Early mid-game guide

So, you want to run with the big dogs? You better learn how to eat ass like the big dogs.

-Duke 2028

Introduction 

Hello my name is Gord. I've been playing now for 7 months. I've spent quite a bit of time looking through various forms of media trying to learn more about this game. From what I can tell is there is an abundance of information for early game and a fair amount of information for late game. I feel mid game info is a bit lacking. My aim is to put all that I've learned so far into an easy to read guide for early mid-game players like myself. 

I'm certain there are players with significantly more knowledge than me, and will disagree with some of my views, and that's fine. One thing I've realized is there's no set in stone way to play this game. Everyone has different opinions on what's the best way to do something. Feedback is a gift. If you feel that I'm way off on something in this guide or my play style, please feel free to give feedback.

Who this guide is for

This guide is aimed at players who are:

• Past happy jumping (~400k+ in each battle stat)
• Familiar with flying and basic money making
• Familiar with basic war mechanics and turtling
• Looking to optimize long-term account progression

Things You Should Already Be Doing

•         Never let energy or nerve sit at full. Every point of energy or nerve that caps is progress you'll never get back. Depending on your maximum nerve, this may even mean you don't sleep for more than five hours at a time.
•         Use your daily energy refill (and nerve refill if you can afford it) as long as you're not consistently spending more than you earn each day.
•         Always be enlisted in an Organized Crime (OC) with your faction. OCs provide crime experience, good income, and help your faction progress.
•         Use your booster cooldown every day. Whether it's beer for additional nerve or inexpensive candy to maintain high happiness, your booster cooldown is another resource that should rarely go unused.
•         Always be enrolled in education. Every hour you’re not enrolled in education delays permanent account progression.

Mindset

Like myself, if you're under 3 years into this game you need to understand one thing... The only way for you to really get ahead in this game is for others to burn out and for you to stay consistent in your progress. Slow and steady wins the race. There will always be players significantly stronger than you. 

The most important thing you can do at this point in your account is set yourself up for success. The decisions you make now will benefit you for years to come if you stick to it.  Every little benefit that you can get now will help you to someday snowball into something meaningful. 

This game is all about snowballing. For example getting your 2b bank is going to be tough, but working on your first stock benefit blocks will be just that little bit easier having the bank investment. As you continue to accumulate more passive income, things will become easier to obtain. 

It's all about doing the right things early.

Faction

Your faction may be the most significant choice you make in this game. Do not rush into making any decision. For the progress of your account there is no bigger way to snowball than picking the correct faction. 

If you're the biggest person in your faction or most knowledgeable, you probably need a better faction. Surround yourself with knowledgeable players that you can lean on. If you don't know the answer to a question, if you've surrounded yourself with the right people, I'm sure someone will have the answer.

The perks that a faction provides are some of the most significant buffs in the game. Steadfast for example will give you compounding gains for the rest of your Torn life. You may see it and say 10% isn't that big of a deal, but if you were to do the math on this over a year of training, it would be shocking. 

If you decide to join your friends faction with 30k respect, you're shooting yourself in the foot. Be selfish when it comes to choosing the right faction. You should be aiming for a faction with a minimum of 1 million respect. There are countless factions out there that are willing to recruit less experienced players, but make sure that you're doing your part.

With your faction, it's not all take. You need to be a good faction member. If they ask you for 20 hits in a chain, give them 40. In the end you're only benefiting yourself. The more respect your faction has the more benefits you get to enjoy. 

Take your Xanax and train religiously. This is how your faction gets higher percent steadfast.  If they ask for you to take a minimum of 2 Xanax a day, aim to take 3. Do your part, and if everyone has a similar mindset your faction is going to thrive.

Job

Your job plays a crucial role in your progress. Sit down and take a look at what benefits each job provides you. Find ones that suit what you want to achieve in this game. Create a roadmap of which jobs you want to take, when to switch to them, and understand why you're doing it. 

If you're getting a job for income, you're only hurting yourself long term. Many job perks provide permanent account progression that money alone cannot replicate.

Everyone will do their own things for jobs, but if you're interested, here's my plan: 

I personally took a slower path to get the benefits I want.   I focused on the city education job to become principal for the 10% education time reduction. 

