The Dilemma!

After the Land 1.75 update and followed by midnight potion via Aura production, Splinterlands now have three different resources that requires other resources to produce. They are

• SPS
• Research
• Aura

All three resources require four natural resources to produce. This is in contrary to the production of natural resources, which only require grain to produce. This obviously creates a problem and dilemma for most land owner as which resource to produce and how. Funny thing is there is no perfect answer, as it should be! The answer varies depending on individual's long and short term vision of the game and strategy. I will demonstrate my strategy here, and I must say this is for demonstration purposes only. To do this, I have created a scenario where I have exactly 2 plots in Region 10 which is currently producing SPS, Research and Aura respectively. They are shown below.

Land SPL Stats by @beaker007

How Much?

The display above is from Land SPL Stats tool. I have decided to call it by name as opposed to beaker's tool every time! :) So, the first obvious problem is, that although these are exactly two plots each, they are not equal. The two research plots are legendary, but the SPS occupied plots and the Aura occupied plots are rare and epic respectively. I couldn't make the plots identical due to resource constrains. Also, the plots do not have identical cards or equivalent PP, because such is life! But that said, I still tried to make it as close to themself as possible. The resource production page summarizes the cost of production and earning from it as follows

https://land.spl-stats.com/player_overview_page

I made a simple table out of this data.

So that I can plot this data.

I hope this help in visualization of this data. Let us do a basic analysis of this data which might help an average user to decide that they might want to do with their plots.

Analysis

First point is Research obviously. This is simply because Research doesn't have any present value. It does have a potential future value towards Secrets of Praetoria, but that is unknown. So, the way I personally like to understand research is:

a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush

It is a common proverb for what I like to call mark-to-market accounting. We can value something that doesn't have a present value. So we value it at zero. Therefore, all the cost that goes into Research is currently negative. Most people with lot of Research points have currently stopped doing Research.

https://splinterlands.com/land/praetoria/leaderboards/rankings

Although, a lot of smaller research players like myself, are still doing a bit of research just to play a very difficult catch up. However, if you look at my lifetime Research number, I am unlikely to catch up to any of the top researchers ever.

Second point, is between Aura and SPS, which one is better? The current price of midnight potion is translated into the price of Aura. So, currently SPS > Aura. However, in future, that may not be the case. This is because Aura will be required in the new promo card, and also in the Revival potion. So if one wants to be a bit ahead in the game, a case can be made to accumulate more Aura now, so that you can use it readily in future. Hope this helps!