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Seeking Good Advice

Discussion in 'New Player Discussions' started by Heartless, Oct 13, 2012.

  1. Fallen

    Fallen Member

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    you are on the right track with your thinking and the advice given by kikki and mordrell is good, you do lose money hunting generally and the way i look at it is to chose what i am comfortable with losing on a day to day basis so i survive until i (hopefully) get the one nice loot that lets you progress, if you hunt above your level you are less likely to be happy or survive until you do. as you skill up you become more efficient at hunting at the level you are at, if you move up too fast you only put yourself in the same position again of being inefficient. this is where a "farming" or grinding mentality helps, as you skill up the mob you are hunting now becomes easier and costs less for you to hunt compared to someone new to that level.

    you dont really recoup losses thanks to the skills you acquire, the skills give you more freedom of choice, and help minimize costs. the best way to recoup losses is through markup, at a low level on arkadia this can be hides, but later on as you grow your budget there are other opportunities. finding these opportunities requires careful study of the auction, keeping up to date with changes to the system and understanding the end products that create demand, these products can sometimes behave like fashion irl, what is hot today may change tomorrow. i will give you a little example of something i did a few months ago to illustrate how this can work.

    i can hunt higher level creatures if i wish, my highest hunting profession is above lvl 50, i had heard about a crafted weapon released on one of the other planets that was very efficient compared to what already existed, but on the official forum for that planet crafters complained that not enough of one of the parts was available to them, this to me looked like a opportunity, so i researched which creatures looted this part on http://www.entropedia.info there were 2 different creatures that looted this part, one higher level and one quite low (level 9), because my only interest was the markup and the efficiency with which i could obtain these parts i chose to hunt the low level creature, this meant i could kill more creatures for a given amount of ped, and have more chance of looting these parts, because the creatures where low level i didnt need to use armour and heal much due to my skills, and could use a cheap weapon to kill them, this meant my costs were very low compared to hunting the higher level creature. to put it in figures, i spent 50 ped on a hunt, got only 30 ped returned in TT value, but made 100 ped per hunt from selling the part to crafters. this opportunity only lasted a week or two because as this information filtered out and more people started to hunt for this part, supply started to outstrip demand and the price dropped radically. as soon as i noticed this happening i sold what i had left and moved away from this planet and started my research again. often it is the case that the bigger the opportunity the shorter it lasts.
     
  2. Heartless

    Heartless Member

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    That's a pretty good story, Fallen :) I'll definitely be on the lookout for opportunities like that in the future. I switched to a different mob and according to my rough calculations, I made a small profit. That's pretty good for a beginner who is primarily focused on skill gain. I decided to stop sweating for the time being and try farming exclusively and it seemed to work better, though I do miss the evade gains.

    *Edit* You mentioned that increasing skills is more about providing new options. Can you elaborate on that, please? I assume it has something to do with professions and I don't know much about them.
     
  3. Neil

    Neil Adviser Pro Users Arkadia Adviser

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    Oro are very defense-heavy mobs especially for new players... so right now swunting them you're probably spending a significant portion of your peds on healing or armor decay. I would recommend comparing the skill gains and cost for oro to what you get swunting carabok solo. Carabok also has a high hit rate which means that you'll get a lot of evade, and swunt them solo because you want to maximize the evade you get from each mob. If you spend more time in front of a mob, you get more evade. You'll also get weapon skills faster from carabok than from oro. At some point, if you're serious about skilling weapons, you may want to stop sweating the mob and just hunt them, since sweating consumes a lot of time (and evade and healing skills are fairly cheap to chip in if you need to balance up later).

    I hear a lot of new players using the term "farming" here, and I agree with KikkiJikki, the players who use that term often have the wrong idea. Farming implies you can do the same thing over and over and you'll automatically get a positive return at the end. This isn't the case with Entropia. You'll only make peds long term if you can find loot with a high enough MU to consistently exceed your costs and the "entropy" factor.

    Also, I do recommend a good mentor. I currently have room to mentor the two of you; you can contact me via the player register in game or PM me here on the forum if interested.
     
