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--- beginner_guide [2023/03/28 13:34] – determinor
+++ beginner_guide [2023/05/09 09:25] (current) – [Mining Laser?] determinor
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 You can get your 1st mining laser at lvl 20, 2nd at lvl 60, 3rd at lvl 90 and so on. At the start of the game, where you don't have many bonuses from Prospector levels, mining lasers will be especially weak. By only having 1 mining laser to use, you won't be getting much mining income from any of these lasers. As you don't have much gold in hand, it won't make too much of a difference to have 20% more ore when you were only mining 16.
-The mining lasers only really start to matter when you have 2 of them: base ore and percentage together. Before having 2 lasers, getting only 1 of them isn't justified against the cost. Your gold can be better invested in other areas like data chips, injections, mastery unlocks or even Rbot upgrades.
+The mining lasers only really start to matter when you have 2 of them: base ore and percentage together. Before having 2 lasers, getting only 1 of them isn't justified against the cost. Your gold can be better invested in other areas like data chips, injections, mastery unlocks or Rbot upgrades. If you want to mine more, upgrade the Cache ability from Prospector: it'll give the majority of your mining income for the early-mid game later on.
+Mining lasers are really expensive as you go above level 20 lasers. Keep than in mind.
 ====== The Beginner Times======
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 ====== The Great Abyss Difficulty Jump ======
-The last quest of Enter the Abyss questline is the first big hurdle on your progression: pay 1M gold. This is the first quest that requires a huge amount of resources to complete, but it should pose no trouble if you've been following the 'Get money' section in the New-player guide.
+The last quest of Enter the Abyss questline is the first big limiter on your progression: pay 1M gold. This is the first quest that requires a huge amount of resources to complete, but it should pose no trouble if you've been following the 'Get money' section in the New-player guide.
 Even before the above quest, you won't be max killing the enemies required by the questline. Fully reinforced/energized gear can max kill Thrashers. To max kill any Wasteland monster (which we face in the last quests of 'Enter the Abyss' questline) you're going to need the T4 earring (lower tiers don't have this item available). You don't actually need to swap any gear to T4; the increase in power in comparison to T3 is very few. The T4 energizements are exactly the same as T3 energizements and the only change in reinforcement is that each reinforcement gives +6 stat instead of +5, which isn't as potent compared to the jump from other tiers.
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 The T5 sidearm is unlocked at the last quest of the "Abyssal Pressures" questline while the augments unlock in the same questline earlier. All of these items are good or rare enough to warrant empowering, at least up to E9 for the +10 speed.
-This is where the paths forward diverge significantly, depending on focusing on raw income, compendium, quests or max experience.
+====== T6 and the first empower ======
+For the following part, where paths will diverge, you need to be able to max kill Unseen Horrors, the first truly profitable monster in the game. To max kill an early abyss monster, full T5 or T6 isn't enough. You will need to empower some gear for it. Since we'll be using them for a while, getting the first T6 augment from the questline and empowering it to 9 (E9) is enough.
+As you don't get any benefits switching from the latest Wasteland monster you're on (Karth Drake recommended for it's drop and the speed compendium) if you can't actually max kill it, it's better to wait until level 100. While waiting for level 100, buy a lot of ore, around 1M ore to be safe. When you hit level 100 combat, craft a full set of T6 to replace your T3 equipment. Now, you'll have 2 extra slots with belt and shoulders to equip, giving you a massive power increase. Do the standard equipment stuff: buy materials to craft multiple, prioritize speed, armor, pierce when choosing, reinforce + energize them all.
+Then, we start clearing the quests.
+If you've joined a corporation, you can get some decent passive bonuses from your corporation abilities alone. More importantly, you can join an incursion and get some injections as a reward. It's time to use these (or buy higher leveled ones from market and use them). Again, prioritize higher level brutality injection over any others.
+Your goal is to inject until you complete the "Intense Pressure" quest from the "Abyssal Pressures" questline, which gives you your first T6 augment, the abyssal exo-arm. Even with good injections, you'll likely kill 6-7 or less monsters for the questline. Nothing to do, just truck onwards until it's done. When you get your augment, reinforce+energize it and equip it.
+Now, with the ores we stocked by buying them on market, it's time to empower.
+There isn't much trick to empowering at the start of the game, as we're only doing it until E9 (or E10 if you want the green stars instead of the gold ones). The empower chance drops with each successful empower until 10%. When you fail empowering, you'll get precognitive dust. Use them on the last 2 empowers to increase your empower chance at the cost of slightly increasing the empower costs and spending all used dust when the empower is successful.
+Empowering until E10 costs around 20M gold (raw+materials from market) and 650k ore. This will vary with how lucky you got when empowering.
+After getting the final +10 speed empower, you should be strong enough to max kill the earliest abyss monsters like Unseen Horrors.
-===== Choose your path=====
+This is where the paths forward diverge significantly, depending on focusing on raw income, compendium, quests or max experience, in the next guide in the series, [[intermediate_guide|Intermediate Guide]].
-There are lots of different playstyles in the game currently. While they somewhat converge on the endgame (not completely though!), **how** you get there, or **if you get there** depends on your path. After achieving certain goals, a portion of the players stay where they are, never progressing significantly in chosen area afterwards. Alternatively, they choose to postpone all progress in that area until way later, prioritizing other areas.
