New Player Questions

[Llywylln]

The Prologue didn't help me enough with how to do certain things. For instance, I know how to hunt once hunting happens. However, when I see "Bison Spotted" I have no idea what to do or to press to try and hunt it. I am only guessing but it seems like that should be possible.

Secondly, when I start a new game, most of my characters have absolutely no skills at all. This seems batty to me that they can't do anything. They can't shoot, or mend, or anything. Out of my entire party, I had two characters with skills at all but only 'Wayfinding' was even remotely associated with travelling. Is there some place in the UI where I am supposed to pick skills for them? Or, do they just have to actually use the skill to learn it? Because there was a guy in the prologue who was a level 5 at shooting but all of my characters started with 'Undiscovered' like they had never heard of a gun before.

Also, in the prologue, a guy with a broken leg was cured back up to healthy with a medicine. When one of my characters got a broken leg in the main game, the medicine only took off 5 of his 50 days... Did I miss something?

When I crossed the river, I used up pelts to prevent the water from damaging my supplies. But the very next river told me that since I didn't have my wagon sealed, my supplies got damaged. is every single thing you do only a single use action?

[Wilson]

When you see x animal spotted, it doesn't really do much except adding to your journal entry. If I remember correctly, White Bison gives you a morale boost.

In terms of skills, you unlock different classes as you play, and they will have slightly better at certain skill. And ou will gain skill as you use them during the game. Check this link on how to unlock https://indiefaq.com/guides/the-oregon-trail-all-classes-how-to-unlock-them.html

It is normal to need 50 days to heal a broken leg. The best way is to get to a fort and have the physician heal you for 30 coins.

Almost everything is single use. I think the only exception is the knife, but it will break after 3 to 4 uses.

If you are having new and don't know the game very well, try to start the game with the charming trait. You can get better deals with haggle. And wagon grease really helps too.

[Llywylln]

I started my first game with the Charming Trait, I figured that one out on my own :) Unfortunately, I didn't choose as well as I would have liked, looking back when I bought my starting equipment. I didn't know what the trading would be like I bought the top ranked Wagon and didn't have much in the way of other supplies. I did make it to Fort Kearney but now I have only 1 bullet, No pelts, $3, and only about 100 hard tack for food. I did buy bait in hopes that fishing might be worth something but I haven't tried it out. I also spent a lot on the physician that I probably shouldn't have.

[Wilson]

I only use physician to treat any injuries or sickness, but I would never have him heal my health.

You can sell fish for $1 or $2 each depending on whether you haggle or not.

[black_and_blue]

One significant difference between this game previous Oregon Trail games is that you don't get to pick when to do various activities.

In previous games, you could just hunt whenever you wanted. In this one, you can only hunt when you either arrive at a hunting zone on the map or a hunting event happens.

Likewise, you can't just rest whenever you want; you have to actually encounter a campsite to do that.

Kind of confused me at first; when I'm low on food, my first instinct is to go hunting, and when someone gets hurt or sick, my first instinct is to rest.

[Llywylln]

First I have to catch them... I've seen two fishing areas on my travels and I wasn't able to fish at either of them. The option to 'Craft Bait' came up, but it was greyed out. It wanted me to craft out of food I think but ZI guess the food I had wasn't good enough.

[LL]

What helped me: Always have someone with the Charming trait to haggle. They get the 'bargains'. Keep a knife. I only use it for pelts until I have crossed the rivers, then use it for fish. With a charming haggler, the extra fish you get by using the knife gets you $50. The Dragoon quest is kind of a pain but the tokens you get can help with trading. I didn't get rid of my inventory to fit the one guy in the wagon. The musician quest is kind of a pain as the instruments take up a lot of room. I typically skip it after I got all the quests from it I needed. Keeping clean clothes on hand keeps your people from getting sick. Just a few things that help me.

[tsevahn]

If you take the top ranked wagon at the start, expect trouble in the early game unless you are extremely lucky because you don't have enough money left for all types of necessities.
If you have a banker in the team it helps because of the extra starting money but still... you cannot start with ammo and food and clothes, you have to sacrifice one of those and hope you get a trade opportunity for it early. Once you have prospector unlocked if you're lucky you can trade away your nitro (and you should, you don't want to carry this without using wheel grease).

It's a fun challenge actually, I quite like it! The first time I took that wagon I started without clothes and never got a trade opportunity for it until I reached the shop of the first fort. Needless to say we all had dysentery and one person died from it but we recovered, had one less mouth to feed and finished the run quite wealthy. The second time I didn't buy food but got lucky and could trade away some medicine for grains at the starting fort.

For an easier start, it's better to use the default wagon with one of the starting kits.

[tsevahn]

Originally posted by Llywylln:

all of my characters started with 'Undiscovered' like they had never heard of a gun before.

This just means that you don't know the value of their skills yet, it doesn't mean 0 skill or that they are not good at it.

You have to try an activity related to that skill to reveal its value for each character.

[tsevahn]

Originally posted by Llywylln:

First I have to catch them... I've seen two fishing areas on my travels and I wasn't able to fish at either of them. The option to 'Craft Bait' came up, but it was greyed out. It wanted me to craft out of food I think but ZI guess the food I had wasn't good enough.

The bait crafting is a bit weird, you can only craft bait before you fish, and only with "food stuff" (looks like a bag of berries) or fish. It is rare to get your hands on "food stuff" (random road event with raspberries) and your team is gonna eat that type of food before any other type as far as I can tell, so it is even rarer to find a fishing spot with enough "food stuff" left to craft bait. Your team eats meat before fish, so if you hit two fishing nodes relativity close to each other you can manage to craft a lot of bait.

Considering all that, buying it in a fort shop is the most reliable way to get bait.

There is a quest that can trigger at a fishing node with a npc that gives you some bait, not sure on which trail I encountered it, "Oregon or bust" I think.

[Schlemdog]

definatly do fishing as much as you can-- you can sell them and get $$ cause I have ran out of money before