Double Flags of Righteousness at Dawn

Goodbye to Rhinoman Cockpit Oasis, click for larger version

As Babaente and Tireen, ascended in their shiny silver Yalmahas into the clear blue Rubi-Ka sky and the Rhinoman cockpit oasis recedes from view below, they shared a warm feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment.

They said their goodbyes to this mission location, a lonely desert setting on the fringe of the Newland Desert, just past a huge ridge wall and an acid river.  They probably would not be returning to this place again now that they both had completed their quests for their 250 token boards.

They had chosen to limit their token board missions to Newland Desert so as to limit travel time and take advantage of Newland City’s neutral status, although out in the desert Tireen has to keep a wide distance from any Watchers and other clan sided guards.

Babaente gets her Dawn token board, click for larger view

One really nice feature is that when one first gets the new token board, epaulets appear over the toon’s  shoulders showing the symbol for that particular board.  It would be awesome if the epaulets stayed visible for a few days so one could walk around Rubi-Ka cities to show off. Unfortunately, they vanish as soon as your toon zones.

Babaente was awarded her “Dawn” token board, in the middle, not the end of a mission.  How?  She got her 250th token as a Clan Bravery Award when looting a mission mob.  View the larger version of the picture to see that the mini-map shows an uncompleted level.  This is something to keep in mind when running team missions for token boards.  Looting of mobs needs to be rotated or some agreement needs to be made about how the bravery awards are taken.  If an omni player loots the mob, it will be an Omni award and if a clan player loots, then it appears as a Clan award.

Tireen nets her Double Flags of Righteousness token board, click for larger view.

Since Babaente and Tireen have been teaming as a result of ‘dual-boxing’, it was too much trouble to try and switch back and forth on looting, and normally we have Babaente do all the looting.  As a result she got her 250th token about 2 missions before Tireen.

When Tireen finally collected token number 250, she got a much more impressive token board title “Double Flags of Righteousness.“  Besides the mind-numbing grind that missions can become, this stint has been somewhat profitable for them. Since they had been pulling missions in the 55-60 range, they had come across 2 Grid Armor Mark I instruction disks, fairly valuable finds for title 3 toons.

The 250 token board is the highest level board title 3 froobs can hold.  It gives substantial buffs to the holder.  Here is the breakdown:

Max Health      +500
Max Nano        +500
Add all Off.    25
Add all Def.    35
% Add Exp.      6
Add Damage      10 (Proj., Melee, Energy, Chem., Rad., Cold, Fire, Poison)

It’s hard to think of any loot items that title 3 toons have a reasonable chance of acquiring that offer comparable  or better benefits.

Here is a quick cheat sheet outlining title levels, and token boards:

Title        Levels          Token Boards
1            1-14            10 tokens
2            15-49           30 and 60 tokens
3            50-99           120 and 250 tokens
4            100-149         400 and 1000 tokens
5            150-189
6            190-200
7            205-220

One minor gotcha, is that token boards are for sided players only. Neutrals have no token boards other than Cyborg token boards that are dropped by mid level Cyborgs.  For title 5 and above, there are additional token boards, but the requirements for each are very specific and different quests.

Our pair are now itching to get out in the open, and for Babaente to get back into practice kiting.  Because the levels can fly by pretty fast while NT kiting, our pair need to make sure they stop some time in this short run to title 5 (level 100) that they again run a like number of team missions AGAIN in order to pick up the next token board, which requires 400 tokens. They also will need to make sure they get through Biomare/Foreman’s dungeon as it is level locked to 100 and below.

Mort Crater, the circle track of DOOM, click for larger view

Babaoroody was prodded by Babaente, out of his title 4 rut, to make 3 passes through the Sentinels base small building with Babaente tagging along.  They are looking for a Ring of Haste to drop from an level 115-ish Entwined soldier, but this week end they cleaned out the static dungeon 3 times, but came up dry in regards to a Ring of Haste.  The ring is a no drop item, but it adds +100 run speed, so it definitely would be a bonus for Babaente when kiting.

It was fun lumbering around and popping Challenger and Mongo nanos when any of the Sentinels mobs put up a decent fight.  Pumped up with the increased size of a Challenger nano, adjusting the camera became a bit of a problem in the tight quarters of a mission setting.  In third person view, the only way to see a fallen mob is to have Baba sit.

It brings us to Baba and why aren’t we leveling him?  After getting past the midway point of title 5, the options seem to have narrowed significantly.  It’s either team missions or PW Borg pickup teams.  While solo kiting PW Borgs is still an option, the experience is slow glowing when you have to kite and kill them one at a time.

We have nothing but admiration and wonder for froobs who have made it all the way to 200, and a ton more if they are ‘pure’ froobs.

Babaente and Tireen are really excited about getting out in the wild again for some fast kite leveling, but first, they will be sorting through and marketing thier loot from this last run of token missions.  Once that is done, they will be out scouting for a nice kiting area suitable for a 71 level NT.

Push and Pull; Kiting PW Borgs

Greetings from Baba, click for larger view of his mug

Babaoroody was doing his aerobic routine with some ancient pre-nano musical artifacts as someone called “Rufus Thomas” sang about the “Push and Pull”.  His routine had been fairly unchanged for decades, the last major change instigated by the time they pieced him back together after getting torn up pretty bad by some high level Claws on a day the reclaim service was down.  The Med Vac team had rushed him to one of the best micro surgery theatres on Rubi-Ka, but this was back in the days before insta-grow nu-bone, when they had to use medieval kludges like steel rods, plates and screws.  After that, he had to drop the drop-splits from his routine, and just replaced them with more running in place.

