Verbose Ass's Billion Questions

[Reviresco]

Hello,

I guess I would have to say that I came from Salem. I tried this game for a few hours years ago, but was already playing Salem hardcore back then and didn't have the free time to do both. I finally quit Salem months ago, for many reasons, and am looking for a new game.

If you have some time, I have several ultra-newbie (not even playing the game yet) questions:

1. Hermit Viability
A. In Salem, I was one of the "mega hermits." When I played (2015 and on), if you had a max-depth mine, giant hoards of treasure, high quality fields/pots, giant production facilities, etc., you could still be practically unraidable even as a hermit if you were active, had large resource stockpiles, raised a few skilled burner characters, and knew the pvp mechanics. Is that true in Haven, or is a "mega hermit" basically just a loot piñata for pvp groups once located? I'm very averse to living with others.

B. How much area can a single very active player maintain upkeep on? If I'm understanding how Presence and Authority work from the Wiki, it seems like it could be very limiting,

2. Mines and Caves
My favorite thing to do in Salem and EVE was mining. I brute-forced my way to maximum depth in Salem in a couple of weeks. I understand that mining as a newbie hermit in Haven can be very rough, but I'd still want to have a go at it.

A. I'm very confused about the nature of Mines vs Caves, and how ownership is exerted over them. Is a Mine a Cave in every respect but the entrance type? Or does a Cave contain things that a Mine does not, and vice versa?

B. I read that a village claim can extend downward over cave/mine levels, but not upward, is this true?

C. Do Trolls despawn after a while if the area isn't loaded? The Wiki said that bats do, but then I saw threads by people looking for others to kill trolls in their mines, so I was left unsure.

3. Character Building and Account Distribution
A. Salem was a "game of alts." How many characters should ylou seek to make if you do care about specialization? So far it seems that I should make a Miner/Smith, Mayor/Something, and expendable Foragers, then look toward making a Cook and some combat characters.

B. How many accounts should you have? In Salem I had four accounts: a main account for specialized profession characters, a raider/fighter/scout account, a tile loader account (mainly for fruit trees), and a storage alt account. From what I've read, storage alts aren't a thing in this game, but is it beneficial to have several accounts? I understand that subscriptions are account-bound, but maybe it's still worth it to have several characters running at once, even if it's extra money to accelerate their growth.

C. Is there a rough attribute template for making different kinds of characters? For example, in Salem--if any of you are familiar with its Humors system--you might say that a Basher should have 300 of all stats, and then have Phlegm and Black Bile advanced by x and 1.25x, respectively; or, a fighter should have 500 of all stats, and then raise Phlegm, Blood, Yellow Bile, and Black Bile by .75x, x, .9x, .75x, respectively.

Conclusion
Thanks for reading. I would appreciate answers to any of my questions. I probably won't be playing even within the next month or even two because of work and computer issues, but I'm a meticulous planner and thought I could go ahead and get started on that, assuming that being a hermit is somewhat viable. I raided in Salem, killed and was killed, mapped about 40% of the Providence world map and 90% of the last expedition world map; I think I'm probably a good bit less creampuffy than the average person who joins, but if I can't play as a somewhat hardcore hermit, I'll probably conclude the game just isn't a good match for me and keep looking.

[qoonpooka]

Hello,

Welcome!

1. Hermit Viability
A. In Salem, I was one of the "mega hermits." When I played (2015 and on), if you had a max-depth mine, giant hoards of treasure, high quality fields/pots, giant production facilities, etc., you could still be practically unraidable even as a hermit if you were active, had large resource stockpiles, raised a few skilled burner characters, and knew the pvp mechanics. Is that true in Haven, or is a "mega hermit" basically just a loot piñata for pvp groups once located? I'm very averse to living with others.

There are a lot of hermits in this game, always have been. They're never going to be bleeding-edge PvP champs, specialization is simply too valuable - but the Hermit Lyfe is rewarding if you're into that sort of thing. I do it myself right now. I've heard that defense is ascendant right now - but frankly I've never had occasion to find out. The only time my walls failed me is when I stopped playing for eight months and I don't know if they decayed or got knocked in. I've never been bothered while playing this game except in the first month or two after a world start. Obviously YMMV.

B. How much area can a single very active player maintain upkeep on? If I'm understanding how Presence and Authority work from the Wiki, it seems like it could be very limiting,

Right now I run two modest personal claims and a village around a special resource. It is trivially easy to do so.

2. Mines and Caves
My favorite thing to do in Salem and EVE was mining. I brute-forced my way to maximum depth in Salem in a couple of weeks. I understand that mining as a newbie hermit in Haven can be very rough, but I'd still want to have a go at it.

Greetings fellow EVE-mining enthusiast! You can begin mining very early on if that's what you want to do. Find a cave, fell a tree or two and bring them in with you, nip at the walls where it's safe to do so to get you that precious first bar of metal then you can build a mine support and get to work.

In the past the major choke was the injuries you could sustain if you screwed up - but Opium works on concussions and blunt trauma now, which was the major pain in the ass back when. Stone axe is a fine tool for the job - if you're going truly solo you'll want to make sure you're doing farming first simply for the opium, better trees and thus better mining equipment. You'll be using that stone axe for a LONG time because it's quality will generally always surpass your metal tools until your pottery and farming are fairly advanced (and thus you get better fuel for metals than you can find rocks and sticks).