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  4. Fallen

    Fallen Member

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    well sweating is very useful as it is a cheap/free way of skilling evade, and evade/dodge are very useful skills that can save peds and allow you to hunt larger creatures. what i meant by options is that you have more choice in the mobs you can hunt efficiently due to evade/healing skills mainly and the ability to use more variety of weapons or tools. better armour protects better but if you have low evade or dodge and you are getting hit a lot all this does is make it costly compared to a player with higher skills hunting the same mob as you. you might get lucky in the short term doing this but long term the player that is more efficient and spends less to get X amount of loot is likely to do better. the differences may seem small when comparing one hunt but long term it all adds up.
     
  5. Heartless

    Heartless Member

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    Thanks a lot guys. There is nothing better than joining a new gaming community and realizing the community has some actual good people looking to help new players. I really am very grateful for everyone who pitched in with some advice or tips.

    Yesterday I was duo hunting Hallix's with my Brother and we were both profiting(due to MU). I think it is quite useful to get my offensive skills up because in the future we will always be duo farming and I think we can do some powerful kiting against tougher mobs to defeat them easier than a solo player. My big advantage is my Brother and I always play at the same time and we can trust each other 100%. I think swunting is very useful although I'm thinking it could be better to buy evade and healing skills later, instead of spending a lot of time skilling them myself. My logic is that because these skills are more common, they should be less expensive to buy. I was also thinking about going to Calypso in the future and spending a long time power leveling my evade but I think I will just chip in skills as needed.

    Please remember that I always play duo so my experience might be much different than other players. Regarding the mentoring, I really appreciate the offer although the person that introduced me to this game has already vouched to be my mentor. I would still be very interested in being friends with anyone that would like to help. My in game name is Cyago Heartless Silentstar.

    Once again, thanks so much to everyone for helping me out. I love to a learn and I believe I can be a good student :) I am still curious about how professions work and if I should be worrying about them. My first major goal is to become profitable and I am willing to study the game intensely, fix bad habits and learn to play as optimally as possible. I do have experience with skilling systems like this, as well as games with real money based economies. I am ready to learn as much as possible! :)
     
  6. Cly

    Cly Active Member

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    Welcome Aboard

    ... and congrats on choosing Arkadia - I think it's the best place in the universe for new players :)

    Firstly, I wanted to add my support for the words KikkiJikki has shared with you - he's done an excellent job putting things exactly as they are. My recommendation for young hunters on Arkadia is also to become familiar with the basic loot tables of each creature as per Entropedia, and to use the "Markup" button and Auction information pages to determine which items are trading above 110% and are relatively common in drop rate...

    For most of the lower creatures, this will result in their hide being among the top ranking loots.

    If you're looking for a slightly stronger step on the ladder to try out I find the quickest way to get a suggestion is, use Entropedia to select all Arkadian mobs, and order them by minimum hitpoints. Then you can decide if you either want to simply hunt a maturity level or two on your current creature higher, or switch to a similar-hitpointed mob for a change of pace.

    Some general advice for you on hunting and selling hunting loots...

    1) Try where possible to either find crafters, beauty experts, or other "end users" in Entropia who need certain materials... But at the same time, be gentle with this - no-one wants people in their face 24/7 asking to buy their loot. If you can find someone to buy a sub-set of your loot every week or so though, that will steadily work to your advantage as you save auction fees and so on.

    2) Which brings us to the auction, which over time will probably be one of your best friends. The auction though, prefers you to have larger stacks of items to sell simply because the larger the stack you have on hand, the easier it is to select a number out of your total to put up for sale at a reasonable asking rate on markup.

    If you have the time, take a few minutes each day to watch the daily totals of how much of each item you are getting in loots is sold... and what the markup in general is. Consider the size of your "bankroll" - ie: the amount of roughly fluid cash you have to work with that is not invested in assets like your weapons and armour and healing tools.

