This page answers two questions: what to do with the item you have left over, and how to get the one you are missing. The Items page tells you which piece is best; here is how to get it and what to do with the rest.
In short
- You have a spare item and want cash now: quick sell. It pays 30% of the base price, on the spot.
- You have a spare item and can wait: list it on the Player Market. You get the price you set minus 10%, and the listing lasts 48 hours. If nobody buys it, the item goes back to your bag.
- You have a spare item and want to forge: scrap it. It becomes Hot Metal, and there is no way back.
- You are missing a piece: look at the Market first, because there you see the price before you pay, and the Forge may give you nothing. If you cannot find it, the Forge is the only way where you choose the piece.
Sell on the Market or quick sell
The Market pays more than a quick sell whenever your price is above a third of the base price, because 90% of your price has to beat 30% of the base price. Example: a Kingpin with a base price of $48,000 goes for $14,400 on a quick sell. On the Market, any price above $16,000 already leaves you with more. The base price and the quick-sell value of every piece are in the codex on the game's Items page.
What you pay for that is time: nobody has to buy, and the listing expires in 48 hours. A quick sell is instant and depends on no one.
To pick a price, open the item on the Market: it lists every offer, cheapest unit first, and the price guide shows the value of recent sales. Amounts under $10 pay no fee.
A listing is stock at a unit price: “6 pants for $600” means six $100 pants, and the buyer takes 1, 3 or all 6. The minimum is $1 per unit.
Sell all Street items: on the Market's Sell tab, the “Sell all Street items to the NPC” button sells every Street item in your bag at once. Each Street item is worth $54 to $105 on a quick sell. What you are wearing, and one of each weapon in your war loadout, stays. On a quick sell, the unit you are using is never sold by mistake.
Scrapping
At The Scrapyard, Rusty turns each unit into Hot Metal: Street 1, Hustler 3, Syndicate 10, Kingpin 40, Godfather 400. The unit you use and the one your war loadout names are left out. Skill books are not scrap.
Why think first: Hot Metal cannot be sold, sent or traded, and it does not turn into cash or Gold. Gold does not buy Hot Metal either. It is only good for the Forge and the Collection. Scrapping is, in practice, giving up the quick sell. Each Hot Metal “costs” this much in quick-sell value, by rarity: Street $54 to $105, Hustler $150 to $350, Syndicate $150 to $390, Kingpin $315 to $488, Godfather $1,500 to $2,400. And that is the guaranteed minimum: on the Market the same piece may fetch more.
Getting the piece you are missing
You have four ways:
- Crime: a higher rarity only drops from a higher crime tier. The codex on the game's Items page shows on which tiers each piece drops and the chance.
- Market: check the current price there, because it changes with the listings. Filter by rarity, category or name. Each item shows the lowest price per unit, how many sellers and how many units. You choose how many to take.
- Forge: you choose the exact piece, but you pay in Hot Metal and money, and you may get nothing.
- A starter shop inside the Market sells Street gear for $180 to $350. It is meant for the start of the game; a rarer piece comes from crime, from other players or from the Forge.
The Forge
Choose the piece (Syndicate, Kingpin or Godfather) and the intensity. Each step costs Hot Metal and money, and adds chance:
- Syndicate: 5 Hot Metal + $1,000 for 10%, up to 90%.
- Kingpin: 2 Hot Metal + $5,000 for 1%, up to 60%.
- Godfather: 100 Hot Metal + $1,000,000 for 1%, up to 20%.
It makes the piece you chose or nothing, never another one. If it fails, the Hot Metal and the money are gone. The money comes out of your pocket first and then the bank.
Average cost per piece. The chance rises in the same proportion as the cost, so the average cost is the same at any intensity:
- Syndicate: 50 Hot Metal + $10,000
- Kingpin: 200 Hot Metal + $500,000
- Godfather: 10,000 Hot Metal + $100,000,000
To get a sense of the size: 50 Hot Metal is 5 scrapped Syndicate pieces, 200 is 5 Kingpin and 10,000 is 25 Godfather. Adding the forge money and what you give up in quick-sell value on those pieces, if the Hot Metal comes from pieces of the same rarity, a forged piece costs on average 2.5 times the base price (Syndicate), 11 times (Kingpin) and 46 times (Godfather).
Limits. Syndicate and Kingpin: no daily limit. Godfather: 1 attempt per day, and the day turns at midnight in São Paulo. The wiki does not say whether an attempt below 20% also uses up the day. At the 20% cap, each attempt costs 2,000 Hot Metal + $20,000,000, and the average is one piece every 5 attempts, that is, 5 days. The median is 4 days. The chance of already having it is 79% in 7 days, 91% in 11 and 96% in 14; with bad luck the spending goes well past the average.
Collection
Banners and avatars sold only for Hot Metal, on the Collection tab. The Hot Metal you spend there does not go to the Forge.