Xenowars | Defense, Dungeon, And Dung
Entropia Universe | Getting Set Up And Atrox Hunting
It was time I returned to Entropia Universe and do some Atrox hunting for fun. Since I left this game without much left to my name. I would need to do some shopping before I get started on this adventure. Thankfully I did not chip out most of my skills and sell them so I’m returning with some decent stats that will help carry me.
Depositing In
For those not in the know, Entropia Universe is an old-school real cash economy. Since they are looking to upgrade to Unreal Engine 5 and some bigger changes I want to be in a position to take advantage of things if this game comes back in a big way welcoming in the metaverse. Not to mention one of those changes now is accepting deposits with cryptocurrency.
There is an in-game currency called Project Entropia Dollars (PED) which has a fixed $1 = 10 PED ratio for deposit and withdrawal less some fees. While you can deposit with cryptocurrency you can’t withdraw with it. There are at least some ways to get around to paying a lower deposit fee.
You can buy 570 ped for $60 which includes a $3 fee. If you are a whale you can get a much better rate going through banks and wires. Which I am not. I however needed enough ped to cover what I think my costs are for some gear and a little extra to do some other things.
What the game does sell is “value packs.” You can buy non-tradable universal ammo for $10 for 100 ped worth of ammo among other amounts. That is a nice little way to save a couple of bucks getting back into the game. The ammo works in any gun and even as probes for mining which I might also be doing.
I also noticed they had a few different kinds of starter packs that are decent deals. Any of them are quite decent since most of the cost of the pack is covered by the ammo and some other things. On top of that, you get a little starter gear set.
The gear set in them is nothing huge to write about. It provides some basic protection and a set bonus which is nice to see. This will be great for any small creature hunts I do or if I’m unable to get a full set of armor of something else I’ll at least have something to drop in the slot.
The biggest thing for me about just having basic armor is you can drop a plate into them. While I don’t have a bunch of different sets of armor plating they can be a cheap way of getting some damage resistance for a lot of lower creature hunting. Without having to invest big into all sorts of different gear sets. The plates themselves do not come with the packs for sale on their site as they are bought from players.
Shopping
After getting some funds into the account it was time to do a bit of shopping. Thankfully I have some ok skills for doing Atrox hunting. That will give me quite a few options in what I can pick up and where I can be cheap.
Atrox themselves deal 23% stab, 36% cut, and 41% impact damage. They also regen health so you want to be dealing some decent damage but not going overkill either. Since my evasion skill is decent most of the attacks done by lower young to old Atrox will miss on me. So I don’t need to over gear much or go crazy with healing.
While usually, I would not pass up the opportunity to go spend hours browsing the shopping malls in Entropia Universe. After looking up a few items on the player market they did not appear to be that over what items are selling for. Not to mention I might want to change my setup and add to it to do other things later. So I went with what was on the market for now. I don’t want to get carried away blowing my budget in the malls.
Once I get a better understanding of what I want and need. I’ll go through to see what shops in the malls are even active anymore. A couple of years back most of them were a wasteland. Since this game seems to be getting more active again I’m hoping some more active players have moved into shop ownership or have returned. For now, the auction house will fit my needs.
While Atrox to a lot of players is seen as a more medium-sized monster. With my skills, I can get by without a lot of the gear. I tried to get a full set of Adjusted Pixie. A decent all-around set to have for doing a lot of different things. While I did get 4 of the 7 pieces I wanted. Other pieces of the set either had no buy-out option or the seller was asking for way too much. So I put down a couple of bids on other pieces.
Since I picked up a set of Armor Plating Mk. 2a’s that have 5 impact protection which is the biggest percent of damage Atrox do. I slapped some of the plates into Harrier Assault armor pieces I have and that will be more than enough for what I’m hunting.
The biggest cost for my setup was going to be my weapon. Since I trained for quite a few different weapon types back in the day I had quite a few options. I decided I wanted something with an ok range so I would not need to invest in a pulling long-range gun for now.
While I have some old favorite guns they were either not on the market, had a high markup, or only had one for sale. Since I’m not a whale and lack the skills to use their kind of guns anyways. I would be buying an (L) for a limited type of gun. (L) items cannot be repaired which is why you want a healthy amount of them for sale on the market when you need to replace them.
I ended up going for an ArMatrix LR-30 (L). For my skill range and the damage, it does it seemed perfect for Atrox. A big factor was the fact I could pick up an Omegaton A104 weapon Attachment as it was within my planned budget. That type of weapon attachment can be repaired and has ok efficiency. While I did pay a little higher than the average market price the supply is rather small.
