Wasteland 2 Tips and Strategies (Beta Edition)

Misc. Tips and Suggestions on how to bend Wasteland 2's current game mechanics to your advantage.

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I am going to preface this by saying that the game is still in Beta: Therefore everything that follows is subject to change. And I would think that at least some of it will. Also, this guide is not up to date with the latest beta release. However, in general it should be useful until you go to California. I will update it with the latest information as soon as I have played the latest release.

Next, I will try not to spoil anything for you beyond the first map. (i.e. You start at Ace's burial and then only up to the point where you leave for the first quest.) So while I will try not to address any story or plot points beyond the first map, many of the suggestions I will provide could possibly spoil some things further down the line for you.

You have been warned.

Also I play the game on the hardest difficulty setting (was Ranger, now Supreme Jerk) so the damage that PCs deal is reduced, damage that PCs take is increased, the chances of inflicting friendly fire are increased, and the amount of HP your characters regenerate on level up is decreased. (Actually 0 on Supreme Jerk I think.) What this means is that you will take a lot of damage early on and will need to heal it with health packs and will often be knocked down and start bleeding out often so you need at least 2 surgeons in your group. So you will be hurting for supplies in the very early game, but most importantly enemies will be VERY bullet spongy.

Character Creation

So far as I know there are really only two things that are vitally important in the game when it comes to character creation: Action Points and Skill Points.

Ideally you want to have 10 action points and 4 skill points per level.

The reason for wanting 10 action points is that you can carry over up to 2 action points each round, so if you have 10 action points you can carry over 2 for a total of 12 action points. This will allow you to attack with 2 bursts from an assault rifle or make two attacks with the tier 4 sniper rifle in a single round. Or potentially reload your assault rifle and attack with a burst. Or attack with your sniper rifle and also reload on the same round. Or just on a normal round where you have just your default 10 action points, you can attack with 2 single shots from an assault rifle or a single shot from the tier 4 sniper rifle and also reload. Or most importantly you can move a few squares and still attack with your sniper rifle. It will also allow you to have 5 attacks with an upgraded blade weapon or 3 attacks with an upgraded blunt weapon.

Of course there are tones of other things you can do with your action points in a single round, but basically it lets you do more stuff and more stuff is good.

The reason for 4 skill points per level is because skills are THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THIS GAME. The caps lock is for emphasis. You can't complete a lot of quests, or open locks, or just basically do a whole lot of anything without enough points in the skills needed. 4 points allows you to level up quickly. An extra point in your weapon skill has way more impact on your combat effectiveness than bonus crit chances and what not. If your PCs are getting less than 4 skill points per level, you need to reevaluate your priorities.

Now, that all being said, you don't absolutely HAVE to make PCs with 10 action points and 4 skill points per level, but don't settle for any less than 8 action points and 3 skill points per level, but even then you really need to evaluate why you don't get higher values in those. (The 8 action points number is based on being able to do an ambush with the Tier 1 or 2 sniper rifle. The attack is 7 points and the ambush option makes it cost 1 more.)

This information allows you to evaluate the quality of the NPCs available to you. Angela Death being the first NPC you have access to is a good example, she gets 3 skill points per level and she has 10 action points. (She also has a really high initiative value which is nice too.) However you have access to at least 2 NPCs which get 4 or more skill points per level. This means that they may start out weaker than Angela Death, they will eventually be better when you get their skills maxed out.

Right now there is no way to permanently increase your stats beyond a few trinkets (+1 to Charisma, Strength, or Luck.) But the character interface makes it look like there will be an option to increase the stats at some point. So, once you have the ability to increase the stats on your characters the following may no longer be true, but at this time the following seems to be the ideal stat distribution: C6, L2, A2, S5, S5, I6, C2

This distribution will give you 4 skill points per level, 10 action points, as well as a fair but of health, evasion, movement, and 105 lbs carry weight. Importantly it gives you enough strength to wear Combat Armor which is the best armor in the game so far.

Your party will need pretty much every non-combat skill in the game with the exception of Toaster Repair and Animal Whisperer, but some skills you will want to get to a decent level quickly.

Every character should have a melee combat skill (evenly split between blade and blunt) because on higher difficulties enemies will be very bullet spongy you will need to have some way of dispatching them without using ammo or you will not survive the first few levels. And every character should have one ranged combat skill (I suggest assault rifle) to start off with because your character will be given one melee and one ranged weapon (with ammo) based on the highest combat skills you have. I would suggest starting your characters with a 3 in your melee skill and 1 in your ranged skill.

Long term, heavy weapons are a waste of time because the missiles don't do enough damage to warrant carrying enough of them around to do anything with against the only enemies that you will need heavy weapons against (robots) in the first half of the game. The machine guns that you can also use with heavy weapons are also a waste of your time because they are a waste of your ammo and you really need that ammo for other things. Pistols are not a good investment because they don't have enough range, they only work close enough that you could just swap out to your melee weapon and hit them. SMGs have a similar problem to heavy weapons and pistols, basically they are too short ranged, and they don't have single shot options so you end up wasting a lot of ammo. Fully upgraded pistols may be practical though. I have not tried that.