    If you have say 50 PED to spend on ammo each day, but in order to sell Item X for profit of 105% in any meaningful way you need 100 PED of it, then the cost of holding that asset may be prohibitive and that item may go on the list you either need to find a custom buyer for (mentors are sometimes good for this) or that you just need to TT and accept the short term loss on in order to progress at the speed you'd like.

    Stuff that sells for higher markups steadily becomes easier and easier to sell in smaller quantities though, so just get a round number of these where possible and you should be good.

    Happy hunting!
     
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  7. Heartless

    Heartless Member

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    Thanks a lot Cly! Your post was really helpful :) Can you explain to me why I need 100 PED worth of an item before it's worth auctioning it? Others have told me that 50 PED is a good figure to use. I am not quite sure how auction fees work. I know there is a .5 PED fee per listing, but how do the other fees work? About stuff with high markups, what would you classify as high? Also, are you saying it's okay to sell say, 25 PED worth of hides if they are 'hot' at the moment? Sorry for the barrage of questions :) Thanks again for being so helpful, I really appreciate everyone's effort to help get me started. I will be speaking with my mentor tomorrow but I plan to learn from as many people as I can because it seems that each person has their own perspective, as well as advantages and disadvantages to how they play the game.
     
  8. Xandra

    Xandra Active Member Pro Users

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    Hi,

    welcome to Arkadia!

    You've received a lot of good advice already, I'll try to add a bit more that might be useful.

    1.) Check this guide (Alice' Guide). It's widely agreed that it's one of the best ones ever written, and even if it might not be up to date in any point, it will provide a lot of insight.

    2.) Check this forum (EntropiaPlanets), too. It's for all the game (not Arkadia-only like this), independent, and usually very nice and helpful. With these 2 you should be sufficiently informed ;-)
    There's additional forums, but these might be of less interest atm, and 2 of them (EntropiaForum and PlanetCalypsoForum) might be taken with a grain of salt - some participants think that they'd smell a bit (heavily moderated and maybe biased).

    3.) A few more links to interesting pages:
    - The Entropedia, the main source of information. There's other Wikis, they might contain helpful data, too ...
    - The EntropiaBay, reknown for it's Auction data (even planet specific!) and it's awesome Inventory Calculator.
    - BobTheBuilder, should you ever regard crafting.
    - EntropiaLife, home of the EntropiaTracker, but offering some more useful tools.
    - and last but not least MindStar's News, always a good read!


    Now, a few thoughts regarding some of the points mentioned in the discussion. Beware, these are MY suggestions, and even if given at best knowledge, there might be others that disagree. I'll try to explain what I suggest, so you can verify it, and get a picture for yourself:

    a.) Healing and Armor:
    As said, Armor protects you (be sure to read & understand the link in Kikkis post, it's essential!), but for a price. And it doesn't give any additional skills. Using a healing tool, on the other hand, might be more costly, but gives not only the most desirable healing-related skills, but additionally "Anatomy", a skill that heavily influences your weapon damage.

    When hunting bigger critters later, a good healing knowledge might save you a lot of hassle, so it's regarded essential to carry a capable healing tool. You need the skill to operate it, thus - and, rejoice, training this even gives more power to your weapon! Isn't this a reason to stock up some cheap-to-use healing tools (FAP's)?

    b.) Choosing Armor:
    I guess you have learned the difference between unlimited and limited stuff (L) already. Armor comes in both flavors, too - and choosing the right one can be rocket science, especially as you can add different plates to customize it.
    Limited armor usually offers more durability and better protection for the PED, but has the drawback of often having lots of different damage protections to different types, in small numbers. And if you've read the scientific paper about armor recommended above, you'll know that this can be bothersome.

    Having a few basic sets of unlimited armor can come handy, in case that you're low on PEDs, or when the broken part of your (L) armor isn't available. The classic unlimited armors usually only help for a small number of damage types, but with sufficient numbers each.

    This way it might be a good idea to purchase at least 2 sets of 'em: Goblin or Pixie, and Shogun. Check the numbers, and you'll learn for what to use. They are rather cheap to come by, you'll have if for a lifetime, and you'll not regret buying them.

    c.) The choice of the main weapon:
    It's easy: Ranged, choose among Laser or BLP at first, short range (Pistol) and longer range (carbine and rifle) then. No matter if you use pistol and carbine, as long as they are the same type (laser/ BLP) they share quite many skills.

