Spy guide?

[Seth Shoshi]

Does anyone know where I can find any good guides about spies?

[seraphian]

right here, what you need to know?

[Seth Shoshi]

right here, what you need to know?

I need to know everything about them ;p

[seraphian]

OK, well

Spies are good at dexterity skills and Int skills (capping out at 100 points of int and dex) OK at constitution and Strength (capping out at 40 points of str and con) and moderately shitty at PSI (capping out at 20 points)

They work best as droners, riflers, pistoleers and tradeskillers.

Riflers use rifle weapons to hunt, they need lots of Rifle Combat (abbreviated R-C in most guides) and Weapon Lore skill to be really good at aiming and doing damage. They fight great at a distance, but are only OK up close (although with the right weapons they are a force at close range too, just not as good as a pistol naturally)

Droners rely on remote-control drones to fight, they require Remote-Control Skill (sometimes called R-C as well, or RCL more often) to do their damage, and they need Willpower (WILL) to get good range and use advanced drones. They have the advantage of being able to put their meat body in a safe place and send out a disposable drone to do the dirty work, saving you personal damage, you also gain INT and DEX XP faster than with any other type of spy, but gain CON the slowest (you gain CON from taking damage)

Pistolers are somewhat rare for spies, they are good for close-in fighting though, they rely on Pistol Combat (Abbreiviated P-C) and Some weapon lore, but not as much as a rifler, making it a good choice if you want to take a lot of another INT skill, like a tradeskill (I'll get to those in a moment)

Tradeskills are also really helpful to have. It is very VERY difficult to level by pure tradeskill, so most people take a combat skillas well. The tradeskills are (in order of most to least common from my experiance):

Construct: This skill allows you to build guns, armor, implants, and even drugs at quality much better than stores (ESPECIALLY for weapons, NEVER use store-bought weapons, they SUCK and you get a lot less XP using them. The more you have above the Tech Level of the item, the better the quality. Constructing gives Dex, Int and Str XP in pretty good amounts too. Demand is sporadic, and most players only hire good ones, but you can be WELL paid Seraphian has (had now actually, she took some out) 200 cons, and was paid over a mil for one tough job.

Research: about tied for the most common tradeskill with construct, res allows you to ID rare parts and make blueprints that constructors need to make items and item parts. You can make good money doing this, as people always need BPs.

Hack: Hacking is good for several things, first, some mobs (most notably warbots, which have LOTS of rare parts) need to be hacked to give up their loot; second, you need 3 hackers (each with lots of hack) to hack an Outpost, so you can do that, third, you need to hack players belts to get the items they dropped when they died... third some doors in levelling areas need to be hacked. The PvP applications of hack require a 100 or more points, typically, so they're left to a dedicated hacker. Doors and warbots can be taken with 40-50 or so, so you can put in a few points, especially if you just want to snipe warbots for their rare parts.

Implant: More common to monks than Spies, some nonetheless do do it... it allows you to put implants into yourself and others. It can earn you good moeny, and is handy because you don't need someone else to put in your imps... you only need 115 points in it at max (that's the TL of the highest TL implant) so you can either dump a LOT of int into weapon lore/willpower or you can also hack or something else at a moderate level (Imp/hack is a combo I like for combat spies)

Recycle: a Dexterity-based tradeskill, so you can take an int tradeskill and this, it allows you to make newb weapons and armor from junk, clone ammo, medkits and other basic drugs and recycle chemicals. I always put 35 or so points into recycle, because then you can make your own ammo pretty easily, which saves LOTS of cash, and you can clone medkits to save money too, if you're at a freindly 'mine' utpost you get a helpful bonus to recycle too (all OPs give bonuses, friendly factories give Cons, labs give research uplinks give hack and fortresses give weapon lore, but only if they're friendly to you.)

