Starting Out Tips and Tricks

[B.O.B.]

I heavily played the original way back when growing up. These tips & tricks are based on that and may or may not be true anymore. I will try to edit this as I confirm more and more of them.

Warning: this may include content they may be considered 'spoilers'. This is the only warning, and I won't be using the spoiler tag (except twice in specific tips below).

Tip #1: Free starting money and gear (part 1):

First thing to do when starting the game is it to immediately leave the Ranger HQ and go to Highpool (it's a tiny town immediately west of the HQ). There's a shop inside one of the buildings about halfway down the map. Go in there, and on each of the starting rangers, sell off everything the shop will buy off them. This shop only buys non-combat gear, but will pay more for it then a combat gear shop.

Next, head over to the bottom left square of Quartz (it's a little town to the northwest, along the river [on the east side of the river]). In the very bottom left of Quartz, the first building on left is a shop. In here, sell off the Knife of each party member, and the 2 members that have 45s sell off their weapon and ammo. Important: Keep the 9mm weapons and ammo.

Next, open the 4th party member's UI (by hitting the #4). Hit the 'P' key to 'pool' all the cash on this ranger. Now return to the Ranger HQ.

Once back at the Ranger HQ, delete ranger #1 (Hell Razor) and ranger #3 (Thrasher). These are the 2 that have 45 pistols, so they should have no gear on them when you return to the Ranger HQ.

Now make 2 new rangers. After making a ranger, see if it is has a 9mm or 45 pistol. If it has a 45, trade the 9mm and ammo from Angela Death or Snake Vargas. After making your first new ranger, open that ranger's UI, and hit 'P' to transfer all the cash to that ranger.

After making 2 new rangers, trade off "Angela Death's" gear to them (if you haven't already done so). Delete her. Make a 3rd ranger. Trade all of Snake Vargas's gear to your 3rd ranger. Delete Snake Vargas.

Make your 4th ranger.

If you get 3 new rangers in a row that start with 45s, you could make a junk 4th ranger (after deleting Snake Vargas), and see if it has a 9mm. If it does, trade it off to your 3rd ranger, and then delete the junk ranger. Then make a real 4th ranger (or make another junk rank to get an extra 9mm just in case first).
[Confirmed]

[B.O.B.]

Tip #2: Character creation:
1. Re-roll over and over until you have an 18 in INT. It's hard to get, but it is possible to get an 18 in INT and a 10+ in all other stats.
2. For starting skills, I recommend:
For every ranger:

Page 1:
1) Brawling
2) Climb
3) Clip pistol
4) Knife Fight
5) Pugilism
7) Swim
9) Perception

Page 2:
1) Assault rifle
2) AT weapon
3) SMG
4) Acrobat
8) Combat shooting*
9) Confidence*

Page 3:
2) Demolitions
7) Medic

Specialized skills (only 1 ranger needs to take the skill but you should try to have 1 ranger that has it). These are listed in the order that I think is the most important. Also you will probably need to level up a couple of times before you can get all of the specialized skills:
Page 2: 6) Picklock
Page 3: 4) Alarm disarm
Page 3: 6) Bomb disarm
Page 3: 9) Cryptology
Page 4: 1) Metallurgy
Page 3: 3) Forgery
Page 2: 7) Silent move
Page 3: 8) Safe crack
Page 3: 1) Sleight of hand
Page 3: 5) Bureaucracy

Skills to never take ever:
Page 1:
6) Rifle
8) Knife throw

* Combat shooting is only available at character creation. If you don't take here, you cannot get it anywhere else. I think confidence is the same way (can't remember for that one for sure).
Edit: I always thought it had a minor effect on how your characters fared, but the online consensus says that Combat shooting had no in game effect in the original. Supposedly it still has no effect - but it does give you an achievement for sinking a point into it.

Skills to get as soon as possible on every core ranger:
1. Doctor (21 IQ)
2. Energy weapon (23 IQ)
3. Clone tech (22 IQ)
4. Gamble (10 IQ)

Other specialized skills to eventually get on a single ranger each:
1. Cyborg tech (24 IQ)
2. Helicopter (19 IQ)
3. Electronics (20 IQ)
4. Toaster repair (20 IQ)

[B.O.B.]

Tip #3: Free starting money and gear (part 2):

After doing tip #1, and making your 4 new rangers, it's time to head out. But first, save! This part can be a little dangerous to level 1 rangers, if you trigger random combat against a particularly nasty beastie.

