S.T.A.R.T.

Overview

The S.T.A.R.T. Vendor sells, for in-game currency, everything which players could spend real money on before the 2012 shutdown. It also offers access to some additional functionality. S.T.A.R.T. Vendors are located in the tutorials, in the starting zones (Atlas Park, Mercy Island, and Nova Praetoria), Pocket D, Grandville, Firebase Zulu, Fort Trident, The Crucible, and Echo Plaza. During the Winter Event, a S.T.A.R.T. vendor is located in the Winter Forest.

The S.T.A.R.T. Vendor in Pocket D, Echo Plaza, Fort Trident, and The Cruicible are accessible by characters on a Task Force or AE Mission.

Custom XP Rates

If you are not level 50, you can select a custom XP rate. These options are offered at no cost, but reduces inf gain by a like amount and lasts for one hour per charge (for a maximum of eight hours) or until cancelled in the Powers window. Upon turning Level 50, the power does nothing until time expires (or until cancelled.)

Only one custom rate can be picked at a time. (Example: You cannot mix 50% XP/50% INF with 25 XP/75% INF. Upon choosing 50% XP/50% INF, the other options are greyed out until the 50% XP/50% INF rate is cancelled or expired.)

Custom XP Rates DO NOT affect the following:

• any completion bonus from Missions, Arcs, or Task Force/Strike Force play (which ignores XP multipliers and always grants inf, including Day Job boosts to such bonuses),
• drops from defeats, nor the drop rates of any salvage or recipes (players can sell their inventory gained from defeats to offset the lost inf),
• Windfall (with the understanding that 25% bonus to 0 inf remains 0 if 100% XP/0% INF is chosen),
• reward tables offered (if one is offered at the end of an arc, TF/SF or raid).

Prestige Enhancements

These 5 enhancements are free, but unique. Until level 21, these are some of the best enhancements you can use.

Prestige Powers

Attacks

You can select which of the 5 Origin Powers to have. (You may need to first Revoke the one you have, below.)

You can also choose from a selection of melee and ranged prestige attacks. These are free if you have fewer than three total.

Buff Pets

You can buy pets that boost your Resistance and Damage or Defence and Recovery. One is free, but if you want more than one, it will cost a million inf.

Just for Fun

100,000 inf: the Flying Disc and Snowball powers.

Sprints

Free: grants all the prestige sprints. Note that it cannot be revoked.

Travel

1,000,000 inf: the Flying Carpet, Void Skiff, and Rocket Board flight powers. These provide reasonable speed, but are expensive and prevent you from using powers on other ingame entities while in use.

The Jump Pack and Steam Jump powers, which are identical apart from their appearance. One is free, but a second will cost you 100,000 inf. They let you jump as high as you like for 30 seconds, then cool down.

The Athletic Run, Beast Run and Ninja Run powers, which increase running speed considerably and jumping height somewhat. They are also identical other than their appearance, and the first one is free but the second costs 1,000,000 inf.

1,000,000 inf: the Coyote Travel Power and Panther Travel Power. These transform you into the relevant animal, turn off other powers, and boost your running speed considerably.

1,000,000 inf: Assemble the Team (free if you have the Paragon badge).

1,000,000 inf: Base Transporter

1,000,000 inf: Mission Transporter

10,000,000 inf: Team Transport Power

1,000,000 inf: Pocket D VIP Pass (free if you have spent 5 hours in Pocket D)

Utility

The Mystic Fortune, Inner Inspiration, and Secondary Mutation powers; the first is free, but the others cost 500,000 inf.

1,000,000 inf: Return to Battle or Renewal of Light. These self-rez powers are mutually exclusive. They are free if you have the The Unbroken Spirit badge.

10,000 inf: the Reveal power.

10,000,000 inf: the Portable Workbench (free if you have the Field Crafter badge).

100,000 inf: the Self Destruction power.

10,000 inf: the Shadowy Presence stealth power.

Vanity Pets

1,000,000 inf: each of the Vanity Pets, which are all non-combat.

Recipe & Inspiration Drops

For a small fee, you can no longer get drops of various categories of IO recipe - Common, Uncommon, Rare, or Very Rare and PVP. You can also re-enable these drops.

For small inf fees, you can disable inspiration drops by type (eg accuracy, damage, endurance) or size, or re-enable ones you have disabled. You can also enable dual and team inspirations.

It is important to note that disabling IO or Inspiration Reward drops does not 'cycle' to a lesser reward, or pick a different option behind the scenes. If a recipe drop would have given you a disabled recipe type, instead you get nothing. The same applies to Inspiration drops during combat. Example: with disabled inspirations turned on at the S.T.A.R.T. Vendor, using the Inner Inspiration prestige power would grant fewer inspirations if one of the disabled ones would have been rewarded. It is entirely possible to activate the power and receive nothing if enough inspirations are disabled, or the Inner Inspiration power would have granted three Inspirations of the same disabled type.

Revoke

You can remove various S.T.A.R.T. powers if you no longer require them. This is useful for swapping Origin Powers, or for those classes of power where one is free but a second one is expensive.

This only removes the power. It does NOT give a refund.

Temporary Powers

A variety of temporary attacks. Most of these are useful only for character concept, but the Envenomed Dagger power heavily debuffs regeneration so is useful for Archvillain and Giant Monster fights.

St. Louis Slammer (30 charges for 5,000 inf)

Envenomed Dagger (30 charges for 50,000 inf)

Hand Grenades (18 charges for 5,000 inf)

Plasmatic Taser (24 charges for 5,000 inf)

Revolver (30 charges for 5,000 inf)

Gabriel's Hammer (30 charges for 5,000 inf)

Smoke Flash (10 charges for 500,000 inf)

Stun Grenade (20 charges for 50,000 inf)

The Offense Amplifier, Defense Amplifier, and Survival Amplifier, which have a level-dependent cost.

Assorted combat buffs; Kinetic Dampener (500,000 inf / 30 minutes), Med Pack (500,000 inf / 10 charges), Power Analyzer (50,000 inf / 20 charges), Recovery Serum (50,000 inf / 5 charges), and Resuscitator (500,000 inf / 10 charges).

The Backup Radio summon (500,000 inf / 5 charges), and an assortment of Signature Summons (10,000,000 inf / 5 charges).

Jetpacks (5,000 inf / 30 minutes for the ordinary one; 50,000 inf / 30 minutes for a selection of different skins with identical performance.

Historical

This section contains information about changes that took place in Homecoming: City of Heroes/Villains. It is provided for historical purposes.

• In Issue 25, the jetpack vendors were replaced with S.T.A.R.T. (then P2W) vendors in Grandville and Firebase Zulu.
• Prior to Issue 27, Page 7 The S.T.A.R.T. Vendor was called the P2W Vendor (or Transact 4 Victory in Praetoria). This was an inside joke referring to the removed Paragon Market feature, which used to sell many of its wares as micro-transactions. It was renamed to make its purpose more clear as part of the New Player Experience improvements initiative.