A. I'm very confused about the nature of Mines vs Caves, and how ownership is exerted over them. Is a Mine a Cave in every respect but the entrance type? Or does a Cave contain things that a Mine does not, and vice versa?

Basically yes. Both mines and caves access the same underground space. The main difference is that Caves will always lead to natural corridors that can be explored, and mine holes will drop you down even if it's into solid rock - they'll clear out a small landing but from there you're tunneling it all. Mineholes can be more secure because they aren't - by default - connected to natural caves, necessarily. But basically they're the same thing, a Mine Hole is just an artificial entrance to that level.

B. I read that a village claim can extend downward over cave/mine levels, but not upward, is this true?

This is what I have read as well. I haven't tried it yet. The caves around my village have good mining potential and already have infrastructure so I'm working them for now.

C. Do Trolls despawn after a while if the area isn't loaded? The Wiki said that bats do, but then I saw threads by people looking for others to kill trolls in their mines, so I was left unsure.

Near as I can tell, they remain permanently. Fortunately there's a credo that makes them not attack you - though you'll be working on that for a while - and also there's a pretty rapid response to requests for troll slaying services.

3. Character Building and Account Distribution
A. Salem was a "game of alts." How many characters should ylou seek to make if you do care about specialization? So far it seems that I should make a Miner/Smith, Mayor/Something, and expendable Foragers, then look toward making a Cook and some combat characters.

I do everything on my main. This limits the quality of things I can make, of course, but it's easier than tracking alts, for me. If you're used to alting for EVE and Salem, however, then yeah you can roll alts with impunity here. Keeping them fed on curios becomes your major workflow, food being the second.

B. How many accounts should you have? In Salem I had four accounts: a main account for specialized profession characters, a raider/fighter/scout account, a tile loader account (mainly for fruit trees), and a storage alt account. From what I've read, storage alts aren't a thing in this game, but is it beneficial to have several accounts? I understand that subscriptions are account-bound, but maybe it's still worth it to have several characters running at once, even if it's extra money to accelerate their growth.

You can feed curios to characters on the same account. This doesn't have EVE's 'only one character can train at a time' thing. If you're going to run a village, however, you'll want at least a second account because you can't have more than one character from a given account logged in at the same time. Which means you can't invite chars to your village without a second account to log in to deliver the invite.

C. Is there a rough attribute template for making different kinds of characters? For example, in Salem--if any of you are familiar with its Humors system--you might say that a Basher should have 300 of all stats, and then have Phlegm and Black Bile advanced by x and 1.25x, respectively; or, a fighter should have 500 of all stats, and then raise Phlegm, Blood, Yellow Bile, and Black Bile by .75x, x, .9x, .75x, respectively.

There's rough guidelines, but they'll stand out: Crafters tend to favor Dex, Psy, and INT. Fighters want AGI, STR, CON. Anyone you're gonna take questing wants CHA, all the CHA, never enough CHA.

Look up what you're going to have them do, and what the softcaps tend to be, and you'll have a solid idea of what to feed them and what to train.

Conclusion
Thanks for reading. I would appreciate answers to any of my questions. I probably won't be playing even within the next month or even two because of work and computer issues, but I'm a meticulous planner and thought I could go ahead and get started on that, assuming that being a hermit is somewhat viable. I raided in Salem, killed and was killed, mapped about 40% of the Providence world map and 90% of the last expedition world map; I think I'm probably a good bit less creampuffy than the average person who joins, but if I can't play as a somewhat hardcore hermit, I'll probably conclude the game just isn't a good match for me and keep looking.

If you're a planner, you'll be fine.

[Reviresco]

Hey, thanks a lot! I really appreciate the info. It sounds like I'll be playing this game in the future. I just wanted to be sure I wouldn't be totally hamstrung by my preferred playstyle.

[MagicManICT]

Success as a hermit is more about how industrious you are in developing characters and quality. A single player can do it given enough time in the day. Last time I threw myself into the game that hard, I was keeping close enough with the major village traders that it made little difference. My limiting factors were some of the things that I couldn't access locally, such as high quality water and soil. (I made a choice not to settle on such locations, and was before we had the compost bins.)

As far as the size... again, it depends on how industrious you are. Personal claims are ridiculously easy to maintain. If it's costing too many LP to just fill authority every week or two, just drop the bond in your study for one or two nights, and that should keep all but the extremely large claims filled. For village claims, I'm assuming you'll have a few specialized characters. Keep them going with study tables and decent, easy to produce curios, and authority will stay filled up to a reasonable size. (A solo character should be able to keep up to a 1M authority claim filled with development.)

For mining, the big thing to note is you do need a fighter character, or one on stand-by, to deal with the slimes. They're a bigger worry than trolls are. They're not hard if prepared, but will screw you up if not outright kill your miner if not prepared. No, trolls do not despawn, which is why people can easily sell their locations. I don't frequent the discord channel much, but the trade forum here is pretty active with troll locations, and can only imagine that as many get bartered there, too.