VARMINT VALLEY !!!!!

Hello Mousefans,


there is a new area in town, go yonder to your travel tab and look for Varmint Valley.


You should then travel on to Claw Shot City, where there be some baaad baaad mousies.

As of now there is only the cactus trap, spring loaded for good measure.

Apparently there is a new power type in town, and word is its LAW.


How? Lidat law.


...


nvm.

[20130626 1240]

*a tumbleweed slowly rolls with the dusty breeze nonchalently*

So I am here. Right after completing the big bad of the Twisties Gardens. I like those snacks. Curry flavour.

Anyways. I've been in this here part of town b'fore. So I guess I cut straight to the chase and start a'huntin' those mice!

Spring-Loaded Attack Cactus (S.L.A.C.)
Power: 300 (Law)
Power Bonus: 5%
Attraction Bonus: 10%
Luck: none
Cheese Effect: No Effect



First thing first tho. I need to change that dingy Halloween theme from last year. Though I DO like it alot =)

...


Darn

My first real hunt here. I blame it on the dingy old halloween theme =P I gotta craft my new one fast...

There.... now to get dressed for succeess. (Accurately you gotta sing it to "Get Dressed" "For" "Suc-cess" "Hitting a spot for the big time, baby"  - I love Roxette =) )

There. I should hunt better no no? lol 

No wait there is a new theme.. ?!?! 

....

I need to keep up with this =P

[20131117 1220]

This will be the placeholder for the guide portion =)


1. Do not arm Prospector's Charm. You have better things to do. Your first step after getting the S.L.A.C. is to get a bounty hunter. Things to note:

1a. He is rare. I hunted actively for a day and only saw him once. It is my first day. Maybe hees shy.

1b. He is hard to catch. I FTCed. If you have monies to burn, go get the Sheriff Badge Charm from the market or donate to get some. If not just put out your best LAW setup and RAWR!!  You need to get him to get a wanted poster for a list of mice to hunt. This is to get more Fool's Gold. The basic trap for Law (S.L.A.C.) is too weak. Your prerogative now is to get Fool's gold. From the forums it looks like a few weeks to a few months effort to upgrade the basic trap. Hang in there. No keep your head out of the window. Thank you. Well I hope to write step 2 soon =)

1c. Horrors! He does not necessarily drop loot.

2. Once you have the bounty hunter with a loot drop open the poster and you should see 5 mice you need to catch.

3. Hop on to the Gnawnian Express (its on your map)

4. Catch whatever mice you can catch at the Gnawnian Express. While you are here board the trains. Why do all this? Simple, the mice are worth more =)

5. Once the mice in your wanted posted who are available in the Gnawnian Express have been caught, head back to Claw Shot City to catch the remainder (usually the boss)

6. Claim reward, and repeat  Step one until you get ennought Fool's Gold for what ever you are trying to get (firstly the upgrade to S.L.A.C. II) At this point, don't worry about the mini games on the train. Right now it is just to maximise profit =)

I recommend (if you have only S.L.A.C.)
Claw Shot City : S.L.A.C\SJB\Gouda\LGS\Super Power Charm
Gnawnian Express: S.L.A.C\Rift\Gouda\LGS\Chrome Charm

If you do not have the specific bases, just use something similar

For CSC I was focusing on a good mix of power and attraction
For GE I was focusing on luck

Note that my choices were based on the limitation of only having S.L.A.C. my choices might be different when I get S.L.A.C. II


[20131120 update step 2 2249]
[20131119 update step 2 0044]
[20131117 update step 1 2208]
[20131117 update step 1 2200]
[20131117 1236]


Alrighty, first off I just realised the original 1. in the guide above is TOTALLY wrong. =(

Prospector's Charm only helps you get more gold. NOT Fool's gold. *sighz* I gotta read the labels more caarefully =( Any ways its been corrected.

Step 1! is now accurate! a little more at least I think. More steps to go!!

Anyways what I have found. Aside from the Prospector's Charm being quite useless is this.

You need to get the Bounty Hunter ASAP. Except he is not attracted to any particular cheese. I have no idea if this is true in practice, but at least from the wiki he is'nt. Usually if he is attracted to SB, they would state it explicitly.

