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FoM - Guide

spizzspizz Member UncommonPosts: 1,971

maybe some player are not satisfied with ingame tutorial or lack of information...here i found a nice general game guide

be patient its open beta and not every game always succeeds 100% in the first days...

First off, welcome to the universe of the Global Dominion, otherwise known as Face of Mankind. This post is just to provide some basic guidance and tips for new players who are confused or unsure of exactly what to do next, I'm not trying to tell you exactly what to do but rather give a headstart so things aren't quite so frustrating and baffling as they were for me when I first jumped in several months ago.

[That brainwipe really hurts you know...

Ok, a run down on the world since you seem to have forgotten. When you enter the game after creating your character you will be zoned into your apartment, everyone gets one of these and they are completely secure unless you give out your entry details (these are found when you check your account details on the website or when you re-enter your apartment). You can purchase bigger and better apartments in other cities or colonies but be prepared to shell out a fair swag of coin for the pleasure. The point where you zone in is your private Vortex gate, this is basically a teleportation device and will transport you to its designated exit zone almost instantly. Have a wander around your apartment, depending on where you are starting they will each have their own look and feel. Tokyo is very colourfull and bright with oriental designs whereas NYC is rather more contemporary and office like.
Either way, you probably want to get out and into the world quick smart.

What am I looking at Captain?


On the screen you will see the interface is all expanded, to close it hit Esc. To open or close individual windows use these commands:
F1 = Chat window on/off
F2 = inventory on/off
F3 = Communicator on/off (email, private messages/friends)
F4 = Stats/Properties (you faction, rank and cash etc)
F5 = Missions on/off (search for missions, read faction agendas, faction chat)
F6 = Options menu

Other usefull commands:

F9 = Logout

Esc = Movement/Interface mode toggle on/off.
Left Ctrl = Hold to activate Interface mode temporarily.

The static interface is pretty simple really, at the bottom left you have your health and well being. The little envelope icon in the very corner brings up a menu for the interface windows and emotes. The red bar is your Health, green is your Stamina and yellow is your Bio energy (used to power implants). Below the health bar are 4 small blank boxes, this is where your armour status will display when you are wearing some. H = Head, T = Torso, A = Arms, L = Legs. When your health hits 0 you die and respawn in the clone facility. If you have no clones you will die permanently. Clones can be purchased from any medical terminal and insurance can be obtained to prevent clone loss also. When your stamina hits 0 you will be unable to run or jump until you recover. Jumping uses alot of stamina quickly while running depletes it at a constant rate. When your bio energy hits 0, any implants you had running will switch off and you will be unable to reactivate them until your use a biocell to recharge. When any of your armour is destroyed by taking damage, you will be injured more by each subsequent hit to that area.
The little green head to the right of the stamina and bio enegy bars is your Consciousness, this is a measure of how 'awake' you are. It can be depleted by taking damage and being shot with rubber bullets. Green is fully alert, orange/yellow is disoriented, red is on the verge of blacking out. When the icon is red your vision will be blurred and you will be unable to move. In the centre of the interface at the bottom is the compass, it shows which direction you are facing. Simple eh? On the far right is the connetion/date/time indicator. The little PC icon is your ping to the server. Next is the date and finally the current game time of day. Time in FoM is 4 x real time. so 1 hour real time = 4 hours FoM time. All the time displayed in the game is always in FoM time

Most of it is probably quite obvious of course but hey, gotta be complete :)

Now would be a good time to change your options, key binds etc if you so wish.

So how do I get an outside line?

