"Twist" and Shout!

Unfortunately, everyone else is getting globals and I'm just getting beaten up. Good for everyone else...bad for me, butit gave me a chance to think...

Does anyone here have a habit of aiming at a particular place on a particular mob? Does anyone have a pattern of shooting right at the Daikiba's face, or at the belly of a snable? I started a little experiment, and I must admit, the results are interesting (if not official).

Back when I only had a couple of pieces of armor, I could tell when I was hit on the harness versus an unblocked hit to the face -- harness shots cause much less damage. Pretty obvious stuff. But then I got thinking about whether the various beasts have different armor in various places, and whether they could soak up more damage in the face or have a weak spot in the belly. My results -- I think I'm right!

The little monster health bar doesn't drop as fast on a 20-point hit to a Daikiba's face as it does when the shot is to the legs. And the dreaded caudatergus hates getting hit on the hump above its head (and perhaps the legs as well). Armored beasts seem to have weak underbellies, and the tall Faucervix does not like taking a high axe swing -- neck/head region.

Maybe these creatures do have different armor ratings on different body parts -- I know I do. But if finding out about these little gems can make the difference between living and reviving, it might be worth a try.

(and on a curious note, it seemed like whenever I went for "weak spot" shots, I was more likely to get some skill on Anatomy. Coincidence? I dunno. But Anatomy is one of my top-three skills now -- you do the math)

Curly Twist Bender

My first global

Just wanted to show my very first global :) 222peds
I found this nice deposit last weekend.
And thanks to Cara who killed that Argo Hunter on first screenie that was bugging me like hell.

A New "Twist"

I was out for a run the other day, trying to escape the Umbranoid hordes until I found some ammo. By following me, these many umbra had formed a nice line leading all down my screen. It made me think that observers must have thought that a dance line of umbras roaming across the plain was amusing...even funny. Then another thought hit me...what if a bunch of soc members did that? (not getting chased by umbras, but the line thing)

If the top three or four ranks of the soc got together at the same time and place, and each one selected "follow" on the person infront, then the lead person -- Lucky Bill I assume -- could walk or run somewhere and an entire soc line would follow, snaking its way to whereever. It may not sound like much at first, but how much attention do you think The Hunters Klan would get if we formed this big line of people and marched into...Twin Peaks or some place popular....and roped off the TP for a minute. Surrounded it entirely. Blocked it off. I think it would be hilarious -- like a university prank -- and it would attract some positive attention to our soc. Who knows -- we might even get some people to join us. But In short, it would be hilarious. And I am always in favor of hilarious.

Another thing -- our soc needs a town. Not as in some land in Ametherea (which we also need), but an actual town. I think it might be a good idea for all of us to agree on one town that we all would call home. Jason Center comes to mind (that's where I was first recruited) but anywhere is doable. After all, PA is laggy, Camp Phoenix is very chaotic, and Twin Peaks has too many ubers to feel like its ours. Camping out in one particular place, however, could give us a nice area to assiciate, deal, and know where we could meet each other.

Don't get me wrong -- I always go to PA to sell odd items or look for arbitrage deals. But when it comes to having one place to return to and meet my people, I don't know where that place is. It would be nice to have a place to call home. Maybe Hadesheim C? Or a place by the beach? Corinth anybody?

As you can tell, I had a lot of time to think while being chased by Umbranoids. I need to start hunting things that can just chase me down and kill me once I'm out of ammo. Maybe I'll look for a taraneatrox or two...I hear that they're fast.

Curly "Twist" Bender

Seriously, don't read this!!!

Quintins guide to argonaut loot

It took me quite a while to realize that all the little things I had noticed while hunting - and through intervention of my hideously insane brain translated into guidelines for me to obey during my hunting outings - could be put to a greater good by sharing it with you trigger-happy bunch of computer-addicted MA slaves.

