more tips from me..

Beginner Tips

Organiser Guide: 1 of the first things you should get asap, increases your Item Box to 2 pages! Costs 3000z and I think is available after 1* quests. Get it from the travelling salesman in town.

Combo books: Each book adds 5% to ur Combine. Get it.

Monster Info: Basically this shows you basic info about monsters, but actually IMHO the only purpose is to display your Monster Log. All the boss and mini-boss creatures you kill have a length and size. As you kill bigger ones your game shows you a cave-painting pic and the length. You can actually view these in your Guild Card, but only after you buy the monster info. Otherwise ur Monster Log only shows ????. Also monsters u kill before you get the info, the info is stored, just not displayed yet, so you don't have to worry about lost kills. Don't buy the info on small/non-boss creatures, waste of money.

Title: In your guild card, you can change your Title. The titles are earned as you accomplish things in the game. Eg if you kill a King-sized monster, you earn the title "Giant".

Trap Tool: Do NOT buy the trap tool from the ingredient lady. Instead check the old woman carrying the big bag. Her items change but her trap tool costs only 100z compared to the ingredient lady's 200z version!

Money: If you're short of cash, spam the Egg and Stone delivery quests. They pay ALOT of money for something quite simple IF you plan ahead. To succeed easily in those quests get an armor combo that gives you the Backpacking skill. My combo is : Bone Helm, Hunter's Mail, Leather Vambraces, Battle Tasset and Battle Greaves. This set also gives you Farsight, which means you get a full map without needing the map.

The 2nd thing you want is Power Juice, which allows you to run without burning stamina. Power Juice is (Bitterbug + Honey) + Rare Steak. With these 2 things, you should be able to complete the 2* Sootstone quest easily (3000z).

Cooking: To know when to get Well-Done Steak it's best to listen to the tune. When the tune ends, if you wait 2 seconds you will get it. A tip is, when the tune ends, count "One Thousand, Two Thousand" fast and u'll get it every single time. There IS a visual cue, the meat actually turns brown, but the window is small and hard to catch. The different pits (Gourmet, Portable, BBQ) widen or shrink the "brown window". However it seems the browning always starts after ~2 seconds.

Pig in Blanket: After I think 2* quests, the pig appears. If you can charm the pig by using the cooking trick above, he will follow u. Now, everytime you charm it in your house, I think your quest complete item rewards are better. I can't confirm but seems like the supply items aren't returned. A few times I get flash bombs and old pickaxes left in my item list. Or it could be that rewards are rarer versions (eg malachite instead of iron ore).

Spam kill Yian Kut-Ku in Training School: After 1* quests you unlock the Training School. When you unlock the YKK quest with the XBow, you can abuse this to earn money easily. The trick is getting YKK to appear in Zone 2 where there are 2 ledges, 1 higher than the other. The higher ledge also has a vine with an Ivy picking spot. What you need to do is lure YKK ontop of the 1st ledge by standing there. Once he's on the ledge, quickly get onto the 2nd ledge and keep blasting him in the face with Crag S.

Crag S will piss off YKK and he'll start spamming charge and blast attacks at you from the lower ledge. From the higher ledge amazingly you can stand there out of range and blast him to death without getting hit at all. And YKK will never get onto the 2nd ledge since he's charging all the time. Your only bother is the single Vespoid on the 2nd ledge that respawns.

Another spammer is SnS YKK training. The weapon given (Poison Axe) is so powerful and u can find pitfall traps in zone 6. U can easily finish off the YKK in minutes.

One tip about training, search all the usual gathering sites, instead of yielding the raw materials u get equipment instead. This is the only way to get eg BBQ Pit or pickaxes during the training. Usually u can also get mega potions and bombs.

Hammer: I think this is the best weapon ingame simply because it is the only weapon I know that can stagger or topple big monsters straight away. The trick tho is using the swing attack and executing the finishing move after 4 swings. Also, for a big weapon you can run while it's drawn, which is a huge bonus against fast enemies. The only problem early on is that hammers have low sharpness. As a side note, you can stagger big monsters with other weapons provided you injure their legs enuff such that they limp. Eg with an Assassin's Blade (SnS), once it starts limping, a jumping attack will always topple it. It is also a weapon that can blast Cephalos/drome out of the sand, using the R attack

Armor: My current permanent set is Velociprey Helm, Chain Mail, Velociprey Vambrace, Velociprey Tasset and Battle Greaves. This gives +20 Health, +10 Defense and Knockout Probability Halved. I've only started 3* quests so forgive me if there are better suits later.

