Noob deciding on setup

Hello everyone, I pre-apologize for the ensuing wall of text. I just started playing and it seems to me that no decision in this game should be made lightly, so I'm trying to read and research as much as I can. To this end I'm trying to determine what type of weapon setup I want to focus on. I want to play economically, but I don't want to make a religion out of it.

So far my favorite is the power fist, it's so much fun to run around and just hit stuff to death. However, I have some concerns in the long term. I've familiarized myself with Entropedia.info. From an economic standpoint, this game really seems to steer you towards laser weaponry.

I've read all of the arguments on both sides of the DPP equation, and I do believe this is important. Regardless of opinions on how it impacts your loot, there's an undeniable mathematical truth that higher DPP = more kills for the same PED.

As I look at all of the power fist offerings, my concerns are that the more economical ones all seem to be limited (L) items. To me this creates a potential supply issue, on top of the fact that the extra markup that you have to pay for these (over and over again) would arguably ruin the economy of the weapon anyway. All of the unlimited versions of these seem to have fairly low DPP by comparison - though it appears I can boost this a bit with a proper amplifier.

So I suppose my questions are:

How low is too low? From what I can tell there's a coveted 3+ DPP that seems difficult to achieve without a huge investment, but is 2.8 still ok? 2.7? Is power fist a bad idea overall?

I plan to also use laser since having some range would be useful, but I would like my primary weapon to be something of the smashy-bashy variety.

Cheers

Hi

I been doing fine with 2.8 base DPP and at least 2.9DPP amped.

Check entropia weapon compare when buying L weapons. L weapons have mostly DPP value @ 100% price, so for example Modec 900 @ 125% is under 2.8, same with a lot of other weapons. I always add MU to L weapons on compare before I buy them, well, now I know them from my head hehe

some things that would help:

Your hit/dmg levels
Your hp
Your evade/dodge levels

and lastly what you're trying to hunt/what you main goal is

There's 125823632596 ways to answer this post w/o that info.

There are problems with powerfists:

There are only a few powerfists ranging from 3-28 damage.. most of those are oldschool type weapons (without Skill increase bonus, meaning you have to be level 100 to be eco with them)

There are L powerfists.. but they either don't drop from mobs at the moment or people who loot them simply tt them instead of putting them on auction.

So practically there are huge skill gaps between the fist from the trade terminal and the next available L (skill increase bonus) powerfist.

interesting unlimited (sib) powerfists:

s.i. psyblade was a nice starter powerfist, but its no longer available from the trade terminal, you could try to buy one with an inflated price
the problem is that you cannot put a melee trauma amp I on it because it's damage is too small.

Loughlin smacker two is an older unlimited sib powerfist with a base eco of 2.809 which can be upped to 2.882 by adding a melee trauma amp I . 11.68 damage per second

the omegaton power claw mentor edition used to be the only viable lower level hunting fist.. nowadays it still has low base eco (2.825) but it can be upped a bit with a melee trauma amp I to 2.875. with 17.51 damage per second. Still anything below 2.9 is considered not eco these days.. which doesn't leave a lot of powerfists.

the ranked psy blade from Cyrene is an exception in powerfists because it does nice damage and its eco is cool
the base eco is 2.853 but a melee trauma amp VII fits enhancing it to 2.934 and 56.71 damage per second
The problem is that this is the endgame powerfist, unless you can find a L-powerfist on the auction.

Knifes! I see knifes everywhere

Especially melee from ark, they are pretty nice and relative cheap.

Start with the tt knife
Next you can use Castorian Pioneer EnBlade-6 E.L.M Edition (L) with Melee trauma amp I
when you are maxed on him

Next step is Weapon: Khorum Ice Dagger + melee trauma amp III(Dont know how many of them are in game if they are avaible easy) when you hit 19lvl in hit and dmg of knifefighter profession. You got 2.923 eco with this setup. Price for the dagger is about tt +270

At lvl 24 on hit and dmg you can start using: Leoi Shock Dagger+ Melee trauma amp IV. Eco 2.934 for the price of +400 for dagger and like +70 for amp.

At lvl 39 on hit and dmg you can switch to Aakas Fire Dagger+trauma V and you got eco like 2.960. However its hard to find this amp so you can stay with yours trauma IV and you got on it eco 2.952.

And finally at lvl 49 of hit and dmg you have Songkra Corrosive Dagger+trauma VI with eco 2.964. instead of regular trauma VI you can go for trauma VI Improved and put yours eco into 2.981. However the price is very high.

As the finisher to mob with small amount of hp left you can use tt pistol with ZX Sinkadus amp from starter pack and have 2,981 eco on it.

