Seeking Good Advice

Here's a little more on weapons and SIB, with a little bit on BLP vs Laser and diversifying. Written up by our society leader:

http://www.arkadiansunleashed.tk/hunting-guide.html

 

Hi again!

From my experience it's possible to break even, as long as you carefully avoid any not-necessary costs, and count the value of your skills. Possible, not guaranteed.
MU hunting can work, but you can also find windows of opportunity where you get a nice TT return - for instance, mining with decent skill on Arkadia for quite a time was giving very nice results ...

I never sold any skills, I'm not after the money. I'm after getting me better and better.

Just one well meant suggestion: Keep cool, my friend, and avoid the dreaded burn out!

It's about loot theories, and you'd not find a more controversial area.
The idea behind "long hunts" is that you'd enjoy the positive part of the assumed loot sine wave, if you only stay for long enough. I'll not comment further, only that it may work, or may not work. As soon as my prey don't loot seriously after 20 kills I change my target. This may be the reason for my poor results.
What doesn't mean that I'm not in the profit zone, after playing since '05.

Best luck, and have a lot of fun!

 

KJ is a experienced player and explained SIB and cross-skilling quite well, there is a advantage to concentrating on one profession to unlock certain skills early so you gain skills faster and progress faster, it is efficient to do this.
there is however some uncertainty with SIB, and skill gains in general, my understanding of skill gains is that it is purely a function of how much you are spending, so use a bigger gun, gain more skills per hour. the way i view SIB is that it may give you some small increase in skills per ped spent but its main function is to allow you to use a weapon with maxed stats at a lvl lower than 100 hit/damage, before SIB weapons nobody but the very top could max out a weapon and were hunting inefficiently.
this brings me to the "philosophy" you are creating for yourself that it makes sense to lose peds to gain skills early on in the hope to progress further and reach some future goal faster. i think slightly differently, i focus on the now, if i want to stand the chance of reaching some future goal i feel i need focus on being efficient now while it is easier, every ped i save now goes on my balance and allows me to do more in future, as long as i have peds to play the skills come automatically.
being maxed on the weapons i use is one of the most important ways of being efficient, if the loot you get is dependent on the damage you do to a mob then the most vital thing to have maxed is the damage stats of a weapon and i dont believe skill gains make up for not getting the maximum amount of loot for the peds i spend.
early on in the game you gain skills at a fast rate, i did something slightly different than most people suggest early on in the game, i would always use a pistol and a carbine or rifle, i would always use a blp weapon and a laser weapon, this meant that on every mob i killed i would be getting skills in all the useful categories (from my pov). many of these skills are shared between professions, this did mean that i reached certain unlocks slower than some people but my view was that this was marginal considering the difference between skilling in the beginning and later on when it slows down.
my reasoning for this was again due to focusing on the now, it is relatively easy to reach lvl 20-30 in lvl for laser/blp damage and pistol/rifle hit, if you reach those levels you start to have a wide choice of weapons to chose from.
this choice allows you to take advantage of the fluctuations in the market for different weapons. prices change and if you are only skilled in 1 hunting profession early on and you want to go hunt and there are no low markup weapons available that day in your chosen profession you are either having to pay to much (being inefficient) or you have to chose not to hunt. because i cross-skilled i could chose to use the most efficient weapon on the day and take advantage of cheap options on the auction.
once you reach lvl30 or so it does make more sense to focus in one area if you want to progress to the desirable unlocks but by then due to the skills slowdown your other professions wont lag behind that far that there is no choice available on auction.
i know my way of viewing things might seem a little different but my reasoning comes from the fact that this is a really tough game, my focus is on surviving today, if i survive today i can play tomorrow, and tomorrow could be the day i get one of those rare good loots, if i survive today as efficiently as i can then when i get that rare loot, if its tomorrow or if its next year, it really means something, it wont only be making up for my earlier losses it might also allow me to progress. it doesnt always work out as easily as this of course but it is the reasoning that works for me.

 

really havent had time to read entire posts yet.. and i got to leave for college in like 5 min so i really dont have time.. bet heres my 2 pec (cents)

1. oro do not drop much markup, as a team your gonna do ok on oro, but i would suggest carabok as a starting mob over oro because of their hides at 200%(or more).. sweat them till there dry then kill em with tt pistol.

