Basic Hunting Tutorial

[Alice]

This guide may be outdated in several points already
it always used to be a part of my main guide, which can be found here
http://rp.apachenet.de/downloads/pla...ypso_guide.pdf], so I would be happy if you read the hunting section of my main guide instead, which is more recent, thanks
18.2 Hunting
Most players start as hunters, and it isn’t really bad to have at least a little knowledge about the animals out of there and some skills to handle them.
Hunting is about killing creatures and looting them. You can loot them by “using” the dead body with rightclick, or select it and click loot (either action library or hold right mouse button).
Hunting skills will allow you to kill mobs with fewer hits, means less decay and ammo burn. Skills in ranged combat are also raising the range.
The armor cost decreases if you gain evade skills.
Hunting divides into melee and ranged.
And you will need armor and maybe a FAP sooner or later.

My suggestion is: skill in ranged combat. The handgun or rifle for starting can be bought at the tt. Ranged combat has a greater variety of weapons and also weapons with higher maximal damage later. Also you have the option to use amps to increase the damage and economy of ranged weapons. I won’t hold you from buying melee, maybe for finishing or emergencies it is a good idea anyway, but as main weapon you can face problems later.

I will also mention the critical hits, either done by the hunter, or the prey.
If you did it, you double the damage you would have done without critical hit.

If the mob did it, he does double damage too, ignoring your armor, and you will get armor decay.


This Critical hit was done by a Snablesnot male mature.

18.2.1 Medic

I haven’t counted it as profession, because you don’t have the chance usually to get some money back when you heal yourself or other people. Maybe if you join a team with loot rules that allows it (later more).
For healing you need a FAP, for skilling the Vivo T1 from the tt will do it. It’s the most economical you can buy as long you don’t have around 10000 ped (more likely you will need much more). So it will still do his work later when you have emergency FAPs. The Vivo T1 is very slow, heals maximal 10.3 HP and cost 0.9 pec per use and is not really useful while in combat. Most creatures will deal more than 10 damage points and in less time than the FAP needs to reload. The Vivo T1 is there to heal outside of combat, when you are low on HP, so you don’t have to wait until you have regenerated and can continue hunting again.
If you want to heal you shouldn’t move, or better said run. If you do, you won’t get the full heal.
My suggestion:
for healing outside of combat I strongly recommend the Vivo T1 (I’m still using it).
Next step could be the FAP 50 (max heal 26, slow) or a FAP 69 (max heal 30, fast), or a Hedoc SK-20 or higher if your skills are good enough(maxed the fap).
you really have the money FAP 90 (max 40, very fast), FAP 110 (max 44, fast) or the EMT EK-2600 (42, very fast).


On the more eco site you should go for the limited FAPs when you maxed the healing interval, like Hedoc SK-20 instead of the FAP 50.

But why should you use a limited FAP and paying mark up all the time when you need a new one?

Well, basically, you can calculate that yourself, but imagine one FAP does 7.7-10.3 heal and needs 1 pec to heal, and another does 4-10 and needs 1 pec to heal.

It is just a question of time when you will have spent the same cash you had paid in mark-up with the heal you need more.
In some cases the “heal per second" is even higher than the unlimited FAP, so you win that too.


18.2.2 Armor

If your armor decays the protection will decrease, try to hold your armor as repaired as possible.
Now to the damage types and the relating protection types, because the decay and with the decay the cost, are depending on it.
18.2.2.1 Damage types
There are
3 main damage types for melee creatures like Berycled, Sabakumas, and Argonauts.
 Impact (the most common, a must have for melee armors)
 Cut (dealt by less creatures, often with impact too, e.g. from Argonauts )
 Stab (Sabakumas, often with impact and cut, e.g. Atrox

2 main damage types for ranged creatures
 Burn (drones, overall most robots)
 Penetration (also drones, overall most robots)

And some exotics, dealt from melee or ranged mobs like
 Electric (allophyls; melee, tezlapods; ranged)
 Cold (Feffoids)
 Acid (snablesnots)
 Shrapnel (sometimes done from other players)

18.2.2.2 Decay
The decay depends on if your armor protects the dealt damage, and if, how much is protected.

Means, if you hunt a Snablesnot (acid damage) with pixie armor (no acid protection) you won’t get any decay, but you will also receive the full damage.
If you hunt a Berycled (impact damage) with pixie (impact protection of 9), you will have decay, but also get 9 damage points less.

