20+ PSA: Some Thoughts on NOMs

Some Comments on NOMs

All of you have items, many of you have rare items. As you look at the Item Guide, you will notice that you only get the stats in the leftmost column.

The purpose of this PSA is to talk about what the other columns mean.

First up, the following link to the FAQ has the basic information about NOMing.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

The Item Guide is the place to go for all of the stats.

The basics of NOMing:

Every non-consumable item that is Rare or better is NOMable. The only non-findable item that is NOMable is the CVI Stealth Drive Unit.

Each item has a different NOM path, with different benefits. Items always get better when they are NOMed to higher levels, but some items have a better NOM path than others. Or, at least, some items have a NOM path that better fits your style of play (though the Overamped Laser Battery's NOM path is widely considered to be one of the weakest paths).

When you NOM an item, you link it to yourself. Once NOMed, the item cannot be sold, sent to another pirate or added to a fleet armory. The sellback price also dramatically drops.

The Practice of NOMing

As NOMing is quite expensive (especially Mark IV and Mark V), you generally have to consider NOMing to be a long-term goal. As you are also linking it to yourself, you want to be careful what you NOM.

Some elite players often boast about their massive collection of NOMs (usually by posting the the results of a mercy kill). Keep in mind that they started where you did, but have spent a huge amount of time (and often money) in the game. Start small, start smart and you will be fine.

Some pirates only NOM up to Mark III. As Mark IV and Mark V are very expensive, and there are significant bonuses by Mark III, this seems like a reasonable strategy to me, but certianly not the only one.


Bridgeburners Recommendations of Things to Avoid:

- Don't NOM lots of items to Mark I. The improvement isn't great, and you will never be able to sell it. Only NOM the things you are going to keep.

- Don't NOM items until you have decided on a playstyle. Fusion Blaster Arrays have an excellent NOM path, but if you end up using a Turtle, they won't be much use to you.

- Try to NOM the biggest item you can that fits into your playstyle. Once you have the item, the only real difference in NOMing a Graviton Beam and a Pulsar Beam is the NOMs - the Duct Tape (a considerable expense) is exactly the same, and the cargo cost only doubled. The point above is also true here - if you have NOMed some CVII Drives, and then you get a CX Drive, are you going to use the CVII Drive any more?

- Don't use your ship upgrade money for NOMing. Dollar for Dollar, resources spent on getting a bigger ship are more effective than NOMing.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Bridgeburners

Bridge,
Great post - gave me a thorough grounding in NOMs.

When you say NOM vs Ship upgrades, and upgrades are better, would you say also that we might consider waiting till Dread 1s or higher before NOMming anything?
I'm in a new warship 3, and planning to stick around in this for a while i.e. no monies.

Would Nomming not get vital until I hit a Dread 1 at the least?

I recommend not NOMing anything until you have purchased a Warship Mark III.

Do you recommend NOMing FBAs for a Rogue or trying for more exotic weapons like Phasers and Black Hole Generators?

If you are going for a rogue, the FBA, PE, PEA, BHG are the best path, in that order.

I think that the FBA has the best NOM path in the game, so it's certainly worth NOMing.

However, I wouldn't NOM more than a couple.