ARCTIC Part 2: The Thing Conclusion... Tips

Well... After many hours I finally made it through The Thing quest, and got my arctic helicopter.

I am still not an expert with this quest despite how long it took me. Here are the following issues I ran into:

1. I cannot find any storage terminals in the Arctic. So, DO NOT LEAVE YOUR VEHICLES SPAWNED WHEN YOU LOG OF. They get returned to storage, and NOT to Rocktropia storage either! So I had lost my Arctic Truck to storage. Without it, you are going to have a hard time getting through all of the things gathered along the path to the exit point. It quite possibly may take a trouble ticket with MA to get your truck back if you lose it.

2. When you enter the refueling base, you basically keep to the right, and there is a large building, and a smaller building kind of close to the satellite receiver. Don't worry about fixing this satellite, theres no terminal on it. Instead, you have supply and repair terminals on the side of the buildings there. Inside the smaller building is a hole in the floor that you are to drop down and you will find underground tunnel with Things all over.

3. It does appear that your Armor works from Calypso. My shogun was doing an admirable job, but that could just be from my defensive skills who knows. Supposedly only the arctic armor should work, but who knows really. In any case, the Things are very tough despite being level 7. These aren't the 1 shot 1 kill level 7s of Rocktropia. It took about 20 shots with my breer M3A to kill one. The shotgun you get from the supply terminal is powerful, but it was a 50/50 if I died or not while killing one. And if you get more than one attacking you you are better off to run for it unless you are uber. So if you plan to do the thing, BRING SOME POWERFUL WEAPONS AND THE APPROPRIATE AMMO!

4. You must reach the escape point from underground. There is no way to complete the mission above ground, believe me, I tried. Upon escaping you are at the surface next to a base. You will receive further instructions by Radio, and then it just gives you your Helicopter and says thank you for playing, and more episodes coming in the future. So it does appear that they will be expanding the Arctic.

5. MINING IN THE ARCTIC: You cannot buy bombs there. BUT you can drop them! Though all I found so far is Lyst and Oil but I did use the crafting terminal in the refueling base, and ran a small profit on standard dampers with the mined Lyst and Oil. Just bring everything you think you need and maybe even some things you don't think you need.

If you are not wanting to spoil the spirit of The Thing, and juse use all Arctic gear, that's fine, and I can respect the ambition of that, but you might want to go with friends since it will be helpful to have a team in dealing with all the Things.

Please see Arctic Part 1 in case you missed it for tips on getting through the first half or so of the mission.

ARCTIC PT 1: I Begun The Thing Quest: TIPS

I just wanted to give you a few tips for starting the Thing Quest...

1. You get to be either a Scientist or a Soldier. The Soldier gets to use the Assault Rifle to begin with, and the Scientist gets to start with the 9mm pistol. It's not as bad as it sounds though... Even though the weapons are weak, the mobs aren't very hard to kill.

2. You have to do everything in the proper order or you will confuse the Quest system. It's not too bad.. But for instance when going to the first satellite receiver, don't TP chip or otehrwise cheat, actually walk down the road to it!

3. When you arrive at the next base after getting your vehicle, you have to turn on the power generator. This requires a level 1 access card but I have not yet found it. I do not know if you have to loot it from a mob or actually find it... However... You can right click and operate the parked vehicles in the bases. Some of them will have things stashed in them to find like Ammo and etc. There is one vehicle that is locked, but I do not know if it is possible to break into it or not, and part of me thinks that the access card may be found inside it, but I dunno if they put that much complexity into the quests to where they would make you pick your way into a vehicle to find something.  UPDATE: Continue south through this base, almost to the next satellite dish, you will see a vehicle. THIS vehicle has the access card.

4. The freebies you get amount to a couple peds probably, including the fap, weapon, ammo... But you may purchase the shotgun, assault rifle, and additional pistols at the terminals attached to the various buildings.. And the ammo.. The shotgun is fairly powerful to be honest, it packs more of a punch than the sollomate opalo...  But they are limited so you can't repair them. So if you like them, and leave, stock up while you can.

5. What is the sequence for the power generator?
Reduce power to Beta.
Increase power to defenses.
Increase defenses again.
Increase cooling.
And you want the 13/20 split on last one.

ROCKTROPIA: How To Get The Cell Phone

Please see the post that came before this for getting your CND pass... This one deals with getting your cell phone.

You have to talk to Frankie on the top patio walkway. You then have to talk to one of the gals dancing on Level 2, forget her name. Actually you might want to talk to her first since it seems to start the cell phone quest. Then, you have to talk to Trey up on level 3 in the lounge. He gives you a tour of the town you must go to the waypoints. Once thats completed, you return to him. Then he will invite you to go up and talk to the DJ. You talk to the DJ, he will give you a cell phone.