    Avoid melee weapons, they are the unloved child of the developers, and you'll run into a wall sooner or later! Believe me, my main weapon skill is LongBlades ...

    But there's an exception:
    Many skills are connected to each other. And different weapon types contribute to different attributes. So, for instance, LongBlades will help your Strength, while ShortBlades and Knuckles will contribute to your Agility.
    This way, I'd recommend to "max" any weapon type available in the TT, sooner or later.
    The initial skill gain is quite fast, and you'll grab a load of attributes easily this way ...

    d.) The dreaded loot:
    You'll receive, seen over sufficient long time, roughly 80 - 90% back (in TT value) of the PED's spent, no matter if hunting whatever critter, mining or crafting. As long as you don't make any grave mistakes, for instance, concentrating on skill gains only, or on fun only, or throwing dices too big for your skills.
    Beware, you can easily burn a small fortune quite quickly - understand, MA needs to get some money to pay their bills and their shareholders, and the lucky players need to get their HoF's payed, and the wise players need to get their expenses held in a certain acceptable range! Someone has to pay for all this money, don't be this one!

    If you're managing it to stay in this 80 - 90% loss area, another point comes to importance: the skills that you get meanwhile. They can be extracted and sold, and this can rise your result, after a given time (don't count in months ...), to 100% of your "invested money", or even above.

    But don't count on it, ever. You'll not win any remarkable sum here, with a chance better than in your countries lottery. The few people that really withdraw serious sums have made this game a work, or have deposited insane sums, and would yield ways higher interests if they had used their working power/ money in the real life, with adequate enthusiasm.

    Your goal shall be to get as much fun as you can afford, to pay as few as possible,
    and to be recognized as a great Entropian among the community.



    Crossing fingers for you & your brother, have a good time! And thx, should you actually have read this wall of text ;-)
     
  9. Heartless

    Heartless Member

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    Thanks Xandra! I will study all the links you provided :) Thanks for your tips as well. It's great to know how I can my damage up and what kind of armors to get. I have been using BLP Rifles almost exclusively although I was planning to use other weapons later for gains like you advised :)

    One thing I wonder about though is the final things you mentioned. I thought if I receive 80-90% of my PEDS back(by playing optimally), then I could break even or profit by selling high MU items. I was actually planning on selling skills later to increase my bottom line. I do plan to play very seriously and I enjoy this sort of thing very much. Competing to get ahead in the game is very engaging and I like the challenge. I could see myself investing regularly into the game as long as there is potential to come out ahead. I do realize it is very tough to do so but I also have a very good mentor to help me along my journey. I actually work from home and basically I wait for customers to contact and visit me. When I do meet them, business is completed very quickly(not a drug dealer lol). Because of this, I have a LOT of free time and I thought it could be really fun to tackle this game and give my best effort to be profitable.

    I realize that many others have tried to do this and failed. I always take on very daring projects and I am very accustomed to people expecting me to fall short. I do believe that with a strong work ethic I can become one of those rare few that can profit. Of course, this kind of money is unlikely to be large, I'm not planning to get rich from this lol. But if I can get additional income on an average month in addition to my real job, then that would be great.

    After seeing some posts on the other forums about people trying to make any amount of money, I kind of expect some people to come gunning for me :) I do think that if others invested good time and money and became successful then I would at least have a chance to do so as well. At the very least, this game is incredibly interesting and the journey will be a fun experience for me regardless. I would kindly ask that no one assault me for taking a chance :) As always, if anyone feels free to weigh in in a positive light, I would encourage it :)

    *Edit* I can sort of feel a storm coming here so I would like to mention something. For the past 10 years I have played poker professionally, as well as online gaming. I am very aware how jobs like this can have some big pros and cons and not everyone can have a happy ending. I thrive on a challenge and the bigger, the better. My Brother and I live together and work together on everything. He is just as serious as I am and we are a very good team. Alright, feel free to assault me now lol.

