NEXT ISLAND - Part 1 - The Newbie Experience

A good review of the starting experience on Next Island by MindStar9 posted at EntropiaPlanets.com
Here is the re-post of what she shared.

MindStar9 (finally) Explores Next Island

(this is part 1 of a 4-part series)

as a side-note: the front page doesn't load up the first image for some reason

When David Post and I connected last Summer to work on his exclusive interview for the launch issue of the EntropiaTimes magazine September 2010, which focused on Next Island, I got a first-hand glimpse into the mind of the creator. Work on the article took place over a three month period, and gave enough information and content to give the Entropian community a view into the tropical environment that Next Island had become.

It was a delightful process, because when David shared his vision and talked about the beginning of his journey at the age of 11, I could sense the almost boyish tone in the telling of the story. His enthusiasm and excitement about developing Next Island from a dream in his youth was ever-present in our communications. His ideas were clear, and his inspiration pure, and thus began a path that ultimately led to a realization in December 2010.

The initial release of Next Island was not without its challenges, but suffice it to say that perseverance over time paid off with improvements eventually being made. David and his team will be the first to tell you that there is still a ways to go, but they are in it for the long-haul, and recently moved the development process in-house. They also hired Harold Sipe, their new Producer/Planet Manager who will now oversee the production phase of development, among other responsibilities, and you can read more in the exclusive interview with Harold that was published in our June issue of the EntropiaTimes.

While there are still development issues to address, recent changes, updates and conversations with Harold and Meg (Community Relations Manager) inspired yours truly to finally make the maiden voyage to Next Island. Meg was helpful in a Skype chat with info and tips to get me started, and especially about the Ancient Greece part of the adventure (Part 4 of this series), but nothing I'm sure that isn't already posted at her blog or other forum sites. In so many words, she said my first activity would be a date with Arthur, and thus, the adventure begins.

THE NEWBIE EXPERIENCE

I stepped into the teleporter at Celeste Harbour on Arkadia, which is now my home, and made the Next Island selection - yes, I'll pay the 40 PED to transport. The transition and rendering took a bit, but it gave me an opportunity to become aware of an actual elevated level of excitement that I was about to explore a new planet - well, new for me anyway.

Upon arrival, I found it rather interesting that I was immediately given a Settler Suit, which apparently is given to all new players. However, I found it rather cool that not being a real newbie, I was still given a newbie suit, so thank you for that. I guess I can consider it a souvenier of sorts, and while it might have been even cooler to get the whole newbie feel by putting it on, I didn't - in hindsight, I kinda wish I had.

It was only recently that the newbie arrival area was added to the planet, so I'm glad that I had an opportunity to see just how it was designed, as well as what type of efficiency it might have. I personally think it's rather important for new players to have a starting point, because it gives a direction, as well as an opportunity to learn more about the planet and its environment.

First order of business for me of course was my date with Arthur. I was told that this was the starting point that would branch me off into other areas. I didn't have to look too far to find Arthur, and he and I began to have a chat.

I FOUND THE FOLLOWING TO BE ESPECIALLY HELPFUL

I made every effort to look at this beginning portion of my adventure from a newbie's perspective and how it might help to move things along. I found that as I progressed through the newbie experience, it seemed rather seamless. I like that details and explanations were present, as well as a continued marking on my radar and map of where I need to go next. While a specific route wasn't given, it didn't need to be, because it added to the exploration part of the adventure.

I found my way over to Fyodor, who really wasn't that far away, and got further instructions with what I was to do next. Seems that Fyodor and some others are robots with some specific duties that he took the time to share with me.

I like that information is disseminated that gives history about Elysium and Next Island, because I think it adds to the feel of what the planet is all about, as well as what they're trying to accomplish (storyline-related). As I moved along my newbie path, I made sure to take in the environment, and found a treehouse that I just had to climb. I think it's obvious by now that I arrived during the night cycle.

TREEHOUSE

VIEW FROM THE TREEHOUSE

I found the tropical environment quite inviting, and as I continued on my path with the newbie quests, I saw more and more scenery that I could only imagine was a glimpse into what the rest of the planet must look like.

