Perpetuum
New To Nia: Harvesting and Mining Overview
2Industry is the backbone of Perpetuum. Sporting a player-based economy, virtually everything you’ll find on the Nian market will have been created by players. Production isn’t for the faint hearted, though; anyone can blow up a Rookie Mantis, but it takes some serious dedication to mine, harvest, spend NIC and EP, and chow down on the hundreds of kernels necessary to be able to produce anything of worth. But everyone has to start somewhere, so let’s talk a little about material gathering in Perpetuum.
Your First Real Industry Bot
The first step in being a productive bot on Nia is to pick a path. The easiest and lowest barrier to entry is to mine or harvest raw materials.
Assuming you haven’t spent a lot of NIC after completing the 10 tutorial assignments (You have completed the 10 tutorial assignments, right?), you should have over 100k NIC in the bank. You should also have a third bot granted as a reward for completing the 10th assignment. If you really want to dedicate your life to industry, sell that new bot and use the proceeds to pick up an Argano for mining, or a Laird for harvesting. Each is a decently priced extraction bot which will make the Arkhe class machines look like mopeds.
Before you leave the terminal with your shiny new ride, you have a choice to make: you can either freelance, or you can take an assignment. Unless you’re in a dedicated scavenging group, taking the assignment makes more sense: you get paid to complete the assignment, and you get to keep the materials you collect. If you can take more then one assignment at a time, feel free to do so, but mind the time constraints.
These assignments will point you in the right direction, meaning you won’t have to use area-survey charges for mining ops, just the tile-based charges. Take plenty of mining/harvesting charges for the resource you’re going after. The standard mining lasers can take 45 charges per, and you’ll probably want at least two cycles worth for each of the three lasers. Once you’re sure you have what you need, head out to the designated location. If you’re harvesting plants, select one, lock it as primary, and go to town. If you’re mining, you have some additional work to do.
Digging in the Dirt
Once you’re in the assignment area, fire up your geoscanner. The scanner results will appear in your scanner window, showing the material you’ve scanned for, and an Upload button. Clicking this will open the world map, but on assignment this is really moot; you’re already in the right place, so it’s only a matter of finding the deposits. Clicking on the tile scanner results in the scanner window will display the material. Clicking the checkbox at the end of the row will illuminate the deposits within the ground, allowing you to lock a tile as a primary target to start mining. The larger the “tube” the better the yield, and also the “temperature” of the tile will give you an indication of how long you can mine the resource before it gives out.
If you check in your cargo hold, you’ll notice one or two new items have appeared. These are the scanning results, which are physical, tradable items produced by the use of the geoscanner. You can trade these with other players, or keep them and upload them later on when you want to return to the same area. Once you’re done, however, they can be safely deleted from your cargo.
If you’re on assignment, you’ll eventually get the completion popup, but you can continue to mine or harvest until your cargo hold is full. Then it’s back to the terminal for some polishing!
Make Something Of Yourself (Or Your Materials)
The material itself isn’t useful, although it may be worth something on the market (which is always an option for some quick cash). Raw materials need to be refined in order to be used in prototyping or production.
Each ore will refine to a finished product. However, some finished products require more then one type of ore. For example, Titan ore will refine to Titanium, but Phlobotil requires HDT and Helioptris raw materials. This is also where you’re going to want to spend EP to ensure that you’re not wasting materials when refining. Nothing sucks more then having spent a whole day mining or harvesting half a million units of raw materials, only to lose 75% of it because your skills aren’t up to snuff.
Now What?
If you’re in a player corporation, you will probably end up in organized collection groups at some point, where collectors extract what they can, and then drop their cargo into a secure container for “runners” to collect and take back to the terminal. If you’re a refiner, then you’ll be taking these materials and converting them to useable resources for the production crew to use in prototyping or factory production.
If you’re not in a player corporation, can extraction still work as a profession? I believe that it can, although the solo extractor will need to live with some caveats. First, solo extraction in the hopes of creating something as complex as assault mechs is a very, very long term goal. You’ll need a lot of materials, not to mention either the knowledge through kernels, or a CT for production. You’ll need to save your money and spend your EP wisely. In short, a solo extractor is better off acting as an independent contractor to smaller player corporations. Extract materials, and maybe even refine the goods, but play the market. Smaller corporations who don’t have the manpower to extract massive amounts of materials will certainly be interested in a steady stream of attractively priced materials that they can use in production, without having to expand their ranks beyond their comfort zone. Another option is to truck your materials to other terminals, where you may be able to find a better advert price.
[Gallery not found]Perpetuum Early Access Give Away!
1Perpetuum, the sandbox mech MMO from Avatar Creations, has opened it’s doors to those who signed up for early access. If you’ve already done so, then you’re looking at a seven day head start, and a whopping four weeks of extension points (EP) that can be spent to jack up your skills, gratis!
In an effort to get the word out, Avatar Creations has been seeding the blogosphere with early access codes…and I have three codes to give away! Want one?
