Firefall Info

[Liberator]

Just a little bit of info to help out our new players
Firefall currency

Crystite = Common resource drop, used for buying from vendors and funds crafting, research and repairs to frames.
Credits = Market place currency and required for the 2nd bike recipe, Crystite can be exchanged for credits on a 25:1 basis, up to 1000 credits (25,000 crystite) per day. This also allows you to purchase items on the market place. You can sell items for credits as well.
Red Beans = The paid for currency, buys unlocks and various transport options from the "Red Bean" store. Red Beans can also be bought for credits on the "Currency Exchange", this is basically people selling their own Red Beans for credits and can fluctuate a lot, it will never drop below 100cr=1RB as this is a hard limit, currently it's in the 120's.
Pilot Tokens = These are earned by levelling up your frames to 40, when a frame hits 40 you get 10 Pilot Tokens, these can be used to unlock an advanced frame (10 tokens) or purchase special lvl40 equipment in Devils Tusk if you have unlocked all the frames.


Factions and environment

Melding
Melding is the cloak which covers the Earth after a massive accident cause by an experimental ships engines (The Arclight) opening a rift in space which caused the melding and enveloped the Earth. The ship crashed into the sea off the coast of Brazil, it's engines are still active and were found to hold back the melding. Generators designed and built which use this field to push back the melding in other areas, but then the Chosen started to appear and reclaim these areas.


Accord
The Accord are the military good guys and you are basically a mercenary working for them, they own the outposts.


Ares
Mercenary battleframe pilots..... You!


Chosen
The Chosen appeared from the melding, they are believed to be the bodies of the billions of people killed by the melding and taken over by an entity from the melding.......


SIN Towers
These are computer uplinks which uncover the map and allow you to respawn at the closest location if you can not be revived. Activating all the towers in all three Zones will grant you a free "Adventurers" reusable glider pad.




Thumping

Thumping is the way of gathering materials, thumpers gather ore but also attract local wildlife in droves. Both are needed for crafting.

To thump, you need a thumper and a scan hammer to do seismic surveys, smash down the hammer and you will get a report pop up on the screen. There are veins of resources which generate randomly, you need to use the scan hammer to find the highest concentration of ore to place your thumper for maximum extraction. Veins eventually run out and regenerate over time at different locations.

If you come across someone thumping then it's worth helping out with the killing of the wildlife, if you are there early enough you can get a percentage of the ore that is extracted. The DOES NOT take it from the person who placed the thumper, it's just an extra reward for anyone who helps.

The Thumpers

The higher the thumper level the more types of ore it can mine and the higher the capacity, personal has a slightly lower capacity that the same level squad thumper.

Stock Thumper = Iron
Thumper I   = Iron and Tungsten
Thumper II  = Iron, Tungsten and Titanium
Thumper III = Iron, Tungsten, Titanium and Uranium

Personal = 1-2 People
Squad = 4-5 Players and better sharing of the ore, plus more capacity.




Firefall Zones

Coral Forest - lvl 1-24

Scheduled events = Brontodon King (20), Skydock (14)
Ore = Iron & Tungsten
Melding Tornado's = Iron


Sertao - 25-36

Scheduled events = Brontodon King (30), Orbital Comms Tower (30)
Ore = Iron, Tungsten and Titanium
Melding Tornado's = Iron, Tungsten



Devils Tusk - lvl 37-40

Scheduled events = Chosen Thumpers, Warbringers and Death Squads spawn regularly
Ore = Tungsten, Titanium and Uranium
Melding Tornado's = Tungsten, Titanium



Amazon - Warzone - lvl 40

Scheduled events = 3 daily tasks plus an Epic, complete 1 each of the 3 types of Epic to get Sunday Boss Epic.
Daily rewards = Rep with the Crimson Storm faction and credits. Crimson storm rep unlocks some good lvl40 cores and special items to be purchased from Scarlet.
Random's = Blockades, Sniper nests, roving sweeper turrets and cloaked ambush parties.
Ore = None
Melding Tornado's = None