It took a bit of time, but was simple. I still not know what use the Phone will be though... But that is how you get it.

Also, you need to get your pass or you will die when you go places.

My First Visit To Rocktropia!!! New Visitor Tips!

Rocktropia is awesome in my opinion! Seems like there is so much more to do, and the environment is more fun... Well, atmosphere is the word I think. I don't recommend it for anyone on dialup since even high speed wireless seems to be giving me enough lag as it is... Perhaps a good graphics card will make the difference on that.

But there are some things I didn't know that I just learned, and I wanted to post them here :-)

OK...

FIRST! I landed on the top patio for the club neverdie in the city of dreams. Now, yes, the bouncer kicked my butt and I died because I didn't have the pass. But I got to talk to Frankie Headstone up on the top somewhere outside the club. I can't really specify his exact location, but he's up there. If you talk to him, he will give you a free baseball bat worth 1 Ped TT. My friends who been there before didn't know that and didn't get theirs. So I wanted to let you all know.

SECOND: I didn't know I was going to rocktropia today... And I thought there was a CND pass on Calypso auction, I figured eh, I will bid a few peds, thinking it was a good deal. Heh... LOL... No. You get them free at the club on Rocktropia. But it took me forever to figure out how to get the pass.

You have to go to the bottom level, walk outside the club, and there are two people at the entrance, NPC's, and more NPC's making a line to get in. You have to talk to Trinity, and she will add you to the guest list and then Bulldog will give you a pass when you talk to him. This will prevent you from dying from being where you aren';t supposed to go.

I will continue to blog my tips and experiences here on the Rock until I leave maybe tomorrow back for Caly.

AND A REMINDER: DO NOT attempt the journey in a sleipneir with any cargo. I guarantee you the Sleipneir has a "Shoot Me, Loot Me" sign on the back of it!!! Dump all your ores and matters and resources into storage prior to travelling. And unless you have a warp capable ship, prepare to spend an hour or two in space.

This Weeks Share Dividends...

1.93 ped per share... Hopefully this was due to people saving their peds for Merry Mayhem, or perhaps everyone being with their families for Christmas, who knows. I hope this is the exception and not the rule... If the payouts stay this low, I expect a lot of people will cash out their shares at any price just to be out of it while they can.

I advise any land deed holders to just wait a week or two and see what happens. If it still so poor, then you might expect it to keep up that way for some time.

ADVICE: Do Not Underestimate Land Deed ROI

I want to give you this piece of advice as a christmas present in that you may understand it and take it to heart. I just had an epiphany of thoughts, and I know a lot of you see the returns offered by the Land Deed dividends as paltry. But let me shine some light on this for you.

Let's compare the ROI on a Land Deed to say, a savings account interest, or perhaps a Certificate of Deposit:

Savings accounts with your local bank only offer maybe .25% to 1% Interest PER YEAR. So, on $100, you MIGHT get as much as $1. That's 10 peds per year per hundred dollars in your savings.

CD's might offer 2% or 4%... So you are talking $2 to $4 per hundred per year. 20 to 40 peds per year that way.

Calypso land deeds are paying out between 5 and 6 peds a week!!!! Do you know how significant this is?! That's 50 cents to 60 cents a week!!! You are getting a years worth of bank interest in about 2 weeks time or less on that same $100! Say you are getting 250 peds a year, you are talking 25% yield per year. THERE IS NO CD IN THE WORLD RIGHT NOW THAT I AM AWARE OF THAT YOU CAN MAKE MORE THAN 5% ON.

Robert G Allen wrote in his book multiple streams of income, that just saving $1 a day, and earning 5% per year interest will make you a multi millionaire within 20 years by compounding interest. Of course, the only way your ROI will compound is if you use the dividends to buy more shares... BUT imagine what you can do with 25% interest!!!

Of course, the playership should grow over time, every product and service has it's critical mass at which things go crazy at. When that happens, I will bet dollars to beans that you will see the ROI go far beyond 25% per year.

No, I have no shares, and no vested interest in how well they do or what their price goes to. Oh yes, I would like to have some, but maybe some day... But here lies a tremendous opportunity to those of you who are quick enough and sharp enough not to squander it.

But even if the ROI drops to 5% for some reason... YOU ARE STILL WAY AHEAD OF WHAT BANKS ARE PAYING!

Mining Basics Part 4: Selling Your Ores

This seems like a logical fourth part to my recent series of posts outlining the basics for all the noobs who are coming into Entropia on a daily basis. I am seeing incredible amounts of new people every time I log in. It takes me weeks sometimes to run into another avatar I've seen before. Seriously!

