[GUIDE] Mitne Basic Newbie APB Guide

[Mitne 724]

Mitne Basic Newbie APB Guide

Welcome in San Paro. In this guide I will answer many questions I had from newbies in way better form than tutorial in-game presents. It won't be just text but also prepared in-game screenshots. Of course I advice to try out in-game tutorial (by pressing T in-game you get inside it) but if you still don't know anything, this guide is intended to fill that gap.
So let's get started - it will be done in form of QA - with possible question asked by any new player and answer to that:

Q: Alright... I joined district... I click K to get ready... and I got no mission...?

A: Simply click M and look up in the upper right - that's population of district [Picture 1].

[Picture 1]

Ops... It seems it's empty. And even if it's not... - to start mission at least one side needs to have 2 people (either criminals or enforcers) - this also will start mission only for side meeting this requirement, if you are only one on your side you always will be called on defensive side of mission.

Q: But how do I get to district with more players?

A: Click esc and district select button [Picture 2]

[Picture 2]

Then after it you REALLY don't want to use basic view [Picture 3]... it's uber unreliable and will throw you at ANY free district of your
threat... if you went gold or green that's totally not gonna work as both this servers are almost always empty... instead
you press tab called "Advanced" [Picture 4] which shows you advanced view on all possible districts.

[Picture 3]

[Picture 4]

You want to uncheck certain two ticks [Picture 5] so they won't hide server which are blooming with players right now.

[Picture 5]

PRO TIP: That's how you get to fight club with players too[Picture 6]! As basic view usually throw you into empty FC district (like one
random player would help population of that server suddenly grow)

[Picture 6]

Edit: "Due to privaty concerns" - Sadly it sneaked in post-edit but i'm aware of grammar error. Thank you.

Q: All enemies outshot me whenever I approach them. Are they cheaters?

A: First of all. No - if everyone would cheat, this game would be long dead - for starter you need to accept fact that
there are better players... it doesn't mean there are not worse than you, over time you will find that old enemies which
dominated you, might fail to do anything near you in later stage of game. All it takes is patience.
Second. Apply right tactic for right weapon. It's obvious thing that sniper rifle should be fired at range and shotgun in
close quaters, rifles and ARs at mid-range and LMGs to be anti-personel and anti-car... but only if put in hotspots,
well-covered. Some weapons also REQUIRE you to aim sight down (like sniper rifles, ARs, rifles) while other discourage 
you (like shotguns or SMGs).
Third and last ALWAYS THINK. Enemies might try to ambush you, lure you but they got one clear disadvantage - they gonna
understimate you. Especially after second or third try you might find that there was shift of powers... never give up and
adapt to situation you are faced in. If you got idea you not sure gonna work, why not try it. It's only game after all!

Q: I don't feel like playing missions... what else I can do?

That depends on what side of conflict you are but contrary to popular belief, enforcers also can earn cash outside
missions:

Enforcers got three possible ways to gain money outside missions:

1. Witnessing criminals [Picture 7]

[Picture 7]

If you see criminal with symbol of handcuff, you can initiate witness mission (by clicking ALT) which is quick mission of
who gonna secure dirty money from criminal in dedicated for that hideouts [Number 1 on Picture 7]. Beware though, you 
don't want chase criminal for few dollars, you can see how many money criminal have on him here [Number 2 on Picture 7].

 

As of now you can't witness criminals while sitting in car.

2. Hunting Notoriety 5 criminals [Picture 8]

[Picture 8]

By simply killing him you earn bounty put on his head, be on lookout on this. Word of advice though, this players are
Notoriety 5 for a reason. This is also the only option here which earns you instant money. He/she is always shown on map
and radar.

3. Looking for stolen cars (more rarely loot abandoned by criminals or vans containing it) [Picture 9]

[Picture 9]

Exactly here it should show what is name of car and what is actual state of it (it should be usable - stolen, due to
wierd bug it don't show me that in screenshot but you can check it out in-game). I consider it the safest option to get
money outside mission for enforcer and which should be done in full action districts. All you need to do is to lookout 
for cars, to see if car is stolen, look for marked reference in picture. You can't return commandered cars, only stolen 
ones!

