What is the best startup TT weapon setup for new players?

So we have three options on Arkadia ... Laser, BLP, and melee (swords) ...

Please keep in mind this is what newcomers have available at TT as their options, not existing experienced players who has a stash load of weapons at disposal ...

Melee - Full set available at TT, but not advised because of additional armor decay due to close combat - not PED reasonable
Laser - No TT pistol available, so cannot benefit from small ammo loot
BLP - Full set available at TT for both long and short range, and the least amount of armor decay.

Factoring in PED eco, we are limited to BLP as the only reasonable option. Any other possible combos/suggestions? Please discuss the pros and cons of the for and against.

jc

 

melee isn't full set available in the tt since you dont have a brawler weapon as the other planets have in their TT.

And the laser rifle is almost same eco as Opalo SGA +a101 so why should only blp be reasonable? I loot both small blp and small cells if I use my weapons so dont see a huge problem with Laser, except that it really needs a starter laser pistol (which I hope will come)

Melee, very useful on low dmg mobs like carabok, Halix and Jori, great skills from melee so dont overlook this because people say it's uneco.
as example I dont think my eco on my 10k missions I did on Calypso would have been much better if I used an Opalo instead of my EnKnuckles-A with skills incl (sure my skills are not total noob skills either but dont neglect melee because "everyone" say it's bad)

PS.
Opalo SGA (Opalo)
a101
EnKnuckles-A
is all calypso based weapons,
(LAW-101(L)
HotFoot 5(L)
MANTA K-1(L)
These are Arkadia weapons similar to the calypso ones I mentioned)

 

I'll make my recommendations based on the Arkadia TT. If you have access to some other planet's TT weapons, you can adjust as needed.

My personal recommendation for beginners is to use 2 separate weapons.

• Use the Herman ASI-10 (L) until the mob runs in and reaches you
• Then use the higher dmg/sec MAKO FAL-1 (L) to finish it off

Here's why:

• You increase both your firearms and melee skills. This can help you in the long run
• Allowing the mob to attack you allows you to gain important evade and health gaining skills.

Evade skills can vastly reduce your armor/fap bills in the future. Trying to kill small mobs before they ever reach you sounds like a good idea, but as you progress to bigger mobs, this strategy will come to bite you in the butt.

In general shoot them at a distance and when they reach you, switch to melee. You'll have a fun time hunting.

 

I agree with JC, the Herman ASI-10 is a great gun, it is good enough to do the oro missions with, you don't need armor if you target the young ones and let them come to you, for me the best weapon out there. (personally i am too lazy to switch weapons).

 

This is why I post the question ... Being a noob myself, there are a lot of points that I will not see due to lack of experience, but yet at the same time, I am growing on Arkadia as is, whatever Arkadia has to offer to me atm. All of the newcomers on Arkadia will have to deal with the same learning curve and issues.

So, hence my initial attempt to try to limit this to Arkadia only options and not rely on off-planet options as well; especially with the recent auction changes.

To keep focus just on weapon usage for the moment, and may later down the thread we can expand into other areas as the basics are introduced and explain, we are now saying it isn't a good idea just to stay with range weapons and it is better to stay with short range and melee because of additional defensive skill gains which will be beneficial later on.

Being this is Arkadia, the oro challenges are the only beginner missions available. Soon we will have an additional noob area "The Quarry" to make things easier, but we are all waiting on MA to make the next patch release. For myself, with 400+ into oro stage 4, I am only starting on lvl 8 on BLP Sniper (hit) and a bit over 1500 SP (skill points) on BLP Tech. But very low on other skills.

So the suggestion here is best to stay with the short range pistol to drop the mob HP down, and switch to melee/sword for close-up combat and to help gain those defensive skills up front, rather then push them off to later.

jc

 

In the end, there are two choices for you:

Some would recommend using a single weapon (I.E. BLP pistol only) in order to focus and push the skills on that as fast as possible. And there is some validity in the strategy of "specialize, unlock, diversify".

On the other hand, at this beginning stage, it's good to make sure you have a solid foundation in a lot of the main weapon categories. This also allows you to find your preferred hunting style. For example my wife prefers using melee (powerfist). I prefer a laser rifle/pistol combo.

Good luck and happy hoffing.

 

Thank you

 

Very nice! , I'm wondering since you guys gonna introduce new update in august/september. Maybe you can put "Arkadia Rookie equipment" As well? Would be really nice for newbies, to use those equipment on the "puny" mobs.

 

Very good setup and how to use it right there =)

 

I am not so keen on the rookie weapons actually kinda the same reason you already gave. The kiwo is hardly a gun ... it is a pee shooter ...

