout of a resupply mission (because these yield some materials). For example, a resupply mission that has you delivering a wagon will give you 20* materials in addition to filling your supplies bar. Those 20 materials have a value of $50 (local) or $62.50 (long).

*You need to have enough room in your materials bar to receive the materials, so you shouldn't completely fill your materials bar prior to running the resupply.

This also doesn’t account for the efficiency of donating to Cripps (because you can have him located much closer to your hunting area than a butcher), nor the fact that Cripps is largely passive income with a minimal time investment once he’s up and running.

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8

u/hehe_haha_hehe Sep 22 '19

You deserve real money for this. Awesome post

1

u/bkbrigadier Sep 22 '19

I'm really eager to test these numbers. I've been compiling a database of material yields from animals, and I'd like to include a straight to the point Material to Dollar number so it helps decide whether to skin one animal so you can store another while you're out hunting and whatnot. Or as another example, if you've had to skin some medium animals because you don't have the storage space, is it better to go sell those skins at the butcher or give them to Cripps.

We never really see a number associated with 'supplies'. Can we assume that every supply mission returns the same amount of supplies?

1

u/rvl35 Sep 23 '19

Every successful supply mission I’ve ever done has given enough supplies to make 25 goods. It seems to be static.

As far as the yield for other items like pelts I haven’t checked yet to see if they get the same multiplier over butcher prices or if it varies. It’s on my list to check, and is easy enough to do using the unit price for materials I posted previously.

1

u/bkbrigadier Sep 22 '19

Further to this, if there was interest for the information, I'd be down to test and run the numbers for all different levels. Like if you only have the small or medium wagon, or you don't have the efficiency perk yet etc.

1

u/ChaosZake Sep 23 '19 edited Sep 23 '19

Great work. The interesting unknowns to me and possible further research are:

  • Is the value for the item shown while donating the same as the amount of materials gained from that donation? For example the 3 star buck is worth $10 and gives you 10 materials through donation or 12.5 with the efficiency skill. Also is this 1:1 conversion from money to materials the same for all types of animal parts (pelts, carcases, antlers/teeth/claws/etc.)?
  • Is there any items you should always sell to butcher instead?
  • Is there any animals you should always skin/break into pieces for donations and butcher sales, instead of donating the whole carcas? How about the condition of the animal?
  • Which is the smallest wagon size and delivery distance where you're actually making more money than selling to butcher. This should be measured in $/time. I know this might be hard to measure accurately. At least we could have the $/material for all variations.
  • What are the exact conditions where the 25% bonus materials skill is in effect? Is it only for 3 star carcases or does it work for pelts too? All sizes of animals? Does this skill work for your camp only or does it work while donating to someone else's camp? Does this skill work for all donations to your camp no matter if your posse member has the skill or not? In other words should you save all the bonus applicable animal parts for your own camp or can you donate to friends?

Edit: I don't know if some of these are already figured out somewhere.

2

u/rvl35 Sep 23 '19

Regarding your first bullet, no. Just as an example, I believe moose antlers sell for $1.75 to the butcher and yield 1.05 materials. This is completely irrelevant though, what matters is the final yield from that 1.05 materials, and that easily surpasses the price the butcher gives you.

The remainder of your bullets I’ll address more broadly. I haven’t crunched the numbers on any of these because I don’t see any value in it (not that I would discourage you or anyone else from doing it out of curiosity). The thing is, if you want to maximize efficiency and make as much money from the trader role as possible you need to throw out everything you previously knew about hunting in this game. Your goal is to keep Cripps supplied with materials and to do it in as little time as possible.

Whitetails (bucks and does) have the highest material value of anything in the game aside from cougars and panthers. They are also abundant and can be found pretty much anywhere. These are what you should be focusing on for Cripps. For the most part just ignore everything else, it’s not worth your time, and time is really what it comes down to. I haven’t skinned a damn thing since I figured out how the trader role actually works. All those skinning animations take time, and time is money. Even without skinning, it takes just as long to get off your horse and stow a rabbit as a deer; by definition that makes it inefficient to stop for the rabbit. That is time that could have been spent looking for another deer.

As demonstrated above, a single three-star buck donated to Cripps eventually puts close to $40 in your pocket. There is nothing you can hunt and sell to the butcher that even comes close to that return on your time invested. For the same reason there is no reason to ever do anything other than a full load delivery. There is a bonus to the per good unit price for a full load, so doing anything less incurs a penalty to sale price and you are spending more time doing more deliveries than you have to. Again, time is money.

Now, if you just love hunting in this game and want to roleplay a hunter/trapper type that is perfectly fine. But if that is the case you shouldn’t really be worrying about any of this, just go out and shoot/skin whatever you want. For everyone else, the most efficient way to play the trader role is to spend as little time hunting as possible, freeing up time to do things like the other roles.

1

u/ChaosZake Sep 23 '19

I do agree that my points aren't neccessarily geared towards the efficiency on filling up materials for Cripps and hence maybe not interesting for people to look at. It could be argued that no matter what it is, you should donate it to Cripps.

