Hmmm... here is some generalized tricks of the trade... Outdoor hunting and mob parts. Always loot mob parts. Yes, mob parts themselves are for the most part worthless... but they can be turned into armor and blood plasma that sells very well for whatever level you are. Chosing not to loot them is chosing to be Poor. Outdoor hunting and Dyna Bosses. Regardless of your level, Rubi Ka and Shadowlands both have many Outdoor Bosses you can hunt... and they drop rare and uber loot a decent percentage of the time. Several of the downloadable maps for the game list the levels and locations for the bosses. Get the maps. ************************************************** *********** Balancing Missions, Tokens, Credits, and Loot (completing missions vs. blitzing missions): Major topic... *** Token Boards. An often overlooked way of boosting your toons abilities. Token boards 'level up' with increasing bonuses. The more tokens you collect by completing missions (instead of blitzing them) the higher you can level your board. By far the easiest way to 'farm' tokens is to roll solo missions. Now... there are several strategies on how to do this quickly. If you are below level 25... pick a city and insure there. Since you are still low level all the missions you roll should be in and around that city... saving you time running back and forth to mission locations. Roll the easiest mission you can that still has mostly green mobs... make sure it doesn't have too many greys. You will get the hang of this within a few tries. Run the mission. Kill everything. Make sure to take at least a dozen backpacks and loot everything as well, i.e. mob loot and chest loot. Dont try to sell loot between missions. Just bag it and toss it in the bank and get fresh bags when you need to. For each green + mob you kill in the mission, your % chance of receiving a token increases. Some players wait till the get to 75% and 'finish' the mission knowing they have a reasonable chance of getting the token. Other wait till 80%, 90 %, 100%, etc. Anything below 100% and there is a risk that you won't get a token. Decided what you are comfortable with. Complete the mission and collect your token and reward. Now... important note: if you are getting close to Dinging (gaining a level)... before you run another mission, sit down and type /terminate. Yes, it kills you, and you 'lose' you xp. Edit: If you let a mob kill you, The xp is not really lost, but goes into a pool so you can regaining it later. The point in doing this is to intentionally remain at or below level 25 so that you can continue to run missions in the city without wasting a lot of time or risking the dangers of running to missions in far away places. By far and large the best and easiest cities to do this is Borialis, Newland City, and 2HO, due to their small size and easy to navigate streets. If you are already too high in level to pull missions within a specific city... go to Borialis and pull missions to 2HO. Some prefer other cities... but they are difficult to navigate and prone to lag issues. 2HO is the hassle free way to go. Depending on your faction... chose your whompa/grid route carefully, or better yet get an fgrid. Remember to pull several missions to that location to minimize running back and forth to get more missions. Remember... the secret to token farming is to SAVE as much travel time as you can and to Complete the Easiest missions you can for a token. Of Course... you can forego looting to save a little extra time... but i wouldn't suggest it. Why keep yourself poor? Time saved by not looting is only time you will have to waste at some later time trying to make up for the credits you missed out on. *** Blitzing and Clicksaving for Specific Loot. Ok... use clicksavor and roll some solo missions. Everyone has different preferences... I prefer the 'Find person' missions. The reason? Because when your running your butt off in a mission with a TON of mobs chasing you... all you have to do it keep hitting <tab> whenever you run into a new room. When you <tab> (or target) for a few seconds the Mob / person you are supposed to find the mission will complete and loot will drop into your inventory. Hint: when you hear the music start to play... start running for the door. This is much easier than trying to 'look' for a small item and then stop and pick it up off the floor. But remember... dependent on your abilities... you can always roll extremely hard missions or very easy missions. *** Blitzing and Clicksavor with a Twist... Bosses!!!! Find a full team (6 people). Why? Because the more people that are on the team, the more mission rewards will drop and the more loot the boss will drop. You may have to go join a SL heckler team to get a full team, but remember you have to be saved somewhere on RK for this to work. Have fun with the team (and remember to loot those mob parts!) and when you get killed or the team takes a break, roll several missions while you rezz. Later when the team breaks up or you get bored... go SOLO the team missions you pulled. Might take 2 or 3 times before you learn what level missions you can solo. Now... on to the mission... Run to the Boss Room!!! Don't stop and try to fight any of the mobs. If you get a chance, loot some chest on the way, but don't get yourself killed. Now... Kill the Boss (and any adds of course... but there shouldn't be many of them). Stay on the elevator... so you can pop back down to safety and to heal if needed. Now the boss is dead. You get about a dozen of so items of boss loot (some of it uber or rare!)... and several mission rewards (but no token). For the time spent... this is far more profitable than running solo missions. *** Balance: You want it all... Tokens and Profit and XP. Roll the hardest Team missions that you can Solo and still kill the boss. Kill everything. Loot everything. Rinse and Repeat. ************************************************** ********* Develop Trade Skills or hire a Tradeskiller? Never spend IP on tradeskills without trying to triple implant it first. You should have several sets of implants for doing different things. Unless you have a twinked toon they are relatively easy to swap out. Also, remember to get tradeskill buffs and to buff your base abilities for the tricle down boost to your skills. If your toon is a tradeskiller by nature, and you can spare the IP... start training Pharmatech... the skill needed to convert parts to plasma... and other tradeskills you find that you need. If you can't spare the ip... find a tradeskiller to help you. Remember as a rule of thumb the 10% - 15% rule on tipping. And if certain types of tradeskillers are hard to find... or are damn good and friendly... remember to tip more. However, many high level players and guildmates will be more than happy to help you for free... but do the right thing and offer a tip... the gesture is defiantely appreciated, even though it is often