Starting Out Tips and Tricks

This guide contains some helpful hints on getting started on your adventure in post-nuclear America. This guide contains spoilers.

Intro

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 be editing this guide as I play through the game and confirm whether something is still working in the Remastered version of this game.

Warning: This guide will contain spoilers. Reader beware.

Tip #1.1: Free starting money and gear (Part 1)

When you start the game, you start with a pre-made party of 4 rangers: HELL RAZOR, ANGELA DEATH, THRASHER, and SNAKE VARGAS.

The first thing you want to do when starting out is to leave the Ranger HQ with the pre-made party. To leave the Ranger HQ, hit the 'P' key.

Note: You may trigger random encounters as you do this. Don't worry, the pre-made party should easily survive. Just attack any enemy over and over again until it dies.

Head to Highpool

Head immediately west (and a little north) to the first tiny town: Highpool.









Head south through town past the first row of buildings, the square building, to a rectangle building with portions of the roof missing and a satellite dish. This is the town shop.







Enter the shop and head over to the counter with the shop keeper. Interact with the shop keeper by running into the counter.

In the shop interface, select '1' for Hell Razor and then '2' or 'S' for Sell. Once here you will see that Hell Razor has 5 items to sell: Rope ($19), Canteen ($8), Crowbar ($12), Hand mirror ($8), and Match ($8). Sell all 5 items by hitting the '1' key 5 times. Then repeat the process for the 3 other rangers in the party. Exit the Shop interface by hitting the Escape key.
Bonus tip: Rope, Canteen, and Crowbar are useful items. Hand mirror and match are junk items. Every new Ranger created at the Ranger HQ starts with these 5 items, so it is okay to sell all these items off the starting Rangers.

• Rope - gets used throughout the game. Hang on to at least 1 rope on each of your core rangers.
  
• Canteen - crucial for transversing the desert. You should have a canteen on every ranger. If you don't you will take heat damage while crossing desert tiles.
  
• Crowbar - this can help you brute force a door or container, but it also doubles as a great starting melee item! Hang onto this on each of your core rangers.

Head to Quartz

Quartz is northwest of Highpool, along the river on the east side. To get there, head west from Highpool until you hit the river, then head north until you come across a town. This is is Quartz.

Bonus tip: Larger towns, such as Quartz, can span multiple tiles in game. Entering different tiles affects what portion of town you start in.
Bonus Tip: See tip #11 Shortcut through the Citadel for the shortest path to Quartz.


Enter the bottom left tile of town. Immediately north and on the west site of the road is a large white building with a sign on top. This is the shop. Entering the shop takes you into the Shop's UI immediately.

Hell Razor and Thrasher both have a M1911A1 45 pistol, and 45 clips. We don't care about these weapons or ammo. Sell everything Hell Razor and Thrasher own.

Both Angela Deth and Snake Vargas have a VP91Z 9mm pistol, and 9mm clips. We DO care about these. But they also have a Knife we don't care about. Sell their knives. The knives will be on Page 2 of 2 for them. Reach this by hitting the Down arrow key.

Exit the shop.

Pool your $$

Hit the '4' key to bring up Snake Vargas. His wallet should currently have $65 in it.
Hit the 'P' key to pool all of the cash onto Snake Vargas. He will now have $618.

Return to Ranger HQ

It's time to return to the Ranger HQ and make your brand new party of rangers. Once back at HQ, hit the 'R' key to bring up the option to delete a Ranger. Delete Hell Razor and Thrasher. Warning: Don't delete Angela Deth or Snake Vargas yet.

Now it's time to roll up your first ranger. Hit 'C' to start the process. Hop on over to the section on Character Creation (Tip #2). After making your first two characters, return here to finish this tip.

Transfer items

After you have created your first two rangers, it's time to make room for your next two rangers. Important: Open one of your brand new rangers by hitting '3' or '4'. Once open, hit the 'P' key to pool the $618 cash onto them.

Next go over to the 'ITEMS' tab. Did the ranger start out with a 45 pistol or 9mm pistol? If it started with a 45 pistol, precede to the next step. Otherwise, open the 2nd new ranger, and go over to their 'ITEMS' tab. Check for a 45 pistol or 9mm pistol. If both new rangers have a 9mm pistol, lucky you! Proceed to the next step:

Open Angela Deth's UI ('1' key), and go to her ITEMS tab. We are going to trade all of her items to one of your new rangers. If one of your rangers started with a 45 pistol, trade to that ranger. If neither did, just trade to your first new ranger.
To trade items, here is the sequence of keys to hit: 1, T (or 2), Ranger # (3 or 4). Repeat this process over and and over until Angela Deth is left with just her fists. Now delete her.

If both of your new rangers started with a 45 pistol, you can also empty out Snake Vargas as well. If not, make your 3rd ranger before deleting Snake Vargas.

Empty out Snake Vargas, delete him, and finally make your 4th ranger.

Bonus Tip: If your first three new rangers all started with a 45 pistol, bad luck! However, don't fret. Before making your 4th ranger, make a ranger regardless of stats, don't even bother with skills. Name him 'garbage' or something. After creating this junk ranger, open it up. If it has 9mm pistol, trade its pistol and ammo to ranger #3. Then delete the junk ranger. You can repeat this process if you want to farm an extra 9mm pistol and / or extra ammo just in case your 4th ranger also starts with a 45.

You are now ready for Part 2 of this tip.

Tip #1.2: Free starting money and gear (Part 2)

Now that you have your brand new party, it's time to start the adventure. This part of the tip will guide you on how to get starting armor (Leather Jackets AC 1) and some bonus cash.

You should have just over $600 if you followed part 1 of Tip #1. Before leaving Ranger HQ, remember to equip all 4 of your new rangers with their pistols.

Bonus: I recommend saving before heading out.

From the Ranger HQ we are going to head north a bit (and a tiny bit west) to the Nomad camp. Caution: The Nomad camp (and the desert) is not a safe zone. You will get attacked by random beasties - and some of those beasties can be deadly at level 1. Try not to wander (make a beeline) to your destination (every movement has a chance to generate an random encounter). If you do die, don't fret, just reload that save you made before embarking on your journey, and try again. Good chance that you won't get attacked the 2nd time around, or if you do, it will be an easy beastie versus a hard beastie. Best of luck!

Once inside the nomad camp, head west to the 2nd train car after the engine. It has a little radiation barrel above the opening. This is the shop in the nomad camp. In this shop, buy an Engine for $500. Now exit the Nomad camp post haste! (Notice in my screenshot, all my rangers are at 2 and 1 HP - I got attacked by a nasty beastie that gave me a run for my money).



Head south to Highpool.

