Ohtizz in the Subway

AgentBaba wades ashore from the crashed Shuttle. Click for a larger version.

Over the past week things have gotten rather intense in RL4, with a major new site design getting started, so our Rubi-Ka involvement has been less than normal.

Our alts AgentBaba and Babaemphee are just about ready to leave Shuttleport Island having acquired upgraded newcomer’s armor, upgraded starter weapons, and their basic nanos, plus a few buffing rings each.

Once all the islands dynas were no longer a challenge to this duo, they  started hunting aliens. The small ones were quite easy, but the first really big one they took on introduced AgentBaba to her first taste of reclaim.

Babaemphee loots a nice alien sword. Wish Froobs could use this stuff. Click for a larger view.

Babaemphee did manage to finish off the beast and loot a nice looking alien sword. They managed to bring down another large alien and quite a few more smaller ones, netting several different types of alien weapons which apparently Froobs cannot use, even if they can carry them around and trade them.

We logged on to Baba the past night intending to head out to PW Borgs for some more leveling. Things did not work out that way however. We discovered that most of our bags were full and it really was time to hook up with our Trader Tireen and fence the goods. This meant some downtime sorting bags and Googling pieces of unfamiliar loot. Baba likes to use Auno.org mainly for it’s snappy performance and simple GUI.

This latest catch had quite a few weapons in it, mainly a bunch of guns of various types. These were sorted out to a bag in his bank for safe keeping and possible use on alts. There was also a good pile of monster parts that needed conversion to plasma. To give you an idea of the difference between breeds and professions, Baba an atrox enforcer has a hard time converting any plasma over QL 30 while Tireen a solitus trader can easily handle up QL 70. Baba put all the monster parts in several bags and then handed off the whole stack of bags to Babaente our NT.

Babaente, after Baba Logged off, then handed the bags off to Tireen, our trader who is on the same account as Baba, hence they will never meet directly. Tireen then proceeded to convert all the monster parts under QL 70 to plasma, and then headed over the the Newland City Miir shop to trade the loot. After fencing Baba’s loot and handing the credits over to Babaente, Tireen then took Babaente’s, bags of loot and fenced those at the Miir shop. By the time Tireen had completed this and returned the credits to Babaente, and Babaente then hooked up with Baba to give him his credits, a good chunk of the evening was used up.

Nightmaress, an NT kiting at the PW Helipad. Click for larger view.

Baba went ahead traveled to Perpetual Wastelands, to get started. When he arrived, there was a rather high level Fixer kiting the Borg out on the main dunes section, so Baba thought to try the small hilly section near the helipad. There was a 150 or so NT there with another player kiting the Borg out from the Base. Baba decided to log off and hopefully when he returns on another night, he will find a clear play field.

With some time still left, we decided to wake up Ohtizz or lowbie Adventurer and level him some in the dungeon. He was around level 13 and we had recently bought him two QL 10 Original Electroqutiums which on paper, have slightly better stats than his enhanced starter pistols. While the Electrocutiums do about 10-15 more points damage, they have two downsides, 1) they use ammo, and 2) they have no specials.

Ohtizz dings 14 in the Subway. Click for larger view.

Having outgrown most of the mobs in the south portion of the subway, Ohtizz started heading north toward the area where the strikers congregate. After polishing off a pair of Shades, he ran into a striker in the next hall, and just when it was down to about 10% health, the Electrocutiums ran out of ammo. At first there was great confusion and rending of hair, until it was figured out that both guns were empty. It could have been a dire situation. No ammo, a long distance with many no-so-gray mobs between him and the closest vendor, and even if he did somehow make it, he was out of credits too. He had used all his credits to buy around 7 backpacks for loot recently.

He switched back to his starter weapons from his backpack and started working on the strikers,androids, and robots in the striker area. He managed to level up to 14 and took some time to allocate out his new IP points. While doing this in the subway station area, some less than considerate lowbie trained a mugger to him. Ohtizz could not quite figure that one out. What was somebody who could not handle a mugger doing this deep in the subway to begin with he though? After dispatching the mugger and completing his IP allocations, he headed back to the architect/strikers area and started leveling again.