I have recently specialized in hunting argonauts at Twin Peaks for no particular reason at all (unless you count the ESI I loot every friday). It seems reasonable to me to assume that all creatures can give you good loot and require different tactics to do so. For me personally the frequent argonaut hunts have provided me with both rascal and shogun armor sets, a justifier mkII and plenty of cash to play with in about three weeks... shocked yet? Just don't go thinking that I grabbed all the loot you should have been getting whenever big old Lootius was beating the living daylight out of you with his no-loot stick;)

Now I write down the guidelines I try to stick to when hunting my hairy little friends including the - admittedly rediculous - argumentation (laugh all you want untill you see me in angel armor) :
* Walk on towards a larger concentration of argos (yeah, we are at that level in our relationship:), don't waste ammo on the ones MA spawnes near you when walking, those will suck the PEDs out of you far worse than you'll realize. Profit is in the margins, not in the globals.
* 'The System' is to stop whenever two subsequent argos don't give you any loot. So no killing on the way back! Stop hunting for 15 minutes to let the loot cycle (yes, I'm a believer) get better, if impatient you can relog, that also works well for me.
* When you loot less than 1 PED, you ignore that kill in your counting (so count=1 before means count=1 after, simple?!?).
* When you loot more than 1 PED, you set 'The System' to zero.
* NEVER try to loot really quickly after the argo died, somehow the server is not ready yet and will just stress you out with you know what message.
* Forward falling argos must be looted soon, like before they stop moving. (yes I tried and it makes a difference for me)
* Backwards falling argos must be looted late, directly after they stop moving.
* Stand at the same height as the argo, or pay the penalty is excessive damage. Perhaps a harness-hit is prefereable to a punch in the face:) Flat ground is even better, that includes plateaus in the mountains!

Indications that good loot is available :
* You receive regular skill gain messages whilest shooting.
* Few people (green dots) are around, but many argos (red dots) are.
* You are low on ammo... :-(

Now there are no guarantees and you don't get more loot by really wanting it! If the above guidelines make the hunt sound boring, think back to whenever you get a 20% return on a hunt and the beating you gave your keyboard:)))

Good luck hunting and feel free to comment on my shamelessly superstitious thoughts;)
Of course insolence will be punished in PvP zone 3 :-)
What makes you think I'm kidding here???

The Global "Twist"

Once, I asked the question -- "What does it take to make something 'global'?" I think the answer is captured in one little phrase -- 50 PED. If you find 50 PED lying around, or build something worth at least 50 PED, or kill some mob with 50 PED in its pocket, you get the Global. Which leads to the next point.

I earned my latest global (third in my career) last night, and now have one for killing something, one for mining something and one for crafting something. The kill was an Armax Cow (Mature), the mining was a 73 PED belkar stone, and as of last night, the crafted item was...a shirt! (a shirt?)

Yes, a shirt. A basic pattern, male shirt. A 7 PED shirt that went global because I also made...get this...7,557 units of tailoring remnants. But for now, it's my grey global shirt, and you're all welcome to see it for the next few days. Just stop over and chat with me, and I'll model the global shirt for anyone in the society. I would model the tailoring remnants, but they weighed over 75 kg. I could barely move last night, so I struggled to the TT and sold them...a tailor's got to eat, right?

I'm a Senior Hunter now!

Great! Great! Thanks Beni! Even though I feel like a noob (sometimes), I managed to become a Senior Hunter. I'm not the person who kills a couple of Atroxes without breaking my finger because of all the clicking. But I can handle some young Sabakumas and young SnableSnot Males :) LOL.
No, really, I can kill some Argonouts now and Bery Providers with only a TT-handgun and an A103 amp... Now and then I mine somewhat, and like to share my ideas of good areas. Sometimes I go mine together with Curly Twist Bender (what a name) to explore an area. It is always fun losing PEDs together :D
I still wonder when I should switch weapons, leaving the TT-guns in my storage, but the hitrate is only 0.9/10. And seriously, it is a waste of ammo! I don't even gain more experience points with it, so why the hell should I change?
I still love to sweat now and then, not only for the PEDs, but I gain much Evade and Combat Reflexes with it, and that helps a lot when hunting. And I like to meet new people, even though it are noobs. If I really want to earn some PED by sweating I go to Pandora and sweat some Berycleds, after that I kill them and loot some more PEDs :) But sometimes I just sweat without armor in PA with some other guys/gals. If I use my simple FAP-5 on a noob, he/she's surprised and sometimes they want to give you some sweat (I never accept), and that makes me smile and still that social part of the game attracks me!

Well, again, thanks to Beni for elevating me to a "Senior Hunter" (maybe it has something to do with my age, lol) and for all the happy times I have in soc.

Maybe something to think about: I think the name "Hunters klan" isn't good enough anymore: I see Caramon and Twist doing great job in tailoring. And Beni is a god in mining... And I'm a very good sweater, lol :)
I think we could use a better name for our soc!

