MM's Quick & Dirty Guide to ''Encounters''

MM's Quick & Dirty Guide to Encounters

• Encounters are not only (part of) missions, they are a great source of mods, money, XP and a bit of intel. Most encounters will drop mods to either your level or to the level of the encounter. e.g. you're level 32 and you're doing a level 30 encounter on Mars. Aside from XP and money, you will get level 30 mods when successfully finishing those battle.
  
• It takes 10 seconds between each attack you make, and there is a 15 minute time limit. So the best thing to do is make a separate setup for encs where you maximize your damage (and attack), armor (and defense) and shield (and if possible shield regeneration). Load this set up before starting encounters. Once finished you can load your familiar trading or fighting or ... setup again. Loco wrote a great guide on the technical aspects of encounters in the wiki: Loco's guide to countering the encounter
  
• So? You can 1) break up the mods you've won into components, or 2) sell them back to Gemini (at 50% of the price) or 3) sell them to other players at the Mod Auction making a healthy profit (you got those mods for free doing encounters, remember?).
  
• What about the time it takes to do those encounters? Let's say you're level 32 doing a level 30 encounter with decent armor and shield (and say 50 shield regeneration) on Mars, and you can do a maximum damage of 150. It takes you the best part of 10 minutes to complete an encounter. That's 10 minutes of valuable travel and trading time. Doing 2 encs equals 20 minutes, etc.
  
• BUT did you notice you can do an encounter with more than 1 pilot? Have you tried doing an encounter with a guild mate or a player who's stronger than you? For example with a level 40 player who can do 500 damage? Or a level 60 player who can do 1500 or more damage? If you have, you will know that they can reduce the total encounter time to 2 minutes (or even less)!
  
• And now for the best part: on Taco Tuesdays, every Tuesday, encounters pay out double! That's double mods, double XP and double money. If it takes you 10 minutes to finish an encounter on your own to win 2 mods, you could get 10 to 20 mods in as many minutes on Tuesdays with the help of a stronger player! And the mods you don't use: break them down or sell them back to Gemini, you'll be amazed at how much money you can get selling a few dozen mods!
  
• Lastly here's an encounter pro tip: copy the page link which lists the encounters at the level you're doing. Why? The player who initiates the encounter can easily refresh and restart the encounter. Players who want to join the encounter, normally have to go back to the general encounter page, select the level and only then they see the list again. Unless they copied the page link and pasted it in their browser once they've finished the encounter. That link will bring them right back to the list of encounters at their selected level. Easy, isn't it?
  

So come Tuesday check in your guild chat to see if you can find any help for some encounters. And if there isn't: don't be afraid to ask in the Global Chat!