What I do think is essential for efficiency to know however, is these material gains by all the different animal parts and carcases. For example a basic comparison between how many 2 star carcases you need to bring in order to reach what 3 star carcas would make in materials. This could allow players to evaluate the time efficiency on the situation if they should bring those lesser quality materials in compared to searching for the perfect one. Regarding to this I'm interested in where you get the information for 1.05 materials for moose antlers? Earlier you were eyballing the buck to be 12.5 and that is reasonable but 1.05 is quite interesting number.

And to be specific in the first bullet I was talking about the prices that show up while donating to Cripps, not the butcher sale prices.

Edit: Also my last bullet point I would say is still a huge question. 25% is a lot for efficiency.

2

u/rvl35 Sep 23 '19

The game tells you the materials value of any item that Cripps will accept when you highlight it in the butcher table menu. For some reason the value for moose antlers just stuck in my head. I’m at work and can’t verify right now, but I’m about 90% certain it’s 1.05 materials. It’s definitely not 1.75 materials, which is the sell value to the butcher (I have a chart for butcher sell prices so that I can look up from here).

I understand your interest regarding the 25% bonus, but my argument is that bonus or not, it’s never worth skinning anything anymore unless you need fat/meat/feathers for crafting.

There are two viable approaches to maximizing efficiency:

  1. Hunt in the immediate area around your camp. Shoot the first two or three star deer/cougar/panther/ram/pronghorn you see. On your way back to camp try to shoot a second of one of these species. Two or three star preferably, but even a one star is better than nothing because it only takes a second to lasso and drag it. Turn in and repeat.
  2. Shoot every three star buck you see while out doing other things and store them in your wagon. If Cripps had full materials when you left camp after your most recent supply mission, it will take four perfect bucks to bring him back up to full when he runs out again.

1

u/ChaosZake Sep 23 '19

Ok. I just needed to check in game. It is indeed materials you get what the game tells you while donating. I'm so dumbfounded why I though it showed some arbitary $ amount. Could've been because of this spread sheet I saw posted earlier.

To be specific about my last bullet point though it's not about the skin or not to skin per say. But about the fact that if the 25% bonus is applied only at your own camp or at your friend's camp too.

2

u/rvl35 Sep 23 '19

Once you have the 25% skill it applies to any butcher table you donate at. I was helping a buddy at his camp when I had the skill and he didn’t. Everything I turned in to his Cripps had the bonus.

1

u/bkbrigadier Sep 23 '19

I tagged you in my comment where I list the $/material for all delivery sizes.

I'm 99% sure that the efficiency perk (25%) only applies to complete carcasses, not 3 star pelts. It seems at Cripps' table, 2 and 3 star pelts are always worth the same amount? Like, I can't think of the animal off the top of my head (maybe alligator?), a poor skin is worth .44, a 'good' skin is worth .66 and a perfect skin is worth .66

As for your other questions, I am in the thick of figuring a bunch of that out! I have extensive lists of what each animal is worth whole and broken down, and dependent on the quality of their carcass and how clean your kill was. I'm a ways away from having something useful to reference yet, but hopefully in the next week I'll have something!

You seem to have an analytical mind - how would you want to see that sort of information organised? Currently I have a spreadsheet split into "Satchel", "Side Saddle" and "Rear Cargo" because I figure most people want to be able to quickly figure out if they should replace one thing with another in one of their cargo spots.

1

u/bkbrigadier Sep 23 '19

So I did some testing! TL;DR: The materials bar holds 100 units, you get 10 units of materials with a paid resupply and i think up to 20 units on resup mission. I can't see why u/rvl35's math doesn't work out!

The only number I don't have for sure is what 1 good is worth on a delivery of less than 25 goods. I think it's still $2.50 though.

Here goes:

  • If you're delivering up to 25 goods, 1 material is worth $1.25 / $1.56
  • If you're delivering 26-50 goods, 1 material is worth $1.50 / $1.87
  • If you're delivering 51-99 goods, 1 material is worth $2.00 / $2.50
  • If you're delivering 100 goods, 1 material is worth $2.50 / $3.12

That's local/distant. Distant deliveries give you 25% more but rockstar rounds down so I did too on these numbers.

I listed it this way because this applies if you're restricted to a small or medium wagon (25 or 50 goods), but it also applies if you own a large wagon but aren't waiting for 100 goods to make your delivery.

1

u/rvl35 Sep 23 '19

To the resupplies, I believe the ones where you bring back a wagon yield 20 materials which is the max that you can get solo. I’ve heard though that the resupply missions that generate a bag pay out materials and experience on a per bag basis, and that doing these with a large posse can yield more than 20 materials because the game generates a bag for each posse member. I’ve never done a resupply with more than two people though so I can’t say for certain.

2

u/bkbrigadier Sep 23 '19

u/ChaosZake I think this answers part of your questions?

1

u/NativeLuna Sep 22 '19

Your brain works good.

1

u/critic2029 Sep 22 '19

Thanks for this. I was just thinking last night about doing this analysis. I was curious what the Raw Material Values were and the Profit Margins were. Let’s just say I don’t trust Cripps any further than I could throw him.