A quiet week

I've been basically out of money for the best part of a week, so I've had to find activities other than hunting or mining to amuse myself. Unfortunately this led to sweating.

Most of my time was spent in the area around Camp Phoenix. I took off my armor, avoided using my first aid pack, and took the amplifier off my rifle. There's no point sweating if you just ramp up repair costs of expensive tools. I barely used my rifle, so the overall costs were virtually zero.

I managed to collect 1600 bottles of sweat, and gathered some useful skills in evading creatures. Today I sold off the sweat, and a few other bits I had lying around, and managed to gather a total of 30PED. That was enough for a mining trip.

Armed with 40 probes and 1000 ammo shots I headed off to Amethera. I had some reasonable results - I took around 10PED in raw enmatter, which should sell for a bit more. Still didn't cover the 20PED costs, but it's not too bad. Again, I didn't use armor on this run, or even try to fight the creatures (I'd have lost miserably!), so repair costs were negligable.

I did have one interesting incident with a Mermoth Guardian, though. They can sense you at an amazing range, and this one could easily outrun me. It decided to camp out on my claim rods, so I spent a good while coaxing it back to the teleport. When I finally succeeded I took great pleasure in watching it be anihilated by the turret :-)

I've now got enough oil that once sold I should have enough for another run. Or maybe I'll go on a group hunt if anyone else in the society is up for it.

Mining is becoming preferable

After a brief rest this morning I went out for a lunch time hunt. I didn't have long, so only took 10PED of ammo with me. I ended up wandering in to a nest of Sabakuma's so spent a good while fighting with them. I got a long run of small handfuls of PEC and quite a few cans of orange paint. It didn't really seem like a good return on what I'd spent.

Doing the sums for this hunt showed I'd spent 7PED on ammo and looted 4.50PED. Repair costs on armor, guns, and FAP came in at 4.79PED, so that wiped out the loot completely. So a 7.29PED loss - wonderful. Clearly hunting, at least in short bursts, is not a good idea.

This evening I changed my plans and went back to mining. After advice yesterday I upgraded my enmatter detector. I first tried an MF-102, but turns out I'm not skilled enough for that, so I've put it in storage for the future. The MF-101 gave good results though. 13.5PED of probes gave me 12.38PED of enmatter, which when sold will effectively break even. To top that off, repair costs for mining gear came in at under a PED.

Mining seems to be doing well for me today, and the costs seem clearer.

I'm still feeling quite disheartened though. It's so hard to do well here, and I'm already struggling for money. I shouldn't have bought all those clothes :-)

PED, a new image, and mining

Today started out with a new injection of 265PED from back on Earth. This is a well needed boost in money, since I was literally broke before. It's nice to have support of people back home whilst I'm still settling in here - I don't know if I could make it without them.

My first port of call was to buy some new clothes. It's an image thing really - I want to look different from the hundreds of other new people around here. I had a good look around the various shops on Calypso (I didn't venture up to CND - the asteroid night club), and investigated the auction. In the end I found Spud's Clothing Shop in Treasure Island City, which had some nice looking stuff at a good price. I took a while deciding between blue and orange, but eventually went for the full blue outfit, including shoes.


After this I headed over to the TT to load up for a mining trip. I bought 10PED of ammo and 20PED of probes, and the necessary tools. The trip wasn't too great, but I got a few good hits near Atlas Haven. At some point later when I was near Pandora I died and got transported to the revial terminal north of Morningtear Castle. Although incredibly frustrating, I did find some oil out there.


On my way back after the mining trip I ran in to some trouble with a whole nest of Merp's. I had no chance fighting them, so I just tried running. It didn't work, and I was soon killed.


When I finally made it back I refined all my enmatter that I'd collected. It came to around 10PEDs worth, which wasn't a complete disaster on 20PED, but a long way from where I'd like to be getting. I spoke to a miner in our society and he suggested I needed better mining tools, so that's something to take a look for tomorrow.

To finish the day off I met up with Shining at Port Atlantis and sold off all the refined enmatter. Then I did the sums. I'd spent 10PED on ammo and looted 3.51PED. I'd spent 20PED on probes and mined 10PED of enmatter. The repair costs on all my equipment - FAP, Armor, AMP, Rifle - game to 6.88PED. I make that a loss of over 20PED. I don't even want to start adding the costs of the full repairs before starting the run, or the costs of my new clothes.

Roll on another day.

Exploring Amethera

I used the returns from yesterday to fund one last enmatter mining run. I didn't get much in return, so I just refined and stored it. I sold off the tools and was left with just 5PED. So no more mining or hunting until I get some more money.