Once in Highpool, head to south end of the town. Here you will see two rectangle buildings - one that has red walls and metal roofing, and a white / gray building. Head into the red building.




In this building is some sort of mechanical contraption and a bed. Head on over to the bed first and stand where the pillow is. You should get a loot bag with a 9mm Pistol, some 9mm clips, a Leather Jacket, and small bit of cash!

Next go stand in the tile where the contraption is. Now use the Engine on the contraption. To do this, hit 'U' for Use, ranger # (I bought it on my first ranger so '1'), '2' or 'i' for 'Item', and then cycle through the item pages until you find the Engine (Up / Down to cycle through pages), and then hit the number for the Engine. Last hit the Space Bar to use the Engine on the space you occupy. Congrats! You've repaired the pump and earned a reward!

As a reward, they give you: 1 Mangler, 4 Leather jackets, 8x 9mm clips, 4 jewelry, and around $400 to $500. Jewelry is a vendor trash item in the game, and if you go to the Highpool store, they will give $75 per piece of jewelry. All said and done, you should walk away with a Leather Jacket for each of your rangers, and a little over $1,000 after selling the jewelry.

Tip #2.1: Ranger Creation (part 1)

When creating a new ranger, my goal is always to get 18 Intelligence, and 10+ in all the other attributes. I will sometimes settle for less than 10 in one or two attributes as long as the attributes aren't too low.

For rolling a new character, you can roll over and over again by hitting the '1' key or the Space bar. Just keep rolling. Eventually, an 18 Intelligence will popup. When doing this tedious process, I focus on the Intelligence number, and try to roll quickly (but not too quickly) and stop anytime an 18 shows up for Intelligence.

An 18 is the max value any of the starting attributes can have. I have only every once gotten two 18s on a single starting character in the original game. I don't know if it is possible to do that in the Remastered game, but for your sanity it is not worth trying for it. It's bad enough getting an 18 in Intelligence and 10+ in all the others.

Attributes

Attribute	What It Does
Strength (ST)	Helps in melee combat and can also be used to bust down doors and other physical tasks.
Intelligence (IQ)	1-to-1 ratio of Skill Points to IQ. Every time you increase your IQ, you gain a Skill Point which can be spent in a Library to rank up Skill or learn a new Skill. IQ also affects what skills you are allowed to learn. The highest requirement is 24. There is also a couple places in the game where you can use IQ to problem solve a task.
Luck (LK)	Luck can help you find things (increase your loot), avoid damage or reduce it, and to-hit odds in combat.
Speed (SP)	How quickly you move. I believe it affects your dodge chances, but it can also help you close the distance on an enemy or run away from them. However, when moving as a party, the lowest speed ranger is going to dictate that.
Agility (AGL)	Definitely affects your ability to dodge. Aids in hand to hand combat. Affects the acrobatic skill.
Dexterity (DEX)	Affects your aim in ranged combat which in turn affects not only to-hit odds, but the amount of damage you do. Affects other skills like pick locking.
Charisma (CHR)	Affects how you interact with NPCs. If it is too low, you won't be able to hire specific NPCs. It also affects how well the NPC obeys your commands.

Certain of the attributes in the help screen calls out specific skills that it affects. I personally believe that all skills have a primary attribute they are linked to. For instance, I believe Swim and Climb are affected by Strength.

At a minimum you will want each of your core rangers to have an IQ of 23. If you want to have all the skills in the game, you will need a ranger that has an IQ of 24, however, the skill in question can be bypassed in the game with a IQ attempt. It may take multiple IQ attempts, so having the skill can make that portion of the game easier.

Name, Sex, Race, and Nationality

After accepting the stats of your new ranger, you will be asked for a name. Currently, the game types in all caps, but if you just type in normally, you will get a name that is all lowercase. So be careful when typing in the name if you care about the case as you won't know if you got it right until after you finish, and by that point it will be too late. Note: I believe this is fixed in Beta, but I have not tried Beta yet.

After you name your new ranger, you can pick Male or Female. I recommend at least 1 Female in the party as there is content that can only be accessed by Female rangers.

Nationality + sex determines what avatar picture your ranger gets. In the original, it had no other effect. I do not think it has any effect in the Remastered other than the avatar picture.

Starting Skills

If you took my advice and got an 18 IQ, you will have 4 pages of skills to pick from. This first list is skills I recommend that you take on every single ranger you create.
Page 1:

• Brawling - Affects how many swings you get in melee combat. May also affect accuracy.
  
• Climb - There is plenty of places in the game you will need to climb. Crucial skill for all rangers.
  
• Clip pistol - The game starts off every ranger with either a 45 pistol or a 9mm pistol. This affects not only accuracy, but how often you jam the weapon, and whether you will succeed in unjamming the weapon.
  
• Knife fight - Useful for melee fighting and you start the game with a knife.
  
• Pugilism - Affects how much melee damage you do with just your fists. You can build a beast of a ranger that can punch holes in metal robots with the right stats and high enough level.
  
• Swim - There a couple of places where swimming is needed - but it is also an easy skill to rank.
  
• Perception - A crucial skill. Helps you find bonus loot and notice other key items in the game. Every ranger should have this skill.

Page 2:

• Assault rifle - This will be your go to ranged skill even late game. A crucial skill for all your rangers.
  
• AT weapon - There is various rocket launchers such as RPGs throughout the game. They're all single shot, but they pack a punch, and can help you out of a hairy situation, especially with a couple of tough bosses. A crucial skill for all your rangers.
  
• SMG - SMGs will be your first ranged weapon upgrade you will gain if you play the game traditionally. A crucial starting out skill in the game.
  
• Acrobat - There is a couple places where this comes in handy, but there is also a place to easily level it, and gain some free XP to boot. May or may not affect your ability to dodge.
  
• Confidence - Helps with Charisma. I always thought it helped with Doctor skill, but that might just have been my imagination. I could be wrong, but I believe this skill can only be taken during character creation.

Page 3:

• Demolitions - There are a 4 thrown explosives in the game: grenades, manglers, plastic explosives, and TNT. These can also be used to blow holes in walls. These explosives can be really useful in some hairy situations - especially when fighting large groups of enemies.
  
• Medic - A crucial starting skill. You never know which ranger may get seriously injured. It's best to take this on all your starting rangers.

