Well, first of all - the game is actually easier at the lower levels. Especially at the very low levels. If you're finding that things are getting more difficult, they probably are.
Second...well, most players don't actually try to buy Training Origin enhancements. Everyone I know just slots whatever drops they get until level 12 - at which point they spend on level 15 Dual Origin enhancements, or craft level 15 Invention Origin enhancements.
Training enhancements give you very little benefit, and if you're levelling at reasonable speed, you should outgrow them very quickly anyway.
Okay. So. Influence flow.
You're correct - simply by KILLING things you may not get enough funds at the lower levels. However...
First of all, you should sell stuff you don't need on the market. Currently the prices for invention salvage are quite high. You can make a lot of money that way. Just make sure what you're selling is actually in demand - not everything is. But quite a lot is.
Second...
While many people use the Architect Entertainment (AE, MA) for farming and powerlevelling, it can be quite good for someone just running regular missions and stories. The reason is that instead of normal drops you get tickets.
And you can cash tickets in for enhancements. The rate of ticket gain to ticket expenditure, if you're spending it on regular enhancements...is quite good; you can outfit a character quite 'cheaply' that way.
I prefer the market method to the ticket method, but both work for me when I play lower-level characters.
@Acyl
VIRTUE
Blue: Realpolitik, Leading Lady, Glass Lass, Superball, Alec Kazam
Red: Battery Acid, Obsolete, Bugfix
The quick answer is - sell the salvage. It has a very good cance of raising the Influence you will need to keep yourself in enhamcements.
It sounds like you are playing a hero, so I will offer this guidance for them.
In AP, close to the plaza with the statue, is Wentworth's Consignment House (marked on your map BTW and also present in Kings Row & Talos Island). Open the interface there and you can see what people have been bidding on various items. You can post your salvage for sale there. It takes a 5% fee for doing so - don't be too greedy and set your prices toohigh or the item will sit there and you willl be out your listing fees.
If you are lucky, some of what you have to sell will be some of the prized salvage other people want buy, like Luck Charms, for example.
Some people are going to come into this thread and tell to just forget about Training Origin enhancments - and to some extent they are correct - TOs offer a relatively small percentage of assistance. but they can be a good system to learn on for now and then expand into the new Inventions Origins enhancements system.
One thing you are noticing in the lower levels is that they buffed starting out Accuracy. If you are reaching level 10, you are noticing that you miss more often because the low-level buff is going away. Missing more often means you have to swing more often, taking up your Endurance as well.
What server areyou on? I can prbably spot you a bit of Influence to get you started, or if it is a server where I don't have any alts - someone else will probably offer some there.
Welcome back! Don't be afraid to come here for questions.
A good basic resource is the Wiki, hosted on the CoHTitan Netwrk (full of other resources as well;
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Main_Page
Altoholic - but a Blaster at Heart!
Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon
"You gave us a world where we could fly. I can't thank you enough for that."
And there's no 'OP' class to level to fund others, this game doesn't work that way. A character should be able to easily raise enough inf to buy store enhancements, especially if you sell off Salvage and recipes.
I'm going to have to disagree with _Acyl_ about the usefulness of Training Origin enhancements at low levels. Time was that people did ignore them or slot nothing but Accuracies until lv12 and access to DOs. However with issue 11 we gained "Beginner's Luck", which is a large ToHit buff that slowly degrades from lv1 to lv20. That buff makes the smaller-percentage Acc TOs able to push you to the 95% Hit Chance hard-cap. And while a 10% TO is very small compared to a 33% SO, they can still have a noticeable effect on a low level character.
To see how well (or not) you are hitting things: open up your Powers tab on your power tray and then click Combat Attributes at the top of the new window. Click open BASE in the pop-up and then right-click on "Last Hit Chance". Select "Monitor Last Hit Chance" in the dropdown menu. That will put a tiny window on your UI that shows the total percent probability you had of striking the last thing you swung at. This number is bounded at 5% and 95%. It's entirely reasonable for you to be at the 95% Hit Chance cap all time (barring some enemy with high Defense or some strong Debuff). If you are consistently below that number in your missions, slot more Accuracy. (Note that this window can also be used to tell when you've bitten off more than you can chew and you should run from the purple-con boss that you are suddenly swinging at 30% against 
.) 1-2 Acc depending on what you regularly fight should be plenty; whether they be TOs, DOs, or SOs because of that "Beginner's Luck" scaling ToHit buff.
You're not going to have very many slots at low level, but once Accuracy is taken care of you can slot other things. Damage and Endurance Reduction will give you your most noticeable returns very early. Again, it won't be very much but it is something.
So how do you fund yourself? Sell your drops, especially Invention Salvage. You mentioned that some TOs run 1,000 apiece; you can sell some Uncommon Invention Salvage these days at 100,000 a pop.
However you've got limited auction slots, especially at low levels, so you're going to have to choose your battles. Look on the Market to see what your drops are selling at. Sell your more valuable drops and price them below the current-running price. The market matches the highest bid with the lowest asking price. If something is selling at 50,000 and you price yours at 41,000 or 31,000, it's more likely that you will get the sale. Having something sell and get you the cash *now* is more important than getting every penny you could for a single piece and waiting 2-3 days for it to move.
