salvaging
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'Hardspace: Shipbreaker' is a PC game about salvaging space junk
Considering the huge variety of high-octane video games there are available, it's always something of a surprise when those involving fairly menial tasks --farming, for example -- perform so well. But what about menial tasks... in space? Surely that's just the right balance of excitement and the mundane? Blackbird Interactive -- the studio behind Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak – seems to think so.
Star Citizen salvage, smuggler ships detailed
Another day, another million dollars in crowdfunding for Star Citizen. Chris Roberts' latest letter from the chairman outlines the game's $32 million stretch goal unlock, otherwise known as the Aegis Surveyor. The Surveyor is "an industrial-quality salvage ship" that is "equipped with a reinforced cargo bay, a long-range jump drive, and launch pods for unmanned drones." Roberts also unveiled the $34 million stretch goal, which takes the form of a hide-in-plain-sight smuggling ship called the MISC Hull C (Discreet). Read all about that and more at the official Star Citizen website.
Star Citizen's salvaging career unveiled
Don't look now, but there's some more, ahem, feature creep coming to Star Citizen. OK, not really, but Cloud Imperium has announced the $21 million stretch goal, and it is "a major gameplay feature we have been hoping to include," according to Chris Roberts' latest letter from the chairman. The feature is salvage, and "salvage isn't an aside: It's a career with its own mechanic, story tie-ins, and universe-shaping endgames." The dev team has also released some new concept art of a female explorer avatar, and Roberts also takes a moment to outline the options for continuing the fundraising campaign beyond the original fully-funded mark. "The more funds we can raise in the pre-launch phase, the more we can invest in additional content and perhaps more importantly we can apply greater numbers of resources to the various tasks to ensure we deliver the full functionality sooner rather than later," he explains. There's currently a poll at the end of the letter that offers three options for crowdfunding continuation. As of press time, 88% of the 13,000 respondents have voted to continue crowdfunding extra features and development milestones.
City of Steam's Tears of the Oracle patch hails the return of the greenskins
When City of Steam threw open its browser-based beta doors to all players, certain classes and races were noticeably missing from the soirée. But some fan-favorites have finally gotten their invitation and will be rejoining the party when the 1.3 patch Tears of the Oracle hits next week; greenskins, dwarves, and Channelers will once again be available to play. And that's not even the half of it! This next patch will also be raising the level cap, expanding questlines, and adding plenty of new things, including the Founder's Annex suburb, a PvP event, a collection system, rare mobs in dungeons, plenty of cosmetic items, and even a new crafting system. On top of that, levels one through nine can resurrect for free in dungeons and the salvage system got an overhaul. So get ready to get your goblin (or hobbe, or orc) on next week! [Source: Mechanist Games press release]
Darkfall adds salvaging, prowess point progression
Aventurine has broken a bit of its silence relating to the Darkfall Unholy Wars reboot. While the FFA PvP sandbox has been in beta for a while now, it's still not in open beta, and thus news of all the changes has been slow to reach fans who are watching from the sidelines. Fear not, though, because it's Tasos Flambouras to the rescue with a pair of forum posts detailing the new game's salvaging and prowess point character progression systems. Salvaging is basically the reverse of the crafting process, and players may salvage crafted equippable gear and broken items which drop from Agon's monsters. Prowess, on the other hand, is gained from all "meaningful interactions" with the game, which includes harvesting, crafting, PvE, and PvP. Skills and attributes are then raised via the prowess system. Aventurine notes that crafting skills are not raised via prowess. "Due to the effect crafting skills have on the economy we felt we should exclude them from the prowess-based system," Flambouras writes. "All crafting skills can be raised by creating items."
EVE Evolved: Four ways Guild Wars 2 is like EVE Online
With its single-shard server structure and sandbox ruleset, EVE Online seems to have little in common with a sharded fantasy themepark like Guild Wars 2. But dig a little deeper past GW2's fluffy exterior and you'll find it shares some core game mechanics and ideas with the world's biggest PvP sandbox. GW2's Trading Post bears a striking resemblance to EVE's Jita 4-4 market, and many of the same market tricks that work in New Eden have proven just as effective in the land of Tyria. EVE's PLEX system lets people buy game time for in-game ISK and undercuts illicit RMT by giving players a legitimate way to buy ISK, a system that's very closely mirrored in GW2's gem trade. GW2's Karma system resembles a heavily restricted version of EVE's loyalty point mechanic, and PvP in both games may be more similar than it appears. The same strategies that work for faction warfare fleets in the depths of space are currently helping guilds win World vs. World vs. World PvP. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at four Guild Wars 2 game mechanics that are similar to those in EVE Online and how lessons from EVE can be applied to GW2.
