Nexus for Newbies
From NexusWiki
This guide assumes you're already familiar with the very basics of grid-mapped, AP-based browser games...if not, go read about it on the Wiki. Really everyone would probably be best off reading as much of the Wiki and forums as you can take before you even start playing, but, seriously, who ever reads the whole manual before they start the game? Yeah, that’s what I thought. So for your convenience:
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[edit] So You Want to Make a Character?
You’ll have to pick a starting skill, before you do anything else. Before you do that, you should probably spend some time thinking about what you want that character to ultimately become. Take a look at the Character Classes on the Wiki, and think about what kind of character you’d like to play. Feel free to ask questions about the classes on the forums, too.
But, you certainly don’t have to have decided exactly what class and skills you’d like to have at level 30, before you’ve even made your first character. There are a few things that you really should decide, though. First and most importantly:
[edit] Good, Evil, or Neutral?
The two basic ‘sides’ in Nexus aren’t survivor and zombie – they’re Good and Evil. Of course, you don’t have to pick one side or the other – you can opt to stay neutral and not be on either side (or switch back and forth as the whim strikes you). Different classes with different abilities may be available, depending on your morality score – and since your morality score is based on what actions you do, whether you’re good or evil will determine a lot about how you gain XP while you’re a Mortal.
[edit] I Think I Want to be a Good Guy!
Ok, in that case, you’ll need to spend most of your time doing at least one of the following things, that will add to your morality score. You’re considered ‘Good’ if your morality is between +20 and +40.
Fixing Stuff: Grab yourself a Portable Toolkit (found in Hardware Stores and Fire Stations, mainly) and the Engineering skill. For 5 AP you can restore power to an unpowered building, which will net you positive morality and a bit of XP. You can spend more AP to power up the local Power Station, if it’s unpowered, and get more XP for your troubles. With just engineering you’ll also be able to fix smashed doors and damaged ones. 2AP to fix a damaged door for a bit of XP; 10 AP to fix a completely smashed-apart door, and you gain morality for it as well. It’s not the fastest way to level, especially since the number of power-restoring Engineers is much greater than the number of evil Degenerates. But Engineering’s a nice nonviolent way to gain XP, and doesn’t involve any risk of losing morality, nor does it involve sitting in a high-profile location (like a hospital). It’s a popular way for characters who’ve become evil and want to turn good again to redeem themselves.
Healing People: You gain morality for healing other people, unsurprisingly, and you also gain XP equal to the amount of damage you healed. This works much like it does in Urban Dead; search Hospitals for First Aid Kits (you can find them elsewhere but the search rates are best in hospitals), then search for wounded characters to heal, all while hoping the bad guys don’t bust into the hospital since it’s a really obvious target. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? If you want to go this route, you’ll probably want to take First Aid for your starting skill (since you can see other people’s exact health totals, and you heal twice the amount of HPs with a FAK), though Search (which just improves your chances of finding things when searching) is also viable. As a side note, Demons can’t receive healing from other characters. So don’t even try. They just would’ve killed you anyhow.
Smite the Infidels!: Arguably the most fun way to gain xp, but if you want to be a good guy, there’s a catch. Killing evil characters makes you good – killing neutral or good characters makes you evil. And at first you won’t be able to tell whether other characters are good or evil just by looking at them – that requires the skill, Sense Morality, which you aren’t likely to take for your first skill (you might take it for your second though). And if you kill so many good or neutral characters that you turn evil, you’ll find that once you turn evil, more killing keeps you evil, no matter what the morality of the people you kill is. As a result, a lot of people use a sort of ‘test attack’ – take a swing at someone, and see whether your morality goes up or down. It goes up, they’re a bad guy and you should kill ‘em. Note that if you’re Good, simply taking a swing at another Good Guy (even if you don’t hit) will be enough to drop your morality down a notch. If you find someone in one of the advanced Tier 2 or Tier 3 demon classes (Pariah and Defiler are the Tier 2 classes) you can be sure they're evil - they'll be tough to kill, but it might be worth trying, since you can be certain they're evil, not to mention the XP bonuses for attacking someone higher tier than yourself.
