Boot Camp & The Assault Rifle

So you grabbed yourself some 514 and thought you'd jump right in and give it a go...

Didn't work out so good the first time, did it? Ahhh well, you're not the only one. Not your fault. Nobody taught you the basics. So we'll give it a shot. Maybe it'll help, maybe it won't but ya can't say nobody told ya...

The Long Haul

"It's a marathon, not a sprint". Ever heard that one before? Well ya did now. If you are going to play 514, then you have to understand one thing: "You're gonna be here a while". Nothing major is going to happen in the first few months because nobody has the field time to benefit from it. Nobody is going to outdo anyone else. You're not going to be max level after an all-nighter of playing 514 so don't try. All you'll do is burn out. The game is going to move at it's own pace because there is more going on here then just you and your kd and your next unlock. If you constantly race to the finish lines in games, then this game is going to bug you because there is no finish line. All the community is doing right now is learning the ropes in order that when the game comes out it doesn't completely upend EvE, the game that 514 is tied to and the game that came first. And as new boots, everyone should be figuring out how to work together, find the squads that "click" and then perfect their communication and squad movement. This is basic training at its finest. It's designed to wash out the weak and leave the strong. You're gonna be walking together for miles before you ever begin to jog. And when you start to jog, you'll never be able to stick together unless you learn how to do it while you're walking. Forget about running right now. Ain't gonna happen for months.

And as far as your levels go: If you plan on doing anything in this game, focus on that one thing and nothing else until you master and max out that one thing. Teams don't need players that are "10% medic, 10% assault, 10% healing, 5% repair... oh, and i bought a tank.".  They need the guy who is "100%" something ALL the time. Even if you're just a repair person, if you are the 100% repair person, then you will always have a space on the bench and thus you will always see game time. Try to think outside the box when it comes to what your role is. Think forward: What do YOU think the corporations are going to need in the future to be successful? If you see a market for something... BE that market. Remember... nobody is playing for free. You'll know who the best players in the game are later when the time comes: they will be the ones able to charge whatever they want for their time and folks will pay it. No ambiguity about that. You wanna be a rockstar? Pick up the acoustic, start playing until your fingers bleed... then keep on playing. Do just that for a couple years non stop and you'll be ready to move on to electric. Same thing here. Pick one thing and be known for being the best at that one thing.

Assault Rifle Basics

Get ready for some shocking news: A militia AR can maul a heavy before the heavy can turn to face it. But, there are a couple things you gotta do before you can start mauling. First, ya gotta max out your skills on The Trinity:

Weaponry = LVL 5

Assault Rifle Operation = LVL 5

Assault Rifle Proficiency = LVL 5

Those 3 things right there are what you need to do to get the most out of your AR from basic training forward. Those 3 stats combined are responsible for maximum accuracy but more importantly maximum DAMAGE on your rifle. Proficiency doesn't unlock until Operation is at LVL 5. This is grinding, people. Don't whine! Stuff a tampon in it and suck it up! When Weaponry and Proficiency are at max value, your weapon is now doing +25% damage bonus by itself with no mods. Distance, mag size and reload speed mean nothing if you can't shoot accurately or effectively. The Proficiency will become noticeable almost instantly. Once you hit LVL 3 it's a every boots dream. But again, this is grinding. One of the Proficiency levels is 770,000 skill points. You don't need to ask where to put your points from now on. Until you max out The Trinity, ALL your points go there.

The militia AR is the ONLY gun you are going  to be using for about 2 months. Don't buy anything else. If you unlock anything else, don't use it... save it for later. It's not going anywhere and with your stats and your lack of field time, it's gonna be a waste. Hell, boot... just email me your ISK if you're gonna throw it away!! It's cheap, easy on the numbers and effective as hell. If you must, go ahead and throw a light damage mod on it. It's cheap. Get used to iron sights, kid, cuz that's all you're gonna be using for a couple months. All the scopes in the world won't help you if you can't kill what you're looking at. Get good with the AR, boot. Get REAL good. When you think you're good, go back and get better. This IS grinding people!! You might not be getting tons of skill points all the time, but trust me, it's making you a better boot and that will show later. Corps don't need to teach noobs. They need trained recruits. The training/learning part is up to you, not them. This is your chance to grind it out and learn the maps and most importantly learn your weapon.