[Picture 10]

More rare is that you find loot on streets, abandoned clearly by criminals (things like PCs, TVs, gold bars, jewelry itp.)
Even more rare although possible is that you find stolen vans or other kind of cars with loot (see reference). If trunk
of stolen car is filled it's most likely by loot which you can just take to near contact for pocket money

Warning! After that always remember to visit evidence locker, money you get is money on hand until you visit evidence
locker! Death means dropping "loot" on streets of San Paro where it can be taken by litteraly anyone.

PRO TIP: Criminals don't have counter-option to get your "loot" so you can safely have on hand as much as you want...
just make sure you gonna drop it.

Criminals got four possible ways to gain money outside missions:

1. Looting shops [Picture 11]

[Picture 11]

Grab a van, ram the shop, load the car, unpack it at contact. Simple? Not much. You can be witnessed by enforcers (as
described above in witnessing criminals). And if you just grabbed van from street, anyone just can sit inside and take
it anywhere, taking your hard work with them. Consider using your own van. Packer Ceresco is the most spacious of all
cars in-game which you can own.

2. Hunting Prestige 5 enforcers [Picture 12]

[Picture 12]

Litteraly the same thing as with enforcers. Kill bounty, earn instant money. He is always shown on map and radar.
WARNING: Killing P5 enforcer AS enforcer will drop your prestige to 0, reducing your reward multiplier to 0,1. You really
want to avoid that whatever you doing as this even affects how much you get for kills (in matches).

3. Mugging [Picture 13]

[Picture 13]

Go to any civilian walking on street, press F. Wait for timer to complete... profit. Also many of pedestrians drop small
on-hand items which you can drop for additional loot at contacts.

4. Steal cars [Picture 14]

[Picture 14]

Infamous among criminals for being tiring and slow in comprasion to others. Grab car from streets, drive it to chop shop.
Unlike enforcers you can grab any car (except player owned ones) and drop them at chop shop. Ka ching.

Warning! After that always remember to visit laundry, money you get is money on hand until you visit laundry! Death means
dropping "loot" on streets of San Paro where it can be taken by litteraly anyone.

Warning! As criminal you can be witnessed with loot by enforcer, you can know if you are witnessable by looking here
[Picture 15].

[Picture 15]

Although after you got more than 2500$ of loot, you gonna be permantely witnessable until you drop loot at laundry - you
get warning in chat if that happens too. [Picture 16]

[Picture 16]

Q: I keep getting mission from the same guy and I keep not advancing at all. Ugh... is there way to farm some other?

A: You should ALWAYS pledge to one contact you desire to level up. By either interacting with contact directly
[Picture 17] or via double-clicking contact on map using M [Picture 18] you can enter contact window and pledge to them
[Picture 19].

[Picture 17]

[Picture 18]

[Picture 19]

Also note that Financial and Waterfront contacts are unique and each needs to be pledged in their respectable
districts.

Q: What are this joker tickets, how I can earn them and what I can do with them?

A: Joker Tickets are tokens granted for you for activites in APB. You can earn them either by completing objectives of
FC (shown both at basic district selection screen, via FC window (f7) and in upper corner of screen [Picture 20]) or
getting mission to earn them from fully completed contacts only [Picture 21].
JTs can be used to purchase items from Joker Distribution at Social District [Picture 22] to purchase many items
(excluding permanent weapons, sorry! Although you can lease many which are in ARMAs Marketplace [Picture 23])


[Picture 20]

[Picture 21]

[Picture 22]

[Picture 23]

Q: I run out of ammo... also how I can change my weapon? This starter weapon sucks.

A: For ammo - Go to any ammo distributor, press F to buy certain type of ammo (it will show if it's
for your primary, secondary or grenade slot weapons [Picture 24]). You can also press I to get ammo for holded weapon
immediatly [Picture 25]). Use whatever you feel better with.

 

Edit: As of last updates, it's not longer true. You can't run out of ammo as long as you got money to purchase it. My advice

though is to always keep some ammo on hand as you might run out of ammo after you lose your money in some way

(like via purchase).

[Picture 24]

[Picture 25]

To change weapon, you first need to have some or lease one. Since you most likely want to have free to play experince, you
for now should only lease - do it by interacting with contact, going into buy tab [Picture 26] and selecting weapons
[Picture 27]. After purchase it will ask you to deploy it. You can always swap weapons in any car spawner or ammo
distributor using I [Picture 28].

[Picture 26]

[Picture 27]

[Picture 28]

Q: My car sucks! I saw players having this muscle cars and...

