J14a analysis: Gambling is half as lucrative as before, which is still a lot better than anything grindable! About $2500 per runt-hour. The mint's best purpose is to make blue chips, and consider robbing people to get more (though research is good for score).
You can exchange copper and iron coupons with merely a mess hall, and it's lucrative too. But if you pick through the vendor trash, there are some occasional goodies like glamour to set aside.
Titanium and Tritanium require 1 and 5 Jack Bounty tokens. Are they worth it? I have no idea, how exciting!
Neutronium and Zortrium require a casino and are horrendously expensive compared to selling them. But you arguably get what you pay for.
I haven't rerun the math but I think it's tending toward the latter. Profit (compared to just selling the blue chips and using runts elsewhere) is presumably low now, but a lot of the rare rewards are tricky to get enough of. Value beyond money.
(There's no need to guess, I just ran the math again (pre-hotfix but mnyeh) and it's still extremely lucrative.)
Glamour is a good example. You can't buy it, and the sources don't seem grindable. But I'm also trying to produce a bunch of lascannons now, which requires Laser Weapon Parts which only come from breaking down un-purchaseable guns. Which the casino also provides.
(Infantry lasers only give lenses and crystals. Craft Charger Lasers are somehow purchaseable eventually, and give Energy Weapon Parts, but I'm not there).
It seems to allow skipping the tech tree a bit, since you can equip armor and some (most?) guns that haven't been researched. I just tested Doom 2 and GI armor, and the Scorchy laser-pistol.
Anyway... 1000 spins (for 1000 runt-hours) increased base value by $4,851,010. $4,851 per runt-hour... about the same as my last test. Huh, I guess it wasn't nerfed at all until the J14Apatch. *downloads*
There we go, 1000 spins produced about 2.47 million. $2470 per runt-hour is still much better than anything purely grindable, so blue chips are still valuable, but it does look like a 50% nerf. No Jack tokens either, though it did give 14 Valuable Coins for Goblin Zaxx (that's almost 3 Taskmasters, a nice bonus)
But that's assuming we sell the coupons. Trading the coupons in requires a casino (Not a security corridor! That would be ludicrous. I love funny bugs.), but does it increase their cash value, or provide rare/useful materials? Or both? I honestly don't know yet.
Copper - wait, wait this doesn't require the casino anymore WTF? Okay that changed in J14, only the last two versions need the casino! That's pretty nice actually, since the Casino is pretty advanced.
So copper (I think ~78): $198,940. Including 3 glamour
Copper (29): $63,625. No glamour but some signet rings and celatid essence
Titanium... wait why can't I reclaim titanium? ...Ohhh. Now I see. Since J14, reclaiming Titanium+ coupons requires Jack bounty tokens. I just didn't notice because spinning the wheel in the first place was granting huge amounts of them.
jeez maybe I should just call this run win a financial win and restart... No wonder I'm getting weird golden autocannons and stuff out of the Neutronium coupons, they take 125 Jack Tokens per trade!
Is there a way to get Jack Tokens that I'm missing? Since copper and iron coupons can be used for non-negligible Goblin Zaxx tokens... I don't think so though. Just assassination targets and- ohwow
ohwow
Straight-up cheating now, running 1000 Zortrium coupons. Only 200 get through before space fills up, that's fine. Net change... 19.4 million over 200 runt-hours.
19.4 million LOSS. And that's just valuing the 5000 lost Jack Tokens at $100, when they're actually worth...
But this loot, though. Such treasures.
also 3000 bottles of water, which is why the stores filled up. I noticed that before, still not sure what's up with it heh.TLDR; J14 is completely broken fhtagn, definitely update to J14a ia ia