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[Cascinova]

Hey all, I am a new player to the game, just started about a week ago, and still level 5.  I am looking to get some advice from those who have played the game much longer and have been able to get to level 21 or whatever.

The first characater I made (my only character so far) is a Small guns / crafter type.  However so far it seems so difficult to level up, I just get PKed and killed by NPCs constantly. Anytime I do save enough to buy decent armor or guns so that I can actually kill a few things I just end up getting PKed and looted.

Crafting is tough because it seems you need some slaves or cart or something just to carry all the shit you need for crafting, which I could obtain but I am sure I would just end up getting killed and looted for it.  And I am afraid to go to the unprotected mines, which I need to go to get better materials, because from what I read you just end up getting PK'd there too.

All the friends I have made in the game seem to be slavers, or characters with high charisma and outdoors which seems like it would make the game a lot easier due to the faster travel ability and the ability to ignore encounters.  However I fear those type of characters might be weak compared to the sniper / burster builds at the higher levels.

Whats your build reccomendation for a character that can level faster and not have to deal with crafting to make a living?

Is possible to make a sniper / big guns or whatever type of characater that can level up and survive by just fighting / looting (NPCs) without having to craft to get by ?

[Crazy]

Well, small gun burster or energy, maybe with enough charisma  to carry few mercs if you want, is effective and easy.

[Opera]

I guess, you will need to do atleast little bit crafting to survive. You wont need slaves or anything to get all the resources you need to craft. Have you build a tent?

I have mined in unguarded mines many many times. So far I got killed zero times. I have met few PKs there, but I have managed to lost them. It is just better to leave your items to tent and take only sledgehammer with you. It's not that dangerous, but keep your eyes open anyway.

Actually all fighter characters are pretty easy to level up. But if you don't want to do so much crafting, take a small gunner. Finding weapons shouldn't be a problem then. Also remember that looted weapons are "lower quality" than crafted ones. Energy guy would be good choice too. They make pretty good damage with low ammo consumption, but you will have to do little bit more crafting.

Also having CH 3 (Charisma) is good. You can do trading with NPCs, so that will be another way to get equipment for yourself. Actually you could trade all looted items, but you can't always find what you want from shops.

[borse]

Leader/Burster char build.

ST: 5
PE: 6
En: 6
CH: 9
IN: 6
AG: 8
LK: 1

Traits:
Small frame, good natured/fast shot. --you'll never use aimed shot, so take fast shot if you want to use pistols on single shot. with brof and fast shot, you can fire a 14mm pistol 5 times before stopping.
Tagged:
Small guns, outdoors, First Aid

Perks:
Awareness
Educated
Magnetic Personality
Life giver x 2
Bonus rate of fire
Action Boy

With this build you will get 200 hp, 10 ap, 5 mercs. With fast shot you wont get as high FA and doc but that's not too big of a deal. You mainly want 150 outdoors, 160+ SG and 100 doc and fa.

Once you get rich enough, you could invest in some super mutants with mini guns maybe even a rocket launcher and some ghoul snipers

[Cascinova]

Wow thanks for all the replies fellas, I appreciate any help I can get at this point, the game has such a steep learning curve.

Opera:  I have already built a tent, and actually even joined a base with one group but they are rarely around and most of the time I find myself traveling alone and dying a lot.  I think I messed up because I built my tent up near NCR (where I started) but since I joined a base near Junk, I no longer can get to my Tent, and of course the closest mine is also far away from my tent (the one near Junk), but it is good news to know that I wont be automatically killed when going to ungarded mines.

I think the most painful part about my characater now is that it takes forever to travel since I have only 28 outdoors.  I am not on my game computer now but I think my stats are

5,
6,
6,
3,
8,
6,
6.   With small frame and good natured as my traits, and tagged small guns, first aid, and repair.

But the Leader / burster build that Borse posted looks nice.  I think I would really like having higher outdoors, (ability to travel faster, and ignore encounters), also having slaves/mercs is always a bonus.  Especially when your like me and seem to be alone a lot.

