SETTING UP
Now that people have created their characters they come in to trouble when they try to hunt. Enemies are too strong, critical hits are too common, so question is how to survive and how to grow your character into a real monster?
So my first advice is dont shovel shit to level up its damn slow. Go carry boxes to earn 1000 caps for brahmin hides. You can carry boxes in Hub near entrance, in Boneyard in scavengers part, in NCR train station, in SF.
Also the quickest and the best way to earn caps for you is join slavers in Den, and do slaving run. The slaving run is so easy that you will have it completed even if you will watch porn on the internet and come back after 5 minutes when your slaving npc partners will have all the work needed done. For slaving run you get 800 exp, and significant amount of caps (seems like 1000-4000 maybe depending on charisma dunno that) so you will sure have money for tent after that.
Now you have caps, you need to to buy 10 brahmin hides. I suggest you to visit tanker women merchant in San Francisco, Happy Harry in VC, or Cassidy in VC courtyard bar they often have hides you need for 100 caps each. When you have 10 hides, you need to go to random encounter on world map, enter it, open your inventory, and use science on brahmin hides you have in there.
One question remains here: Where to create your tent?
For that i will try to overlook locations of some towns, and write some possible advantages and disadvantages in them.
NCR - this is the most populated town in wasteland by players count so this is the reason i am mentioning it first, but in same time i would also like to say that its far not the best town to live in, so better think yourself is it really worth.
Advantages:
1) It has most players, so you can just stand in it and chat with them, make friends, sometimes get help etc, as it has most players its easy to sell slaves, brahmins or stuff in here.
2) Guarded mine very close to the town, so you will be able to make some low tier stuff like shotgun ammo or small energy cells for your character easy.
Disadvantages:
1) It has most players, so it also means it attracts most thieves, most suicide bombers, most other type of scum. Most people complains about game are NCR-related, and its not because its so good in there for sure. Furthermore as it has most people in it, its highest chance for you to meet other players in random encounters(probably player killers) when you hunt scorpions for example.
2) Very bad location, all good traders are far from NCR, all towns that can be controlled are far from NCR, both towns where you can get fruit and fiber are far from NCR, most quests are far from NCR too, and those who are in NCR are shitty rewarding.
3) No HQ materials mine. Since you will reach higher levels, you will need to have higher gear for yourself, the closest mine where you could find those materials is Broken Hills mine, and its the player killers heaven.
4) Traders have real shitty equipment in there. This is probably because of high population in this town, once trader gets some new good stuff, it is transferred to random players pocket in few seconds.
Vault city - this is the only safe town in north of world map, it consist of two parts Courtyard and Vault City (inner city). To Vault city only those with day passes (only during the day time) and those who are citizens are allowed to come.
Advantages:
1) HQ mine very close to it. Not only it is a high quality materials mine, it is also the safest mine of those kind. Dont forget you can also mine normal resources in there too.
2) Very good traders in city. The town has 6 traders itself! Of whom at least 3 always have caps, and best stuff you need for battles and living. If you lack those, you can always visit Gecko, which is only 2 squares away.
3) Very good position. As it is the only safe town in north, it allows you to travel to many good locations fast. To modoc - for fruit and fibers, to HQ mine, for hq minerals, to New Reno for empty hypodermics, to theme park for electronic parts, to Broken Hills for uranium ore.
4) Citizenship. Of course you are protected even if you are not citizen, but if you are citizen, player killers living in vault city will doubtfully attack you, since they will lose -50 reputation to vault city with each hit attempt on you. Furthermore if you are citizen, Vault city patrols and Vault city caravans will defend you from any threat you can encounter in wasteland (just they have to be in that encounters too of course) so hunting near vault city is of course safe.
5) 2 Workbenches, Water pump, and Still, makes it easy and fast to craft all things you might need, if that is not enough, it is the only place which have medical terminal for advanced drug crafting.
6) Barber. Unlike barber in Klamath this one is in safe town, so if you want to change your style, you can visit him without being afraid of getting rapped.
