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'''These are tips & tricks for the PackRat facebook application (http://apps.facebook.com/packrat/)'''

==Beginner Tips==
* First, '''read the [http://apps.facebook.com/packrat/help help files].'''  Most of the basic gameplay is covered there.

== Cards ==

* You can vault and make recipes with locked cards, but you have to unlock cards to be able to drop them.

* When you flip over a card in your pack or vault, you can click the name of it to go to a page that displays the entire history of this card. (Locks do not have history.) If you bookmark this page, you can track where your card ends up in case you lose it overnight.

* If you have pack space, try to have a high value card (3000+) to trade if you see an elusive rare on a rat that has been flushed out of someone's pack. You can usually get these through trading up &ndash; e.g., you get a can of coke (500) as a vault bonus, then you trade it up for a 750 or 1000 point item, then a 1200-1500 point item, then 2000-3000, etc.

* There are several ways to get cards you need:

:* Buying cards from one of the [http://apps.facebook.com/packrat/markets markets] is the most common way to get new items.

:* You can steal cards from the artificial Rat characters or your friends that have added the PackRat application.

:* If the markets don't have what you need and you can't locate the item in a pack from which you can steal, you can post or search for a message on the [http://www.facebook.com/board.php?xid=packrat_trading&app_id=2431403991&c_url=http%253A%252F%252Fapps.facebook.com%252Fpackrat%252Fdiscuss&r_url=http%253A%252F%252Fapps.facebook.com%252Fpackrat%252Fdiscuss%252F&sig=d27afad50237de6182af962fa9e32e32 official PackRat trading boards] and trade with another player.

:* If all else fails, you can join the unofficial [http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8084262209 PackRat Bazaar] Facebook group and trade there.

== Recipes ==

* All known recipes can be found at this site's [[PackRat|main page]]. It will be your PackRat bible. Bookmark it.

* Making recipes gives you points equal to the resulting cards value. Vaulting cards gives your points equal to the total vaulted cards' value. Stealing a card gives you 10% of the stolen card's value.

== Collections ==

* When working on older collections its easier to get the higher recipes done first and work your way down.

* If there is a collection retiring it would be best to complete that collection while you still can, once collections are retired they are no longer sold in markets. The only way to obtain these cards is through trades or finding them in the rats.

== Your Pack ==

* When your pack is full, steal a lock from a rat, go to lock something in your pack but refresh your screen 3 times, return to your pack and your lock will have been used up and you will be left with a space.

* Another way to free up a loaded pack is to swap out some un-needed cards for three of the same card that is part of a recipe. Cards that are easy to find in the rats, easy to pick up with any card such as chopsticks, corn, bucklers, and rubber trees, pineapple juice among others.

* To post your pack link, scroll down to your history feed right click on "You" and "copy link location" this is your pack link or click on the Leaderboard. Right click on your name and select" Copy link location" from the popup box. Go create your post and then paste the link in it. Should look something like this '''<nowiki>http://apps.facebook.com/packrat/user/ub1*******</nowiki>'''

* When leaving comments on people's walls a lot of people prefer that you whisper comments as to not push their message down.

== Vault ==

* You don’t have to vault 5 of the same thing, you can vault as little as 5 different things from the same collection. You can vault 15 different items from the same collection if you want.

* When vaulting for vault bonuses you will achieve the best results if you vault your pack to empty, vaulting everything in your pack yields you 5 vault bonus cards.

== Pop Ups==

* To actually receive a pop-up in your pack you '''must''' click the link below the picture.

* Try not to carry a full pack, you wont get pop ups if your pack is full.

== Credits ==

* To pay someone in credits, you click break lock on a locked item in their pack and refresh your screen the amount of times x 10 the credits you owe them (each attempt pays them 10 credits so 100 credits is 10 refreshes)

* When surfing for credits, ignore what's in the packs, just watch for a gold credit coin. If after going one direction for more than 5 clicks and no coins pop up, change directions and go back the other way. Sometimes just going back and forth over three rats in a row results in a coin every second click. If no coins appear after going both directions for a while, click on any item in a rat pack to attempt a steal, then click on cancel.. a coin usually follows a canceled steal. Sometimes after surfing for credits and none are showing up, click on Steal from Friends, and choose any friend other than a rat, a coin usually appears after this too.  

* Coins also often appear on pages of friends of friends; just look on your friends walls and activities for their friends and click on them—you won't be able to steal from them (unless they're your friends too), but you'll usually get credits by going to their pages.

* If you are surfing the packs for credits/items and accidentally click the next page button before the credits that you were delayed in noticing, just click the credits and then RE-CLICK the next page button and you will keep your credits.

* If you click on a credit coin (particularly a bigger amount, say 20 or above) and it disappears when you scroll to the next page click back to the page you just left, & see if its still there. Then refresh the same page and click forward to the next page again and it usually sticks. Doesn't work every time, but it has several times. It's worth a try at least.

