I'm glad to hear you dudes aren't taking things super seriously and grinding for 10 hours a day or whatever. The game's way funner when you just screw around.
I wish you could tell that to one of the heads (I think) of my corp... he plays it so safe I wonder how he has any fun in the game. "Don't talk on chat/trade/zotnet. Don't help people. Don't piss people off (good advice regardless)." Some of the things that he's chatted. And he doesn't have any mutations yet! Yet he believes that they won't give enough of an advantage to make them worth having.
Well, not pissing people off is pretty good advice, and not talking on chatnet or tradenet helps with "not pissing people off"... Though of course it is better to be known in a positive light than completely unknown, if less safe.
I never got mutations either, though in my case it was not being sure what to take, or not being able to get to them that was behind it (or not knowing where they were). Of course, for my current character, I know what to take, and roughly where it is, so it will simply be a matter of deciding the order and finding a way to get to them.
Also Inaluct, thanks for the offer, but I'm gonna go with the support build listed in the wiki. Seems fun and I just want to be useful to a Corporation and get a good time out of it. Though, a really big help would be about what corps to join? Or any kind of help ingame would be cool :B
I'm currently using the support build, as far as the base skills and stats, and it works fine for just about anything once you get some mutations. Not having much carry weight sucks; be horny alot or get a frame pack early. The easiest skill to grind to 6 is (in my opinion) scavving in Sharpton. Decent experience gain from the rats (if you can handle them; if not, scav in the crack mansion), and good amounts of money based on how much you can carry back. I can make about 3k in a single trip (20 minutes of searching an area then moving on) and I'm able to one shot just about anything in there with a crafted leather whip and a power attack. (Make a crafted leather whip by getting 10 skins [human is easiest to get; kill some orphans] then 'improvise whip with skin')
Medic is also genereally profitable, as well as crafting; save syringes, charcoal and fenofibrate vials for large trauma kits early on. Buy a medium trauma kit or two for $75 from Meds 4 Less then go south into the Slagtown hospital and cure people in there to make the money back (and some extra). Other than that, ENEMA is a good start, because they have a respawning medical cabinet, lots of helpful people (and some higher levels) and generally the easier contracts 24/7.
I would say just get the frame pack early, because being horny negatively impacts brains (and very horny impacts cool and some other things, though I forget what exactly). Fuck the other containers and just go straight for the frame pack, it's only $450 or so, I think. Other than that, it's good advice, though I seem to recall having trouble with rats even when I could oneshot poltergeists with my flame chain.
I'll add on "Buy a flamechain as soon as you can afford it (and still have a buffer for medical supplies, rent, and cloning costs), even if you can't wield it yet," simply because it's awesome and kills ghosts, meaning a massive amount of money if you can soak cold and pop a rad-q.
I'll also mention that gangcams can be extremely profitable to a brains build (early on, that is, later there are more profitable things you can do with your time), for safe, relatively easy work.
Anyone else get caught in the zombie invasion earlier? I stepped out of the orphanage to find zombie corpses everywhere, and in trying to get back to my apartment I had to run through hordes of them, three or four in every square. Neophyte apparently prayed for a zombie invasion and got it.