Fulmens

Father Xmas, as always, gave good and terse advice. I am incapable of letting that stand...

There are about four ways to use "IOs", in order of increasing complexity.

1) Use generic IO's, replacing SO's pretty much 1 for 1.
2) Use Set IO's (certain sets go in certain powers, but can't go in others) but ignore Set Bonuses (if you slot 2 or more of the same set, in the same power, you get a small bonus. Most of them suck, a few of them are really good. Those are the expensive IO's.) This is "Frankenslotting"- you can make a 5 slotted power look like it has seven slots this way.
3) Go [fairly] expensive. Build for set IO's, and start throwing in some "special" IO's- things that give you almost a whole power in one slot.
4) Crazy high end more-money-than-Gates build full of superspecial IO's that cost a hundred million inf apiece. I understand these builds can do remarkable things. Someday I might try one out.

Cap'n Canadian wrote a really good guide to Frankenslotting. It can be about as cheap as generic IO's, or as SO's, but it's a lot of learning and work and shopping and running around doing stuff. Guide in my sig is kind of old and creaky.

Freedom and Virtue are the big-population guys. Whoever "third" is (I hear Infinity a lot), they're pretty distant and it probably swaps around depending on time of day and random whim. The server you logged onto LAST is at the top; after that they show up as least-loaded to most-loaded. So freedom will be at the bottom.

Victory seems to have lots of Europeans, which I don't think helps you [1 AM for you = 10 AM in France? Maybe?] but might.

Big news since issue 6... tough to list. here's three for me:

1. ED. I think you were there for this. purple is dangerous now, everything caps at 95%.

2. Invention system and auction house. A million inf is NOTHING these days- don't be shocked by prices at the auction house (wentworths heroside, black market villainside.) It's like a pinball score- you think you're doing well and someone scores ten times as much. No big deal. Single-origins still work fine, and you can get a full set at level 50 for, like, five million inf. For some IO details, look at my guide in sig.

3. Architect Entertainment. The good: you can make your own missions, you can play something like 80,000 missions made by other people. The bad: Most of those missions suck for one of about 4 reasons. It's a farm (farming is still REALLY common, just like it was in I4), it's proving how kewl the designer is by killing you a lot, it's attempted (and failed) storytelling- illiterate/incoherent/stupid/whatever- or it is accidentally WAY TOO HARD.

I guess,

4. Getting to level 50 in 150 hours is normal now, vs. getting to level 50 in 500 hours (250 spent at level 37+) is normal, with 300 hours being fast. There's a lot of time spent tweaking level 50's these days.

[ QUOTE ]
Unlike the other things for which fees are charged, changing your costume does not affect the ease with which you are able to play the game, or the rewards you are able to earn. Do costume changes burden the game's software or hardware in some what that makes limiting them desirable?

[/ QUOTE ]

Here's the flipside:

Given that you never HAVE to change your costume, why not charge a fee?

I've been here since before there WAS Icon. Used to be you were stuck with what you started with. Likewise, you used to be stuck with your original power choices. The first guide I ever used only went up to level 20- so you didn't gimp yourself TOO badly in the starting levels and have to reroll.

OK, I promise I'm going to stop posting every time someone uses my services...

after this one. Another customer heard from!

Make Mindsplinter_Blaster, and the Praetorian Escapee Mindsplinter_Blaster2. I did this with Ruby Burns and Ruby Stoker when I couldn't decide.

They made the Merit cap stupidly high (40 recipes high or so, I think) and people didn't spend their merits until level 50. So you ended up with nothing but level 50 recipes. I was PAYING people to generate level 33 recipes. One hundred created, compared to probably 100 a day at level 50.

So the fact that you can only hold "3 gold recipes" of tickets is very much intentional, romantoast. Stop hoarding and do something interesting with them.

I don't know if it's perception catching up, or if there's really more inf out there, or what. The "wouldn't bend over to pick it up on the street" level is now about 100K, for a lot of people- I list generics under 200K and they go for 300K VERY frequently.

I'm kinda using a lot of my money right now on one thing and another. I can match 200 million, 1-for-1 . Sending PM.

... staying steadily on target...

