Being a Good Supergroup Member
Becoming part of a supergroup is one of the wonderful aspects of City of Heroes—suddenly, you’re part of a group of heroes working for a common purpose. If you’re lucky, you’re part of an active supergroup who helps each other out with invention salvage, enhancements, inspirations, missions, and even costume design.
However, you do need to be aware that as part of a group, you must contribute to that group in some way. Otherwise, if you’re just taking what everyone else is contributing, you might not have happy fellow members for long!
Here is a list of ways you can contribute to your supergroup. No way is too small—supergroups need members to support them in any way they can!
Play City of Heroes in "Supergroup Mode"
Refill the SG's Inspiration Holder
Collect Invention Salvage and Store It in the Base
Build Enhancements for Your Fellow SG Members
Run Missions With Your Fellow SG Members
Help Recruit New Members
Play City of Heroes in “Supergroup Mode”
Click “Super” on your Chatbox window, and find the option “Enter SG Mode.” Once you click this, you will earn prestige (another type of currency) for your supergroup every time you destroy enemies and run missions. Prestige is needed to pay the monthly supergroup base upkeep costs, as well as to redesign the base, add new rooms, buy enhancement tables, salvage racks, teleporters, etc. The more often you run your character in Supergroup Mode, the more prestige your SG gets! You will be helping your SG get what it needs, just by playing City of Heroes.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Heroes do not lose anything by playing in SG Mode while they are under level 25. However, at level 25, you start taking a mild hit to your gained influence from each kill if you are still in SG Mode. I usually don't worry about staying in SG Mode past level 25, since the difference can be easily made up by selling common Arcane salvage, and I'm always glad to help out my SG. However, if you've splurged at Wentworth's and need to make up the difference through some battles, you can easily turn off SG Mode for a while to start gaining full influence again.
There is an option to use your SG colors and symbol on your costume instead of your original costume colors when you are in SG Mode, but you do not have to use those colors if you don’t wish to do so. To access your SG Mode costume, click “Super,” then look to the bottom left of the window that pops up for a button labeled “Settings.” Advance past the Supergroup info page to get to the Costume page.
Refill the SG’s Inspiration Holder
The Inspiration Holder can get mighty empty mighty fast if you have an active SG and lots of people coming in and out of the base refilling their personal Inspiration stocks. If you want to help refill this holder, follow these steps:
- Empty your personal Inspiration stock into the holder.
- Take note of which Inspirations are in greatest demand, and make a list (either mental or on paper). I suggest keeping at least 10-15 each of Respites, Catch a Breaths, Break Frees, and Awakens on hand, and filling in the rest with 5-10 each of Damages, Accuracies, Lucks and Sturdies.
- Get to the nearest Architect Entertainment building and talk to the Inspiration Vendor. (Remember that you cannot buy Awakens here. You will need to buy at least 3 of the same Inspiration and then combine them yourself into an Awaken by right-clicking one of them, selecting the option “Combine 3 into...”, and selecting “Awaken” from that resulting list.)
- Buy your Respites, Catch a Breaths, and Break Frees first in bulk, and then get a few each of the other Inspirations as necessary. Awakens will need to be saved for last, as it requires a little more work to create them.
As my supergroup’s unofficial Inspiration Restocker, I find that this job works best with a character who has a good supply of influence and who has a fast traveling power like Flight, Super Speed, or Super Jump, so that the trips back and forth from the AE building to the Base Portal take less time. A character who can carry more Inspirations at a time is also, of course, an asset.
Collect Invention Salvage and Store It in the Base
Every time you run regular City of Heroes missions, you will invariably end up with items called Invention Salvage. (Learn more about Invention Salvage here.) You can view your store of salvage by clicking “Salvage” on your Power Tray window. If you have a collection of salvage already, hang on to it! Bring the salvage back to the base and store it in the salvage racks (if your SG base has any racks). Why would anybody keep these random, useless items, you may ask? Well, these items, when combined in specific ways, can become Invented Enhancements for your supergroup’s characters! (Learn more about Invented Enhancements here.) Items like Ancient Artifact, Spell Scroll, Simple Chemical, Luck Charm, Boresight, Inanimate Carbon Rod, Spiritual Essence, and Runebound Armor can be used for many different Enhancements, so these are often in high demand over at Wentworth’s. These items often drop off of low-level enemies, so low-level characters have a better chance of getting these exceedingly good pieces of common salvage. (Don’t go blasting through level 5 enemies with a level 20 character if you’re looking for common salvage, though! Salvage only drops off of enemies that are closer to your level—if the enemies are gray to you, you won’t get salvage from them.)
You can also go to the AE building and spend your AE tickets to get some common salvage. Go to the Ticket Redemption booth (the circular counter above the “green light”) and select “Reward Rolls,” and then “Random Common Salvage.” You have a choice of level 10-25, 21-40, or 41-50 common arcane or tech salvage. (Lots of the most expensive salvage is level 10-25, so you’re better off buying that. Anything you can’t use can most likely be sold for good influence over at Wentworth’s.) Ancient Artifacts, Spell Scrolls, and Luck Charms are all Arcane salvage; Boresights, Simple Chemicals, and Inanimate Carbon Rods are all Tech salvage. Each random piece of salvage will cost you 8 tickets, so buy carefully if you have a limited amount of tickets. Watch your Salvage window or your Global chat window to see what items you’re getting!
Once your salvage storage is full, head back to the base and empty your pockets—your resident Enhancement builder will thank you.
Build Enhancements for Your Fellow SG Members
Just like you build Enhancements for yourself, you can also do it for your fellow supergroup members. For instance, if somebody needs an extra Damage Enhancement but doesn't have the influence to build it or even get the parts, you can build it for them if you've got enough influence on one of your characters. Once you build it, just click and drag it from your Enhancement window to their character while you're standing side by side with them, and they will get it! Note: You cannot build Costume Pieces for other people. If you build the recipe for a Costume Piece, that means you will get the benefit of using the costume part, and you can't give it to them. You can donate influence for building such a costume part, instead.
You can head back to your base to store your new Enhancement on the Enhancement Storage tables if your SG base has them. If not, you can talk to your SG members to see if one of them needs it, and hold it for them until you can give or trade it to them. If no one needs it at the moment and you can’t store it anywhere, check at Wentworth’s to see if the kind and level of Enhancement you made is selling; if it is, list it and make a bit of money! If it’s not selling there, you can sell it to a Store in the area, or you can put out a Request message listing the name of the Enhancement and its level, and see if anyone responds. (I prefer the second option, because I know that if I give it to a real live person playing CoH, then they will most likely be able to use it!)
Run Missions With Your Fellow SG Members
The SG that plays together stays together, truly! If you run missions often with your fellow supergroup members, you always have someone to play with, and you’re building trust, friendship, and camaraderie within the SG. Keeping to yourself doesn’t really pay in the long term—-CoH is a social game!
Help Recruit New Members
During play, you might find yourself part of an AE pickup team, or you might respond to someone’s desperate broadcast of “looking for team.” Keep an eye on your fellow players, especially if none of them are in a supergroup, and if you observe that one or two of them seem to be really cool players (they have good attitudes, don’t complain a lot, try to help the team out rather than acting like they are soloing the mission), take the opportunity to talk to them about becoming members of your supergroup. Remember that only upper-level members and leaders of your SG can officially make a character a member—if you are not a leader or upper-level member, give the person the screennames of your leaders (make sure at least one of them is online first!) and encourage him/her to contact them. Also, add him/her to Global Friends or Friends as you deem appropriate, so that you can contact them again to keep in touch with them, even if he or she doesn’t become part of your SG.