I’m not gonna discuss the pros and cons of the various different weapon types here, because that would make this thing much, much longer than it would be otherwise, and it’s gonna be damn long anyhow. Melee, ranged, and hand-to-hand all have their own pros and cons, and no one in particular is overwhelmingly better than the other ones*; I’d suggest reading up about it on the Wiki or asking around on the forums if you’re really unsure.
[edit] Let’s Be Bad Guys!
So you think you’re the indiscriminately evil type, do you? Alright, well then, you’ll want to do one of the following things, to gain XP and be evil. You’re considered Evil if your morality score is between –20 and –40. This is important! Some actions work differently once your morality score drops below –20. Generally speaking, once you turn evil it’s harder to get back.
Smash!: Smashing stuff will make you evil, but won’t necessarily get you any XP. Completely destroying a door will always make you more evil, but it’ll never get you any XP. Unpowering buildings and sabotaging the power plant requires Engineering and a Toolkit, much like being a good engineer – but being a Degenerate won’t get you any XP until after you’ve become evil, at which point you’ll start getting XP for your efforts. Until then it’s only good for making you evil. The advantage to being a Degenerate, though, is that you’ll basically never have to search for a target: there’s practically always buildings to de-power.
Kill!: Indiscriminate murder is *the* hobby of choice for most evil characters. Though, as I mentioned earlier, you can’t really be totally indiscriminate until after you’ve gotten your morality below –20: until then, killing bad guys will turn you good. Which is presumably not what you’re after. Once you hit the –20 threshold, though, you can proceed to gleefully murder everyone you meet. Worth noting is the fact that many of the later demonic abilities make good use of hand-to-hand skills, making hand-to-hand combat (currently) a far better choice of murder method for prospective demons than melee or ranged weapons.
[edit] Gee, I Dunno. What if I can’t (or don’t want to) make up my mind?
Well, there’s stuff for you to do to. Things which won’t shift your morality in any particular direction. It's worth noting, though, that the 'Neutral' advanced classes don't actually require any particular morality score - so staying neutral is really just a personal choice (or possibly, not choosing).
Read!: Reading books is a fairly popular way to level up, in fact. Searching in Bookstores and Libraries will find you Books, which you can then read; some books will give you 5XP after reading them. Only catch is that Bookstores also tend to be popular targets for murderers, so sleeping in them is a bit risky. If you want to level this way, it’s recommended that you grab Search.
Lockpicking: You earn 5XP for picking a lock or padlock on a door that someone else locked. No morality shift, but locked doors can be a bit tricky to find, since generally they tend to attract a lot more attention (and the wrong kind of attention) than open, unlocked buildings do. Still, some people like it. If you want to go this route for XP gain, you’ll want the skill, Lockpicking, and a set of lockpicks, unsurprisingly.
Shootin’ Bottles and Cans: You can set up a bottle of alcohol or a can of canned food in a location, and then shoot it with a ranged weapon for 6 XP. The XP certainly isn’t as good as you’d get from shooting people, but on the other hand, you won’t lose or gain morality for it, and bottles and cans don’t shoot back.
Makin’ Stuff: Repair Item and its tree of skills do you grant you some XP, though not much considering the amount of APs invested. Still, if you imagine your character as a smith or item-crafter, you can start off with this, and you will level up. ...Eventually.
Kill Discriminately!: Even for neutrals, murder is the fastest way to gain XP, and it's generally easier for neutrals than for Good characters, as neutrals get to take down Angels when they see them. Just make sure to keep your morality above -20, or you're going to have to switch to Good actions for a while in order to get back to neutral.
Naturally, you can also mix and match these things together however you see fit, and in fact you should feel encouraged to try them all. Once you’ve figured out what you want to do at least to start off, though, pick the starting skill that seems like it would be most helpful for that, and get to it! :D
[edit] Where is Everybody?
They're hiding from you, because they know you want to kill them. :P You won't find them unless you search around a bit. Hiding is the best way of improving your character's chances of surviving the night after you AP out. Check the Wiki page on Hide and Search Chances for the specifics. Also, some neighborhoods are more popular than others; Northcamp is always crowded, for example, while Marshall is usually pretty quiet. You'll get a feel for that after a while.