If you look at the totals on Entropia Tracker, say my mining rank is like 700 out of 3000 or something... And you think wow... 3000 people is that all thats here? But then you realize... That's only people who have hoffed and globalled in the last 30 days that are counted. It took me 6 months to get my first global. Then it took another 6, and after that it dropped to 3, and then I started hitting some kind of a global at least once a month... Until now, where I have globalled virtually every day I've played. So just think of how many people there really are playing that are not counted in the globals and hofs.

Anywho... I am a bit off topic here, but that's ok. This is going to be short and quick.

Markup is crucial to your success in any profession. It is the difference between winning and losing. Mindark is not going to guarantee you will win on every run you do. However, what gives you the opportunity to is markup because markup is directly out of other peoples pockets unlike the TT value of items.

There are several things to consider.

1. Rarity and % markup.
2. How many peds worth of each resource you have.
3. Auction fees.
4. Trader prices.
5. Is it worth more refined or unrefined (This may sound dumb, but I will explain why it is valid)
6. Do I fill orders, or do I just list an auction with a buyout?


So lets start with number one...

If a resource is selling for less than 110%, you are generally going to have a hard time pushing it on the auction unless you know what you are doing, and it is going to take a fairly large stack of the stuff to make it worth doing. For instance...

Oil had orders at 104%. I thought ok, I will try refining my 80 ped oil global and sell it to orders. What I didn't expect was, my refiner broke at least two times, so that cost me 4 peds right there. Then there is a matter of the auction fee of nearly a ped or so. My markup was less than 5 peds. I literally didn't gain anything by doing this.

However, it has a lot to do with what is the value per unit. See, refining decay is based on how many units you are refining. It is costlier to refine Crude Oil than say, Angelic flakes or Dianthus... Ped for ped that is. It wasn't worth bothering to refine the oil and fill orders. But I could have 80 peds worth of say, Alicenies and refined it and sold it on an order of 104% and actually made a few pecs.

Depending on the markup it can be cheaper to actually TT the stuff. But on all items you think are TT food, at the very least talk to a trader to see if you can get ANY markup for.

BUT REMEMBER: If you take something like Dunkel... Assume 5K% markup. A trader MUST automatically deduct around 1500 points off that markup and offer you between 3500% and 4000%. Because even with 3500%, the auction fees would take all the profit and then some. And if you think it is easy to sell something so rare, especially when it's not refined, you can try it. If its extremely high markup and rare, so few people even use it that it would be a risk counting on the fact someone using it would actually see your listing and buy it... It's safer in my opinion to sell it as fast as you can as long as the offer is reasonable. Reasonable, in my book, is markup minus auction fees on rare items. On common ores and matters, the standard few percent discount is reasonable.

#2:  If you have 10 peds of lysterium thats worth say, 105%... You are only talking 50 pecs markup. You wont make money with orders. Potentially, you could list a 9.99 ped lot of Lysterium ingots (333) of them for say, 120% and they will sell becuase lots of crafters will pay a little extra for smaller quantities. But you risk also that you might not sell it and lose the auction fees. So you have two options: Hold your ore til you have about 50 to 100 peds worth, or find a trader. Small markups will make a difference, but only on large TT values.

#3: Auction fees are progressive. The more value the item has, and the higher the markup, the faster the increase in auction fee as you up the price. However something you should know is... The auction fee to list what, 200 peds of Cobalt is like 6 peds or something... But to sell say, 900 peds on auction the fee is only like 12 peds. So after a while, economies of scale kick in and the more you can list at once the cheaper it actually gets for you to list. If you were to list four lots of 200, you would be paying nearly 25 peds in fees, versus saving and filling that 900 ped order. The numbers are just approximations from memory, not accurate... But the principle is what I am trying to explain. It will always be CHEAPER to sell the biggest lot that you can sell at one time,

Fees are good though. Why? Because it prevents people from using the auction as a warehouse like so many online games tend to do. If there were no fees, people would simple list everything at astronomical prices and never have to worry about storage for their stuff again. It might not be a big deal now, but back in the day when there was no storage on the asteroid, it would have been considered a major exploit.

Also, it prevents people from flooding the markets or otherwise manipulating them by buying up all the cheaper listings and relisting at much higher prices. The fees force people to list at prices they reasonably expect will find buyers.

I do notice the more I spend in AH fees, the better quality of loot I get... But I have no concrete proof, only observation from my own situation. But just keep your eyes peeled to see if it's making any difference for you or not. There is a lot we may never know about the game.

4: The reason traders are justified in making profit is simple. Most people do not have more than a few peds in any given stack of ore or resources. If you mine with less than a couple hundred peds, you are going to have a varied inventory when you get done. You will be forced to either tt lots too small to put on auction, or find a trader.

Now, when a trader buys from you, he has to consider how the market is. Are prices heading upward, or downward. Is it in high demand or is it not being used much. Whats the current price.