If you are a noob and want to hunt economically, then head over to my noob thread How To Survive the link is in my signature, lots to read there .

The rule of thumb I like to follow is if the setup does not produce a dpp rating of 2.974 or higher, I do not use it simple as, because by the time you take Ares Imp Ring into the equation 2.975 becomes 3.00 dpp with the ring equipped.

Now if I compare my 3dpp to 2.955 which is the dpp rating of using Z12+A101 then im saving a whopping 45ped when I reach the 3k cycled mark.

Thanks for all the replies everyone. After further research and trial/error I've realized power fists are not the way to go, since the supply seems very low and all of the decent ones are very rare and hard to find. It's a shame, because I really enjoy them the most.

I've decided to go with laser pistol as my primary range weapon, and knives for close combat, since both seem to have a wide variety of choices in good supply.

go with clubs if you like the fists...

Iceman2003 said:

Knifes! I see knifes everywhere

Especially melee from ark, they are pretty nice and relative cheap.

Start with the tt knife
Next you can use Castorian Pioneer EnBlade-6 E.L.M Edition (L) with Melee trauma amp I
when you are maxed on him

Click to expand...

i would recommend the Ozpyn RSB S1X1, its unlimited, eco is ok but you know what your getting with UL weapons and its quite cheap but with good amount of TT. I can't really comment on the ELM weapons, the DPP is hard to calculate accurately and i would highly doubt entropedia is correct, this means you dont entirely know what your getting for your ped.

Detritus said:

Thanks for all the replies everyone. After further research and trial/error I've realized power fists are not the way to go, since the supply seems very low and all of the decent ones are very rare and hard to find. It's a shame, because I really enjoy them the most.

I've decided to go with laser pistol as my primary range weapon, and knives for close combat, since both seem to have a wide variety of choices in good supply.

Click to expand...

i originally went pistol and then switched to knife much later, i've found that when most mobs hit pistol range they are in knife range 1-2 hits later. i'd recommend going rifle and knife. Grab the Xent X2 then X3 for range, then the RSB S1X1 for melee and then follow the ark knives (ice -> corrosive) as you can

The Jetman said:

i would recommend the Ozpyn RSB S1X1, its unlimited, eco is ok but you know what your getting with UL weapons and its quite cheap but with good amount of TT. I can't really comment on the ELM weapons, the DPP is hard to calculate accurately and i would highly doubt entropedia is correct, this means you dont entirely know what your getting for your ped.

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Yes, you have right. Its hard to calculate that especially when the full tt is 1ped and MU on it 500%-600%.
S1X1 is good knife and not cost that much. I took those Elms because my lvl on hit was 19 so I need only 5lvls to max the leoi. I bought 10 of them for 5 ped each so its quite cheap.

Rifle for Range and knife on close combat, that is better solution than pistol and knife. You have some good range on the rifle that save you some hits from mob(less decay on armor and fap).

Iceman2003 said:

Yes, you have right. Its hard to calculate that especially when the full tt is 1ped and MU on it 500%-600%.
S1X1 is good knife and not cost that much. I took those Elms because my lvl on hit was 19 so I need only 5lvls to max the leoi. I bought 10 of them for 5 ped each so its quite cheap.

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yeah that makes sense, dont wanna commit 130ped MU + TT for only 5 lvls. i looted mine (1 of 4 in total so far) so i had no costs to start with. I kept mine for a little longer tho, made a decent low lvl blade/semi finisher when i had the fire dagger. ended up selling in the end, i found i stopped using it and it was like 450ped froze in my inventory

The Jetman said:

i originally went pistol and then switched to knife much later, i've found that when most mobs hit pistol range they are in knife range 1-2 hits later. i'd recommend going rifle and knife. Grab the Xent X2 then X3 for range, then the RSB S1X1 for melee and then follow the ark knives (ice -> corrosive) as you can

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I thought about this also, but went with pistol as there seems to be more options and availability - especially at the lower levels. Most of the mobs seem to close in fairly quickly anyway, so is the extra range really a great advantage? I tried the rifle and you can usually only get one or two shots in before the mob is on you.

Also it should be considered that dealing low damage faster has some advantages over dealing high damage slower. It gives you a bit more granular control over how the damage is dealt; and especially on the low levels where you don't use a finisher, it seems like it would save on overkill.

I'm only level 4, btw, so keep that in perspective.

Detritus said:

I thought about this also, but went with pistol as there seems to be more options and availability - especially at the lower levels. Most of the mobs seem to close in fairly quickly anyway, so is the extra range really a great advantage? I tried the rifle and you can usually only get one or two shots in before the mob is on you.

