Need advice on when to get tokens

[TradeMinistry]

I am wondering how much time a person should spend working on tokens and when?

I was reading a post or maybe the chat window where someone around level 100 was asking about the best way to get tokens. I got the impression from this conversation that the person asking for advice as well as the folks giving it believed he was hosed for waiting so long to start doing his missions.

But then reading Phyxr's quick leveling guide, I see he doesn't start doing missions until level 125.

Is it better to do missions while they're easy? Spread them out to vary the mission content and loot? Defer until the challenge justifies the grind?

What I'm doing right now is putting all XP into research and collecting tokens. I could do this for a while and have all my research completed before I even hit the subway.

[Casorinth]

Personally I think it depends on your own likes.

As missions are available throughout the game its not really a problem, specially as you can adjust the difficulty to your own limits (although green mobs at least are needed for tokens).

Theres pro's and cons for getting your token boards up at different stages, at lower levels you see a greater benefit from the token board buffs, but at the same time your getting less tokens per mission.

On the other side at higher levels your getting more tokens per mission, but you feel the token board benefits slightly less and of course the mission rewards aren't all that good then.

So really it all depends on what you want, Missions are always a valid way to get XP and some loots, but not always the fastest way, that said, if you dont like power leveling at hecks/ninjas etc etc missions are your staple, and as a result you will probably end up getting plenty of tokens anyway.

[xaatxuun]

I am wondering how much time a person should spend working on tokens and when?

as much time you need, and when you need them

Is it better to do missions while they're easy? Spread them out to vary the mission content and loot? Defer until the challenge justifies the grind?

The missions can be even hard at lower levels, to make a quick kill through mission just for tokens, do the lowest level, you may not earn any xp, and creds, but you will get the tokens, I always thought starting right after I made TL3 was best time to start, you get your first 3 boards pretty quick.
When I am doing token missions and not blitzing missions for loot or creds, I choose the repair missions , I found sometimes I may click on the person on find person missions too soon, so for tokens I do repair missions, no mistakes there, just don't repair till I see that 100% chance to earn token rewards shows up.
I have received a token with just 54% (I think I got lucky on that one) and also not received a token with just 90%, so just to make sure I take the mission to 100%.
Any more I go ahead and start my token missions earlier then I used too, just because I have started over and have no help from any higher level toon that can sponsor my new started toon anymore.

Basically, when your comfortable to doing missions that is the best time to go for the tokens.

[Casorinth]

Grey mobs don't give token chance, so you can't do lowest, but you can adjust the slider so that there green on the verge of grey so there easy

[Snakebite]

The other obvious way to gain tokens is thru the 'token gun quest'...

Farm token guns, hand em in for tokens, also quite a few single tokens drop also.
HOWEVER...
You'll need to be a certain level to kill these mobs as they come in at about level 125...

OR...

You can buy token guns off players, going price is normaly 3million for a full bag of 'sorted' token guns...

[Scene]

There is also the shoulderpad quest that can earn you tokens if you're Omni (not sure for clan - never been 1).

If you're missioning for tokens, quickest way is set the mission level just below halfway and make sure its set to 100% Order + 100% Good. This will ensure you get human mobs of the opposite faction in your missions (as well as neutral). Should you be lucky enough, tokens should drop from th opposite faction mobs (not neutral). I managed to farm over 500 tokens in 48hrs at lvl 100ish doing this.

[Niodemus]

I know this is a rather late answer, so it's more likely aimed towards other who may wonder in future...

Personally I start going for tokens from level 15 on. Until hitting Title Level 4 the goal is 400 token.

The reason is that many professions have a blue or even dark blue nano pool skill and with that they on one side don't get high nano energy and on the other the allocated IP often are needed for other important skills.

As example I usually use the Atrox Enforcer archetype. Atrox get little nano energy per invested IPs (based on breed) and also have high nano pool IP costs (based on profession). Of course one could invest into nano pool, but the downside is that there are not enough IPs left for the rather important nano skills.
At that point items which boost the nano energy are quite comfortable and one of the highest boosts comes from the sided board for a long time (think untill TL5 or even TL6). Besides the enhanced nano energy by the board the health boost could be life saving as well.

Additionally at TL4 one could make use of the so called 1k-board, which buffs computer literacy by a rather huge amount (260 or so). This buff is quite important and should be used as soon as possible from my point of view. Coming back to the above example of the Atrox Enforcer who has a blue or dark blue comp. lit. skill, the profession can perform best if the whole team could upload their benefitial buffs to the Enfos NCU. This requires a lot of available NCU and the board definitely helps on this job.

These are my opinions! In the end it matters what you personally prefer and if you have fun doing the missions to gain the tokens. And since there are alternative ways of earning tokens (LE alien missions, token gun quest, Battlestation/Victory Points etc.), I can understand the point of view other might have for leaving the token gain behind for a long time.
All that matters is that you as the player have fun playing Anarchy Online. Period.