So instead I decided to try the one thing that doesn't require any money to do - exploring. I'd already covered all the teleports on Eudoria, but I had barely done Amethera at all. The only ones I had so far were the three on Treasure Island, New Oxford, Genesis, and Wolverine Hope. This left all those at the south of the continent.

I started by heading down to Nea's place, then on to Omegatron. The next few involved swimming, which meant avoiding those nasty fish creatures. On my journey I found Memorial Island which has a statue in the memory of Island Girl. I never met her, but there's a short story about her at the statue. I took a while to read it.


I then headed across to Nate Valley, Rei's Defense, and finished up at Sakura City. On this journey I met many interesting creatures, including a wizard like character who swiftly killed me. At the end of the journey I took a while to admire Sakura City - it was an impressive sight.


I believe I've covered all the teleports on Amethera now, so maybe I can start making using of this continent for my mining activities.

To finish the day I wasted my remaining cash on ammo and blasted a few creatures north of Jason Centre.

Broke

Started out today with another ore mining run. Results were very poor, so I ditched it in favour of enmatter mining. I traded in the tools, and sold off the remaining ingots.

Enmatter mining wasn't too bad today. I didn't put much money into it because I didn't have much money left, but I got 5PED return. I also got an 8PED loot from killing a Berycled that attacked me whilst I was doing the mining. So a reasonable return on that trip.

Overall though I'm now in a fairly bad financial position. Most of the money has been spent on consumables or is invested in armor and tools. Hopefully I'll get another cash injection from back on Earth soon, otherwise I'll be back out sweating at Troy.

Refining

Today I had planned to sell the enmatter I'd mined yesterday. But before I did I learnt that it'd be more profitable to refine it first. So I headed off to a trade terminal to buy a refiner. It effectively cost nothing to do the refining - the decay on the refiner is negligable.

I headed down to Port Atlantis and fairly easily sold the refined enmatter. I made friends with a guy called Shining whilst doing this. He's a trader and is willing to buy most of my mining produce at a fair price. I could probably get a bit more for it if I shopped around, but the convenience of a trader probably makes it worth taking the hit.

Next I decided to have a go at ore mining. The process is similar, but the tools different. I traded in my enmatter tools, bought the ore tools, and then headed out to have a play. I had very little success until I went to Cape Corinth. There I got a reasonable amount of ore from the few bombs I had left.

Finished the day by refining the ore in to ingots and selling them on. I'm very low on cash now, but I'm just about keeping afloat.

Becoming a miner

I've recently started to lose faith in hunting due to the poor lots, so today I decided to have a go at something new - mining.

First job of the day was to sell off the last few items I had from hunting the past few days. I then had enough money to get the equipment needed to start mining. I bought, from a trade terminal, a detector, extractor, and probes for enmatter mining. It set me back in the region of 25PED, but hopefully the returns would be ok.

Before I left I remembered to stock up on ammo in case I got in trouble. Whilst doing this I bumped in to people selling better armor than I had. It was tempting to start thinking about replacing my armor, but I thought it best to wait until another day.

My mining started out reasonably well in the area around Pandora, but as I ventured further south things became more complex. I eventually died and ended up at an outpost to the west of the desert. It took a while to get out from here to Jason Centre, but I managed it. Then I repeated the whole process and ended up back at the same outpost :-)

The last time I ended up at the outpost a few other guys there were planning to make a run to Jason. We teamed up and killed a lot of creatures on the way. Nothing special in loot, but that's hardly a surprise these days.

By the end of the day my 20PED of probes had netted me around 13PED of enmatter. Not a great return, but then I'm only just starting out, so I don't have the skill or knowledge to do much better. I'll keep at it for a while.

OJ trains

Today Smoerble joined our society. I've known her for a while, so it's good to have her on board. She's also been organising a big teleport run for new people which I discovered was happening this evening. I offered to help out and met up with them in the bio dome at Port Atlantis.

The term "OJ train" comes from what happens next. All the new people in their orange jumpsuits follow the lead guy, in this case Smoerble, which results in a long orange line of people. It's quite a sight!

There were other people there, like myself, to help out and defend from attacks by creatures. It got quite frantic at some points with the new guys sweating and us blasting. We did our best, but it's inevitable that one or two people will die.

Not long after leaving Phoenix my amplifier packed in, so I pulled out. I ran to the nearest teleport and jumped to my new favourite spot - Minopolis. The reason I like this place is because it's just so convenient. Right next to the teleport is a storage unit and a trade terminal. And right next to them is a facility with all the other terminals one could need. It's perfect when you're in a hurry.