    *Edit 2* I just remembered something I was very curious about. I've heard a few people mention that it's important to go on long hunts. Can anyone explain this to me or give me tips on that? I have been going out with enough ammo to make my gun unusable by the end and after that I resupply and head back out :)
     
  10. Fallen

    Fallen Member

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    i didnt realise you had a brother who plays with you, right there you have a huge advantage over someone working alone, when hunting you get half the defensive costs of a single player and can spread the risks. i dont think i can even put into words how huge this advantage will be over time.
    about skills, i have no religious objections to chipping but there are a few disadvantages, you are not only paying for the skills you are paying for the skills container (ESI) which other players loot, the markup on these varies between 650-700% roughly, as you skill up it takes more and more skills to move your professions up. evade and healing skills are some of the most prized skills in entropia (except for some crafting skills due to the costs involved), and they sell for a serious premium compared to other skills. one other thing about gaining skills yourself is that skills reflect your in game experience, it is possible to progress fast and skip over some of the learning involved and the grind, but i think you lose out on a lot of the experience that is valuable once you reach a level where mistakes made are more costly.

    the 100 ped is a good baseline because you can sell lower markup goods in that stack size and cover the fee and still make a few ped, if you are throwing stuff into the TT that has a markup of 104% when you could of made 1-2 ped on a 100 ped stack, over time this adds up to a considerable amount, the margins between success and failure are slim so every little % counts in the long run. auction fees are .5 ped+5% of the markup up to a limit of 100 ped fee. everyone has their own definition of high markup but for me anything above 120% i consider very good markup. some of your question relates to me saying earlier you need to understand your customers, some resources are used in large quantities and others sell better in smaller stacks. smaller stacks often have higher than average markup to cover the increased relevance of the fee in smaller stacks, very large stacks (above 100 ped) can often sell at slightly lower than average due to the fee being a smaller part of the total gained.
    and yes you should pretty much always sell something when its hot, markup can chance rapidly and personally i like to keep my peds cycling and not stuck in storage or on auction unless it has to be.

    one other question i saw you ask was about professions, the connection between skills and professions can be found on www.entropedia.info, this site has so much information and is one of the best resources out there for this game.
    the other question i saw was about long hunts, this game is about averages in the long term, there is a lot of short term variance in TT results, your average return if you do not get those rare above average loots is around 70%, it is the rare good loots that take you to 85% or 95% for that run, i think you understand that if you only kill 10 creatures in a session the chance of getting one of these good loots is minimal, if you kill a 100, or a 1000 (ok not that practical) in a session then you obviously have a higher chance of "finding" the loot that takes your return to a acceptable level. this is why people suggest longer hunts. there are some people that prefer to hop around to different spots hoping to hit that higher than average loot quickly and move on if they dont but personally i dont really see any advantage to this. i like to kill at least 100 mobs in a session and preferably closer to 200, taking not less than a hour and preferably two hours (or more) for a session in a attempt to reduce short term variance. as you are hunting with your brother you can kill 2x the mobs i can if i use the same gear as you, or the same amount as me with half as "good" gear as mine, in the same amount of time, there is that huge advantage again. :)

    one last piece of advice, start to track your runs/results, this doesnt have to be in much detail, but i feel this helps put your results in perspective and prevents feelings of disappointment, before i started to track my results i thought i was doing worse than i really was, 3-4 sessions with below average results are balanced out by the odd session with results that are far above the average but this is not easy to see if you dont track anything and the more frequent sessions with less than average results tend to distort ones perception.
     