I was ready to get on with it and found my way to poor Samuel. I say poor Samuel, because apparently, there was a glitch in the matrix and his circuits went all haywire. He was in much need of repair for sure, and a quest was given to go in search of the equipment needed to accomplish this task.

Once again, the way points were made available on my radar and map so that I was able to determine in which direction I needed to go in order to find the locations to search for the equipment needed to repair Samuel. This took some time because there was a 60 second wait in between searching on boxes located in an open tent area, but ... what I didn't plan on encountering was something trying to scare me.

That little booger startled the bejeezus out of me. It was dark and while I was running I couldn't see anything, except for red dots on radar of course, but it appeared that nothing was aggro'ing so I kept on heading toward my destination. However, he wasn't satisfied with the scare attempt, because he then decided to run circles around me while also jumping in my face in a full attack.

Needless to say, I had to take his ass out - and that was my first introduction to the friendly Papoo who do everything possible to welcome you. However, it seems that there was one little guy who was actually frightened by me - at least that's what I initially thought.

Little bugger collected all of his pals and decided to have a party - well, it wasn't actually called a party, but rather 5 waves of Papoo during a quest to activate 4 sensors at various locations, and with each wave there were more mobs. This guy must have put the word out that I was in the newbie zone because each sensor location they were ready for me - even the King came out to pay his respects - well, maybe not respects, especially since I ended up taking his ass out along with the others, so I'm sure I'm on a list somewhere.

During the course of my wave adventures, I ran into an old friend that I hadn't seen since my Corinth Beach MSR radio shows - Billy Blu Horse - who used to be with the NBK at that time, but now has his own society. I learned that during the waves of Papoo, anyone shooting them gets credit, as he chimed in and smacked a few around himself.

I ran into a few other friends along my travels as well, which made the experience even more pleasant. Kira-Red from Shaolin, a long-time friend, and someone I did a Who's Who profile on, helped me with getting the time travel crystals. I was kind of at a standstill for a minute when I met up with her and not sure how to talk Mary out of giving me the crystals - and I think this was the first point at which I think I got a bit lost in the quest system and what to do next. Not sure it's the fault of the quest line in particular, because it could have been a misread in what I was to do next, or clicking on the wrong thing, because things were going quite smoothly.

Seems I had to go back to Arthur to have more of a chat, and maybe I should blame him for not being such a thorough date, eh? At any rate, I was able to get what I needed from Arthur in order to go back to Mary and talk her into giving me the 3 crystals I needed for the time travel to Ancient Greece. They are sitting in my inventory and will be used when I get to Part 4 of this series.

While heading back to have a chat with Mary, I ran into a couple of other long-time friends from Skillin' Villains - Cherries Jubilee and Archman - who shared that they were really enjoying themselves on Next Island.

It was almost like old home week meeting up with a few friends I hadn't seen in a while. However, it was getting late for me, and I was just about finished with what I needed to accomplish for the evening. I really enjoyed myself, and I'm looking forward to exploring the main part of Next Island in Part 2 of this series. The only thing I need to watch out for (I'm sure), is running into Softy from Skillin' Villains, because she has the tendency to collect pets no matter what planet she's on, and she likes to show them to you.

It was now time for me to conclude my newbie experience, and prepare for the next leg of my adventure, but I didn't log off without a gift - perhaps in honor of my maiden trip to Next Island.

PARTS 2 AND 3 WILL BE POSTED OVER THE WEEKEND

AND PART 4 (ANCIENT GREECE) ON MONDAY

Concept Art from the Space Themed Planet Partner

Space is a week away and there is all sorts of speculation on how it will be implemented, how travel will work, what the cost will be, etc...
We found out today that TPs will for sure be turned OFF, and that we will no longer be able to bid or retrieve items from Auction on other planets.