The chat tab is pretty simple really, System is all and any system mssages including purchases, server announcements, and status messages. The next tab is 'Public' which, as the name suggests is generavicinity chat. Then you have 'Team', this is only active when you are a member of a mission. And lastly the 'Private' tab, this is like a private chat room for you and your friends in game. There is no direct '/tell' system so this is what you use. To choose the tab you want to view/talk to, simply click on it with the mouse when in interface mode, or you can use a key to change it when in movement mode. This key is bound in the options menu under controls.
The funky looking key icon next to the private tab will bring up some extra chat options. Here you can choose to send private messages to all friends, only friends slected (see below) and you can mirror other channels in the public window (sends messages to public aswell as the usual tab). Personally I don't recommend using the mirror function since public can be pretty busy as it is.
If you have friends in game or you have made some new ones, you may wish to add them to your friends list. This can be done with the Communicator window (F3). This window doubles as both a friends list and an email client. The first tab is the 'Inbox', this is, logically, where all new mail arrives. You should have a half dozen or some from Gina Woodrow, the head of the Global Dominion. Have a read through them at some point as they are quite usefull. The little orange buttons at the top are your mail functions. From left to right they are: create new message, reply, delete, view message and forward. The next tab at the top is the 'Outbox' where all sent messages are stored. The orange buttons from left to right are: view message, delete and forward.

The last tab is your friends list. This is where you add and remove friends as well as being able to send them mail. The buttons at the top from left to right are: remove friend, email friend and view friend details. To add a friend, enter their full name into the box provided and press the little orange button next to it. They will then be added to the list on the left. Clicking the view friend button when you have someone selected will display their full name, nickname and any description they have given themselves. The box next to their name on the list can be checked or unchecked by clikcing on it. This will determine whether or not that player receives your chat from the 'Private' tab.

Whats my status?

So you want to know how rich/poor you are? Press F4 to bring up the 'Properties' window and weep at your pathetic bank account :P
Here you will see your full name, nickname, tag, faction, rank, description, cash balance, budget (for faction purchasing), experience and penalty points. The 'Body' tab at the top will change the window to display your current armor and implants. To equip armor, simply drag it from your inventory to the relevant slot on the window, likewise with implants except they are listed at the bottom. Much like weapons, you can only have 3 implants on you at any time (not incliuding ones you carry in your inventory). This window is also where you can use Medkits or Biocells to restore health and bio energy. To use one, simply drag and drop the item onto the doll in the centre of the image. If successfull you should hear a sound and see the relevant stat increase at the bottom of your interface.

So where to now chief?

When you walk onto the Vortex pad in your apartment, you will automatically be transported down to street level. Depending on the faction you chose at the start, you will be in a different city. Zoning out of your apartment will show the splash screen and tell you where you are.
Once you are on the ground, the world is all yours. I would always recommend exploring your immediate surroundings and getting and idea of where you are. But for those more adventurous types, keep an eye open for signs and markers, these will point you towards amenities of facilities that can be used. If you look around you will probably see a sign close by saying 'Vortex Gates', head in that direction and when you find them you can use the terminals to buy a ticket to anywhere in the Dominion.
For new players I would suggest checking out Brooklyn, NYC as it is currently the central market place for buying and selling goods. *Note, the rest of this guide assumes you are in the Brooklyn Shopping Center.*

Your starting cash should be enough to get you some basic gear or maybe dabble in some mining for yourself. I am not going to outline how production and mining works in this post, its far too vast a subject to cover here. There is however info on how to mine and produce in the mails you get at the beginning. If you head to Brookyln, select the 'Shopping Center' node from the Vortex menu and purchase the ticket. Once you have the ticket, simply walk onto the pad to be transported to Brooklyn. Once you arrive you will be outside on a small balcony type area. Ahead of you will be the entrance to the Mall and the local Vortex nodes. Enter the Vortex room and turn left to find yourself on the top floor of the mall. 3rd floor (where you are now) is the Vortex floor, 2nd floor is market terminals and a restaraunt, 1st floor is storage, production and medical. First, take a quick look around then head to the 2nd floor and the market terminals, they are pretty easy to spot. Use the terminal to bring up the market overview, at the top you right you will see a filter which is most likely reading 'Items'. Have a look through the various filters and products available then set the filter to 'Items' and press the 'Refresh' button at the bottom left. Now you can start shopping for a weapon and ammo.
A few weapons and their corresponding ammo include:

Zanathid 5 Inflex - 9mm Pistol
Techtronic 6x6 - 6mm SMG
Ryx 7 Streamline - Light Energy Pistol
RGI9 - 7.62mm Assault Rifle

