Mahine Gun vs Automatic Cannon

[Mantzikert Askold]

I'm looking at the 200mm Light Gallium Machine Gun and the 200mm Light Prototype Automatic Cannon

They seem to have identical stats, except
Gallium has an optimal range of 1100m and Damage modifier of 3.176.
Prototype has an optimal range of 1150m and Damage Modifier of 3.321.

Which to me means the Prototype is marginally better.

But it has a lower price.

Am I missing something?

[Kano Fiera]

I'm looking at the 200mm Light Gallium Machine Gun and the 200mm Light Prototype Automatic Cannon

They seem to have identical stats, except
Gallium has an optimal range of 1100m and Damage modifier of 3.176.
Prototype has an optimal range of 1150m and Damage Modifier of 3.321.

Which to me means the Prototype is marginally better.

But it has a lower price.

Am I missing something?

The Prototype (meta 3) is better than the Gallium (meta 2) and if it's cheaper, you should just buy the Prototype. However, it's not usually cheaper -- Evepraisal says that right now the median sale price for the Prototype is over twice as expensive as for the Gallium.

Since meta items are only available via drops from destroyed NPCs, sometimes you'll find cases where inferior equipment is "more expensive" because the superior equipment is so common that it alone satisfies all demand, so the inferior equipment is practically never traded. That's not the case here overall; 200mm cannons are very commonly used, so both of these meta items are traded a lot. You must just be in a region where there are no favorable 200mm Gallium deals on offer.

[Cassiel Seraphim]

Worth noting is that the phenomena of superior items being cheaper extends to more things as well.

Some faction and deadspace modules are also like that. It's a combination of supply and demand, people (both buyers and sellers) being lazy, ignorant or downright stupid, which ultimately means that you can sometimes find better modules for the same price or even less.

In some extreme cases I've found B-type deadspace modules that are much better than their C-type variants, at prices below the prices for the C-type modules. It's also very common that modules with multiple identical faction variants (that only differ in name and how you get them) have widely different prices and you could end up making a steal or end up paying way too much if you don't check out all the variants before buying them.

So the moral of the story is, people are stupid and it often pays off to check prices of similar or better modules to see if you can't get more for your ISK

[Mantzikert Askold]

OK, thanks. Perhaps I should have checked out the Jita Prices and I might have had the opportunity of transport and profitable sale. Oh well, now I know for next time.

Thanks
Mantz