Developer Notes 3

19 June 2012

Developer Notes #3

This Entropia Universe Buzz article is part of a new series of Developer Notes where the development team at MindArk will share various tips and bits of information about Entropia Universe with our participants. Some Developer Notes will address important issues that we have noticed being discussed on community forums, while others will be prompted by feedback and questions received via support cases. Our goal with the Developer Notes series is to help participants better understand MindArk’s goals for Entropia Universe, and hopefully correct several misconceptions that have arisen within the community that we feel might help participants make more informed decisions for their avatars. We hope that you find the Developer Notes article series interesting and informative.

Hunting Efficiency Examined - The last Developer Notes article sought to stress the importance of efficiency in Entropia Universe, but did not provide a clear definition of what is meant by the term efficiency. We would like to offer a bit more insight for the benefit of the community, and in this article will focus on ways to become more efficient in Entropia Universe’s most popular profession, hunting. Efficiency tips for the mining and manufacturing professions will be covered in a future article.

Efficiency in hunting has several components, the most vital of which is Hit Ability (sometimes abbreviated as HA). Hit Ability is a measure of how accurate you avatar is with a weapon. You can view your avatar’s Hit Ability on a weapon by right-clicking on the weapon and viewing the item’s information panel. Based on your avatar’s skills and the requirements for the particular weapon, a number between 0.0 and 10.0 will be calculated and displayed. The single most important effort a hunter can make in becoming more efficient in his or her hunting activities is to always use weapons which are “maxed” -- weapons with which your avatar has 10.0 Hit Ability. The importance of this cannot be stressed strongly enough.

A second and very important part of efficient hunting is to consider the relative cost of using a particular weapon, often referred to as weapon economy, usually measured as damage per PEC. This measures how efficiently, in terms of weapon decay and ammo consumption, a weapon produces each point of damage. An avatar will enjoy much better overall hunting results over time when using weapons with higher damage per pec. Many community websites, such as www.entropedia.info, offer detailed statistics on the economy of nearly all the various weapons available in Entropia Universe. The MindArk development team is also considering including more detailed economy statistics on the item information panel in an upcoming release to improve the availability of such information.

Another important part of hunting efficiently is making sure that your avatar has achieved the full damage capability of the weapon being used. Like Hit Ability, damage capability is calculated based on the avatar’s skills and the weapon’s requirements, and is shown in the format Actual_Damage / Maximum_Damage on the item information panel. For example: 10.0-20.0 / 10.0-20.0. To be the most efficient as possible, make sure to hunt with weapons on which your avatar has reached the weapon’s maximum damage potential.

Finally, be sure to hunt creatures within your avatar's skill level. Creatures within Entropia Universe are designed with avatars of varying skill levels and equipment in mind, and each creature type has different attack speeds, regeneration rates, hit probabilities and damage potential. It is a good idea to avoid excessive armor decay and healing costs when trying to hunt as efficiently as possible.

One of the wonderful things about Entropia Universe is its very knowledgeable and helpful community of participants. There is a wealth of information available to newcomers and veterans alike on the various Entropia Universe community websites and forums, and participants are encouraged to seek out the accumulated wisdom and tutorials available there. There are also many helpful mentors and societies that can be found in major cities on each planet, or contacted through the Mentor Register and Society Terminals.

We hope that this article has provided some valuable tips for your future hunting expeditions. Happy hunting!

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