Understanding the Weird West

A collection of useful tips to help you understand the way the game works and find success in the Weird West

Intro

Weird West is a game that takes place in a persistent world made up of different locations spread across the Overworld map. You will play as 5 different characters in sequence, each with their own special abilities, quests and relationships. The game will warn you when you're approaching the end of the first character's story so you can choose to back out and keep playing as that character if you're not ready to advance the story yet.

As you progress through the game you'll come across tougher and more powerful enemies, so it's important to power up. You do this by getting stronger gear, but also by picking up Nimp Relics and Golden Aces of Spades. These artifacts can be used to unlock Abilities and rank up Perks respectively.

This guide is intended to provide useful information to players about how the game works that I've discovered through play. it's still a work in progress so it will be updated over time.

Options

• In the options menu, you might prefer the "Free Camera (Experimental)" aiming mode. I find it to be much more enjoyable than the default setting.
  
• Also in the options menu, I suggest putting the "Side Quest marker" option to "Far" so you can easily tell if there's a person with a quest for you in the area.

Loot

When you've finished a fight, be sure to check the bodies and containers for important loot. Here's what you should consider when looting an area:

• Nimp Relics and Golden Aces of Spaces are important for improving your Abilities and Perks respectively and seem to have a chance to spawn on any npc or container, so check everything.
  
• Coins don't take up inventory space and should always be taken
  
• Copper, Silver or Gold nuggets are valuable to sell or upgrade your gear
  
• Keys don't take inventory space and might unlock something important
  
• Junk items aren't useful for anything except money, and vary in sale value. Keep an eye out for certain junk items that are worth $4 per unit, such as Ectoplasm or Occult Satchels.
  
• Weapons you don't want to keep should be scrapped for ammo (and sometimes metal nuggets)
  
• Healing items, grenades and Salves are usually worth picking up. I like to keep 5 of each in my inventory, and store any excess ones on my horse's saddlebags. They can be sold for a couple dollars each too.
  
• Treasure maps are a great rare loot item that you can immediately read to discover a Secret Stash location. Read them to free up the inventory space, unless you plan to end your current character's story before collecting the loot.

Crime

Stealing from people, murder, violence and vandalism count as crimes. If someone witnesses you committing a crime, you'll instantly lose some reputation and they might become hostile or demand that you leave. You can get away with crimes by not being seen!

Violent crimes will be blamed on you if you've been seen in the area recently, so if you want to assassinate someone or knock out guards to rob a gun store, arrive in the location at night and sneak around, avoiding detection.

The most obvious place you might want to commit crimes is in a town with a gun store or bank, or to steal from a Hacienda's vault. Create a save somewhere nearby, visit the location at night and avoid being detected.

Note that the game prevents you from knocking out or killing children, but they can still blame you for crimes so try not to get seen.

If you are blamed for enough crimes, you'll develop a "Wanted" status for that location and they'll chase you off or become hostile. If there are any sheriffs in the area, they'll try to take you to jail. If you go to jail, you can pay to be released or serve your time in jail, which advances time and will cause you to lose reputation.

Commit enough crimes and you'll get a Bounty on your head and bounty hunters may hunt you down while you're traveling. Doesn't seem like you can submit to capture in these encounters, so you'll have to fight or run away.

Locations

The game's locations can be broken down by type, each with their own overworld map icon and features. Aside from a handful of unique special locations that are story-related, these are the kinds of places you can discover in the game:

• Towns have multiple buildings with various services - you can see what services are offered by checking the icons in the location's mouse-over tooltip.
  
• Native Villages are full of Lost Fire Nation NPCs who will be neutral, but the location will usually only have a tanning station and nothing else of particular interest. Sometimes there can be a sidequest though, so check them out when you discover them.
  
• Homesteads are isolated family homes, usually with some crops and farm animals.
  
• Farms are larger and typically have a few more people living on them, and often have a large barn.
  
• Haciendas are large walled homes with a wealthy family, some guards and crops inside the walls. Some of these locations will have a Safe, display cases and lots of other loot containers.
  
• Trapper Outposts are wood-walled fort locations with a skin trader (bows and vests too) and tanning stations. These locations also typically have various wild animals around the exterior.
  
• Spirit Halls are full of Devotees. The guards out front might tell you that you need to be a member to get in, but sometimes they don't actually mind (maybe having a high reputation helps).
  
• Mines typically have an above-ground entrance and an underground section with minecarts, rocks that can be blown up concealing chests or other loot, Ore Veins which can be mined for metal nuggets.
  
• Caves are often populated by hostiles and might have some rock formations that can be destroyed, revealing a chest.
  
• Oases are Oneirist outposts with crystal temples that you'll need a Sigil Stone to access. The interior is usually full of bookshelves, alchemy supplies and Oneirists. Keep an eye out for cracked walls that can be broken through with explosives, though the attached cave sections can have poison blooms that will burst if you get too close.

Sometimes a location is marked in red and declared Abandoned. Abandoned locations have a slightly different icon to mark that it's unsafe, and have usually been overrun by something bad. These locations often have high-value treasure but are populated by hostile NPCs or monsters. You can make a place become Abandoned by killing all the neutral NPCs there, but that's usually not a great idea.

Weird Stuff

• With 30 gold nuggets, you can upgrade a Shovel or Pickaxe into a golden version which has infinite uses and does pretty good melee damage. The shovel is useful for knocking out enemies!
  
• If you pick up a bounty for a location that you've already looted, it typically re-generates the location with new loot and mining nodes. Useful for getting that extra gold!
  
• If you run out of pickaxes you can use dynamite to blow up a mining node and it'll probably drop a nugget for you.
  
• Shoot holes in water tanks to generate a puddle that can douse flames or set up a powerful electrical attack

[bunny de fluff]

great guide