See... The advantage of a trader is this: If you cant list the stuff you have yourself, you either have to wait til you have more, TT it, or sell to the trader. Would you rather have five piles each of 2 peds of 120% ores and trade terminal them, or go to a trader who would give you say 115% for the ores. It is your choice. You can either lose 2 peds in markup by TTing, or you can go to the trader and let him make a few pecs, and lose only half a ped.

In turn, the trader accumulates the ores til he has sufficient amounts to peddle on the auction house or direct to crafters.Traders however, if they are smart, will take a sufficient cut on the ores so that when they have amassed their piles, that they will still make some money after figuring in the fees and etc.

However, if you have piles of ingots worth over 20 peds, and markup is over say 115% or 120%, by all means sell them yourself, in most cases you will get more than a trader will offer. It's just reality. But the exception to this rule... If it is an Ore that doesn;t move fast... Cobalt is very tempermental. If I list it as the lowest auction buyout, someone always undercuts me. But orders are sometimes 10 points below the lowest auction price. The solution? See what a trader will offer you. If Cobalt is 120% on orders and buyouts are no lower than 130, rather than risk being undercut, you might get a trader to give you 125%.

#5: Yes, I have to cover this... Becuase there are separate categories for unrefined and refined ores and enmatters, differences in the market value arise. In the case of chalmon/devils tail... I once sold 20 peds or so TT value, to orders for 560%. I went and checked the devils tail orders... Devil's tail was ordered at 620%. I would have made more money selling it unrefined. So when you have VERY high markup stuff... ALWAYS check the refined and unrefined orders BEFORE you refine it... You can always refine it later, but you can NOT unrefine an ore!

#6; Filling orders vs. Selling on Auction...

Scenario 1: Your ore's lowest buyout is at 120%. The orders are paying 119%. It is best to fill the order. Because even if you do list for say 123%, it might not sell, and for the 4 points difference, i'd rather have my money now. Also a gap like that generally means the price is going to be dropping so is best to be done with it than stuck with an overmarked up listing.

Scenario 2: Orders are at 120%, but lowest buyout is 130%. This is what I have experienced with Cobalt on a somewhat regular basis. Because the cobalt is virtually impossible to move without filling orders for me, I would opt to take it to a trader or fill the orders. Any other ore though, I would just do a listing at slightly under the lowest buyout if I needed the peds right now. If I wasn't in a hurry, I would find the lowest price listing around the size lot I had, and list just a little bit below that. People are going to always pay a little higher markup for smaller lots of resources.

Scenario 3: Make note of what the lowest auction buyout is, and then ask a trader, if there are no orders. If the trader offers you an amount somewhat close to that figure, do the math and see how much of a difference it is and if it is acceptable, take the trade. Otherwise, see Scenario 2.

I hope this helps clarify some situations and help you understand some of the dynamics at work in the market place. I will go through and clarify and rewrite this over time... Maybe add better examples and make it simpler to understand... But in the mean time, good luck!

Chirpy Hofs... A Quick Note

I have seen chirpy globals and hofs on normal chirpies, not the mutant chirpies.

But I gotta set the record straight... The mutant chirpies will make an uber cry. Thousands of hitpoints in health and hundreds in damage. Sounds incredible, but true. And they do hof.

But the normal noob chirpies I have seen hof as well in the past.

But consider this:

The cost of killing a chirpy is roughly the same as crafting basic filters.  So you spend 5 to 10 pecs killing a chirpy and about 5 pecs on a click of filters. So in all honesty, you have roughly the same chance at hoffing or globalling a chirpy as you would on filters... And just think how many thousands of filter clicks it takes to get that kind of reward...

Basic Mining Guide Part 3: Understanding The Nature of Ore Spawns

Every ore, and enmatter is found in only certain areas. No one really knows where the boundaries of these spawns exactly are located. However, there are some things we do know for sure.

You will only find a certain mix of deposits in a given area. And this mix changes from area to area. For instance, you can mine all you want on Treasure Island and you will not hit any Lanorium or Alferix. But you can go to Shinook and never hit any Cobalt. You also will not find any Lysterium on Treasure Island for that matter.

But let's look at the rarer stuff. Take land areas for example... Let's use Miners Heaven for my example, even though I am not affiliated with the owners, it is a wonderful place to mine and I don't mind putting in a good word for it, since I have globalled unamped lots of times, and have even hit a fair share of Kanerium and Redulite there.

I have only found Redulite on the very west end of the land area. Gazzurdite and Durulium are somewhat abundant too. I have not hit Redulite on the East end of the land area. As you head towards the middle and then the east, you start hitting mostly iron with some gazzurdite and durulium. But I never hit iron on the west end of the land area. And on the very east end, I tend to hit more durulium than anything else.

