Guides for new players

Starting guides for new players.

If you down loaded the game with Calypso, Rocktropia or Monria as your starting planet you will start at Genesis.
This is where you customise your avatars appearance. WARNING once you leave this area and exit to Thule you can not change your look or avatar name for free. You can pay other players to make changes in hair and body build (no sex changes though).

Once you exit Genesis to Thule you will find a weapon instructor NPC who will give you your first weapon and a small amount of ammo.
You will also find a terminal that allows you to skip tutorial, this we can not advise you doing as you will not get your starter vehicle, rifle, rocket launcher (HINT save this for the last part of Bukins mission at Camp Icarus), ammo for both, starter FAP (that is a healing tool) and starter mining gear. So please follow the short mission chain that starts at Mr Yoshida!

Once you arrive at the end Spaceport Helios you talk to the NPC and you get the choice of 2 locations on Planet Calypso or a 1 way one time teleport to Monria or Rocktropia.
If you have chosen Calypso as the starting planet we would recomend you select Camp Icarus.

You appear on the beach near an NPC called Sergeant Saana, who needs you to kill 5 low level mobs and once you have killed them he sends you up to the camp to report to Captain Hayes.
Here we recommend that you make a slight diversion from the story line first.
Instead head up to the camp and find the Gauntlet Organiser NPC. This is a TEAM instance dungeon so ask in Local chat for a team. Higher levels will often run new players through the first Gauntlet stage one so the new player gets a VIVO S10 unlimited FAP (this is cheap to use and repairable) and their first Gauntlet stage two for 100k universal ammo.

Then head up the ramp and talk to NPC Alex Bukins. This is a 3 part mission for a repairable rifle. The first 2 parts are simple kill and loot mobs on low HP mobs, the final part is kill one starving Atrax. This is a bit of a handful for new players so ask someone if they will heal you and as it has 100 hp the rocket launcher is really useful compared to your other starter weapons.

Now you can start to do the other missions at Camp Icarus, Nus Lull, CDF outpost, Swamp Camp and North Swamp Camp and head to Port Atlantis to do your second tutorial. You will also get missions in the Codex this can be found top right of your screen click the blue icon. After Port Atlantis you will be able to teleport to HalfMoon Bay/Cove where there are more low level missions.

Planet Arkadia.
Here the new player starts in Genesis as per Calypso etc. When you are happy with the avatars looks and name you exit to New Arrivals hanger.
Follow the green arrows on the floor to the office. Talk to BOTH NPC's behind the desk (passport and New arrivals).
If you started on a different planet you need 10,000 vibrent sweat to buy your passport from the passport officer. This will unlock the Starter chain mission, the join IFN chain and the Oratan daily payback mission chain. All other missions are available with out passport but it is recomended that you do the starter / join IFN.

After you have talked to those 2 NPC's head to exit door to Planet Arkadia. Just after exiting you will see Sgt Jong npc on your right talk to him and you get a strange helmet, equip this.
Follow the instructions you are given which takes you to several NPC's where you recieve your hoverpod and various items.

Mentoring

MindArk have a Mentoring system that allows new players to learn from experienced players.The reason for this is that this game is very complex and it’s very very easy to waste the PED that you may have earned or deposited if you don't have any guidance at an early stage. A Mentor will be most useful during the first few days of gameplay to help you understand the various systems and activities that make up the virtual world. After this they will be able to advise you on the many questions that will arise as you work your way towards Graduation, and also hopefully as a hunting partner and a guide when exploring (some planets can be quite nasty to the low level explorer).
The Mentor needs to have graduated from their time as a disciple, played for at least 6 months and reached level 15 in at least one profession.

Here are three ways to find a Mentor:

Use the Mentor Register - Right click your HP bar and then select System >> Mentor Register. Mentors can be ranked using the column headers, Online (status) (ideally you need a mentor that is online at the same times as you), Name, Rating, Graduated Disciples.
Join a Society - Societies are the Entropia Universe equivalent of clans, guilds, etc. Some Societies are very happy to train new players, they will have Mentors within the Society. Use the F11 key to bring up Society terminal to look at each Society’s details for information on joining requirements. Joining an active friendly Society really enhances your gaming experience in Entropia, look for a Society that has active players online during your game time.
Find a friendly player - As you explore the Entropia Universe you will interact with other players, if you find one that is particularly helpful, ask them if they know any good Mentors and / or Societies, and take it from there.