Baba had told him tales of how when Baba had been at level 14 and at the same location, Baba had gotten wiped because the striker/architects in that area are social, if you attack one, 3 or 4 will swarm onto you. Poor Baba had not yet learned how to use his health stims in combat, and was quickly overwhelmed. For Ohtizz, 4 striker/architects was no problem. Any time his health got down to 75% he would stop to do a Adventurer self heal, and sometimes follow that up with a health stim. Of course there was also a massive difference between their evades settings. Baba had been following advice that Enforcers don’t need evades and had put very little if any points into them at this stage, resulting him him always taking alot of damage, much more than his limited ability to use health stims could keep up with.

This is where players should start, standing on top of the downed shuttle. Click for larger View.

Where Baba always took a steady stream of damage, Ohtizz’s combat log reads the opposite with line after line of the Addy doing damage sprinkled with an occasional taking of damage. After shooting to pieces that whole end of the subway for the better part of an hour, Ohtizz found a Construction sleeve off one of the architects. It is of little use to him, so it was more of a curiosity to see it drop. Ohtizz also can report that the loot tables for the subway mobs seem to have been modified. Almost all the mobs seem to drop copious amounts of the Froob tee shirts now. He must have 15-20 by now, plus several Vagabond cloaks for future lowbies. Ohtizz stayed out of the main architects room, the one that leads up to the bridge section. He plans to enter there either with a team, or after he gets a few more levels under his belt.

Previously Ohtizz had used some down time to do some research on pistols. He ran into the AO grognard heaven when he did. AO has tons of garbage weapons that drop from mobs and are for sale in the vending machines. Almost all of them are useless, i.e. worse than the starter weapons while often have higher requirements. Ohtizz spent some time looking up weapons under QL 20 and apart from expansion items, found very little that he can hope to have access to at this point. The best he can hope for is to be able to buy something when he gets to level 70 and can make steady credits at Foreman’s. The kind of credits that will buy a halfway decent weapon. He had noticed the Electrocutiums in this search. However after using them briefly he decided to go back to and stay with his starter guns for a while. They don’t require ammo, and they do decent damage after the special (fling shot) is factored in. They will continue to be viable for a while as his firing rate speed increases as he levels.

Ohtizz In the Subway

Over the past week things have gotten rather intense in RL4, with a major new
site design getting started, so our Rubi-Ka involvement has been less than normal.
Our alts AgentBaba and Babaemphee are just about ready to leave Shuttleport Island having acquired upgraded newcomer’s armor, upgraded starter weapons, and their basic nanos, plus a few buffing rings each.  Once all the islands dynas no longer presented a challenge this duo, as a team started hunting aliens.  The small ones were quite easy, but the first really big one they took on introduced AgentBaba to her first taste of reclaim, although Babaemphee did manage to finish off the beast and loot a nice looking alien sword.  They managed to bring down another large alien and quite a few more smaller ones, netting several different types of alien weapons which apparently Froobs cannot use, even if they can carry them around and trade them.

We logged on to Baba the past night intending to head out to PW Borgs for some more leveling.  Things did not work out that way however.  We discovered that most of our bags were full and it really was time to hook up with our Trader Tireen and fence the goods.  This meant some downtime sorting bags and Googling pieces of unfamiliar loot.  Baba likes to use Auno.org mainly for it’s snappy performance and simple GUI.  This latest catch had quite a few weapons in it, mainly a bunch of guns of various types.  These were sorted out to a bag in his bank for safe keeping and possible use on alts.  There was also a good pile of monster parts that needed conversion to plasma.  To give you an idea of the difference between breeds and professions,  Baba an atrox enforcer has a hard time converting any plasma over QL 30 while Tireen a solitus trader can easily handle up QL 70.  Baba put all the monster parts in several bags and then handed off the whole stack of bags to Babaente our NT.