 

Dave - Thanks for the CAP 101

Okay, so we now have two newcomer development paths -

• Specialize->Unlock->Diversify
• Diversify->Specialize->Unlock

It seems the general recommendation here is the 2nd path since it gives a newcomer a chance to develop a feel on how they like to play as a hunter, and even more important, a more solid core skill base.

To further expand the basic understanding of the game for a newcomer, just at what profession level do you guys considers a switch from "noobish" to a bit more advanced? I have hear lvl 10 is when SIB benefits really starts to kick in ... Any insights are welcome.

jc

 

I would do it so a rookie can have a more in depth playing experience before they need to deposit. But now thinking back, I do recall that was done on the Gateway for Calypso, therefore this may be an issue for the Underground and not the main planet.

jc

 

Well, say a newcomer comes into the game he heard about "sweating" and "swunting". He meets one guy at Relentless FBA. And asks him. What is the best place to swunt solo? The guy gives him the tt pistol. And 2 ped of ammo. Then shows the player where are the puny mobs.

The newbie begins to kill the puny mobs. 10 min later. Ammo is done, he goes sell loot. Not even 50 pec return. Since puny mobs drop mostly fragments.

Now if the newbie could've used a rookie weapon with rookie weapon cells. He could've swunted there for 30 min with the same amount of ammo. And would've gotten the feel how sweating and hunting is. Then decide to deposit or not. Same with rookie mining equipment. It's micro stuff. But it gives you a feeling how the game works, and will determine if the avg player will decide to deposit .

 

This in my opinion one of the largest problems with EU.

An average player comes in Somehow he gets enough PED to get a gun and 4 PED ammo He goes shooting them and finds out that it is normal to get many no loots or worthless (to him) fragments. Making his TT return under 50%, and after markup if he has patince to sell at non rip off prices bellow 70%.

In average most people will leave the game because of it. Some gamblers won't if, and only if they had acess to lots of information and support by other players.

When I started all mobs looted gave loot. Loot was at minimum the enough pay costs if used a 4,5 dam/pec 10/10 (when I joined nobody had such skills, and very few even had Commando unlocked; weapons with such caracteristics wasn'thard to find, just needed a A105 and a Mann).


If I had joined today I would had leave after 2 weaks and never would had deposit. And my loot wasn't much better that 70% of cost most of the time.

But there was potential for with my increasing effords to come to reasonable costs of pay to play.


And unless you already have a very large ammount of knowledge (skills and items will help but still are secundary) I don't see that available for anybody, much less a newcommer.


So my advise is to change the loot returns on puny mobs, and maybe create an sligty bigger puny on steroids with 30-50 HP with same modified loot pattern.


We know it can be done since there are mobs with same HP which loot very differently in terms of average loot versus random distribution of their loot.


If people don't find entertainment at a reasonable price they wil try elsewhere.

 

2 ped is twenty cents. how much entertainment should you normally expect for that?

 

I'd like to put my 2 cents in. I think having a rifle is a good idea, when you are moving among dense mob swarms. Especially if you are wearing armour. The reason is that it is possible to "tag" a particular mob from beyond aggro range - at least for noob mobs - and thus deal with one mob at a time. Running into a big spawn of oros with a pistol is a good way to get swarmed - and being swarmed is a great way to use up your armour.

 

Hi,

as always, my recommendation for any newbie:
(warning, long ...)

If you have spent a few days in this game, if you have decided that you like it, make a small deposit. Maybe 20 bucks? This will result in 200 PED.

Find your friendly neighborhood trade terminal (TT), and get yourself the Gyro FAP from there, as well as one of any weapon available there. You'll need ammunition for your ranged weapons, carefully investigate what they need, and buy ammo for 10 PED each.

You should have a bit more then 100 PED left, it's now to decide if you want armor or not. A set of Musca armor from the TT is 40 PED, and it doesn't provide much protection. Maybe wait a bit, and later buy yourself a set of more sophisticated armor? It's up to you. I'd save the money for now, you can always buy armor later.

Now that you are armed find yourself a small mob to whack on.
I'd recommend the puny Caraboks at first, you have seen them already in your initial training. Use the different weapons on them, get a feeling for each one. Start to develop the timing, and train the basic hunting strategy:

Tagging - shooting - whacking - finishing - recovering

What is it?

Tagging:
The fine art to select your prey, and make it coming to you, to a safe spot.
You don't want to run into the middle of herd, it will end with countless mobs chewing on you, wasting your HP and decaying your armor ...
Later you'll use a long range weapon for this, for now any rifle/ carbine will do the job.

Shooting (while incoming):
Self-explaining. While the mob runs to you, you shoot it with any rifle/ carbine. Be sure to hit it as often as possible before it reaches you. You may walk backwards while doing this, to get one or two shots more, but be careful not to run into another mob doing so ..

