Implanting Belts and Monsters

Map with directional arrow, people, and monsters upgrades showing.

Belts and map upgrades do not go O.E. (Over Equipped.)  With this fact in mind, new characters on Ruby-Ka can get the benefit of a 5 slot belt and most of the useful map upgrades without spending a great deal of IP points. This is done by implanting the skill points just long enough to equip the items.  Once the items are in, the implants can come out, so these temporary implants only need the bare minimum of clusters for the desired skill and another cluster if required to make the implant be based on a preferred ability (Agility in Baba’s alts).  The implant slots can then be filled with implants buffing other more important skills.

Babaengy and Babemphee as pet classes, have been putting the max amount of IP into their nano based skills which determine how high a pet they can cast, at the expense of being very stingy with IP points to map navigation.  They have also maxed computer lit at every chance.  At level 29 after a quick review of their stats, it became clear that they were within range to implant enough computer lit and map navigation to be able to equip five slot belts (259 for QL 103) and get the map upgrades for direction, people, monsters, and machines (130 Map nav).  They enlisted Babaente to build two sets of implants. One set of 3 to buff computer lit, and one set of 3 to buff map navigation.

Five slot belt equipped with 5 memory chips.

Both Babaengy and Babaemphee are level 29 and have the same base computer lit stat at 190.  Their map navigation stats were, 62 and 66 respectively.  The computer lit implant set gave 71 IP points, and the map navigation set gave 75 IP.  Combined with expertise buffs of +20 in each skill and +12 to their basic skills the total should put them with enough points to equip the 5 slot belt and add the map upgrades.

Babaente, a level 75 NT was called on to purchase and assemble the implants as she has just about the right level to nano-programming skills to create QL65 implants.

Not wanting to spend all day camping for QL65 basic implants, Babaente constructed the implants in varying levels between 62 and 65 depending on what she could find in shops.
Since it was a Saturday morning and the 9th anniversary celebration was going on, the OA shops were crowded.  Babaente took the grid to Newland City and then two whompa hops later started shopping in a deserted shop in Hope.  After about a half hour, she had been able to get the required basic implants ranging from 62 to 65 in quality.  Only two implants required more than one cluster and that was solely to change the skill base to Agility, so credits were saved by only buying 8 clusters for the six implants.

Once the two sets were constructed, she handed them off to Babaengy in the Newland City shop.  He proceeded to don his med suite, buff up, and then tagged the surgery clinic.  First the computer lit imps were swapped in.  Once they were in he stripped his memory chips and then his belt.  The new QL 103 5 slot belt went in with no hang-ups and with several IP points to spare.  After scrounging another NCU memory from Babaemphee, he sported a five slot belt with 5 memories giving around 98 NCU (an increase of 18.)  Hopefully this will suffice until he levels up further and his computer lit gets within range to equip a six slot belt.

Babaemphee graduates to 3 pets. Larger image available.

Done with the belt, the computer lit buffing implants came out, and a set of map navigation implants was inserted.  With well over 130 map nav, he bought the map upgrades and installed them immediately there in the shop. Next he removed those implants and put his original QL 50 implants back in the slots the map buffing imps had taken.  He then handed off the backpack with the computer lit and map buffing imps to Babaemphee.

Babaemphee tried to repeat the whole process but even though she started out with the same base computer lit as Babaengy, she came up short of meeting the 259 requirement.  She was showing 253.  It seems that she had more computer lit implanted already with her QL 50 implants, so that in swapping them out of the 60+ buffing implants she did not have as much of a net gain as Babaengy did.  She will just have to hit another level or two to make up the 6 points.  She did manage to get the map navigation buffing implants in, and did manage to install the same map upgrades as Babaengy.

The 9th Anniversary party was going on at the time, but none of Baba’s tele-presences felt like making it this year.  The Froobination of the generic composite nano buffs is the best Funcom birthday gift so far, so the other items like the headphones and the duck social clothes just did not interest Baba or his alts.

Borgs and Backpacks

Babaoroody headed out for Perpetual Wastelands from Newland City Sunday evening, determined to get back on the leveling train. His experience bar was sitting just past 50% towards a new level, so he was hoping to tick it over tonight.

He took his usual route there, which consisted of using the grid from Newland City to the Sentinels post in Mort. From there he flew due east in his Yalmaha, passing over sandworms, anuns and mantises.

He paused at the Mantise Dyna camp name Tranquility just inside Perpetual Wastelands, but although he is levels above the 105 Dyna, the enclosed nature of the ‘fort’ style camp and the fact it is packed with 70-100ish mantises, leaves him unwilling to try and find out if he can attack that Dyna without getting swarmed by the rest of the Mantises.

Bridge of Escape, the plateau is too small to out run a Dyna borg.

Baba did drop down at the next Dyna camp with two 105 and 110 type Borg Dynas.  The spot is called ‘Ruins’ on the map, and is in a small platueau surrounded by gorges, with two large suspension bridges for access.  He thought he had had approached so that he could just pull one of them, but when he got close enough to trigger aggro, they both came running.

Baba made the mistake of trying to stand toe to toe with these two, and before he knew it, he was down past 50% health.  As soon as Baba dropped one, Baba started running east and crossed the suspension bridge with the other Dyna in chase.  He needed to run long enough to use and cycle his First Aid stim at least twice.  Once he had done this to bring his health back up, Baba circled around and kite killed the remaining Dyna.  While the loot both dropped was nothing Baba could use, it was good shop food.