To put this into perspective, A large portion of the area may yield most of those ores. But there is one very small zone in all of that land maybe several hundred meters accross only, that is capable of producing Kanerium and Redulite.

I believe the scarcity of ores is controlled by how large the spawn areas are to some extent, because the smaller the spawn area is, the less likely you are to be directly over it when you are mining, and the less of it that will be produced.

So you will want to write down your coordinates of any rare finds. I think you will find that as you get more and more of these deposits, you will notice in a big search area, they will be mostly congregated in a somewhat small area.

You may have heard theory about veins, and from my experience, they do exist, but most people don't tend to follow them. See... I took the care to chart out where my hits on TI were one day. I mine north to south and south to north. Each pass I move over a hundred or two meters and go back. What I had noticed is, 80% of my claims lined up almost perfectly on a northwest south east axis. What was really interesting, was my globals lined up on these axis almost perfectly.  I do plan to do some runs and I will print out a map of where I mine, and mark down the approximate claim locations with pen, and then put this map of my run up on the blog so you can kind of see what I am talking about.

So I want to stress... LOCATION is VERY important... If your finder matches the average depth for Niksarium, you should be mining where Niksarium is found. If it matches for gazzurdite or durulium, you should go where those are found. There are areas where you are mostly going to hit rare ores if you hit anything at all, but these areas are not practical for most of us to go for.

So the lesson I wish to convey here is this:

1. Not every ore can be found in every location.
2. Pay attention to the specific areas you are finding something you want to find.
3. Watch for patterns and veins.
4. You might do well to track your claims... Make an Excel spreadsheet. If you don't have microsoft office, go to openoffice.org and install a free office suite. As my programming skills improve I hope to make a utility that you can load your spreadsheets and it will translate all the coordinates into spots on a map of the Entropia Universe. But tracking the areas where you are finding what will give you an idea of specific areas and relative concentrations of the ores so that way when you take up crafting for instance, or when prices skyrocket on one ore or another, you know where to go and can take full advantage of this.
5. Take rumors with a grain of salt. If testing theories, take notes, and don't risk peds you can't afford to lose.
6. Keep checking my blog for new information :-) And I am thinking about announcing a contest for my blog. I have some blueprints that aren't selling so I am going to find a unique way of giving them away. I will make this announcement once I've devised a way to do this. I have a 100QR BSM print and a 60 some QR MannMPH dlxe print. I will start planning something...

Good luck,,,

And in the words of Mr. Spock (sort of), "Live Long and Prospect" :-)

Mining Basics Part 2: Controlling Your Costs

Seems appropriate to make this the next topic of discussion. This is a continuation of the following post: http://entropiauniverseguide.blogspot.com/2011/12/mining-basics-part-1-pointers-for-noobs.html#comments

If you don't like the standard costs for prospecting (1 ped / 20 probes) or surveying (0.50 Ped / 10 probes), there is another option.

You may obtain a rookie finder and use rookie bombs. I believe it is 10 pecs per drop each for ore or enmatter, and 20 pecs if dropping both.  So you are spending 2 probes for ore and 2 probes for enmatter.

Your claims are going to be much smaller too, but people still global and even hof on a rookie finder. I have hit VIII's with my first few rookie bombs. This is useful for skilling, or testing a new area you aren't sure if you want to risk a more costly run on. And if you come by your peds the hard way and don't want to lose them fast, this might be a safer option for you.

If unamped mining is too low of a stake for you, you may join the "high rollers" and purchase amps.

The amplifiers will increase your cost per drop, thereby increasing your claim sizes. I believe every claim has a base size, and that your decay puts into effect a multiplier value that is unknown to all but the system. In this way, everyone is proportionately rewarded according to their spend.

However, it is curious that you might not hof or global with an amp but soon as you take it off, your hofs and globals start happening. Don't be discouraged. I recommend you follow the rule of thumb of 5 levels of skill per level of amp. And I don't recommend going past a level 2 or 3 until you are well above level 20.

By the time you reach the biggest of the amps, you are spending up to 10 peds to drop for ore. And if what I hear about amps costing the same decay no matter what you do, then it reasons that enmatters will cost about 9.50 peds per drop, or almost 20 peds when combined, and this doesn't take into account the markup of the amp. As you can see, it is quite possible to wager a significant amount if you so choose, or you may play for almost literally, peanuts.

Calypso Shares Week 2 Dividend

I am going to do my best to provide you with weekly reports on the Calypso land deed dividends. I hope to set up a dedicated page just for it on my blog, with a chart of the results... But for now I must track it in this manner.

Week 2 Dividend: 5.32 Ped Per Share, a 52% increase over last week's payout.

Mining Basics Part 1: Pointers for Noobs to Get Started :-)

I wanted to thank Luizeba for the kind comment I just received... In response, I've decided to go ahead and spend a few posts focusing on the beginning miner.