A: ...they pay for respawning it. 100$ since it's tier 3 car. As someone who is litteraly broke on start you should stand
with your starter or so called tier 0 cars - it's every car which cost 5,000$ for zero slot version, they cost 0$ for
every respawn but they are underpowered. All of them are used by civilians so you can get good feel about what you
gonna get by just commandering or stealing cars and driving them around. Don't worry, you will find out how to get
better cars soon - it just my starting recommendation for you.

Edit: If you really want better car - the best would be getting some decent tier 1 car - their cost is 20,000$ for zero slot version,

they cost 25$ for second and further respawn of car and among them are cars such as Packer Ceresco and as you work your

rank up, so you should work your cars up (but in my personal opinion, you should always keep useful cars around - just

like Packer Ceresco, just in case).

Q: I want to group up with someone, how? How to create clans? How to ignore someone who annoys me?

A: All of this can be done via pressing U. Each tab represent each problem, you get easily around it as everything is
described [Picture 29].

[Picture 29]

Q: How do I change my clothing? Or theme, symbol?

A: Everything can be done in Social District. Use map to navigate to kiosk corresponding your needs [Picture 30].

[Picture 30]

I hope you survived to the end as you grasped basics to get you started!
Good luck out there!
If there are any questions which are left unanswered, please ask them in this thread.

 

Edit: Updated guide, checked for grammar errors.

Edited April 17, 2019 by Mitne

[PHM 167]

Nice! One big problem I always encountered was beginners who joined empty servers and therefore thought the game was dead because nothing happened so they left the game.

Sadly most new players probably won't take a look at the forums or even notice it exists (took me like 3 years haha) but its good to have something you can refer to without having to explain everything all over again each time 

[Mitne 724]

2 hours ago, PHM said:

Nice! One big problem I always encountered was beginners who joined empty servers and therefore thought the game was dead because nothing happened so they left the game.

Sadly most new players probably won't take a look at the forums or even notice it exists (took me like 3 years haha) but its good to have something you can refer to without having to explain everything all over again each time 

Always send newbies here. I know how tedious and tiring process is to explain the same to each. You can send link to any newbie you encounter. I'm also open for any unanswered question here (I will provide screenshot to them as well but that of course take me at least day to consolidate all material).

If I got way better PC, I do it in form of video, they more likely to search guides there. Edited September 7, 2018 by Mitne

[Harmoni 8]

No explanation of the basics of the game is probably a frequent reason. That discourages from playing.

[Paxxis 0]

New player here. Did not know we got 2 slots per account, so I ended up making one account for each faction. *shrugs* Literally, got into the game, stepped outside (as enforcer), and began a series of getting wasted, no matter where I went. Switched accounts, made a criminal, and got a little further, but still ended up getting mowed down any time I tried to do anything. It is frustrating when the tutorial is horrid, and the only players you meet want to end you, regardless of faction. NA server player here, if that even matters.

[Mitne 724]

On 9/13/2018 at 3:02 AM, Paxxis said:

New player here. Did not know we got 2 slots per account, so I ended up making one account for each faction. *shrugs* Literally, got into the game, stepped outside (as enforcer), and began a series of getting wasted, no matter where I went. Switched accounts, made a criminal, and got a little further, but still ended up getting mowed down any time I tried to do anything. It is frustrating when the tutorial is horrid, and the only players you meet want to end you, regardless of faction. NA server player here, if that even matters.