Tip #2.2: Ranger Creation (Part 2)

Specialized Skills

There are several specialized skills that are useful throughout the game, but you only need to take them on a single ranger each. I personally like to group specific skills on specific rangers, but it doesn't matter - as long as one of your rangers has it. The list below is a list of specialized skills you can get with 18 IQ during ranger creation. If you took all the skills I recommended for each ranger in part 1 of this tip, you should have 3 Skill Points per ranger to spend. You won't be able to get all of these without some leveling, but the list below is ordered by which ones I think are important based on how soon you will need them or the frequency in which they are used:

Skill	Pg.	#	Pts.	Description
Picklock	2	6	1	Lots and lots of locked doors. No key needed.
Alarm disarm	3	4	1	Couple places where disabling an alarm can be very useful.
Alarm disarm	3	6	2	Couple places where disabling a bomb is extremely useful - especially if you don't want bits of your rangers on the floor, walls, and ceiling.
Cryptology	3	9	2	There's a couple of encoded messages you can only read if you have cryptology.
Metallurgy	4	1	2	There is a nearby mine that has a couple of silver veins you can tap into for some bonus cash.
Forgery	3	3	1	Allows you to forge some things and also recognize forgeries.
Silent move	2	7	1	Allows you to sneak up on a couple hostile NPCs and overpower them. To do so, you have to have the ranger with this skill at the front of the party order. Personally, I never care about this, because it negates the fights, and I'd rather just murder the NPCs - but that's just me.
Safe crack	3	8	2	There's a couple of safes in the game that need cracking.
Sleight of hand	3	1	1	I can't remember where this comes up as a useful skill.
Bureaucracy	3	5	1	Can help with some of the bureaucratic NPCs in the game.

Additional Specialized Skills

That concludes the list of specialized skills you can get at the start of the game. There are 4 more specialized skills you can gain later in the game:

• Cyborg tech (24 IQ) - There's a cyborg you can interact in a very special way with late in the game. However, you can brute force the interaction with IQ alone.
  
• Helicopter (19 IQ) - There's a helicopter you can fly in the game.
  
• Electronics (20 IQ) - There are some electronics late game that you can manipulate with this skill.
  
• Toaster repair (20 IQ) - There are broken toasters you find in the game. You can repair them later on in the game at a toaster repair workbench. More on this in a later tip.

Crucial Late Game Skills

There are four additional skills you should get on your core rangers as soon as you can:

• Doctor (21 IQ) - Better than a medic. Can fix critical and worse conditions (can't cure death, disease, or radiation poisoning though). You never know which character might be injured, so best to have this on all your rangers. Once you have it, always use it instead of the medic skill (even for just 'SERious' injuries.
  
• Energy weapon (23 IQ) - That's right - you get laser guns late game. This skill is crucial for that. Easiest place to train this skill is in the Library in the South East of Vegas.
  
• Clone tech (22 IQ) - You can clone your core rangers late game. They inherit all the skills, attributes, XP and level of the ranger you cloned. Plus you get full control over them, unlike hired NPCs.
  
• Gamble (10 IQ) - While not a crucial skill, it's a skill all your players can take. There are several places to gamble, and it's a skill that is easy to rank up to high ranks. Doesn't hurt to take on all your rangers.

Skills to Never Take!

• Combat Shooting - I always thought this did something, but apparently the consensus online is that it did nothing in the original game. This skill can only be taken at the Ranger HQ during ranger creation. Important: In the Remastered addition it now does something: It gives you an Achievement. So you might want to take it on one of your rangers for the heck of it.
  
• Rifle - This is a useless weapon skill. Optimum weapon progression upgrades is: 9mm Pistol, UZI, Nato assault rifle, Meson Cannon > Ion beamer > Laser Rifle > Laser carbine > Laser pistol. Additionally, the rifle's you find use the same ammo clips as the Nato assault rifle, so they are worse then useless: they're a waste of precious ammo.
  
• Throwing knife - While it doesn't steal ammo away like the Rifle does, it is also useless. First it's limited range effectiveness, throwing knives are uncommon to find, and are single use. Worse yet, when you attack with the throwing knife, you go to bare fists. You have to then equip a new throwing knife - so you only can attack every other round (I might be wrong on that list bit - still useless either way).

Tip #3.1: Easy Skill Ups - Perception

Risk: low (lower if you do tip #1 part 1 & 2 first).
Max rank: 3

Head to Quartz. Enter from the southeast tile or the northeast tile. If you entered from the south, head straight north for a bit. If you entered from the north, head south a bit.

Bonus Tip: See tip #11 Shortcut through the Citadel for the shortest path to Quartz.

Bonus Tip: Quartz has manhole covers in certain spots throughout town. You can use these to quickly get around town, avoiding random encounters. The town baddies are low level, so they won't pose much of risk to go overland, but later on when you are over leveled it is nice to avoid some combat when the XP reward is low, and ammo is precious.

Bonus Tip: Watch out for cacti! I'd recommend walking mostly on the roads. Some of the foliage is cacti. While comical to walk into, it's still painful (and embarrassing) to your rangers.

You will come across two buildings that are separated by a tiny bit of road. One of which is missing chunks of its roof.







Enter the alleyway between the two buildings by stepping on to the little patch of road. You will be immediately attacked by 3 Marksmen at 31 feet away. I recommend spending the first 2 rounds of combat moving your party closer to the enemy. At low level, you rangers struggle to hit the broad side of barn at 10 feet away. If you try to kill them from 31 feet, you will just waste precious ammo missing over and over. Move two tiles to the right (East) and you will be 14 feet away - from this distance you shoot start hitting them consistently. As a bonus the enemy might actually advance towards you on the first round as well, at which point you will have only needed to move in the first round.

Kill these marksman.

Caution: Don't spend time exploring this room - or even getting the loot that the enemy drops. The entire time you are in this room, there is an enemy sniper taking potshots at you. You can't target or attack them.

Head to the south west corner of the room where the wall juts out a bit. Try running into it. You will get a status message of "Looks like you might be able to use a rope." - So use one.







Move south to get on the roof. You will be confronted by another marksman or 2. Kill this marksman (or 2), and advance further south. You finally come across the sniper that has been taking potshots at you this entire time. When you first encounter him, he'll be 40 to 50 feet away, so you will need to spend several rounds running toward him to get close enough to be able to hit him. If you're lucky, he might even advance on you. In the original game, he spent the entire time taking potshots at you, and when you got to close, he'd retreat. You had to chase the little bugger into a corner.

Once he's dead, you can go back for your loot. This area is a safe area, so you can rest till fully healed. I personally don't rest up because you are going to naturally regain your HP from this next bit:

Ranking Up Perception

Head over to the right (East) to be adjacent to the blue tiles. These blue tiles are skylights. As you move next to these blue tiles, you will get status messages of:
"Through the glass skylight you can see figures moving in the shadows."
"It might be possible to break the glass, leap down and surprise them."

Guess what? All of your rangers gained a tiny bit of XP from making these observations and had a chance to rank up their Perception skill.

