The tutorial ends and hands you an avatar, a small amount of gear and no particular direction. This page is what to do next.
Learn the trade terminal first
The trade terminal, usually shortened to TT, is a machine you will find in every settlement. It buys and sells at fixed prices set by the game rather than by players, and it is the reason every item has a baseline value.
Three things it does that matter immediately:
- It sells basic gear and ammunition at a fixed price, always available.
- It buys anything back at that item's current TT value. This is the floor under every price in the game.
- It repairs damaged items, restoring the value that decay removed, for a fee.
Understanding the TT is understanding most of the economy. TT value and markup goes into what the gap between TT price and player price actually means.
Do the early missions
Every planet has a chain of introductory missions that walk you through the activities: kill some low-level creatures, deliver something, try a bit of mining. They are designed to cost very little and they reward skills rather than loot.
Do them properly rather than skipping ahead. Early skill gains are cheap and fast, and the missions are the cheapest skills you will ever get. How skills work explains why that matters.
Try each activity before committing to one
There are five professions you can earn from: hunting, mining, crafting, space mining and fishing. The first three are where nearly everyone starts. They feel completely different, they suit different temperaments, and there is no way to know which one you like from a description.
- Hunting is active and immediate. You shoot creatures and they drop loot.
- Mining is slower and more solitary. You drop probes and bombs and walk between claims.
- Crafting is done at a machine, in bulk, and is closer to running a production line.
Space mining and fishing are the other two. Both are specialist enough to be worth approaching once the basics are behind you.
Spend a small amount on each. A few hours of each is enough to know which one you want to learn properly.
All five behave the same way economically, and it is not the way a new player expects. Read This is an economic game before you spend anything meaningful on any of them.
The expensive mistakes
Almost every new player makes at least one of these. They are worth naming.
Buying an expensive weapon early. Your profession standing determines how well you use a weapon, not how much you paid for it. A high-tier weapon used below its intended level is worse than a cheap one used at the right level, and you have spent real money to be less effective. Professions and profession levels explains the mechanism.
Not checking markup before buying. The auction price of an item can be far above its TT value, and that difference is not recoverable if you change your mind. Check what something actually costs against what the trade terminal would give you for it.
Hunting creatures that are too big. Bigger creatures cost more per kill and punish mistakes harder. The cost per kill scales faster than most new players expect, and a run that goes badly on large creatures goes badly by a lot.
Selling loot to the trade terminal without checking. Some loot is worth much more to players than to the TT. Selling a rare material at TT price because it was convenient is a small, permanent, self-inflicted loss. TT value and markup covers how to tell the difference.
Depositing to chase a loss. The economics do not change because you are behind. Set a budget before you start and treat it as entertainment spending, because that is what it is.
Track what you are doing from the start
You cannot tell whether an activity is working for you without a record of what went in and what came out. Memory is unreliable and optimistic, and a single good loot will convince you that a losing setup is profitable.
Entropia Central Tracker reads your chat log and records loot, costs and returns per session automatically, and Getting started with Entropia Central Tracker explains how to set it up. Starting from day one gives you a real answer to "is this working" long before you have spent enough to care about the answer.
Find people
Entropia Universe is much better with other people in it. Join a society: they are player-run groups, most of them will take a new player, and having somewhere to ask questions is worth more than any piece of starting gear.
The in-game chat channels are busy, and the community runs its own events, discords and forums. Societies covers how they work on this site.