Currently APB suffer from low population syndrome - where there is no population swap (population swap happens when regular and veteran population is replaced by newbies). That of course causes that you are forcibly put against veterans or players who play regular. Sadly population is not what we as players can much influence (expect maybe if some scums would stop dethreating...). We just need to hope that APB in few years will be like phoenix rising from it ashes, where population is big enough to support population swaps.
I don't discourage you from playing that said. I think that you should just try to group up with such veterans if game forces you against others, usually you can get such people from missions you gonna play solo (as matchmaking try to balance game to be even according to threat). Also don't let yourself be (at least verbally) trashed by this players, ignore them - some people here have ego up in roof. If somebody uses cheap tactics, I don't see why you shouldn't use them yourself.
Also bulletproof starter strategy. I make up my lack of skill with tactics - Instead of rushing something like rambo always try putting yourself with upper hand. I give few examples of tactical thinking:
1. You see enemy spawning and crossing street but see he got various option to cover and uses distance weapon. Instead of engaging with him you should track his movement and try to prepare trap. Hide behind some corner where you think he gonna go (good bet would be objective he gonna defend/attack), be wary of surrounding during that to not find yourself trapped of course! Jump on him with any weapon better up close than his, if you got friends you can talk with them so you can work out such trap in way that even max rank golds will have hard nut to bite.
2. You find yourself suddenly attacked from behind, evade shots by shifting movement, hide behind cover and then retreat if possible. No shame in hiding and using car, avoid potential gunfire and grenades... try different approach and make sure you don't generate "noise" on radar. Even non-radar noise (including silenced weapons) can give you out, especially to veterans.
3. If you are at objective, check surrounding for cars (if you are criminal, check for commandered cars - if enforcer, check for stolen ones - also enemy cars are dead giveaway that at least one or more enemy is nearby, possibly waiting with trap on you), open doors (giveaway that there was some kind of player activity), destroyed items of map like fire hydrants etc. If you find proofs of enemy activity, good idea if you are at least for the time being alone would be to scout around objective, especially with car (might giveaway locations of enemies, at least for mental note). Be ready that enemy might attack from locations you don't expect him to be... and always when doing objective, keep checking your surrounding and be on alert. Red alert to stop should be sight of enemy alone.
4. No shame in running if you clearly losing fight, if you got possibility to regroup - do it. You can also use car as kind of shield/getaway option when engaging enemies - this is of course especially powerful on open street with no other cars nearby.
5. Always try to put yourself in favorable distance of your weapon and try to put enemy at distance in which his weapon got disadvantage. EVERY weapon got some kind of disadvantage to exploit.

Hope it will help and good luck in-game. Newbies like you are hope for me that this game will exist. I'm not joking. Edited September 17, 2018 by Mitne

[DeixterShawl33 0]

The guide is good for PC players... but what guide can help for PS4 console players like me?

[neophobia 216]

The pledging stuff is plainly wrong, as long as there is one contact that isn't max in the district you are in, you will earn standing.

The opposite is the case: if you forget to unpledge/pledge to another one after maxing it out, you will not advance.

So the safer way is to not pledge at all unless you want something specific. (or to track your progress outside of missions without going to the contacts tab)

And if you stop advancing, switch to Waterfront if you were on Financial or vice versa.

Edited October 10, 2018 by neophobia

[Mitne 724]

2 hours ago, DeixterShawl33 said:

The guide is good for PC players... but what guide can help for PS4 console players like me?

Sadly I don't own any of consoles so I might be wrong but... I think that APB on consoles is pretty much same gameplay-wise minus threat said in here. Dunno if servers are divided in districts and if you have much control over which you join. So probably first 2 questions for PS4 players should be taken with huge grind of salt (maybe districts can be changed in some other way, in worst case via rejoining district from auto screen) - rest still apply. Correct me anyone if I am wrong.

 

1 hour ago, neophobia said:

The pledging stuff is plainly wrong, as long as there is one contact that isn't max in the district you are in, you will earn standing.

The opposite is the case: if you forget to unpledge/pledge to another one after maxing it out, you will not advance.

So the safer way is to not pledge at all unless you want something specific. (or to track your progress outside of missions without going to the contacts tab)

And if you stop advancing, switch to Waterfront if you were on Financial or vice versa.

Sadly that is not entirely true.

Each mission you get unpledged will temporary pledge you for mission with ANY random contact - completed or not.

That way you progression can be significantly lowered due to fact that you will do mission to maxed out contacts, wasting eventually earned standing to 0.

When I was newbie back then - it happened a lot to me, until it pissed me off so much that I discovered that I can pledge by exploring contacts screen. Still tons of standing from mission was lost back then.

Also as you mentioned pledging gives you control over what you gonna unlock in succession. Very useful when you start you adventure with APB (since you gonna unlock what you want then - like clothing, weapons, cars etc.)

Edited October 10, 2018 by Mitne

[neophobia 216]

1 hour ago, Mitne said:

Sadly that is not entirely true.

Each mission you get unpledged will temporary pledge you for mission with ANY random contact - completed or not.

That way you progression can be significantly lowered due to fact that you will do mission to maxed out contacts, wasting eventually earned standing to 0.