Clearing out the rest

I still had a few armor parts left from yesterday, so I started out today trying to get rid of them. I eventually sold the last harness, but nobody wanted the face guards. I even tried to give them away, but nobody seemed interested. In the end I stuck them in the trade terminal, which felt like the wrong thing to do.

Later in the day I went out hunting with some guys from the society. We worked our way through a variety of creatures and finished up with hunting Argonauts. The hunt came to a close as we all started running out of ammo - I spent the last few fights just using my first aid pack on the other guys.

Loot from the hunt was poor. I took around 8PED, which didn't cover my costs by quite a way. Oh well, yesterday was good, so I guess it all balances out.

In the evening took a visit to Red's (our society leader!) apartment at Genesis Amethera Headquarters. She's got a lot of stuff there that she uses to support new people. I wish I'd known this before I put those items in the trade terminal earlier. The visit got me thinking about buying an apartment again, but I really don't have that kind of money yet.

All hail Lootius?

After getting my new goblin armor set yesterday I no longer had a need for my pixie set. It was in a full state of repair, so wasn't hard to sell. I did the usual touting at Atlantis and Phoenix and it wasn't long until someone paid my full asking price. That put a few more PEDs in my pocket, which was nice.

I still had a large selection of armor parts left though, so I thought I'd try selling them on to new people for the TT price, in PED or sweat at 1.2PEC per bottle. This seemed like a nice thing to do, and it would hardly hurt me financially. I'd been helped out when I arrived, so it only seemed fair to return the favour.

After selling my first item I had the distinct feeling I'd be duped. Just after completing the sale the buyer put on an expensive harness just to show they weren't new here. That annoyed me, since I'm fairly sure they'll sell the item on for a profit. After some advice from my society friends I went to purchase a scanner. This would allow me to determine if someone was really new or not.

I was still having trouble selling the remaining items, which was surprising. I decided to find a new spot and headed north of Port Atlantis to the barn. This is a common place for new people to go and sweat, which means they're likely to have either sweat or PED and probably want armor.

Whilst I was there I spent a while helping them out. I finished off creatures when they had been drained of sweat, and I attracted the attention of creatures that were badly hurting someone. I also used my first aid pack on quite a few occasions.

So there's quite a lot of good deeds here. Selling armor for cheap, even taking sweat. Protecting and helping new people. Clearly Lootius, the supposed God of loot, smiled on this and rewarded me. One young Berycled gave me a loot of 9PED, and overall I took nearly 23PED in loot, far more than I'd spent in ammo.

All in all a good day.

Selling off the loot

Today I decided it was about time I cleared out the large stocks of loot I'd been collecting. I spent most of the day hanging around at Port Atlantis and Camp Phoenix looking for buyers. The biggest income came from the sizeable collection of hides. All I had left at the end of this were a bunch of looted armor parts which I'll try and sell tomorrow.

After some tiring selling I wondered what I'd do with all the PEDs I now had. Then I noticed someone offering a full goblin armor set for TT+8. The price didn't look unreasonable, so I went and bought it. It's not significantly better then the pixie set, but seems like a good progression for not too much money.

Afer putting the new armor on, and fully repairing it, I decided I should go on a hunt to try it out. A few other guys were forming a group at Phoenix, so I joined in with them. This turned out to be the most pointless hunt I've ever been on. There was way too much faffing, attempted organisation, and shouting. Eventually, due to general disarray, we all got eaten by an Atrox. In the end I gave up and headed back home.

Another team hunt, and a missed opportunity

Today I went to Camp Phoenix to see why it was so popular. There's been a lot of talk lately about people killing creatures that others are trying to sweat, so I thought I'd see what all the fuss was about. After a while of hanging around I heard someone forming a hunting party, so I thought I'd join in.

We headed east from Phoenix in to a hunting ground I'd not visited before. There were some big creatures out there, like Feffoid Guards, that took a bit of killing. These were people I'd not hunted with before, but we managed to get on fine. The hunt didn't last long before people started disappearing to do their own thing, so we disbanded and went our own ways.

I went off to investigate something I heard about yesterday. South of where I was there was a random building claiming to be Atlas Haven - which is nowhere near the place known as Atlas Haven. It was exactly as people described; a random looking building with no way in, and a few turrets protecting it. Very odd.

This evening I realised I'd missed the oil rig run that some people were organising. It's pretty much impossible for someone with my abilities to get to the oil rig and survive, so I really wish I'd gone along. Apparently they opened a wormhole to get everyone there, which must have been an amazing sight. Hopefully they'll do it again sometime.