  11. Heartless

    Heartless Member

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    Thanks again, Fallen. Your replies are very helpful and appreciated :) Every time you speak with me I learn a lot about the game :) You are right about having a partner and splitting the risks being helpful. My Brother and I have been able to ride out some unlucky periods gaming due to the fact that we split our profits. Sometimes I have horrendous luck for weeks but if he has good luck then it can balance out. The only thing is, in a game like this we are constantly gaining skills which hold a value, so it's even better :)

    I have a pretty important question I would love answered. I have been using the cheap BLP Rifle from the terminal and it seems that all my potential has been reached except for damage. I don't totally understand this although I am still gaining various weapon related skills including inflict ranged weapon damage. On my weapon it says "Learning Period Hit: Not anymore". Does that mean it's time to get a new weapon, or should I continue using this one? Thanks! :)
     
  12. Heartless

    Heartless Member

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    After maxing out the optimal skill gains for my weapon I did some research and decided to move up to the Ark 10.
     
  13. KikkiJikki

    KikkiJikki Well-Known Member Pro Users

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    A little bit on SIB from a previous thread

    ****
    as to when to switch to new weapons that comes done to a concept called SIB - Skill increase bonus. If you look at a weaponv(eg) in the picture below you can see:

    Skill Increase Bonus:
    Learning period damage:
    Learning period hit:

    If these say Never - then your weapon does not have a skill improvement bonus. You should not use it till you are at least lvl 70 becuase ur hit rate will be low, ur damage will be low.
    If they say Not Yet, then dont use the weapon yet. You will be using the weapon at minimum efficiency. Take a look at the recommended lvls further up the screen. Thats the minimum lvl you need to be in the SIB zone for the weapon.
    If Learning periods say Not Anymore, then you are using the weapons at maxmim efficiency in terms of hit rate, damage etc. This is called having a weapon maxed. I always try to use maxed weapons.
    If Learning periods say Yes then you could use the weapons but I woud suggest waiting till they are nearly maxed. You will be getting a bonsus to your skill rate but no one seems to know the size of that bonus and you are still using the weapon at reduced efficiency.

    View attachment 5607

    ****

    So in relation to your decision to change weapons I would ask, is your new weapon maxed or nearly maxed? if is Hit rate at or close to 10/10. Is damage at or close to max damage? What about uses per minute?
    If not then you are working less efficiently than you could and this will cost you more peds over time.
    Having said that, using a weapon within SIB range does give you a skill gain boost of unknown value. So it comes done to a choice. Play efficiently and used maxed weapons or spend more peds and use weapons in SIB.
    There is not really a universal correct answer here. The main thing is to understand your goals (which you clearly do) and pick the strategy that helps get you there.
     
  14. Heartless

    Heartless Member

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    Thanks Kikki. I'll always remember the time you took to help me out early in my EU career :) What I decided to do was move to Laser Rifles so I could get more overall skill points to my character which would pay dividends in the long run. This way I can continue accumulating skills albeit at a increased PED loss. To answer your question, I have everything maxed except the damage. I'm thinking after I fully max it out I will max out both pistol types from the terminal while I continue to grind my combat skills up.

    My logic is that because my other weapons skills were close to 0, I would be getting tremendous gains for a while. Considering the way I *think* professions and attributes work, I think diversifying my weapon selection in the early stages would lead to a very strong gain. Once this begins to fall off to an unacceptable rate, then I will probably focus on one weapon.

    Is this method logical? I don't mind a slight PED loss early on. I'm still profiting on some % of my runs(I just started keeping track closely last run). I feel like in this game if a person has sufficient starting funds it is in many cases a good idea to take a PED loss for greater returns in the future.
     
  15. KikkiJikki

    KikkiJikki Well-Known Member Pro Users

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    Well its not wrong but...

    There are some "hidden" skills that unlock at particular profession levels. Can't remember all of them but in Entropedia check your BLP sniper profession and Laser sniper profession and look at the related skills. THere is a column called Hidden. You can then click on relevant skill to see what is needed to unlock it. Similarly check Ranged Laser Damage, Ranged BLP damage.

    Once a skill is unlocked then you can gain pts in it which in turn speeds up your profession gain. So there can be an advantage in focusing on getting one skill up to a highish level to get some unlocks. LVL 30 unlock serendipty impacts many professions so is good to get. And way in the future, lvl 40 Coolness is awesome for hp gain.