Guess what else? You get XP every time your rangers make these observations - over and over and over again. In fact, you could spend several days using a keyboard macro (such as AHK) and reach max XP (I believe it was just shy of 16,777,216 in the original - or 3 bytes) and max rank of Supreme Jerk. It takes time, but it is a guaranteed way of hitting max level safely.

Bonus tip: Technically you don't need to move up and down next to the windows. Just hold down the Escape key to pass away the time or hit the 'C' key to Camp (equivalent to holding the Escape down for like 20 iterations) and your team will still gain XP from 'observing'.

Bonus tip: Skill ranks cannot be higher than the ranger's rank (unless you rank them up at a library by spending skill points). So if you followed my guide on Tip #1 Parts 1 & 2, you're probably not even level 2 yet. So spend some time running up and down along the skylights. After a couple minutes of doing this, you should have ample XP to level up 2 or 3 times. I recommend dumping points into IQ first - you want to get to IQ 23 as soon as possible. After you've level up each of your rangers, do a couple more minutes running up and down, and each of your rangers should hit rank 3 on Perception.

Tip #3.2: Easy Skill Ups - Climb & Acrobatics

Risk: Low (none if you did a little power leveling on Perception first). This is done in an area that has random encounters, but you shouldn't run up against anything too deadly, even at low level.
Max rank: 3 in both.

Head to Needles. It is a little northwest of Quartz, this time on the west side of the river. Enter in the southeast square (grey building). You'll be in the southeast most tiles of the map. Just to your northwest is a building that looks like it could survive a nuclear warhead.




Northwest of the building is some shifting-sand dunes. They're kind of hard to see in the Remaster, but they are there. These dunes give each of your Rangers a chance to rank up their Climb and their Acrobatics skill - each to Rank 3. Just move all over them. At low levels your party will bounce around due to the shifting sands.

You will actually need your rangers' Climb and Acrobatics to be Rank 3 to reach the special item (or be severely over-leveled and have high AGI) - and even with Rank 3s, it's going to take some doing to reach it.

Bonus Tip: The Dunes are worth XP! By the time you reach rank 3 of Climb and Acrobatics on all your rangers, you may have gained a level or two.

Tip #3.3: Easy Skill Ups - Swim

Risk: High! Random encounters, plus you take random damage from doing the task.
Max rank: 10

Unless they changed it in the Remastered, you can't drown. However, you can lose consciousness, and be very low health and trigger a nasty beastie encounter putting your party in a precarious situation. I recommend being high level before you try this. Well armored won't help against the damage you take from skill use, but it will help with the beastie encounters.

The task is simple: Go to the northern portion of the river in the world map and jump in! Your rangers will take damage as they struggle to keep their heads above water and as they bash into rocks and what not in the river. But you will gain a small amount of XP, and potentially rank up your Swim skill.

Eventually you will be swept all the way down to the lake at the southern end of the map. At this point you can hop out and run back north and start over again, or just keep trying to swim against the current heading north up the river.

Bonus Tip: If / when your party is all unconscious (or close to it), head for a safe zone and rest. Your unconscious rangers won't receive XP or rank ups in the swim skill while unconscious.

Tip #3.4: Easy Skill Ups - Gambling

Risk: Low to high - Need money though cause you will lose more than you gain.
Max rank: 7 or 8 (need to confirm)

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. I find the Nomad Camp to be the easiest to level on.

Risk is low to high:

• Nomad camp is low to medium if you are low level and trigger an encounter with a nasty beastie.
  
• There is a poker game going on in a private club in Needles. You need a password to get in. This one is the lowest risk because I believe the club room is a safe zone if I remember correctly (need to confirm).
  
• Vegas is high for a couple reasons: The casino has unfriendlies and Vegas itself is a higher level zone. Low level players should not go here.

Tip #3.5: Easy Skill Ups - Melee Skills

Skills: Brawling, Pugilism, and 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. Ranks in brawling determine how many melee attacks you get per round when fighting with a melee weapon - this is crucial to survival.

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. If knife fighting can be leveled here, do it before pugilism but after brawling. The extra swings from brawling will help rank up knife fighting and pugilism.

[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.

Tip #3.6: Easy Skill Ups - Metallurgy

Risk: Medium to high (hostile area - can be deadly to low level rangers)
Max level: Unknown - I'm too lazy to rank this skill up.

Bonus Tip: Skip this skill. The entire area is dangerous for low levels, the chance at skill ups is low, and the cash you gain is piddly. Additionally, the entire time you are mining, you making a great deal of noise that attracts some pretty nasty beasties - a couple of which can be quite deadly at low levels. While they won't attack you when you are in the silver vein spot, as soon as you try to leave the area you will get ganked and have to fight tooth and nail to get back to the entrance. Just not worth the effort in my opinion.

If you are determined to do this, then head over to the mine entrance that is just west of the farm. I'd recommend save this for when you are higher level. You can clear the cave sooner rather than later, but the mining of the silver actively attracts random encounter monsters to wait in the only pathway out of the silver vein area.



Once in side the cave head north and down the right most passage way (don't go down the passage way to the left of this - it will cause a cave-in and damage your party)

Bonus Tip: Make a pit stop in the room in the southeast to get some loot and a pick ax (which you will need for Metallurgy) if you don't already own a Pick ax. The door is locked, so bust out your lock picking skill!

The mat that is just right of the door has some scavengers you rudely wake up when you step there. (You can use the Silent Move skill to potentially sneak up on them). I prefer to just kill them and loot their corpses, but that is just me. They'll drop a couple items, including a Pick ax and Shovel. Make sure to grab the Pick ax and Shovel (the Shovel is useful elsewhere). I can't remember if you can diplomacy your way out of the confrontation with scavengers or not - I never bother: I prefer to play this game as a murder hobo as it actively encourages this play style.

In the top right corner of this room is a locked lockbox. In it is gas masks. These are junk items but vendor for $113 at the right shop (Highpool being one of them).

In the bottom right corner is some critters you can also disturb for some combat.

As you precede north, the passage way will narrow. You'll come across a gap with stalagmites you can pass by. Go west here, and then start working your way south.






When you reach a wall, head west until you reach the first gap going south again.








Once through the southern gap, head east towards the bloody corpse. Just past that corpse is some shiny rocks. This is the silver vein. Proceed to use the Metallurgy skill on this space, followed by the Pick ax. This results in a small amount of cash, and chance to rank up Metallurgy. A keyboard macro comes in real handy here.

Tip #4: Bash in Some Skulls!

While this is directly related to Tip #3: Easy Skill Ups - Melee Skills, I thought this deserved it's own section.