Some mobs deal more than one damage type, and if your armor protects against them, you have the decay for that protection too.
For example: You are attacking an Atrox (impact, cut and stab damage) with pixie armor (9 imp, 2 cut; pretty bad idea to attack an Atrox in pixie, just to mention it),
You have the decay for impact, and cut. The protection is 11 overall, means 11 points less.
If you are attacking in goblin (12imp, 9 acid) you have 12 protection points from impact. So the decay costs are higher with goblin.
If you attack in shogun (10imp, cut, stab, burn, 5 pen), you have 30 protection from impact, cut and stab, so the decay is higher as for both armors above.

If you attack a Berycled (impact) with shogun now (10imp, cut, stab, burn, 5 pen), you have 10 protection, so your decay will be less than goblin in that case, and more than pixie.

To decrease the armor decay, I highly recommend don’t attack a group of animals at once, even if your armor can take it. It is pretty easy to resist many Atrox in Nemesis, but your decay cost will be very high!

Now to the tricky part in armor decay.
More info about this in Witte’s thread here (thx for allowing me to use it) Armor decay, how does it work .
Every armor has a min decay value, this is easy to calculate, you summarize all protection points, and divide them by 100.
If the decay you would have from the protection of the armor, falls below the min decay, you have to pay the min decay instead.

For example:
Say you use ghost, overall protection is 84, the min decay therefore 0.84.
Now, ghost offers 1 acid protection.
For 1 protection the decay would be 0.033, that’s below 0.84, means you had to pay 0.84 for 1 damage point less.

The decay is based on the absorbed damage, not the maximum one.
As i mentioned above, armor loses its protection when it decays.
Say your ghost is that far decayed, that it will just offer 10 impact anymore, then you have the decay of this 10, not the 18 which ghost offers max.

If you use plates, and armor and plates protect against the damage you take, you have to pay the decay for both.
Even if your armor would protect against the whole damage, say 10 impact damage on ghost, but you wear also plates protecting against impact, they will also receive this 10 damage, and you pay the decay for the plates and the armor.

In short
 If your armor has many protection points, and some of them are compared to the others low or very low, avoid using the armor against mobs dealing that damage at all cost.
 Keep it repaired, the less decayed it is, the further you are from the min decay you might receive.
 Don’t overprotect, especially not with plates. Try to use the right armor against the right prey.


To see the exact formula, a list of decay, and also examples,
check http://www.entropedia.info/Chart.aspx?chart=ArmorDecay (or go to http://www.entropiaforum.com/forums/...ntropedia.info, click at armor, then armor decay.


18.2.2.3 What armor?

The best answer is: “depends on the prey you want to hunt”, but never buy settler or pioneer.
In the beginning,
 Pixie(9 imp, 3 cut) or
 Goblin (12 imp, 9 acid), are pretty good. I would prefer goblin, because it has a higher impact protection, but unfortunately no cut. But most melee animals you find are dealing impact damage, so you are pretty good prepared for those.

In the beginning maybe (if you can afford), or as next step:
 Shogun (10 impact, cut, stab | 10 burn, 5 penetration)
Good as beginning armor, because the impact protection is better than the pixie one, and this armor enables you to hunt smaller Atrox and Atrax, even small robots
 Knight (12 imp, cut, stab| 6 burn, pen)
Better than shogun if you aren’t hunting smaller robots.
 Paladin (13 imp, cut, 6.5 stab | 13 burn, 6.5 pen)
Bit weaker against Atrox and Armax, but better against robots
 Kobold (13 imp, 3 cut | 8 burn | 12 cold)
Overall, a better Goblin, even with cut protection, the cold protection enables you to hunt Feffoids. Against bots it is pretty weak, but if your preferred hunting ground is around camp phoenix you could think about it
 Rascal (15 imp, 5 cut | 12 burn)
The standard anti Argonaut armor, in the case of imp better than the rest, against imp and cut dam mobs as good as shogun, against Atrox not really useful (I tested it).
Against bots it doesn’t help that much too. The best of it is that decay is pretty low, and it is a very nice armor of you are just going after impact damage mobs, it has the same impact protection as Nemesis armor and is far cheaper.

A mix of shogun/knight/paladin armors wouldn’t be that bad, because the protected damage is more or less the same. So if you can’t buy a shogun mask, but get a paladin mask (maybe even cheaper) then you could buy it. They can bring you quite far, because the overall protection is good, and you will still have a good armor if you are hunting other mobs beside Snablesnots and Cornundos.