After I got that I moved to a music store with the goal to unlock all gyms 30% faster. Once I unlock George's gym I'll move onto my next job.

Next I’ll be joining a fitness center for the 5 hour education course reduction daily. Once I have the crucial educations complete I'll move into the next job

Finally my retirement home is going to be a ladies strip club for the massive 10% boost to defense gains in the gym, as well as longer duration/increased heal serotonin. 

The key takeaway here is: 

• Know what you want to achieve

• Know what jobs benefit what your current goal is

• Get that job

• Achieve goals

Battle stats(build)

This is a tough one to cover as everyone has different opinions on what's the best way to go. 

By this stage in the game you should understand that whoring a stat is the best choice. But then there's mention of which ratio to go. We've got Hank's ratio and Baldr’s ratio. I've heard arguments for both being the better way to go. 

For me I feel that ratios are boring and you're locking yourself into playing the game to that ratio for possibly ever for a less than 3% gain over George's gym for your strength and speed. 

In my opinion the juice isn't worth the squeeze for maintaining Hank’s or Baldur's ratio. Yes you get 2 special gyms to train 3 stats in. But I feel the true strength of the 2 stat special gym is being able to use it on your whore stat as soon as you've unlocked Chachas. Being able to get that gain on your whore stat as early as Chachas will actually make a meaningful difference to your power in the future. 

I much prefer the idea of setting milestones for battle stats over a ratio. This makes your whore stat have no cap. If you feel your battle stats are able to get the job done for you in missions and wars, focus on your whore stat. If you're stalemating you should set a new milestone for your other 3 stats and achieve it. 

I personally will be setting milestones. I'll be getting my strength and speed to those milestones and (somewhat) ignoring dex until I unlock the 2 stat special gym, unless im getting crushed by mission targets and feel that higher dex is the solution. Once that's done, I'll be getting all 3 non-whore stats to milestones. 

A suggestion I've read is don't exceed 50% of your total stats on your whore stat. Once you're over 50% consider a new milestone.

Money making

I'm going to keep this one simple. I'm going to consider money making passive income only, not actively trading or flying for plushies. If that's something you're into, great, continue to do that. But you should be using that money to invest into passive income so years down the road your money has multiplied itself many times over. 

Here's a list of strong passive incomes I feel a mid game player should be aiming to have: 

• 2b bank- #1 priority. Nothing will make you as much money as this.

• SYM- 1 drug pack every 7 days. This can be passive income, but I'm opening the drug packs personally because I use the Xanax. I did 2 shares of this before any other benefit block outside of education benefit block

• PRN- 1 Edvd every 7 days. If you can't afford the extra  ~150m to get a second SYM benefit block, go for this after your first SYM.

• FHC- 1 feathery hotel coupon every 7 days. This one's on the more expensive side. I would get my second SYM before this.

• GRN- 4m every 31 days. This one's underwhelming. But it's an achievable passive income sitting around 160m to get the benefit block. 

• TCT- 1m every 31 days. Another underwhelming one. But at only 31m for the benefit block it's a nice one to get early.

These are the ones I would consider as a mid-game player as the other ones become a lot more expensive. You'll want to get these to help to pay for other more expensive benefit blocks in the future.

This alone should net you around 180m a month(~6m per day) as well as up to 80 Xanax a month. And this is only the math on the 1 month bank investment. If you're patient enough you'll make a bit more.

The most important thing to remember with money making in the game is to make more money than you spend each day. If you're doing that it will snowball over time. Cut your spending down to only essentials required for you to progress.

Many of the comments on this guide recommend the MCS stock benefit for the additional energy. I agree that it's a very strong benefit, but I personally consider it a later-game purchase due to its high cost for what it provides. Before buying MCS, I would prioritize building a strong passive income through your bank investment and core stock benefit blocks. Once your economy is comfortably supporting your daily expenses, MCS becomes an excellent investment. The additional energy not only speeds up gym progression but also provides more flexibility during wars, which can create further money-making opportunities. Personally, I wouldn't rush MCS. I would rather establish my passive income first and let that income fund MCS later.