Now what this means is you need to arm your trap such that if and when he comes you want your trap to be at its best. The way to guarantee it is to get the Sheriff's Badge Charm. HOWEVER. That will cost you a few real life dollars or about 300K gold per charm at this point in time.

So in lieu of the get rich quick scheme, you just need to really prop up your measly slacker of a trap S.L.A.C. The optimum set up for me appears to be:

S.L.A.C.\SJB\Gouda\LGS\Super Power Charm

I haven caught the bugger yet, so it may change. But at least I am catching the mice better now. Getting rid of the wrong notion of Prospector's Charm was the turning point. For some reason I thought it was important. i was wrong =(

And I *sob* FTCed a Bounty Hunter (with my previous setup) la shame. =(


Anyways. Based on my squirrelling around the forum, it appears that the fastest way to get Fool's Gold to get rid of S.L.A.C. is to catch a bounty hunter (DUH!) and then get on te expressway to catch the bounty and then head back to the Clawshot City.

Thats what I have so far. There are definitely better guides out there at the moment =) so I am so touched that you are still reading this. I mean, for gawds sake, its been open for half a year and current law traps are like 4K in power!! wow. I am so behind.


Happy Hunting ppl!

[20131117 2154]

So I finally caught a bounty hunter with a poster within a day. So it is possible. Just slow =)

the setup is :


S.L.A.C.\SJB\Gouda\LGS\Super Power Charm

I'll have to warn you that I caught him once with no map and FTCed several times. So patience will be a virtue!

[20131118 0019]


and off we go !!!

I'm not really sure how this works, i just invited a few friends and boarded a train. I suspect I needed to get on the same train. I am not sure though.


[20131118 0030]


So I have almost completed my poster =D

And I guess the big bad is in Claw Shot City. My guess is to rinse and repeat this process (get wanted poster, go to the Gnawnian Express, and once the wanted poster is completed, repeat) until I have enough Fool's Gold to upgrade.

The money in the Gnawnian Express is pretty good! Tho from the forums it is still less than Furoma.

Things to note: If you are not in a team or you are the only one active and you are just trying to get by, you can safe the loot drops. Wait until you have a substantial amount then blow it all at one go. The reason is that part of the reward for boarding the train is the team performance (which if you are alone will obviously suck), hence you are better off if you load up on the drop items and release it in one big bang and try to get a good mark for the team. Or at least as best you can.  When you board the train, there are two scores, one team one train. Train is the effort of everyone. Obviously if you save your loot you are not helping the collective. Still, do try to have some sense of self preservation, no need to over do either way just find a good balance between helping the train and your own score.

The train score has a GUI aspect. You should see some little flags. Mouse over it and you should see that 50% score gets a passenger status and and 75% get engineers and 100% is Tycoon. Tycoon is obviously best =) But difficult to achieve when you are alone.

[20131119 0037]

After hunting for a very very long and substantial (I kid I kid) time. The set up that seems to work for me (at least until I get enough Fool's Gold) is this:


In Claw Shot City:

S.L.A.C\SJB\Gouda\LGS\Super Power Charm (set up A)

In the Gnawnian Express

S.L.A.C\Rift\Gouda\LGS\Chrome Charm (set up B)


If I arm set up B in Claw Shot City, strangely I keep missing. And it is the gray FTC. In lieu of mice stealing from me I cannot really tell how bad a miss, but I am guessing it is a close miss. So I tried upping the Powar and voila, I whiff less on Bounty Hunters. Note that with setup B, I get an anecdoctal 50% catch rate, which is pretty nice compared to what I had previously! But keep whiffing on Bounty Hunters and worse I don't seem to attract them very much.

Which is why I arm SJB rather than SBB, I suspect it is the "almost superbrie" phenomena =P the attraction seems to get me more Bounty Hunter visits. Many hunters will poo poo this I guess =) But it works for me so there.

The Rift base works surprisingly well on the train, its the other way round I keep missing with more powerful setups. (Note that I am limited by having only S.L.A.C.) The logic here I guess is that the power bonus of the base is not enough to up the power of the very weak S.L.A.C. So I keep missing even if the power variates on the high. Whereas a luck setup would variate more often and since the luck has a multiplier, I am guessing the multiplier effect at the moment is stronger than the power bonus given by the base, as the base power is low.