2. as for armor dont worry abotu any armor right now... when you graduate from discipleship you will get an armor set called "Adjusted Pixie" it will seriously be the only armor you need for a LONG time in game. when it starts to get weak you but a set of plates and poof its good to go again. the only downside is you need a mentor to get taht armor set tho. i personally do no mentor but there are tons of good ones out there... especially on ark(best community in game IMO)

3. heal tools the best one you can get without spending a ton of bed would be a tt one from cryrine called the "S.I.H.E.A.R.T." i use it for healing up between mobs and carry a big uneco fap that i only use for emergency situations. that way i am not losing ped but i do have a fap capable of healing me for a ton of points but i only use it if i get critted or under 1/4 health

4. dont assume you will be breaking even in the game and suddenly be making money anytime soon. this game is not like any other, everything is stacked against you making money. it will take time to figure out how to do what you will need to to do break even and profit.

so in a nutshell: carabok for mob (there really weak), no armor till adjusted pixie (graduation decipleship), SIHEART(cryrine tt)(small eco fap between mobs) and a bigger fap for emergencies(dont know ark faps well ask someone else about that).

sorry if i repeated anything tht other people said like i said in th opening no real time to read everything before class and would liek to help a new guy out before i have to go

 

A couple comments:

SI Heart is great for experienced paramedics, but it's not maxed until lvl 17, so not appropriate for newbies. I would recommend this progression instead: start with gyro-fap-2 until you get to level 1 or 2, then get yourself an herb box (maxed at level 2). Use the herb box for quite a while, until you're able to use faster gaps. Eventually you'll be able to use the SI Heart. There are other L faps that are pretty good, but I prefer the herb box because it's UL.

Also, Fallen mentioned that skilling was a function a peds spent. This is partly true, but it's not the only factor. Compare skilling rates on different mobs... they're different. Carabok happens to be the fastest and cheapest skilling mob for new players. They're not much of a team mob, since they only have 10hp. Plus, the carabok hides can be sold for good MU, allowing you to break even. The key to returns is avoiding excessive overkill, but if you always use the smallest weapon possible for the kill shot, you should be good. I always recommend that my disciples hunt carabok at an academy (until they're bored of them), hopefully up to level 5 at least, tho preferably up to level 10. The ones who listen to me skill extremely fast. The ones who move to other mobs early spend a lot more time (and peds) hunting with unmaxed weapons.

 

Hey guys! I have a lot on my mind today so I can't reply to each of you right now. I still find this thread very engaging and once again, thanks to everyone who helped me out! I can honestly say I know a LOT more about the game now then I did when I made my first post! I also think it's cool that the forum administrator rewarded you for your kindness. I will check this out again soon and digest all the new information Feel free to keep posting and keep the good discussion going!

 

Well, my Brother and I have been trying to figure out BLP vs Laser. I keep reading that at higher levels of the game BLP has more damage. My feeling is that we should both use BLP Rifles and BLP Pistols. Our major concern is we want to be able to tackle the highest end mobs eventually. If it is true that BLP does more damage in the 'end game' of pve, that would make me conclude that this would make BLP more uesful than laser against high hit point mobs with strong regeneration, and also BLP would be better against very damaging enemies because it would be imperative to be able to kill them faster.

Even if Laser is more eco, I would place a higher value on keeping my 'end game' options flexible and open. I would hate to focus on laser and then run into hard mobs and watch them cause major problems with rapid regeneration when I know they would be dead already with BLP.

Any thoughts are appreciated

 

both blp and laser have amazing guns as you go up in skill. the trick is finding one of those guns and using the crap out of it. some people swear by BLP, some swear by laser, its opinion based on what one is better

the main reason i prefer BLP over laser is actually the amps not the guns. if you compare 2 mid level amps the Beast vs the A104 amps you get over 2x the shots out of it before you have to repair it (i dont remember exact numbers on shots per amp). now for small hunts thats not an issue you still get about 2k shots on the A104. but when im doing a 600 ped hunt i dont wanna have to run bat to town and repair my amps to keep hunting.

now for guns themselves:

In general, laser rifles are slow shooting but do more damage per shot then blp rifles. i prefer the blp for rifles because the faster reload time means that i can switch to my medkit faster and heal myself sooner then i can with a laser rifle.