+====== Companions======
-The first of these many divergences happens when you are able to max kill Unseen Hollow. The low rated Abyss monster that has an abnormally high drop rate, and is marked with a diamond sign next to it (by a later update) to signify it's importance.
+One of the primary areas one can improve their power is through Companions, which actually relates to every existing area of the game through the various Companions. There are 2 ways to invest in this area of the game:
+Raising the level cap of the Companions (which gets exp passively every combat action for the same amount), which gives passive static bonuses
+Leveling up abilities under companions, which gives passive % based bonuses. These abilities can only be leveled up to the level of the related companion.
-===== Companions=====
+Early on in the game, since our base income or stats are low, the static bonuses instead of the percentage ones are much more significant. Also, since more abilities unlock at companion levels 50, 100, 150 and 200; until these levels, we don't really have much options to level. The progression guide, related formulas and best ability picks can be found at the Companion guide (soonTM).
-With the restructuring of the plat production, producing plat and selling it for profit is much more viable. By selling up to 8 plat, we can basically get some plat for free on the side and thus can invest them. As plat will take a great part of the game after the early game is finished, I recommend using part of your income for Recyclobot (called Rbot after this point), for it's an essential part of increasing your income later on.
+We don't go after companion abilities since they are very weak for now. Therefore, we will increase the level cap of the companions. The passive fortitude and savagery gained by Drone and Drake are very powerful early on.
-We definitely don't have the funds to go after the companion abilities; they are also very weak for now, as their max level can only be the current level of your companions. This is the reason we will increase the level cap of the companions: we can upgrade the abilities later, but our companions weren't gaining exp to level up while staying at their capped starting level of 5, it's time to fix that fast. The passive fortitude and savagery gained by Drone and Drake are very powerful early on.
+Once you have slowly leveled the companions' max levels to 20, you will need to prepare for the almighty lvl 20 → 25 companion level jump, which features a staggering 10 plat cost per companion. As a new player, it's expensive to get all companions past the 20->25 wall but with good Plat Emporium deals, it's manageable. If you don't have the funds, you'll have to prioritize. I recommend you level up Drone, then Drake. These 2 companions give Fortitude and Savagery and they give great amounts of it when we've just started the game. The ability to kill more types of monsters opens up much more avenues than other passive incomes from the other 2 companions.
-Once you have slowly leveled the companions' max levels to 20, you will need to prepare for the almighty lvl 20 -> 25 companion level jump, which features a staggering 10 plat cost per companion. As a new player, it's just impossible to get all 52 plat required to get them to level 25 (where it starts requiring 2 plat for 5 levels until level 50). Therefore, you will have to prioritize. As this guide is focused on progressing through gear and mainline quests for gear: I recommend you level up Drone, then Drake. These 2 companions give Fortitude and Savagery and they give great amounts of it when we've just started the game.
+Until you have leveled all your companions past level 25, don't spend plat on any ability whatsoever, no matter how tempting it is. The levels on companions are more valuable. keep this up until level 50, however, if you have excess gold and want to spend it on plat, Cache ability can be leveled in small amounts.
-Until you have leveled all your companions past level 25, don't spend plat on any ability whatsoever, no matter how tempting it is. The levels on companions are more valuable.
+====== What now?======
-===== What now? =====
+Now that you've ready to max kill abyss monsters, you need to decide on which area to progress. Until you equip full T7 and empower them, the mainline quests won't matter too much. Therefore, as you wait for level 115 and then way beyond (enough that this'll be covered in the advanced guide), you need to decide where to invest your income to. You'll need to answer the list of questions below:
-The previous questline was the last important quest to rush, as the next main questline gives abyssal T6 (level 100) augments. Since the strategy was to rush unlocking the 2nd dungeon, we will need to wait quite a while to arrive to that level. For now, your goal should be __switching back to killing Warped Tormenters, the last enemy in Wastelands, or Karth Drakes for compendium, to farm experience to level up until level 80__. This is the point where we can transition into T5 equipment and skip T4. T4 and T5 share the same upgrade materials, so waiting until level 80 would save us resources.
+  * Do you want to be a miner?
+  * Do you want to stick to great combat income?
+  * Do you want to play the long game and start going for Compendium?
+  * Do you want long term income from Rbot levels?
+  * How much do you want to invest in Companions?
+  * How much do you want to invest in Masteries?
+  * How soon do you want Slayer mastery maxed?
-You can switch into shiny T5 gear to make a push for killing the max amount of monsters against Abyss monsters, or just keep killing Wasteland monsters to casually level up until level 100, where the mainline quests will finally be relevant. Killing the slightly lower reward Wasteland monsters isn't detrimental to your progression, as Compendium rewards will start to be completed on your way to level 100 and beyond. This will be mentioned in the next [[intermediate_guide|Intermediate Guide]].
+All of these questions are relevant towards different paths of progression, which will be explained in the next guide in the series: [[intermediate_guide|Intermediate Guide]].
 Thank you for reading, all feedback is appreciated (just write about it on discord).