how to get radiation protection?

[jeffy]

what are the options.

im like level 13 now and cant explore anymore

[Radiac]

1. After you deal with Vic Buchannon in Little Hell, the mechanics at your HQ should have the Dominator Chassis, which has level 3 radiation shielding.

2. If you talked the Morningstar AI into letting you install it into your kodiak, you can then use the level 3 rad shield you find in the DoE site in the last room after you defeat Dos Teh Seh and the Scorpitron in that room. It's either in one of the sdie rooms off of that room or in the locker, I forget.

[ElPrezCBF]

I find the level 3 rad shield at the DoE site is a waste since you can only have 1 vehicle utility. That's why it's a no brainer to always get the dominator chassis for the same effect and turbocharger for the 33% world map speed boost. The level 3 rad shield should be replaced by something else that's compelling enough to trade off the 33% speed bonus. Like say a damage boost across all vehicle weapon types.

[Sabin Stargem]

For early anti-rad, you need to go to the Bazaar and take care of the refugees across the bridge. Once you have chosen Gideon or Cotter, you can buy LV2 protection. This gets you enough to reach the next area for unlocking LV3 protection - Aspen.

Once you have finished Aspen, your mechanics will sell your final chassis. Note that all of these upgrades cost a fair bit of coin.


Word of warning: you might receive timed quests throughout your journey. I lost the Bazaar because I didn't know that Charley would act without my help.

[Radiac]

Oh, yeah, if you were asking about level TWO rad protection, you have to get the Deliverer Chassis from your HQ guys by defeating Stenerud outside the Bizarre and figuring out the refugee situation.

As for the Rad shield versus Dominator Chassis debate, I generally get the Morningstar AI anyway, and you can get the level 3 radiation shielding BEFORE defeating Vic by using the thingy in the DoE site. Also, how does the kodiak Turbo Charger upgrade that gives +33% world map speed actually help us in any way that matters? I don't believe it makes the kodiak move any farther during fights that it partakes in, does it? Having level 3 rad protection allows you to go to the southeast part of the map and plunder the Massacre Site for all the phat loot, not to mention the random overworld bunkers, etc.

[ElPrezCBF]

Postat inițial de Radiac:

As for the Rad shield versus Dominator Chassis debate, I generally get the Morningstar AI anyway, and you can get the level 3 radiation shielding BEFORE defeating Vic by using the thingy in the DoE site. Also, how does the kodiak Turbo Charger upgrade that gives +33% world map speed actually help us in any way that matters? I don't believe it makes the kodiak move any farther during fights rt=that it partakes in, does it? Having level 3 rad protection allows you to go to the southeast part of the map and plunder the Massacre Site for all the phat loot, not to mention the random overworld bunkers, etc.

There's no need to rush level 3 rad shielding before beating Vic as level 2 is good for a huge chunk of the map until you actually need level 3 much later on. The 33% speed boost does not refer to combat speed but world map speed, which seems to make hostile encounters less likely and saves real time moving anywhere apart from towing to HQ. Tbh, what does anything in the game ever matter apart from the top tier weapons? Most features are just there to make you feel better but don't actually grant any huge benefit, not that a quality of life improvement like faster world map speed hurts.

[Radiac]

If you have level 3 rad shielding, you can go to the Massacre Site and get a really good weapon or two. Just saying.

[ElPrezCBF]

Well, the massacre site is great with the best SMG and animal companion but you don't need them in the earlier part of the game. Guess I wasn't clear earlier. Higher tier weapons are necessary to scale up damage against tougher enemies. But what ultimately makes your characters powerful is mainly how you build your squad composition and synergize attributes with skills/perks. Like how even a level 9 revolver in the hands of an optimized gunslinger can be deadly to most early enemies.

[Radiac]

Going back to the point about driving faster and random encounters. It was asked long ago on this forum about how those random overworld encounters are actually spawned, by a gamer who was like "I keep driving around and I never hit any random encounters after a while, they just seem to never happen after some time" and a dev mentioned that the game doesn't hit you with them on a timer, or even on randomly timed intervals, It randomly seeds invisible "land mine" encounters in different places and when you drive over those areas, you spawn an encounter. The same dev also said that this process will not "re-seed" the map until the world map is re-drawn again, like when you go to the HQ and park it for a sec, then go back out to the overworld again. As such, it is possible to do all of the random encounters that are on the map, and the encounters you hit are not dependent on how long you spend driving, they're simply placed in different spots and you hit them if you drive over that spot.

Based on that, I don't think the speed boost you get from the turbo charger will cause you to hit fewer random encounters.

[ElPrezCBF]

Sure, but avoiding encounters is not the main draw for the speed boost for me since faster travel to save real time is always welcome. Most encounters are below level 5 anyway and can be easily avoided with a level 5 or higher survival skill. Besides the point is there's no viable alternative to the speed boost unlike level 3 chassis vs the rad shielding. Why would you want to trade off speed for level 3 rad protection when you can have both?

Tbh, if the turbocharger doesn't impact gameplay beyond saving real time to better avoid encounters, then it would be a design oversight. The point of utility upgrades is they're supposed to impact gameplay meaningfully, even if it's not the best bonus.

Edit: The giant goat nemesis encounter is definitely random and not based on locations. I've reloaded several times and the encounter location always changes. Not that it matters much anyway since you cannot avoid it with skill.