Skills that you want to get leveled up quickly are your combat skills, Perception, Smart Ass, Weapon Smithing, Mechanical Repair, Leadership, Surgeon, Computer Science, Lock-picking, and Safe-cracking. (You want to get the rest of them up long term, with the exception of Toaster Repair (in the demo there isn't anything good enough in the toasters to warrant putting skill points into it) and Animal Whisperer (not much benefit and it's kind of buggy in the demo at the moment). You only need one character with each non-combat skill with the exception of Surgeon. You want a couple or three characters in your party who have at least 1 point in that skill so they can revive fallen PCs. Outdoorsman and Brute Force are also important (along with Hard Ass and Kiss Ass) but Angela Death covers most of that for you adequately for the early game.

As far as combat skills go, each character should get either blades or blunt up as well as assault rifle and/or sniper. (Energy weapons are good too since they are highly effective against robots, but there is only 1 in the demo currently and the NPC that comes with it also has the skill.)

Weapons and Gear

Weapons

The reason for Assault Rifle is that the tier 3 assault rifles have good armor penetration, good damage, and can be used single shot for conserving ammo as well as 3 round burst for when you need to take out your enemies fast. The ammunition is also fairly plentiful (currently in game there is only assault rifles which use 5.55mm ammo, but there were Kalashnikovs in the game before which used 7.62mm ammo so potentially they will return which will allow you spread out your ammo usage) and their range is second only to the sniper rifles.

The reason for sniper rifles is because of their range, and the tier 4 sniper rifle available later in the game is highly effective. (often one-shotting enemies if your skill is high.) The ammo is also fairly plentiful with the tier 4 sniper rifle using the same ammo as the machine guns (7.62mm) which means that you will have plenty of the stuff on hand by the time you get to the tier 4 sniper rifles.

On the higher difficulties you really need to kill the enemies before they kill you, so having the range to do so is important. (For example if you can spare the ammo you want to "alpha-strike" the enemies by having all your characters shoot at hostiles to initiate combat from outside their range. This means that you can often get off 1 or 2 attacks before they can retaliate.

However, since enemies are so bullet spongy at higher difficulties and the damage is pathetically low on the tier 1 sniper rifle, you really don't want to start with one. So start your PCs with the assault rifle skill.

Also, don't even worry about shot guns. Their damage at the early levels is way too low because of poor armor penetration and you will not get enough chances to make up for that with the AOE effect without hitting your allies as well.

You will get an opportunity to get the tier 3 blunt weapon fairly early in the game (about 25% through) so as soon as you see the crow bar buy it. The thing has an armor penetration of 5 which is phenomenal for the point in the game where you pick it up.

Buying and Selling

Vendors will have a number of items that they will have every time you go to them (after a map transition, or after a period of time traveling on the main map) so it pays to go back to a vendor and see if they are re-stocked with certain items if you need more than one. (Like the crow bar for example.)

Weapon Smithing:

Always strip any weapons that you will not be using. It does not pay to keep them intact for sale. The higher your weapon smithing skill the more scrap parts you will get and the more likely you will be to get an upgrade part out of it. In the early game when your weapon smithing skill is low you will still make a much better return on investment if you sell the scrap parts to the Ranger NPC in the citadel. But when you start getting 20 or even 30 scrap parts per strip (at high skill levels) even selling the scrap parts to a regular vendor will net you more money on average than just selling the weapons directly. The only down side is that the scrap parts weigh more than the weapon you stripped. (Though since you often can get a fairly valuable upgrade part which usually weigh only 1 lb I think that for the most part you actually save weight by stripping them.)

But more importantly you will get upgrade parts. Ultimately you want all your ranged weapons to have a long barrel, sturdy magazine, and long range scope, (laser sights are nifty too, but they can only be bought from 1 NPC at this time.) and your melee weapons should have grip tape (which changes the bladed weapons from 3 AP per attack to 2 AP per attack (a 50% increase in damage potential) and the blunt weapons from 4 AP per attack to 3 AP per attack (only a 33% increase in damage but still worth it)) and the light weights which increase the hit chance by 10%.

It's possible to put a scope on a pistol that moves it up to the unmodified range of an assault rifle, and you can mod an assault rifle to bring it up better than the range of an unmodded sniper rifle. So make sure to upgrade your weapons as soon as you can.

Gearing Up:

Some enemies (like robots) have a lot of armor and you really need to have a weapon that can penetrate armor well. Since there are 2 robot encounters before you normally have access to tier 3 weapons (with the exception of the crowbar) you may consider wandering around in the South East corner of the map. You can get a random encounter with enemies with tier 3 weapons (M16s and Hatchets) before you enter the last leg of the demo.