A good Mentor will help you and be online when you are, you may see advice about taking a Mentor in your own time zone, however more important is that they are online when you are, that they actually spend time with you in the game and that you can communicate effectively (there are Mentors with other languages than English). Some Mentors also use Skype, Discord or TeamSpeakn for this.
A good Mentor will be one who can teach you about the profession that you wish to follow. Some Mentors are more specialised in Mining, Crafting or Hunting professions and some are general in their knowledge of all 3

To graduate, you will need to complete three simple tasks Hunt and loot 1 creature with your mentor, mine and extract 1 claim and craft 1 item successfully and gain about 18000 skill points (this is not as bad as it sounds and the lower your level starting Mentoring the easier it is) aggregate across the areas of Geology (from mining and resorce gathering)/ Anatomy (from hunting)/ Engineering (from crafting and vehicle repairing). As a reward for successfully completing the Disciple program you will receive a full set of repairable Armour (depends which planet you choose to graduate on) and a Vehicle, your Mentor will also receive a small reward (either an armour part, a skill pill or a level 100 weapon).

If your Mentor is never logged in when you're on, is "too busy" to help you or on another planet 24/7, you may be better off finding someone who is able to spend some time with you and can actually help you. If you kick your Mentor, you will lose all your progress up to that point except your 3 achievements.

We who are Mentors in Team Varyag have experienced disciples graduating in 3-8 days, so everything is possible

Weapons and tools
There are two types in game, the old school level 100 non sib and sib.

When you look at the item information you will find a section called Skill Increase Bonus.
This is great for you to see if you can use the item.
If it says Not yet there you are too low to use this.
If it says Yes it means that you will gain skills slightly faster with penalties. You will have reduced damage, speed, range and more misses.
If it says Not anymore there you can use this at its best with full damage, range, speed and less misses. You will be what we call Max-ed on that weapon, this does not mean you should rush out and buy a bigger gun straight away. You can still happily continue your process of extermination of the local wild life with your now max-ed weapon.
If it says Never there I would suggest you leave it alone as it is an old "Pre Gold version" non sib weapon that needs level 100 to use anywhere near its best.

Melee vs Ranged.

This is a personal choice, you will not save ped's with melee as the very high decay on the weapon cancels that out.
As an example of the weapon decay we will look at the TT or trade terminal weapons.
The 3 ped tt pistol and 4 ped tt rifle will last you over 13,000 shots before they break.
The TT knife will last 740 swings and tt sword will last 550 swings.

You will gain more defence skills and HP with melee as you will get hit more and at low level you may find this a disadvantage (you only have 88 hp on a new avatar).
A sword will give high damage and slow hits.
A knife will give lower damage but fast attack.
A rifle will give higher damage and a slow reload.
A pistol will give lower damage and a fast reload, you will also gain a bit of defence skills as the mob will hit you more.

You will notice that we seem to have ignored the TT powerfists, this is deliberate on our part as after the TT ones decent SIB powerfists are few and far between in game.

Amps, scopes, enhancers.

You can fit an amp that does 1/2 the max damage of a weapon. This increase ammo burn and damage. Some amps are great like the Omegatron range which will increase your weapons damage per pec of ammo cost + decay. Some amps like the E-amp range make the damge/pec worse.

Scopes.

These give a skill bonus when fitted.

Laser sights.

These increase slightly your accuracy.

You can fit an amp, a laser on the scope sight and a laser on the weapon.

Enhancers.

This involves tiering your weapon or item. A limited weapon (L) will tier up as you use it, an unlimited weapon you have to use materials to manually tier them up and unlock a slot for an enhancer.

Word of warning enhancers are extremely costly for the increase they give (10% a tier) and have a totally random life span. An amp is a much better investment as you can sell it when you out grow it and gives you a 50% increase in damage.

Lasers and BLP weapons.

At low level lasers have a wider choice of weapons and economic amps.
At higher levels BLP has a slight advantage.

Final thoughts.

Which ever method of slaughtering you choose stick mainly to it until level 30.

You will find once you reach level 30 laser sniper (or pistol) (hit) you will unlock a hidden skill. Serendipity will help every combat profession (except whips) to level up. Then you can think seriously about changing your preferred method of death dealing.

Here in Team Varyag we have Society team hunts where every member of the team uses the same weapon. These are Herman Ark-0(L) BLP rifles, this is so the loot is evenly distributed to the hunters and a lvl 57 laser sniper (hit) gets the same as a Lvl 1 knife fighter etc.