Warzone means it is actively attacked by Chosen, SIN towers change hands and only the central Valiant SIN is constantly under Accord control. When SIN towers are taken the melding can take over on three of the SIN outpost locations, making them completely inaccessible. To regain ground you have to retake the accessible SIN Outposts and theit Harvester and Supply depots. Then you need to guard convoys as them move between the depots and the SIN outpost until enough resources have been delivered to generate a generator to push back the melding, this is loaded up and moved to the melding front to be activated and needs putting together and guarding from attack while it charges, this pushes back the melding and allows you to attack eht SIN Outpost.


Broken Peninsula - unrestricted - lvl40
This is a team PvP type area for resource gathering, it's not actually frequented that much and I have not spent much time in there myself. Ther are reward to be had, but it's best to see the Firefall pages on this one.


Events

Skydock (Timed mission)
Located in the centre of Coral Forest, Skydock is a multi-part mission which invites everyone in the area, that is of a high enough level, to help defend the ship currently docked in it. You have to secure the fuelling stations to open a sky bridge to the main dock and secure it, then you have to split up and defend all three positions while the ship is refuelled. Everyone who takes part gets the rewards.

Brontodon King (aka BK)
A very large creature which spawns every hour in a single location in Coral Forest and one of multiple locations in Sertao. It will appear on the map if you are in range. Everyone who takes part and causes damage to the BK and the attacking poachers will receive the rewards, which may be specially related weapons and battleframe cores.

Orbital Comms Tower (aka OCT)
Every hour in Sertao the central OCT is attacked by a Chosen Darkslip Dropship. This is a multi part event, defeat the squad attacking the OCT and then activate the three emitter arrays which allow an orbital weapon to take out the Darkslips. Usually after this has been completed successfully there will be a Chosen Counterstrike, which is a shielded boss that needs to be taken out. There may be multiple counterstrikes.

Watchtower Reclamation/Melding outbreak
Watchtowers are taken over by the Chosen and have to be "hacked" to get them back under Accord control. Once hacked the terminal inside has to be guarded from the Chosen who will fall in drop pods whilst the hack is in progress.

Occasionally they will go a step further and project a "melding bubble" around the tower so you can't get in and reclaim it. For this you have to activate and guard 3 projectors which will cancel out the melding bubble and allow you to attack. This type of event is timed and requires a few sequential objectives to be performed. It will guide you through them, but they are usually, destroy the shield generators to enter the tower, kill the chosen elites which are inside, then a scan will be performed for the melding generator which needs to be destroyed.

Melding Tornado
These pop up in the higher areas of Coral forest and can occur anywhere in the other two zones. There are no tornado's in the Amazon zone. The tornado is a melding anomaly that occurs randomly, each of the three zones has it's own type but the external view and initial contact are the same.

The tornado has shards rotating around it, each chard is vulnerable for a time and can be attacked and destroyed eventually. There are also two small shards above the tornado that can be attacked, these should be destroyed before all the main shards are as they hold a lot of XP and vanish once the main shards are destroyed.

Once all the shards are destroyed you can attack the main tornado body, when completed this will form an entryway to a melding bubble instance, inside here crystals form that explode and shower out metal ore. The layouts and ores are different in each of the zones, but the idea is the same in each, smash the crystals, gather as much ore as you can and keep moving. The bubble contracts while you are in it and forces you towards the exit.

Coral Forest Bubble = a large open circular area which contracts over time when you hear a horn noise, the exit is actually above you and you would need to climb up the floating debris spiral to get to it. Don't bother, just gather as much ore as you can and move away from the melding walls when you hear the horn noise.

Sertao Bubble = A progressive push forward towards through a wrecked city, when the horn sounds the melding closes in from behind and you have to keep moving, the crystals spawn and shatter as you move through the are to the exit, this one pushes you to the exit and so you can escape this one whilst still gathering as much ore as you can.