refused. ************************************************** ************* You can create 7 toons on each demision. Make use of it. Reserve 1 or 2 for your favorite toon types. For the next 5... use them to create 'support toons' which complement your main. Why? Another major topic: *** Banking your loot and transfers. Ok... you got the hang of blitzing and getting tons of uber loot... but you don't want to take the time to deal with it all now because you want to continue to grid levels. Which means your bank is going to be overflowing. If you have a 2nd account, transfering items for storage is no big deal. If you don't have a 2nd account, have a guild buddy or trusted friend help you with the transfer. And remember to sort your loot (as you loot it, lol) into bags which can be easily found... i.e. weapons in a weapon bag, armor in a clothing bag, etc. If you are a hardcore gamer keep some notes near your computer or set up a spreadsheet to help you remember. Also... check into the online 'helpbot store'. It lets you (ingame) tell helpbot what you have in inventory... later you can go to a website and download it... and use it for spreadsheets, forum post, bank sells, etc. *** Create a hard core blitzing toon. This is usually an Atrox of some sort that is easy as hell to level. Enf or Sol are popular choices... but so are fixers, agents, engis, and metas (harder but defiantly worth it because of their abilities... i.e. SPEED, EVASIONS and LOCKPICKING, SNEAKING and LOCKPICKING, HUNTING, PET HEALS and HUNTING). *** Create a Trader Toon. Period. Suck up the pain and grind it to at least level 125. Why? Here is a hint. My main is level 208... and when I take the time to transfer stuff to my 130ish trader alt I get over TWICE as much for the stuff I sell. Get the hint? Good. Make several sets of implants to use for tradeskills. Make sure you have a triple set of Pharma tech implants for making QL 200 Blood Plasma out of Heckler Mob Parts. And be damn sure you have a triple set of the best comp lit implants you can get your trader into, as well as every buff you can get before selling. $$$ at the trader shop depends largely on your comp lit skill... in addition to the 75% (or so) bonus traders get when selling at the trader shop. *** Considering making one of the Proffesions mentioned here your main. Should be Self Explanitory. *** Roll a NT. Again... Suck it up and grind it when you can. NTs are by far the most powerful class in the game for hunting hecklers, etc. And when it comes to ease of solo hunting and farming creds (from ignots and mob parts)... they win hands down. With a high level NT it is only a matter of time before you have reached the 1 Billion Credit limit you can carry ingame ************************************************** ************** Which leads me into another point... Own your own guilds. Ask, beg, bribe people to help you start guilds with your spare toons. These are known as banking guilds. You can then use the toons to store extra loot... but extra credits as well... 2 billion extra credits the last time i checked (god i hope they haven't changed that), i.e. 1 bil on the toon, 1 bil in the guild bank. ************************************************** ************* Which leads me into my next point... By the time you have maxed out the items bank and the guild bank on that toon... you will have several high level toons, a solid rep in the game, and guess what... tons of bags of loot and tons of creds lying around to help organize, supply, and finance Building Memberships in your Now Active Guilds! Start recruiting. But remember... being a respected guild and building a respected guild takes a lot of time and effort. If you are not willing to forego your 'personal' enjoyment of the game in exchange of enjoying the 'social' aspects of the game... then you should think twice about this. If you have reached this point in the game, you are more or less by default a semi proffesional or professional gamer and actively support funcom, the community, the forums and various other fansites / websites that add value to the game. Don't abuse the privledge this provides you. ************************************************** ************ Organize your play time. Set aside one or two days a week for toon maintence, trades, and the social aspects of the game. When you log in turn on all the shopping channels. As you go about your day you will learn TONS about the market and market trends. Clean out the bank(s). Remember to set aside ALL items and equipment useful to your collection of toons. For the rest of it - Sort it according to its value. This should be very easy to do if you prepacked it when you looted it and also used the 'helpbot store' feature of helpbot. Sort it as: Vendor Food - low value stuff not worth the time to transfer... so go ahead and have that toon sell it. Remember to put in your triple complit implants and to buff to get the most you can out of the transaction. Transfers to Trader - this includes ignots, mob parts (which you turn to plasma), as well as junk armor, weapons, etc that fetches a decent value. Always have your trader sell this stuff. Market loot - this includes Every Nano and disc you have found, as well as the decent (or better yet Uber!) armor and weapons you have found. Make sure you have done your homework and know what the best market prices are. Transfers to Tradeskillers - anything and everything that can be hacked, upgraded, converted, used in the creation of 'something' else. Bank this stuff for the long term. Pull reports off of the 'helpbot store' so you have a good idea what you have and what can be done with it. Trust me on This! The time will come when you make a KILLING on the shopping channels from this stuff. Last note: Never Ever Ever Ever Sell Nanos or disc as vendor food (few exceptions - animeas). By far and large, they are the Easiest and Most Profitable items you can trade and sell on the shopping channels. Ya... you could sell an Uber item of loot for Tons (if and when you can lay your hands of it) but day in and day out selling Nanos wins hands down. Period. Now... take the MILLIONS and MILLIONS and MILLIONS of creds you have at your disposal and go twink your toon. You should do maintenace and upgrades at least every 20 levels or so. Preferably more often, every chance you get... Time to sign off now. This guide and its suggestions are in no way comprehensive. Do your research and check out the more comprehensive guildes and forums out there. SPECIAL EDIT: In case you didn't know... the city of 2HO is in a Political Zone. This means that you can be engaged in PvP when you are in the area. After the release of Shadowlands this zone 'cooled' down as most players where off somewhere killing hecklers... so the level of PvP was almost non existant. However, with the release of Alien Invasions, 2HO is starting to heat up again. Beware of the gankers hiding out there... just waiting for you... lol.