Big bag of money being held in a fistThere are several ways to calculate profits. Because we often use the different terms interchangeably, there can be some confusion. This post is intended to shed some light on this topic and stimulate thought.

Profit happens every time something is sold for more than it cost. Some times we say profit and we mean increase in cash. Other times we mean moving cash from 1 location to another, typically from outside a system to inside the system. Other times we mean value added.

For example…
A ton of food on a class M planet might range from 20 credits when the planet is maxed to 200 credits when it is near empty. Moving it to a building that pays 120 credits would yield a profit or loss depending on the planet price. The value of the food would be 120 credits per ton, regardless. That is to say: the agreed upon trade value at that point is 120 credits. The Food, and other goods, get combined to produce something of “higher value” and the contents of the building change, reflected by the new value of the goods.

Goods can travel through a chain of buildings going up to higher and higher levels of goods until at some point the goods are taken to be used or sold outside the building chain. This might be droids for defense, robots for armor repair, etc.

The point at which the goods are sold to a planet or NPC SB the goods are converted back into credits. At this point, the credits out realize a profit if greater than the amount put in. This is the system level profit. Several individuals may have received their personal profits along the way. This is arguably just shifting the profit from 1 player to another while the sale to a planet is actual realized profit as money moves from game mechanics to player accounts.

One of the most valuable assets is time. In Pardus, this is marked as APs. If we can buy 200 APs for 16K, then the value of 1 AP is 80. Harvesting 60 energy in 15 APs yields 1200 credits worth of energy. That is also to say that the energy is worth 20/ton at this point. Each AP spent moving and transferring the energy to where it can be utilized adds to the cost of the energy. Spending 45 more APs to bring the energy to a planet and sell results in a cost of 80/ton and if the planet pays more than this, you realize a profit. Otherwise, you increase your cash, but realize a loss.