Obscure things you may not know about playing the game

The solar panels on the roof of Paragon University in Steel Canyon face north. Combined with the odd NNW to SSE path of the Moon... [Neo] Whoa. [/Neo]

People using Howling Twilight can still SD'd allies. Though everyone knew that.

I just found out there's a Law Enforcement Day Job location in Atlas, even though there's not a detective.

In the shadow shard there is an object that if you get too close to it, it'll give you a major debuff for a long period of time.

I found this out once while street [island?] sweeping in the shards and what was initially an easy sweeping seasion, turned into a quick trip to the hospital!

There are slash commands to combine or delete inspirations. You can make these into macros/binds.
Inspirations are combined from left to right then bottom to top. No matter how old the inspirations are nor which inspiration you click on, always left->right, bottom->top.

Only the team leader can select missions. BUNK.

If the team leader -hasn't- selected a mission, anyone else on the team CAN select any mission they like, and the game will make it so.

It's a bit trickier if you aren't selecting one of your -own- missions, because the destination waypoint doesn't appear on your minimap. However, it DOES appear in your navigation compass, and when you get close, you'll see the (yellow) distance marker to the door.

Click on the door, and -bang- that's the selected mission, be it the leaders mission, your mission, or someone else's mission. As soon as you click on the blue hand, mission is set.

The griefing aspects of this can be quite hilarious -- when the level 2 character newly invited to a Peregrine Island street-sweeping team, inadvertently clicks on their own level 2 mission door in Atlas, and suddenly the Peregrine Island players are autoexemplared down to level 2.

Can you say 'argggh' as their aggro radius jumps by 500% and everything around them goes BOOYA -- instant team-wipe.

Not recommended for griefing. But it can be useful if the team leader is preternaturally dim, or something.

Ex

There's one for enhancements that I never knew about until well into my 4th year here.

With DO grade enhancements you can combine other DO's of a matching origin.

If you are a Natural origin and have a Natural/Tech damage DO slotted and have a Magic/Natural DO on hand, you can combine it into your slotted enhancement.

This only works with DOs that have the matching origin to the player; so while a Magic/Natural can combine with a Natural/Tech for use in a Natural Hero, a Mutant/Magic or Tech/Science won't.

didjya know....

You can find out what those x-mas prezzie inspies do?

1. Drag the inspie into your chatline like you might do for an enhancement or recipe to create a link. Hit enter for it to show in your chat window.

2. Click on the link that now shows in your chat window. An info window should pop up.

3. Go to the details tab to see what that inspie does.

You may notice that the inspies actually have different names in variations of "Holiday", "inspiration", and "Present"... once you know which names do what, you won't need to go to the details tab... just put them in your chatline to see the name, then arrange them in your tray as desired so you will be able to click the one you want at the right time.

There's an in-game help file system that completely documents (among other things) all of the controls and slash commands for Masterminds. You access it from the main menu as the help item. Various topics are listed across the top of the window (you may have to scroll right) and once you select the item there will be tab after tab of info.

Here's a little detail that made me smile when I discovered it several years ago. Everybody knows Inertial Reduction (from Kinetics) as a jump buff, but it actually affects flight too, in a minor way. It removes your inertia, such that Fly (and similar jetpack powers) behave more like a really fast Hover, that is they start and stop on a dime, with no drift.

I just love that somebody went to the trouble to code that in, for no real reason other than the fact that it would be a logical side effect of the power.

The Embalmed trick mentioned earlier in this thread applies to any target that eventually dies on its own, provided that your team does more than 10% of the total damage inflicted to it before it dies. It is therefore a huge help for the arsons if you can't find any help to do it normally: just hit each fire with the extinguisher at least once and you'll get badge credit for all of them when the building explodes. Other good badging uses:

Devouring Earth Emanators -- Run up, punch it once, move on to the next and let it expire on its own. Great in Primeva where you don't even have to get the lieutenants in a spawning mood, since they'll already be summoning them against CoT or Arachnos; just look for the glowy spots.

Carnie Illusions -- Better to punch all three once, rather than waste time trying to bring down one or two completely only to have the last despawn on you before you can touch it.

This doesn't seem to work on Rikti invasion bombs, however. I suspect it's because they "die" having regenerated all their health, so your own damage doesn't count. (Which would mean that you don't get credited for any arson fires that a Hellion firebombs back to full health.)

Speaking of the 10% limit, if Eochai and Jack have been slugging it out for long enough, you won't get a badge for either of them. Reason? The amount of damage Jack has done to Eochai is more than nine times the damage it takes to defeat Eochai (but delivered so slow that Eochai regenerates it all), and vice versa. So when you take down one or the other, your team still hasn't delivered at least 10% of the total damage they've suffered since spawning.

Once you have access to DJ Zero as a contact (by earning Handsome/Beautiful), he's available for missions year-round, not just during the Spring event. Handy for villains who want Cap Buster in the off-season.

Halloween's Eternal Night is an excellent time for certain badge hunts, as some creatures spawn more often/only at night in some zones. For instance, the BP Mask Spirits near the Talos Island gate to Dark Astoria, the Vampires in the Bog and Bonny Morass of Striga, or the Warwolves on the ridge overlooking the Pit in Sharkhead.

As of Issue 16, Marcone Bosses in Nerva (Crimson Cove) count toward both Untouchable and Gangbuster.

I didn't realize until recently that Talos rhymes more closely with "Pecos" than "shallows".

You know how you can assist an ally by targeting your attacks through them? You can actually use it with enemies. If you're in a small group and you're sure a specific team mate has the aggro, target an enemy and you can buff or heal that ally through the enemy. This stands a chance to be inconsistent due to switching targets but is rather interesting.

Here's an interesting tip I found. When you sell an Enhancement to a store, you earn more inf by selling it to the store that matches the Origin. For example, I found that selling a level 27 Magic Accuracy SO Enhancement to the Natural store could net me 8387 Inf, while selling the same Enhancement to the Magic store got me 12902 Inf!