See you around guys!

A "Twist" on moneymaking

Every now and then, I notice that the world is a little...different. It isn't lag, it isn't a graphics issue, but something's different. Usually I just grab some ammo and go out to get eaten, but this evening i stopped and tried figuring out what was wrong. And I figured out what it was...it was the economy.

Hangin' out around the TP of Atlantis or Twin Peaks, it's easy to listen to the world buying and selling everything. And if they're buying item x at 110%, they're selling x at 120% -- give or take. But when the world seems ... different ... there are a lot of people one one side of the equation and only one or two on the other. And often, a bunch of people aren't naming prices, and the sellers aren't seeking out the buyers or the buyers aren't talking to anyone. At that point, there's a chance to grap the best loot -- trade money! There's no formal skill in arbitrage, but arbitrage is what I spent the night doing -- profitably.

Everyone knows what sweat goes for, what hide sells for, and the molisk tooth market is always the same. However, with some weird but required metals (cald, blaus and even belk tonight), there's an imbalance. People are selling stuff they "found" in the hills for a fistful of money to buy more mining gear to go and "find" stuff in the hills und so weiter -- they're not as interested in the trade value as much as getting cash quick. And then there's the buyers out there, who are desperate to build a scope, some armor or a bunch of skilling components. They'll pay more than the market to grab those ingots to get to work. Auction buyout costs a lot...and waiting five days for 100 ingots is too long...so they'll buy from other people at a good price. In short, people are buying high, and selling low. The market is backward...and that's where a few stray peds can be found.

I didn't make enough for an estate...I made enough for some Bombardo ice cream and some berycled ribs. But when people are willing to sell belk at 120% and others will buy at 130%, that 10% difference can be a big gain when there are a lot of ingots at play.

It's rare that I was on for so long without getting my head torn off.

Curly Twist Bender

"Twist"ed logic

After a lot of failure and tragedy of my own passing, I finally had a few events that made me renew my commitment to mining. It seems that blausarium has a liking for me, and I found a big grade XI lode of it worth 32 PED that made VinzZ a little jealous (we had both been walking over it all afternoon). After hitting that, a few big oil hits and a source of lyst, I headed back to town for some componenting and skilling. That's when I came across a conceptual problem.

Working on the basic filter BP, the formula is simple. 1 lyst ingot (3 pec) + 1 refined oil (2 pec) = some # of filters at 1 pec apiece. success means 5 or 6 filters, with 6 filters providing one pec of profit. YEAH!!! occasionally you get a pec of residue or so, but the process works real simple. Or does it?

I dumped 100 lyst ingots with 100 refined oil, and went to work. It was 5 ped of material, so if i could make over 500 filters it would be skilling for profit! (not likely) Here's the wierd part. halfway through my inventory, i had a little victory -- a baby global (a regional?) -- when my 5 pec worth of inputs provided 205 pec worth of results!!! A great bunch of value-added, but i only made 21 filters -- the other 184 was in metal residue. Does this make sense? I put in 3 pec of lyst -- Entropia's version of lead -- and it dumped out 184 pec worth of scrap metal. The formula doesn't seems to fit. Residue has less value, but more value than the ingot of lyst i put into it. Hmmm...

I think I want to develop a residue-making machine. something where i can dump in dung and fruit and all that crap, and it'll dump out priceless kilos of residue! I'll corner the residue market! Everyone will depend on me for their useless residue!!! I'll rule...very little. Sorry.

Buying skins and paint…

I realized I will never have any real progress in my tailoring and coloring unless I start to buy some stuff. So from now on I am interested in the following:

• Animal skins / Generic leather (200%)
• Orange paint (400%)

It gives you an easy way to sell loot you don’t need without giving MA a ped in auction fee and it hopefully gives me some progress in tailoring and coloring.
I am getting a bit bored with the Opalo :-)

I can make some different shoes, pants and shirts (basic, urban pattern, street pattern) in about 7 different skin patterns. Talk to me if you want anything for TT price (normally 2-4 peds) There is a good overview of how tailored clothes in different skins look at: http://electra.co.nr/ With some skilling I hope I can soon start to make jackets and boots.

I can also try to color anything you want if you bring the paint.

And another thing: Wouldn’t it be nice to all meet in EU and take our picture with a screenshot and then show it here?

/ Caramon