Basic Estate Guide

[sir odd]

Basic Estate Guide

Need a place to hang out, throw parties, store your stuff, or just a place to call your own? Then it's time to enter the estate market.

Many things go with being an estate owner: its like owning a real life room. You can open the door for all, just for your friends, or keep everyone out. You can make it a nice organized room, fit for a king or queen; or you could make it a pigpin, having your framed pictures turned upside down!

I want a home!

So...you want to buy a place to call your own. Three things to take into consideration before buying:

• Estate type - The most common estate available to you is the apartment. These are nice beginner places so you can familiarize yourself with how the estate system works. I'll cover the other estates below.
• Location - Is the estate located near a TP? Or a busy city? Sites near popular locations will tend to sell at higher rates than estates located away from cities and outpost.
• Price - The bigger the estate, the bigger the price tag, as one would expect.

The auction is where you will find all estates up for sale. The first 1-2 pages will be previously occupied player estates up for sale; the remaining pages will be unoccupied estates run by the in-game estate broker with set pricing on all apartments.
Depending on the size of the apartments, starting prices go from 250 PED for small apartments to about 450 PED for a larger one. Not only will you have a bigger apartment, but you can store more items as well. Buying an apartment at the Billton towers or Club NEVERDIE may be more expensive than buying elsewhere.

Browse through the listings of estates. If you find one that suits you, go check it out before you place a bid; last thing you want is to bid on a place then find out there's something you dislike about it. When you decide you like it, bid!

If you get one of the first time apartments, the bid is the same price as the buyout (Buyout is the price which if met, will end the auction immediately and you win). Congratulations, you are now an estate owner! If you scroll through your inventory, you will find an estate deed. If you right click it, you will find useful information, such as location, who owns it, and the date to pay the rent.

However, even if you have the estate deed in your inventory, it's not 'claimed'. Go to your new apartment, and click on the estate terminal outside the apartment door. Every estate has these terminals, and is critical for upkeep and managing your estate. When you activate the terminal, click the 'claim' button. The terminal interface will change, updating all the information to fit it's new owner. Now it's all yours. Now go get some furniture to spruce it up! One nice thing about apartments is you can place items on the floor and not worry about anyone else picking them up. Remember to pay the maintence fee every month to continue using it!

If your budget allows and you want something bigger, perhaps a hanger or shop is your cup of tea. Both differ greatly, however both also have profitable potential for the estate owner. Hangers come with a ship you can fly yourself and/or friends around to the two space stations and back, while with shops you can place your wares out on shelfs and have people buy them while you rake in the profits. Again, location is key in deciding business and estate cost.

If your PED card never dips below six figures, you may wish to purchase a land area. These are large zones where the estate owners may add/remove any mob they choose (if they have the proper DNA samples), and impose a hunting/mining/shop tax if they choose so, from 1.0% to 10.0%. These taxes are hidden, thus when a miner claims a resource or a hunter loots a mob, they will not detect the tax. Thus with good management a land area owner can make a lot of money in a short time.

To have mob in the land area, each land area is equipped with a fertilizer terminal. This terminal controls the mob activity in the whole area. Putting in mob DNA will fill the land area with that mob. You can control the density of the mob (from a scattered few to a crowded many), and the maturity of the mob (the overall toughness of the mob. The younger the easier it is to kill; while more mature mobs are a bigger challenge). In order for this to happen the owner must collect some energized fertilizer. This is made by combining common dung (found on the ground around Calypso) with growth molecules (found by ematter mining). Keeping a steady supply will ensure maintained land management. Neglecting the fertilizer supply will lower the density and maturity of the mob.


Quick FAQ

• I can't enter my apartment!
  Have you paid your rent? Upkeep on most apartments is 10 PED/month. If you don't pay your rent, you get locked out. Paying the rent will reopen the apartment. Also Note you can pay in advance! Just push the Pay Rent button until you are satisfied with the date. If your rent expires you do not pay for the time expired when you reissue the rent!
  