7) Many respawn points quite close to VC so if you die, its quite easy to return.
Disadvantages:
1) Small brahmin pen. Never minding that i advice not to clean brahmin pens, since its not the best way neither to get caps or exp, people still like to do that. And vault city brahmin pen contains only 6 cows. Gecko town is near with more cows, but its unsafe still.
2) No mercenaries recruit center. (the nearest is in Gecko still where you can buy ghouls with spears or ghoul snipers)
San Francisco - we should all remember this town as the one where you can get best gear from fallout 2. Well now gear in here is not unique, but traders in SF are still great and worth visiting.
Advantages:
1) Good traders. Traders in San Francisco often have such stuff as gatling lasers, micro fusion cells, and that stuff is hardly to be seen in traders from rest of the fonline world.
2) Guarded mine near so its good to make low tier stuff for your epic journeys.
3) Best loot around if you are strong player. You can hunt very many strong critters in here, from SF caravans for light support weapons, to Unity patrols for miniguns and rocket launchers. Just dont expect them to give away their stuff easy!
Disadvantages:
1) Far from all other towns.
2) Strong critters around town, makes it hard to travel for newbies (To avoid trouble you can use train to travel).
3) No High quality resources mine near.
4) Town is very long, so travelling in it takes some time.
HUB - Junktown - Necropolis - Boneyard area.
Advantages:
1) Many towns are close to each other so you can visit many good traders.
2) Guarded mine near Junktown makes it easy to craft some low tear stuff.
3) Many quests in these towns you can find.
4) Unique base in Junktown - Outpost, and Unique base from quest "Abandoned bunker" makes 2 best bases in fonline world to stand in these towns area.
Disadvantages:
1) No HQ resources mine and the nearest is still very far away.
2) If you will die you will probably respawn very far from your home
3) Very far away from northern towns which could be controlled.
4) Necropolis and some parts of Boneyard are unguarded, and Junktown could be entered only during day if you belong to a player or npc faction.
Klamath - Den - Redding - New Reno - Modoc - Broken hills area. This is a quite big area and of course because of that things may vary in between these towns but still i will write some common points for these towns.
Advantages:
1) Good position. Everything you need might be close, many bases you can buy near, same as fruit and fiber gathering, many workbenches, stills, water pumps, Sierra army depot ammo facility and raiders northern base for 7.62 mm ammo crafting.
2) Guarded and unguarded mines in the area lets you chose what you need to mine.
3) Towns can be controlled here (except New Reno), so if you plan to join a strong faction which is fighting for town control you will have a good position near gangs base probably.
4) Hotels. You can buy room in hotel and both have safe lockers, and same respawn point near these lockers. So death is not a problem for you usually since you can come back on foot in no time.
Disadvantages:
1) Non of these locations are safe except Klamath guarded mine and that makes you easy target if you will end up in wrong place at wrong time.
2) Not much players to chat with or hang around, and its because of the first reason.
3) Town controls if you are not part of it. Most gangs dont hesitate who you are and why you are in town, if you are not one of them, it means you are against them so they kill and dont hesitate. It is also a problem if you have hotel in that town which is being on TC, since you cant move out of your hotel otherwise you are likely to be killed again and again and again.
So now you know the basics and can create your tent and the next step is starting to grow.
LEVELING UP Players are eager to fight as soon as possible, but that is wrong tactic, you need to have your skills already raised a little, and to have couple of perks that help you in fight, so you could start. As you remember my advice was to take 3 charisma for your first account at least, but you can do that even with 1 charisma, just now you will need mentats drug to temporary boost it (i do it too if i level up ch 1 character). So we are now up to do quests, thats how i do it myself.
