What is there to do in game? End game loop and so on?

[Killerjd]

After a very annoying week of troubleshooting, I was finally able to get the game installed. 
Once I did, I notice that I have 5 of the 6 "Classes" at 149-150 Range (lv49 Trade on the 149s of course. Remember that.)

As well as inventories and vaults fill of items, ammos, and variety of loot.

 

To be honest, I am at a loss of what to do. It has been so many years that I am unsure of what there is to even do.

What is the end-game loop? Is it to farm items to breakdown so you can learn schematics? 

Raid?

PvP?

Faction grind?

 

Right now, I am so overwhelmed that I don't know what the first step is. I could make new characters, but I will end up in the same boat.

Do I need to multi-box to kill things? If so, how many? 2? 3? All 6?

 

I am not looking to be hand-held. Just a direction of what there is to do. Possibly even how to start doing it.

 

Any advice or suggestions would be so very appreciated. Especially if it is combat related and how many I need to bring for a hunt.

Crafting as well is fine.. just some sort of idea. It has been way to many years, and way too many games, that I do not even know what there is to do.

[Doctor]

The end-game loop that Westwood envisioned was:

1. Acquire raid gear
2. Take hull damage acquiring other raid gear (combat was balanced around hull taking, and hull tanking eventually results in quality loss)
3. Re-run old raids to acquire degraded gear

For others of us, we build tools. Codemonkey and Winlander have been working on formatting/adding content to the wiki (as well as MANY others who added content in the 5+ years since its founding).

 

I am working on a mapping tool that will show where all the ore fields, grav wells, mob spawns, etc are. I wrote an autohotkey script that simplified FN-NV trade runs down to pressing a single button over and over (plus walking around in stations manually). I wrote an AHK script that would let you easily move ores to alts without having to manually inspect them (good when mining fields with large level spreads that require mules). I made a tampermonkey script that changes the Account Vault to be click-to-select instead of drag-and-drop (it also adds filters). So...stuff like that can keep you busy.

 

So...either you make your own meta content, you do the WW gameplay loop, or you say "ok, I won" and play another game.

Edited April 14 by Doctor
Moar projects

[Killerjd]

Thank you, I do appreciate this information.

It has been quite the few years since I last played. I've aged as well, so tastes in games change. I am just looking to get my feet under me. This information does help. I've been looking at the Wiki as well. It is easy to understand in its formatting, so my gratitude to all those who invested time to it.

 

First thing I need to do. Fix the key binds! I was doing some Prospecting to get an alt some Exploration xp, and it was disastrous. I couldn't target what I wanted to (F8 Default, really?! Not once would I of guessed that!) Is there a way to copy all settings between accounts, so I don't have to do it 6+ times?

 

After that, I really need to figure out how to run multiple combat classes at once. Maybe if I made the Screens smaller? Can I "un-anchor" the cursor from the client? I am alt-tabbing. It gets a wee bit confusing since Windows reorganizes to most recent tab, not last opened. 

 

After all that. Maybe I will try to solo a Gate Raid? Fish-Bowl? Red-dragons perhaps. Those are all I can really remember of the game.

[Doctor]

I can't speak to solo raiding. I know some raids specifically (Controller?) got changed to make solo-raiding impossible. Others will have to chime in on that.

 

Keybind copy: Not sure. The keybinds are stored in a flatfile in the install directory, but each file is set per-character, and...yeah, idk. To target asteroids I just hit 'x' (target nearest object) and d/c (next closest/farthest) to cycle through targets.

 

Autohotkey is best for juggling multiple clients. I have a simple F2 loop {meaning push F2 to activate} (look in the main AHK thread for my functions) that will cycle through all windows, target the group leader's target, and fire all guns. I also added in a way to activate specific skills on specific characters. Though, some are kinda wonky (shield sap will NEVER activate if G-link is pressed within 1 second of it, for...some bloody reason).

 

Also, before you try to use ControlSend, Westwood appears to have completely disabled input to the game client (outside of bringing the window into focus) when the window is out of focus, so sending instructions to a window that is NOT the active one appears to be impossible. If you figure out a way how to, do tell!

 

And yeah, I have 1080p monitors, but when multiboxing I play with 3 720p windows per screen (2 up top, one centered in the bottom). I can't see the entire window, but I can see the shield bars and current target of every char. Look at the "FPS Cap" thread for how to use Reshade to enable Vsync and thus make your multiboxing easier (without that the game tries to render at around 1000 FPS)

[Killerjd]

So, I looked at the AHK post you mentioned. I will be honest. I am rather inept when it comes to the technical side of computers.

It explains in detail the script, how it works, functions and how to set up.

My stupid ass here is thinking

"How do you even run a script, let alone write it? Do I need to download a program or something?"

 

All that is way over my head, the fact that I am asking myself if a program is needed to even start it. I feel like I am in no place to even attempt it. I wish I knew more, but at this stage. I do not have the knowledge to even comprehend how difficult any of that is.

 

Sounds like it would be super useful too.

[Doctor]

For such things, I've honestly found chatGPT to be a huge time saver. I'd never touched javascript before (but I had programmed in other languages) and it was able to teach me enough javascript to make something work. It's also saved me a lot of time writing autohotkey functions because it can type *way* faster than I can, and I can generally tell it "do X" and know X is possible.

 

But like, it can teach a lot of things as well as your average school teacher (meaning it also, like the human, gets stuff wrong). It has infinite patience (in my experience anyway) so it's actually pretty decent at helping troubleshoot stuff. It is FAR from perfect though.

 

As for meta tasks, idk, maybe pick your favorite sector and make sure every drop in the wiki is up to date. Maybe bring all 6 damage types and find out which resists are *actually* the weakest for each mob. ...I'm not very creative. I'm sure you'll figure something out.

[Codemonkeyx]

11 hours ago, Killerjd said:

I notice that I have 5 of the 6 "Classes" at 149-150 Range (lv49 Trade on the 149s of course. Remember that.)

 

There are 9 professions now, so you can add 3 more to your list!

 

As for those ones with L49 trade, you can go do L75 trade jobs from Chernevog Station in Aragoth Prime to Fenris Prime Observatory (make sure and get the Diplomat or Tourist jobs, those are the ones that go to FPO) and you'll have those to OL150 in no time.

[TempestNWK]

Mordana mini-raids are a nice starting point with a small multibox group of 3. (TE/TS hackers mandatory for the Destroyer mobs)

 

Also think that advertising in chat might catch some interest at (USA) times (possibly even eliminating the need to multibox altogether)