EVE Evolved: Making your first billion ISK
A lot of the people I introduce to EVE Online ask about the possibility of playing for free by buying game time codes with in-game ISK. It's a legitimate way to turn EVE into a free-to-play game, but the rising price tag of a 30-day PLEX can make it seem as if only veteran players can afford to do it. New players typically scrape together just a few million ISK by the end of their free trial periods, making the 500 million per month required to pay via PLEX seem like a tall order. With the right guidance, a new player can actually pull in over a billion ISK in his first month or two of play and quickly become able to afford a PLEX each month. Farming missions requires a bit of time investment but can pull in 20-30 million ISK per hour once you're set up, and exploration and salvaging can lead to some unexpected big hauls. There are also plenty of newbie-friendly corps that run group activities, and those who aren't interested in grinding to their first billion ISK might try their hands at trading or turn to a life of crime. It's all possible in the sandbox. In this week's EVE Evolved, I give some practical tips on making your first billion ISK, from scraping together the seed capital to buy your first big ship to reliable farming methods and some more underhanded methods.
Darkfall dev update beats around the free-to-play bush
It's Friday and that usually means an update of some sort from the folks at Aventurine. True to form, Tasos Flambouras has checked in with his weekly Darkfall blog post. This time around we're treated to a round of Q&A with a couple of Aventurine devs, and reader-submitted questions are the order of the day. The discussion meanders from Darkfall 2.0's crafting changes, which are described as "a complete overhaul," to mechanical concerns like AoE melee damage as well as surges and fizzles. Flambouras also drops an interesting comment regarding Darkfall free-to-play rumors. "We also read around the internet about Darkfall going free-to-play. Rumor has it that if you start a sentence with 'rumor has it' you can say pretty much anything you want. Not true," he writes. Whether the "not true" was a reference to Darkfall's alleged F2P conversion or a reference to the latter portion of the sentence isn't completely clear, and we'll be interested to hear a definitive answer as it relates to business models.
Wasteland Diaries: So you want to be a crafter?
Fallen Earth has a complex, robust crafting system. The vast majority of the items in the game can be crafted from things you find lying on the ground. I am not exaggerating when I say "vast majority" because it's well over 90%. You can literally level your way to the cap simply by scavenging and crafting. It used to be much easier, but it is still possible. Tradeskills are different from other skills in Fallen Earth in that you raise them through use rather than spending AP on them. The system itself can be quite daunting when you are first starting out, but once you have a basic grasp of how it works, the rest is pretty intuitive. In this post, I'll touch on the basics of crafting. I'm no expert, but I do have a completely maxed-out social/crafter that has most of the game's recipes in his repertoire. You may know what you are doing, but I think even the most learned of crafters might learn something from this piece. The novice crafter will learn a few simple tricks (tricks that I wished I had known when I was just starting out) that will make his life a little easier out there. It's tough when you just want to make something with your hands and there are legions of bloodthirsty miscreants trying to kill you. So grab your toolkits and click past the cut for more.
Dedicated salvage ship coming in next EVE Online expansion
Over the summer, CCP gave away a limited edition ship in EVE Online called the Primae. Every player received this free hauler designed specifically for planetary interaction. Although the ship itself was worse for hauling than a standard industrial, players fell in love with the model and began asking CCP to reuse it in a more useful ship. In a new devblog, CCP Greyscale has delivered on those wishes with the announcement of the Noctis. Aimed squarely at PvE players, the Noctis is a dedicated salvage ship with the same stunning model as the Primae. In addition to an impressive eight high slots for use with tractor beams and salvagers, the ship also has an hefty bonus to the range and speed of tractor beams. At level 5 of the ship's skill, it will be able to pull in wrecks from up to 80km away, making it a great stationary salvaging platform. The blueprint and skill will be released with EVE's next expansion to coincide with the new group PvE "incursions". For more details, check out CCP Greyscale's latest devblog.
EVE Evolved: Exploration -- Loot and plunder!
Exploration is one of EVE Online's most lucrative and enjoyable PvE professions, combining complex probe-scanning with mission-style combat. Through exploration, you'll find hidden sites across New Eden, packed full of NPCs to kill and loot to grab. Exploration is a casual PvE element that spans all skill levels, with new players able to get involved from their first week in the game. In last week's first part of this guide to exploration, I explained how new players can get into the lucrative profession and examined one of the most popular scanning techniques. A wide range of hidden sites spawn across EVE, just waiting for a lucky traveller to scan them out. Tucked away in the depths of space, you'll find hidden asteroid belts, hacking database, archeological relics, salvaging fields and unstable wormholes. Those looking for riches will be pleased to find cosmic anomalies full of NPCs to kill and dungeon-like military complexes with a chance to drop rare and expensive loot. In this guide, I look at the different types of site you can find via exploration, what loot you can expect to find in each of them and what kind of challenge you'll face.