I think that the actual price for travel will be lower than the current tp fees between planets, but that there will be a hassle of finding a flight, and the risk of traveling through PVP.  Cost is one thing, MU is another. The owners of the spaceships and hanger owners etc.. will need to be able to charge more than their actual cost in order to recoup the high prices they have and will pay for their assets. I guess we will find out the reality next week.

Now for the Concept Art from Theryon Wars.
First posted by Ordaz on Entropia Planets in this thread.

Their ships look pretty cool, and I am excited to see what else they have in store for us. They aren't scheduled to release till Q4 of next year, but it seems like they are already a very busy studio.

Here is the reprint of his post, Enjoy. (right click on the pictures and select 'view image,' they are actually very high resolution images)

Hi all!

There have been comments and questions, both publicly and in private, since The Interview because of which I've asked our friends of EntropiaPlanets' Staff for some help. They've been kind and resourceful as always, and this is what we've come up with.

This is the first thread of a small series where we're bringing you, as exclusive news at EntropiaPlanets, a bit of the content being developed for Theryon Wars (T:W).

I should add a disclaimer...
What you're about to see are concept pictures and 3D models not yet in-game.
They do not represent the final quality of the finished assets, don't include materials or effects available in the Entropia Universe client and could be changed and improved before Planet Theryon becomes available for playing.
Also, these are high-resolution images which can take a while to load depending on your connection speed (bandwidth/ throughput).

No names or precise attibute values will be provided at this time.

Please, comment and ask as much as you want. I'm not a community manager; I have loads of tasks and duties and I hope you'll understand I can't drop by the forums as often as I'd like to. Don't get mad at me if it takes me a while to reply... or if for legal or technical reasons I can't give you all the answers.

Now fasten your seatbelts...

This is a fighter-sized, single-seat, high-speed, long-range ship.
You could say 'deep space interceptor' for short (^_^)

Now here you have a couple of shots of the 3D model, without textures or materials:

With Space about to reach us (or the other way around) I thought this could be a good starting point. It'll take some time until you can put your hands on these ships of ours, but I'm willing to read what you think of them.

I want to thank once again EntropiaPlanets' Staff and all the community for making this such a nice, friendly and active site for all Entropians and Planet Partners alike.

There will be some three or four more 'Eye Candy' threads in the next weeks, stay tuned!

Narfi's Adventures in PVP and Crafting

My PVP Adventure:

I have been mining in PVP a lot lately since you can get good markup resources there. The disadvantage though is that if anyone comes along and kills you, they get all of the resources you are carrying.

For a while, It was pretty quiet and uneventful, but now more people are on the planet and PVP is becoming more what MA intended. A place for the powerful to prey on the weak, a place where the risks and the rewards come into balance.

Here is a little bit of insight provided by Black Hawk on why there are more people now.

I am on Rocktropia. Rocktropia is part of EU. And an important part of economy you can not ignore. If balancing manager makes it that you have to be there, I will be there. What can I do?

I no longer wear my hunting armor while mining. I can no longer run grids on foot. The risks are too great.  Now I have to wear high burn/impact armor and plates, not so that I can fight the predators, but so that I can have that extra split second to store my resources before they kill me.

My skills might be enough that with the right gear and equipment I could fight back against the average pkers (but not the Ubers,) but my connection is so poor that its not even worth trying.  A big part of success in this Universe is recognizing your own weaknesses and using them to your advantage.

So there I was mining along in peace when I hit an XI Pyrite. (190% mu at the time) I spawned my VTOL for a quick getaway, and just as I was getting my driller out a green dot showed up on radar. I lagged into my VTOL as fast as I could and and accelerated up up and away taking 2 or 3 hits before getting away. I flew to a safe location and repaired my craft. It was a close one, there was just a sliver of hp left on it when I escaped.  I got back into it and flew straight up into the air until the tp I was next to disappeared off of radar.  I flew high in the air over to directly above my claim and descended slowly.  As the human prey in PVP elevation is your friend. If you are higher and faster, you can escape.  As I descended onto the claim I saw that there were no green dots near it. I landed right on top of it and started drilling. I had about 3 pulls when the same guy tped right on me! about 20 meters away. I jumped into my vtol and accelerated up and away.  Unfortunately this time he was too close before I started and he destroyed the VTOL. As I plummeted to the ground he shot me once, and then I hit the ground and 'ol Gravity finished me off. Back at revival I checked my inventory, 'haha' he didn't get my resources or my toxic shot.I recalled my wrecked VTOL and repaired it again. I decided while he was camping my claim would be a good time to mine the other areas of PVP, so I did that for the next 45 minutes or so. I even got a global of fire root and drilled it up with no green dots in sight.

