as for weather or not to buy skills to get a head start i say hell yea it is WAY faster then natural and alot cheaper than hunting shit for several months/years. others will tell you its easy to skill from 0-50 so why bother buying the skills? they say that becasue they never picked up a gun dropped by puny mobs and used it. skilling is horrendously slow to start unless you buy ur way to lvl 30 or grab a sick ass UL non sib of your choise and kill some real mobs that wont loot you.
WRONG 100% !!!
I finished the puny iron and burned tons of Rubio ( I loved that rifle) And I am almost 50 hit in 6 months of grinding (well not every day, if I had 8h per day each day like OP said I were past 50 since month 4 or 5) . The secret is PILLS with BONUS and GRIND GRIND GRIND *NO BREAKE* !
SO if OP want build up char he can grind as nuts for up to 6 months , but 100$ / month well no way
not even per week
Instead, with 200-300 $ I think he can buy that level ...So is only op to OP !
Skills cost less BUT when u hunt medium (LT for example) BE READY TO LOOSE 100$ PER DAY ! FOR MORE DAYS!
Skilling cost MORE BUT on long term and grinding make you learn some about the game (loot, spots etc) and cost less on PLAYING !
PS OP: Ubers hunt with 1000$ ammo per run
(so if u say 100$/month is MUCH well... start skilling, use the weapon/amp armour/fap from the pack and do as many irons you can.... start with them based on mob hp and take em 1 by 1 -> entropiawiki.com all you need )
PS 2: And yes is normal to loose and get even a 30% return on punyes if u use wrong gear (puny require Rubio or the HG they drop with bl0101 as amp) so anything else will be a ped waste.
If I remember right I spent like 300-400 ped to finish the iron but not sure... the MU on those is quite nice and if u grind good u can loot some and sell and improve the return...
PS 3: expect a 50-70 return as NOOB on daily runs and on long term around 80%
SKILL SKILL SKILL : Fun ! ! !
Good luck