Merits

An important thing to know is that for 7/10 of the max benefit of a merit cost 28 merits  8-10 of the merit costs 27 merits. Early on I was going a full 10/10 in my merits on a skill. This only reduced the benefit I received from the merits. Don't be like me.

Here’s a link to a great guide for easy merits. These can really boost you up if you’re low on merits:

https://www.torn.com/forums.php#/p=threads&f=61&t=16394278&b=0&a=0

At this stage of the game I feel there are only 2 merits you should go 10/10 in. Those are bank interest for the passive income, and education for the full 20% course time reduction.

The below are merits I would go 7/10 in (in order of priority)before any other benefits: 

• Life

• Rifle mastery(or whatever your primary weapon is for doing damage. It should be a rifle)

• Critical hit chance

I would then get those to 10/10 before anything else

After that go 7/10 in your passive battle stats. You can consider going a full 10/10 in your whore stat as it will give the most benefit.

Hospitalizing is considered one of the strongest merits for warring. But as a mid game player, in a real war, you're probably not the player that will be hospitalizing the enemy faction. If you somehow find yourself in the position of being a carry for your faction, you need to get 10/10 hospitalizing.

Recently I've changed my mind on Addiction Mitigation. I now feel it's one of the more valuable long-term merits if you plan on playing Torn for years. It slows the rate at which addiction builds up from taking drugs, meaning you'll reach addiction thresholds less often and won't need to visit rehab as frequently. Since rehab costs increase over time, reducing the number of trips to rehab can save a significant amount of money over the life of your account. After obtaining the higher-priority merits listed above, I've started investing my spare merits into Addiction Mitigation.

Education

Opinions vary on the very first education you get. Some say focus on sports science right away, others say get blood bags from the biology education.  Personally, if you’re not planning on warring or being a trader, I would go for sports science. Here's a list of the most important/time sensitive educations to do: 

1. SPT3510 : Bachelor of Sports Science (2% gym gains)

2. BIO2127 : Intravenous Therapy (blood bags)

3. CBT3870 : Bachelor of Military Arts and Science (weapon experience)

4. BIO2350 : Evolution (1% damage with all weapons)

5. BIO2410 : Anatomy (3% crit)

6. MTH2310 : Discrete Mathematics(5% ammo conservation)

7. MTH3330 : Bachelor of Mathematics (20% ammo conservation) 

8. HIS2160 : Ancient Japanese History (10% damage with Japanese weapons) 

9. HIS2170 : Medieval History (2% melee damage)

10. BIO3420 : Bachelor of Biology (steroids)

11. DEF3770 : Bachelor of Self Defense (100% unarmed damage)

By far the most important ones to get early are sports science and combat training because the benefits are not only time sensitive, but also have a major impact on your battle stats and combat potency. 

The melee ones are mainly for doing missions and have less impact, but are still some of the stronger courses that will shape your account.

Missions

There's not too much to say here. Do your missions. The power you gain from books and weapon mods cannot be matched by anything else in the game. If you're not happy jumping, you have little reason to not be doing your missions. 

You want to get up to 2k mission credits then spend excess on weapon mods. Don't go under 2k unless it's to buy a very powerful book. Do not buy books that don't offer massive battle stat benefits. If you're spending your mission credits on a book that reduces hospital time by 50% for a month you're doing it wrong.

Books

Smarter people have already done a great job on this. Check on this guide for info on books: 

https://www.torn.com/forums.php#/p=threads&f=61&t=16143719&b=0&a=0&start=0&to=20028470

The most important thing about books is don't use a book until you're really ready to do it. These are 1 time buffs. You may be kicking yourself later if you used a powerful book but weren't ready to really get the full benefit from it. That being said a lot of books should be used more in the late game phase in the game, not mid-game. 

Weapons

In the mid game I wouldn't try to get fancy with weapons. Keep it simple. Your battle stats, merits, education, and possibly weapon mods are going to do a lot more for you than spending a fortune on certain weapons. Your money will do a lot more benefit for you invested into passive incomes.  If you just want a yellow weapon, find its value in bunker bucks and don't spend much more than that for the weapon. When you realize it's bad you have a way to recover a majority of the money

If you must get a yellow or better weapon here's some things that you should consider: 

• If the weapon is worse damage and accuracy than a white Armalite you're wasting money

• If the modifier on the weapon isn't contributing 100% of the time, it's probably a waste of money.

