>>531459
As per tradition
You're in luck, finding my post from when I've done the math was easy. Here you go:
The short of it is:
>crafting 500 A-rank bases gives you 33.33... S-rank discs
>it costs 50000 Dennies
>using the same 500 A-rank bases gives you around 29.5 S-rank discs ON AVERAGE
>it's free
>you get 17645.725 Drive Disc XP for doing that ON AVERAGE
Using the HIA simulation for evaluating Dennies and disc XP
>crafting from 500 A-rank bases costs you 40 Energy worth of Dennies
>you get 30 Energy worth of Drive Disc XP for recycling A-ranks if you pull them
So, at a glance, you get 3.83 more S-rank drives for spending 70 extra Energy on the crafting process.
If that was indeed the case, I would've leaned towards pulling for the discs instead of crafting them.
However, I feel that the HIA runs for disc XP are terrible value.
I found myself eventually doing the runs for Dennies but I've been messing around with the discs for a long time and I had only ran the Platings simulation once when there were the double drops.
In fact, every Routine Cleanup run gives you about 20 Energy worth of disc XP, if not more, if we go by the HIA rate.
Lowballing the 70 Energy savings from pulling for the discs down to a more reasonable 60, we can assume that pulling the discs allows you to run one extra Routine Cleanup.
I'm very much assuming (as I don't know the real averages) the returns to be around:
>2.5 S-discs + 5 A-Bases + 12500 XP + 4000 Dennies
for doing that.
that would bring the totals to
>31 S-rank discs for pulling
and
>33.333 S-rank discs for crafting
with the "costs" and "bonuses" in Energy otherwise equal.
Given I'm, if anything, still overestimating the value of Drive Disc XP even after cutting it down by 1/3, I'm strongly leaning towards crafting being ultimately better.
The main takeaway, though, is that ultimately both approaches are VERY close - you won't brick your account by doing either.