Babaente, after Baba Logged off, then handed the bags off to Tireen, our trader who is on the same account as Baba, hence they will never meet directly.  Tireen then proceeded to convert all the monster parts under QL 70 to plasma, and then headed over the the Newland City Miir shop to trade the loot.  After fencing Baba’s loot and handing the credits over to Babaente, Tireen then took Babaente’s, bags of loot and fenced those at the Miir shop.   By the time Tireen had completed this and returned the credits to Babaente, and Babaente then hooked up with Baba to give him his credits, a good chunk of the evening was used up.

Baba went ahead traveled to Perpetual Wastelands, to get started.  When he arrived, there was a rather high level Fixer kiting the Borg out on the main dunes section, so Baba thought to try the small hilly section near the helipad.  There was a 150 or so NT there with another player kiting the Borg out from the Base.  Baba decided to log off and hopefully when he returns on another night, he will find a clear play field.

With some time still left, we decided to wake up Ohtizz or lowbie Adventurer and level him some in the dungeon.  He was around level 13 and we had recently bought him two QL 10 Original Electroqutiums which on paper, have slightly better stats than his enhanced starter pistols.  While the Electrocutiums do about 10-15 more points damage, they have two downsides, 1) they use ammo, and 2) they have no specials.

Having outgrown most of the mobs in the south portion of the subway, Ohtizz started heading north toward the area where the strikers congregate.  After polishing off a pair of Shades, he ran into a striker in the next hall, and just when it was down to about 10% health, the Electrocutiums ran out of ammo.  At first there was great confusion and rending of hair, until it was figured out that both guns were empty.  It could have been a dire situation.  No ammo, a long distance with many no-so-gray mobs between him and the closest vendor, and even if he did somehow make it, he was out of credits too.  He had used all his credits to buy around 7 backpacks for loot recently.

He switched back to his starter weapons from his  backpack and started working on the strikers,androids, and robots in the striker area.  He managed to level up to 14 and took some time to allocate out his new IP points.  While doing this in the subway station area, some less than considerate lowbie trained a mugger to him.  Ohtizz could not quite figure that one out.  What was somebody who could not handle a mugger doing this deep in the subway to begin with he though?  After dispatching the mugger and completing his IP allocations, he headed back to the architect/strikers area and started leveling again.

Baba had told him tales of how when Baba had been at level 14 and at the same location, Baba had gotten wiped because the striker/architects in that area are social, if you attack one, 3 or 4 will swarm onto you.  Poor Baba had not yet learned how to use his health stims in combat, and was quickly overwhelmed.  For Ohtizz, 4 striker/architects was no problem.   Any time his health got down to 75% he would stop to do a Adventurer self heal, and sometimes follow that up with a health stim. Of course there was also a massive difference between their evades settings.  Baba had been following advice that Enforcers don’t need evades and had put very little if any points into them at this stage, resulting him him always taking alot of damage, much more than his limited ability to use health stims could keep up with.

Where Baba always took a steady stream of damage, Ohtizz’s combat log reads
the opposite with line after line of the Addy doing damage sprinkled with an occasional taking of damage.  After shooting to pieces that whole end of the subway for the better part of an hour, Ohtizz found a Construction sleeve off one of the architects.  It is of little use to him, so it was more of a curiosity to see it drop.  Ohtizz also can report that the loot tables for the subway mobs seem to have been modified.  Almost all the mobs seem to drop copious amounts of the Froob tee shirts now.  He must have 15-20 by now, plus several Vagabond cloaks for future lowbies.  Ohtizz stayed out of the main architects room, the one that leads up to the bridge section.  He plans to enter there either with a team, or after he gets a few more levels under his belt.

