5 Froob Shopping Tips

One of the greatest disadvantages Froobs face is how they are locked out of the Anarchy Online player shops and the shop searching mechanism. As players advance, there are basically two ways to acquire the best weapons, armor and buffing items. Get them directly by killing the appropriate mob or completing a quest. This is not always possible. This alternative is to buy the needed items from other players. Subscribers can browse player shops and/or search all player shops using the in game GMS search function.

There is a way for determined Froobs to find and buy their needed items. All it takes is a little more effort.

Here are 5 tips to help Froobs find and buy needed items:

1. AO Junkyard and Rogue. These two things combined make a Froob alternative to the GMS.  No, it is not the equivalent, but it can help you find sellers who are ready to sell what you need at the moment.  It involves using the Rogue in-game web browser and the AO Junkyard website. Rogue is a free in-game web browser that minimizes the CPU and memory load involved with running AO and a browser at the same time. It is coded to enable one to use it on top of an open AO window while still having full control of the game.  AO Junkyard lists in real time, all posts to the shopping channels in AO. It lists the actual text of the each selling Shopping Channel post and the name of the player that posted it. It will also tell if the poster is online at the moment.

2. Auno.org and AO Pricewatch These two web sites can provide valuable background information to help you be able to determine what a reasonable price for any AO item might be. Auno.or is a popular database of all things AO and it can provide helpful price and availability information. The comments under popular items often contain posts about the selling price of items, where they drop or can be obtained originally, and other pertinent information. While the comments can sometimes be way out of date, the more information one has the better one can bargain. AO Pricewatch, keeps a historical record of asking prices pulled from the AO shopping channels, which can help give one an idea of what the ballpark price for an item has been.

3. Friends List. Once a potential seller of a desired item has been identified, add their name to your toon’s friends list and keep the friends online tab open when online. This will let you spot when they come online so you can send them a direct personal tell immediately to make your offer.

4. Be Prepared to Deal. Have more than enough credits on your toon for the purchase, and make sure there is enough empty space in your immediate inventory to allow the transaction to take place.  Complete your research ahead of time so you will know what is the maximum you are prepared to pay for an item. If the item is unique, make sure ahead of time that you do not have a lower quality version and either get rid of it, or have it in your immediate inventory so you can delete it if required in order to pickup the new unique item. (AO will only allow a player to have 1 of any item marked unique).

5. Trade at OA or BOR Grid. Determine the best place to trade with your intended seller. It is important to do a whois check on the name of your potential seller to learn which faction they belong to. If they are clan, and you are clan, than Old Athens grid is probably the most convenient place to meet. If they are omni or neutral, then Borealis Grid will be the best place to meet. When both sides are omni or neutral, then Borealis Grid may still be the most convenient location to trade due to being reachable by whompa and grid.

When you do send a private tell to your potential seller make it short and to the point.

Example:

Hi  (name of seller), I want to buy your  (name of item) for  (number of credits) credits, meet at (name a grid location) grid?

This tells them what you want to buy, what you are offering to pay, and suggests a place to meet. Remember the other player at this point may be occupied killing mobs or completing a quest. Be patient and be prepared to agree on a future time and place to meet if needed.

Be flexible on where to meet and when. Players are often occupied at the moment, but still motivated to set up a future rendezvous or they may request you come to them.  As long as the alternative place they suggest is relatively safe, you may have to agree in order to get what you need.

140 Rolls By

Baba at max detail settings, hunting bots in Omni Forrest

Baba was getting a little tired of PW Borgs and thought he would try some leveling off mobs in the wild.  He found a canyon in Southern Foul plains that looked like it had a mix of snakes, Drills, and big cats, at around level 120 which he thought would be tough enough to give some decent experience, yet not be risking reclaim all the time.  Well it turned out that yes he could handle them smoothly individually, but the layout of the canyon was too tight and it was impossible to keep from picking up more adds while kiting single mobs.  He picked up a train of 4 or 5 120 level mobs which he had to run across half the zone to lose.

He then spent some time hunting low level bots for the last piece in the first part of the Alvin/Dodga quest.  He had started this quest back when he was in his 60s, but gave up after collecting 6 of the seven pieces.  That seventh piece was just not to be found by him.  He killed about 90 in one trip which yielded two drops of quest items, but not the item he needed, the scrap of notum.  The next day he killed about 150 bots in a session which yielded 0 quest pieces.  Somebody noticed what he was doing, and could not resist mocking him for still doing this quest at his level.  I guess compared to expansion shoulder pieces, the ones from this quest are pretty wimpy.  Maybe so, Baba just hates too leave things like that unfinished, so every once and a while, he goes out looking for the last quest item.