I think i want to do a little crafting but my character now seems to  be too much oriented towards crafting, and I've found that you cant really get exp. from crafting which makes it hard to level up, unless you want to spend all your time shoveling shit or making medicine powder, which really isn't my idea of fun.

[Opera]

One really bad thing in that build borse posted is LK 1. You can expect lot of critical failures (lost your next turn, lost all ammo from clip, weapon drops, weapon brokes or even explodes).

I once had one character with LK 1. I will never do such build again.

[Cascinova]

Actually yeah, I was going to ask is that was viable and I forgot.  I think you are right though with Luck 1 it might be better go 3 luck and less in something else right? But what?

[borse]

not true. Get your SG skill to about 160 or more and you won't see so many. Besides, my build is merc based

[Opera]

Well, I had BG 200 and LK 1. My character failed so many times that it cost a lot to get new gear so many times. And when you want to make a character which can survive by its own, hrr...

Of course being merc based will lower the chance to fail. You might not need to shoot so many times, but this build is made to be able to shoot many times. As you said "you can fire a 14mm pistol 5 times before stopping". In my opinion that's not good combination (char which shoots many times + LK 1).

Anyway, I would lower CH and increase LK. You wont be able to get so many mercs, but you can survive with lower amount of mercs.

[pistacja]

I'm more noob then pro but if you get killed all the time and can't get stuff for crafting then I suspect you won't have caps for mercs.

I got wasted alot trying to mine or getting a prof and I just gave up on that ... now I play using items you can get easy. LA mark2 is an ok armor. For pve I'm using unarmed, frag grenades or flamer. All you need is junk, wood, fruits, gecko pelts, some fiber, ore and minerals. Fruit is the only thing you need to be lucky about, all the other stuff is free, easy to get in unlimited amounts (maybe limited by cooldown).

My chars are not so good as some of the others but if I get killed geting new toys is as easy as geting from my tent to a workshop.

Its fun to play this way, after all your a wastelander not a spec-opt commando

[Wichura]

One really bad thing in that build borse posted is LK 1. You can expect lot of critical failures (lost your next turn, lost all ammo from clip, weapon drops, weapon brokes or even explodes).

I once had one character with LK 1. I will never do such build again.

Most of my chars have 1 LK, it happens that weapon is dropping or character falling down in combat, also chance to be instakilled is higher, but I wouldn't call these cases to happen "a lot". More often my flamer destroyed itself after critical miss on my other char, with 6 LK but ST too low for handle it properly.

Here, char that is pretty easy and cheap to level up, self-sufficient, can repair things, get different professions and so on:


Pathfinders aren't necessary since last changes, I suggest put here something else, depending on your gamestyle. Warning: this type of char sucks ass badly in PvP.

[Floodnik]

also chance to be instakilled is higher

not

[Cascinova]

Well I created a new guy last night, with the Build that Borse gave earlier. It is only level 3 so far, but I have already killed a few raiders and what not and actually I haven't had any issues yet with Gun failing or whatever (knock on wood).  Hopefully it means i wont have so many problems later with my luck being only 1. To be honest I really debated making it 3 and making charis 7, but I figured I would try it out and so far havent seemed to have any major problems.  However I know level 3 is hardly high enough to know what will happen later on.

I am not planning to do much crafting to make money, I am planning on getting / selling lots of slaves, or using the slaves to do the mining then use my other crafter character to make the money.

I already noticed with this low level character, that having outdoors tagged is a huge advantage, my other character moves so slow, it will be so nice once I get outdoors over 100.  

[HertogJan]

I don't know what kind of weapon you use, but based upon your stats you're a SG burster.
For SG burst weapons you only need 4 ST, so basically you wasted 1 ST you could have put in PE or IN.
Especially if you're planning on using slaves and/or mercs.

[Cascinova]

Well I was using the build that Borse posted, but your right, I didnt think about that, really I dont need the 5 strength especially since I picked fast shot and using pistols.

To be honest I wasn't sure how much strenghth you needed for certain weapons, I know for pistols just 4 right? And your saying SMG's 4, what about rifles and assualt rifles? 5 ??

I guess I will be starting again