Table of Contents

Trading has become an integral part of Team Fortress 2 since the crafting and the item drop system were introduced. Now TF2 has become free to play for more than 3 months, many of you should have several pages of drops in your backpack. Some of you might be happy to find a clean Team Captain drop one week, or some of you might be disappointed to get 5 flare guns in 2 months. But no matter what the drops are, now you have enough items as your asset, and you could easily exchange your extra stuffs to what you want through the trading system.

For starter, TF2TP (http://tf2tp.com/index.php) and TF2 Outpost (http://www.tf2outpost.com/) are good places to find trading targets. Follow the instruction on the pages and you could start trading in no time. Though, it is important to know what to craft, sell, buy, collect and exchange in order to maximize your asset. This article will discuss about several money-related issues in the game on how to manage your inventory and trading with others wisely.

Part 1 - Inventory Management

Crafting

Basically, you should not craft anything except metals unless you are really desperate for an item. Almost every weapon in the game is droppable, and if not for you, you can still buy it from other players with mostly 1-2 scraps. Because most items are droppable or creatable, their price reduces quickly over time. That is why you should save your valuable metal from crafting and purchase an item directly in the market.

Players all over the world are selling weapons and hats for a reduced price and you should be able to find what you want easily. You especially should not craft set headgears as you need 4 refined metals for it but they could be bought with 2-3 refined metals easily.

Mann.Co Supply Crates

format:bold (For the new supply crates (#19 and up), a loss of money is almost guaranteed for unlocking.) There is a roughly 22% chance to obtain one of the four strange weapons, 5% chance for one of the two hats and 1% chance of an unusual hat. But except the Schadenfreude taunt from #19 and the Strange Rocket Launcher from #20, there is not a single item that could be sold for more than 2.33 refined metals (except unusual hats or some relatively 'better hats'). If we consider a key could be sold for about 2.33 refined metals, the chance of losing money is 99%!

However, if you happen to obtain a good quality unusual hat from a crate, there is a good chance of selling it for real money to cover the cost of the keys spent. Thus I would say it is only feasible to unlock supply crates if you are going to spend about a hundred keys on them, else you would lose a great deal of money in the end if you used like 20 keys but not getting one unusual hat. But if you really want to try unlocking some crates, try #19, #20 or #29 crate. The items in these crates are generally better in market price. Or you could just sell the crates at the price of 0.25 weapon each.

Purchase from Mann.Co Store

As a general rule of thumb, you should never purchase an item from the store unless it cannot be bought from other players (either that item has a very low supply or cannot be traded otherwise). Purchasing weapons or hats from the store does not worth the money at all simply because they will not be tradable. Owning untradable items in the backpack is not good for business so you should avoid obtaining such items to begin with. You should never use any untradable items (achievement items) to craft metals or other items because they will be untradable afterwards.

But if you are looking for ways to convert real money into metals to purchase stuffs, then purchase Mann.Co Supply Keys). Supply Key is the most cost-efficient item in the store, which is worth for about 2.33 refined metals for $2.49USD (although they are decreasing in metal price now. But still, it is always a better choice to sell keys for metals first then purchase tradable hats and weapons with the metals. Backpack Expander and Paints that are worth $2.49 are also good investment too, but are relatively harder to sell. Though, if you are desperate for an item, purchasing from the store is the fastest and easiest way.

Link to Part 2 http://hsp.hk/article/Team%20Fortress%202%20Monetary%20Guide%20Part%202/