Strange clump of mobs in river, click for larger view

While traveling around he came across one of those strange clumps of mobs, this time in Athens near a bend in the river.  It must be something in the virtual geometry that causes so many unlike mobs to congregate in one illogical spot.   AgentBaba our agent alt spotted a similar thing near one of the player cities just north of the Rhinoman valley in Newland Dessert.

Speaking of AgentBaba, she leveled up to around 25 out in Newland Dessert, and then returned to the Subway in Borealis to see how far she could level in there.  The  Gripo-Com AKR 1K21rifles recommended by Hahnsoo’s guide worked out extremely well for her.  She was doing damage close to what several true twinks were getting in the Subway.  The Gripo’s are fairly fast and have a very nice crit.

On her arrival to the entrance to the stairs to the deep subway she was challenged by Eumenides, who she was quite able to put away with little fuss or muss.  To her delight, he dropped the best bit of subway loot, the ring of Nucleus Basalis, so she then had no need to join suicide Abmouth teams.  She then spent a day or two leveling up.  With the great damage from the rifle and her evades, she had no trouble with any mob in the subway.  The only one that was a threat were Virgil Aneid and Abmouth, which she did her best to stay away from.

One of the more curious mobs in the subway is a small female is the deep subway named “Redundant Scan”.  During AgentBaba’s extended Subway experience, she must have fought this mob 20-30 times.  Very often “Redundant Scan” will break off from combat when her health gets to about 40% and start running away.   For a ranged toon like AgentBaba, this is no problem, as poor “Redundant Scan” is unable to outrun projectiles.

After she hit level 32, the number of mobs that would give her any experience was reduced to a very small handful.  The two giant spiders, the shades in the Vergil Aeneid section, and the two cyborgs in the room before Virgil were the only ones to give experience after hitting 32.  It was getting boring having to sit around waiting for them to respawn, so AgentBaba decided to quit while she was ahead and was in the process of leaving when she reached the stairs that go up to the rooms with the sand fleas.  At that point she got a join team pop up.  She had been posted on looking for a team the whole time, and gotten 0 invites so far, so she just as she clicked yes, the ugly form of Abmouth filled her view.  A trox doctor that had been teamed with a semi-twink looked to have lost his team-mate to Abmouth, and was now determined to avoid reclaim.

AgentBaba first impulse was to flat out run away, run away, Monte Python style, but decided to try and help out as best she could.  Not only was there Abmouth, but the doc/trox had also picked up a train of several infectors and cyborgs as well.   AgentBaba was surprised that even though she was pouring damage into Abby, neither Abby or any of the adds, paid her any attention.  The doc/trox seemed to be going into that slow motion, death spiral dance, so AgentBaba knew that it was now time for her to split, or she would be next.  She ran for the exits and was quite surprised that she managed to escape.   I have got to note at this point, after taking an Enforcer, Agent and Adventurer through the subway, that the Agent was by far the most effective.  The Enforcer’s non twink weapons were too weak, they lack self healing, and have no evades.

Player City south of PW notum mines, click for full view

Baba did go back to Perpetual Wastelands and resumed hunting Borgs there.  He used to be able to expect to grab a level in about an hour there by himself, but ever since he hit around level 135, the experience each Borg gives has taken a nose dive, and it now takes him 2 to 3 hours to get a level at the same spot.  It has become less dangerous.  He can flub a pull and survive pulling 3-4 Borg at a time.  Baba still has his eye on moving up to a Pained Panther from his Panther.  While trying to compare the two, he ran them both through the Auno damage simulator. The simulator asks for the input of your initiatives and your add/def setting.  This nudged Baba to to check his Agg/Def setting at the Unity of the Rose site.  The Agg/Def calculator told Baba that he could set his all the way back to 25% and maintain the same attack speed.  He tried this on his last Borg hunting trip and it did seem to help with fewer Borg crits landing.  This is an easily overlooked benefit of the Panther weapons, and most likely other fast melee weapons.  Once they are in the less than 1.5 seconds range, they enable enforcers to adjust thier Agg/Def settings quite a bit at no loss in damage.