gwalle

EDIT: Added progression costs and time

I feel I must explain a few things:

1. When you start codestone training it is wise to not train your level to the maximum until you are just about to move onto the next range of training.

E.g. If you train your level past 78 (as indicated in the table above as the ideal max level until you are ready to move on), you run the risk of getting a double or triple super bonus. This can put you at level 81 and then you have to pay 1 codestone extra and wait more time for each stat point.

2. At level 40 you will want to increase your HP to the maximum it can be trained at the Training School – this is because spending 2 codestones for 40 HP is cheaper than paying 3 codestones… der! This will mean you have to get your level to 60 before you can start training your strength and defense.

3. It should also be noted that you train things in this order: Level, Strength & Defense (double level), Health (triple level). This is because if you first train your Health to triple your Level, you will not be able to train your Strength or Defense without having to train you Level again... thus rolling over into a higher codestone requirement


UPDATE 22/10/2011 - How to increase your defense super-quickly
I came across some new information (for me at least) regarding hunger limitations and how to use it to the advantage of your training. Below I will pretty much just copy & paste from an article in the Neopian Times:

"Initially, what you would need to do is let your pet's Hunger level drop to "Dying". Depending on its current level, this could take several days. Once your pet's hunger level has reached "Dying", you can feed a Negg, which will make its hunger level "Starving". In exactly 2 hours, you will be able to go to QuickRef and see that the Hunger level has dropped back down to "Dying". At this point, you can simply come back every 2 hours and feed your pet.

You do not have to feed in exactly 2 hours for this to work. 2 hours is just the minimum amount of time you will need to wait."

This provides those who:

• Are at a high level where Neggs are cheaper than codestones
• Have exorbitant amounts of NP to blow / Negg tokens / Armoured Neggs

The ability to raise their defense stat ridiculously fast compared to other forms of training.

Here are two more tables to consider.

This table shows all the costs, time, etc for training ONLY Level / Strength / Health - as I will be explaining an alternative for leveling your defense via Neggs.

A simple overview of the changes this table now represents without defense being trained for:

• Roughly 13,000,000 NP less spend on codestones/dubloons
• Roughly 250 days less time to get from basic stats to Lv250/STR500/HP600

Now some people might be saying, "Ok, so it saves money and time, that's obvious given you are training one less stat. I may be 13mil richer and 250days quicker, but I have no defense... how much and long will it take to get my defense up then?"
Below is that table.



What are the hard facts this table shows?

• To get to the equivalent defense as if you were to train with codestones/dubloons it will cost you around 3,000,000 more NP
• To get to the equivalent defense as if you were to train with codestones/dubloons it will take you around 250 days less (as you can Negg train WHILE you codestone/dubloon train... it doesn't add any time) - however, it will take 42 days to get that 500 defense if you use the method explained above every 2 hours (Math is: 24 hr in a day / every 2 hr you can feed = 12 stats a day... 500 stats desired / 12 stats per day = ~42 days to get 500 stats).

Conclusion:
Pros

• Can save around 250 days of your pet training.
• Can train tandem stats
• Can still keep pet stats even, or leave defense training to the end/any point (you can go a few months without training defense, accumulate some wealth and then train when you have the NP to spare)

Cons

• Costs 3,000,000 NP more
• May cause a shortage of Armoured Neggs, therefore increasing their value and thus increasing the extra cost of this method
• If your pet is hungry, you cannot battle with it
• It can take several days for your pet to decrease to "Dying" stage
• Feeding a pet every 2 hours on the dot is not entirely feasible (though Negg feeders are said to be coming out in future Auto-Trainer updates)
• 16,500,000 NP is a hard slog on your wallet if you intend to level in one and a bit month.

First up you need to know where the Neggery is and what it does.
The Neggery is where you can trade in certain ‘Negg’ items for tokens which can in turn be exchanged for various special Neggs.
*NOTE* Not all ‘Negg’ items have a token value. Below I will supply a list you can refer to when purchasing items that are assured to have a token value.




Okay, so the above pictures show the various Neggs that can be redeemed, how many token you will receive from each Negg and the cost (searched via Shop Wizard or Trading Post). I have also included some of the more desired Neggs you can exchange for with the relative prices you would have to pay if you used Negg tokens.
*NOTE* Prices were the shop values I found based on 3-5 Shop Wizard refreshes which had at least a total of 10 or more items valued AT or BELOW this price.
Trading Post values were usually just the cheapest offered in a wishlist.

Some prices I was unable to find on the days I did my searching. Looking at all the Neggs with 8 or more tokens redeemable from them, I suspect there would be no point in purchasing them as their price is expected to be too high for profitability.
Yellow highlighted cells indicate a relatively ‘on par with trading value’ in terms of using Negg tokens for buying those specific Neggs. That is to say, for example, obtaining 126 Negg tokens will cost roughly the same as going to the Trading Post and buying a Snegg from a user.
Brown highlighted cells indicate that using tokens would increase the Neopoints spent procuring, for example, a Cool Negg by roughly 20-30%. I would advise not using tokens to redeem items in this category.
White and red cells are not worth bothering with; they are way overpriced and no profit can be gained from them.

Now, below is a list of the Neggs that will benefit your pet’s training.



This gives a better indication on which Neggs you will want to buy or redeem.
As noted in other guides, Negging for stats is much more expensive than training, and the added hassle of being dictated by hunger levels also restrict the amount of Neggs able to be used per day (to 2 or 3 max? My pet only seems to go down to ‘very full’ from bloated in 1 day).
I have tried to make this table as user-friendly and self-explanatory as possible; so my explanation will be brief as I assume most of you are intelligent enough individuals to work through it yourself:

The left column shows the Neggs you can redeem for with the tokens required to their right, what you/your pet gets upon eating the Negg and them some pricing stats as you keep going right of screen.

I have valued tokens at 2,000NP each because that is their current average Shop Wizard/Trading Post value. This also means that some ‘overestimation’ might result in my calculations… but those only means good things as it indicated the site prices could be lower.

As can be seen in the table, pretty much ALL Neggs are better off bought via Shop Wizard or Trading Post. This is due to the ridiculous inflation that seems to have occurred over the last year or two (according to a Negg guide made here on Codex in Jan 2010, token values were ~1,400np, 30% cheaper than now).

The far two right columns effectively show how much you are paying per skill point gained from a respective Negg.

• The (max) column displays the price you effectively pay if you get the MINIMUM points available from the Negg. (This is higher because you get less stats, thus you are paying MORE per stat)
• The (min) column displays the price you effectively pay if you get the MAXIMUM points available from the Negg. (This is lower because you get more stats, thus you are paying LESS per stat)

UPDATE: 21/10/2011 or 10/21/2011 for Americans
Train SUPER-FAST with Neggs
A new piece of information (for me) is that if you let your pet's hunger get to Dying, then feed it one Negg (E.G. Armoured Negg), you will be able to feed it another in 1-2 hours. This speeds up the process of Defense training SIGNIFICANTLY. If, however, you feed your pet from Full Up to Bloated, you will only be able to consume 1 or 2 Neggs per day.

Alright, so this is very similar to the Negg table above so perhaps read through that section first to get an understanding of what you are looking at here - assuming you cannot work it out for yourself

These potions are "better" than Neggs because you can use them whenever you want. However, they are "worse" because their price tag is generally way higher than a Negg equivalent and/or their chance element makes a lot of them (cooling balm, kaylas potion - to name a couple) just aren't worth buying 10 to have none increase any stat.