I chose that level because I find that with the good free items from TOTW, (rings, barrow, withered, gloves, exarch, gripper) you can be well equipped without having to spend a lot.
The professions with perennium weapons certainly have an advantage.
I tend to have a toon or two at level 49 for the TL2 Battlestation and so at lvl 60ish can team with them and have them pull an easy Alien Mothership mission. This brings the mobs down to a mostly manageable level.
Certainly some classes are better. I favour fixers, as their snares prevent getting mobbed by several aliens at once, which at any level is going to put some stress on your survivability as a soloer. But I've found soldiers and agents NT's and Crats can all hold their own.
Sometimes you'll get a room that is just too difficult to get through, but it only takes a couple of minutes to abort and roll another mission.
Bosses can be a pain. The T&S boss is always a no-no, but always have a look in the boss room because the cocoon rooms are axp goldmines.
Not sure if you want it, but I find it very useful on a new toon to twink up at level 50, set my research to 100% and just grind RK missions for tokens. Usually, I have 700 or more by the time all my level 2 research is done. I guess it's not fast, but it goes a long way to getting 1K board by level 100. On a twinked up soldier for instance, I could do a single mission in about 4-5 minutes. At that level, if your clan you can roll missions in Bliss or wailing wastes, very close to the whomps. Takes less than a minute to get to them. It's very fast considering at TL5, it could take 20 minutes per mission for 7 tokens. Here I get 3 tokens in 5 minutes.
Awwww muffin, need a tissue?
Level 50 is one of my favorites also for twinking-and-tokening, though I'm happy to stop at 250. 700 tokens at level 50 sounds crazy to me. Omni at 50 can still pull missions within Rome, which is a huge plus as there is hardly any travel time (and you still get to see shopping/ooc, if you're into that sort of thing). That usually carries me to level 100, where I stop again, update equip, and do more tokens (Rome pulls to Lush Hills for omni).
Sorhan 220/30/70 fix * Aeschines 220/30/70 crat * Mengqi 220/30/70 sol * Hephaistion 220/30/67 adv
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i got stuck in the flying bird thing cave for a few levels more then the guide recommended the dungeons- just to mention the shade cave - surely gives you nice exp up to 50 thats what i noticed and im not a twink
otherwiise this guide has been a nice help
Added "Part Two" to the original post. It now covers level 1 to 180.
I've also neatened up some sections.
Last edited by Phyxrphyxr; Jan 10th, 2010 at 16:59:55.
The hard way is by grinding RK missions, which I mostly do after tl4, pulling Broken Shores missions in clusters of three to five. It's a long haul though. I don't go for the dead easy missions as I like to have multiple goals on the go. Hardish missions give some xp which you can optionally use to catchup on research, and all missions give decent creds if you take the time to clean out and sell everything. Lastly there are a few good items to be got if you keep your eyes open
Some of my accounts have a good number of vet points, so I get an early boost from four or five of the vet terminal tokens.
The easy way for those blessed with a fat wad is via token guns. I have gone this route twice, and, having tried farming the guns myself, am more than happy to pay players a decent dollar for their time.
A lot of my toons are neutral and most start out that way until after 50, but if I were planing a long term sided toon (which I never do) I'd mix in regular batches of RK missioning with the SL stuff so as not to fall behind in the old Token grind. Same with research and Alien Levels, keep mixing the action and keep the toon well rounded.
Token guns are currently a more lucrative way of getting tokens than they used to be in the past due to the changes in token gun mechanics (easier collection to dimension crushing storage devices instead of backpacks, better NPC interaction when returning them and 1/3 better drops due to being able to return the M150 rifles as well, which wasn't possible in the past). However, farming them can still be quite tedious. The main point when farming them seems to be being able to do it on a toon that can use the tokens as well, due to bravery tokens dropping as well. It hurts to waste these.
Even though token farming seems to be a task best suited for a fast killing TL7 toon, it can be enjoyable to do it on a lower toon that gets a small share of XP from the mobs as well, as it adds to the progress you're making, though there is the risk of being OD'd by higher level characters as well.
Eroz, finally 220/26/70 Adventurer & proud General of Regulators on ex-RK2 (outdated) equip
Rokroland, 170 Engineer No more crab for j00 Northern Front on ex-RK2
Ranged roxxorz!
Sig last updated properly when West Athens still had people sitting about the subway.
One thing of note that if you're capable of doing TL6 in Penumbra Mishes solo, once you get to 205 the option opens up for the same in Inferno. If you can solo your level of inferno mishes you can probably get to 220 on your own. I pull hard mishes for the SK boost all the time when I'm waiting on things to come about or during the night US time (which is a pretty slow point for playing AO on the West Coast.)
You might want to go over the older posts and make sure links aren't broken, I think one of the first replies leads to a dead link.
I've added a short section at the end covering levels 180-205.
I've also hit the maximum size for a single post and so will not be able to update it further.
One thing to note regarding SL solo missions... There currently is no such thing as easy/hard solo missions. No matter what options you select, you end up with similar missions. Neither the level of the mobs differs noticeably nor does the reward. That's at least my observation.
free bump for soloing in SL dungeons!
for new players, loot the chests, stacks of those sit down kits sell for a decent amount to vendors. Not only that, but they get quite expensive when they get up there in qls. And aside from the usual vendor fodder, you might get lucky and loot a weird looking nano from a chest. Some of those sell for large amounts of money
One profession to RoO them all, one profession to proc stun them, one profession to calm them all and in the darkness Exp perk them!
Crataiken 220/30/70 General - Primal Evolution - 3rd AI 30 'Crat on RK 1 Setup
Calms 220/30/70 General - Primal Evolution
Medicaiken 220/30/70 General - Primal Evolution Setup
Newen 220/30/70 President - The Galactic Milieu
Mettagirl 220/20/** General - Primal Evolution
Krataiken 150/18/40 General - Primal Evolution Setup
So, you hit the char limit, gz on that - though I feel that it might be worthwhile to add that both the Inferno Quests and Arid/Neretva LoX quests give nice SK rewards that really can help to break up the mish monotony of TL7.
Eroz, finally 220/26/70 Adventurer & proud General of Regulators on ex-RK2 (outdated) equip
Rokroland, 170 Engineer No more crab for j00 Northern Front on ex-RK2
Ranged roxxorz!
Sig last updated properly when West Athens still had people sitting about the subway.
I'm surprised that you enter crippler cave so late, when it's easily soloable at lvl 20ish with just QL30ish imps and a decent weapon + some cheap carb.
There are certainly many ways to achieve the same aim. Mine is just one.
However I chose Steppe of Dispair over Crippler Cave because there is more variety and most importantly it's quiet. I pretty much skip crippler cave and head directly for the dungeon in crippler cave at level 30.
If you meant that the crippler cave dungeon is "easily soloable" at level 20 then I'd have to disagree.
You mentioned that at about level 120 you can solo Ely Hecks. Are these Ely Hecks of lower level than those normally found in Ely. I have conned Ely Hecks and they are level 158.