First off, resources in this game are finite. Random encounters do not drop loot bags in the original game - I doubt they do in the Remastered (I'll edit this if it has changed). One of those precious finite resources is ammo clips. So by mixing it up with melee weapons, you conserve those precious ammo clips.

There are primarily two situations I like to focus on Melee:

1. Revisiting lower level areas where I know the enemies are no longer much of a threat - why shoot them when I can bash in their skulls with a crowbar, or hack them into pieces with a chainsaw?
   
2. Early areas of the game. Most of the baddies in the first couple areas are melee attackers themselves. So ranged weapons are less important. The few baddies that are low range are pistol users, and because this game thinks shooting a pistol past 20 feet is a near guaranteed miss, closing the range with the few baddies that are gun wielding are easy to close range to.

Bonus Tip: Melee kills give double XP! Meaning if a baddie normally gives 50 XP for shooting it dead, it will give 100 XP for killing it. So by doing the early areas with just melee, you should gain an extra level or two, making the mid-level areas a tiny bit easier.

The low level zones I recommend doing in melee are: Highpool, the Farm (including the Farm cave), the Nomad Camp, and the cave west of the farm.
Both Quartz and Needles are also doable for the most part - although they will be more difficult if you didn't power level using some of the easy skill rank ups I suggested in Tip #3. Mainly because you will spend most fights trying to close the distance between you and the shooters, thus giving them free attacks.

Bonus Tip: Shooting is guaranteed attack (unless you jam your weapon), Melee is not! Order of combat is always: shooters attack simultaneously, then the order of melee attackers is random but sequential - the melee order also includes non-combat actions, such as using skill, reloading, unjamming a weapon. The last action in order is movement. This means, that if you shoot and kill and enemy, if they are shooter, they still get a final shot off. Also, if they shoot you and knock your ranger unconscious, if your ranger is firing a weapon, they always get their shot off.

However, any other action (melee or non-combat), if ranger is knocked on unconscious or the melee enemy is killed, no action will be performed by that PC or NPC. This also means if you doing a melee party for the bonus XP at low levels, and the enemy is a shooter, they always go first. The Speed attribute helps to determine who goes in what melee order, but it is still a bit randomized.

Bonus Tip: With a bit of over leveling or even just careful perseverance, it is possible to melee the entire game. It does make the game harder, especially in the final areas.

Tip #5: 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 you 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 Tip: 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 Tip: Energy weapons are rare, but so is the ammo . Because of this, it is even more beneficial to hang on to and use up any of the energy weapons before selling them off.

Tip #6: 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 Tip: 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 and pieces of all your enemies go flying in all directions.

Bonus Tip: TNT is fairly common, and also available in many shops. I prefer to use TNT to blow holes in special walls, and the others for combat.

Tip #7: 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!

Tip #8.1: Recommended Weapons (Part 1)

Ammo in this game is a finite resource. Ammo always comes in clips of specific round type. Ammo clip types are shared between various weapons, but oddly it is the weapon type that determines how many rounds are in the clip. For example, the 9mm Pistol when loaded with a fresh 9mm clip has 18 rounds - the Uzi also uses a 9mm clip, and when it's freshly loaded, has 40 rounds. Go figure.

This first table lists what is recommended for your rangers. Part 2 is what is recommended for your NPC hires. There are a couple of reasons for this: 1st: NPCs are stupid with their ammo consumption - they will do a full auto when a burst is appropriate or burst when a single shot is appropriate. 2nd: It gives them weapons that have an ammo type that doesn't conflict with the ammo type your rangers are using.

Category	Name	Clip Type	# Rounds	Description
Melee	Proton ax	None	Infinite	This is thee best melee weapon in the game. It can do hundreds of points of damage per strike. It uses Brawling, so as you use it, there is a low chance to increase your brawling skill to go from 1 to 2 to 3 attacks per round, raking in huge amounts of damage. It can damage any enemy regardless of their AC. The only downside is there is 2 maybe 3 in the game (without cheating that is) - and you have to know where to look to find them.
Melee	Chainsaw	None	Infinite	This is thee 2nd best melee weapon in the game. Not nearly as much damage potential as the Proton ax, but still a respectable amount. It also uses Brawling, allowing the chance to rank up and get extra attacks per round. It can be found in loot bags in various points in the game, but the biggest perk is you can just buy it from certain stores if you have the spare cash. Win win.
Melee	Crowbar	None	Infinite	Not nearly as great as the 2 preceding melee weapons, it also uses Brawling and the biggest perk is all your rangers start with one.
Clip Pistol	VP91Z 9mm pistol	9mm	18	Slightly lower damage than the 45 pistol, it holds 18 rounds. Considering the 45 pistol only holds 7 rounds, the minor damage difference is not worth it. The 18 rounds are far more important as you are going to spend your early levels missing, doing piddly damage, or even no damage at all. Primarily from your lack of skill and attribute points.
SMG	Uzi SMG Mark 27	9mm	40	This is where the game gets to be fun. Bursts. Full auto. All good stuff. As an added benefit, it uses 9mm clips, so no need to swap out primary ammo clips on your rangers just yet! Damage vs its counter part (the Mac 17 SMG) is neglible with the exception of Full Auto : the Uzi holds 40 rounds and the Mac 17 holds 30 rounds, so the Uzi does more damage on full clip of full auto [more rounds = more damage potential].
Assault Rifle	M1989A1 Nato assault rifle	7.62	35	This is going to be your go to weapon for the rest of the game - even when you get the final tier weapons ( Energy weapons ). Primarily because this weapons has one the most abundant sources of ammo clips in the game, the final tier weapons ammo is extremely rare, and this thing still packs a wallop late game.
Energy weapon	Meson canon	Power pack	10	This is thee most powerful ranged weapon in the game barring a secret weapon you could only get in the original game by cheating. Some of the other weapons listed below can do slightly more damage on Full Auto because they have more rounds, but this outshines them on single and burst in per round damage. There is a finite number of these in the game, so you will not be able to have a full party of these. Arguably the other two weapons listed below can do more damage than this one even on burst / single shot, because they have more rounds and thus don't need to be reloaded as often.
Energy weapon	Ion beamer	Power pack	20	This has more damage potential than the Meson canon because of round count. The biggest downside of this weapon: there's only one.
Energy weapon	Laser rifle	Power pack	20	While this has the same number of rounds as the Ion beamer , it has lower damage output. Still a solid weapon. If you are lower level, lower skilled, lower attributes, this might be a better weapon for your team then the Meson canon purely because of the round count.
Rifle	Red Ryder Rifle	7.62	63	Okay so l lied about the Meson canon being the most powerful ranged weapon in the game. It's really this one. I also lied about the Rifle skill being completely useless. However, this weapon is a cheat weapon that can only be gained through an exploit in the original game. I haven't confirmed if that exploit still exists in the game or not. So Rifle is still useless unless the exploit exists and you cheat. This weapon is single shot only, but it doesn't need burst or full auto. It holds a whopping 63 rounds per reload. Last but not least it will do a massive amount of damage per round ranging from around 500 to 700 base damage. Contrast that with the Meson cannon only doing 60 to 70 base damage, that's huge. See my guide on Secrets & Exploits for how to get this weapon.