More advanced armors:

 Vigilante (14 stab, 14 cut, 7imp | 14 pen 14 burn)
Often “the step before nemesis”, it’s pretty good against Atrox, against Berycled and other impact damage mobs pixie (!) is better. Against bots it’s very good (better than nemesis) and if you’re going for bots, that’s armor you should think about.
 Gremlin (15 imp, 9 cut, 11 stab | 12 burn, | 6 cold, 12 acid, 2 electric)
Good overall armor. Bit weaker than nemesis against some animals, but also covers cold damage, means for Feffoids you have a plus.
 Nemesis (15 imp, cut, stab | 15 burn, 7.5 pen)
A pretty common armor, with pretty good protection, pretty expensive. But overall very nice.
 Ghost (19 imp, 15cut, 13 stab |11 burn, 1 pen | 1 shrapnel, 12 Cold, 1 acid 11 elect)
Against all melee mobs better than nemesis, even provides good cold and electric protection. Against robots, pretty weak.
 Bear (17 imp, 15 cut, 15 stab | 15 burn, 9 pen | 14 cold 3 acid)
Against most melee mobs same protection as ghost, against bots its better. And as long you aren’t attacking electric mobs, this armor is very good.

18.2.2.3 Limited armors

The advantage of limited armor is that the protection does not decrease when it decays.

However, this protection decrease for unlimited armors is not really bad when you repair it regularly, and you save the sometimes hilarious mark-up of those limited armors.

Some offer nice protection in PVP, or against bots, but that decision if it is worth it, I will leave to you.

To bring my opinion in, for me (L) armor is mainly for fashion (has sometimes the same prices too) and not that useful for hunting, especially not the lower armors out there.



Instead of buying a new armor, you can also buy armor platings, either to compensate a lack of protection with your current armor, or to improve the main protection of your armor.
With platings it is the same as for armors, it depends on what you want to hunt.
You should take care about a nice durability too (not so many repairs).

18.2.3 Melee combat

18.2.3.1 General info about melee combat

If you want to start melee hunting you have 3 options as long you don’t have quite much money to buy a whip or a club (and those two are even pretty uneconomical).
These options are long blades, short blades, power fists.

Don’t buy a short blade or power fist. Hard to upgrade and all of them have a bad economy.

The long blade is another thing, and if you want to skill melee I recommend you start with it.
The main contra at the tt long sword is the real slow attack speed, but it has one pro:
The learning bonus. As soon you don’t get the learning bonus anymore, buy an axe 1x0 or rather axe 2x0 (twice the speed more or less and better economy).


-Skill increase bonus means you gain aim/damage skills faster than with a weapon without the learning period.

-The attack speed, well, how fast you can attack 

-The damage type shows what kind of damage you deal, mainly interesting for PvP fights.

-Attacks/min, how fast it can strike (20 is low, believe me)

-The range for melee weapons isn’t that high as you can imagine I guess 

-The dam interval shows how efficient you can use the weapon, the closer to the max dam interval the better.







imo if you want to use melee weapons, you should start with the long blade bought at the tt.
As soon you don’t have the learning bonus anymore, switch to an axe 1x0 or better a 2x0.
The next step
could be a Katsuichi Honor or Katsuichi Valor, when you have good skills (around level 3000- rather 4500 in long blade, else it is not efficient). For those with enough money even a Katsuichi Pride or Katsuichi Determination. The pride has a better efficiency, the determination is faster.

18.2.4 Ranged combat

18.2.4.1 General info about ranged combat

 -Skill increase bonus means you gain aim/damage skills faster than with a weapon without the learning period.

-Ammo type shows the ammo you need to buy, without ammo in your inventory you can’t shoot. For laser weapons you need cells for BLP (bullets) you need BLP-packs;
light for pistols, medium for rifles

-Ammo burn, the amount of ammo you need per shot. Means if you use the opalo with 2 ammo burn and buy 100 ammo for 1 ped, you have 50 shots, not 100!

-Attacks/min, how fast it can shoot

-The dam interval shows how efficient you can use the weapon, the closer to the max dam interval the better.




-The range


If your target is outside of your range, you have no chance to hit at all, but as soon it is in range, it doesn’t matter if it is close or far away, your hit ability stays the same.

