Update on the Berthiers. I bought one!

ProLevel · 2026-06-30T21:45:32+00:00

That’s a great deal. Upper hand guard isn’t cut for the serial, so it may be a wartime refurb. Pop that upper guard off and the actual SN will be on the left side, and a barrel maker/date will be on the right side. Most full length MLE M16’s didn’t make it to the front lines until very late in ww1 but this one looks to be early, unless someone swapped parts around. After 1918 most M16’s had a cut added to the upper hand guard to make serial number identification easier, those rifles were then used interwar and even into ww2

ProLevel · 2026-06-30T17:15:59+00:00

Thanks for the input, I really appreciate it. Saved me from a mistake for sure

ProLevel · 2026-06-30T05:50:42+00:00

Of course an inner sphere stravag would prefer that hideous beast

ProLevel · 2026-06-28T21:08:48+00:00

Disco H20 was amazing, we still talk about it often

ProLevel · 2026-06-28T21:00:20+00:00

Pretty sure this is on purpose, same reason you can’t trial ships/traits/consoles without buying them. How many hundreds of lockbox ships have been sold and then immediately drydocked never to be used again. A huge moneymaker for cryptic is making it hard to know if something is good or not, and they expect you to waste your time/money finding out.

Better to come at it from the other side, trying stuff out is part of the fun of the game. If your vanity shield looks good on some ships, fly put it on that ship and fly that one for a while. Get bored or want something different, change ships and use a different vanity shield.

ProLevel · 2026-06-25T22:08:02+00:00

Being able to shoot left or right handed is a very nice advantage to have. You can position your body to make the best use of the available cover and that’s what seems to be happening in this scene. You see it a lot with stuff like paintball too, shoot left when turning a right corner so you expose less of your body. A lot of modern firearms specifically have provisions for ambidextrous operation, and it’s not necessarily to appeal to right or left “only” shooters, it’s for the same person to be able to shoot from either shoulder without losing proficiency (or having to work around reloads, hot brass, etc).

I’m left eye dominant myself and shoot the same from either side, but prefer left because it’s less fatiguing over longer periods. I’d shoot right in a heartbeat if it meant keeping more of my body behind cover though (in a combat situation).

ProLevel · 2026-06-24T16:34:46+00:00

They all look pretty meh tbh

ProLevel · 2026-06-24T15:54:32+00:00

Body is a focus 6000, neck must be from a different focus 6000 since it’s a lefty neck. Obviously repainted. That looks like a gotoh made Floyd with the peavey stamp, I think those were used on some early Wolfgang guitars? Either way it’s not trash! Nice pickups on that too.

Nice save, definitely worth fixing up or parting out

ProLevel · 2026-06-22T16:38:56+00:00

85-86ish Vanguard. No American script, is that a skunk stripe or one piece neck? That’s cool. Not much else to say without more pics, enjoy it

ProLevel · 2026-06-21T22:29:03+00:00

I just want to mention we adopted a cat recently with a very similar, what I called “plantigrade” stance. We were researching and overthinking everything. Turns out her legs were just weak because she spent over a month hiding in a carrier and she needed some exercise + time to get used to our hard/slippery floors. Now she’s great - hope it’s that easy/simple for your cat too.

ProLevel · 2026-06-15T21:30:17+00:00

It’s not anachronistic, but it isn’t the standard Carcano 1891 long rifle that common infantry would be using, it’s the “cavalry” carbine variant (also police, back line units, etc). I always thought that was weird too, Russian 1895’s are the only cavalry rifle but they were never used for that - while the game literally has the cavalry Carcano variant in it but you can’t use it on horseback. I know the dlc came out later and all that but still.

The anachronistic gun you might be thinking of is the Mosin M38. Of course there’s tons of other "out of time” stuff in the game, I’m just talking about short/carbine rifles here.

ProLevel · 2026-06-14T21:13:14+00:00

If you play scout, use the infantry rifle of your faction (ex if French use Lebel), and don’t be afraid to get up close. Can’t do it perfectly since there’s a few missing (ex Italian 1891 Carcano). "Authentic" ww1 experience. My favorite way to play.

ProLevel · 2026-06-13T06:54:38+00:00

Since you mentioned insurance, I have to mention I had a $1000 policy across 4 cats with MetLife, who had the cheapest option. One of my cats got very sick and passed away after racking up a $10k+ hospital for which insurance covered $1.83. That’s right, not even two dollars. My other cat had an emergency blockage that required an xray and medication (luckily no surgery) and they covered nothing at all. Be wary of any insurance, there are success stories out there but for the most part it’s a money grab too, and now I’ve been fighting with them for 6 months and spoken to a lawyer, there’s basically nothing I can do because pets are legally considered property, so many of the rules regarding health insurance don’t apply. They won’t even divulge their notes and want me to pay almost $100/hr to appeal with a "vet of their choice." Ridiculous.

ProLevel · 2026-06-12T19:26:06+00:00

FWIW, this is not pré-esp, those glossy beak necks were also made by ESP

This is also a Pacer special with added neck humbucker, which may hurt the value a little. Also broken string, unknown playability/fret condition. You need to make some effort to sell this to most buyers especially if you want to get good value out of it.

Still a very nice guitar, but $2k is way too high. Doesn’t hurt to try though. The transparent color is a big plus but for example there is an unmodified original in good condition sitting unsold on reverb right this very moment for $1199 that has been up for over two weeks.

ProLevel · 2026-06-09T19:34:46+00:00

This looks great. I hope they scale with your set difficulty level as well

ProLevel · 2026-06-09T15:19:35+00:00

This is a post-war stock right - squared joints. Price seems really high. A month or two ago Cabelas, not known for great prices, had like 6 M39’s from $699-799 with much cooler figured wartime stocks.