Devils Tusk Bubble = This starts off in a small area that then opens up and pushes you into a large circular pool with islands, you can go clockwise or anticlockwise from the initial island and stop as the shards spawn and explode. Eventually you will make your way around to the exit. You can run in the "water" but it causes damage to your health and so island hopping is the best option, ore does end up in the water so it's worth a little exposure to get it.


Crafting
Crafting is done at molecular printers, you wil find these at all the main outposts. You have to research recipes in the research section. Recycling salvage from your inventory and salvaging old or unwanted weapons and abilities provide research points and base components to fund research.

Each battleframe has it's own abilities and primary weapon research trees. Because you can level up quite fast in the game, you may find that researching the multiple tiers of the lower level items is a waste of time. I myself decided that it was easier to work with the items given as rewards and only research the lowers tier of the research tree to allow me to get to lvl40 (cap) gear. Then I researched all the tiers of the lvl40 items.

Tiers

White = Basic
Green = Uncommon
Blue = Rare
Purple = Epic
Orange = Legendary (there is no legendary research tree)


Component Modules

Weapon Components and Ability Components are modules for improving the base damage, speed, charging..... etc of an equipped item, these are level specific and follow the tier system.

There are also crafting components you can build which can add abilities to items you craft, these are not level specific .



Trading


Sending Items (B)

3 days after you are friends with someone you can send them items via the in game email system. Just press 'B', type in their name and then click the attach button.


The Exchange (T)

Sometimes there can be bargains to be had on the exchange and also profit to be made from discarding items you don't want. When selling, the trick is to search for the same item within 2 levels above and below. This will give you a price guide to sell. Sometimes the item you drag into the trade window may already be for sale for a stupid price and the sale system will automatically fill in the list price the same, so check what others are going for first.

Clicking the "Filter" button will bring up a better filter, by default the search for items only for the battleframe you are in and a around your current level. Setting the frame to "Any" should help when finding prices. Also be aware of the category selection from the tree menu on the left.

I tend not to sell green or white items unless they have something special about them, "Deployment" enhanced items of any colour will usually sell. Beyond that I only list Rare items (Blue background) or Epic items (Purple Background).

There is a 5% listing fee and a 10% sales fee, so 15% of your list price will be taken by the exchange system when you sell.



Reputation

For each mission you complete at an outpost you will receive reputation, eventually this will move you from Neutral to Friendly and then on to Trusted. This actually unlocks inventory items from the local "Supply Officer", you can find them when you are in an outpost by zooming in on the map and looking for a dollar sign in a circle. These traders will be able to sell you blueprints for more advanced types of abilities as well as also having rare weapons and other abilities for sale in Crystite.




Travel

LGV (Light Ground Vehicle)


P1
If you have started the game recently with a new account you will find that 24 hours after your first log out a permanent P1 LGV bike appears in your "Account Items" tab in the inventory screen. This is a slow but useful mode of transport. Drag the icon to the toolbar in positions 5-8 and you can activate and drop a bike to move around on.

XLR
The XLR is the second "free" vehicle, although it does require 2000 credits to craft and some hybrid crafting materials. This bikes blueprints are give as a reward for the "Wheelhouse" mission. This mission is the first mission on the job board in Dredge, you move to Dredge in the Sertao zone when you reach lvl 25.

Advanced LGV's
These are bikes which were given as part of a package or have been bought from the Red Bean store. There are various models available.

Turbo
A Turbo bike was created earlier this year for a special event, during this event you could also acquire turbo units for other bikes. Now they are found as rare drops from the vending machines you use copper tokens in. Your odds of getting one from a copper or silver token are extremely low and probably not too much better with a gold token (purchased with Red Beans), but people do win them and post them on the exchange. As you would expect, the more common bikes turbo units are in high demand and are around 5000 credits. I wouldn't waste my time on getting one for a P1, but it's reasonably useful on an XLR. There is a bike on the Red Bean store which comes with a pre-fitted turbo.