This is not a complete list and there are many other weapons available. The market list will show you the items name, its Quality Level (QL, from 1-3, 3 being the best), the minimum and maximum price and finally the numer of that unit available.
To buy an item, select it from the market list and you will see the bottom half of the window now shows the name of the seller, their faction, the price and the number of that unit they are selling. Often there are multiple sellers ranging in price so make sure you choose the best deal. Once you hve made your selection, choose the number of that item you wish to purchase in the 'Transaction' box at the very bottom. use the arrow buttons to increase or decrease as you please. When you are satisfied, simply press the 'Buy' button to make the purchase. *Note, the budget buy function will not work at this time* I would suggest buying one weapon for now and 4/5 clips of ammo for it.
Now, before you check your inventory (F2), its important to know that the item you just bought will not be there. Rather, it is transferred from the sellers storage to yours. To collect the item, go to the ground floor of the comlpex and directly opposite the ramps you come down you will see a room with some large canisters inside. These canisters are 'Storage' terminals and have a revolving red lightning bolt icon above them. Use the terminal to bring up the storage interface and you will see a list of all items currently in storage on this colony.
Each colony has its own storage facility seperate from any other colony, so although you might fill up NYC with items you will always have room to store items. Now, to collect your new weapon and ammo, select one of the items from the list. This list shows the name, QL and quantity of that item in your storage. Once you have selected your choice, the middle portion of the screen, 'Access' can be used to choose how many items you want to collect and then by pressing the 'Request' button you will have them transferred to your inventory.
If you open your inventory now, you will see the items present. The weapon takes one of the 3 slots on the left and the ammo will be in the main window. The little grey bin at the bottom right will delete any item you drag into it. *Note, that you can only ever carry 3 weapons at the same time* So now you have a weapon, know how to use the markets to buy and how to retrieve items from your storage. Not bad for a few minutes work eh? :)

I think I am beyond such small minded lessons...

Ok, so you got over that hurdle without any injuries, I'll explain how the sell function can be used on the markets and how the transfer/transport functions work on the storage terminals. First up, selling. now at this point you probably won't have anything to sell and I'm not going to go into production so just take it as a heads up.
When you open the market terminal, at the top right there is the 'Administration' button, this is where you conduct all sales business. *Note, in order to sell an item it must be in your storage, not your inventory* When you hit this button you will see the top half displaying 'Current Offers' and the bottom half displaying 'Units in storage'. To sell an item, select it from your storage at the bottom and choose the number you wish to sell in the 'Make Offer' section at the very bottom. Once you have the number set, you can enter the price you want to sell them for per unit. Once you are happy with your settings, simply hit the 'Make Offer' button to place a market listing. You will now see the listing appear at the top half of the window in the 'Current Offers' section. If you wish to cancel you sale, select the listing and hit the 'Delete Offer' button at the bottom of the window. Easy peasy.
The transfer and transport functions at the storage terminals are rather useful. Transfer allows you to give items to another playersecurely by moving them directly into their storage. Transporting items will move them from one colony to another. To transfer an item, select it in the storage list and drag it into the 'Transfer' box at the bottom left. Releasing the mouse button will bring up a window to select the number you wish to transfer (if there is more than 1). Choose the amount and hit Ok to proceed. Next you need to enter the full name of the player you want to transfer to. *Note, the full name is different to the name you see when placing the crosshair over a player, you will need them to tell you this* Once you have all details entered, hit 'Transfer units' and they will be moved accordingly. its instant, its free and its secure.
To transport items to another colony, use the same method to select the items and number you wish to move and hit the 'Star transport' button to bring up a galaxy map of all colonies. Mouse over a colony icon to see the cost and click to select it. Once you are happy simply hit 'Start transportation' to send the items. Transportation is not instant and you will get a system message saying how long it will take. The more you send, the longer it takes but note that the price remains static. So to send many items quickly, you will need to pay more for smaller shipments.

Ow man, you shot me!

