Nyll's 2017 Grinding Guide

Under construction. Will update as I go.

To grind or not to grind?

There is a bit of controversy in the subject. In a time long past, most new players were very much encouraged to grind most skills until 6 raw rather than spending XP to learn the skils from teachers. As I write this guide the general attitude has since shifted to buying raws instead of grinding. Hopefully this guide will help you choose which method is right for you.

PROS:

• XP isn't spent on skills you train by grinding.

This is the main reason why grinding is popular in the first place. XP in Hellmoo is a finite resource and spendable XP becomes increasingly hard to come by as you raise your total XP. By grinding skills instead of learning them, you can reserve more spendable XP for more important skills.

• It is easy to automate.

With a few cleverly made triggers and timers, one could automate almost any skill grind they want for idle XP savings. NOTE: It is against the rules to AFK grind this way. You still need to be watching the process yourself.

• It gives you a feel for the individual skills.

You will have several utility skills at your disposal that you may not know you needed if you choose to grind all of the skills.

CONS:

• It takes a long time.

Can't stress this enough. It takes a REALLY long time to grind skills. This is the main reason why grinding is so discouraged today. To grind all the skills can take hours or days of mindless monotony for (arguably) little XP savings that most newbies never get to put to use. Hours that could be spent actually playing the game.

• You're wasting your time if you're going to reroll.

Most new characters end up rerolling their build or quitting before the XP they save through grinds ever gets put to use. If this is your first build I'd advise you to hold off on grinding entirely and just buy your skills first time around.

• You have to watch it during that time.

I'll say it again, it is against the rules to AFK grind your skills. Occasionally admins will check up on you to see if you're there and if you don't respond in a timely manner you will be punted to the moon or worse.

• Things can kill you while you grind.

Skill IPs and XP are not saved on death unless you update your clone at a cloner or do a job.

• The XP you save through grinds isn't that much in the long run.

To put into perspective, most builds basic flourish at around 145k xp. This is enough for most people to learn their weapon skill and dodge to 15 raw (the highest any skill can go). XP doesn't start getting hard to acquire until around 190k which is where Fire Ant and Dinosaur XP rewards really start to taper off. This leaves you with a buffer of about 50k XP to spend on whatever you want. Focus, medic, wrestle, what-have-you. Even more if you have a competent corp to run group content with. This is usually enough XP to buy some basic utilities.

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TLDR:
Newbies and people who are not sure of their build should not grind. Your time would be better spent having fun and getting a feel for the game rather than wasting hours on such a long term investment.
Veterans, autists, and people who are 100% sure their build is the right one for them MAY want to grind. Remember, not grinding is not a build breaker for the most part and is entirely optional.

Grinding Tips

Before we get into methods there are some things you should know.

• Type grind skill, where skill is the skill you want to grind. This will improve your chances of gaining IP in that skill.
• The optimal grinding range for skills is between 10 and 18 total. This is why grinding is encouraged BEFORE mutating and gymming.
• Debuffing your totals will reduce efficiency. This prevents most people from being able to grind skills effectively later on.
• The highest raw you can grind a skill to is 6.00. After that you will have to spend XP to learn skills to their maximum 15.
• You cannot grind skills past 1.00 in "safe" places. This includes inside apartments, inside planes, inside corporate HQs etc.
• The cooldown to gain an IP in a skill is 30 seconds. This means it will take a minimum of 5 hours PER skill you grind in the absolute best of conditions. (The timer is different for different skills. You can grind track and appraise in the same time for instance.)