At Ease, Recruit



A couple more things before you get some R&R, boot:

1. When you build a loadout, go to the edit button and then hit restock. Read the total value of that loadout, cancel out of the screen and go back to the Rename option. Now add the total at the end of the name of that loadout. If your restock is 14,700 for your "Noob Smasher Assault" then call it the "Noob Smasher Assault 15k". You should have a basic idea of what each kit costs you so you know what you are spending per match. Bankruptcy = Winning matches worth 200,000 isk but spending 180,000 isk  in gear to do it. Profit margin is something you're going to be hearing more and more. Learn it. Your profit margin is more important then your kd.

2. Don't spend anything for weeks. Keep your loadouts down to somewhere between 3,000 to 5,000 isk. Learn to play cheap. Stack your money. Keep stacking it. Once you reach 20 million in your bank AND you have The Trinity full, then you can start to spend and you'll still have a margin of error to avoid going broke. Many before you have tried and gone broke because they got comfortable using loadouts that were 60k and up. A couple bad games and you'll easily be down to pinching pennies.

3. Turn on your mics. Communication is the key to success. The team with the best communication will win every time. The team with 16 people of which 3 are using mics and the rest are just sorta "there" is going to lose, unless they get lucky enough to face a team with 16 people of which 2 are using mics. If and when they implement V2K, that miclessness is gonna get you sent packing back to the merc quarters. You can't complain the game is too hard and then blame the devs when you are killing yourself by not using one of the most important tools the devs have given you.

4. Use Push To Talk. Between the cursing, mic chatter, racism and background noise, Push To Talk probably the one thing that will keep 514 from sounding like a lunch room at the local elementary school.

5. Don't jump into any ones vehicle. If you didn't call it in, it's not yours. Shouldn't even need to be said, but apparently, sense is not a common thing. Besides most vehicles are bullet magnets. Safer on foot. Plus, since you're putting all your stats in AR right now, let someone who actually has some turret stats hold that spot.

6. Much like MAG, you can't do this if you don't do that first. Here, you can't take a letter without taking the CRU first. Even if you get lucky and arm the letter, the enemy will spawn at the CRU and nerf you and cblock your arm. If you are ever in doubt, ALWAYS go for the CRU because it will give your team a chance to spawn faster since there is no warm up to the possession of it. Then once you see some backup you can move on the letter. The CRU will be the installation with the little "people" icon over it. So when in doubt... CRU first.

7. If you and your teammates just got pounded out of an area in a big firefight and you are about to spawn and you see a spawn point with NO blue dots around it and that was the same place you just got knocked out of... don't spawn. Just because you can't see the enemy, doesn't mean they aren't there. In fact, 9 times out of 10, if you look at the map and you want to know where the enemy is, they are in the places where the blue dots aren't. Learn how to read what you CAN'T see and you'll save yourself the time and shame of going to the 514 forums and posting a thread complaining about being "spawn camped". There is no spawn camping in this game. If you get "Alamoed", that's it. If you respawn into an "Alamo" situation, then it's your fault. If you do it more then once, you deserve what you get.

8. Make sure your Passive Skill Point switch is set to "ON" for your main character for the time being. The Passive SP gains you skill points, slowly, even while you're not online. This helps big time early on. It's on your character page and is marked "Passive".

9. Find a squad. You might have done ok in the past on your own in other games but here if you try and run solo, you're gonna get mauled. When the match starts hit your select button and scroll through the team and see who is who. If you see a 3 man squad with an empty slot, jump in it. Bring ammo if you can and give your squad leader something to fraggo so he can get an orbital or 2. The team with the most squads on it usually wins because of the integration of mics, teamwork and squad leader comissions. Those comissions add up quick when your squad is working together.

Aright, that's it for now. I'm tired of lookin' at ya and you look restless. Now get back out on the field and give 'em hell, boot. Maybe this time it won't go so bad. And no matter what happens, don't give up. This is just the beginning. We all still have a long, long road ahead of us...

Peace