Its more or less inevitable that you will be involved in combat at some point. Its also a given that everyone and their mother is going to carry one or more guns. As a result you can expect to get hurt or even killed. Every player starts off with 3 basic clones. Clones are important as they are all that keeps you alive from one death to the next. Be warned though, if you run out of clones your character will suffer permadeath. To avoid this, you can do 2 things, 1) buy lots of clones, expensive and wastefull, or 2) buy a single good clone and get clone insurance, nice and easy. *Note, there is a 24hour waiting period between deleting a character and creating a new one, This applies to permadeath too*

To check your clones you will need to visit a Medical terminal. If you are still at the storage area, go out the door and turn right towards the corridor, this will lead to a small medical station. Use the terminal to bring up the interface. Here you will see a number of options, at the top there are the healing services, one is fast and costly, the other is slow and cheap, the descriptions will tell you which. Under these there is the stamina recharge function, this will recharge your stamina to 100 for a fee. At the very bottom you will see the clone listings, the left clone icon will have a '3' on it indicating yo have 3 of that clone active. The other 2 clones to the right are higher quality but more expensive versions. Better clones will mean you start with more health upon respawn. Ther e will also be an icon showing which clone is currently active, this is the clone you will spawn as when you next die. The last icon is clone insurance, this costs a fair bit per game month but it means that when you die and respawn, no clones will be lost for the proceedure. Very usefull indeed and it saves the need to buy new clones each time. I highly recommend you get insurance. When you die, you will drop all items you were carrying except weapons, this includes armor and implants. They will be dropped in the form of a backpack which other players can loot freely. I suggest you only ever carry what ammo you need and try to keep most of your items in storage for security.
Combat itself is simple, you draw a weapon with the 1/2/3 buttons on the keyboard and press fire once to put the weapon into fire mode, and press fire again to actually fire. Moving will decrease your accuracy as will turning rapidly. Your weapon will automatically lower after a few seconds of inactivity.
However, since you have only just got the weapon you will first need to reload it. Once this is done you are ready to go. In order to check the ammo count in a weapon, right click on it in your inventory. If you reload a weapon with ammo still in the clip, this clip will get transfered back to the inventory and replaced by a full clip. Therefore it’s always a good idea to delpete a full clip before reloading or you will have lots of half full clips.

The art of shooting targets depends on several things, first, your skill as a player, second, your ping and third, the type of weapon you are using. Obviously, some weapons are better than others but they all do damage. Your connection will impact combat, but because of the way DPS have made the game, this effect is much lower than what you might find in normal FPS games. As for skill, well thats up to you of course :)
There are several things that will assist you in combat, implants, armor, biocells, medpacks and even drugs. Armor will reduce the damage your health takes when hit and implants can also help to mitigate damage. Shield implants will stop any projectile rounds but are vulnerable to energy weapons. Stamina implants will boost your stamina and make it harder for you to be incapaitated, resistance amps will give a temporary boost to your health allowing you to take more damage. Medpacks heal you, biocells replenish the bio-energy used for implants and drugs... well, you’ll have to figure that one out for yourselves ;)
These items are often expensive to purchase due to the complexity of their construction so save those pennies!

A note on combat though, please do not randomly attack or kill other players. It is extremely annoying and disruptive. Every player kill will gain you Penalty Points (PP) and add you to the criminal database. This will then lead to the LED tracking you down and putting you in jail. Yes, jail exists and the number of PP you have will dictate how long you stay in jail. Jail time is game time, not real time so in order to do the sentence you have to be logged in. You could try to escape but then you will be an even greater target. Anyone on the most wanted list will be a valid target for any player to kill without penalty.
If you are killed by another player without cause and you know their name, visit a LED crime board (there is one near the entrance to the vortex room on level 3 as you zoned in) and drop the little murder chip you recieved (at the moment you might have to relog in order to get this chip) in the slot and click the button to report it.

Whats next on the menu?

