Besides a few hours where the game was down, I don't think there were any other issues with the game. I was able to spend most of my earnings throughout the week on a few things that I think will help me both in rankings and gameplay. I did learn something new about cold pizza slices and the marketplace so I guess there is still quite a bit of things that I don't know. Overall the earnings this week was fairly good as it was over 190k starbits.

## Giveaway
The last few giveaways were musicians so I will mix it up with some instruments. These instruments are relatively new and they were released earlier this month.

![9-18 Marching Drum.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/jfang003/23w2cbnUfVQ2oymP3rEo4MGJya4j7BZcRLeqCZ2Va5haFF5HzDaDXZpubHYD9iAbh7MEp.png)

The giveaway item is R88 Marching Drum and it is under the Drum music lessons. With 50 more luck, you have a chance of getting more drunk fans and it will increase the skill points you get from drum music lessons.

### Rules

In order to participate:

- Leave a **comment**
- Include your **username** in your comment

This time if you do not leave your username, I will not include you in the draw. I want to reward the people who follow the rules.

### Results of Last Giveaway

The winner is @misterabaddon.
![9-18 wheel.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/jfang003/23yJC1BDGp1u4q3ZhkWnYNvQCdWeDmyZ6MG6Xxi839sp5rkUc9prT4apKJajYqDKYXdB5.png)
Thank you to the rest of the valid participants that did not win but might be interested in the next giveaway:  @alejoca, @horstman5, @imfarhad, @silver-edge, @handtalk5,  @andrik, @steemmillionaire, @imfarhad, @lacandela, @mercurial9, @oxidil, @irisworld, @trenloco, @nozzy, @servelle, @magooz, @amaillo, @edgerik, @finris, @cursephantom, @waldyrdhive, @zenitsu12, @esperosh1ve, @mario02, @zarwelius, @chuckrick, @belhaven14, @kuronokenshi, @deanlogic, @ruralio, @javiss, @tawadak24, @thehockeyfan-at, @michaeldav, @listik303

I transferred the MC Bruv below and you can verify the transaction [here](https://hive-engine.rocks/tx/9504d9400a771d955ae2b8cbec185f8a4cc616a9)
![9-18 transfer result.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/jfang003/EoAYjyjT16q5mRXgxWMWgTpYc4EWdyae8chPTBvFhtD9Gc1Mavm57kQFa4NM9bqvru5.png)

## Current Status
![9-18 status.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/jfang003/48QQke41iJmNchtCqWmty2gEXYCG3vxv5D5ey7W9Y1wQip2zN1NptADLZFbVNpHw5g.png)
Calculating my earnings from last week, I earned a total of 192k starbits. As I withdrew a bunch of starbits to fund some card purchases, my balance in game is about the same as last week. There was a pizza drought and I did run out of energy but I did buy some pizza slices (explained further down). 

![9-11 RS 101.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/jfang003/23vsEFDH8T6vszqFYgL2ZeR9KWDxhVtffb4PDiev8mjG6V2EyAin8qKuradcWXQTz8zM4.png)
My pack openings were relative boring as I got a bunch of instruments but it did add to my unique cards. However I made a few changes to my strategy. Over the past week, I bought 11 RS 101. This increased the skill points I get from music lessons by around 20 skill points per music lesson. The highest price I spent was 3.5k but I think my average was more or less around 3.3k. So in this range, I spent around 10k starbits for 3 rare instruments that will help me in the long run. I didn't bother posting all the images but I did buy the cards throughout the week when I checked the market.

![9-13 cold pizza slice.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/jfang003/23yTcyCxDk7hjSAmxnup4gcb9RC3f1nCpCgzZiKfhqdnTYw9jLD8J8kD99TVdoqLmQkks.png)
I was running low on energy and I saw a few cold pizza slices that were on sale. In hindsight, I should of bought all of the cheap pizza slices and relisted the ones I did not need. However I realized that these cold pizza slices retain the cool down from the other player. So unfortunately I was unable to use the pizza I needed so I spent another 10k starbits to buy an extra one from the game administrators. So I highly suggest you buy the pizza slices before you need it because it might be on cool down. 

![9-16 pro studio mic.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/jfang003/23u5vwhaJvxVsH4ZeRUc2zhaPEhAbZ1VejV3SNq3sxFXj2Z7Q4cWzroxcyejy5s2H6e1N.png)
![9-17 storm.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/jfang003/EoCfj3AMXqZ7MkTtLRX4cGPqgsKggWkfpzvu67pGPUGi1AQMqrV8D4KQjFQLXestaj5.png)
On the end of unique cards, I saw two of the rare cards that I do not have on sale for 10k starbits or less so I ended up buying them. Now I am only missing 1 rare instrument and 2 rare musicians that are discontinued. If they are listed for around 10k starbits, I will buy them up. Obviously these cards will help me in the rankings as they are quite competitive. 

### Current Stats
I am changing up this section a bit but I pulled it from [PeakD games wallet](https://peakd.com/@jfang003/wallet/games).
- level: 114
- missions: 6401
- missionego: 17860
- lessonskill: 40964
- totalnfts: 958
- cardsfans: 42388
- cardskill: 32074
- cardsluck: 9987
- cardsim: 680

## Current Goals
My time is a bit lower this week but I managed to maintain a time played above 6k minutes this week. It's been quite tough as I have added to my own collection but I have barely moved up compared to last week. So my goal of reaching the top 50 is still quite a bit away.
![9-18 rankings.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/jfang003/23tRvSEWoGJtfnCBuEsbTrWFpV8Aiqx2ZqgwfbHwJsUaHhyeAp8jNAdLpRonJoqMXgnVD.png)
It's not bad but 0.1 SWAP.HIVE per day or so is a great passive income from the game. If you add in my earnings over the week, I think it's been a great run so far. Of course I am reinvesting into improving my own collection for both the ranking and gameplay.

If you want to join Rising star, feel free to use my [referral link](https://www.risingstargame.com?referrer=jfang003).

## Tips ([source](https://peakd.com/hive-175836/@surya1adiga/rising-star-weekly-status-and))
I think the tips are something every new player should know about. It will help people progress in the game and it hasn't really been shared since surya1adiga stopped his giveaways.
1. Take music lessons when possible to raise skill and reduce ego.
2. Having lesson specific instruments helps in receiving more skill from that lesson.
3. Have pizza box to store any pizza received during mission to reuse later.
4. Buy cold pizza slice if possible. This gives 1 refill every 24hours. Comes very handy when you are low on energy.
5. If you have enough of cold pizza slice and pizza box, you will never run out of energy.
6. If you have more fans than skill and you want reduce the ego , you can use a storage trailer to store unnecessary cards. Or you can list the card in market for an unreasonably high price.
7. Ego received for a particular mission increases every time you play it. The ego is reset to base level the next day. So, try to play different missions to control the ego gained.
8. Keep track of your achievements to unlock in game rewards
9. Buy storage trailer (only if necessary) to keep the cards that might have a negative effect. Like a card with high fan count resulting in ego.
10. When earning skill points through music lessons, you can earn more points per lesson if you hold more of specific instrument cards. There seems to be base skill which is rewarded irrespective of the card count and then the skill increases depending on the number of the lesson specific card one has.
11. Try taking up many smaller missions to fill up pizza boxes and have extra energy to play more rewarding missions. But you need to have pizza boxes for this to work.