Combat

Shoot the "Killer" robots before they get close, they will ruin your whole day.
If you don't have any enemies in range, go on ambush and you will attack when one comes in range.
Crouch for an extra 10% hit chance if an enemy is behind cover and you don't want to go into their attack range.
If you have 10 action points and use a sniper rifle, you have enough movement to back out of the "under pressure" radius of the enemies before attacking.
If you have the range advantage (sniper rifles and assault rifles, particularly if upgraded) and extra APs left over and you don't have a good reason to save up to 2 of them for next round, use them to move away from the enemies. This will force them to move towards you to get in range and will potentially cause them to run out of APs to attack, or at least not be able to make as many attacks. This works well against melee enemies if you use the stat distribution I suggested. (you will be able to move quite a few squares and still have enough AP to attack) You can remove as much as 1 or 2 melee attacks if you force your enemy to move 4 squares to get into range again.
If the enemies are in cover and most of your people have taken damage, run one of your least damaged characters behind the enemy and they will often choose to move to another piece of cover, potentially closer to your other characters, giving them a clean shot. (Especially if you have some PCs on ambush, you can potentially force an enemy to run into the attacks of your other characters.
If you are taking a lot of damage from assault rifle or sniper rifle armed enemies, try to get some of your melee armed PCs close to them, especially if you can force them to move because you have too many PCs near them. If they move, they will often use too many APs to attack, or if they don't move, they will be "under pressure" and thus have a lower hit chance. (This obviously does not work as well against shot gun, pistol, SMG, or melee armed enemies.)
Since you shouldn't be using pistols, it means you can afford to waste pistol ammo. Keep a crummy pistol and some ammo around for shooting the pods before you get close to them. You'll know which pods I'm talking about when you encounter them. It's not worth wasting your actually useful ammo on them, and your PC won't miss even if they have no skill in Pistols (when you fire from outside of combat.)

[Undead Llama]

@Cranky-chan;
It did make it into release, but there are no tool-tips to that effect. Also, it doesn't work on all robots (boss types, like Slicer-Dicers, don't have any % success @ 8 skill), so it isn't an automatic IWIN check.

Fun to use their own disco-bots aganist them tho.. murderated more than a few slicers with headshot-bursts to the steel cranium with Herbicide.

[Fernando Esra]

Thank you very much! :3

[Cracky-chan]

@Fernandoloco™ It's an original character by an inmcredible artist called "tsuaii". You can find more of their work on DeviantArt. (http://tsuaii.deviantart.com/)

[Cracky-chan]

@Vlad the Impala Did they add that already? I heard that they intended to add it to the release version, but last time I had the time to play it was not included. Robots tend to be the most difficult encounters due to their high armor and high hit points. In particular the slicer dicers are a pain in my ass. Because of the added skill checks in the early game (they've been adding a lot of traps and such) I definitely need to re-evaluate my skill recommendations.

[Undead Llama]

Might also be worthwhile to mention the true power of computer skills; the ability to take over hostile robots using the skill. Makes robo-battles MUCH cheaper, as you don't have to expend any ammo to kill an encounter with them.

[Cracky-chan]

@Rosveen I haven't had a chance to play the release version yet, but considering how powerful skill points are I don't blame them for rebalancing them. It's probably the right move. I'll play around with character creation a bit and update the guide when I can. I should have time to play this weekend. Though I'll probably still prioritize getting 4 skill points per level and cut back to 8 action points since the action point costs of various things have been rebalanced as well.

[Fernando Esra]

Who is the girl in the picture?

[MinorEdits]

INT 6 doesn't give you 4 skill points/level in the release version, you need INT 8. So you may want to reevaluate that part about making 4 points a priority, as locking up 2 more attribute points isn't necessarily the best idea.

[Wub]

It's not entirely necessary for your striker to wade intp the fight. I've found it's best that a few people should hang back if their weapon doesn't fit the situation, and usually it's either the heavy, energy weapon, or the SMG/pistol. It's best to also have rifle skills to get around that problem. All roads lead down the same path, huh?

The close-range striker is best for picking off enemies that are in cover after nearby enemies have been killed by my riflemen, or vice-versa. As long as you don't miss.

I'm not entirely into the pistol because it doesn't have the output of the SMG, and armor penetration is better for the slower, heavier enemies. The ones that don't hide behind cover.

[Cracky-chan]

@Kinakin "You dont prioritize initiative very high do you?"

Not really. I don't think initiative is nearly as important as Action Points and Skill Points. With extended range on Assault Rifles and/or Sniper Rifles on all your characters you can dictate the start of combat most of the time. So you can "alpha strike" the most dangerous one and then all the others have to use 1 or 2 rounds to close with you. Most of the time I kill the enemies before they get any shots on my characters at all. I would say that HP is the third most important stat with initiative in 4th place.

In particular since you will be guaranteed to have Angela until your characters are pretty well leveled, she has a very high initiative so if you keep her armed with the best Assault Rifle you have, she can take down the ones who get too close too fast.