Now that you have a weapon and know a few of the basics its probably time to decide what to do. You can explore other colonies, chat to other players or, if you are wanting to earn some coin and experience, join a faction mission! Pressing F5 will bring up the mission window, this is where you can access all active and inactive missions, view faction agendas and campaigns, use the faction chat function and, if you hold sufficient rank, create new missions. The first tab you will see is the 'Mission overview', this displays info on the mission you are currnelt involved with. For now it will be blank though. The next tab is the 'Mission search' tab and will allow you to set criteria for a search to find active missions you can join. The 'Agendas and Campaings' tab displays the current agenda or objective for your faction. Often there are more than one running and they may have differing levels of priority. Only the faction leader can alter these. Clicking on an agenda will display any campaigns currnetly under it along with brief details about them. Just below the main tabs at the top you will see tabs for both campaign and agenda details. This will show you the full story for the current campaign/agenda. The Campaing details tab is where you can create new missions, to do this you must be rank 4 or higher though so we will skip it. The 'Allies & Enemies' tab will display all factions and their current standing with your own, a good way to find out who you should and shouldn't be talking to :)
The last tab, 'Faction lobby', is the faction chat, this is a global channel that allows all members of the faction to talk with one another. Be sure to use this chat as it’s a valuable tool.

So, to join a mission, run a search to find an active mission currently accepting members, this is essentially how grouping works in FoM. Selecting a mission will show its details and allow you to join it if you wish. There will be start and end times listed aswell as a meeting point. This is where all members of the mission must meet in order for the mission to start. At the botom of the screen you will see a list of other players joining the mission aswell.

<<More to come in this section>>


From there though, its up to you where you go and what you do, just a few extra tips to help you on your way though:

DO:

Use IRC to communicate with your fellow faction members and other players, check here for details on the server and channels.
Ask questions if you are unsure of something, the closed beta team and GMs are experienced and happy to assist you.
Explore the worlds, visit new colonies and marvel at the fantastic universe that DPS have created.
Listen to GMs or Devs if they ask something of you in-game or IRC.
Check the FoM forums for information and assistance.
Report bugs should you find them, this is a Beta test afterall. You can do so here.

DON'TS:

Spam the chat channels or IRC, it annoys people and you won't get help any faster.
Abuse or harrass other players (this is common sense really).
Beg for money or items, this is annoying and pathetic not to mention totally unnecessary.
Should you obtain a weapon, don't go around randomly shooting/killing other players. It will bite you in the ass and you will regret it (jail anyone?). Missions are a different story, but random killings are just like in real life, illegal.


And lastly, be aware of you role as a beta tester, this is not a free trial, it is not a free game. Please remember that some features may not be implemented yet, and others may not work quite as intended. DPS have done a fantastic job on the game so far and there isn't alot that doesn't do what its mean to do but strange things happen in software development.

Have fun and see you in the Dominion!

Comments

  • Fr0z3nSiNxFr0z3nSiNx Member Posts: 35

    Great guide! You solved some of my problems :D

  • OrccOrcc Member Posts: 3,043

    Thanks, this will help me at least a few times im sure. ::::20::

    image
  • crazystevecrazysteve Member Posts: 57

    THank you thank you thank you thank you thank you. You have helped me so much. Now i dont have to wander around aimlessly. My only trouble is getting my hands on 9mm bullets they are like gold right now. I havent even seen any fore sale. in the Brooklyn place.

  • DJRedLineDJRedLine Member Posts: 3
    Thankyou, excellent guide
  • Ra'veRa've Member Posts: 203

    This needs to be Stickied on these boards.... This will help me so much ::::32::

  • necbonenecbone Member Posts: 358
    wish i woulda read this before playing....i learned all that in 4hrs of confusion..
  • OrccOrcc Member Posts: 3,043

    *bump*

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  • BaFooNBaFooN Member Posts: 239

    truly a big help, thanks for taking the time to help all of us newbs.

  • apfelsaftapfelsaft Member Posts: 1

    image This guide should be the introducing text when you start the game for the first time.

    imageimageimage

  • FizblixFizblix Member UncommonPosts: 130

    Or if you can cut and paste in game(havent tried) you might be able to email it to new players asking for help.

     

    Could email the dev's and have them auto email this guide to new players in game... would really make the game look alot better to new commers, cut down on the people asking the same question over and over in the faction channels.


    Mostly Harmless Guild   ♦  Youtube  ♦  Sponsored by Mr. Beer
  • AndraaxxAndraaxx Member UncommonPosts: 30

    Thanks for the guide, I really needed it. :)

  • AdevaAdeva Member Posts: 5

    COOOL!!! you did a great job ::::28::

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