Ok people i've decided it is about time I started skilling up in a combat area to be able to avoid having to go "around" mobs instead of through them whilst out mining. What i'm looking for is advice in the best area to skill in. Should I go for rifle? handgun? melee? If so which weapon should I buy and what mobs should I start on?

depends on what you want to achieve.
advantage of rifle is that you can get a few shots before the mob gets to you.
disadvantage is that it gives less melee.

Best gun to start rifle with is opalo from tt until your rifle is at least 500.

If you want to go for rifle start with the tt handgun or perhaps emik s30 if you are more interested in BLP.

For melee, I used axe 1x0. I found the TT sword too slow (although some people say it is good for skilling).

Suggestion is to hunt low end mobs (e.g. around argus) and hunt without armor or with low end armor (pixie, goblin).

Good luck

Good areas for skilling is:
- East of argos, lot of Snablesnoots, Snarksnoots and Exosaurs.
- North of Minopolis, good spawns of Snasksnoots and Combibos.
- Any TP on Atlas Island, I prefer Atlas Island South TP where you have Exosaurs and Daikibas mixed with small birds.
- Pandora, lot of Berycled and Sabakumas.

All good places with not so high maturity of the mobs, but not only low level. A good mix. There are much more places of course and you will find your favorite.

Hand gun, Rifle or Melee, does it really matter? Choose one and stick to that. If you go for melee I sugest that you also get a Opalo rifle. The rifle you can use to "drag" mobs to you so you don't have to run so much and also most of the above mentioned mobs will turn away when they is almost killed and it's hard to stabb them with the melee weapon from behind, much more easy to finish them of with a rifle or hand gun.

Don't wear a to fancy armor when you go for lower end mobs, a Goblin is enough and stick to the tt FAP or FAP5 to keep costs down. If you don't have this you will soon get both armour and a FAP if you go for the mobs above.

Good luck and have fun!

I stand corrected.
I wrote argus where I meant atlas.
nirfu's overview is much better.

if you are low on healing skills the new tt fap is much better than the fap5. Then again with goblin you won't need to fap much.

Btw to give nirfu some free advertisement:
he has a very nice mag on http://www.ubermag.eu with a contest with very nice prizes!

Well I don;t intend on becoming a hardcore hunter. I just need enough to be able to protect myself whilst out mining. Although eventually the areas I will need to mine will of course meen being a more skille dhunter :/

I reccommend this.

Get opalo, get tt sword. Use opalo until its close then use sword. Use this until both are maxed so you increase skill fastest and dont miss out on the vital SIB they give. Then hunt with Rep2x0. It is really efficianty and you will gain more evade and HP than using rifle. Also hunting naked with axe is good as no armour decay to save you a few peds too. Primary Hunting skills are Weapon, Evade, First Aid. Building all three will make much more difference. Trust me, people always talk about econ on guns, but having good evade makes hunting much much cheaper. It means a lot less hits meaning less fapping. Less fapping means less fap decay and more shooting/hitting time ( rather than swapping every 2 hits to fap etc ) and means less armour decay as you kill mobs quicker.

I agree with Amy but dutchie was a bti confusing. He mentions using a handgun to skill rifle, this does not work, I think he was a bit confused and meant use a rifle to skill rifle, use a handgun to skill handgun, use an axe to skill melee.

First of all though you ALWAYS want to start by using tt equipment due to the SIB (Skill Increase Bonus) which is invaluable. This is also what makes (L) weapons FAR superior to their non (L) counterparts in every case.

For your I would strongly recommend handgun as a good self defense weapon because you could skill up with the tt pistol and max it then go through the breer series while getting the bonus the entire time added to your skillgains. Then there is the good old korss h400 that is an excellent weapon and with a decent amp that should be able to defend against most anything that you'll run into while hunting. Also, there's the aspect that often if its self defence the mob will already be pretty close and running at you so a hg is better than rifle there, more economic, and with meele it just doesn't pack the same punch.

Have bought a apolo the 2 handed sword and 100ped of ammo. Let's see how far that gets me

Hello,

I was in the same possition as you - needed to protect myslef while mining.

I selected the opalo and started by killing stricktly small mobs. I have worked my way up to the point I can defend myself reasonably well but I have learnt the following from my path:
1- Hit points are nice and melee gets you them faster
2- Evade is better that everything because if the mob doesnt hit you it doesnt matter what/how nuch damage - Sweating can get you this for free
3- Range - I like the range of the rifles when I am hunting but when mining I try to only shoot mobs that agro on me - this usually means they are close already so the improved fire rate of the pistols would be a definite asset.

I do not regret my choice but if I was going to do it again I would choose a pistol (TT to start) and a heavy melee weapon.

Grounder