Hello together,
after reading this great forum for a while and playing myself some hours I think it’s time for me, to give back some of the information I found out playing and telling others the things that worked best for me. I have to mention, that I already tried mining, but stayed with hunting because it’s more fun and easier to break even for beginners (at least in my opinion).
How to spend the first 100 PED?
Well, I think this beginner question is asked quite often. I think you should buy the following things for your first 100 PED:
Sollomate Opalo - Rifle - Source: TT - Price TT: 3,8 PED
This weapon is used as primary weapon. Even though a lot of people suggest buying a Jester D1 for beginners, I’m still thinking that the Opalo is better because of it’s very low decay and the skill bonuses.
Omegaton M2100 - Pistol - Source: TT - Price TT: 2,2 PED
This weapon is used as secondary weapon. When mobs don’t have much energy left, it’s used to make this little rest of missing damage to kill the creature without spending 2 rounds of ammo. It also gives skill bonuses and can be used when you out of ammo with your Opalo.
Omegaton Fast Aid FAP-5 - Source: TT - Price TT: 15 PED
This FAP is used to heal between mobs. Because of it’s low heal/sec it can’t be used as an “emergency FAP” but it’s still valuable to save time and for skilling.
Pixie Armor - Source: other players - Price TT: 12,4 PED + ?
This armor set is used because of low decay and good beginner stats. It can be bought at various places but one has to take care of the price. Normally parts are sold separately with prices starting at TT + 0,5. In my opinion one shouldn’t pay more than TT + 2 for a fully repaired Pixie piece (prices between TT + 0,5 and TT + 1 are good).
5 packs of small and 15 packs of medium weapon cells - Source: TT - Price: 20 PED
This amount of ammo should be enough for the first hours of hunting. The small weapon cells are used for the pistol, where the medium weapon cells are used for the rifle.
Sum: 3,8 + 2,2 + 15 + 20 + 20 = 61
Which leaves you with a rest of around 40 PED.
How to break even?
Here some ideas on how to break even – some are my own creation others were found here in the forum as well. I’m using this tactics and at least for me they are working quite well:
[ol]
[li]Sweat, before killing: I guess this is the most important rule to break even as a starting hunter. You should get as much out of a mob as you can and this includes its sweat. When getting sweat from a small mob the ammo needed to kill is nearly paid off by the amount of sweat you got. And if the mob got some loot, it’s even better ;)[/li]
[li]Kill small mobs: It makes no sense to kill strong mobs at the beginning - even if you could. While killing big mobs you’ll need a lot of ammo and get a lot of damage which has to paid for when repairing your armor. So it’s better to kill small mobs like: Daikibas (young, mature), Exosaurs (young, mature), Bercycled (young, matures are a bit harder but also work) and so on. Annotation: I want to mention, that it doesn’t make any sense to buy yourself an amplifier to kill mobs faster at the beginning - which should be true until you reach constantly around 75% to 85% of the possible maximum damage the Opalo can deliver or until you have gained some hundred skill points in your rifle skill. Until then the decay of those amps (eg. Omegaton A103) is much bigger than the decay of your armor when you are hit by the mob more often and therefore the efficiency when using an AMP is quite bad. In my opinion it’s cheaper to spend some more ammo and armor decay on a mob, than paying for this HUGE amp decay - at least until you have reached a certain sklill level.[/li]
[li]Kill many mobs: The possibility for getting loot and breaking even is much higher, when you kill as many mobs as you can. This goes for young’s as well as for mature’s (even though “older” and “harder” mobs should have better loot). Sure, you could spend all your ammo / FAP / armor on 1 or 2 BIG mobs, hoping to get a global or a HoF - but the possibility that this will happen is quite small, compared to the amount of invested PED.[/li]
[li]Skill: Before starting with the big mobs and getting better equipment you should skill yourself with killing small mobs, sweating and using your FAP.[/li]
[li]Collect everything until you have big amounts: You should collect every piece that you can find in the game and you should keep it, until you get a really good price from traders. It’s even better to keep loot until you have amounts, that can be sold in the auctions with profit because in this way you can make much more money, than selling on the street. Only sell on the street if you have to - it’s always better to save until you have the right amounts for the auctions.[/li]
Your selling order should always be:
[list=a]
[li]AUCTION (if amount and value are high enough)[/li][li]STREET (after watching prices and offers some time, prices can vary around 50% and more)[/li][li]TT (last option, if nothing else works and you need money)[/li][/ol]
[li]Trade whenever possible: Inform yourself about prices and use every chance you get. If you see a place where someone is selling sweat for 1,35 and you know that someone in PA pays 1,4 per bottle: buy it and go to PA for selling it there. The same goes with every other resource traded in the game - if you see an arbitrage: USE IT! And always keep in mind, that the use of teleporters is free ;)[/li]
[li]Beware of scammers: Inform yourself about prices before you buy something off the street. This is especially important for armor and weapons. there are a lot of scammers which are selling TT stuff to beginners or armor parts over it’s actual value. Beware of those people and better ask others, if you don’t know the prices![/li][/list]
Where to go from here?
After hunting for a while and skilling yourself, you might want to try the following things:
[ol]
[li]Find some friends with the same interests for group hunting / group sweating [/li][li]Find some friends with different interests to help out each other (eg. someone who is a miner might need some back-up while mining)[/li][li]Find yourself a society[/li][li]Use your profits to get better armor and maybe an amplifier for your weapon (when you are able to pay the decay) - better weapons are only needed if you are able to use the Opalo with its maximum efficiency[/li][li]Start hunting bigger mobs[/li][li]Get another job (eg. miner, trader, crafter)[/li][/ol]
Well, these are just some ideas that worked for me quite well - even though I had to learn some things the hard way 
I hope somebody might find it useful.
I’m willing to add more questions and answers to this thread if needed and I am waiting for comments.
Regards…
- Marcus