When I was done with my run I made sure everything was in storage and ran back towards my initial claim.  I was almost there when I realized I had one double drop worth of probes left. I dropped it and hit an IX pyrite and an IX fire root. Great, now I have 3 claims of value all in one area with a PKer camping them. I set up my VTOL again and started drilling and got about 2-3 pulls when he tp-ed right on top of me again, and killed me even before I could get into the VTOL. (dang my lag :/ )

So I lost about 10-15 ped counting the lost toxic shot and mu on the fire root.
Desperation started to set in. I cant fight back, I cant defend myself. All three claims have about 45 minutes left till they expire.

I PM'd two people for help and advice. One a known PVP hunter on Calypso who advised I just go in with a pitbull and wait for him to get board wasting ammo on it.
This is a strategy I have heard of, but am not sure about. I am sure it must work most of the time, but the one time I drove my pitbull into pvp, I high centered it on a rock, and while I was going forward and back trying to get off, someone ran up and shot me out of the cockpit without doing any dmg to the pitbull itself. Needless to say I am a little leary since my experience with pitbulls in pvp are 100% bad. I should probably give it another chance I guess, just hate to make mistakes.

The second guy I PM'd was a low level PK'er on Rocktropia who had killed me in there before. I told him my situation and asked if he wanted to 'play' with the other guy enough to distract him while I drilled my claims up. He responded that he couldn't kill my stalker and couldn't help me.

I decided I didn't really have many options and got ready to fly in from above my claim again trying to drill and store a few drills at a time.

Just as I took off, the second guy PM'd me again. "Guess who just PM'd me asking if I had an Apis to sell him?" It was my stalker from pvp. Thinking quick I told him I had one I would give him to sell. I met quick and gave him the Apis, telling him to sell for anything at current Calypso MU or above. (I bought it at Calypso MU and they sell on Rocktropia for 2-5% more) "Take your time calculating." I said, then tped to a different area.

Two minutes later he PM'd me again and said, "ok, he is at COD, drill fast!"
I tped onto my claims and used my fast drill to pull up all 3 claims as fast as I could and tped back out.

Not only did I get my claims drilled up, but I made a couple of % mu off of the guy who was trying to kill me. :)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Crafting Adventures.

Rocktropia Clothes are here!
Unfortunately not much love for Narfi this time around.
I was able to click one discovery shirt for someone who discovered the Blueprint. Thanks, and Congrats Shin Hurr!

For the last 3 VUs I have been expecting clothing as the next logical set of blueprints to drop. Each Sunday I have tped to Calypso to sell stuff returning Monday heavily laden with Tailoring supplies to click on Rocktropia as soon as the Servers go back online. Each week I have gotten nothing, so this week I stayed on Rocktropia and it happened just as I expected, just not when I expected.

I had enough supplies between my storage and my soc mate who has been hunting on Rocktropia to do about 100 clicks of Basic Pattern Shirts, and 100 clicks of Basic Pattern Pants. With those clicks I discovered 1 new print which I should have been content with. But I wasn't.

I tped to Calypso and sold all my mining/hunting resources from the previous week and bought all the tailoring supplies I could. Auction on Calypso didn't have enough, so I bought a bunch from Arkadia as well and stoped there on my way to Rocktropia to pick them up. (an extra 40ped tp fee was cheaper than auction transport for all the stuff I bought)

That night I did my biggest crafting run ever. 4k clicks of basic pattern pants. I put everything in and set it on auto and went to bed.

