I know several of you are not interested in these posts. To some, the solution to everything is "level to 220 and be ubah". For these people I suggest, do not read further. The following is intended to those who think you should be the best at any level you are. I hope someone finds it usefull.
As my last twinking project was at 180 (weapons at 190), I was thinking I would level to 205 before I try another twink session. I was surprised at how easy some things are at 205, but on the other hand some were a bit of a challange. I tried not to rely too much on pande loot as most people don't have it at 205, I just started collecting my first bits and bobs. I'll mention it where I think it can be important.
1. Equip all symbs up to ql 240. As I equiped all the 220s ones at 180 (see here) this left me with 240 ocular, 240 right arm, 240 chest, 240 left arm, 230 right wrist & 240 left hand.
Most of these were quite easy, so I wont post the setup. If someone is interested, I will post a full setup for anything, I have it all written down. The only two which were a bit of a problem were the chest and the ocular.
The chest is a bit hard on stamina. This setup has it nailed down. On top of that I had Composite Attribs, Treatment Expertise, ES, FG, NS, SFA, Ess, IC, TT, Extruder Bar, Surgery Clinic and HQ bonus. I had plenty of extra treatment on this one and some extra stamina too.
The ocular is a bit of a problem because of loosing int and treat from the old symb. I used this setup, with similar buffs. Frankly, both of these weren't that much of a problem.
2. Int twinking. You can twink 1100 int for maxing chosen armor, say to max the back item. If you don't have any zods loot this can be done this way for example. Also use Comp Attribute, NS, Improved Cut Red Tape, Extruder Bar & HQ Bonus. You can save on reperking by getting a ql253 imp set for intelligence - this will save you an extra 18 int which is really nice. Add some pande loot such as Mediative Gloves of the Aquarius (+20), First Creation of the Sagittarius (+5) and Maar's Blue Belt of Double Prudence (+50), or get some Ring of Computing, and you can save most of the reperking. However, keep in mind that your armor will OE after reperking, so maybe it isn't worth all the trouble. I just went 1019 int so I can get a nice pistol bonus from my Faithful Engineer Gloves and used 1000 int to get Urbane Pants of Libra on. I plan to have unperked 1000 int on 210 so I can hotswap ql300 arith for tradeskilling - this looks very reaonable for 210, though a bit hard at 205 without pande loot.
3. Pistol twinking. A ql 260 type 1/ql 199 type4 setup is not very hard to do. I didn't want it to OE so I didn't go higher. I used this setup with Comp Attribute, Comp Ranged, Comp Ranged Special, NS, ES, FG, Ess, Prod Strength, Improved Cut Red Tape, Extruder Bar, RC, Pistol Mastery, HQ Bonus & a small wrangle (100ish). I got the offhand pistol first, then I replaced the Ring of Crawling Ants with a Ring of Divine Teardrops and the BigBurger with a MTI SW500 Geyser.
The only problem was getting burst high enough without implants, since I intend to do the implant thingy later on, and without buying more supple armor than I already had.
Well, I hope someone finds this long post usefull. It has been fun as always to twink a new setup, and I am now on my way to level 210 where a new AI belt and token board are waiting for me