    One thing you might want to consider is skilling in both sniper (rifle) and pistol. If you check your professions you might see that your sniper profession is creeping ahead of your related ranged damage profession. This gap will only increase over time, and your damage profession will be your main limitation in terms of which weapons you have maxed. If you tag mobs with a rifle then switch to pistol up close then you are likely to find that all 3 proffessions stay closer together. The other advantage of this is that it can reduce overkill.

    Overkill: If you are hitting a mob and you get it down to only a few pts of health, and then kill it with a huge blow then you have done more damage than was necessary to kill it and that is called overkill. Now the cost to use a specific weapon is always the same per click. But it is generally the case that a weapon with higher max damage has higher cost per click. Rifes tend to fire slowly and do lots of damage. Pistols tend to fire clickly and do smaller amounts of damage per click. So their cost per click is less even though they may do the same amount of damage per pec as a rifle. So when a mob is nearly dead, its a good idea to switch to a "finisher" - a weapon that does small damage per click, so you are only likely to do as much damage as is required to finish the mob off. I think someone referenced Alice's guide earlier. I think it explains this concept quite well with some examples.

    Go to go. Good luck.
    KikkiJikki
     
  16. Heartless

    Heartless Member

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    Ah, that's really good to know! I will definitely look into that and see how I can unlock those hidden skills. I'll also start using a pistol as a finisher. I was wondering something, how did you acquire your shop and how expensive was it? Also, what would it cost me to to get one in the future? I'm also wondering what it would cost to buy zones and how often they become available on the market. I heard that some players bought some on Arkadia for $30,000 most recently. I could be interested in getting into those kinds of investments in the future if the game continues to be compelling but a good length of time. Not that I'm rich in real life but I would find it to be a very interesting investment to ponder and possibly pursue down the road.
     
  17. KikkiJikki

    KikkiJikki Well-Known Member Pro Users

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    Please excuse poor formatting of this post. My work proxy server does not like this forum...


    1. Shops - a limited number of shops were released on auction by the Arcadia Devs and I bought a booth at Celeste Quarry and the shop at Celeste North 1 through this mechanism. Sanctuary Cove shop deeds were owned by the landowner and I bought one in a private deal with him. Recently I made and offer to another player for his shop and acquired that. It is likely that more shops will be released in the future but this is dependant on population growth and there is no known schedule for this to occur. I note that Yquem is looking to sell his shop at the moment. I estimate you would be looking at a figure of at least 10k peds for a shop but no more than 15k. This is quite expensive compared to shops on other planets.
    2. Land areas (zones). There are currently 2 player owned land areas on Arkadia - Sanctuary Cove and 8 Coins - each of which comprises several smaller land area deeds. The players actually invested in Arkadia prior to release and the land areas were their payoff. They are not typical land areas - they can't control tax rates or mob spawns. It is expected that additional land areas will be created when Arkadia spreads onto additional servers but once again this is dependant on population growth. Chances are any new land areas would be offered on auction as that is viewed as an equitable way to do it. Land area pricing can vary quite a lot depending on what features it has. Prices have come down quite a lot over the last year or so. It used to be you could expect to pay around 30k usd for a land area but last year, a new island on Calypso, comprising shops, several land areas, sold to a consortium for 30k usd total. And now you can expect to pay a lot less for a typical land area but I am not in a position to quantify that.
     
  18. Heartless

    Heartless Member

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    Thanks for the info! Those prices seem fairly reasonable. Although I wonder, if the 30k purchase of land can't be used to generate taxes or mold the environment, what is the incentive to owning the land? :)
     
  19. KikkiJikki

    KikkiJikki Well-Known Member Pro Users

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    They still get tax on mob loots, mining loots, shop turnover but, unlike most LA owners, are not able to adjust the tax rates. They are not able to adjust mob type, maturity, spawn density but also do not need to do anything to maintain these. I don't know why these particular LAs are limited in thie way. MA moves in mysterious ways.
     
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  20. Heartless

    Heartless Member

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    Ah I see. That is pretty cool. I wonder what kind of revenue a property like that can generate. Virtual real estate is always quite entertaining.