Roderick

Whenever you first log in to any server as a Premium player, all your slots get locked. When you upgrade to VIP, none of them get automatically unlocked, but you are given 12 unlocks per server, plus one per slot that you've assigned to the server.

The 0/15 that you are seeing means that you have 15 unlocks available, and 0 used. Unused slots default to empty character slots, which is why you see 15 available slots. Each time you unlock a character, the number of available empty slots will decrease by one.

Global slots aren't used to unlock characters. They're used to add more slots to a server.

Just unlock your characters by logging them in. From what you described, everything is as it should be, and will work fine.

I can understand collectors who want one each of the old stuff, but why would you need/want these in bulk?

I can't log in right now, so I can't test anything on my own right now, but here's a few things for you to check:

-Make sure the "Hide purchaseable items" checkbox is UNchecked. It appears to be hiding capes if you haven't bought them, even if you've unlocked them via mission.

-Make sure you aren't using a different piece that excludes capes: Anything that goes on the back (obviously, since it's the same slot), and anything that uses "cape physics" (ie, the Wedding Veil, any jackets with moving tails, anything in the Bolero category).

To my knowledge, there's no reason the Think Tank should block capes; I'm fairly certain that I've combined them in the tailor before.

IOs work funny in pets. Each of the pet's powers has a list of sets it accepts. If you slot a set in the pet of a different type, that power gets no benefit from the set.

For example, assume a hypothetical pet with the following powers:

1 - A Melee attack
2 - A Ranged attack
3 - A Ranged attack with a Fear effect
4 - A non-damaging AoE Fear

Pet sets (and Recharge Intensive Pet sets, if applicable) will affect all of the above powers in any way they can.
Fear sets will buff ONLY powers 3 and 4.
In the rare cases where it takes damage sets other than Pet sets, a Melee set would only affect power 1, and a ranged set would only afftect powers 2 and 3.
This holds true even if the enhancement(s) have aspects that could affect the other powers. An Acc/End from a fear set would do nothing for powers 1 and 2. Likewise, a fear proc would only ever trigger in powers 3 and 4.

I don't know what powers Umbral Beast has, but only ones with a fear component will ever have a chance of proccing an Unspeakable Terror: Chamce for Disorient.

Without knowing what powers the UB has that will proc, or how often it uses those powers, I can't say how beneficial slotting it there would be, not can I compare it to Fearsome Stare.

I haven't tested either of these, they're just things I've been told, so they MAY be CoH myths. However, neither of them is anything complex, so it doesn't hurt to keep them in mind:

1- I've been told that the system doesn't remember which meteors you've clicked from one run to the next. This means that you have to click all four in a single run.
2- I've also been told that you have to click on a meteor while working on the section it occurs in. If you go to the next area and trigger the next set ofobjectives, backtracking to click the missed meteor won't give credit.

As I said, both of the above are untested - I can't confirm if they're true or not. However, if #2 isn't true, it may be a misinterpretation of something that IS true:

At some point in the trial, the scientist stops being able to start the meteor objectives. On the first run I did, we had all clicked both the first and second meteors with no effect before someone looked up exactly what to do. When we backtracked to talk to the Scientist, it still didn't let us click the meteors. We had to do a second run to get the Meteor badge.

PM Zwillinger or Black Pebble. I doubt that any player can accurately answer this question for you.

There should only be one contact in Port Oakes that requires purchase or VIP status - Alastor. Other than him, you should have a Broker (Either Mikey the Ear or Drea the Hook, it's random) who will give you a newspaper that can be used to do repeatable missions. Do enough of those and you'll get a Mayhem Mission to rob a bank. Complete that and you'll be introduced to a new contact.

Alternately, click the "Find Contact" button on your contacts list and find someone you haven't worked with yet. If you've done all the missions in Mercy, then you should be high enough level for SOMETHING to be available.

Origin doesn't matter much. Your level and Alignment are far more important.

If you're level 35+, there are vendors in Cimerora, The Rikti War Zone, and the Midnighter's Club that sell level 35-50 SOs of all origins and are accessible by all Alignments.

There's an alarm that plays when you enter a PVP zone, and when you're close to certain robotic enemies (Particularly PPD and Longbow ones) that are about to die. I did a quick scan of the thread and didn't see it listed - does anyone know the name for that one?

I'm gonna say bug, because I just ran the tutorial, and nothing fell out of the sky for me (I picked villain). When I aimed my camera up, I saw an Arachnos Flier and only two Chasers that it quickly blew up. The bugged one was probably already blown up before I had a chance to see it.

Shadow Meld is mostly there for absorbing alpha strikes. It doesn't last long enough to serve much of any other function, but it's really good at what it does. The recharge is too long to get permanent, though it is possible to have it up for the start of every fight. I personally wouldn't recommend it for a defense-based character though.

My favorite Stalker Epic is Weapon Mastery. It gets you a single target and AoE blast, just like Fire has (weaker, but still good damage), and instead of being forced to choose between a Hold or Immobilize in Tier 1, you can grab Physical Perfection for some extra Regen/Recovery.

It's an AE mission on the massive Atta's Cave map, full of enemies designed to be incredibly weak against Fiery Aura brutes that people run at +4x8 for massive XP to powerlevel themselves and others.

It's been that way since Chain Induction was fixed, several Issues before the Alpha slot even existed, let alone Judgement. How is that in any way a nerf to Ion?

It's been that way since day 1. The reason it "used to stack, but doesn't now" is explained in my earlier post: People had a mix of various Judgement levels as they leveled up at different speeds, and those DO stack, because they're different powers. Now that the vast majority have T4 Core, the inability to stack is much more apparent.