Head north and a little west, across the desert until you come to the Desert Nomads camp. It looks like a train with 3 tents below it on the world map. Go to the middle left car (the door has a radioactive barrel above it). Buy an engine for $500. You should already have a little over $600 from selling all the gear from the starting rangers.

Head south to Highpool. Head to the southern most buildings in Highpool. The white building is a hospital. To its left is a shack looking building. Go in. Go over to the bed. You should find a little loot under the bed. Go over to machinery. Use the Engine you bought on the machinery.
You fixed the water pump! You should be rewarded with 1 mangler, 4 leather jackets (AC 1), 4 jewelry, 9mm ammo, and $300 to $400 cash. The jewelry sells for $75 each in the local shop.

When all said and done, you should have about $1,000 cash (after selling the jewelry), and have starting armor (leather jackets) for your 4 rangers. Yay!
[Confirmed]

[B.O.B.]

Tip #4: Easy skill ups in a few skills:

Perception: (Risk: low - lower if you do tip #1 and #3)

Head to Quartz. In the northeast portion of the town, there is two buildings with a horizontal gap in between them - the gap is a little portion of the road that goes between them. The building on the right looks like it is missing chunks of its roof. If you move into the gap where the patch of road is, it will ask you if you want to enter the Alleyway.

Once you enter, you will be immediately attacked by 3 marksman. Kill them. You also get randomly attacked by a sniper as you move about / fight - you can't target the sniper (yet).
Head to the bottom left corner of the room you are in. Your rangers should notice that you should be able to use a rope to climb over. So use a rope on this portion of the wall. The rope stays there permanently. Move south over the rope.
You are now on the rooftop of a building. You get attacked by a couple more marksmen. Kill them as well.
Head further south, and you'll finally encounter the sniper that has been taking potshots at you. Kill him. Now the area is clear, and is now a safe zone (no random encounters).
Next move over to be adjacent to the blue tiles, which are skylight windows.

Move up and down along the skylight windows. The status text will say things like "Through the glass skylight you can see figures moving in the shadows." and "It might be possible to break the glass, leap down and surprise them."

Every time you move up and down along the skylight windows, all of your rangers are gaining a tiny bit of XP. Do this for a couple of minutes, and then radio in. You should get a couple of levels. Next, do it for a couple more minutes, and soon all your rangers will have a skill rank of 3 in perception. (Note: skill ranks can't be higher than your level, so you have to be at least level 3 before you can reach rank 3 in perception.

Exploit: Using a keyboard macro, and several days of game play it is possible to reach max level on all of your rangers which is a rank of Supreme Jerk - level 163 (note, while I've been testing this exploit in the remastered, I haven't hit max level yet, but I am already fairly high level and still gaining XP).
[Partially Confirmed] - haven't hit max level yet, but did hit rank 3 perception, and still gaining XP.

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Climb AND Acrobatics: (Risk: lowish - random encounters can be hazardous at low level)

Head to Needles. It's northwest of Quartz on the west side of the river. Go to the Southeast portion of Needles. In the southeast is a nuclear building. Just northwest of this building is some sand dunes. They're kind of hard to see in the remastered version of the game, but these dunes can be interacted with. As you try to move onto them, the sand shifts under the rangers feet causing them to kind of bounce in a random direction off of the dunes. However, every time you do this, your rangers gain a little XP, and can level both their Climb skill and Acrobatics skill up to rank 3!
[Confirmed]

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Swim: (Risk: high! - random encounters, and the action also causes random damage)

Unless they changed it in the remastered version, you can't drown. However, swimming in the river causes you take damage from things like running into rocks. This isn't negated by armor either. Additionally, you can trigger encounters as you are swept down stream. In the original game, even when higher level, I've gotten accidental deaths, because the swim damage had my party unconscious, and then I triggered a random encounter, and a high level mob ganked me when I basically had a party full of unconscious rangers. So use at extreme caution.

Anyway, it's quite basic: jump in the river. At low swim levels you'll tend to get swept far away. As you level your swim skill, you'll sometimes be able to swim in the river without getting swept even one tile away. In the original game you can get to rank 10 in your swim skill. Just keep trying to swim north (against the current). Eventually you kind of wash out into the lake. At that point might be best to get out, run north, and jump back in.
Note: if / when you party is all unconscious (or close to it), it's best to get out and head to a safe zone to camp. Your unconscious rangers won't receive skill ups while unconscious so it's pointless.

[Partially Confirmed] - I reached rank 6 on swimming before I got bored.