I’ll give them to three random Twitter users at 9 PM EST tonight who do the following:
- Tweet this! Levelcapped is giving away #Perpetuum keys to three people who RT this by 9PM EST! http://levelcapped.com/?p=805
- Follow @Levelcapped so you get the message if you’ve won ;D
- Sit back and wait patiently! Might I suggest that you familiarize yourself with Perpetuum by visiting their site at http://www.perpetuum-online.com to pass the time?
- If you’ve won, I’ll DM you the details and you can get started on Nia!
Good luck!
New To Nia: Getting Started With Perpetuum
2There are only 3 days left to get in on the Perpetuum early access promotion of 7 days early admission, 4 weeks of free extension points for only $9.95USD and no game purchase price. No, that is not a typo or misunderstanding. This is an indie sandbox MMO, designed and developed by a 10-man team which are giving the client away and are only charging $9.95USD. Suck it, ActiBlizzard!
You get a lot of bang for your buck, though…some might say too much, as sandbox games have been known to drop you into the middle of the world without reason or direction. Keep in mind, though, that the very definition of sandbox is “to make your own way in the world”. You decide what your goals are; don’t rely on floaty “!” to hold your hand. It’s entirely up to you to get out there and make a name for yourself!
Game Face: Choosing Your Appearance
Spoiler alert: The avatars in Perpetuum are horrible. Second spoiler alert: the avatars are the worst part of the game, in my opinion. Thankfully, they’re only used in the chat window and on your profile panel.
Avatar creation (which is kind of the name of the company, so you’d think they’d have focused more on them) is a matter of choosing your appearance, and then building your avatar’s historical base.
The avatar’s appearance is set either by using a pre-set, by adjusting features using the sliders, or by repeatedly clicking the “random” button until you find a look you can live with. Don’t worry: no matter how long you spend on trying to create an attractive avatar, you’ll never get one.
Backstory: Choosing Your Ethnicity, Employment and Education
Character creation is designed to get you started in the world. This is a multi-step, multi-layered process that starts with your mega-corporation affiliation.
The three mega-corps represent the future of American, European and Asian commercial interests. Technically, the selection of a mega-corp has no bearing on your progression, so don’t agonize over it. Your selection has two purposes: where you start, and what extensions you begin the game with. Once in the game, you can forsake your mega-corp for a player corporation, and you can always teleport to a different area on the planet. However, each mega-corporation gives you a kick start in certain extensions. Be sure to select the mega-corp that grants early EP in the extensions you may want to foster.
The three steps that follow offer the same functionality, spread out over three different RP-esque elements: School, profession, and corporation. Each choice will further pad out your starting extensions, but each will also have a direct effect on the attributes in either military, industry or logistic spheres. You can either weigh your choices heavily in favor of one sphere, focus on balancing two spheres, or diversify into all three spheres across the three selections.
The last step in character creation is the selection of a spark. To understand the concept of the spark, we need to dip a toe into the game’s lore:
Humanity is on the prowl for a new energy source. Out in the vast reaches of space, they find one buried beneath a planet they call Nia. Unfortunately, Nia is already inhabited by an intelligent robotic species which is also interested in the energy. Rather then risk human bodies or pay the price to transport them across the universe, The Syndicate, a conglomeration of three mega-corporations, finds a way to overtake some of these machines and connect them to human operators back on Earth via sparks.
Sparks come in nine varieties. Three grant you points to a single sphere, while the other six provide a major boost to one sphere, and a minor boost to another. For example, you can have a pure military sphere, a major military/minor industry, and a major military/minor logistical.
Once you’ve selected the spark you want, all that’s left is to name your character and enter the game.
Strategies
Although the accumulation of EP happens 24/7, it’s not infinite. At some point down the road you will be able to max out all extensions, but in Perpetuum, it pays to specialize. A character who can blow stuff up, create goods and act as support crew is certainly versatile, but will never be as effective as someone who can only blow things up and make stuff. It also stands to reason that someone who can blow stuff up and make stuff won’t be as effective as someone who focuses purely on blowing stuff up.
There’s good news, and there’s bad news. The good news is that EP accumulates account wide. Any EP you earn over time is put into a pool that is accessible from any alt on your account (1 account = 3 characters). That means you can use your EP on any character in that account. The bad news is that you can use your EP on any character in that account. If you have 1000 EP, you can give 500 to character A, and 500 to character B, but neither will be as effective as if you had given just one the full 1000 points. Perpetuum is an excellent candidate for dual-boxing if you want to have, say, an industrial and a combat mech. Considering that the game is only $9.95USD, dual boxing isn’t so much out of the question compared to a single “traditional” MMO at $15USD.
Your best strategy is to suck it up and specialize, finish the in-game tutorial, and then find yourself a player corporation. Soloing is entirely possible, but only in the way that it’s possible to play baseball by yourself; you’ll be limited to tossing the ball in the air for yourself to hit, but you can’t field or tag yourself out. For the full experience, you need a full-fledged team. Find a corp that is either dedicated to your interests, or find one that has a division that needs more people who do what you want to do. Above all, stick to your plan. As soon as you go off the rails and devote EP to a non-track extension, you’ll find it that much easier to pick up a support extension here, and a support extension there, and soon you’ll have diluted your original effectiveness.
