THE NOOB GOES HARDCORE - SEX, GUNS AND LARGE DEPOSITS!!
So, last you heard of me, I had just deposited and sold my UKash Pistol. Now I had some serious decisions to make. One thing was certain, I had to pass my mentorship period within the 30 days or I would not be able to sell the skills at the end of the experiment and be able to live up to my promise of rewarding those who helped me on my path of noobness.
I asked in society chat what the fastest method of graduating discipleship would be, and the reply was Mining. My plan was simple
: get some basic equipment to help me survive in the wilderness and some Trade Terminal mining gear to get me started.
As you can see from the title picture, the chosen armor was Pixie purchased from some guy in Port Atlantis. I also got myself a TT Vivo, pistol, and 100 bombs to get started. While at the TT, I received a chat invite from a stranger. I accepted and was chatted up by some weirdo wanting to cyber with me...
Now I figure this is unfair! I spent thousands of PED trying to make Pinky as sexy as possible (just like me IRL!
) and never get propositioned like this... but pick random features in an attempt to "blend in" and wear nothing but ragged OJ's and I get the offers!
(No, that doesn't mean I want any offers, I'm just annoyed the noob got one and not me!
)
Anyway, back on topic, I hadn't done any TP running at this point, not since the trip with my mentor to Billy's. Instead, I spent all my time sweating at Swamp Camp. I figured if I am going to be a miner, why not occupy those long distance TP runs by mining between them, killing two birds with one stone. I picked up several Eudoria TP's fairly quickly, getting stuck a couple of times at various outposts. Fortunately, my trusty society was always on hand to come rescue me at the drop of a hat. I have some great pics of various rescue attempts, but of course to post them would give me away and I haven't quite finished in-game just yet...
.
The idea with my 100 bombs was to use them over and over, selling what I find and buying more bombs until I graduate or run out of cash. Today was not a good day. 40 PED return from 100 PED worth of bombs; I started to worry.
DAY 9:
Today I changed guns, loosing the TT Pistol and swapping it for the Emik S30 (L). You might wonder why, but from what I could tell, it had better stats: 5 damage over 4, and it's faster. To be totally honest, I also like the sound BLP weapons make (Pinky only ever uses BLP).
I decide today after yesterday's disastrous mining run to give Amethera a try. I TP to Treasure Island and head south to see if I could make it all the way to Nea's, just in case I run out of cash and need to start sweating again. I knew of Nea's from society conversations and a number of people in Swamp Camp, however I had never been told where it is. Fortunately for me, I did know of
Pirx Danford's Teleporter list, so I took a look at the coordinates, and set off. It did not take long to discover that Treasure Island is not a noob-friendly place these days. Back in the days when I used to do hair and beauty in TI City, I used to instruct people without the TP to run west to the coast and then follow the coast to TI City. No one ever seemed to have a problem with this. I, however, couldn't manage to get off Treasure Island in any direction at all. North was easiest, dodging Fouls. However, the Rippersnappers got me when I tried to swim for it.
While I couldn't get off the island, one thing stood out: the mining was vastly superior to Eudoria. I dropped forty bombs during my efforts to get off the island, and had about 60 PED (TT) of stones by the time I gave up. I went back to Port Atlantis and sold my stones and then tried the other Ametheran TP - New Oxford. Running for Nea's from here proved much easier, and again the mining was pretty good, picking up plenty of "small" finds that outweighed the misses. For some reason it seems these days Land Areas need to be added to your map one at a time,
just like Teleporters. I don't remember ever having to add Land Areas when I started as Pinky, but I could be wrong. Anyway, I blame the lack of Land Areas showing on the map for my next mistake - for some reason I ended up at Omegatron West rather than Nea's. Don't ask me how I managed this, I genuinely have no idea - nor did I meet any Falx in the LA North of Omegatron.
After checking Pirx's thread one more time, I set off from Omegatron to get to Nea's. This is when I got lucky and hit a "Large" deposit. With this deposit, and the good run in Amethera, I was back at the level where I started when I made my £10 deposit. Thanking Lootius (not that anyone has told me about him just yet..) I continued my run and get to Nea's. That entire run took me about 2 hours, so I called it a day, confident I was back in the game and flush with cash!
Day 10:
Not a great deal to report from today, plenty of mining, picked up a few more Teleporters on Amethera (by this point I had developed a morbid fear of mining on Eudoria!). By the end of the day of mining, I was down by about 30 PED, but had gained plenty of Prospecting skills. I needed to hit 600 to graduate, and was at about 120 after dropping 200 bombs - still from the initial 100 being "recycled". I was still pretty confident I could manage to graduate, so I decided to have a bit of a sweat attempt at Nea's.
I can now declare Nea's rubbish for sweating - I can not understand why people bother going there. Firstly, its overcrowded, with too many people sweating the same Ambu, Secondly, there are no hunters agreeable to me sweating their mobs. Thirdly, there are fewer healers; some, but less than Swamp Camp. And lastly, I managed to get only about 20 bottles in the space of 30 minutes.
In summary, today I learned several things: Swamp Camp for sweating and Amethera for mining
. Told you not a lot happened...
In the next article, I improve on the lack of excitement of day 10 a little, when my absent Mentor finally comes back, and I get more free gifts!