First go to Boneyard and talk to guard to raise small gun skills (
http://www.fo2238.fodev.net/wiki/Talk_to_the_guard_to_get_a_bonus_to_the_Small_Guns_skill ) since if you are small gunner later you wont pass requirements for it and you will leave precious skill points. Now quests i advice you to take (they involve no fighting so they should be considered as easy, but some of the are in non guarded towns, so fast legs are required still ^^).
http://www.fo2238.fodev.net/wiki/Miniquests_in_various_townshttp://www.fo2238.fodev.net/wiki/The_Sad_Wife (start it in hub old town, then try talking to regulators leader in boneyard to find out where scavengers are :>)
http://www.fo2238.fodev.net/wiki/Montag's_Waterpumphttp://www.fo2238.fodev.net/wiki/Bring_Little_Jesus_Mordino's_briefcase_to_Metzger (in this quest you cannot die, so be aware once you receive briefcase better run fast)
http://www.fo2238.fodev.net/wiki/Investigate_for_Dr._Andrewhttp://www.fo2238.fodev.net/wiki/A_Man's_JobNow you will need to have 5 charisma for doing this quest, but if you have it do it, if you dont buy mentats and do it too.
http://www.fo2238.fodev.net/wiki/Solve_the_Jet_supply_issue_for_Dangerous_Dan_McGrewAnd after also do
http://www.fo2238.fodev.net/wiki/Get_rid_of_the_Rail_Line_gang (you may need some help for this quest, so for that i advice you to recruit help in ncr bazaar by offering helping people the loot (2 10mm smgs nothing much).
After having these quests done i always find myself standing in level 6, so more or less you should find yourself in similar situation and now we can move to
POWER LEVELING UPHere i will write several ways for different type of characters, and it can be that your character fits to several descriptions, so it means that you can level up in more ways too, that is even better.
as you done these quests you have now level 6 i assume or are about to come that so my suggestions according to that.
1) You are fighter which can aim
a) With toughness already. Well with toughness your target is spore plants, they are especially good if you are unarmed or melee fighter since you wont waste bullets on them so this advice is mainly for them. Where to find them? (note that as game develops locations and encounters might change) Right in here.
In these 3 squares at the very top of map you will find only sporeplants (85 exp per one). If you have toughness they will always do you 0 damage, even with critical hits, so they are peace of cake for start.
b) With or without toughness. As soon as you level up a little, (not much needed actually, sometimes even being level 6 is enough so you can skip the spore plants part) you can go hunt mutated molerats. Mutated molerats give 300 exp to you when you kill them, and they have weakness, like 99% of critical hits to their eyes/groin/head results in instant kills, so if you have 10 luck (without any other critical chance bonuses) and hit to eye, its 70-79% one hit instant kill, aint that bad? Where to look for them? In here.
In these 2 squares between new reno and vault city, you can encounter only Lone wanderer (70 exp each), Mutated molerats, and Mutated pigrats ( 80-90 exp per each, one hit kills like molerats). If you play without toughness then i suggest you to do that in turn based (but its more time consuming) if you play with toughness then real time. When you kill lone wanderer you can pick up healing powders from his corpse and for healing damage you taken they will be more than enough. In real time you can easy level up in this way to level 21 in one day. So of course you do that till you reach it since it is surely the fastest way for fighter. Unarmed fighter should fight here unarmed of course, and melee fighter with any melee weapon, while small gunner should use 9mm mauser or 10mm pistol and energy weapons user laser pistol.
2) you are fighter which cant aim.
Now i see scorps (60-110 exp) as your solution (which can be meet in almost all over world map), since they are very weak and still give significant exp, also hunting critters like mutated molerats is still a good way to exp, but without aim and instant kills its a slower way since they have 120-136 hp and more ammo/time consuming. For small gunner i suggest to use shotgun in here, big gunner flamer, for others it doesnt matter ^^ Note that this way could turn out to be slow compared to the others, so i do not recommend to make character like that for you as your first character, since you will need to craft ammo much more often for your leveling.
