Beginner's guide - From start to 2.9 Cracker

Hello everybody !

HackerExperience (HE) is a great game once you get into it. But from a new player, and especially if you do not know the hacking world that much, technical terms can overwhelm you, or you could get blocked if you missed something.

This post is a guide for those first hours into the game, for completing the first rank.

Phase 1 : booting up

When you start a new game, you will most likely find an empty hard drive of only 100Mb, 1Mbps Internet connection, and nothing to work with, almost. The game will revolve around improving your software, earning money, and improving your hardware.

Start by doing the tutorial. It will cover the basics like :

• To hack into a server, you need to have installed a cracker of the same level or higher than the server's hasher.

• Whenever you do something (or almost), logs will be written. If you were doing that something on a server, logs will be present there too. In those logs is your IP, and with it, any other player can hack into your server. Delete your logs fast !

The first step will be to go to the Internet tab, where you will find the first Whois (1.2.3.4). Playing the game will make you discover more advanced ones later, but for now, try visiting every site it links too. Some noticeable sites :

• Internet service provider (ISP) : this one will allow you to change your IP. Careful, it can't be done at will, you will need to wait between multiple reset, or pay cash.

• Download center (DLC) : this one don't keep log (so it is safe), don't require anything to login, and will let you download every basic software in its 1.0 version.

• BitCoin Market (BTC Market) : this is a great place to transfer money, as your IP isn't logged there. The downside is that you cannot change password. So if your account gets compromised, you won't be able to protect it again. Never log into this site if you are not 100% sure nobody is hacking your server. Always clean your log instantly after logging into it.

• First International Bank : a place to store money. Don't log into your account there though, it is not safe and just logging in will get you robed.

Phase 1 tip : create a BTC account at the BTC market, and sell the free 1.337 bitcoin that comes with it. It should be worth around 500$. If this is your first game, the tutorial mission will also give you 500$.

Before going into the wild world, you may want to already upgrade your hardware :

• Hard drive is essential. You won't fit anything on a 100Mb drive, so invest into a 500Mb, or even a 1Gb disk.

• External drive is almost free. The first one is 100$ and can be upgraded to 1Gb later. Backup your first virus on it, in case someone installs it on your server !

• Internet speed is a quality of life improvement. Nice but no real benefit other than time.

• CPU is useful to edit log faster. It's not the first 'must have' but is always nice to buy.

And remember : always clear your log !

Phase 2 : I'm going on a mission !

Now that you got your first 1.0 cracker from the download center, time to start earning money and upgrading. When you go into the Mission page, you may see only hidden missions. In order to unlock one, you need to hack the server of the hirer. The first one to hack is MurderKing, found on the first Whois. Hack it, clear your logs, and see if you can download from it a better cracker.

It may be a good time to start checking your personal log more often. You are now logging into servers where other players are, and your IP can be seen. So maybe you will soon find someone logging into your server. If that happens, don't panic. Copy his IP and go take a look on his server. Careful, some people like to delete software !

Go back to the mission center now, and find a first mission from MurderKing. Try to take easy things at first, as your cracker isn't very good for now. Try to upgrade it to 1.4 or higher as soon as you can, by trying to hack other servers from the first whois.

The other way to upgrade software is to start following the Riddle trail, from the first whois also. We will come back to this later.

Phase 2 tip : 'Transfer' and 'Check Account' missions are the best if you have nothing to lose, high risk high reward. An external drive can be a good investment !

Phase 3 : Virus, Virus everywhere..

Another way to earn money, slower and more dangerous, is to install virus on other player's server. For this, you will first need a virus, that you should be able to find on the download center. Next, get someone's IP from a log on a server you have hacked (like a mission server, or a riddle server), and get to work ! You will need to be fast and effective, removing your logs, trying not to be seen.

Once you are logged on someone's server, check your log to see if anybody logged into yours, and then take your time to prepare your attack. You want to upload a virus ? Download a software ? Prepare those actions, but don't stay on the process window until it finishes. Instead, queue up actions, and most importantly the 'clear log' action. Go to your task manager, wait for everything to be ready, and then do all the actions the ones after the others, and finish with the log clearing task. This way your IP won't stay long in his log.

To earn money from virus, you need a collector (Download center), and to let time for the virus to generate money. There are different type of virus for money (warrez, spam, miner), and each exploit different characteristics of the server it is installed on :

• SPAM will earn money based on the server CPU

• Warrez will earn money based on the server bandwidth and on the torrents in YOUR hard drive

• Miner will earn money based on the server CPU, but will generate BTC

Phase 4 : To rank 2 and beyond !

By continuing this way, hacking people, improving your hardware and software thanks to missions and virus, you will progress further, and soon will find a better cracker. As soon as you download a cracker 3.0 or higher, you will move to rank 2. Rank 2 is not a bad thing, but you need to know what will change before upgrading your cracker :

• Missions will be rank 2, meaning you will need software up to 5.9 in order to accomplish them.

• You will need to unlock mission servers for rank 2. In order to do this, you will have to follow the riddles until you find the 2nd whois. If you don't do that, you won't be able to do any mission in rank 2.

• Epson l210 printer scanner software download. Player of higher level will be able to hack you.

Before going to rank 2, I advise that you have at least :

• a 1Gb Hard drive

• an external hard drive (you can upgrade it to 1GB for 1000$) to back up your files (this is the only secure place to backup a software like your cracker)

• upgraded your internet and your CPU at least once or twice

There are tons of other things to discover. Go through the certifications at the University to discover a little more, and have access to new types of virus like .vddos. Find a firewall. Find a seeker and an hider. Have fun.

A word of advice to conclude : the higher you go in rank, the harder it may become to survive. Don't forget to change your IP if you are facing lots of hackers. Rank 3 missions can be quite hard due to the high volume of DDoS from rank 3 players, so don't be too impatient, try to develop as much as a rank let you before ranking up.