• Every weapon you buy must fill a certain role. Is it an item buffing you? Is it doing massive damage for a certain part of the fight? Is it your primary damage dealing weapon?

Know what the weapons you're using are bringing to the fight, if you don't know or something else is doing the same thing better, you probably shouldn't own that weapon.

Armor

Similar to weapons, you might be better off just wearing combat armor over paying a lot for a set of RW gear.

If you wanted to spice it up a bit you could get a riot helmet and chest. Helmet provides a lot better head coverage than combat helmet and the riot chest provides groin protection that a lot of other armors don't.

A few things about how armor works:

• Each piece only provides a bonus to the body part it is on. For example if you buy a riot helmet that gives 20% melee damage reduction, that is only for the head. The bonuses don't stack with other armor pieces you're wearing.
  
• 1 armor= 1% damage reduction to the body part it's covering. 
  
• Coverage is very important. Any skin you can see on your character gets hit for full damage. If that cute little face of yours is showing and you get shot in it, you're going to feel it. 
  

If you want to get something a bit more than combat gear and riot helm/chest your next step up is probably 4x assault gear with a riot helm. The assault helm doesn't have good head coverage, so you could take full damage head shots with this gear. The riot helm has full head coverage so you're at least getting a decent amount of damage reduction over the assault helmet. 

I personally bought 4x assault gear with a riot helm and have buyers remorse. I feel putting the money into passive income is a much wiser choice.

Sources

I did a lot of reading to gain this information about the game and feel it would be wrong to not give credit to the posters of the info that I've read. Here’s my sources:

Euph's Guide to Becoming Elite in Torn

https://www.torn.com/forums.php#/p=threads&f=61&t=16525974&b=0&a=0&start=0&to=26773889

Fight better than a top 100 player

https://www.torn.com/forums.php#/p=threads&f=61&t=16252083&b=0&a=0&start=0&to=21979426

Handsome Guide to Education for Battle

https://www.torn.com/forums.php#/p=threads&f=61&t=15973034&b=0&a=0&start=0&to=17055093

(Re)Quantify Your Impatience - Training Guide

https://www.torn.com/forums.php#/p=threads&f=61&t=16276503&b=0&a=0&start=0&to=22428976

Gym & stats training like a pro - 2026

https://www.torn.com/forums.php#/p=threads&f=61&t=16142480&b=0&a=0&start=0&to=20008282

Torn City Tips Youtube channel

https://www.youtube.com/@TornCityTips

Conclusion

I’m certain there are some topics I’ve missed, but overall feel that these are the important things to make sure you’re getting right as early as possible. My hope is that this guide provides some benefit to early mid-game players. If you feel that I'm way off on something, please consider sending me a message or posting here, as I'm still newer to the game myself, I'm happy to learn everything I can.

Thanks for taking the time to read this guide and please don't crucify me if you disagree with something said here.

Nice guide. I think you should consider adding at least the following points:

1. Use refil (energy and nerve) every day.
2. Get all the crimes to level 100+ as soon as possible, as crimes and OCs can be another source of good almost passive income.
3. Consider MCS stock for additional energy too.

Just my opinion.

Good suggestion. I knew I would skip over some important things. I'll find a place for these in the guide.

Did you use AI to generate this?

No, lol. Just seemed like something Duke would say. Or do you mean the entire guide? If so, no I made it myself. 0 AI

Well, you guide is incoherent and poorly worded.

For example:

Similar to weapons, you might be better off just wearing combat gear over paying a lot for a set of gear.

What does this mean?

I'm guessing, "combat gear" is supposed to mean Combat Armor, while "set of gear" means RW-Armor (Leather Armor is also a set). But who is going to know this? Only those who already know what should be written here.

Section on Education isn't great. You manage to get the first two right (Sports Science and Intravenous Therapy), I'll give you that. But anything past that is just a mess.

Your recommendation boils down to Biology (ALL) > Mathematics (ALL) > Self Defence (ALL). Which is bad advice.