Also it should be considered that dealing low damage faster has some advantages over dealing high damage slower. It gives you a bit more granular control over how the damage is dealt; and especially on the low levels where you don't use a finisher, it seems like it would save on overkill.

I'm only level 4, btw, so keep that in perspective.

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The extra range is a advantage when you want to do one mob at a time. Though I love pistol, I do get mobbed more than I like when hunting with it all by itself. Having a "Tagger" rifle is always a good option with High Volume mob spawns. Pop it once or twice and then switch to either pistol or melee..

Detritus said:

I thought about this also, but went with pistol as there seems to be more options and availability - especially at the lower levels. Most of the mobs seem to close in fairly quickly anyway, so is the extra range really a great advantage? I tried the rifle and you can usually only get one or two shots in before the mob is on you.

Also it should be considered that dealing low damage faster has some advantages over dealing high damage slower. It gives you a bit more granular control over how the damage is dealt; and especially on the low levels where you don't use a finisher, it seems like it would save on overkill.

I'm only level 4, btw, so keep that in perspective.

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as long as the rifle you're using can't kill the mob in 1-2 hits your highly unlikely to overkill, the biggest benefit is been able to pick targets out when hunting high agro mobs like argonauts. There is a wide range of decent laser pistols and rifles, altho rifle tends to be more expensive due to easier to amp and range does save defensive costs. Take the LR S1X1 Rifle to the Chon S1X1 pistol as an example.

There is no harm in using all tho, it will raise a good range of skills using Rifle to tag or kill slow moving mobs. Knife for most work where you can take the hits/evade and pistol for middle point or when you have too much ammo. From this i've got all my laser/BLP & knife skills above 55 so i can use virtually any gun i find or need

Sionkiewicz said:

The extra range is a advantage when you want to do one mob at a time. Though I love pistol, I do get mobbed more than I like when hunting with it all by itself. Having a "Tagger" rifle is always a good option with High Volume mob spawns. Pop it once or twice and then switch to either pistol or melee..

Click to expand...

The Jetman said:

as long as the rifle you're using can't kill the mob in 1-2 hits your highly unlikely to overkill, the biggest benefit is been able to pick targets out when hunting high agro mobs like argonauts. There is a wide range of decent laser pistols and rifles, altho rifle tends to be more expensive due to easier to amp and range does save defensive costs. Take the LR S1X1 Rifle to the Chon S1X1 pistol as an example.

Click to expand...

Yea I definitely understand the benefit of a tagger, and I will probably find a long range weapon to use just for that purpose. I still think I want my primary damage to be pistol.

As for defensive costs, I plan to stay within my skill range when I hunt. Currently, I don't use any armor and I only need to fap on some of the tougher mobs. I'm sure I will eventually hunt bigger as I skill up, but my plan is to stick with mobs that are within my evade level.

Detritus said:

As for defensive costs, I plan to stay within my skill range when I hunt. Currently, I don't use any armor and I only need to fap on some of the tougher mobs. I'm sure I will eventually hunt bigger as I skill up, but my plan is to stick with mobs that are within my evade level.

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thats good play, let me recommend the foul iron mission when you can. each stage gives a choice of handgun or melee combat. melee combat gives a large HP boost too.

Foul are easy to kill, in good large spawns, drop decent MU bones but they can surround you so you might want light armor to take the edge off

If you are keen on laser pistols then definitely go read my thread

Link > How-To-Survive!

M Rufen Power said:

If you are keen on laser pistols then definitely go read my thread

Link > How-To-Survive!

Click to expand...

I did, it's a good read, thanks. I did buy a Chon + A101, but I can't use it quite yet, almost there.

M Rufen Power said:

The rule of thumb I like to follow is if the setup does not produce a dpp rating of 2.974 or higher, I do not use it simple as, because by the time you take Ares Imp Ring into the equation 2.975 becomes 3.00 dpp with the ring equipped.

Click to expand...

I'm curious how you calculated this.

Detritus said:

I did, it's a good read, thanks. I did buy a Chon + A101, but I can't use it quite yet, almost there.

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Well I'm glad you enjoyed reading through my thread .

I'm surprised you got the amp seeing as they are scarce at the moment.

Well get it maxed out as soon as you can, cause nothing can beat it's eco at low level.

Detritus said:

I'm curious how you calculated this.

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Okay well there are a few ways to calculate it, but easiest I know are;

Entropedia Weapon Compare Tool > Entropia Weapon Compare Tool

& Tuners thread on Spreadsheets > Tuners Spreadsheets for Entropia

The spreadsheet 'Weapon Stat V3.8' helps to see the eco of a particular buff or setup.