Barter: the forgotten tradeskill, rarely seen, but useful. It reduces prices in shops, and increases sell-back price... if you're on a multi-character server it's good to have one for when you have to buy that million-dollar apartment or TL-150 tool.

Repair: allows you to fix items also a Dex tradeskill, handy for fixing things, but as a newb you'll outgrow them before you break them, and vehicle repair doesn't work at the moment thanks to an exploit fix gone wrong.





SOme generic heplful hints:

* Don't bother wasting CON points on endurance, just use stamina boosters

*Agility and Athletics skills determine your speed, they are lifesavers sometimes

* as a newb, leave your LE chip in, it keeps people from PKing you. It doens't have any drawbacks on XP or requirements anymore, people telling you it does are either confused or trying to trick you into taking it out so they can kill you, leave it in a while until you know how to protect yourself...

*As a spy, most of your strength should go into force resist and transport, don't bother with melee or heavy weapons, you'll never use them well with an STR cap of 40.

*level your PSI to level 5 by taking missions as soon as you can, so you can use the basic heal... in order to use the basic heal you need 7 PPU, 3 Mental Steadyness (MST) and 16 points of PSI power on the bar by your health and stamina. you need to be level 5 PSI to do this, you can only level PSI though misisons. if you get PSI level 6, put enough into PPW so you have 21 points of PSI power, so you can cast a delfector.

*Always use the highest Tech LEvel weapon you can, it gives better XP.

[Xylaz]

look at the Player Guide's section of the forum

[Seth Shoshi]

look at the Player Guide's section of the forum

Yeh I read over that. It just wasn't enough information.
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seraphian thanks for the info it will help me out a bit. Now maybe someone could list a good setup for drone spies to get them from low rank to cap within a week? I have more then enough money to buy anything.

[seraphian]

Powerlevelling droners is SO damn easy, even easier than M-C tanks or APU.

First, the basics, always use the highest TL weapon, ect..

Taking construct is a big help, making drones on site.

Start out with all your con in ATH, all your STR. In transport and all your PSI in PPU.

put half of your dex into RCL, a quarter into agil, and a quarter into repair.

put half of your int into willpower and half into construct.


start out in the sewers doing plants or in TG canyon doing all the mobs there, you can easily handle mobs 3 or more times your rank, jsut make sure to have plenty of drones and remember XP gain caps out when you have a weapon at your TL capability against a mob twice your level. so until you have rank 5 you can do rank 10 beggars, then do aggies until you're rank 20 or so then take launchers at a pit (I avoid MB bunker myself, but go where the spawn rates are good and you can have a bit of cover) take along plenty of BPs and throw parts in your gogo by the dozen and you're good to go. After you have like rank 25, I'd move to a house and do firemobs and warbots until you can handle caving.

All the way through I put about equal amounts in Willpower and construct, dumping most of my dex into RCL with a bit into AGIL and some recycle (for weapon parts) and repair. Drones lose condition fast, but you outgrow them fast enough that you'll be done with them before they break until rank 40 or so. I keep just enough rep so that when self-boosted I can barely repair my highest TL drone (eventually you need 60 points in it, but by then you should get a glove and a DoY eye)

once you get to your favorite rares hire a resser to make a few hundred BPs and make a nice set for your gogo, caving near a gogo is helpful there

if you have any other questions just PM or reply here.

[Seth Shoshi]

I will let you know if I need anything else.

[Nidhogg]

Good advice. Moved to Player 2 Player Help.

N

[Seth Shoshi]

When in drone mode what are the bars for on the left part of screen? I know the right side is the speed and ammo bars.

[Richard Slade]

Health and current speed up/down
(It raises when you move either up/down and lowers when you're hovering still)
You can also use ammo to heal your drone if it gets hurt, just click the right mousebutton

[Wallen]

Also, the graves area is (from what I've heard) one of the best places to level droners. Big area with a ton of snakes that do mostly poison damage (and some PRC and FRC too, I think). Anyway, supposed to be really easy for droners.