OK, how to analyse this? I think the simplest way is to set a probability threshold you are comfortable with. Say you want a .6 chance of success overall. Is the .1 probability table better than .4 table? Depends on which has the lowest cost.
Here is the summary, in my best ASCII art. The row headers indicate the probability you want, from .1 (10%) to 1.0 (100%). The column headers indicate the table that's being used.
Code:
.05 | .10 | .15 | .20 | .25 | .30 | .40 | .50 | .60 | .70 | .80 | .90 | 1.0 |
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
.1 | 200 | 175 | 250 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
.2 | 500 | 525 | 500 | 350 | 450 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
.3 | 700 | 700 | 750 | 700 | - | 575 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
.4 | 1000 | 875 | 1000 | 1050 | 900 | - | 850 | - | - | - | - | - | - |
.5 | 1400 | 1225 | 1250 | 1400 | 1350 | 1150 | - | 1175 | - | - | - | - | - |
.6 | 1800 | 1575 | 1500 | 1750 | 1800 | 1725 | 1700 | - | 1550 | - | - | - | - |
.7 | 2400 | 2100 | 2000 | 2100 | 2250 | 2300 | 2550 | 2350 | - | 1965 | - | - | - |
.8 | 3200 | 2800 | 2500 | 2800 | 2700 | 2875 | - | - | 3100 | - | 2400 | - | - |
.9 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2845 | - |
1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 3200 |
What does this tell us? Say you are happy with 30% total chance of success. Go down to the third row (.3) and read off the numbers. Which is the cheapest? 575 arkforge. That's in the .3 table. So, you should just go ahead and roll once at 30%.
In fact, it turns out that, in most cases, you should
just buy once on the table that corresponds to the percentage chance you want. There are two minor exceptions.
If you want a 50% chance, then roll twice on the 30% table, to save 25 arkforge on average (1150 versus 1175). Besides, this actually gives you a 51% chance.
If you want a 60% chance, then roll six times on the 15% table, saving 50 arkforge on average (1500 versus 1550). This actually gives you a 62.29% chance.
Of course, all of this requires discipline. In reality, how many people are going to roll 50% once and then accept the result? Most would roll again, increasing their chance to 75% and their outlay to 2350. But that is counter-productive. It would have been better to roll once on the 80% table to begin with (for 2400 arkforge).
It's all psychology.
The only reason the lower percentage options exist at all is to sucker you into using them. They don't make any mathematical sense.
Avoid temptation. Save up for the percentage chance you want. Then stick with it.
I hope that's clear. Ask any questions and I'll answer them next time the servers are down. :D