Tip #8.2: Recommended Weapons (Part 2)

I'm not going to cover melee weapons for NPC hires. It's the same as what you would give your rangers, with the exception of the Proton Ax. They don't deserve it. Plus there is only a couple in the game.

Bonus Tip: While you can train them to use the final tier weapons and give them the lower tier final tier weapons (those are recommended below) I don't recommend it, and here is why: When I reach the ability to clone, I clone. I will have 6 rangers. I keep the 7th slot open for special NPCs so that I can do specific quests, but once the quests are done, I strip them naked and boot them to the curb. Also Vax in the final area knows how to use the final tier weapons and comes with one.

Category	Name	Clip Type	# Rounds	Description
Clip Pistol	M1911A1 45 pistol	45	7	Slightly more damage than the 9mm pistol, but only has 7 rounds. Equip NPCs with this and let them loot any 45 clips you find as you won't be using them on your rangers at any tier.
SMG	Mac 17 SMG	45	30	Has the same amount of damage as the Uzi for single shot and burst, but lower damage than the Uzi on Full Auto (because of less rounds). Bonus perk is that this uses 45 rounds so it's a natural upgrade for your NPCs.
Assault Rifle	M1989A1 Nato assault rifle	7.62	35	All weapons at this tier and above start sharing the same types of ammo, so giving your NPCs a different weapon in this tier to split out the ammo does no good. So give them the Nato if you have spares. However, if you don't have spares, give them the AK-97 list below.
Assault Rifle	AK-97	7.62	30	Damage difference between this and the Nato is negligible except for Full Auto, and only because the Nato has 5 more rounds. Give this to the NPCs if you don't have a spare Nato.
Energy weapon	Laser Carbine	Power pack	30	These all use the same ammo type ( Power pack ), so giving your NPCs lower tier weapons in this category is only if you don't have spare better weapons. This is the 2nd weakest weapon in this weapon group. Also if you don't want to waste ammo on your NPCs going full auto when they shouldn't, give them no replacement ammo, and just a bunch of these. Every time they run out of ammo, just switch to a new weapon.
Energy weapon	Laser pistol	Power pack	40	This is the weakest weapon in this tier. I never reload these. Once they're drained of ammo, I sell them off for a sweet $4,000. They don't even have much better damage then the Nato rifle.

Tip #8.3: Recommended Gear

Some of this gear you start with and should keep throughout the game. Additionally, some of the NPCs you hire don't come with this gear - so you should keep 3 spares of each of the 'crucial' items to give to an NPC if they don't have one after hiring. Remember strip them naked before firing and kicking them to the curb.

Name	Priority	Starter Item?	Description
Canteen	Crucial	Yes	This item you passively use throughout the game. If you enter any desert tile and don't have one of these, you will take damage and eventually die. Don't leave home without it.
Crowbar	Crucial	Yes	If you read the tip on recommend weapons you'd know it functions as a decent starting melee weapon. But it can also help you get into various places in the game (even late game). Always keep your crowbar handy.
Rope	Crucial	Yes	The use of rope comes up at various points in the game. It's also a consume on use item. I can't remember how many places you need them, but if you keep at least 1 rope on each ranger & NPC, you should be fine. If you want to be on the safe side, once you consume a rope, loot another one when you find more (they are semi-common loot bag item throughout the game).
Geiger counter	Vital	No	You only need one on your group, but this is a crucial item. I could be wrong, but in the original it allowed you to see the radiation symbol on any tile that would give you radiation poisoning if you entered it without a Rad suit. Of course they might just be visible automatically during Night hours. However, even if they aren't visible during Day hours, if you have a Geiger counter in your pack, you'd hear clicking noises like a real Geiger counter as you go close to radiated tiles. It would click faster the closer you got. In the original it also had a progress bar of sorts on the edge of the screen that filled up as you got closer to the radiation. See that bar with Nuclear symbol on the right edge of your screen? That's the same progress bar. Use it wisely.
TNT	Very Useful	No	Doubles as a powerful thrown weapon, it helps access certain key areas in the game that can only be accessed by blowing a hole in the wall.
Plastic explosives	Special Use	No	Doubles as a powerful thrown weapon, it helps access certain key areas in the game that can only be accessed by blowing a hole in the wall. However, in the original game, there was a very special room you could gain access to, but you had to blow the wall up several times to do so. You could use expensive rockets, but Plastic explosives were a very cheap alternative. Save some of these for that special room. Why this differs then TNT was that special room was impervious to TNT.
Pick ax	None	No	You can mine silver in specific spots in the cave west of the farm. It also doubles as a weapon. Beyond that, not all that useful. Vendor it off whenever.
Shovel	Useful	No	There is actually a couple places in the game where you can dig a hidden item out of the ground and possibly trigger a special event. Keep 1 of these handy on 1 of your rangers.
Fruit	Useful-ish	No	Mostly a junk item which you can vendor for $23 at the farm or Highpool. However, it does have 1 use later in the game: You can combine it with the item 'Chemical' to craft the item 'Antitoxin'. See below for details of why this is useful! .
Jewelry	Easy Cash	No	If you sell it to the store in Highpool, they give $75. Most other stores only give you $50.
Broken toaster	Useful-ish	No	Later in the game you can use your Toaster Repair skill to repair these suckers (see the Tip on Toaster Repair)
Engine	Useful-ish	No	If you read my tip number one you'd know why this is useful. Additionally, there is at least one other place where this item is useful. See my Secrets guide for details on that.
Snake squeezin	Useful-ish	No	Bums seem to love this stuff. So it's useful to sometimes get knowledge from specific bums, or just to get them to go away and get out of the way.
Chemical	Useful-ish	No	This item's only use is for crafting anti-toxins items. See below for details. There is a finite number of Chemical items in the game, so a finite number of times you can craft the anti-toxin.
Antitoxin	Very Useful	No	There are a couple of NPCs you can hire if you heal them with this. This item can be found in a very limited amount in the game - but more importantly it can be crafted using the 'Chemical' item (mentioned below) and fruit. Why this is important: Doctor skill-ups! You can get free rank ups on your rangers when crafting this item. Important: Only 1 ranger will receive the skill up if it procs - so you might want to separate out your NPC hires before going to the special table and crafting this item. If you want to control a specific ranger getting the skill then have them at the table by themselves. It's also not guaranteed to proc a rank up while crafting each one. In the original though you could game it a bit: 1. Save. 2. Craft. 3. Reload it if it didn't proc. Repeat until it Procced. Save. I can't confirm this next bit because I can only remember getting it to work once when I was considerably younger, and the effort for the reward is not worth it either. Anyway, in Highpool, there is a rabid dog named Rex. There is a NPC named Jackie trapped in the back of the cave that you can hire / rescue. The dog is completely hostile, and if you kill it, when you leave the cave, on the way out of town Bobbie will want to fight you (Bobbie is the dog's owner). You can kill Bobbie. You sick bastard! Anyway, instead of killing the rabid dog, you can climb around it. The dog will viciously attack you each round you are near it, but you can rescue Jackie without killing the dog. Now flashback to my poor memory: I could have sworn at one point in one play through of the game, I took an Antitoxin that I looted or crafted somewhere, and went back to the cave, and used it on the dog. Healing the dog. After which, Bobbie thanks you and you can hire him. Of course Bobbie's stats are as bad as Jackie's, and by the time you can get Antitoxin, Bobbie is beyond useless.

