How to get a leg-up as a new player

[GDB2222]

I am writing this because, if I had read it when I was starting out, it would have saved me a load of grief.

I am guessing that you have played the game for a bit, have your first character levelled to maybe 20 or 30, and you are finding it all rather heavy going. That's why you are reading this. Well, do this:-

1. Start a new character - an Atrox Martial Artist (reason is that they are cheap to kit out). The biggest mistake that I made was to soldier on with the original character I made.

2. On Noob Island, do the shoulder pads quest multiple times. You will want a pair of the shoulder pads yourself, and you can sell the others once you are on the mainland for around 20k to 40k per pad. You will also want a full suit of omni/clan newcomers armour to wear. Maybe make Range Meters or buy Omni-Tek Technical Libraries. The idea is to leave Noob Island with no money, but loaded with gear that can only be got there. My advice is to stay on noob island as long as you can stand it, or until your inv is loaded with gear to sell on the mainland. Maybe level 7 or 8.

3. As soon as you reach mainland, sell this gear to get a starting stake. This may take a little while, advertising on shopping channel, but it is well worth it. Buy a few First Aid kits, but not much else. If you have LOTS of money from selling this stuff, install some implants from the Martial Artist section in the basis store, just the ones that buff MA skills.

4. Go to subway, and level up to 10, no higher.

5. Get Clicksaver, and learn how to use it. Then mission for concrete cushions. These sell for at least 200k a pair at the moment, so pretty good money for the level. But you do need some creds to run clicksaver, which is where the money you got from selling your noob island gear comes in. Keep a pair of cushions for yourself, of course.

6. Aim to make 1 to 2 mill this way. Takes a few hours to do that, but it will make life much better later.

7. Spend a bit of it on ql 20 implants. Also, do the quest from Mr Blake who stands outside the Rome Blue Basic store, for a nifty helmet and back-slot item. You are all set to level 20, so back to the subway.

8. At level 20 or so, do missions for quartz rifles of exactly level 22. These sell for 250k + at the moment. Rifles to sell, plus one for yourself of course.

9. Basically, you are levelling as fast as possible, interspersed with periods of farming high value items for creds.

10. Aim to accumulate 3 mill creds by level 20 or so. That will be enough to fund your growth spurt to level 100, at which point it becomes relatively easy to make money. That's all there is to it, really I'm not going to reproduce an MA guide here, as there are much better ones than I could make already referenced in the MA section here.
See here for the best places to team up and level :
http://www.aofroobs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=142

[Boinky]

Good tips, though of course I'd say make whatever char you want - no need for 300 Trox MAs level 20 running around all at once.

Also to add one thing - tune into GSP Gridstream Productions at www.gridstream.org where if you win one of their contests you can win from 1 to 10 Mil(or more at times) in one shot.

[Nicodar]

Good tips, though of course I'd say make whatever char you want - no need for 300 Trox MAs level 20 running around all at once.

Also to add one thing - tune into GSP Gridstream Productions at www.gridstream.org where if you win one of their contests you can win from 1 to 10 Mil(or more at times) in one shot.

Bah, they should tune in for the good music or for Veldron almost keeling over from laughing because of nipples.

[Vivie]

I'll show this to my alts, thanks!

[Tyranii]

Besides blitzing for Concrete Cushions, my favorite blitzing level is 25. Why? Because you have blitz QL 22 Quartz Rifles, QL 25 Agi Rifles (Tsaka-whatever), and QL 44 Comp Lit Pistols. All of those are pullable by a level 25, so thats when I stop leveling and blitz a little, but all in all some good tips. Those little things like a Range Meter are nice to have if you don't have a high QL scope or a prof that can handle the large init debuff.

[hybridyak]

If you are blitzing things like concrete cushions and Old English Trading Co Intelligence pistols when you're really low level, I would suggest it is not a good idea to get an inventory full of them and try to sell them all at once. Space it out over time and sell a couple of pairs every few days or as you need the cash then.
Apart from the fact that if you have a bazillion of them you won't necessarily sell them for as much as you might, take into account theres loads of other low level characters trying to do the same thing and all you will end up with is a flooded market and they wont be worth anything.
There are other things you can do to keep the cash flow going at low levels like blood plasma and simply doing missions or hunting Dyna bosses, which will get you XP as well as funds, not to mention a token board, so don't only view cushions and OET's as the only way to make any cash, its just not true.

[Messeka]

If you are blitzing things like concrete cushions and Old English Trading Co Intelligence pistols when you're really low level, I would suggest it is not a good idea to get an inventory full of them and try to sell them all at once. Space it out over time and sell a couple of pairs every few days or as you need the cash then.
Apart from the fact that if you have a bazillion of them you won't necessarily sell them for as much as you might, take into account theres loads of other low level characters trying to do the same thing and all you will end up with is a flooded market and they wont be worth anything.
There are other things you can do to keep the cash flow going at low levels like blood plasma and simply doing missions or hunting Dyna bosses, which will get you XP as well as funds, not to mention a token board, so don't only view cushions and OET's as the only way to make any cash, its just not true.

This is what I was thinking. It's not as obvious, but inflation does exist on AO. If 10 Newbs are trying to sell a pair of cushions each, not all of them will get bought. One will get smart and sell it for a little less than the other 9, then one other will go even lower, and so on.

This actually gives me an idea...

[GDB2222]

One big advantage of the concrete cushions is that they are definitely not store-buyable, and there is a steady market for them.

The other items are store-buyable, and some daft person will have bought 100's of them. I speak as someone who currently has in stock on my main approximately 50 pairs of OET intelligence pistols (ql 1) and 200 Quartz rifles (ql 23 unfortunately rather than ql 22) plus a fast-dwindling stock of ql3 and ql 40 Tsakachumi rifles.

[wintermane]

Its not realy worth it to blitz for cushions as soo many do it. Id suggest just level like a mad and take advantage of the loot a high level toon gets all the time. Specialy if you use a ma or advent toon to do it as even totaly untwinked they can go fast.

Also the high level toon can munch low level dynas for all the interesting thingies any of your other toons want.

[GDB2222]

The odd thing about concrete cushion missions is that I can run clicksaver for hours just to land one mission. Other people swear that they can land 10 missions an hour. Well, good luck to them if they can, because I certainly can't. Actually doing the missions is the easy bit.

[Sferykal]

The time between the hits differs. I remember rolling ages for one cushion, at other times it took just a minute (and another 2 or 3 minutes for the second one). *shrugs*

Same with other stuff ... blame the randomness

[Ferengi]

*yawn* same old info ripped off again.

Takes forever to make any real money off cushions nowdays, since this shinola is know to all, and they all decide to make cushion toons. You can see the spam in the 1-50 channel all day.

The real money is at the burger stand in Newlands, starting at level 4. It doesn't need customers or click-saver (for hours) and you can do it forever.

[GDB2222]

The real money is at the burger stand in Newlands, starting at level 4. It doesn't need customers or click-saver (for hours) and you can do it forever.

Please explain.

[Comi]

1. Start a new character - an Atrox Martial Artist

trox if you got SL thats it, if froob go opifex.

[Nicodar]

1. Start a new character - an Atrox Martial Artist

trox if you got SL thats it, if froob go opifex.

A trox MA has more HP than an Opi MA which is the whole point. You know being able to take more hits which would be more helpful as a new player.