When I was newbie back then - it happened a lot to me, until it pissed me off so much that I discovered that I can pledge by exploring contacts screen. Still tons of standing from mission was lost back then.

Also as you mentioned pledging gives you control over what you gonna unlock in succession. Very useful when you start you adventure with APB (since you gonna unlock what you want then - like clothing, weapons, cars etc.)

unless you get 0 standing to show up on the scoreboard i think you do get progress - and i have yet to get a mission while unpledged with 0 standing when there is still any non-maxed npc in the district.

i've only leveled two characters to 255 yet - i've never pledged after my first 100h in apb.

 

my second r255 char that had premium like 99% of my playtime has 19 days of mission district time and was unpledged at all times. (and i didn't play much since r255)

it also progressed the last npc with every mission i've done.

 

so either i had mad rng luck - which i honestly doubt - or it does work a different way.

 

i'm not trying to insult you or anything, however i've experienced that differently.

 

do you have a maxed char that was pledged and had premium most of the time by any chance so you could compare playtime?

 

(i have been afk/searching for missions/playing in an already maxed district for a fair share so it might be higher than the minimum.

i'm also not a top tier player so i don't get mad amount of kills so progress can definitely be made faster.

however, you should be getting way lower playtime if you do lose massive amounts of standing by not pledging)

 

 

[kurbstomp88 25]

On ‎10‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 5:42 AM, neophobia said:

The pledging stuff is plainly wrong, as long as there is one contact that isn't max in the district you are in, you will earn standing.

The opposite is the case: if you forget to unpledge/pledge to another one after maxing it out, you will not advance.

So the safer way is to not pledge at all unless you want something specific. (or to track your progress outside of missions without going to the contacts tab)

And if you stop advancing, switch to Waterfront if you were on Financial or vice versa.

im with him on this one, I never pledged on my enf while leveling and as long as I had a contact that wasn't max it would do missions for them, and pledging to try to streamline toward specific weapons/car clothing isn't something a newbie is going to do well or even know the contact paths to get what they want or were to find them the thread is good however. also a little disclaimer to new players the first 100 hours of apb are all learning curve 

[Havana 216]

This should be required reading before you are allowed to play the game. Incredible JOB. Thank You! Nice to see not everyone is a D bag in APB.

[Mitne 724]

Updated guide with current status of being "out of ammo" in APB.

Also checked for grammar errors and fixed them.

Thank you for positive feedback!

[Flight 239]

Superb guide for beginners. Nice work!

[Kewlin 692]

I would have probably included a little section about burst and tap firing in the part about getting out-gunned, since that's one of the number one mistakes I see from new players, but good post overall.

 

I do have to say though that you're wrong Mitne, not pledging is a perfectly legitimate strategy, and will always pledge you to someone you can advance unless there's nobody to advance in the district. I pledge to contacts most of the time, but I've never had an issue when I didn't (except leveling holiday contacts I don't care about.)

[Mitne 724]

On 12/30/2018 at 8:32 PM, Kewlin said:

I do have to say though that you're wrong Mitne, not pledging is a perfectly legitimate strategy, and will always pledge you to someone you can advance unless there's nobody to advance in the district. I pledge to contacts most of the time, but I've never had an issue when I didn't (except leveling holiday contacts I don't care about.)

As I said couple of times I remember back when I was newbie that I was keep getting maxed out contact for god know why.

I noticed it sooner or later so after a bit of struggling I found out how to level myself up further.

Still wasted time tho.

 

Of course it might not longer be true but in my personal opinion, pleading allows for more controlled leveling up.

You can choose if you prefer to unlock clothing contact or weapon contact first.

Edited January 10, 2019 by Mitne

[N00bySam 0]

Cool! Thank you!

[Mitne 724]

On 12/30/2018 at 8:32 PM, Kewlin said:

I would have probably included a little section about burst and tap firing in the part about getting out-gunned, since that's one of the number one mistakes I see from new players, but good post overall.

 

I do have to say though that you're wrong Mitne, not pledging is a perfectly legitimate strategy, and will always pledge you to someone you can advance unless there's nobody to advance in the district. I pledge to contacts most of the time, but I've never had an issue when I didn't (except leveling holiday contacts I don't care about.)

Got that in plan for my next guide.

[swindIe 120]

the crim character is black

[Mitne 724]

20 hours ago, swindIe said:

the crim character is black

*gets invaded by SJWs*