Also feel free to join us over at [#HowToSurvive] chat, happy hunting!

M Rufen Power said:

Well I'm glad you enjoyed reading through my thread .

I'm surprised you got the amp seeing as they are scarce at the moment.
.....

Okay well there are a few ways to calculate it, but easiest I know are;

Entropedia Weapon Compare Tool > Entropia Weapon Compare Tool

& Tuners thread on Spreadsheets > Tuners Spreadsheets for Entropia

The spreadsheet 'Weapon Stat V3.8' helps to see the eco of a particular buff or setup.

Click to expand...

It took me a few days of asking around to find the amp, but I finally got lucky.

I'm familiar with the EP weapon tool, but it doesn't include any ring buff calculations. I will look at the spreadsheets, thanks for the hookup!

Incidentally, I have been logging pretty much from the start, and I want to share some numbers to see if they are "normal". I'm currently at 88% return, which seems like it might be a bit low for eco hunting.

I am level 10 hit, 8 dmg laser pistol. I am level 10 evade (I bought some evade since it seems like a super important skill for saving peds). I bought a bunch of strong boxes and I've been using the boost pills to try and maximize skill gains.

I am using whatever L guns I can find at the given skill level as I level up. I always try to get the best DPP at my current level, and always use maxed guns. I use A101 when the gun can take it. I just bought an A102 to use on some of the better guns I can use now.

I don't use any armor, and I use a Vivo S10 to fap when needed. I am mainly grinding through the low mob IFN missions, typically L3-ish mobs, but sometimes L8-ish.

Currently: 1158.5 in, 1020.83 out, 88% return.

I've seen eco hunting logs with better returns, but maybe this is just growing pains? I also realize this isn't a lot of PED cycled compared to most.

I'm not complaining, I'm just curious. This is 2 weeks of hunting for me so far, and I'm only down $15; that's the price of a cocktail. I also haven't sold anything yet, so maybe the MU will help make up the difference.

You can only rely on markup to fill the gap and 1000ped isn't even in the ball park of what makes up returns. Whether ideal or not.

atomicstorm said:

You can only rely on markup to fill the gap and 1000ped isn't even in the ball park of what makes up returns. Whether ideal or not.

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I figured as much, based on observing other logs. Thanks for the confirmation.

What would be a fair amount cycled to see normalized returns? Is it a fixed number, e.g. 10k, or is it based on the number of mobs, and therefore is a multiple of mob spend?

Anything but MF

Everyone warned me to not main MF but I did it anyway, and now I'm struggling to keep my HP on par.

Swords, Knifes, Maces and you're good. But keep in mind you won't be able to use universal ammo for those types of weapons.

Don't make a fetish out of certain weapons. I used to be dedicated melee, then pistoleer, then discovered there's a place for everything. E.g. if I am to go on some isolated place/planet, I would rather take my lvl 5 ul electro nanochip and don't blink an eye to needing new weapons.

Try to rather find mobs which you like and for those mobs setups which work. You'll naturally find combinations which you prefer.

For your returns, you're also in the most populated tier ingame and certain noise is normal from that. 88% is not unheard of, is not ideal, it just happens. You're way more decent than I've been on my 1st k

Pay equal atention to armor and your defensive philosophy. Melee can be taxing on that, so tread with care.

with mobs do you hunt?
think about overkill on low hp mobs

Detritus said:

Incidentally, I have been logging pretty much from the start, and I want to share some numbers to see if they are "normal". I'm currently at 88% return, which seems like it might be a bit low for eco hunting.

I am level 10 hit, 8 dmg laser pistol. I am level 10 evade (I bought some evade since it seems like a super important skill for saving peds). I bought a bunch of strong boxes and I've been using the boost pills to try and maximize skill gains.

I am using whatever L guns I can find at the given skill level as I level up. I always try to get the best DPP at my current level, and always use maxed guns. I use A101 when the gun can take it. I just bought an A102 to use on some of the better guns I can use now.

I don't use any armor, and I use a Vivo S10 to fap when needed. I am mainly grinding through the low mob IFN missions, typically L3-ish mobs, but sometimes L8-ish.

Currently: 1158.5 in, 1020.83 out, 88% return.

I've seen eco hunting logs with better returns, but maybe this is just growing pains? I also realize this isn't a lot of PED cycled compared to most.

I'm not complaining, I'm just curious. This is 2 weeks of hunting for me so far, and I'm only down $15; that's the price of a cocktail. I also haven't sold anything yet, so maybe the MU will help make up the difference.

Click to expand...

Do you remember my thread mentioning that you need to kill approximately 3000 mobs before the end of a very bad cycle? You may have started on a low swing and will eventually level out in time.