I'm at nearly a billion inf on the board. 960-odd at the moment. 400 million in creating Prestige (240 million of that was mine), 60 million in transfers, 30 million in flipping purples, 11 million in crafting L45-50 generics for a badge (incomplete), about 10 million in relisting fees and the other 450-ish million in buying and selling stuff, crafted or not.

NOTES:

* Crafting for badge and selling my wares for 1 was massively inefficient- I burnt 11 million and got about 2 million back in sales.
* I don't know enough about the purple market to make anything at all. And I don't have the bankroll to make a lot of purple bets.
* If I'd done a week of research I might have made more personal inf in my destruction, and/or flipped with more casual confidence.
* Someone in the market channel burnt half a billion inf in one shot when the Respec market zagged instead of zigging. Makes me look kinda small time with my "5 million here" and "10 million there".
* I tried a couple of really halfhearted plans that didn't destroy much wealth- just made ME poor. I'm sittin on a lot of unpopular recipes of two particular types. Mako's Dam/End- I think ten are created for every one used.

Ah, that's barely a niche. Making twice your money is, like, normal heroside. (I don't know why either.) FOUR times your money, that's a niche.

The third option is "They're that rich." There exist people who spend 600 million on a single IO. I don't think there are very MANY but they exist. If you have crafted IO's for sale and you'd have to wait on the recipes, that's a convenience cost. Even if the recipe is available, getting the stuff and going to a base and building it is apparently a convenience cost as well.

Personally, I craft...

... I'd like to replace the self-rez with Castle's "I Win" button.

What?

... and another exchange just now, going the other way. Dr. Kid, it was a pleasure doing business with you.

I have a fire/will brute that I really like, and an Elec/Inv brute that I really like. An Elec/Will brute might be amazing... although Elec doesn't really take off till the level 32 power.

I just want to mention that I'm using this list for my "all-AE" SG team. So far, I like everything I've tried! (Dr. Nadirs, the Fireside Poet.) Going to try a couple more of the mentioned arcs tonight.

Any good threads for 15-25 or so?

I always went FF because if I'm going to do the dance every 3.5 minutes, I want my team to be INDESTRUCTIBLE.

I realize this is a personal choice and not necessarily the most efficient one.

It only gets my support if it takes extra inf out of the system.

I <3 crushing dreams.

Depends on how much time you have. Defender snipes, on [for instance] a Force Fielder, do respectable damage. Not fast damage, but as a Force Fielder I figure my job takes 45 seconds every 4 minutes, I'm loafing on the clock the rest of the time.

Cap'n Canadian's guide is better. Mine was new and nobody knew anything. At one point I was thinking of rewriting it, but Cap'n C just plain did a better job at most of the things I would have said.

LostHalo: I doubt your statement.

Very roughly our rolls during testing went from "60% crap" to "60% good."

I recommend using the following incredibly simple steps to make money on the market:

1. Look at something kinda nice in your build.
2. Look at the cost of the recipe, salvage, and crafting.
3. Look at the lowest of the last 5 sales.

Is there a profit margin? Buy one, craft it, and put it up for sale. If you don't have the patience to leave a bid (or a sold item) up for a week, this is not the moneymaking system for you.

Do you have skill?
Open book test, one question. This is the book.

A solo SR scrapper, out of Elude, with all secondary powers (no tough/weave/combat jump, just the secondary) slotted to ED levels (call it 55% enhancement) is being attacked by a +2 Council Archon just after being shot with a Machine Gun (7.5% Defense Debuff).

What is the critter's chance to hit?

Bonus question: The scrapper takes a shot back with Crane Kick, slotted for 33% Accuracy, on a standard Council Archon. What is the scrapper's chance to hit?

I don't bother with anything but fly anymore on my characters.

It's easy. (and half the time I get stuck running the team. Ever try to do team management stuff with superjump?)

I like beating down Lusca. Yeah, it takes about ten people and I tend to bring Force Fielder or Rad backup, but it's kinda fun for me.

First customer! Transferred 110 million influence (Freedom) to... 100 million influence( Pinnacle.) Not quite what I had in mind, but happy to provide a service.