I know with enhancements coming up sometime in the future, many people are a bit concerned with money. Besides the normal gameplay options, one popular way is selling friend units, but people seem to have many different ideas on how to do this, so here's some notes on what to keep in mind for advantages and disadvantages of each way. And yes, this is a very very long read. Spoilers: Most people are doing it wrong when it comes to using FP units for money. Also, if you lick a 9 volt battery, it tastes like potatoes. Try it at home. Also, this is a long, technical read, and I've not had time to do a copyedit on it. Nor do I give a shit about doing that, since the good stuff is charts. Don't hurt yourself trying to read it all in one go.

Factors to keep in mind

For most methods of selling FP units for money, we level said units. The amount of money you get from a friend unit depends on the rarity (stars) of a unit, and their level. The level they get from leveling depends on their growth rate, which is tied to their rarity. A unit that can be a 1* unit uses an EXP table based on 5 EXP for level 2, while a 2* base unit uses one that requires 10 EXP for level 2. This means if you have two 2* units, one a 1* base and one a 2* base, it's easier to get more gold out of the 1* base unit because they level up faster.

A bit of math you may want to skip

First off, a bit on how selling of items work. As stated above, the gold you get is based on the stars of the unit, and their level. The growth pattern does not seem to matter. I will say however that I'm not sure there isn't something else at play; while checking this, I noticed a 2* Paula sells for the same price as normal 3* units.

How much gold you get seems to be based on a formula. Hell if I know it, but I do see a pattern. When looking for a pattern in something, a good idea is to write down how much a number changes each time. And if that doesn't give you a clue, then write down by how much the number it changes by changes. Like so, for the 1* units:

1* Chart

Difference A is how much gold was gained since the last level

Difference B is how much more gold was gained this level, vs the amount of gold gained last

level. IE, for level 5, it's Level 5's Diff A - Level 4 Diff A.

The amount you receive starts out at 200, then goes up by 21, but I'm suspecting it's really a rounded 21.5. Then it starts adding about 21.5x2 more each time. I have to say about, because it should be 43, but sometimes there's a 44, and always next to the 44 is a 42. It seems like the pattern might be 44 42 43 43 42 44 42 and then repeats. So the formula for the increase is ALMOST:

(Level-2) * 43 21

For example, at level 12, you gain:

(12-2)*43 21 = 10*43 21 = 430 21 = 451

One off from what shows up on the table. The error in the formula does not increase at 15, it's still one off. This also means the total gold using this formula will stray, but only slightly at level 15, the total is 4407, so it looks like every other level, it goes one higher.

So what about two stars? I didn't map it out much, and I saw a few odd things. First,

2* Chart

Entries with a ? are estimated

You can tell right off the bat it's a different formula than the 1* units:

(Level-2) * 35 17

This means a 2* unit can sell for more because they can reach a higher level, but they gain LESS per level than a 1* unit, and due to the nature of this formula, it ramps up faster quite quickly.

What about 3* units? Well, they start out at 800 and at level 2, they sell for... 821, same gain as the 1* units. But it doesn't follow the pattern for the 1* units.

The boxes marked with ?s are guesses on my part, I did not have units of the proper level to check. But since the numbers stay in order, it looks like 3* values are based on 20.5 vs the 21.5 of the 1*. There's a slightly slower growth, but a 3* will not sell for less than a 1*.

What does this mean?

Say you have a 1* and a 2* unit. At level 1, the 2* sells for 300 gil more. If both units are a experience pattern 1 (5 exp), feeding them another 1* unit will get them both to level 7. At level 7, the 2* sells for 150 gil more than the 1* unit. Feed them another unit, and they reach level 9. At level 9, the 2* sells for 32 gil more. Give them one more unit, and you get to level 10, where the 1* sells for 39 gil MORE than the 2*.

Recap: A 1* unit, while the lowest starting resell value, gains it the fastest, about 43/level. It also has the best EXP rate, gaining higher levels than a 3*. A 3* unit has the highest initial value, and second highest gold growth, at about 41/level. But they also have the slower EXP growth. A 2* unit had a higher initial resale than 1*, but much slower growth, being passed before level 12. A 2* may have the good EXP rate (If a 1* base) or the bad EXP value (If a 2* base), making them potentially the worst ones to spend EXP on.

