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help > scorpion tutorial
Scorpion Tutorial
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Scorpions plays somewhat differently from other classes on Tsunami. As such,
there are a number of things to learn early on to master the class. Once
these are known, it is not a particularly hard class to play.

First, the scorpion has a number of abilities or modes that run outside the
regular skill system. Read more on the specifics of each mode using
'help scorpion modes'. These abilities can be raised as the scorpion grows.
A level 1 scorpion will start with 1 ability point that can be used directly.
Modes or abilities are manipulated using the reform skill. 'Help skills 
reform' to read more about it specifically. Raising an ability will not make
it any better. However, it will make it cheaper in upkeep. To see how the
current ability points are spent use the 'scorpion' command. Costs for an
ability increase the higher it is raised. The cost to raise it to the next
level is equal to your current level. So, raising from three to four costs
three ability points. Abilities can be used at a higher level than the
scorpion has assigned ability points for but will the come at a greatly
increased upkeep cost. For example, it is possible to run poison at level six
while only having raised it to level four. 

Secondly, the scorpion has ScP (Scorpion Points) in addition to HP and SP.
These points represent a static pool of energy that the scorpion has and the
size of the pool is dependent on the essence skill. ScP acts different from
HP/SP in the way that they will always return to the scorpion and will never
disappear as such. Essentially, what is used in one round will be returned to
the scorpion a certain number of rounds later.

The scorpion has an extra row to its hp bar that contains all vital 
information to the scorpion. An example of this HP bar is:

HP: 200/200   SP: 80/80   EXP: 563,182    DAM: 0
+ScP: 442/1980/38 RC:20 Mode: |Sp:2|St:2|Pw:3|Ex:2|Vi:3|+

The first line is identical to any other class and acts in the same way. The
second line is specific to the scorpion. The first part 'ScP: A/B/C' shows the
current status of the scorpion points. A is available points that can be used
to pay for upkeep of your active abilities. B is points that have been used to
pay for upkeep and is currently unavailable. These points will return to A
after a certain amount of time. C are points that are temporarily lost to the
scorpion. The higher upkeep the scorpion has, the more points will be lost in
this way. These points can be restored into A using the metabolism skill.
'Help skills metabolism' for more information. C will turn yellow and then red
as it grows to a certain size of the total pool, warning the scorpion it is
time to metabolize.

The next number is 'RC: X', this denotes the current round cost. Every round
the scorpion will have to pay this much points from the available scorpion
points, what was described as A in the last paragraph. If RC turns red, it
means that the scorpion is currently using more ScP than it can sustain before
ScP starts returning to the scorpion again.

The last part of the scorpion hp bar displays the modes that are currently
active. Modes must be activated with the reform skill using, for example,
'do reform power to 3', which will set the power ability to 3 and show Pw:3
on the mode line. In the example above, the scorpion is using Speed, Stinger,
Power, Exoskeleton and Viscerate at level two or three. This costs 20 in
upkeep per round and is within what this scorpion can afford.

Abilities can be be reset using 'do reform moult' which will leave the
scorpion vulnerable for a time. It is strongly recommended to test the
various modes and their effect on scorpion gameplay.