EVE Evolved: Mission-running top five tips
In the first two parts of this guide on mission-running in EVE Online, I explained the basics of mission-running and went on to give a race-by-race breakdown of the most popular mission-running ships. In this final instalment of the EVE Evolved mission-running guide, I dig up my top five tips and tricks for improving your standings, mission-running speed and general mission income in EVE. Tip #1 - Gaining faction standing As high faction standing unlocks the agents of every corp in an entire faction rather than just from one corp, faction standing gains are very desirable and often the ultimate goal of early mission-running. In addition to a few other methods discussed later in this article, faction standing gains can be had from COSMOS missions. These are special once-only missions, like quests in the standard MMO paradigm. They are given out by special agents-in-space located within EVE's COSMOS constellations, some at designated agent sites and some hidden away at moons or sites only able to be found with probes. Each of these missions counts as an important mission for the purposes of faction standing gains and their rewards can be extremely good. Using COSMOS missions, it's possible to boost your faction standings from around 4 to up to 6 or 8 in some of these areas. Read on as I give my top five mission-running tips to maximise your income from mission-running.
EVE dev blog explains tricking out your ships with new rigs
Pilots in EVE Online can do a lot to optimize their ship loadouts for specific purposes. Many ship hulls in the game can be quite versatile depending upon which modules you choose, allowing a pilot to excel in a particular pursuit or task in EVE. Another layer of ship customization is the use of rigs, essentially devices that impart specific bonuses to a ship. These add-ons allow you to do anything from perma-running your Level 4 mission tank to pinpointing hidden exploration content. But the high costs and fact that rigs can't be removed without destroying them have ensured they're used almost exclusively on large ship classes, namely battleships, given their substantial tanks and survivability. Pilots who prefer to fly smaller ships like frigates and cruisers will soon have more cost-effective options for tricking out their ships using small and medium rigs, to be introduced with Apocrypha 1.5 in August. Small rigs will be used on frigates, destroyers, interceptors, and interdictors, priced between 100k - 1 million ISK. Medium rigs will be installed on cruisers, industrials, and battlecruisers, at a cost between 600k ISK and 5 million ISK. These are substantially reduced prices from the game's current offerings, but these smaller rigs won't have watered down bonuses. They will provide the same benefits (and drawbacks) as the larger rigs in terms of percentages.
Mythic tweaks Talisman Making, Scavenging, and Salvaging tradeskills
Mythic did a fairly major overhaul on their crafting system with the 1.2 patch and introduced us to Apothecary and its two gathering skills in a feature earlier this week. Part two of this feature just came out and it gives us some insight on the remaining crafting skills, namely Talisman Making, Salvaging, and Scavenging.Talisman Making is a crafting skill that produces trinkets and charms that can be placed into slots on certain pieces of your weapons and armor. You need several ingredients to make a talisman: a container, fragment, essence, gold dust, and curio. This is a difficult and expensive skill to train because it requires items from both gathering skills unlike Apothecary. The benefits can be amazing though since an expert talisman maker can create powerful and highly sought-after resist and stat gems.Salvaging is a gathering skill that lets you draw magical components from any new or old gear. Salvaging will get you everything you need except curios, which must be bought from the auction house or gained from a Scavenging alt/guildy. Scavenging lets you rifle through the pockets of fallen humanoid enemies and will get you everything you need except magical essences.
A look at the salvaging mini-profession in EVE Online
EVE Online is a game where players don't need to choose a certain class and remain locked into that role as they progress. Essentially, any player can learn to do anything in the game, given enough skill training time and backed by enough isk. Professions in EVE can be freeform and varied, allowing a player to try their hand at a number of different playstyles in the game. One of these 'mini-professions' is salvaging the wrecks of NPCs and other players. Salvaging can be learned in a rather short amount of time, yet can be quite lucrative, especially for a newer player. MMORPG.com's EVE Online correspondent, Andrew Wallace, put together a guide to salvaging, laying out how the game mechanics work, and explaining how he salvages in different scenarios and with what ship fittings. Check out MMORPG.com's Salvaging Guide for Wallace's take on how to reap the greatest rewards from the misfortunes of your fellow EVE pilots.
A fundamental guide to crafting in Warhammer Online
By now, you've probably spilled just enough blood in Warhammer Online to keep up that thirst for more, and crafting might be the last thing on your mind. Fortunately, the crafting system in WAR is effective and functional enough to interest the brightest of the Bright Wizards and easy enough that any Greenskin can get the hang of it very soon. We're willing to also bet that most players haven't really paid attention to the crafting system until they realized that their inventory is quickly filling up with all these crazy seeds and pieces of ruined equipment. Crafting in Warhammer Online can be broken down into a few fundamentals: you have the actual "production" crafting trade skills themselves and then you have the "gathering" skills that help produce or harvest materials for the production crafting skills. As of right now, there are only two production trade skills (Apothecary and Talisman Making) and four gathering skills (Magical Salvaging, Cultivation, Butchering and Scavenging). As with most MMO crafting systems, the crafting skills and ingredients overlap. This means that if you want to get serious about crafting later in the game, you'll need to either make friends with the opposing skills you need, make a few alts, or prepare to spend a lot of money on the Auction House. The Apothecary >>