3) you are demo expert, thrower
Demo experts have one advantage, easy to craft plasma grenades, never minding that they need 2 of HQ resources they are really easy to craft (
http://www.fo2238.fodev.net/wiki/Grenade_(Plasma) ). If you cant craft them yet then i advice you to mine hq materials in mine, and buy grenades with them from Happy Harry (VC) or tanker women merchant (SF). Maybe you will throw a good amount of caps with each grenade, but you will receive even better amount of exp. If you have frag grenades, hunt molertas (120 exp), mutated molerats like in advice before, if you have plasmas go straight to the centaurs (650-900 exp) and floaters (750-1000 exp) and better if you on TB in here. Your goal with demo expert to get all your targets in one crowd and nail them with your grenades all together, this will give you very good exp outcome from your grenades used, but because of that it will be much easier if you will fight in these encounters where centaurs or floater or other strong creatures wont have you as primary target. In this way it takes 2-3 days to reach level 21.
4) you are high charisma good outdoors character
Keep doing repeatable quests. In those you need to travel - thus you get exp from outdoors, and quests you need to do is:
http://www.fo2238.fodev.net/wiki/Get_brahmin_hides_for_Balthas 7 charisma needed.
Grisham meat jerky delivery. (Tell to grisham that you want to earn some caps, he will tell you how)
http://www.fo2238.fodev.net/wiki/Make_some_deal_for_Whiskey_Bobhttp://www.fo2238.fodev.net/wiki/Give_some_beers_to_Aldoafter doing all these 4 quests you get like 2k exp total (travelling exp included in here).
5) Good outdoorsman low charisma character (thus we assume you are fighter)
Keep doing 2 repeatable quests too.
http://www.fo2238.fodev.net/wiki/Killing_ants_for_Dr._WongAnd dogs of LA quest (you can start in in Adytum, talk to mayor).
6) Your character has high amount of action points or even bonus move
Just switch to tb and go hunt floaters and centaurs. If you can move 7 hexes to retreat after hit/shot or hits/shot you can play hit and run with these creatures, even if it takes some times till you slay one it pays off with good amount of exp :>
7) You are a thief
Steal then. You need to bring item with 0 carry weight for biggest chance in being successful. What you will do now is keep that item putting to your target and then taking it back. Repeating this procedure you get more exp with each successful continuous try (it increases in this order 5, 10, 15, 25, 35, 50, 60, 70, 100, 100, 100) till it reaches 100 exp. Best is to steal from NPC critters who has slow movement like
or like
Once they catch you stealing they of course want to fuck you up, but because they are slow you can run away from them easy. So because of that best is to steal from those critters who are standing near exit grid like Aldo in Klamath main entrance or "Losers" in Den east entrance. As steal has 30 seconds cooldown, in that time you will run away to exit grid and come back anyway, so you will still do that in maximum effectiveness. Just its pretty clear, that you should not do that in places where guards stand and will fuck you up because of stealing from NPCs. And in this way you can level up in one day (still its slower way than molerats killing, but here you do not need any ammo).
Additional hints and tips:
You reached level 10. Go explore stranded ship!
http://www.fo2238.fodev.net/wiki/Explore_the_stranded_ship .
I can mention that in this quest you get - 2x miniguns with many 5mm both jhp and ap ammo, super tool kit, super sledgehammer, combat armor, combat shotgun, sniper rifle, metal armor mk2, 5 rockets, some rad-x rad-away, 7000 caps. So as you see this is huge loot. For quest to be done completely you need 2 persons at least, and you need to have in your group a good lockpicker (above 200 lockpick skill), a good repairman (above 150 repair skill) and a good fighter (good enough to smack some floaters and centaurs in real time mode. If you fit these requirements you should not encounter any problems doing that quest :>
You reached level 11. Go deal jet!
http://www.fo2238.fodev.net/wiki/Deliver_Jet_to_join_the_Mordino_familyEven though this quests looks serious from description it is actually easy peace of cake. You done deilver briefcase to metzger quest, you go to talk to mordino, tell him you want to join, and accept his jet delivery test, then go to 2nd street (upper part of new reno) and sell whole jet jagged Jimmy J. You will get 2000 caps and 1000 exp for moving from one town part to another that means - you must do it.
So these ways are not magical, if you expected such ways you might be disappointed, but from what i experienced while leveling zounds of many different accounts these ways are still the best.