as for laser pistols vs blp pistols i prefer the laser pistols. and the reason is quite petty but the blp pistols (from caly) give me a headache if i use them to much the sounds annoys me lol.

now come the guns that I like and some side notes as to why i like some of them, other people may disagree with them and that is fine, once again its personal opinion alot of the time with guns

opalo rifle/nip pistol - very low level gun good for messing around when your broke
Isis cb 13 - (lvl 11 blp sniper) not a great gun, but you cant beat it for low level stuff when the markup on it is 2%
isis cb 19 - same reason as cb13 but with more damage
breer p5a
isis HL 6
breer p5a - low markup but great damage and eco
geoteck scrof - same as p5a
herman cap 202 artic - jsut a nice all around gun
herman asi 20 artic - same gun as cap 202 but in blp

remeber there are hundreds of guns in the game. these one are only a few ive used and liked

 

They both definitely have their pros and cons. However, I must state that I've been able to kill high-regen mobs with laser just fine. You may need a bigger gun to do it, but it is completely doable.

I started on Calypso pre-Arkadia, and BLP gun prices were significantly higher than for laser. Over double for some of them. Until you got to about level 15/16 when the prices of the lasers started catching up to the BLP prices. So laser is what I skilled. On Arkadia, this isn't much of an issue as they're pretty comparatively priced. BLP has a faster rate of fire.

For me, personally, the faster hit rate didn't justify the extra costs for BLP. That may be different with the ARK/ASI lines.

I've killed Oratan (arguably the fastest regen mob on Arkadia) with laser just fine. Just took LR48/AL17 (LAW-303 Desert) to do it. LR32 (LAW-202 A/D/J) would probably work well, too. If you want Laser with faster fire rate, try the CAP series.

 

Has anyone had a look at the breakdown of cost per click between decay and ammo? I'm trying to do it by eye but there's too much data to easily process in my head. I may have to extract from entropedia and do some charting. My thinking is that if one type of weapon tends to have a higher proportion of its cost in decay then MU has a higher impact on effective dpp.

 

I like having options... and since all ranged weapon skills are linked through shared skills anyway, I think it's a good idea to skill several different weapons. If I were starting out again, I would probably skill 1) laser pistol 2) BLP rifle 3) longblades. The Ark-20 and 30 desert are great longish range guns and the cap pistols are great short range guns. I normally use both when hunting (the blp rifle has lower eco, but decreases armor decay). Longblades is primarily for strength (increased carrying capacity) but also allows you to use one of several eco UL longblades.

 

Definately agree on the awesomeness of ark-30 D as a long range tagger, especially as the crafters are usually selling it at lower MU than many other arkadian weapons. I wish I had the BP. Right now I am also skilling longblade, hopeing to get to the point where NI Philosophers Sword is viable for me. To OP, on the issue of melee, IMO Limited melee weapons are sucky (except for TT) because MU has a huge impact on the eco (dpp) of melee weapons. But there are some really nice unlimited melee weapons so if you can get your skills up it can be worth purchasing them, Philosophers sword is great, lowish MU high dpp, quick reload timer

 

Hi!

Welcome to Arkadia!

Some advices:

Go and swunt caraboks... they give lot of skills and you can hunt them without any armor...

Find a mentor ... after finishing mentorship, you get a car and very nice armor set for free...

 

Hi,

I hope you're aware that it'll take years and years literally , and/ or a not-so-small fortune to be able to take on "the highest end mobs"? Many new weapons will be implemented until then, and things could change completely. Just in case ...

To the ranged/ melee problematic:

Melee weapons have 1 significant drawback: They don't use ammo, and cannot be amped.
This means that the full cost of every swing is burdened with MU. If you shoot a rifle instead, the ammo (the by far bigger part of the cost) comes w/o MU, you only pay MU for the few PEC of decay.

Thus the MU for a melee weapon cannot ever reach the MU of a gun, to be comparable, eco wise. As a rule of thumb you can say that any (L) melee weapon with a MU above 105% cannot compete with the bread-and-butter rifles of the same dam/sec class, it's dam/pec ratio would prohibit the daily use.

And since the materials to craft it have a MU, too, it's not profitable for the crafters to create melee weapons - when they can do ways better with crafting ranged weapons. And so the market for melee weapons is very limited, often you'd not be able to find a replacement (L) sword for an acceptable price at all.