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Gambling: (Risk: low - need money though)
There's several places to gamble. One is in the Nomad Camp north of the Ranger HQ. It's the train car to the left of the train car that has a shop. If I remember correctly, you should be able to hit rank 7 or 8 on gambling with all your rangers.

[Unconfirmed]

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Brawling & Pugilism [and also knife fighting] (Risk: low to medium - requires combat)
To rank up these 3 skills, you need the correct weapon equipped and engage in melee combat. Some example weapons are:
Brawling: crowbar, chainsaw, proton ax
Knife fighting: knife (duh!)
Pugilism: fists (unarmed)

I recommend focusing on Brawling first. Unless they changed it, ranks in brawling determine how many melee attacks you get per round when fighting with a melee weapon.

The first place to get at least 1 rank up is actually the farm. It will make the farm a little harder to clear (especially at low level), but none of the vermin shoot projectiles [again unless they changed it], so you don't have to worry about closing the distance while the enemy gets free attacks. There are a couple of deranged farmers who can shoot you, but not many - and they tend to be easy to chase down and kill. If you fully clear the farm (and the cave in the farm), by the end, you should have gained at least 1 rank up in brawling as long as you are level 2 before clearing the farm.

The cave west of the farm is also a good place to level melee skills. However, it can be more dangerous at low levels.

I can't remember if knife fighting can be leveled in this next area, but brawling and pugilism can: In the final zone, in the original game, there was a room that spawned melee / sparring robots as you moved in the room. It was a great way to max your brawling (rank 7 if I remember correctly). Important: level brawling first. Once you start leveling pugilism and you get to the higher ranks (5, 6, and 7) of pugilism, in the original game, your rangers will start to auto-defeat the robots with pugilism. Which means no combat - so if you level pugilism up first, it makes it a great deal harder to level brawling.

[Unconfirmed] - When I get to final zone, I'll confirm if the robot sparring room still exists, and try to get a slight description of where to find it or what the room looks like.

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Metallurgy: (Risk: low to medium)

In the cave to the west of the farm, in the original game, there is a spot where your ranger can use the metallurgy skill to find a silver vein over and over. This will cause rank ups in the skill, but also give you a small amount of cash in the process.

[Unconfirmed] - When I get to this spot, I'll try to get give a better description of where to find the silver vein.

[B.O.B.]

Tip #5: Sell Smart

I alluded to this in tip #1, but the shop in Highpool gives more cash for certain non-combat items. For instance, you can sell jewelry here for $75, while it only goes for $50 at other shops. You can also sell Fruit (you'll find plenty of that while clearing the farm) for $23 at the farm and also at Liverpool, while you'll only get $15 elsewhere.
[Confirmed]

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Tip #6: Get Christina (Risk: low)

In Needles in the middle right zone, In an alleyway between the shop and another building is a woman. You can hire her. Her name is Christina. She starts out with some decent skills. More importantly, she has a Geiger counter, rad suit, and Uzi you can take off her and give to one of your rangers - if you hire her. I don't think you got loot from her in the original if you killed her. She's a good character to get early on. You might get jumped by some jerks on your way to her, but even low level you should be fine.
[Confirmed]

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Tip #7: Get Rad Suits for everyone and always keep at least one Geiger counter

You will find better armor later on, but even after finding better armor, always keep a rad suit per ranger in each of their packs. There's certain areas, even in late game that require exposure to radiation. Unless they changed it, radiation poisoning can only be cured at the rare Doctor's offices in the game. Additionally, if I remember correctly, you can't heal HP from resting while you have radiation poisoning. I don't know how the remastered will handle it, but the original showed a radiation symbol on any tile when you got near to it and you had a Geiger counter. If you stepped on that tile while not wearing a Rad Suit, the ranger would get radiation poisoning.
[Unconfirmed]

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Tip #8: Shortcut through the Citadel

The Citadel is a high level area and thus very dangerous to low level players. However, you will only incur their wrath if you go past the red flags on the ground to north as you enter the zone.
You can go through the Citadel as a shortcut to Quartz / Needles and from the Ranger HQ area.

From Ranger HQ area to Quartz / Needles: As soon as you enter the citadel, go straight left (west) until you hit the edge of the map and it asks if you want to leave.
From Quartz / Needles to Ranger HQ area: Go down (south) 1 space which is the already the edge of the map to exit the zone.

[Slargos]

May include? Good god.

[Schutzengel]

Which stat should I boost with the first few levels. Do I get more skillpoints if I raise IQ or more HP if I raise Strength ? Are points given retroactively ?