Method #1 - Metal Minituar

A metal minituar is worth 5,000 EXP. This will bring a 1* unit to max level 15, and a 2* base unit to level 12. If used on the 2* form of a 1* base unit, it'll bring them to level 16, which sells for 4379, less than a level 15 1* unit.

So the amount of money gained depends on how you use the Minituar. This chart below lists some common setups, please note the % over selling does not include the option of selling minituars in it's price. It's just the amount of gold you gained from leveling the FP unit, minus the cost of selling the unleveled FP unit. The cost of using the Minituar is figured into the numbers on the chart, but no value is assigned to the Minituar itself. This makes using 2 Minituars on one unit SEEM like a better value. You get a higher % profit vs just selling a single unit, but the total profit is lower.

At this point, you can see where the chart will end up. The best value is adding a Mini to a 1* unit. They have the best EXP growth, and best resell at higher levels. If you're out of 1* units to Minituar, it's not really worth it to use them on other units.

Do I recommend using Minituars? No, because of the lost EXP. It's a fair misconception that using minis for EXP is a waste due to the gold cost, but that just doesn't work out. /u/stmack has a post over at https://www.reddit.com/r/FFBraveExvius/comments/4s5q0u/fusing_and_selling_by_the_numbers/ that mentions how fusing works. The cost to fuse a level 1 unit into another is 30 the unit being enhanced's level * 30 per unit you fuse. So if you're leveling a level 1 6* unit with 5 minis, it'll be 25,000 EXP (Level 18) for 300 gold. So fusing the minis to lower level units is generally a good idea. Note that it actually seems to be the formula is (Level of Base Level of Material) * 30.

But what about to higher level units? Well, to fuse 5 minis to a level 90 unit, where I seem to run out of EXP, is 5(30 (90*30)), or 13,650 gil for 25,000 EXP, 1.8 EXP/Gil. The bundle of Enhancement currently for sale is 3 Cactuars for 20,000, so 30,000 EXP for 20,000 gil, so 1.5 EXP/Gil not including the cost of using said Cactuars. To buy the Cactuar bundle but not use Minis is just bad math, and it is throwing money away due to the net loss. (Or the above is bad math, I haven't double checked yet).

Summery: It's good for a quick profit if you have no units that need leveled, but Minis should be used for EXP, not Gil. If you do want them for Gil, use 1 mini on one 1* unit.

Method #2 - EXP Vortex

The second way to make money off FP units is the EXP vortex, officially known as Chamber of Experience, which is one of the fastest ways to make money since it's always there. There's three levels of the chambers,

So we need to know how much EXP will get us how many levels. 3732 EXP will get you to level 15 on a 1* unit.

NOTE: This chart does NOT compensate for cost of just selling the units.

Reading off the table, you can see 5 2* units (that are 1* base) in ADV is the best bang for your buck, followed by 5 1*s on INT. 5 1*s in INT only reach level 14, but they are still better than 5 level 15 if you used INT.

What about EXP eggs? With two eggs, you can run 2 1*s on BNG and max them out for 5 NRG, but that's the exact same ratio as running 4 units on INT. If you ran 5 units on INT, gave two of them EXP eggs, you sould have three units at 3200 exp (Level 14) and 2 at level 15, this gives 20,263 Gil, 2026/NRG. If you had 5 eggs (WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS?!), besides being crazy, you could get 3286 Gil/NRG on INT.

Should you do this? It depends on your needs. This way turns NRG into Gil, but it's not the best value of Gil/NRG. And it works best with 1* base units, the 2* base units have almost half the value.

Summery: Best is to run 5 units in ADV. They will not max out levels, but you get the most Gil/NRG. Best units to run are 2* units that are 1* base; a 2* base gives about half the Gil/NRG.

Method #3 - Timber Tracks

Timber Tracks is a variation of EXP Vortex. Like the vortex, it converts NRG into GIL, EXP, and Rank. It also uses more of one thing not measured here, time. Method #2 has a much better time ratio, so if that's a factor, you might want to stick with vortex. That said, for Gil/NRG ratios, vortex isn't even in the same league as Timber Tracks.