To start with... You will have the ability to use only the basic mining equipment. The TT finder which is the Ziplex Z1 I believe. As you max this out, it is common to move on to the F101, F102, etc. However, I STRONGLY urge you pay no mind to the skill increase bonus. I have always gained skills faster and had better returns with equipment I've already maxed out. Skills are not so important as it is to be economic and efficient. When you follow the SIB, you become less efficient and less economical. I only advise moving on to the next finder when it is maxed out for you. And I have noticed no difference in the rate of skill gain between SIB and non SIB. If it didn't benefit Mindark to have SIB, they wouldn't have gone through the trouble to add it.

I believe you will do well to move on to the Z5 as your second finder. It has served me very well. In fact, I hold the Z finders in high regard... However, the F105 is considered the "gold standard" for the average prospector.  I will save this for one of the next parts to this series of posts.

What I am getting at is, you have low skill, low level finder, so you should target areas where there are high concentrations of common low level ores and enmatters. It will do you little good to go into an area that is mostly deep and high markup ores with shallow finder and little skill.

Here's a few rules for you to follow to get off to a good start:

1. If you go to any location, and hit 5 NRF's in a row, go back to the TP, and go to a different area. Many areas have different servers, and if one is on a very cold cycle, another one is probably doing better. If searching for Ores, if you don't hit in the first 3 bombs, it's usually going to be a bad run in my experience. I have had 20 or 30 NRF's in a row expecting it to turn around and it didn't, so it makes a difference to move.

2. If you get a claim in a seemingly unmineable spot, get as close as you can, and right click your deed and click "summon claim". It will put it right next to you so you can mine it.

3. Don't get in a hurry to bomb all over the place. Take your time. Put about 8 to 12 seconds between bomb drops if you are running. If NRF's keep persisting, increase the distance to 15 to 20 seconds. I know it is hard to bomb so slowly, but it does help most of the time.

4. If you are not getting claims OR skills, the area is likely very cold, and is best to go somewhere else.

Treasure Island is good for starting out on... Sweetstuff, Force Nexus, Typonolic, Lytarian... As a rule, most enmatters are quite easy to hit. But if looking for ore you can expect a lot of blausariam and some cobalt and little durulium and gazzurdite.

The islands directly south of Port Atlantis ONLY yield Oil and Lyst... It might be worth a try if you are just using the TT finder.

My own personal recommendations of areas to hit as a noob, and test are, in no particular order:
Nymphtown (Ignisium and Dianthus), Fort Troy, Fort Ithaca, Ashi (I've globalled on oil a few times here), Shinook River (Lumis Leach), New Switzerland, The area surrounding Twin Peaks (quite a bit of mineable area with low level mobs or no mobs if you are careful. Lots of Belkar, Oil, and some Melchi and Blaus).

The other option is to go to www.mininglog.com, and look at the map. Look for the regions with the highest % of claims for common ores. Blausariam, Belkar, Lysterium, Oil, Nexus, Sweetstuff, Typonolic, Lytarian, etc.

Target the common stuff, the more valueable stuff will come with it now and then. If you target just the valuable stuff as miners tend to want to do, you are cutting your returns in the long run. Sure, the system eventually will balance it out, but keeping your returns as good as you can is the difference between depositing a little, or a lot before you see your first big hof.

Some areas are less hospitable to low level miners than others. If you follow my advice, you should see some improvements in your return... But I will expand this post as necessary. I will post again within the next 12 to 24 hours, and will be a bit more specifc and thorough on exact locations you should focus on exploring and testing.

ADVICE: Keeping your accounts secure!

I can't stress this enough... I wasn't going to say anything but today, my paypal account was broken into and used by the hacker to make 1,000 USD worth of fraudulent purchases. It took me all day to fix all of this, and its going to take a couple weeks for my banking to return to normal. But my email was also broken into. It had the same password as my paypal, and my entropia also had the same password. This has all been changed today.

In order to protect your accounts... Please observe the following advice:

1. Download and run Spybot Search and Destroy and install some software such as Avast Anti Virus, and perhaps Zone Alarm for a free firewall. This will protect you against spyware, viruses, and hackers.

2. Do not use the same passwords for multiple accounts. Do not let anyone else know your passwords for any reason.

3. Change your password every 30 to 90 days.

4. Do not use passwords that are too simple. If it is in a dictionary, it will be used for brute force attacks. Mix in some characters and numbers, upper and lower case.

5. Make sure your security questions are not answers that would be easily guessed or obtained.

Had I not caught this in time, the damages may have been severe. I still dont' know if I am going to get everything refunded. But let's just say this is the fastest 10,000 peds I lost without playing Entropia :P

I cannot stress how important it is to maintain security of your accounts, financial or otherwise.