When I woke up in the morning I logged in to discover that I had looted ZERO rocktropia specific blueprints. :O

Pro-tip: 89% returns vs. TT suck when your paying MU for the resources and TTing the product.

I hope to still be the first person to click the 1 print I did loot that morning, but still need to collect supplies. I got enough for 1 click yesterday, but it was not a success.

Pro-tip #2: ZK7 is not really adequate for hunting Lemmy dragons, esp when you are used to using an Apis. (you will get way too much armor decay)

Profit From Others Denial

Rocktropia has been very quiet since the launch of Arkadia. A lot of people from both Calypso and Rocktropia went to see its launch.  Most are still there, but they are starting to return from their 'vacations.'

I have been doing a lot of mining while they are gone and a lot less socializing since there are fewer people to socialize with.

I have noticed a strange thing though, and it got me to thinking.
In the last couple of days I have seen almost as many Universe United, Menace 2 Society, Solders of Fortune,  and BlackAngels as I have regular Rocktropians.(I have also met a couple of people visiting from society names I didn't recognize)

With the exception of Hyped launch periods like Rocktropia 2.0 this is more of these type players than I have ever seen on Rocktropia, and its interesting that its just now when there are fewer players around.

Rocktropia has had a bad rep pretty much since its start, with a lot of vocal people speaking out against it. But now even more than before I realize that its not just me that sees the potential here.  When big names like that are showing up somewhere its because they know they can make money.

What are they doing? Well some are hunting, I have seen their names in global chat killing dragons etc... Some are mining, and some are padding their pockets with my mining resources from PvP.

The fort at Fort Freedom is bugged, so that there is no need for Black Angles to be around to defend it each week.

The funny thing is that earlier this week in a discussion about Arkadia a big name player said that 'No one goes there anymore' in reference to Rocktropia, and yet I am seeing big names like this more than in the past.

I continue to have high hopes for Rocktropia, and believe that we will see a lot of new blueprints within the next few weeks. This will start another flurry of activity, and I am hoping that they release enough/all the bps needed for all of the Rocktropia loots and resources and compleate the economic circle that is needed here. Hopefully then they feel that the time has come to start hardcore advertizing and we can see the planet begin to flourish.

Good Luck everyone, and have fun :)

narfi

Analytical playing in Entropia - A newcomer guide

A very nice guide was posted today by Jennson which I thought I would share.
His original post can be found here.
Jennson has been around for a few years, and I have enjoyed his posting style and willingness to share with the community.
I first learned some of who Jennson was and started reading his posts when he started the $15 a month project.
If you read advice from him on the forums, it is a good assumption that it is wise and well thought out.
Here is his guide.

 Analytical playing in Entropia - A newcomer guide

You are new to Entropia ? So this might be an interesting read for you.
First of all I'm actually not so long around in Entropia, but in my 2 years I had a good mentor who is well experienced and skilled and taught me a lot ( thx hawk ) as well as some other successful Entropians
on my friendlist who shared quite a some nice insightful discussions ( thx par,das,ivi & kos & everyone else I might have forgotten now ).

I'm not an uber skilled player, but find my way around, so now let me share some things that might help you also along the way in our universe, and maybe save you some money and frustration.

I won't give you a step by step explanation how to do what and when. This won't work in EU. Maybe for a while and once it works for too many people it doesn't work anymore. Or i describe an upgrade path and
in 6 Month better choices are available. So i leave the research open for you. EU is dynamic, so you need to learn how to adapt to changes anyway.

1. Clearing misconceptions

A - Entropia is free to play

Entropia is free to download. Entropia is free to explore. BUT not all activities are free. Every single of the 3 big ( Hunting, Mining, Crafting ) costs PED. Though the game lets you the choice to raise the funds via deposit or via ingame methods ( sweating, trading, stonewalking, dancing limbo in Twin for money :P ). However everything you get from the free methods relies on what players are willing to give you. In general it's considered a bad idea to come to the forum and complain about others are not willing to give you more to pay your play-time. Some may, some may not, but imagine what people would say when you were sitting downtown with a sign in front of you:

"Need money to play a computer-game"

Guess you get the point. Afterall don't forget the companies running this game need to make money. They make business. Where should this money come from when it's free ?