Previously Ohtizz had used some down time to do some research on pistols.  He ran into the AO grognard heaven when he did.  AO has tons of garbage weapons that drop from mobs and are for sale in the vending machines.  Almost all of them are useless, i.e. worse than the starter weapons while often have higher requirements.   Ohtizz spent some time looking up weapons under QL 20 and apart from expansion items, found very little that he can hope to have access to at this point.  The best he can hope for is to be able to buy something when he gets to level 70 and can make steady credits at Foreman’s. The kind of credits that will buy a halfway decent weapon.  He had noticed the Electrocutiums in this search.  However after using them briefly he decided to go back to and stay with his starter guns for a while.  They don’t require ammo, and they do decent damage after the special (fling shot) is factored in.   They will continue to be viable for a while as his firing rate speed increases as he levels.

Level 134 and Ohtizz

Ohtizz, old friend of Baba, reacts to request for credit card, click for larger view.

Baba stared out across the lake next to Newland City, watching the holo-advertisements for the various flying vehicles spin, as his long time acquaintance Ohtizz filled him in on his arrival on Rubi-Ka.  Ohtizz had been on another planet when Baba sent him a ‘free pass’ to Rubi-Ka that was supposed to include access to Jobe and what mainly interested Baba, access to the Global Purchasing Terminals.  Baba never got his access via his pal to the terminals.  The sponsoring corporation, in return for the ‘free’  30 day trial of these services, required your credit card number and the right to start charging it once the 30 days were up.  Ohtizz explained to Baba, that even though he really would have liked to see how the Planet wide shop terminals work, it just was not worth handing over his credit chip number.  Ohtizzes world had a funny way of shaking things up in such a way that he sometimes forgets to cancel free trials before the 30 days is up, and ends up getting charged.

Addys are Easy! Ohtizz makes short work of a Boss, click for larger view.

Ohtizz explained to Baba that he still enjoyed the trip to Rubi-Ka and how he had chose the Adventurer class when required by the bureaucracy running the welcome/processing orbital station.  “It’s like 10 times easier than Enforcer, or NT or even Trader.  Practically all my skills are green and unlike these professions, the starter IP allotments are more then enough for keeping the basic abilities maxed.”  There is only a handful of important skills to raise, so the IP goes much further than they did for Baba’s Enforcer, or Babaente’s NT, or Tireen’s Trader, at least for title levels 1-2.

The Shuttleport Island has been quite easy for Ohtizz thanks to the advise Baba, Babaente, and Tireen had laid out for him. They had laid out for him the following:

The Froob’s Shuttleport Island to Mainland One Page Guide

1. Talk to Brandon Thorn, do as he asks, get a light bar,  a belt and a level.
2. Kill beach mobs in the immediate area to level up to around level 6, be sure to loot everything.
3. Give Thorn monster parts, he will give you first aid stims, health and nano kits. You will be outgrowing these soon, so only get a few.
4. Take the belt to Stacklund who will upgrade it. Aslo ask him about weapon upgrades.
5. Sign up with Clan or Omni, then trade your loot with your sides equipment vendor.
6. Talk to  Adri Afeli by the docks and get your weapon(s) upgraded.
7. With the cash you earned from all the mobs you killed leveling up. Buy you beginners nano package.
8. Do Travis Molen’s sided shoulder pad quest twice to get a pair.
9. Do Travis Molen’s 5 quests for the Newcomer’s Armor pieces, gloves, pants, body, sleeves and boots.  (There is no helmet). Use the best helmet you find looting mobs.)
10. Buy sided badges and upgrade each of you Newcomer’s armor pieces.
11. Don’t waste your time doing the backpack or other quests. You can buy a backpacks cheaply on the  main land.
12. Optional, kill all the Dyna-camps you can find on the Island.  You may get a decent buffing item or two, like a Ring of Power (extra damage), Ring of Offense (extra offense points) and a few others. These are nice to have, and only cost a few minutes it takes to kill the mobs.  Not worth camping for however. If you need experience in order to level up so you can equip something new, then do these quests, and repeat them if more experience is needed.
13. Go to the Mainland. Ignore the drunk.  Enter the subway, find the Vagabond that hangs out in the passage way between the 2nd and 3rd set of doors beyond the entrance.  Kill him and loot the Vagabond cloak.  If it drops, place it on your back slot. The +25 all defense is golden at these low levels.  If the cloak does not drop, take note of the time, proceed to the left wing off the large main hall.  Kill robots, muggers, looters and Vagabonds (the other Vagabonds may also drop the Vagabond cloak) for 20 minutes, then return to the first Vagabond and kill him again.  Repeat this process until you get a cloak. This cloak and the newcomer’s armor is all you need for the next 15-20 levels armor wise.
14. Get a Bio Communicator to turn monster parts into more valuable blood plasma.  For sale in shops for a few thousand credits, or get a free one by talking to the woman standing near where you first arrived. Agree to return her Bio Communicator to a guy over by the shops.  He will end up giving you one for your very own.