MGV (Medium Ground Vehicle)
These are 2 player vehicles which can currently only be acquired through buying one of the DLC packs containing a special MGV or from converting enough credits to Red Beans and buying it from the Red Bean Store, currently there is only one model in the store and it sells for 400RB. Sales do sometimes occur and it may be cheaper during this time. Passengers can fire their weapons from their seat


Arcporters
Arcporters can be found at Copa, Thump Dump, Trans Hub, Sunken Harbour, FOB Harpoon and Valiant. They allow access to other Zones as well as allowing you to play and replay the story line missions and the Raids.

Dropships
There are ferry dropships which run a clockwise and counter-clockwise circuit of the Coral Forest region, they land at the first four place mentioned above for arcporters. You can eject from a dropship at any time and will automatically deploy wings to glide. Try not to eject when the dropship is landing or wings may not deploy, be ready to use your jump jets.

None of the other zones have these, but there are static drop ships locates at certain bases which allow you to travel between zones. As you would expect, these are at the entry level and maximum level bases.

Gliders
There are various glider pads available, they will tell you in their descriptions what benefits they have. Reusable ones can be bought from the exchange, the Red Bean store and you also get a free one for activating all the SIN towers in the first three zones. You will receive single use ones from bandit caches and the vending machine rewards for tokens. Gliders are extremely useful to have and all have a cooldown period for redeployment once deployed. The free reusable pad is quite long.

Jump Pads
These will fire you up into the air and allow you to get to places not normally accessible. You will be able to craft single use ones as well as winning them from bandit caches and vending machines. A reusable pad is available from the Red Bean store. It's very useful.



Chat and user interface

Some commands for the chat window, typing '/' will automatically open the chat window in preparation for a / prefix command. Pressing 'return' will open up the chat dialogue as well. Left-Alt will focus on the chat window but not open the dialogue bar.

Talking

By default you are in Zone chat, you can switch between the various chat modes with slash commands.

/z = Zone, the whole instance you are in
/y = Yell, up to 150m local radius
/l = Local, up to 50m local radius, useful for thanking people who revive you or in large multiplayer missions.
/w {playername} = Whisper to a specific player
/s = Squad chat for up to 5 players
/p = platoon chat, for 6 players and up.
/a = Army chat, just for us.
/r = Reply, start a reply to the last received whisper


Location

If you want to tell someone where you are and allow them to click on your message and set a waypoint to where you are on the map, you should send your message and add one of the following.

;loc = My current location
;wp = my active waypoint

e.g.

The BK is up at ;pos

Will display as

The BK is up at [-233,421]

And allow you to click on the grid reference and set a waypoint. It is sent in whatever chat mode you currently have set.


Commands

The chat window is also for some commands

/rui = Reset the user inteface, handy if an element vanishes or things go a little loopy.
/joinleader = Will move you to the instance that the squad leader is in, as long as you are in the same zone in another instance. You will spawn in the exact same position you was in when you issued the command, but in their zone.
/leavezone = Will transport you to another instance of the saem zone you are in, for when they are closing a shard for maint or get away from a bugged zone.
/stuck = It's possible to get trapped in scenery and not be able to get out, this command will kill you after a few seconds and allow you to respawn, tell peope you do not want reviving before doing this as they will put you right back where you was.
/leave = leave the squad you are in


and Diag commands

/showfps
/showping
/net_graph


Fun

You can also activate some of the fun elements through this window.

/dance = Makes you sing and dance
/joke = tells a random joke depending on your sex and voice preferences.
/taunt = random taunt depending on your sex and voice preferences.

More listed here

[Penfold]

Very useful thanks.

[OldBloke]

Excellent information. Thanks, Lib. Much appreciated :thumb:

[Liberator]

Added notes on trading items, reputation and travel stuff.

[Liberator]

Added stuff about the chat window.