While an Omegaton A105 would have been a better weapon attachment. The price of those things is out of my budget. If I recall I had one back in the day. Prices have increased on them a little bit but nothing insane. The other option would have been (L) weapon amplifiers and I’d rather not.
The last thing I needed was something to heal with. While my healing paramedic skill is not crazy I use to run a healing service so it’s decent. The thing about healing devices is if you lack the recommended skill the healing drops off like a rock. The Vivo T20 (L) I got will be more than enough to tap a couple of times to heal back to full if I end up in a bad situation when dealing with Atrox.
I already have a couple of smaller healing devices on me that if I’m not in combat I’ll be using instead. Since they did not have any markup to buy them and I don’t have to worry about overhealing with them either since they heal for a fraction of the amount of the Vivo T20 (L).
As far as transportation the location I’m going to I can just walk to the Atrox since I already have that outpost teleport unlocked. Thankfully I already had a Sleipnir Mk 1 from my earlier days as well. While it’s not the best thing ever. Since I don’t plan on leaving the planet at least for now it will be fine. In the future, if I want to go planet hopping I might need to invest in something better. It can however do the job in a pinch it will just be a long ride even more so if I get taken out by pirate players if I want to go to other planets using it.
Atrox Hunting
Now that I’m all geared up with a bunch of non-tradable ammo burning a hole in my pocket. It’s time to go hunting. While in the past I would have gone elsewhere I thought for this first trip I would find a new spot I’ve heard about.
In the past, I had this amazing spot that is a bit out of the way. You needed to fly there. It was also on player-owned land which means it has taxes for hunting on it. Since I don’t know if they still have Atrox, the tax rate, or anything else I’ll save checking that spot out for another time.
I have found out there is a decent tax-free Atrox spot on some open land on the planet Calypso. It is just right outside of Jurra Plateau which makes it nice if you get killed. You can revive and run back with ease.
For my first hunting trip here I will stop at around 200 ped worth of ammo used. I feel that will be a decent little trail for the area. I want to stop before my weapon amplifier needs repairs. I also want an easy number to keep track of for seeing how my hunts went, how much decay my gear took, and so on.
There are some things I love about the area and some things I don’t. The area has a mushroom forest in it. Since it’s a plateau there are some areas you can’t get full range on and need to walk close enough for the Atrox to run after you.
It looks amazing. Sometimes when you spend hours somewhere it’s nice to have a decent backdrop to look at. Being in the “perfect” flat area with nothing else but packs of monsters to hunt can get a bit boring for the eyes.
If you are not careful an Atrox could get stuck in the forest and become non-damageable. You then have to run up to it and wait for it to damage which could take a few attempts with my skills. Then you can kill it off. The bigger issue is they are usually in a pack so you could end up with a few of them on you.
I was expecting this place to be filled with players. I did run into the occasional player here or there. For the most part, I had an area all to myself. That might have been since players seem to want to be on the non-hill side and I did not mind having to think a little about how I would pull monsters.
While the spawns here are not insanely dense. I also don’t have a super long-ranged weapon to pull and just sit on a hill. Having just a couple in a pack allowed me to clear out an area and move around trying to avoid getting a bunch of adds on me.
While there were a couple of instances that I had two or even 3 Atrox on me at once. That was mostly my fault. If they all were just young or mature Atrox that was not an issue for me. Every time it happened it was my fault and I’m starting to relearn some of my old tricks.
If things got a little dicey I would spawn my Sleipnir and fly away to safety. This was such a rare occurrence and most times it was not even needed. It was however good to pick up on some old muscle memory of getting out of a bad situation without getting killed.
While the area has a lot of Young to Old Atrox I did run into a couple of Providers. If I had the full set of gear I am planning to get I might not need to heal on these at all. For now, I can kill one with two taps of my healing device. Ideally, though, I’m not looking to kill these unless I can’t get around them since they cost a bit more per kill.
As far as how the hunting trip itself went. 200 ped worth of ammo spent and 45.39 ped worth of decay taken on my items. With the bulk of that decay on the weapon and weapon amp. I however did not loot much so took a bit of a loss on this trip. Not the warm welcome I was hoping but that is Atrox for you. I’ll be saving things that have a tiny bit of markup value on them for selling on the market once I get enough.
Final Thoughts
It was fun to be back and I have quite a few plans of things I’d like to do including a lot more Atrox hunting trips. There is also a robot event going on for about a week longer and I might look into what gear I need to partake in that.
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Information
Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Entropia Universe.