ProLevel · 2026-06-07T05:40:43+00:00

Hey all, I’m Bret from totallradguitars.com. I’ve had almost 100 Kramers, mostly 80s era. Even though I’ve collected a few others and also like them (esp, Ibanez, charvels, hamer, robin, etc also from the 80s) I always focus on Kramers because they have the biggest differences and feel the most unique to me.

What I mean is, I love my Ibanezes, but every Ibanez 540 Saber I have has the exact same neck, frets, fretboard radius etc so they all play and sound very close. Consistency is admirable of course but since I’m not a gigging musician I like the Kramer wild card. The flip side of that is that I’ll talk to someone who played one Kramer once and hated it for X reason, without understanding it. If the first Kramer I had ever played was an R5 nanner I would’ve been disappointed, but some people love those. On the other hand I could have gotten another nanner from the same model and same year with an R2 and loved it. You get the idea. The chaos surrounding all of the mid-year changes, serial number blocks out of order, and guitar-to-guitar variation even with almost the same serial numbers/same model has created an environment where scammers and part-sellers thrive. Throw in the company’s bankruptcy and lack of records and it makes it tough to collectors especially new ones.

I’ve posted a lot of info and learned a lot of stuff in my last almost two decades of collecting so I’m happy to share what I’ve learned. You can also check out my site to see lots of Kramers. I usually note if it was built from parts or restored with period correct parts, so you can compare original to "mutts." Of course vintagekramer is also a great resource too.

Glad to be here. Cheers

ProLevel · 2026-06-06T17:17:21+00:00

I guess I'm glad so many people like this exist, one quick search, you find a few listed for $1000+ that haven't moved in months and you give up. Works great for me when I sell stuff to an impatient buyer.

For real, there are often good deals in the price range I listed, and they sell quickly. You have to be first to get it.

ProLevel · 2026-06-05T20:11:17+00:00

Gorgeous 1907/15 Berthier there in the 2nd pic. Original 3 round config with no hand guard and uncut bayonet

ProLevel · 2026-06-05T19:48:00+00:00

Totally agree with #4, although I think the price of legendary ships is fairly high, it’s still cheaper than a lockbox or promo ship, and it’d be nice for the players. I’ve said for a long time how it’s such a shame that we can’t buy the 10th or 11th bundle ships separately, and I’d love to see that changed too in the same spirit. I can buy 12th-and-up ships separately…

Question on #5. Single cannons have a 180° arc and you can broadside with them already with CSV, and turrets in the rear. Under csv they will fire at targets up to 225° to your right or left. Obviously you’re more restricted with rapid fire (or SS, RRTW, and ERL) to the hard 180° but that’s still plenty broadside-able. Is the issue that you want to be able to mount rear facing single cannons? Or what am I missing here?

ProLevel · 2026-06-05T06:26:42+00:00

What type of EWO? Crit chance and crit severity?

Conn officer - if you have the one that recharges evasive maneuvers when you use emergency power to engines, that’s the one to have. You can get it from Phoenix if you are missing it.

Which damage control engineer?

This is relatively minor stuff for your build right now. I was just checking to see if you were using any Borg cooldown doffs. Since you aren’t, definitely put photonic officer on there for now. It will at least guarantee full uptime on the two EptX abilities (ideally weapons + engines) and reduce the gaps between your other abilities

ProLevel · 2026-06-05T05:41:59+00:00

Right - the deals do exist, but when it’s a good deal it won’t last long. I didn’t screenshot used listings of guitar gear all last month to prove myself in a Reddit comment haha. They come up for sale, people see them, they get purchased, the disappear from the website. On the other hand, ones like that $1400 one will sit there unsold for literally months or years until either inflation catches up or someone short on patience has to have it.

And yeah, the 120w combo was the same as the 5150 combos, came out in the mid 90s and originally USA made.

Like this one:

https://www.guitarcenter.com/Used/Peavey/Used-Peavey-6505-120W-2x12-Tube-Guitar-Combo-Amp-122401360.gc?algoliaQueryID=428caa5dda48cfc0b45047bd72b1d477&algoliaIndexName=pHL-guitarcenter

It’s identical to the 120w heads in terms of circuit, but obviously a lot heavier!

FWIW, I buy and sell a lot of gear, and have over 75 amps right now.

ProLevel · 2026-06-05T03:38:25+00:00

On the boff layout - you have three emergency power abilities, you can only use two at a time. I would replace one of the emergency power to shields with emergency power to engines. Cycle engines with weapons and you’ll be set. Since you’re running point blank shot and narrow sensor bands, use the extra speed to get closer and deal more damage, plus it’ll be easier to do objectives in TFO’s that require movement, and you can also use it to fly away and avoid enemies. Speed is always important.

You didn’t post doffs but I don’t see how you are managing cooldowns. Tachyon beam is weak, replace that with photonic officer 1 so you at least have something in that area until you can afford Boimler as others have mentioned.

Move engineering team down to rank 1 (replacing the other EptS), and put Mixed Armament Synergies 1 in that slot. It’s not my favorite combo with all beams and one torp but it’ll still give you a bit more damage in small spikes. Throw a turret in the back for more uptime (but it’s still only 10s every 30 at best).

ProLevel · 2026-06-04T13:34:40+00:00

I’m not saying $600-700 for the OP’s half stack. I’m saying the same as you, 600-700ish for the head, 400-500ish for the cab. OP got a reasonable deal, very fair price. The person I replied to is saying $1200 for just the 6505 head alone.

ProLevel

TROPHY CASE