Tip #8.4: Recommended Armor

Well technically all armor is useful - but some more so than others. This is more along the lines of gives you the natural progression of armor that you gain as you advance through the game. Most likely you will haphazardly upgrade your armor until high tier armor - which means you might have a ranger that has tier 4 armor, and your other rangers only have tier 2 or 1 armor. Of course, this is only if you rely purely on finding / looting armor. If you do some money making exploits, or loot and vendor everything in the game, you should be able to buy the mid tier early on. High tier armor can only be found / looted. (Although if you sell high tier armor to a vendor, you can always buy it back at a loss).

Name	AC value	Buy Value	Sell Value	Shop Availability	Description
Leather jacket	1	$200	$100	Yes	This is the first and easiest to get. There is also Robes that are AC 1. But you can sell them to a vendor for $125.
Bullet proof shirt	2	$500	$250	Yes	You'll find a few of these while adventuring in Quartz and Needles.
Kevlar vest	4	$1,000	$500	Yes	You'll find a couple of these while adventuring in Quartz and Needles.
Rad suit	5	$1,350	$675	Yes	This protects you from radiation. You will find numerous of these throughout the game. However, if you can afford them, I recommend buying 1 for every party member (rangers and NPC hires alike) as soon as you can. There are a couple places that require traversing through radiation where this helps, including an area you cannot avoid in the final zone of the game. Important: I recommend owning one on all party members even after you get better armor.
Kevlar suit	6	$1,750	$875	Yes	This is the best mid tier armor you can get. It's the last type of armor you can find in stores for purchase.
Pseudo-chitin armor	10	$5,000	$2,500	No	This is first high tier armor you find, but if you know what you are doing and where to go, it won't be long before you've replaced it with the next tier of armor.
Power armor	13	$30,000	$15,000	No	This is the best armor you can find in the game.
NAME AC	127	N/A	N/A	No	Okay technically this is better armor than Power armor , but the only way to get it in the original game was by cheating. I have no idea if it is even available in the Remastered version.

Tip #9: 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 Highpool, while you'll only get $15 elsewhere.

So the tip is pay attention to which shops offer the best price for a particular item. There is no way of increasing the amount you are paid for an item (nor a way to get discounts). Speaking of discounts, if I remember correctly, some shops had higher prices for some items than other shops.

Tip #10: Get Christina Early

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.

I prefer entering Needles from the southeast and heading north to the alleyway that Christina is in.

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.

I personally love her avatar and animation when you first meet her. Watch for a couple of seconds. She'll randomly fire her Uzi into the air. Crazy lady!

Tip #11: Shortcut through the Citadel

The Citadel is a high level area and thus extremely dangerous to low level players. However, you will only incur the locals wrath if you go past the red flags on the ground to the north.
So as long as you stick to the bottom edge of the map, you are safe. It's even a safe zone as long as you haven't incurred the wrath of the locals.

It doesn't matter which side you enter the Citadel from (east, west, or south side) - you always start in the exact same tile every time (shown in the first screen shot).

Thus 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.

Excuse the poorly drawn arrows. The arrows on the left show the pathway thru the mountain pass. Basically as soon as you exit the Citadal: 1N, 1W, 2N, then West.

Tip #12: Toaster Repair skill...What?

So yeah, Toaster Repair is one of the skills you can acquire in the game. You will also find broken toasters in loot bags in the game.

Apparently, after the world was nuked, people were desperate to try and eat just about anything - as the reason every single one of toasters you find broken is because they are jammed with some random item. In the Citadel is a repair bench. After successfully repairing, you will get a random? item. (I can't remember if it is random or has specific loot).

Bonus: Whether the loot is random or not, you have a chance to get a Power pack which there are a finite number of in the game - and can't be bought from stores (except the ones you sold to a store - you can buy back).

You should do the toaster repair at least once in a play through to just do it.

Personally, I tend to be too lazy to deal with them as they eat backpack slots - but for this first play through I plan on keeping any toaster I find for future repair.

Tip #13: Reorder Those Skills and Items!

Skills

While currently only possible in the original game, devs are currently working on this feature according to forum posts.

I personally like to order the skills on all my rangers to be in specific order based on: common skills all of them have and commonly use, followed by specialized skills unique to each ranger, followed by everything else (these tend to be the passive skills you need, but you never need to do the 'U'se -> 'S'kill command in game with).

1. Medic or Doctor - If the ranger has Doctor, the Medic skill goes into the passive skills section. The healing skill is always my #1 skill.
   
2. Climb - A very common skill in the game. Comes up frequently
   
3. Perception - while perception is constantly going on passively, some items truly require an active perception attempt to find.
   
4. Swim - A semi common skill in game.
   
5. Acrobat - A semi common skill in game.

These are specialized skills I keep on page 1 of my skills on whatever Ranger has the skill (in no particular order):

• Picklock
  
• Alarm disarm
  
• Bomb disarm
  
• Safecrack

I'll try to keep the other specialized skills on page 1 as well, but they are used so infrequently, it doesn't matter.

Reordering the skills helps you access them in a consistent way both in combat and out of combat.

Items

Reordering items is virtually meaningless except when it comes to quest items. Have those items be slot #1 on page #1 on a specific ranger can make things a teensy bit easier. I might also keep common gear items such as the Rad suit, main armor, melee weapon, and primary weapon page 1 in a specific order - but usually too lazy to bother.