Since timber is like the vortex, I'll be basing most info off that. Using the chart from above:

Right off the bat, you should see this way blows the Vortex out of the water. The EXP/NRG ratio is just over 4x as good, plus this has a built in Gil/NRG. That's right, even without using FP units, Timber Tracks is better some vortex setups, and on par with the setup most people use (5 1/*s ADV). This actually isn't a bad thing to keep in mind, you can level up main units while still making nice amounts of gold. And if you marco it, there's another thing to keep in mind. You can still use this to TM farm, and while it slows you down to 12.5% normal TRM/NRG ratios, it still helps. If you're TMR'ing units that need EXP and will be used in combat, this is the place to go.

There is one other thing to keep in mind with this, and that's Gil Hunter. Currently, Gil Hunter is broken, but if it did work, it's supposed to double your gil earned. This means you gain 2,477 Gil/NRG just by running on extra unit. This makes it better than the best vortex ratio out there, unless you're packing some EXP eggs, and again, this is BEFORE we use Timber to level up FP units.

Guess it's time for a chart, huh? The EXP for units is for non-FP units, incase you're leveling up units.

Now to explain it. The first three lines are if you wanted to get a bit of Gil while leveling a unit. When trying to level a unit, most people assume you just want to level that one unit, and bringing a unit for Gil Farmer would be silly, but the numbers actually do not agree. The trick is, you MUST be trying to level 4 units at one time, this means you only lose 20% of your EXP to the gil farmer unit, not 50%.

With Gil Farmer in place, you lose 13,480 EXP, but gain 9,908 Gil. This is an EXP/Gil ratio of 1.3 EXP/Gil. IF you remembered above, buying the bundles for 20,000 Gil is 1.5 EXP/Gil, and using Minis is 1.8 EXP/Gil. This means if you're willing to buy the bundles, you should really think about using Gil Farmer. But keep in mind, again, Gil Farmer does not work at the time of this writing.

Next is the meat of it. First, a note about the Gil Farmers. On the best ratio, gil farmer gives a slight improvement, but allows you to make the gold using 4 FP units, not 5, so this does put you ahead of the game. On the less optimal units, it gives a fairly good bonus; the worse the ratio, the better Gil Farmer is.

Since Gil Farmer is borked, and may never be fixed (My trouble ticket on it didn't go anywhere), let's look at the 5 FP unit mixes. The best 2* units on the 5 EXP track, followed by 5 3* units. The 1* units are the lowest payoff, but do not think that means you should run 2-3*s here, and 1*s in the vortex; the 1*s still have over twice the ratio on timber than the vortex (Plus the rank is almost 9x the ratio).

Summery: For Gil/NRG, this blows everything else away. And that's not including materials you can sell. If you had enough 2*s, that 288 daily energy will net you over 2 million gil. Time and sanity are the two major issues, so if you can't macro this, it will drive you insane. And this is an energy to gil conversion, for some, there's better use of NRG.

Method #4 - Cannibalism

And the last one, feeding units to each other. After all that I wrote above, I'll keep this one simple. The biggest downside, besides smaller numbers than, say, Timber Tracks, this will drive you insane. Say you have 10 FP units, all 1*s. You can merge them for a total of 4,555 profit, but you have to watch the stupid animations 5 times. The cost of this is your sanity. If you're REALLY good at macros, it can be macro'ed. But be warned, this is not a safe area to macro in.

As I wrote this, I thought for sure the proper way was to add a single unit into a 1* to get the best. This does not seem to be the case. If I have 6 1* units, I can do 1* 1* three times, for 2,733 profit. Or I can do 1* 1* 1* twice, for 3,022 profit. This looks to be a quirk, a bit of a sweet spot. From what I have checked, it looks to be that feeding two 1*s or two 2*s into a 1* gives a bit of a boost, but most other's it's not worth it.

I should point something major, these units give EXP bonuses when fed to your units. A single 3* unit gives 1500 EXP, so to a level 1 unit, the ratio is 50 EXP/Gil. That's not a typo, and if you remember above, the ratio for the bundle of metal cators was 1.5 EXP/Gil. That's a 3300% increase. At level 90, the value drops, off a cliff. Into a hole. It now costs 2,730 gil for that one unit, so the ratio is .5 EXP/Gil. At level 49 is the breaking point, that's where the EXP/Gil ratio is 1.0. If you give a level 1 unit 5 3*s, that's 7500 EXP for 300 gil.