Biology is for mid/late game, as new players can't afford steroids that early in the game, nor can they get enough benefits to justify their use.

Mathematics is similar. While combat benefits are good, they are mid-game stuff. They take too long to finish and there are other priorities.

Self Defence is mostly garbage, as nobody uses Unarmed Damage outside of extremely rare situations. Mid-game you might want Kick Boxing for merit, and DEF builds might also take DEF-boosting passives. But the rest of Self-Defence is as useless as General Studies. It should be taken last.

General order of things after Sports Science and Intravenous Therapy:

Computer Science (Web Design and Development): CMT1520 + CMT2230

Introduction unlocks coding of Simple Viruses for the merit and OC boost (Hacker role). It takes forever to get 100 viruses, so its best to start early. Second course allows completion of Bootlegging Crime, and enables Phisher in Scamming (which should be always on, so as to amass large database of emails by the time you get there).

Psychology: ALL

+10% to Crime Skill & XP. Uncapped passive bonus that should be unlocked as soon as possible. It might seem skippable, but Organized Crime becomes a major source of income mid-game.

Computer Science (virus coding reduction time, and Overclocking): CMT2580, CMT1520, CMT2128, CMT2129, CMT2570

Viruses take forever to code, so any passive reduction is good. Players are likely to start approaching Cracking crime by this point, and will need all three Overclocking courses to progress there.

Combat Training: ALL

This isn't as much of a priority as Psychology since improvements are capped here. However, its still best to get it before other combat-focused courses (Biology, Mathematics) as those don't require training.

Computer Science (Complex Viruses, and Cracker for Scamming): CMT2530, CMT2560, CMT2130, CMT2131

Complex viruses take long to code, but its passive income after you get 100 virus merit. And Cracker in Scamming has all prerequisites met, so there is no reason to finish off with it.

Those are the initial courses that you should be starting with. Then you can go for Mathematics and Biology (assuming you want combat-focused gameplay).

Thanks for your feedback. I changed some of the wording in the confusing section of armor, and reordered the education a bit.

My goal, maybe it should have been stated somewhere, was to make my character as strong as it can be going into mid-game. That's the reasoning for the education. Mainly the unarmed damage or anything melee related was for Duke missions as they will be pretty tough without outside help, even with these educations.

I'm still going to stick by getting Combat Training as your second bachelor as it's probably the most impactful education you can get get outside of Sports Science. As well as it taking time to get the full benefit from the weapons experience. 

Keep in mind what I said early on into the guide. Everyone has their own views on how to do things, and my hopes are that whoever reads this doesn't just take it as this is the only correct way to do this. Ideally they'll real multiple guides and come up with their own conclusions.

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Nice guide Gord. I agree with adding mcs and even hrc for energy and nerve weekly. Both are quite good value for money.

Also treat your energy regeneration like a ticking time bomb. If you e is full your wasting energy (free) you can't get back. 

Thanks Saved. I appreciate the suggestions, when I'm home I'll make some edits to it. Currently out of town for 2 weeks, and prefer keyboard and mouse to do edits.

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Good guide. I agree, we need more mid game (whatever that means, in fact) content. Yes, I can see that I need to get to level 15 to unlock travelling. I did that. No I don't need to know the load out of major RW weapons. I need something to get me from being able to get one Xanax a day to properly happy jumping regularly to having no need to happy jump at all. I enjoyed your guide, I want more of these. Or a expansion of this one. 

A bit hypocritical to call out on grammatical errors when your reply is no different. I mean just look at your first sentence "you guide is incoherent..", sorry what?

"Biology is for mid/late game" no shit sherlock have you looked at the title of this thread? It's for mid gamers.

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Great guide Gorbody, I learnt a lot from this and have saved it for the future. Thanks!

Thanks Antibiotics.

I did notice the grammar error they made but decided to not call it out, lol.

I'm also starting to see more value on getting biology done earlier due to how powerful steroids are for missions. if you're willing to spend the cost of the steroid you chance to complete the mission on the first attempt is so much higher. even with lower stats because you can counter what the assigned player is strong in which is often mentioned in the mission text.

have a nice day :)

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Appreciate the post

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