* Inviting friends is an excellent way to earn credits, you get a random amount of credits when you invite as well as a rare card. For every friend that joins you get 100 credits as well. (Beware, new friends can steal from you & probably aren't aware of the Co-op/FFA aspect of the game)

== Markets ==

* Using the Bookmark Toolbar in Firefox, you can bookmark your markets for a quick jump from one to the other.

* If there is an item you want in multiple markets try to buy it from the market that moves the slowest (London & NY have really slow turn over rates). This helps keep the markets moving.

* If you're trying to buy a hard to get item from one of the markets, click on the picture of the market to make the market refresh. It's faster and cleaner. Hitting F5 or the Refresh button causes the browser to reload the page.  Clicking on the picture leaves more information in the browser's cache, shortening load time.

* Just above the words “Buy Now” in the market, there is a blue line. This line indicates how much of said item is left. The longer the line, the more of the item is left in stock.

* An item will stay in the market for 30 minutes. If, after 30 minutes, the item has not sold out, a new item will replace it.

* Say an item you're surfing for is either in London or Sydney, and you'd normally be clicking from London to NY to Sydney and back to NY then London. Skip NY by first going to London, then in the address bar for the browser backspace over London and type in Sydney and hit enter, now you're in Sydney. From then on just click back and forth on the browser navigation arrows to switch between London and Sydney without going thru NY.

* There are a number of Firefox extensions ([https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1122 Tab Mix Plus], [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/115 ReloadEvery], etc.) that allow you to auto-refresh a tab at a specified interval. This can be very useful for watching a market for a specific item to come up.

* Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard users can use the Safari feature Web Clips to put a snapshot of a market (or pack, or any other page) on their Dashboard, which will automatically update every time you bring up the dashboard. See [http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?app_id=2431403991&xid=packrat_general&c_url=http%253A%252F%252Fapps.facebook.com%252Fpackrat%252Fdiscuss%252F&r_url=http%253A%252F%252Fapps.facebook.com%252Fpackrat%252Fdiscuss%252F&sig=6e38ab0c9908fff1c0951695481d938b&amp;topic=4756 this discussion thread] for detailed instructions. ''Warning: Facebook or Alamofire code may currently be breaking this.''

* It is only possible to buy from a specific slot once per item. After purchasing an item, you may not purchase from that slot until the original item has been sold out.

== Locks ==

* Locks are sold in the markets for 50 Credits.

* If you flip (click the card) over a lock and click on the name of the lock you can practice the mini game for credits.

* A less expensive way to get a Lock is to buy an inexpensive item in the Markets and use that to steal a Lock from a rat. Note, however, that the rats do not always have locks (whereas the markets do) and the Lock cards found in the rats have usually been used once or twice already.

== Rats ==

* The rats are fiesty, they will steal your precious items from time to time, locking your items is a very effective way of keeping the rats away.

* Using the Bookmark Toolbar in firefox, you can bookmark your rats this allows you to surf only the rats.

* If you're surfing the rats for a particular card and they are flooded with a card you don't need, try collecting and vaulting those cards. It's easy points and helps clean out the rats while you wait for the card you need. You might also be surprised with a nice vault bonus!

* If you buy cheap cards and trade up to do this, you can gain a large amount of points for a relatively small outlay.

== Friending People ==

* Make sure you know someone's playing style before adding people. Not everyone plays cooperatively.

* If you're having trouble finding a newly added friend in your "Steal from Friends" rotation check your [http://apps.facebook.com/packrat/leaderboard Leaderboard]. New friends are always immediately added there first.

* If you sent a trade request to a person you're unsure about and need to leave for a bit, there is a way to rescind the offer. Simply go to your privacy section and block the person temporarily. Then, unblock them immediately after. After blocking someone, all connections are severed so the request will be canceled.

== Colin's Lock Trick&trade; ==

* Get 15 items. Use one lock up two times. Lock something you need locked for a while and before you hit the play button open a Market in a new window or tab and buy an item. When you finish playing the game, you'll have an item locked, the lock and a 16th item. This will not work with a 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th slot ad infinitum. It's been tested and an error occurs when attempted more than once.

== Questions ==

If something isn't covered here please refer to the [[Talk:PackRat - Tips and Tricks|discussion link]] to ask any questions, we'll try to help as best as we can =)


{{Contribs wanted}}
[[Category: PackRat]]
[[Category:Advice, Tips & Tricks]]


Adapted with permission from [http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?xid=packrat_general&app_id=2431403991&c_url=http%253A%252F%252Fapps.facebook.com%252Fpackrat%252Fdiscuss%252F&r_url=http%253A%252F%252Fapps.facebook.com%252Fpackrat%252Fdiscuss%252F&sig=6e38ab0c9908fff1c0951695481d938b&topic=417&start=0&hash=df6bcf673483aaff46ce1c06b9a2ee2f Tiffany Hall]