Garbage: If your combines fail you get Garbage, but DO NOT sell it. With the alchemy skill you can mix it with other things to get back useful items. You can get the alchemy skill with Hunter Helm, Battle Mail, Chain Vambrace and Leather Belt/Velociprey Tasset.

Bombs: The items that will save ur time again and again are Sonic Bomb, Flash Bomb, Paintball and Cool Drink. Learn how to make them asap if not life in general will be difficult. Sonic Bomb (Gunpowder + Screamer) is used to kick the sand sharks out of the sand. Flash bombs (Bomb Material + flash bug) blind and are damn useful. Paintballs (paintberry + sap plant) tag monsters and Cool Drinks (ice crystal + bitterbug) keep your health from draining in the desert. Of cuz, potions and steak are important too!

Med Bone: To get them without carving, get Earth Crystals then go to the Veggie Elder (the old man in the game map that swaps stuff with u. Earth Crystals in ForestnJungle (I think zone 7) swaps for Med Bone. The man only swaps max 3 times. Others suggest the normal monster hunting way; this is merely a "safe" option, both in terms of odds of carving and no combat.

Melyne theft: If u ever get robbed by a Melyne (brown cats) and u didn't rape him before he burrows and escapes, find the cat camp in the map and search the debris. U'll find ur stolen goods there.

More Money tips: If u need more $$$ spam velociprey quests, make the complete velociprey armour set then sell all the hides. If u're not playing XBow, sell the fangs. With a complete velociprey set u don't need velociprey hides anymore. Also, Well-Done Steak sells for 48z a piece so 10 (that's all u carry) sells for 480z! Easy money. Also, if u want to sell a basic material, COMBINE IT FIRST. The combined value is usually more expensive than the ingredients put together.

Materials: If u are playing the game going 1 type of weapon and that's it (eg GS or SnS), then u'll know that you don't need a particular type of material ever again. Eg if you're making Iron GreatSword, you won't ever use bone materials again, except to forge bone armor. If u already made a complete bone suit, then u can sell all the bones u can find. However, note that Bone (the material called Bone not a general term) is used with stone/ore/malachite to make pickaxes, while Sm Monster Bone/Bone/prolly Med Bone is used with Net to make Bugnets. So if u're making a Iron GS, u'll also never need stone-type materials. Kinda common sense really. But honestly the best way to make money is to spam gem/egg quests; u'll never know when u might need those materials.

Stamina: Rations (and I think all food) can be used to increase ur stamina past max. Eg if ur starting stamina is 100, eating a ration straight away makes it 125. Useful if u want to free up a slot. Doesn't apply to health. Max stam should be 150.

Felyne Whim: A Whim is a temporary stat or skill boost u gain if you hire felynes to cook in ur kitchen. U unlock the kitchen at 2* quests. Whether u gain a boost depends on ur cooks and the ingredients available (which seem random). So the more cooks and variety of cooks, the higher the chance u get a Whim. Whims can range from vitality to health to armor boosts (that's all I got so far). They are temporary and are active only for 1 quest. Also, Felyne meals cost money if u have more than 1 cook.

Kokoto Farm: Early on, don't get Field + 1, but unlock the extra stuff like mushroom tree first. If u want to get more from the field, use Dung instead (get dung from dino droppings in FnJ zones 1 and 5). Dungs increase ur field level to 2 or 3 (max) and they are lots better than wasting kokoto points on more fields. Not only does a field level increase give u more produce, it gives u rarer ones as well.

Sharpness: Sharpness doesn't only determine the amount of damage caused (btw Yellow is 100%, Green is 112.5%), it also determines the type of armour u can penetrate. If u have a weapon that has max yellow sharpness, forget about hitting a wyvern's wings: u'll just bounce off. U need green sharpness to do that. So when deciding which weapon or weapon path to consider, consider sharpness over damage. Bouncing hits result in severely reduced dmg.

Damage: Listed damage does not mean each hit = X dmg. The way damage is calculated, u need to land a combo to get 100% (or more) of the damage of your weapon. So be careful choosing a weapon or weapon path relying solely on weapon damage.