Borg Highway, levels 110-140 Borg, in North East Perpetual Wastelands.

Baba headed a little farther east and when the road turns from going due east to heading North East, he could see Borgs every few hundred meters, guarding the area.

Baba got buffed up and started kiting Borg singly and in groups of two to three.  These Borg were for the most part in the 110 to 140 level range, and a fitting warm up for Baba.  Eventually he planned on hopping over the Borg mine and main base and work on the level 175+ Borgs in the dunes north of the Helipad.

His experience bar was gradually moving towards the top the farther up the road he progressed.  Just before he reached the area labeled ‘town’ on the map, he stopped to rebuff and then recharge his nano.

Taking a break from kiting, to watch an Alien raiding a player city nearby.

As he was sitting there, he spotted an Alien ship raiding a player city off to the south east.   By the time Baba had worked his way to the ‘town’, he was very close to getting a level.  There is now a Tower field just west of the town, which eliminates pulling Borg to that area for kiting.

Baba first proceeded around the outer perimeter of the base and pick off the Borg he found there.  He started making careful forays into the town, to pull single Borg out.  When he approached the center portion, he spotted a high level 200 Dyna, General Chira Sulanol, unmistakable in her shiny greenish aura.  Baba took note of her position, and retreated to the back side of the base, where he picked off the remaining Borg that were outside of the Base.

General Sulanol where she made short work of Baba in PW

He was getting so close to leveling that he was starting to think about his return trip from this expedition, when things took a wrong turn.  He tried to stay around the North side of the base because General Sulanol had been spotted on the South central portion.

After pulling several Borg from the North West corner of the Base, he squeezed through an alley between two buildings to try and taunt a few Borg he could see in the North central part of the base.  They came running soon, but they were trailed by General Sulanol.  He guesses that the General had a habit of waking around the base more than the typical high ranking officers.  Baba did a 180 and ran a fast as he could, but her level 200 skills enabled her to up the distance quickly and she sent him back to reclaim in a few seconds.  Baba is not sure if this is a new Dyna, or if it had been trained from a spot located due east of the town on the other side of some hills. Several maps show a 200 level mob located there.

After rezzing to at the Newland City reclaim, (the one on the hill overlooking the city), he was a bit discouraged, but he also knew that when he returns to kite the Borgs his experience pool will speed up the leveling.  He was feeling good about his Borg Kiting skills, had he not gotten too close to Sulanol, he took hardly any damage while kiting this evening.

His many backpacks were mostly full, so he took some time to sort them out.  He had gained almost a half bag of various Miy’s armor, which he is sure Babaente and Tireen will thank him for eventually. After sorting out the Miy’s, the monster parts, 125+ implants and clusters, and interesting items, he handed off 8 bags to Babaente, our Nanotechnician, who in turn transferred the bags to Tireen, Baba’s trader alt.

Tireen took the bags to the Trader terminal in Newland City and was turning in the shop food there, when a fellow Trader, Sypherdias (level 93 male Omni Trader, member Good Old Days) took note of Tireen’s Solar Powered Backpack.  The trader offered Tireen a bag of 60 of the experience stims, which Tireen might sell for many credits.  Tireen had no idea what the going market rate was for these, and had no idea as to just how liquid such a resource might be.

The Solar Powered Backpack was a promotional gift handed out by NPCs during the 7th AO Anniversary weekend celebration.  It looks nifty, and works like a standard backpack in both capacity and function (it gives no buffs).  In the year or so since she acquired it from an NPC at the ICC Whompa center, she has perhaps seen one or two other players wearing one.  So while in a typical stroll down the streets of Borealis you will spot many copies of supposedly rare or hard to get back items, Tireen very rarely sees another Solar Powered Backpack.  Since traders as a profession seem to lack a trader specific back item, she feels her nifty backpack sets her apart.

It is the most unique possession Tireen has at the moment on Rubi-Ka.  She may not sport the best implants, armor or weapon, but she is proud to display her unusual backpack.   She ended up turning down the offer.  She knew how much she got out of wearing the unique backpack and she did not really want to use the experience stims to speed up leveling.  Beyond that, she did not savor trying to sell them.  Even though she is a trader, trying to hawk stuff on shopping chat channel is not her preferred way to pass the time.

So after she declined, and finished feeding shop food to the terminal, she traveled back to meet up with Babaente, to return Baba’s empty backpacks and his new credits (Baba’s 8 backpacks of mostly Borg loot, netted around 800,000 credits).

Solar Powered Backpack and the Refitted Backpack

When she met up with Babaente, they posed for a picture framing both of their special backpacks.   Babaente’s backpack is the second type handed out by NPC’s during the 7^th Anniversary celebration.  It is named a Refitted Backpack and it looks exactly like the Empowered Robust Backpack, which is one of the harder to get rare items since it must be made by combining two items which drop in Camelot Castle in Avalon.  The items are dropped by a mob called Administrator DeValos who spawns following the death of Tarasque. The two items are the Robust Backpack and an Infusion Device.  Combining the two items makes the Empowered Robust Backpack which provides 1000 in all ACs and +80 in all damage to the wearer.