If you want to skill in ranged combat, you have 2 options for weapons with learning bonus: The tt handgun and the rifle, both laser weapons.

I would suggest the opalo because the attack speed is the same as the handgun, but the range is better

18.2.4.2 Tactics for ranged combat

-Just shoot if a creature is standing still or running towards you.
-Take your time before you shoot.
-If the mob is running to you, start walking back, and still fire. This allows you to get a couple of shots more until the mob can attack you. And you can stop walking backwards when the mob reached you. That allows team members to heal you!
-Hit and Run:
If the mob is coming to close to you, turn around, run away until it reached your maximal range at the radar again, turn around again and start firing.
18.2.4.3 Attachments
Weapon attachments are scopes, laser sights and amplifiers. All attachments will increase your hunting efficiency, either with better hit ability (less shots miss), or better damage.
It happens from time to time so I will mention it: if you buy an attachment at auction, and it won’t attach to your weapon, go to storage, put it in, and take it out again. It should work now.
You can unequip attachments with a double click at the weapon.

18.2.4.3.1 Amplifiers

With Amplifiers you can increase the damage of your ranged weapons, but of course amps have their own decay and usually additional ammo burn too. But they will increase your efficiency and economy, so they are worth a thought, especially if you don’t like to buy a new weapon to increase your damage.
Amplifier deal maximal the 50% of the base damage of a weapon, and if you try to add a too big amp.

Example:
The opalo does 4-8 damage, 50% is 2-4. So you can just use an amplifier with a maximal damage addition of 4 efficiently, like the amp101, with +3.
You can equip bigger amplifiers of course, but your damage will never be above 6-12 with it!
There are 2 types of amps, one for BLP and one for laser, so be sure you buy the right one!
All Omegaton laser amps have a good to great efficiency, the best BLP ones are Fi/Ra/Co Dante and Fi/Ra/Co Beast.

18.2.4.3.2 Scopes

Scopes will increase your hit ability in percent. They become more efficient if you have already some skills, the more the better. They also allow you to zoom in with your mousewheel. That won’t be that usefully with an opalo with 50 meter range, but for weapons with higher range it will enable you to aim properly. I recommend a Bjornir precision scope in the beginning, it is affordable and the percentage is nice for that money, but if you want better ones it is your choice.

18.2.4.3.3 Laser sights

Laser sights will also increase your hit ability. You will see a red dot at the target you are aiming (coolness factor ). I recommend an Abrer Laser Sight, same reason as above, quite cheap and nice percentage for that money.
Important: You can also put a laser sight on your scope!
Means if you have already one on your weapon, you can increase your hit ability again by attaching another sight to your scope.

18.2.5 General Hunting Tactics and information

-Don’t die. Sounds simple. If you die and leave an injured mob you spent unnecessary money, because you don’t even have the chance to loot it. Even if you find it again, it already has regenerated health at least a bit, means you need more money than before to take it down. If you die press p and open the map to see the position, and try to run back and kill the mob until it regenerated its entire HP.
-Relating to point 1, don’t attack mobs that are for sure too tough for you. I don’t say, never attack an Atrox. Sure do, but just one time, see if you have a chance or if it is impossible with your current equipment. In the last case don’t attack it again.
-Don’t run into the next group of animals, rather lure them, or go to them step by step until 1 attacks you.
-Don’t wear armor when you aren’t hunting. It maybe looks quite cool, but if a creature coming in your way and attacking you, it may cause unnecessary repair costs.
-Use a weapon for finishing. There is no need to spend over 10 pec decay for a mob that just has a few HP left. Kill it with a weapon with less decay. With melee or handgun as main profession, you should use an Opalo. In handgun due to the reason to skill and use related skills, in melee to get some points into rifle, a skill that also affects your health points. In rifle you should use another opalo maybe, or m2100.
-It is also useful to have a second weapon if your weapon need to be repaired in the combat or your ammunition is gone. So carry a weapon that uses related skills (like opalo and m2100) and using different ammo types, so you won’t blast everything away.
-A “panic” weapon would be good too, if you can afford. Means a weapon with high damage that could keep you alive in critical situation. But don’t use such a weapon as main weapon as long you don’t have the skills to use it efficiently.
-Use unequip tool to holster your weapons, else you may shoot/strike even if you don’t want to, leads to unnecessary decay/ammo costs.
-Scopes and laser sight with an opalo or M2100 are pretty useless. Unless they are maxed you don’t have a better aiming with it, since to low skills, as soon they are maxed you hit with 10/10. There is no real improvement, and it just adds useless decay.
-Drag the HP of your target to the side by clicking and holding left mouse button at the target, and then move the mouse around. The health bar you have now is more accurate than the one above the mob.
-Where you hit doesn’t matter, so aiming at the head will not raise your dealt damage.
-Don’t hunt near turrets or water, if your prey is killed by those, it can’t be looted