At this point you are on your own.  You should know how to play your character, how to kill mobs to level and how to earn credits.

Ohtizz breezed through Newbie Island and hit level 13 on the Mainland without ever once visiting reclaim.  Poor Baba got to know reclaim at starter Island right away as did Babaente and Tireen. “It’s so easy” he told Baba, “I hardly take any damage, and the mobs are usually dead before I break out a sweat.”  With evades maxed, and dual wielding a pair of fairly powerful pistols, Ohtizz rarely has to use an many med kits and first aid charges as Baba did.

Baba listened patiently to his old friend.  He had know Ohtizz, long ago, on other planets in other solar systems, other times.  He was glad his friend had finally found something at which he could excel.  Not wanting to bring up some of Ohtizz’s previous less than glorious undertakings, Baba encouraged him to continue with the Addy thing.

Baba would never choose the Adventurer route, but he did feel a bit cheated.  Newbie island has been a somewhat difficult undertaking for him.  He was mostly envious of the Adventurer’s solo/self healing nanos.  You would think that a profession that is designed to take damage, would have nanos to replenish the health lost while tanking.  All Enforcers get are nanos that increase the overall health point base.  The problem being that once it’s used up, in battle, there is nothing except first aid stims, to keep his health for running out in a hard fight.

Baba shook Ohtizz’s hand, wished him luck, and hopped in his Yalm.  Baba had some leveling to do in Perpetual Wastelands with some Borg.  When Baba arrived over the dunes in north east PW he was happy to find no other hunters there to compete with.  There was evidence however, that someone had recently left there.  The main dunes section, that has a somewhat elevated altitude to the extent that one can see far in all directions, was itself only about half full of the usual complement of Cyborg soldiers and officers.

Baba quickly buffed up, and popped a anniversary experience boosting stim and went to work.  It did not take long for Baba to clear the rest of the main dune section, however he could swear that his experience bar was hardly moving.  The combat log clearly still showed massive experience being awarded with each Borg downed, so it must have been one of those time/reality dilations that occur sometimes due to stress or excitement.  Baba had to move further south to the section of undulating dunes that sit next to the acid lake and the Heli-pad.  He greatly reduced the distance by which he would kite his prey away from the main body. This helped speed up the process, but also caused him to catch unwanted aggro from Borg which re-spawned close to where he was recharging or looting resulting in multi Borg kites, and/or sustaining 50% or more damage before dispatching the Borg involved.

Baba hits level 134 at PW Dunes, click for larger view.

By the time Baba dinged 134, darkness was falling.  He hopped in his Yalm and few north just a bit to set down in his usual safe spot where he could sort his recent loot and heal up via his health and nano deltas rather than use of costly kits.  There were several Miy’s armor pieces in this take, but nothing he could equip any time soon.  While not in his loot bags, he did cogitate a bit over seeing not one, but several Experimental Cyborg token boards dropping during this outing.  It was a shame to have to let them rot, but since they are no drop, and he already had a clan board, they were of no use to him.