Totally hypothetical example:

Base power 200
multiplier 2
percentile bonus 50%

If only percentile bonus: 200 * 50% = 300
If only multiplier bonus: 200 * 2 = 400

Hmm actually I see no reason for luck to variate more often, so that probably rubbish on my part =)



[20131120 2245]




Now. I have finally understood how the train system work and why people say you can tycoon relatively easily.

How it works is this....

For the train:

Its kinda hit and miss. Try to get on a train that tycoons. Usually the players are more hardcore I guess. The trick is to find one and then keep the pace with the hard core players I guess. The flip side of this strategy is everyone employing this strategy of leeching will drag down the progress of the train and eventually tycooning becomes a challenge.

For the team:

and this is the main problem. I would say that an active team should have no issues tycooning. However if you are in an inactive team or are the only person in the team on the train. Then like me we have issues tycooning. Recently I read in some part of the forum that it is actually quite easy. And now I kinda get it cos I just tycooned. Relatively easily too. But you need to pick your trains. How it works is this: (and the new smuggling mechanic is the main thing that powers this strategy)

1. Get your crates, repellents and fuel nuggets to 10. You may need to be ultra sleeper on some trains to achieve this. How I do this is I will be sleeper for a 24 hour train. This give me enough time to get my crates, repellents and nuggets to a high number (I normally can't reach 10) ... the main reason I have difficulty reaching 10 is that, I am working with only S.L.A.C.. which is terribly weak. At least I have the Rift I guess =/ If you have S.L.A.C. II or better, you should be able to generate your 10 of each CRN (crate, repellents and nuggets, I tire of typing it again and again... and again =P). Note, while maxing CRN you might become and ultra sleeper. I.E. you get NO reward. You must at least contribue 1 CRN, however if you are trying to max out, the only place to contribute to train points without CRN is to catch a raider mouse in the second part of the train ride. Probably easy if you have a good law trap, below 50% for S.L.A.C. so just be mentally prepared.

2. Pick your train. You need to pick a train where you only need to contribute 40 CRN to tycoon at team level. This happens if you are on a 12 hour train and only 100+ people participate (at least that was what seemed to happen the last time). Or you go for a 6 hour train, which is more definitely only 40 CRN to team tycoon (I need to confirm this).

Note: I do not know if the 6 hr train team tycoon has the same reward as a partially filled 12 hr train team tycoon.

Why is it easy to tycoon?

Stage 1 (Crates): definite 10 train points
Stage 2 (Repellents): definite 20 train points (you must blow it all at once tho, piece meal will have no bonus. blowing 10 repellents at once gets a 10 point bonus for both team and train)
Stage 3 (Nuggets): Now this part is a bit more nuanced. You must blow all of it at once. But at the same time it must be as late as possible. The reason being this:

AFTER 10 nuggets. Every additional nugget nets you 2 points, but you must blow it all at once.

So for example:

11 nuggets get you 12 points
12 nuggets get you 14 points

... etc

Since you can accumulate up to 20 (while on the train, you can only smuggle 10) that gives:

20 nuggets get you 10 + 10*2 = 30 train points max.


If you look at the total that is a minimum of 40 points (10 + 20 + 10) to a possible 60 points (10 + 20 + 30).

Or more! since I am not including the extra CRN you get aside from these.

I prefer 12 hour trains tho as it is more possible to max out the nugget portion. 6 hrs fly pretty fast and my trap, being rather weak, misses alot. 12 hrs I have a higher chance to max out the nugget portion. However if you have a better trap, 6 hr trains might do (assuming the reward is the same... I seriously need to confirm this lol) The problem with 12 hr trains is that i need to pick a partial train so that the team target is more achievable.


Alas all that has to be put aside tho, since the GWH is here!!!!!

(BTW, the reward for team tycooning a partial 12 hr train is 18 Fools Gold. 18!! thats like one wanted poster!!)


Happy Hunting!

[20131211 2155]

I recently got my S.L.A.C. II !!! Meanwhile the season 2 for the treasure chests have begun where there is a new L.E. trap!


I think i will focus on the Law traps for awhile though =)

Happy Hunting!

[20140116 0155]