Here's a specific example where item order is actually fairly important: In this one late game area, there is a building with a bunch of locked doors, but they can't be picked with the Picklock skill - I don't know if you could use the Electronics skill to bypass them (I'll have to try that this time around). Anyway, these doors are all electronically locked and require specific key cards to open them. There is something like 5 or 7 key cards - can't remember the exact count. So while clearing this area, I always put the key cards on a specific ranger, then reorder the key cards to be in the first several slots on page 1. Last, in the original game you could program some basic macros to the F# keys. For instance, I have the F2 key do the following: 'U'se, '4' (ranger #4), 'I'tem, '1'. Then I just needed to hit an arrow key to move in the direction of the door to try and open it. So I'd do F2, left, F3, left, F4, left, and so on until I managed to open the door - or failing, at which point went elsewhere until I found another new key card.

Tip #14: Macros!

I don't know if the devs will bring this feature back to the Remastered version, but it was definitely a necessary Quality of Life feature in the original game. In the original game, the F1 thru F10 keys could be programmed with custom macros (I think F11 and F12 weren't recognized if I remember correctly).

You did this by holding down the Ctrl key and hitting the F# key you wanted to program. Next, you did keyboard strokes you wanted it to record. When you were finished, you held down Ctrl again, and hit the F# key.

I don't know the keystroke limit, but it was actually pretty high for a Dos game.

Why this was useful: you could automate certain skills down to a single keystroke plus direction. You could even automate combat to a certain extent so that as long as you didn't need to do anything special like reload or use the Medic / Doctor skill, you could just hit the F# key, and away it went.

A couple of specific macros I always used:
F1: 'U'se -> '1' -> 'S'kill -> '6' (I always put Picklock on my 1st ranger).
F2: 'U'se -> '1' -> 'S'kill -> '2' (This was my Climb skill).
F3: 'U'se -> '1' -> 'S'kill -> '1' (This was my Medic / Doctor skill - it only worked if my Ranger #1 was conscious).
F4: 'U'se -> '1' -> 'S'kill -> '3' -> 'Space' (This was my perception skill and did an active perception check on the tile I was standing on).
F5: 'U'se -> '1' -> 'S'kill -> '3' (This was also an active perception check but was waiting for a direction).
F10: Escape x a large number (whatever made 2 hours pass in game) -> 'Space'. This was my resting macro. When you hit the Escape in the original, it made a small amount of time pass, but it also closed your status bar for the health of your rangers. The 'Space' bar at the end reopened the status bar so I could see if they were fully healed or not.

Tiny tidbit of info: the original game, different areas have a different flow of time, so while my F10 macro usually passed 2 hours of game time, in some places only an hour would pass or some other random amount.

Tip #15: Radio! Radio! Radio!

The game doesn't let you know when you've reached the next level. You need to manually radio in to check if you've received a promotion (level up). At which point you can spend 2 new attribute points per level up. If you haven't radioed in, in awhile you might get multiple promotions in a single go.

In the original game, while it was important to routinely radio in, you also needed to be careful - the game always saved if you radioed in. If you saved in the wrong spot, you could be stuck with a Gameover TPK. By that I mean, in the original, if you had all your rangers die, it gamed over, but it allowed you to reload back to the last save state.

Which meant you could do something different, run away, heal or come back later when higher level - basically learn from your mistake and not TPK again in the same spot.

However, if you radioed in at a point where nearly immediately afterwards you couldn't run away, and didn't matter what you tried, you basically TPKed over and over again, then the game was permanently over. Had to reset and start over from scratch.

Tip #16: Strip 'em Naked!

Before firing an NPC, remember to trade all their gear off of them to one of your rangers. Boot 'em out naked!

Bonus tip: Some of the NPCs don't appreciate it when you start stripping them. They'll disobey a command to trade an item off. Just retry it over and over. Eventually they'll usually capitulate. If they are being particular stubborn (I'm looking at you Redhawk!), UNConscious, Injured, and Dead NPCs don't argue with you when you trade off their items.

So just take their Canteen first (if you can) and walk around in the desert until they pass out. Or barring that, they argue less when you tell them to unequip stuff, like their weapon and armor. Next split them out of party into their own little party, and roam nearby until you trigger a random encounter. Then just have them evade every round. They might disobey the evade command, but hey, they're armor-less and unarmed - they're going to take a beating. Once UNConscious, injured, or dead (if ya hate them), run out and waste the enemy, collect the fallen NPC, and loot their gear before they regain consciousness.

[kraeg]

Ah... You can only level up by fighting enemies higher than your current level. That's why my brawling skills went from 2 to 7 in the citadel. I wasted the opportunity to level up my other skills to 7. That said, once you have level 7 brawling, you don't really need anything else. Chopters are the only thing you can't bash to death in Base Cochise.

[kraeg]

If you split your party in two, time appears to pass more quickly for the members not in focus. Handy for replenishing constitution. Wish I knew that earlier.

[kraeg]

Crowbars don't appear to be an actual brawling weapon. It wasn't until I switched to clubs that my brawling skill started to increase. In fact, all my party went from brawling skill 2 to 7 in just 4 or 5 citadel encounters. I clubbed the entire citadel to death (except Redhawk) and it didn't go any higher than 7. 7 must be the max.

[EolSunder]

as for 18 IQ. I agree its better to have overall higher stats all around than 18 IQ, simply because you can level up stats only so much each level, and overall the higher the total stats, easier to raise them to usefulness. IQ is nice early on for early bonus skills, but having 18 IQ and ok stats isn't as good as having 16 IQ and good stats is 100% better. Also, many of those skills you said are pretty useless. Pugalism and knives useless as well. Not only does brawling incrase number of attacks, but it naturally affects damage with non-knife melee weapons. To get good with knives or fists, you need BOTH brawling and the weapon skill. With just brawling you can use other melee weapons that require ONLY the brawling skill. Ignore fists and knives completely. I guess if you have absolutely no place to put skill points you can do fists/knives, but why? Go with other stuff.

[rwood42]

2.2 alarm disarm is listed twice... pretty sure the second is TRAP disarm.

[Bylund]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2100204289 Triple 18 plus one 17 :)

[_TheBunnymaster_]

Save one book of matches to be able to have an easier fight with the rabid dog . It will cost xp to have an easier fight, but a weak party might get shredded early.

[Darviathar]

It is more important to get a high total value in skills than to hold out for IQ 18. You don't want your starting IQ to be below 14 or so, but you're far better off in the long run if the important stats (everything but charisma) total 80 or higher when starting your character. You can pump your IQ up to 24 easily by the time you need energy weapons, simply by leveling.