B - In Entropia I can earn money easily by playing a computer game.

One thing for sure, when it'S easy to earn money in Entropia, ask yourself why are so many poeple depositing ?
Why are so many people complaining here on forums about the cost to play. Yes there are people who make more than they pay.

There are people who even became high skilled players without depositing a single dime. ( In fact the most skilled player in the universe stated he never deposited ). But for sure it isn't earned easily. It takes a lot of time and dedication. You need to play smart, understand the market and be disciplined. You won't find any step by step tutorial which guides you over the road to success, so this will remain for future as well: Some can do it, most can't.


C - Now I get big weapons and start to get rich because i can shoot big kickass mobs

Many newcomer i've seen coming and leaving thought that way and left bitterly disappointed because that didn't work out ( as they were told beforehand ). When people give you that advice they don't want to keep you off the big mobs, to have them for themselves.

The system simply doesn't work that way. Just because you see globals running through of a lot of big mobs, so it doesn't mean those globals are pure profit for those players ( HOFs neither ). The cost to kill a high level mob are a lot higher than hunting in swamp camp, so they lose more on some runs, and ofc get more globals to even out the loss. As a general rule of thumb it means you can lose peds faster on big mobs than on small mobs.


D - I get more loot / return when my skills get higher

This is not true. Skills mean something, yes. They give you more choices, let you easier react to market situations. But they DON'T give you more loot. Believing in this misconception can be really expensive, because people want to skill up as fast as possible, believing they recieve better lootreturn when they are skilled higher.

But after seeing so many logs on all skill levels, from zero skill newcomer, up to Uber on the top
the returns basically stay the same. We might argue about the exact percantage:

interesting read about mining return: http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/fo...g-Payout/page4

or hunting: http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/fo...-the-loot-pool

or crafting: http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/fo...afting-exposed

but It seems the return rate is around 90% ( TT value input vs. return value output ) when you use effecient setups. I will come back later to the topic of effecient setups in the professions section. Anyway in the long run you will not get more return in TT value out as you put in. The real skill is ( and this one really matters and doesn't appear on your ingame skill list ) to fill the gap of missing loot.

2. - The professions

A - For all professions: The cushion

Well something I consider important is not to run out of peds and keep doing an activity. That means i need to plan my activity to estimate if my PED-Card allows me to do the activity. One of my basic considerations is the "PED-Cushion".

Why do we need something like that ? The above mentioned 90% return are a long-term value which a player doesn't get linear linear after each looting event. The variance between looting events is immense and be between 0 ( no-looter, No resource found, No success ) and more than 100.000 PED so far ( have a look at ATH list, where you can always see the highest loot soomeone got in EU-History. )

Think of each looting event like throwing a dice. After you have enough events you will have roughly the same distribution of the numbers. Same goes for EU. You need enough looting-events to get your average return. But we know each looting event costs ped, so to get a number on even return of let's say 90% you need enough looting events. Ergo when you run out of PEDs before getting your average return that's bad for you.

But that's not the only reason ( though the most obvious and most frustrating one ). Another good reason is to work with Markup. Not only your Loot-returns will fluctuate between good and bad runs, but also materials and items sold within EU do in their market-values. That means, the more PEDs you have to work with the easier you can work with this fact for your advantage.

Too abstract ? Let me give you an example (fictional one):

Let's say your standard hunting weapon is p5a. And usually you get it around 110%. Now it happens a "hunt whatever kickass mob you can imagine" hunting-event occurs and everyone wants to participate, but needs bigger guns. What might happen ? People rush on bigger weapons, which as a result of higher demand raise in price. But the demand on your p5a might get lower, let's say 105% now. With a big cushion you can buy a few for a lower price now and save the 5% difference on the gun for more than the moment. But let's say you want to participate
the given event and were lucky enough to still get your gun ( whichever is the best choice ) for a cheap enough price. Now you know the mob drops another gun which has a normal markup of let's say 150%. But due to the sudden saturation of market the markup drops and the gun becomes almost TT-Food. Wouldn't it be a pity not to have the PEDs to wait with selling them until the market recovers and you actually get a nice Markup for your item ?