Summery: You always want the 1* unit to be the base, never bother with other units being the base; wait til you have enough 1*s for them. Feeding a 1* unit two 1* or two 2* units give the best ratios, but only feed it a single 3* due to the amount of EXP they give. And if you have a lot of units to level, I recommend feeding the 3* to low level units.

Sorry for the Trump-sized wall of text. It's a good wall of text, a great wall of text. I write walls like you wouldn't believe. I have so many walls of text, you wouldn't believe.

Oh geesh, so sorry 'bout that, don't know what happened. It was like something just grabbed me by the.. well, no matter.

Using units as an EXP bank

There is one other thing to note about FP units, you can use them to store EXP for later use. Besides the EXP gained due to their star level (1* gives 500, 2* gives 800, 3* gives 1,500 EXP), units also give EXP based on their total EXP for their rarity/2.5. So a 3* unit that's level 10 will have 2,492 - 3,242 EXP, and will give 2,496 - 2,796 EXP to a unit. A maxed 3* FP unit will give 40,461 EXP, and costs at least 1,230 Gil to use. Worst case would be using it on a level 99 unit, where it would cost 4,170 gil. I do not recommend doing this, but if you have no use for your NRG at the moment, this is one way to save it for later.

Compare the methods

Of the four different ways, is any of them "right"? No, they all have trade offs. If lots of money is all you care about, then #3 is the way to go. If you want money but want to speed things up, #2. I do not like #1 myself (Unlike Trump, when he stays in Russia. Or so I hear...) #4 gives the smallest profit, but it only uses up your own personal time, no other resources (Energy, Units, ect) are needed.

Say you have 5 3* and 5 1*, what are your options?

Method|Gil|Exp Lost|NRG Lost 1|38,010|50,000|0 2|37,875|0|25 3|75,456|0|8 4|9,380|0|0

If you look at #1, the ratio there of Gil gained vs EXP lost is 1.3 EXP/Gil Remember this is you spending EXP, not buying it, so it's actually pretty bad. To gain that same amount of EXP in the vortex, it would cost 24 NRG if you were allowed to spend it in fractions. So in other words, #1 & #2 are on par with each other, no advantage or loss, when you plan on giving the minis to low level units. HOWEVER, remember the Gil cost of the minis goes up the higher level of the person using them. At level 90, feeding 5 minis to a unit will cost 13,650, so there is a net gain when picking #1 vs #2 in this case.

And what about #3? No brainier here, it blows away #1 & #2. The only down side, it does cost some energy, and it does waste some EXP. If NRG is currently worth more to you than Gil, I don't suggest doing this. Likewise, this is more for macro people.

And lastly, #4. While the profits are by far the lowest, and it looks like the worst by far, this is actually not the case. There's no resources used by #4. One other way to look at it, vs #1 or #2, you're trading 29,000ish gil for 50,00 EXP (1.72 EXP/Gil, a good ratio in favor of #4) or for 25 NRG (1160 Gil/NRG) That 25 NRG will net you 3 runs on the Tracks, giving you 29,724 Gil and 200,700 EXP, at the same time.

Because of this, I recommend #4, and if you can, #3. However, if you have no units that need EXP at the moment,

Fin

Hey! Hey you! Yea, you! Skipped to the end, did you? Yea. You're a fucker. Anyways, here is what you wanted:

• Best way to make money, by far, is Timber Tracks. If they fix Gil Farmer, you can make over 2 million in a day (288 NRG) if you have enough FP units. And you can handle 36 runs of it.
• You should think twice on wasting minis on FP units. When used correctly, the EXP/Gil ratio on them is 33 times that of buying the 3 daily ones.
• My left one is a bit itchy right now. Oh god, am I writing this down? Aw fuck, I've snapped, haven't I? Oh well, Doctors said it would happen again.
• There are two types of 2* units, the 1* base and the 2* base, and they have a huge difference in performance for making money.
• The best way to use the vortex is 2* that are 1* base, giving you 2,036/NRG. Taking the same units on timber tracks net you 7,251 Gil/NRG plus more rank exp.