Every craft and refine hands back part of the materials you put in. That share is the resource return rate, or RRR. On thin margins it decides whether a craft makes money at all, and it is the reason the same recipe pays in one city and loses in the next. These are the numbers Outpost's calculators use.
The formula
The game adds up a production bonus and turns it into a return rate once:
RRR = bonus ÷ (100 + bonus)
A bonus of 18 gives 18 ÷ 118 = 15.25%. Bonuses add first and the formula runs once, which is why a city bonus plus focus gives less than the two rates added together.
In a royal city the parts are:
- 18 at any royal city station.
- +40 when you refine that city's resource.
- +15 when you craft one of the city's specialty item groups.
- +10 or +20 on days when the city runs a production bonus for that category.
- +59 when you use focus.
The rates you will see
| Where you work | Bonus | Without focus | With focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Royal city, no specialty | 18 | 15.25% | 43.50% |
| Crafting specialty | 33 | 24.81% | 47.92% |
| Crafting specialty, +10 daily | 43 | 30.07% | 50.50% |
| Crafting specialty, +20 daily | 53 | 34.64% | 52.83% |
| Refining specialty | 58 | 36.71% | 53.92% |
| Refining specialty, +10 daily | 68 | 40.48% | 55.95% |
| Refining specialty, +20 daily | 78 |