How Enhancers Work In a Nutshell

When Tiering first came out it was a bit confusing... However... I want to give you not only some observations I've made, but also some facts that I have learned as well.

1. A depth enhancer will increase your finders depth  by 10% for each tier you add an enhancer on. This is not compounding. If you have a 200m depth, one tier of depth will take it to 220, two tiers 240, three, 260. But I believe your decay is increased slightly on the finder as well. All other enhancers are based on percentages as well. Damage enhancers give you 10% more damage but make your gun decay faster I believe, either that or it uses more ammo... Not entirely sure now its been so long.

2. With a .9 tier F105, I could only hit two digit globals and my 4 digit hof. After tiering to 1.9, I have started hitting 3 digit globals... Conclusion? I believe tiers are skills for the finder. If you want it to be useful to it's full potential, you want to get as close to tier 10 as you can get. But more research needs to be done.

3. Every enhancer gives you a benefit, but also gives you a drawback, this is known as opportunity cost. Eco enhancers use less ammo but do less damage for instance.

4. The higher the tier your item is, the longer your enhancers will work til they break basically. The lower the tier value you have, the more likely that enhancer is to break.

PayPal and Depositing... Technically there is a way...

Mindark does not accept deposits through PayPal. I know PayPal makes the world go round for some of you... But there is really only one way you will be able to deposit safely using your PayPal account.

Apply for a PayPal debit card. I believe it is issued through Mastercard. Not everyone is going to be approved for it, but it allows instant access to the funds on your PayPal account, so you can use your balance without having to wait a few days for the funds to transfer to your bank account.

How To Collect Your Share Dividends From Land Deeds

There is perhaps some confusion reguarding this matter. Mindark has a tendency to implement new changes or ways of doing things that have to be figured out... And for the sake of completeness, I am posting this information to my blog.

In order to collect your weekly share payments, You must right click and bring up the menu, and then click
"Pedflow Center" in the list. Since I don't have any shares, hopefully all the steps after this point are self explanatory. It just tells me I have no additional ped accounts.

Also, I am told by a friend that this last payout was 3.50 peds for one share. So, you have 14 peds a month if things stay constant... Which is under half of what the estimated ROI would be...  But still, thats like getting 1K of sweat sweated and sold for you each week... And I do expect the numbers to fluctuate greatly over time depending on how much playing is done by the community.

I may decide to establish a graph of dividends and track the values over time... I'll see what I can manage :-)

Amplifier Effects: Angel Scales and Hansidian Finds Multiplied Also!

This just in... My good friend who has gone through my blog decided I should add here some vital information. Generally, when we hit Angel Scales unamped, you get about 30 peds with markup worth, so like 100 to 200 scales. Well, back in the day of the old mining amps, he was bombing along with an OA-109, and hit angel scales along with his claim. It gave him 4K scales.

This is definitive proof for me that amps amplify not only the claims you hit, but the things found with them. And rumor has it also, that if you happen to find an unlimited amp while mining, it is going to be of the same level as the amp you discovered it with. I cannot confirm this, but it does seem fair and logical.

Also, I want to point out... Hansidian isn't just found while prospecting and angel scales aren't just found while surveying. I have recently hit angel scales while prospecting for ores only.

A Look at Level 2 Amplifier Lights

Every time I am doing very well, with great returns, and put a level 2 light on my finder, my returns go way down. It has never failed. But if I use a level 2 non light, I get good returns. There is no statistical difference between the two amps, but I don't know if anyone else noticed this streaky trait. I have no explanation, but it would be logical to advise you to run with non-light amplifiers if you can afford to.

There may be hidden characteristics between a 2 and a 2 light that do not show in item information. But I would also suspect that the amp you use the most, will return the most. I used to do very well on level 2's and 3's, but when I run anything bigger, my returns go as nearly zero as statistically possible. I literally had about 20 peds returned on a level 8 amped run. I am advising to stick to a ratio between 5 and 10 levels of skill per level of amplifier. It has been the golden ratio for me, and any time I stray above that, I suffer horrible returns. There are people out there no doubt that can prove me wrong, it is entirely possible you could buy a level 13, drop one bomb and hit a tower.. However, it could be simply a result of how many peds you lost hunting and crafting, and the system decided to balance itself out. Who really knows. But I tend to Mine and Craft equally. My crafting losses tend to be made up while mining, and mining losses tend to be made up crafting. But who knows if it is the crafting making up for the crafting losses from earlier, at a later time and likewise for the mining. There really is no way to know.

Speculation on Entropia Universe Returns

Fact: MindArk's standard response regarding any payback issue or loot streak issues says that total returns are based on a PERCENTAGE.