Whacking (down the left HP):
Now you are under attack. Fight back with all your power! Later you'll use the weapon of your choice in this phase, for the beginning I'd recommend the sword, or the knife. Carefully watch the HP bar of the mob, and when it's nearly dead it is time for the:

Finishing:
This means using an approbate weapon for the shot of mercy. Each point of damage you do costs you PECs, the more damage, the more PECs. Imagine your prey has 8 HP left, you wouldn't want to use your "big badass sword [tm]" causing 50+ damage, of which 42 would only damage the surrounding air that doesn't carry any loot ...
Instead you use a small pistol, or a knife, or any other fast, low damage/ low cost weapon. It isn't much that you save this way, but you'll kill many, many mobs anyway, and even these small PEC values add up to reasonable PED amounts, over time.

Recovering:
The mob has had some time to chew on you while you killed it. You might miss some important parts of your body now, and your health points might be low. Time to use the approbate instrument, the magical FAP.
It repairs your shattered body, and doing so gives you most valuable skills. Fap freely, Fap often, ahem ... You know what I mean

When you have learned this, move up. Maybe young Halix, for a while?

You'll recognize that you do more and more damage with your gear. This is because you are getting skills with any action you do. Which leads us to the EU skill system, that is very different to the skill systems of most other games.

Why is fapping helping me to shoot better?

Well, because using your FAP gives Anatomy skill, a skill used to determine your hit chance, too. Check the entropia wiki of your choice for the gear you are using, and see what skills are gained using them, and what skills are helpful. You'll be surprised - it's a lot of them!

So actually shooting a laser rifle helps to become better with BLP rifles, or with any pistol. Even with melee weapons or FAPs. And vice verse. Check your profession standings after you have played for a while - you'll see that you're quite good now in professions that you never ever even tried!

And this is why I told you to buy all & any of the TT weapons.

They are the cheapest, and most effective weapons in game. No need to pay any markup, no need to search for them, they are in every TT.
And you'll notice that maybe even before you have wasted them, you'll have "maxed" them. Check the stats of them, search for "Hit ability / max:".
"Maxed" means that you see "10/10" here, you cannot get any better there.

You are now perfect in the usage of this weapon, and you'll find such on weapons that you rarely used, too - this is the effect of the EU skill system. Using one weapon gives skills helping to use other weapons. Strange, but true.

I have never ever used a whip, not even ever touched one - but I'm L18 whipper (Dam). Same with clubs.

The trick is to utilize the cheap TT weapons to get skill at all. And to learn what suits your personal plying style. Unlike as in other games it's not this much beneficial in EU to "concentrate" on a certain kind of weapon.

Playing EU is a long term project anyways, and things are changing. You'll switch sooner or later anyways. The benefit of concentrating onto a single weapon technology is tiny, and by far doesn't balance the benefits you'd get with using whatever is approbate.

EU is counting PECs. One of the keys to not losing this much is the choice of weapon and armor (when hunting) for the current target. And there a maxed laser pistol can be better as your beloved BLP pistol, even if your BLP skills are higher.

Example: I'm a hard core melee fighter. My ranged laser profession values are between 26 and 28. I rarely used some BLP weapons ever, just what I looted - but my BLP profession values are 22/ 23 too. I never ever bought a single BLP gun ...

To end this wall of text, a few advices:

• Don't chose melee as a main profession. Use melee, use it often, it's really beneficial - but concentrate on either Laser or BLP ranged, or both, later. Melee isn't loved much by the developers, you'll always have bad cards. It's something for the really mad ones, for the ones that don't care.
  .
• Never fear the infight. It might sound as a good idea to kill something before it reaches you, but you'll omit defensive skill gains this way. And one day you'll regret this - defensive skills are most important!
  .
• Don't shy the small PEC amounts you spent FAPping. It's beneficial, you might even want to FAP anyone near you with low HP (especially this guy named "BlackHawk" ...). Sooner or later you'll find out that Fapping effectively in fight is a crucial ability. And the skills gained help to aim better, too (-> Anatomy!).
  .
• Don't be too "straight" in the choice of your weapon technology. BLP, Laser, things change. Be prepared, you'll might have to switch!
  And having concentrated strictly to one technology might cause problems then. Not much benefit gained, but if suddenly there's another, better gun of the other technology, you'll want to have approbate skills in it.
  .
• Read what "JohnCapital" has written in this thread. This guy knows what he's talking about!

End. Congratz if you have read all this, your "Intelligence" should have improved by now

Have a good time, and phat lootz!
​

 

+1 Intelligence