I can imagine you are thinking: Yeah i got it, but how much do i need as a cushion ? This is a topic I discussed often and got several different opinions on.

And my personal rule of thumb is: The better, the bigger, but at LEAST 1000 * cost of looting event. This is roughly enough to feather the swings. To be on the safe side you can easily triple the amount, and to work with MU and hold back items as described above even more won't hurt.

So my advice: Whenever you plan doing an activity. Start with calculating the cost of each looting event. In hunting you might also let the numbers work for some different setups in you range, you might be surprised another setup can offer the same mob for a lower price
Is your cushion big enough ? Go for your plan, check out if the theory you worked out beforehand matches reality and your results are as expected.

Yes: stay - No: Try something else

B - Hunting

Hunting is shooting creatures until their HP is down to zero to loot them. Hunting is by far the most popular profession within Entropia. Basically not much to consider isn't it ? Grab your biggest armor, + EK2600, biggest kickass gun you can get and utilize e.g. Karma Killer without any skills and hunt Atrox, because they are globalling fairly often ? Congratz, you are on the expensive path and most likely you open the next whine thread here on forum.

There are smarter ways

Payback model in hunting:
We don't know for sure how payback in hunting works. My recorded payback rate fluctuates around 90%. The tests Mikeemoo did aren't that different in results, but differenciate more in compenasted cost and not compensated cost. Either way even when a certain part of cost is actually compensated it doesn't hurt to assume it's not.

Uncompensated cost in hunting seem to be: Markup on limited items for the hunt (MU%),Overkill, Defense ( Armor and fap bill ), Misses.

We can draw some conclusions from this for hunting:


-Reduce defensive decay as much as possible. ( In fact i don't hunt mobs with a higher defense bill than 5% of my total costs, but i steadily try to bring it as close to zero as possible )

-use maxed weapon whch get's the job done with the cheapest cost.

-UL Amps reduce the efective markup for your offensive cost!

-Reduce overkill as much as possible ( take a finisher when neccessary )

-It seems to his tests dpp is not that important, but the goal should be to get as many looting events for our money as possible a good dpp ( damage per pec ) still helps with it.

-On www.entropedia.info you find a lot of tools which help to figure out good setups for hunting ( e.g. Armor adviser, Weapon compare ... )

Meaning of skills:
As i said above skills don't influence your return. In case of hunting it is not entirely true, though they don't influence how much loot you get - they definitly influence your cost.

HP: A skilled hunter has more HP as you gain HP from skills and atttributes. More HP means you can take harder hits, die less often and need to fap less. So obvoiusly directly influence your choice of mobs and the cost to restore your hp.

Evader / Dodger: The Professional standings for Evader / Dodger determine how often you get hit from mobs. You can also find a nice Explanation how it works in detail here:
http://www.entropedia.info/Info.aspx...Activity&id=45

So they influence your armor decay costs & your heal costs.

And also the combat skills have influence, because they raise your HP and give you a wider variety of utilizable tools ( weapons ).

So as a final conclusions: Always ask yourself why you plan to hunt a specific mob. Then calculate yourself like described above. Aim for Markup! Hunt within you skill levels and your PED cushion!

C - Mining
In mining most important knowledge in the profession is where to find which resource. You can find resource maps here, on entropedia and a few useful pages on the web. But also explore. When you have the resource map in your mind that works for you, you know the most important thing. The average return rate is around 90% here also. Maybe it is still 95% as described in Falkao's study linked above.
Always considering TTin vs. TTout ofc.

Amps:
Regarding Amps i made an example a while ago here in forum :

O.K. Lets assume you do a run with 3 OA-107. Let's assume you pay 150% for them.

so 230 PED * 1.5 * 3 = 1035 PED
ok min TT is 10 PED so 22 uses
so add bombs 22*3 = 66 PED.