• I have a (brother/sister) (girlfriend/boyfriend) who plays the game with me and wants to store stuff at my place. Can there be a Co-ownership of an estate?
  As there are too many factors to place on this question, there is only one player ownership per estate. This makes things a lot simpler, thus if a person wishes to store things at your place a private trade is needed between the two parties.
• I placed some items out on my deck. However when I returned, they're all gone! What happened?
  Decks are considered free for all, so anyone can pick up items on your deck. Be careful not to get burned from this.
• If I sell my apartment will I get my stuff inside it back?
  If you plan on selling your estate, remove everything you want to keep! Estates sell with a "as-is" condition, thus anything that’s there at the time of the sale is now the new owner's property.
• How do I position my items in the house?
  Open your inventory screen (I), then click and drag an item onto your apartment. Put it in the place you want, the while holding down the right mouse button, drag your mouse left or right and the object will rotate until you see fit.

(Thanks Westy)

The sizes and # of items you can store in an apartment:

A Single room 120 items
B Single room 120 items
C Single larger room 150 items + balcony
D Single larger room 150 items + balcony
E Single room 120 items
F Single room 120 items
G 2 rooms 200 items + balcony
H Single larger room 150 items + balcony

Basic Apartment layout:

Click to enlarge

Apartment buildings in Amerthera:

Click to enlarge

Note CND apartments don't have balconys (which is good, don't want players getting sucked out to space)

[Laz]

Yeah, nice guide there, +rep for you...

[Count0]

yep, nice guide, very useful
+rep and ty

[Fin]

Very nice guide; +rep. Hope you are putting this in for the EF guide competition?

If so- may I offer a few additional suggestions?

-something needed on advantages and disadvantages of houses versus apartments (says house owner )?
-more detail on criteria for selecting a specific apartment/house? See:

http://www.entropiaforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16439

-some apartment minimum asking prices go well above 450 ped.

[Westy]

Nice guide sir odd. Bought my first apartment last nite. Didn't have time to sit and bid so used the buyout. 200 ped for a 6B apartment seemed fair.

I thought maybe your guide could add the size:

A Single room 120 items
B Single room 120 items
C Single larger room 150 items + balcony
D Single larger room 150 items + balcony
E Single room 120 items
F Single room 120 items
G 2 rooms 200 items + balcony
H Single larger room 150 items + balcony

[White Willow]

This gave me the infor i needed, just what i was looking for. Thank you for doing this guide.

+for rep

[silvernight]

Wow, nice info. Thanks alot!

[aridash]

A Single room 120 items
B Single room 120 items
C Single larger room 150 items + balcony
D Single larger room 150 items + balcony
E Single room 120 items
F Single room 120 items
G 2 rooms 200 items + balcony
H Single larger room 150 items + balcony

does this apply to all apartment blocks?

[sir odd]

Originally Posted by aridash

does this apply to all apartment blocks?

Yes, all apartments but CND (No balcony on those)

[Midnght]

Originally Posted by sir odd

Yes, all apartments but CND (No balcony on those)

Also on CND prices are a little over 1000 for anything non G. G is a little over 3000 currently, and you generally have to get the deed from the shopkeepers owned by NeverDie on CND as (at least currently) he doesn't post them in the auction.

You sort of mention this but not exactly. It's good to note you can pay for your monthly fees in advance. I've currently paid up to a year in advance.

Also unless different areas are different rent on apts is only 10 ped a month.

A section on placing items is much needed. Like drag drop and the FAQ how to turn items. I had to search this one out when i was placing my home goods as there was no guide for this with housing at the time. }:>)

To Place an item:
a)Drag from inventory to floor holding leftmouse.
b)Let go left button to move piece around house.
c)Right click and hold button on item move mouse left (Clockwise) right (Counter Clock) to change items direction. Let go mouse button when done.
c)Click left button again to place item.

A little more info about the guest list and the Public and restrict access buttons and how they work exactly would really make this a 100% grade G ( G being the best right? }:>) ) Guide

All in all nice guide.

+rep