TO enhancements are unlikely to sell in a timely manner at the market, just sell those at NPC stores. If you go to the Store that would normally sell the item you have (TO stores for TOs, Magic store for a Natural/Magic DO, etc) they will give you the best price. All NPC Stores and Contacts will also buy Recipes and Salvage for the same fixed prices. Most of the recipes you get (lv10, 15, or 20 Basic IOs, etc) also aren't going to sell well on the Market; just give them to NPC stores.
Between Inf-rewards, TO/DO drops that you can't use, recipes, and Invention Salvage you should have plenty of cash to supply you with Enhancements.
If you decide to get into Invention Set enhancements later on (entirely optional by the way), it would be good to start familiarizing yourself with the Market and what is in demand. Begin trading on the Market to supplement your income. Some of the more desirable Set Enhancements can go for 200 million or more; others for just a few million but you'll want many of them.
The PLers will tell you that Farming is the *only* way to ever come close to being able to afford such things <eyeroll>. I make around 80-100 million per day on the (villain side) Market. I spend around 15 minutes managing my recurring trades...and then I can spend the rest of my time in the game playing; doing whatever I want rather than endlessly repeating the same boring thing over and over. It's not hard at all to make very large amounts of money using the Market, but it does take a little time to familiarize yourself with what's in demand and how.
Oh, there's also an Inventions Tutorial you can do at the University (Steel Canyon heroside and Cap au Diable villainside) from lv10+.
Have Fun.
This is a far digression from the Original Post, but you don't _have_ to spend millions and millions on IO's; a few millions will do you.
And a few millions are easy to get. If you want to know more about making money, we on the Market forum love to hear ourselves talk.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
Thanks everybody for taking the time to give me some helpful suggestions. It looks like I need to start using the Auction House.
I haven't done any AE missions yet. I wouldn't mind trying them out if they're a good source for the tickets mentioned. However, I do enjoy the regular story arc missions as well.
I don't really like asking for $, because I've come across beggars in other MMOs, and they can be very annoying. That's why I prefer the "teach a man to fish" approach. That said you'd probably not have to twist my arm to take a smidgen of starting capital. In any event, I like making new friends to group with. These are my lowbie toons:
Nova Jayne - Spines/Fire Scrapper - Freedom
Sonixia - Emp/Sonic Defender - Freedom
Heat Grinder - SS/Fire Brute - Virtue
Welcome to the game!!
It sounds like you have gotten the advice you need, and have the right mentality when it comes to learning about the game. Hope you enjoy your stay!
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I haven't done any AE missions yet. I wouldn't mind trying them out if they're a good source for the tickets mentioned. However, I do enjoy the regular story arc missions as well.
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I'd stay away from AE for a good while; keep learning the game. This is an extreme example of what you can get sucked in to, but still.
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I haven't done any AE missions yet. I wouldn't mind trying them out if they're a good source for the tickets mentioned. However, I do enjoy the regular story arc missions as well.
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I'd stay away from AE for a good while; keep learning the game. This is an extreme example of what you can get sucked in to, but still.
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I wouldn't say stay away from it, but that is a good example of what can happen if you fail to learn the game and stick around only the AE. AE missions CAN be quite fun. It can also be a source of powerleveling. And by doing that, you miss out on the rest of the content that you said you like. Try out the AE, see what its about. Just don't do it exclusively and go out and explore the rest of the game. Much of it has changed lately.
There is another trick you can use with the auction house to make a quick 100K - 150K in 10 - 20 minutes. Go in and look for common salvage that is selling low, then put in bids for stacks of 10 at 5 or 10 or even 1 inf. Grab the stacks you buy and run to to the Store up on Atlas Plaza and sell them. Rinse and repeat. within 10 - 20 minutes you should have an easy 100K - 150K.
Or you can go through the normal enhancements doing the same thing and grabbing them and selling them to the store as well.
But it's MY sadistic mechanical monster and I'm here to make sure it knows it. - Girl Genius
List of Invention Guides
Same can be down with level 20 common invention recipes. But in bids at 1/50 to 1/100 their crafting cost and sell any bought to a store for huge markups. Not all recipes are available that cheap but some of the less popular ones are. Why level 20? Price shoots up by over a factor of 4 to 5 over level 15s.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
Well, I am back after a long stint in WoW. I never got too high before leaving (mid teens). I'm starting to level again, and at first it seemed ok. As I'm pushing 10 on a few toons (spines/fire scrap, emp/sonic def, SS/fire brute), it seems I am getting progressively weaker. Mobs take a long time to die. I can't seem to keep my enhancement slots slotted and many are empty (I get them from leveling and they usually stay empty). For example, I try to buy damage and acc enahncements from the guys near the trainers--it's 1000 inf for lvl 10 dmg from the vendor by the trainer. I have nowhere enough inf to fill my slots much less upgrade my lvl 1,2,3 enhancements that are going red.
I'm curious if this is a game issue (not getting inf flowing in from mobs/missions to fund needed upgrades) or user error (am I doing something wrong). If it's the latter, any guidance would be appreciated. If it's the former, maybe I should try to level some kind of OP class and then fund what i want to play. Note I'm talking about the vendor enhancements, I don't understand the IOs yet, but I'm guessing those are even more expensive.
I also have had some salvage drops start to accumulate--can I do something with these.
Again, I'm a noob, so please be kind. I'd appreciate any tips or strategies on how I should proceed. I do read the forums and wiki, but it's hard to filter through all the topics to find what I'm looking for. Thanks again.