Smithing Anniversary Help

Isoptera

Hi I've been a member of this game for less than 1 year now, and this is my 1st anniversary event. I was very excited to hear that Smith returned because he was my reason for signing up in the first place only to find out that the anniversary had ended. However now that I'm in and have seen Smith I am unable to fight him. Shame is I'm asking questions like a newbie even after I've been playing for so long and am only at level 21; mostly because I got a full time job in the real world and just don't have the time. I have 2 Anniversary questions and 1 General one, DETAILED answers would be most appreciated:-

I have made contact with a Smith Virologist, got a ticket and managed to see the Oracle and got the muffin, after which I got the cookie from the Oracle. However despite doing all this I have yet to fight Smith, only look on enviously as other's fought him. Old fashioned right-clicking doesn't help because the only option is "details". And these pointless missions for the virologist just seem to be a bakery list and nothing more. I tried asking in-game but everyone seemed too busy or gave very non-descript answers. In details, please explain how does one actually initiate a fight with Smithings to get the frags?
I have seen some other players get the ability to become infected by the Smith Virus, explain in details how does one achieve this?
Finally what tips can be given for getting XP the fastest to advance levels in this game? I know help sites suggest missioning as the key. (But if that's the easy way I'd sure hate to see the hardest way.)

Answers will be most appreciated, Thank you.

Zudrag · 03/20/2008 22:57:47

1. Get the mission ticket you got from the Smith Virologist, activate it, and wait around 30 seconds. Smithlings will appear and start to attack you. After you kill the Smithlings, feel free to either cancel the mission again if you don't need anymore Brownies so you can just re-activate it again and get more Smithlings to spawn on you.

2. For the Smith Virus ability itself, it all starts from a luggable called the "Smith Virus Virion" luggable. In case you haven't heard of what they are, they're objects ingame with a green ring(Or sections of rings which is their new animation) that orbit them. If you load up the "detect luggables" ability in the Data Miner tree and use a "Handheld Data Node Locator", it will add a waypoint of the nearest luggable on your HUD. This may not be the Virion luggable however, and could be the LED Black Box, N30 Frag, or Bomb pet, which give different buffs. If you see a player that has been afflicted with the Smith Virus, you can ask them to infect you as well. If they do, in your actions panel (Press O by default to open your actions panel) In your awakened tab you'll have a new ability called something along the lines of "Smith Virus Infection" that you can use to infect NPCs or other players that are hostile to you. Do keep in mind however, that while you are afflicted with the Smith Virus, players of other organizations can attack you, and if you die, you lose the Smith Virus effect on your RSI.

3. Missioning is one of the fastest ways up until you hit about level 40-45, then go data mining in downtown in the general Creston Heights area for Data taps. For missioning if you want to do them nice and quick, get Disguise, Pick locks, Hacker, Download mission map, and other spy abilities such as sneak attacks and knife throw abilities to help you get through them easier. It's seems slow, it's tedious, but it's so much better after it's all done and over with.

There's also an alternate way you can level if you have helpful level 50s as friends. They can fill their inventories, go into the construct known as "01" and farm you Zero One Solider parts which because the loot is on random, will go into your inventory. You then goto Creston heights near the Construction Yard I believe, and look on your map for a collector named "Binary Boy". You can turn in parts to him for a nice lump of XP and $info.

I remember around my 20s I got really discouraged from leveling. Once you hit about level 30 the missioning gets SO much easier, just hang in there if you want to hit 50. I'd recommend doing your missions in International, it seems like there's a shorter distance from point A to point B, as well as less bothersome NPCs. If you haven't gotten the Access keys for the nodes there, you can look here for the locations of both the keys and the Access Nodes.

Any other questions?

Isoptera

Thank you so much Zudrag!!

I'm gonna log in right now and try out your advice, If I bump into anymore poblems I'll post them on this topic. Many Thanks again.