[kaypy]

IQ gets you more skillpoints and access to more difficult skills, and is a high priority. (You can get away with stopping at 23 if you don't get unnecessary skills, but may need more if you don't know what not to spend points on)
Luck and Dex seem to be the important stats for missile combat.
Strength doesn't have any effect on HP. You might still want to raise it for melee damage, but not a great priority.

[phimseto]

BOB, this is rad stuff. There's a thread like this in the Bard's Tale Trilogy, and it has been very helpful for players starting out. Thanks for this.

[B.O.B.]

Slargos: haha. Sorry.

Schutzengel: What kaypy is correct. You get a 1 to 1 skill point per IQ gained. As to HP, every time you increase an attribute when leveling up, you also automatically gain 1 max HP. You get 2 attribute points every level, so you get 2 HP every level. However, while I don't recommend this personally, that final attribute '8) Maxcon' is your max HP. So you could feed 2 points in, and your max HP will go up by 4.

In the original game, there was a save game editor, which allowed such things as setting not just your starting stats to 99 each, but also set your XP to max, and your level to 1. So you could do that, and max out several of your stats to 255 each. Save the game again, get out. Reset your level to 1, get back in the game and repeat until all your stats were 255. At which point, then you would just dump whatever remaining points you had into Maxcon.

As to not going higher than 23 IQ, there is 1 skill that requires 24 IQ (Cyborg Tech). You only need to take this skill on 1 ranger. Additionally, while I could be wrong, I believe each skill in the game has a secret primary attribute it is associated with. IE, I believe the Climb and Swim skill are both affected by STR - and there a couple of spots in the game where climbing is crucial, so a higher STR can impact your success chance even if your current skill level is low. As such I believe there are INT / IQ based skills in the game.

So take that for what it's worth. PS, max level is 163 in the original game. That means there are 324 (162 * 2) attribute points to spend if you max the level of each of your rangers.

phimseto: Thanks. I thought up a couple of more tips after I went to bed and had a couple hours of sleep. Will be posting those shortly.

[B.O.B.]

Tip #9: Low on ammo? Grab another gun!

In the original game it didn't matter how many times an enemy shot at you in combat, if they dropped a gun, that gun was fully loaded. So if you are off adventuring somewhere, and running low on ammo, if you picked up a gun or two along the way (or can back track to a nearby loot bag that has a gun or two) then you can switch to that gun in combat and be back to a full clip.

Bonus: In the original game, shop keepers pay you the same whether the gun is fully loaded, partially loaded, or completely empty. So don't be afraid to drain those extra guns before dumping them off at your local shop keep.
Bonus bonus: Energy weapons are rare, but so is the ammo Power pack. Because of this, it is even more beneficial to hang on to and use up any of the energy weapons before selling them off.
[Unconfirmed]

[Slargos]

Actually, since the game is broken, you don't need Cyborg Tech.

[kaypy]

Originally posted by Slargos:

Actually, since the game is broken, you don't need Cyborg Tech.

Hence 23 8-)
It does require a harsh attribute check instead, so I think it is working as intended

[B.O.B.]

Tip #10: Blow stuff up!

Grenades, manglers, plastic explosives, and TNT can all be equipped as weapons (also the rockets). Rockets are single shot, and while the others are thrown explosives are 'single shot' as well they are 'auto reload' while in combat.

That means if your ranger chucks the grenade they have equipped while in combat, and they have another grenade in their pack, it will auto-equip the next grenade available. Once you run out of grenades, they will then have 'Fists' equipped.

Note: It only reloads the same type. IE, if you throw a grenade, and have TNT in your pack, it won't reload into TNT.

Bonus: Explosives do AOE damage to any enemies in the same tile that the target is in. So if you come up against a large mob, and maybe low on ammo, switch over to an explosive on your rangers, and chuck away. Watch as bits an pieces of all your enemies go flying in all directions.
[Unconfirmed]

[B.O.B.]

Ah. I wasn't aware there was a bug with Cyborg Tech. I'm assuming they are going to fix it though? You'll note that I've been placing [Confirmed] or [Unconfirmed] in my posts. Once I progress far enough in the new game to confirm them, I'll switch them around.

[B.O.B.]

Tip #11: Ratatatata!!!

In a hairy situation with a large mob of hostiles? Got an Uzi, M1989A1 Nato Assault rifle, or any other fully auto weapon? Don't be afraid to go Full Auto on the enemy. Full auto has a similar AOE effect as do explosives.

Watch as your player rips holes into all the enemies grouped into the same tile on the map!
[Unconfirmed] While unconfirmed, I doubt they've changed this mechanic.