So 1101 PED for 66 drops. According to my records it's hardly possible to get an even return on 66 drops.
Count of drops to even out to the 90% for me is around 1000 drops. But we ignore that and just assume every single drop gives you the average return rate.
Note: We just can count TT return!
But hey the LA is maybe taxed and we need to deduct maybe another 5%, so 85% return to expect TT wise.

So TT in = 756 PED. * 0.85 expected = 642,6 PED expected return. Ah we get 30 PED back when we TT the unusable amps.
So 672,6 PED that'S just 61% of the money we put in :O.

That's not counted Possible Extractor, refiner and auc costs and finder decay we didn't consider here also in our example for sake of simplicity.

So to break even you already need an average(!) MU of around 190% (!)
Ask yourself: Do you have any mining are which gives you an average(!) MU of 190% ?

Well. Do the same unamped, maybe avoid also the taxed area. So you just need around 110-115% to reach your goal. And you have around 1100 drops to even out the return ( even more when you combine enmat/ore ).

So you can see Amps can influence your return hard. Are they nonsense to use ? No. Even with a lower return % with the higher cycling you still can make more absolute profit when you use them wisely. Just keep in mind you need to pay the MU of the amp with your profit.

Meaning of skills:
With the mining system in it's current state skills are far less important for a miner as it is for a hunter. At level 10 you can already use pretty nice tools to dig out valuable resources, but hunting skills are not useless. You might gain access to areas closed for less skilled players just because you can defend yourself better.

Sidenote for hunting & mining:
Doing these activities on taxed areas deducts your TT return by the % of taxrate ( common belief & also stated by Mindark, that Taxes are added to the general cost of play ). That means: avoid taxed areas when the Markup doesn't justify.

D - Crafting

Well i'm not a crafter, and most people say to newcomers: Stay away from crafting, unless you are rich. Well that's not entirely true. I already saw newcomer profiting in crafting when they did it clever on the right occasion. Same rule as for all other professions also applies to crafting. Go for Markup. In crafting you also get ~90% of the TT you put in in MAterials back. You get it back in residue and materials you craft. When the MU of your materials and residue are enough to bridge the gap you can profit. This happens sometimes when the price of low level components raises due to a peak of demand. Often such opportunities come with new items etc.
keep your eyes open for such opportunities, then even a newbie crafter has a chance to do ok as long as the MU for the crafted materials is up.

However i can't really say much about the crafting part and leave it to people who do this on regular base and are more experienced in crafting than me. But it works, just do the math and keep your eyes open for the opportunities

3 - Some general points

Well as you see most of my advice is based on planning and tracking your results to have a tool to draw conclusions for your gameplay. So make yourself familiar with a spreadsheetprocessor ( Excel or OOO or something ). And create tracksheets which allow you to control your cashflow.

Value also small MU%. Those can make the difference between loss and breakeven

When you have nothing to do in game scan the auction. When you see Markups there ask yourself why a specific resource / item has the price it has. This will teach you a lot about the ingame economics.

4 - Now where to start
Assuming you are new to the game and haven't done anything yet. Start to explore. Do as much as you can on your own. This will give you valuable knowledge about the geography of your planet. Spawns, landmarks and such. This knowledge is valuable. The time between spend some time reading, building knowledge. Knowledge is most important in Entropia.

After that try the free activities for a week or two. This will teach you to value your PED-card and you will start to build some skills. And some social contacts. With the PEDs you gathered from those activities try out hunting and mining with the rookie gear.

Your first batch of free peds is gone ? You enjoyed it so far ?
No ? well maybe this game isn't for you and this is ok. Leave and look for somehting you can enjoy
Yes ? Good you can dare your deposit now you know what to expect.

BUT stay within your means. Build up your PED Card slowly from your deposit and consider carefully when to move to the next level. Set yourself small goals you can reach in short time. This keeps you motivated.

Have fun, good mood and treat other players with respect and you will make your way within Entropia.

Kind regards
Jennson