He had just passed the point where the splits had been, always a reminder of that ordeal, when he noticed some activity on his guild chat channel.  It was Heschol, a general in his org “Angels of the Night” with an  invite for PW Borgs.  Although Baba was still pretty rusty, this would be only his second outing since his recent absence, asking an Enforcer to pass up a Borg team can only have one outcome.  He flew his Yalm from his apartment in Newland City, out to the grid entrance next to the city and then took the Mort Sentinels exit from the grid.  From there he had to fly over half of Mort and most of Perpetual Wastelands to get to the Northwest Borg base.  It must be nice to have access to the Fixer Grid and be able to get to PW minus the long slow flight he thought as he watched familiar PW geography pass by below. When Baba arrived the team was  waiting at the Helipad. Baba said hello to the team:

• Aoephreek  131 Nanomage male NT, clan
• Babaoroody 131 Atrox Male Enforcer, clan AOTN
• Habanerina 166 Solitus Female Agent, clan, AOTN
• Heschol 131 Solitus Male Soldier clan
• Thermospy 131 Opifex Male Agent

The previous evening Tireen inspects Newland Guards all trained up 06-05-09, click for larger view.

Thermospy was in a kiting mood and obliged the rest of the team by False Profession-ing as an NT and doing most of the heavy lifting.  He was so skilled he easily had rounded just about all of a full spawn of the dunes area north of the Helipad and they were soon looking for more Borgs.  They found a few stragglers the small base just north of the dunes, and then they headed to the south entrance of the Borg mines, where the NT proceeded to pull pretty good sized kites out of the mine site and finishing them off, often all at once.  They then moved north and while the Agent/NT Thermospy cleared out the Borgs between the mine and the Helipad base.

The NT went ahead, but after he did not come bounding back with Borgs in tow, the team heading into the base in the hopes of catching up with the NT who was probably out on the Helipad by now, pulling Borgs from the Dunes.

This assumption was wrong.  The NT got hung up in the notorious south gate of the Helipad base, and had gotten sent to reclaim as he struggled with the entry.  When Baba got to the gate, he too was delayed, but just enough so that when he did manage to try and pass through the base, he ran into bunches of Borgs near the north entrance.  By the time he reached the helipad he had 5-6 Borg chasing him.

Meanwhile another NT kiting team had showed up and was busy working the Helipad with Borgs from the Dunes.  Before Baba could get things sorted out as to where his team mates were, and who was aggro-wing which Borgs, he got wiped by several stray Borgs.  Baba met up with the also reclaimed Thermospy at OA grid where Baba got his first taste of the Fixer grid.  When Thermo asked if he was ready to grid, Baba said OK, not wanting to admit he had no idea what to do next.  After a minute or so of inaction on Baba’s part.  The Team patiently explained to our challenged brute the simple process of watching for the data receptacle to show up in his inventory and then selecting it and dropping it on the Grid Terminal.

Data Recepticle

Baba can be a bit slow, especially if he has not had done any homework research on a topic.  Even after they explained it patiently he, was having trouble until, his little Atrox brain realized he was supposed to be looking for the data receptacle in his inventory, not his NCU list.  There was some side chatter going on in the team channel about the NCU list, and Baba misinterpreted some of those comments to be related to trying to get into F-grid.

The Fixer Grid, the first time is spooky.

Once inside the Fgrid, Baba was quite dis-oriented at first.  It looks somewhat like the regular grid, except more exotic.  There is one entrance elevator in the middle on the the ground floor.  Each level is circular and has two up/down elevators each.  The exits are arranged around the periphery of the levels.  It took Baba a few moments to get a handle on the situation, find and navigate to one of 3 Perpetual Wasteland grid exits.  After materializing from that he found himself standing somewhere near the far north border of the zone, so he popped into his Yalm and started heading south.

Before long he was back with the team, who were now just south of the Borg mines. After the NT cleared out the mine area they proceeded to the area between the mine and the next base.  This was about the time that Lyanka joined the team.  Some one pulled a group of 3 or 4 Borg out near the group and it turned into a major fur-ball type conflict.  Baba was still pretty rusty, this being his 2nd outing in more than 4 months, so he was trying to play conservatively, but conservative is really not a term used much by Enforcers.

Teams just keep getting better the higher you level. By Title 4 team mates can soup up their team with a wide collection of buffing nanos.  Tonight Baba was lucky to have Dr. Hack N Quack, Grid-space Freedom, an NT nano HOT, and a couple of other buffs he forgot to make note of at the time.  This resulted in him having really amazing run speed for an Enforcer.  He was having difficulties adjusting to the massive run speed buff.  He found he was outrunning the Borgs too quickly, and he did not have the moves down on how to effectively use this speed in kiting Borgs, but he was doing the best he could and was starting to get a handle on it.

He was trying to hold down the forward button while quickly tapping the right key to run a tight circle around 3-4 Borgs.  For some reason, he failed to hit the forward key and was suddenly spinning in place, before he could correct his mistake. 4 Borgs shot him almost simultaneously, and there could be no doubt that 4 900 plus dips in the health bar are an express ticket back to reclaim.

Some of the team had to call it a day, and a few decided to go to  Shadow Lands.  This was fine with Baba, since it was getting later into the afternoon, and he did need to take some time away from Rubi-Ka to take care of some RL business.  Despite getting himself sent to reclaim like a total noob, Baba did get to see an awesome fireworks display by  the team’s Agent/NT and he picked up a few nice Miy’s armor drops.  He took some notes on the NT kiting technique on Borgs which he plans to pass on to his friend Babaente, a now title 3 NT.

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