Leveling tips for inpatient people. (spoiler)

[Kosmo]

Need fast gold ? Just want to get to 38 and quit ?
Shamed of asking others ?

Then this maybe for you.

First of all forget about trading it will only slow you down.

Now with that settled head out to space with your trusty FL Datastorm (use the Google Luke, use the Google).

For levels 1-10 just find wrecks and sell the loot. With one risky wreck looting trip you will get around 60k and you dont even have to shoot anything.

For levels 10-38 find the hardest assassin missions you can. No matter if its 20 levels above you because you can allways kill atleast one ship and dodge around untill that one ship arrives. When you have completed the missions suicide on the remaining enemy ships to save you the flight back to base. Rince and repeat.
(Outcast and Corsair homeworlds have loads and loads of these missions each worth 100-200k)

I spend my time finding out about the universe but this would be the way Id do things if I had to start all over again. It was a bit let down for me to notice that even the best trade cant compete with the mission-abuse.

[*Tsunami*]

Additional...

If you are going to do assassin missions take wasp cruise distruptors with you. When your target turns up, shoot him, if he tries to leave (eg. run to another waypoint), hit him with a wasp cruise distruptor torp. All his mates will fly off, and he will fly in a lovely straight line and not bother returning fire. Easy pickings.

Whilst were onto spoilers, if your in a battle and you need to take a break, fly approx. 2.7k away from the current mission waypoint. Usually the nme will only fly to about 2k away from the waypoint, thus you can sit there without being hit, recovering shields and go get yourself a cuppa tea. (and still be near enough not to get the warning about leaving a mission).

[Wiggles]

Originally posted by Kosmo
First of all forget about trading it will only slow you down.

OMG trading can get you to level 38 ultra fast.

I manage to go from 1 to 38 in just 3 hours 30 minutes.

The easiest way to do this is to kill some cops as soon as you leave manahtten then once you are neutral with lane hackers you are able to buy cardamine at montezuma base in cortez, take to manhatten, then buy light arms at detroit munitions and take em back. You can also buy a dromedary near by to get insane amounts of money very fast.

[10acious]

small problem with ur guide in that all the wrecks have been looted already

[Kosmo]

Originally posted by 10acious
small problem with ur guide in that all the wrecks have been looted already

They regen.

And about trading. 200k assassin missions take 2-5mins.

[Jon Wade]

I guess it all depends on why you are playing the game to start with. I play because i enjoy flying around blowing up ships. I have a policy of selling everything I pick up immediately, even if it is worth ten times more in the next system. Trading seems too dull for me, must be like spending the whole day shopping. And letting yourself be blown to bits just to save a flight home is really not in the spirit of the game is it. Remember Trent, its not about the money, its about fun. 38 is just a number. Means nothing if you can't win a good fight. Nothing wrong with tactical retreats though. Best way is to fly away, cut the engines, turn around and shoot at anyone who follows while reaching a safe distance to recharge, before going back for the kill.

[Ace_Rimmer]

level 1 to 38 and VHF in under a day:

Start you new character, if the storage depots are up then blew them up and let cops kill you or fly into planet, if you survive a few kills and manage to beam loot aboard you can also quit out and come back and go sell the loot. Failing that which is most likely as they're usually empty, fly to planet pitsburg and dock. go out and kill cops or dse ships. Let them kill you and respawn repeat, once your liberty rogues rep turns white, kill a few more(this is needed for some reason the rogues still attack you if you just make neutral and no more) never attack the rogues that show up here.

Ok, your rep is fixed so that you can travel realitively safely on a lucrative trade route and be able to purchase the dromedary later that holds 275 cargo. sell your weapons and nano/shield bots. buy boron and head to new shiefield station in the manchester system. Sell boron and buy polymers then fly to planet LA and sell there, buy a rhino and buy up boron, goto sheifield and back a few times about 2 trips should do it.

when you are in shefield pick up H-fuel and then head to magellan system and dock at the mactan base. sell up and buy a dromedary ship and heavy thruster. weapons if you like but they're not needed.

buy gold with what you have left and head for LA and sell/buy boron, back to shefield, sell and buy light arms. Now head to New london and dock at planet new london and sell arms, buy luxury food. head back to LA, don't stop to look around, your food is waisting away. repeat the LA-shefield-new london and back until your happy with your wealth :)

The above trade route isn't the best, there are much better but its one of the safest, it avoids manhattan which is where most pk attempts take place, nothing worse than losing a full load of valuable goods trying to dock at manhattan and a titan blasts you for fun.

You want more? want that titan or eagle in just a few hours? but know your gonna get squashed trying to get to the bases that sell them. read on.

Once you have about 3 mil. goto hamburg and buy a falcon and the best weapons you can, forget about a turret, it won't be usefull. best sheilds also. fill up on bots and head to new london again. Now goto the new london/dublin jump gate and just go back and forward between the two and kill mollys if they're around when you appear on the other side. never shoot corsairs even if they're attacking you, this also applies on your trade routes, in fact when trading never shoot anything, your waist valuable time:) After a while you'l be neutral with corsairs, a few more kills is needed again, you can tell when your done when corsairs are not attacking when you jump through the gate.

now its time for your new ship, head to cambridge/omega 5 then omega 41 and land on leon base, you should not be attacked on the way if you fly directly, this may involve looking up maps if you don't know the route. once there, there are a few things to do. Buy Titan, bribe corsairs and bribe zoners. the bribes are needed IMO because the corsair bribe will get your better weapons and the zoner bribe will keep them friendly when your fixing the reps you lost on bribing the corsairs. if your not worried about your rep then no need to bribe the zoners at all. if you are worried about your rep because now you will get attacked in a lot of zones even if they're friendly as if you meet one of your enemies in a trade lane then the lanes become kos and anyone that uses them attacks you:) to fix that goto colorado and park outside the xenon base in your new ship and blast away for an hour or so, you'l end up with only a few factions wanting to kill you and only one of those will be of any significant threat to you, the hessians. if you prefer an eagle then don't stop at leon base and fly on to freeport 9 in the omega theta system and purchase it there, then back to buy your weapons in leon.

Thats probably the quickest way to get from level 1 to 38 with a VHF, you don't need 3 mil but that will leave you with about 1.5 mil when your done and level 38ish.

Really only works for a character that has unchanged rep from starting, it can be quicker to start a new character than start trying to fix reps.