If you've tried the chip traders throughout hover, you've probably felt like you're just getting trolled. Maybe you dumped a bunch of garbage in and just kept getting garbage out, or you dumped a few good chips in and ended up with a piece of pet food. Fortunatly the chip traders work in a very predictable way, so proper usage will allow you to grind out ultimates with minimal risk if you put in the correct chips.

There are 2 main types of chip traders found in hover, normal and pet food. The pet food ones have a sign next to them showing pictures of pet food chips. If the sign is not there, it is a normal chip trader. This guide is focusing mainly on the normal chip traders.

There are also 'rigged' normal chip traders in HQ in the sewers. These traders have pieces of paper stuck on them with rough drawings of the icon of a type of chip and will only give that type of chip on a successful rng roll.

All chip traders have limits on how many trades can be done on them before they're sold out. They'll become usable again eventually, but it can take a while.

When you interact with a normal chip trader, a dialogue pops up allowing you to select 2 - 5 chips and then trade. Trading gives you back 1 chip regardless of how many you give up. As you select chips, a percentage at the bottom of the dialogue updates showing you the chance of getting a higher tier chip than the highest tier you put in. Trading more and/or rarer chips will increase this chance.

When you hit trade, the game decides whether you succeed(jackpot) or fail based on the percentage shown.

If you win the rng roll, you will almost always get a chip of a random type that is higher tier than the highest tier chip you put in. Usually it is 1 tier higher, but it can be more. If you put in a chip of the highest tier(ultimate), you will get an ultimate back instead of a higher tier. There is a very small chance it can give you a food item instead, but is almost negligable.

If you lose the rng roll, you will almost always get a chip of a random type that is the same tier as the highest tier chip you put in. There is also a tiny percent chance you could wind up with a piece of food instead.

Your general stratagy for getting high tier chips then ends up like this:

Put exactly 1 of any type of chip of the highest tier(except for ultimate) that you have.

Add 1-4 chips of garbage to medium high tiers. This is up to you on how much you value different chip tiers vs how much you value your chip trader rolls. Early in the game you might value your chips a lot more than your trader rolls and go light, but if you're drowing in +7% or +8% chips you might as well dump them in and get better odds for your limited amount of trades.

If you win the rng roll, you'll usually get a better tier chip than the good one you put in. If you lose the rng roll, you'll usually get the same tier as your good chip back and basically just be out the sacrificial garbage.

Repeat this process as needed to keep boosting up the tiers of chips.

Once you've gotten ultimates, you probably won't end up with exactly what you want, so trade like this:

Add 1 ultimate you don't want.

Add 1 of the most worthless piece of garbage you have clogging your inventory.

If you win the rng roll, you'll usually end up with a random ultimate. If you lose the rng roll, you'll also usually end up with a random ultimate. Since the result is the same and you're just randomizing the type, the winning percent really doesn't matter.