So, since this is an important question everyone tends to ask at some point, I thought I would offer my own opinion as to the subject.

First, every indication is that the system does NOT pay out more Peds than it takes in. The system is obviously sustainable, and no company in their right mind would put that at risk. Many real life friends have obtained their payouts without problem other than waiting several weeks to several months for it to finally arrive. However, I do want to point out some people that haven't been paid have likely given Mindark a reason not to pay them such as violation of terms and conditions. There HAVE been exploits. There may still be some exploits. But the thing of it is... Exploits destroy the value that makes this game worth playing. It is a theft against each and every one of us that play.

Second, I believe the percentage paid out is based on the total spent into the system. Most of what everyone puts in, comes out somewhere along the line. The main edge they would have would be in keeping a portion of the repairs and decay, as well as auction fees, but who knows what percentage of each bomb or gunshot goes to MA directly. However, granted that even an absolute noob can tower on their first day unamped, which has happened, not often though, indicates that you do not have to pay in more than you loot.

But what I feel takes place is this: Every ped and pec spent is tracked. Every transaction you make. Loots are only figured in TT returns. But the higher markup items you use, the higher markup your loot tends to be, such as finding Rugaritz or Dunkel with the VRX2000 finder. But the thing is, the percentage kept by MA is easily compensated for by markup. Markup is extra value which derives from supply and demand. There is a limited amount of money fighting for a limited amount of resources and items. Markup is essentially what has come out of other people's pockets. But it ensures that everyone stands a good chance at either break even or profit.

IF you had to rely only on TT returns, you notice quickly that you almost NEVER run a surplus. You might have 1 in 10 mining runs that give you more in TT value than you spent. However, 7 of those 10 runs may bring you profit with markup.

I also want to stress that skills do affect returns as well. As a level 1 or level 5 prospector, I almost exclusively mined lysterium, oil, belkar, blausariam... As I ranked up, I gradually seen shifts from the low value ores to higher value ores such as narcanisum and niksarium, and later, kanerium became a regular find. Also, I have noticed as my skills go up, the frequencies, and average sizes of my hofs and globals have gone up.

I am not saying you can't hit good ores with low skills. I'm just saying you are going to hit fewer than if you had more skill. At level 28 prospector, I almost never hit Lysterium, and only occasionally hit Belkar and Blausariam.

So while they are paying out a percentage of what they take in, I wholly believe they use skills to control the distribution of that percentage. Certain finders are better at finding certain ores. But it takes certain skills to use certain finders. But also, another variable comes into play. It does matter where you are. You can mine all you want on those islands south of Port Atlantis and never hit anything but Lysterium and Oil. But... That's not to say you wont have ANY compensation for your troubles since you do still stand a chance of finding say, angel scales or hansidian, but TT value is low, and so your reward is simply dependent on what others are willing to pay for the stuff. But it works out, because chances are to use a 3K% markup ingredient to craft, the item it goes into is worth a great deal of markup as well, so the crafter can easily recoup his investment, and it is ultimately the final customer footing the bill for the materials that went into making the item.

There are a lot of complex principles at work here in Entropia... I hope I've been able to shine some light and open some minds as to this complexity. Think and play smarter, and more economical, and you will be rewarded as I have. But if you treat it like a casino, expect the same results. There are days no matter how much you spend you simply can't buy a global or a hof, I am proof of that. But if I play cautiously, and I am not expecting the big hits, they do happen! I certainly did not expect my XXI cobalt that I hit for 1322 peds, my largest loot in game and first four digit hof.

Good luck!!!

ALERT: Ore Prices On The Way Up

As of yesterday I noticed tremendous increases in ore prices.

Gazzurdite had orders topping 121% for the first time in over a month I am guessing,
Cobalt at 128%,
Blausariam back at 108%,

I think in general prices are going up accross the board. I think we will see a general increase in prices over the next few weeks.

However... Some ores still remain bargain priced... Adomasite is TT food for the most part and it used to trade between 200 and 300 percent... Maganite is 200% and it used to trade at over 500%, I have even sold it at 800% once. Kanerium seems to be holding steady at 200%. All of the rare ores are generally bargains right now.

If you havn't bothered mining recently, I advise you to look at the markups... I just go by the orders, because for me I can judge quickly whether or not the market is better or worse. AH prices will always be higher than orders, but the orders tell me what the big crafters are willing to pay.

It is important to try to hit higher markup ores, because I strongly feel all of Entropia is based on a Percentage return of their TT value take. Evidence of this comes when you track all of your TT returns from mining, hunting, crafting, and pit them against what you spent to do the run with markup cost of the run. Without markup, over the long run, I believe you are going to be a net loser... But the main prevailing theory here is, the more skills you have, the more rare and higher markup ores you will find as a percentage of your total results, the higher your profit margins will become.