18.2.8 Team hunting

Team hunting is useful to take down tougher mobs, but it is also a way to scam people.
Always have a look at the loot rules. To do that, just try to make your own team; by clicking/pressing the “Team” button (quickbar/action library).
When you click it this window will open:


-“Damage: Item share”, Items are shared based on relative damage dealt per team member, but every stack, even if the amount is very high (lets say 1000) counts as one item

-“Damage: Stack Share”, with this rules the stacks are divided as equally as possible too

-“Damage decides order” is also quite fair. If the creature loots items, the one with the most damage get the item with the highest value. But if the team has 2 members, one is killing the animal, the other one is watching the sky and the mob loots 2 different items. The one that is just watching the sky gets the item with the lowest value, but he gets something

-“Looter takes all”, the one who loots get the loot, so be sure you click fast . In case an ava was killed in PvP3 the one who dealt most damage.

-“Most damage wins all” like leader takes all, just in that case the one that did most damage.

-“Queue” the first member of the team gets the first item the second the second…
The player who got the last item is remembered and the next one will get the next item with the next item loot “

-“Random”, says everything. Pure luck determines who gets the 55 ped handgun.

here a Guide: Weapon progression and mob selection

[desidude]

wow awesome tutorial to oj's

+rep for it, most of thier doubts will be cleared from this thread

[Alice]

updated with new team loot rules window

[Alice]

updated with more info about armor decay, see link to witte's thread (thx for allowing me to use it )

[Midnght]

Just would like to add here for an example alice of armor plating.

Armor: All Vigi plus Armor Plating Mark.5A on all parts
For totals of
Stab Cut Impact Penetr. Shrap. Burn Cold Acid Electric Close Firearms
00.....04...07......00........00......00....00...0 0....00........11.....00
14.....14...07......14........00......14....00...0 0....00........35.....28
------------------------------------------------------------------
14.....18...14......14........00......14....00...0 0....00........46.....28...total

Both good high durabilities and it makes your vigi beter than pixie or goblin. };>)
I was lucky enough to pick up a full set of 5A fully repaired for very little increase on a buyout. But you do have to keep an eye out.

[Neuromancer]

I've been lurking on the forum for about a month. I'll be ingame from May '07.

Your advice in basic training is one reason why I chose PE over WoW or SL. If we meet ingame I hope I can buy you a cup of coffee sometime.

I wonder, have you annoyed any wannabe mentors with the excellent advice in your guides?

Stay safe.

Rock on Alice.


Neuromancer.

[Alice]

Originally Posted by Neuromancer

I've been lurking on the forum for about a month. I'll be ingame from May '07.

Your advice in basic training is one reason why I chose PE over WoW or SL. If we meet ingame I hope I can buy you a cup of coffee sometime.

I wonder, have you annoyed any wannabe mentors with the excellent advice in your guides?

Stay safe.

Rock on Alice.


Neuromancer.

atm there is no coffee in EU, i doubt it at least (the bars have nothing to drink too )
but i take the compliment ofc
thx

and i doubt i annoy wannabee mentors, actually, the complete guide (since that is just a smaller part, see signature) i wrote for my own disciples, and it was around some time before i considered to publish it
as far as i know it is recommended by several ppl and mentors too, and i guess it helps them too, since they don't have to explain the quite easy stuff that much over and over again, and can concentrate on other questions
(the reason why i wrote it, was that i had to write a lot of that stuff to every single disciple with the old pm system, you always had to click send, and reply etc. and got mad in chat sessions , so i decided to write it to make it a bit easier for me too )

[Alice]

forgot to change that that fap5 isn't in the tt anymore
(thx sarah for telling me )

call it a bump

[Mandragon]

Thanks a lot Alice, I actually found your guide purely by accident and downloaded the pdf. It saved me lots of time and PED!!
Let me say it again...THANKS!

[Lyper]

Wow
Some serious Ass-Kickin guide!! Gratz alice!!