The solution for many of us melee morons is then to buy an UL sword (repairable), but these come with a hefty price. And with some of them you'd need to buy quite a number - the Philosophers Sword (mentioned above) for instance comes with a max. TT of 66 PED, from that only 33 PED are usable. Means 315 uses, according to Entropedia. For a decent hunt you'd want to carry 5 at least ...
(Hint: I don't leave any Service Center without carrying at least 5 swords, you never know ...)

Another option are the high TT UL melee weapons, but then you'd have a lot of dead PED, caught in the unusable 50% of condition that all UL SIB weapons have.

So, basically, melee only makes sense as an additional weapon skill used for building Strength, or for "I don't give a frog" maniacs like me ;-)))


Have a good time!

 

in my openion melee is a great skill to level to 800 points for the Hit point and the strength bonus, but is not an efficent way to hunt. i get about 1/4 again as much decay on my armor when using it because you have to be gettign beat on to use it. more hits on me the more they crit so my fap decay is higher as well... i would rather have it partially dead by time it gets to me with a ranged weapon

 

About melee, my plan is to eventually use it for the fast initial and useful gains. But I don't think I really like melee that much in this game, ranged seems to be better from what I gather.

Xandra, I'm here for the long term. I can't guarantee I'll stay for years but I plan to. Having more things to look forward to is a strong motivation for me to play the game for years

 

Some things to keep in mind.

-Use guns you are 100% skilled in, on all stats for the weapon, this is a good eco approach to hunting.
-Make sure the guns effectiveness matches the mob you are hunting, try to figure out how to reduce overkill as much as possible this is if you are using the eco approach to hunting as well
-Consider using multiple weapons one higher damage and one lower damage to achieve the lowest overkill possible, but always make sure you are 100% skilled in the weapon.
-Test mobs for regen as high regen mobs will cost more to hunt, being you are two working together you should be able to handle higher regen mobs more effectivly. Solo hunting high regen mobs usually means solo person requires a few more shots because it takes longer to kill the mob.
-Find a cheap tagging gun to reduce mob swarming on high argo mobs, usually a 100m+ range rifle works best, but 80m+ range will work also.
-Progress in your guns slowly, don't start using a lvl 100 gun and amp it to the moon just because you want to start killing big mobs, if you do expect to get a lot of misses and most likely less return. Jury is still out on if using higher cost items actually, truly, 100%, undoubtedly gives bigger returns as I have run many tests and it seems to be all random on return rate, so be leary of people that think it is a fact as I can not prove it to myself so I will just state my mind and experience here.
-using FAP's heavily will cost more then armor decay in the long run, so consider armor over FAP's unless your skilling your medical profession.
-make sure you investigate attack types of mobs when choosing armor and plating, www.entropedia.info is a great source of information.
-melee weapons cost a lot so don't expect them to be eco, if you are looking for eco melee weapons find a flight to Next Island and grab some of the nice swords from Ancient Greece. Powerfist I have found are a great way to gain strength and move hit points up quickly. I sometimes get a bunch of Chikara fists on Calypso and bring them back and sell them for tt price only, they are a great powerfist to use for skilling with.

finally a shameless plug for my self , if you keep an eye on K-Max's Various Services I sometimes hire hunters where you can get free skilling opportunities, every few months I also hold a huge 1-2 week hunting event for my hunters as well, I think my next one will be sometime in January.

 

Thanks Kmax! I think I absorbed that lesson pretty well!

 

Armor/fap cost is one area that is highly variable, depending on the mob, the location, the player's skills, the armor, weapons, and fap... so it's best analyzed on a case by case basis for cost. But in general, I try not to use armor if I can hunt a mob easily without needing emergency faps, and I use the SI Heart between mobs. If I do need armor, then I try to find a set that is well suited to the mob's damage types and gives me about 5-10 dmg per hit, so that I can kill the mob without needing an emergency fap.

Another thing to keep in mind is that by playing in a team of two equal players, you're already doing way more to reduce defensive cost than any obsessing over eco armor/fap setup: each player's individual defensive cost has gone down by a factor of four. 1) the mob has half the time to attack and 2) half of the time he's attacking the other player.