Overview
This Guide will teach you how you can survive the wastelands of Michigan as a physically weak but clever survivalist. Scavenging is your way of life and you prefer to run from enemies.
Character Creation
Your new character will be very similar to a looter, but i’ve changed some traits and abilities to make your daily struggling to survive a little more bearable. Your character should look like this:
Basic Skill/Athletic
Basic Skill/Ranged
Basic Skill/Tracking
Basic Skill/Trapping
Feeble/Medic
Insomniac/Botany
In comparison to the looter, I sorted the Frail-Trait out and sacrificed the Lockpicking for the Medic-Ability. The Frail-Trait can be incredibly dangerous for your character, so if you want to add it, be aware that it will most likely kill you at some point. Some may argue that I didn’t use the Hiding-Ability, but personally, I think its easier to run away instead of hiding somewhere.
Not your preferred playstile? See my other Guide
Athletic: The most important part. It will allow you to retreat from combat without tripping, to run on the world map three times in a row and will lower the fatigue. The “Sprint away”-Move during combat makes it easy to keep a distance between you and your enemy.
Ranged: Your physical weakness makes it hard to land a decent hit with a melee weapon, but this will allow you to fight with a sling, bow or firearm from a distance. The Ranged-Ability makes it possible to craft bow and arrow, so you should never run out of ammo.
Tracking: If you want to avoid fights, you need to know how to avoid your enemies and hide your own tracks. With the Tracking-Ability you will be able to notice tracks much longer and your own tracks should fade away in no time. It will grant you access to Detroit without doing any extra work.
Trapping: Useful to craft the squirrel snare and start fires without lighter. Meat can be conserved to last four times longer. It will prove worthy during many different encounters, including Zoom Zoom’s and the Hatter.
Feeble: Your physical weakness makes it nearly impossible to fight with a melee weapon. Your carrying capacity will be extremely low, and using a vehicle is nearly impossible.
Medic: A faster healing rate and additional information at your medical status will really pay off after you got hit a little to hard. You can acquire a nice starting bonus in the Cryo Facility.
Insomniac: Seems to be really annoying at first, but a high chance to wake up if someone tries to attack you sleeping character is a big plus.
Botany: Scavenge the forest for food is in combination with the squirrel snare a great way to feed your character every day.
Let’s get started
After you woke up from your cryo-sleep, use whatever ability you like, to survive the following encounter. The only difference you may notice is, that the Athletic-Reaction will bring you out of the facility. Simply go back in and use Medic and Tracking to get a randomly generated Medkit and some additional information. Equip the Medkit, grab some of the glass shards, and walk to the nearest urban area. If you can’t see any, the Zoom Zoom’s is located seven Hexes north and surrounded by six urban Hexes.
The next step needs as much skill as it needs luck. Avoid every enemy you encounter and start to scavenge every building you can find. This phase will decide if your character can survive. A blue jeans, two shoes and a hoodie will prevent the worst. If you want a free crowbar in perfect condition and a warm meal, enter the Zoom Zoom’s as “Stock”, try to leave and use Trapping during the fight. You should normally only get one bruising.
After you found some kind of container or vehicle, you will soon be confronted with your inability to carry all the useful stuff you can find. Especially the most useful stuff like firearms or the Nanorobot-Medkit will move you right into the “Burdened”-Status. The best way to deal with this is to limit your equipment to your clothes, a firearm, a crowbar and some carefully picked stuff in your backback. You will most likely be “Burdened”, but this is only a temporary condition. See the “Packing your Bag”-Chapter for additional hints to save weight.
The wilderness around the Cryo Facility tends to be dangerous for someone with below average fighting abilities. Your best shot would be to move to the east as soon as possible. Sleep in urban areas, scavenge buildings during your travel, and don’t forget to watch out for enemies. The area near Detroit is mostly occupied by looters and the Hex with the Hatter encounter offers a safe place to rest and to store your belongings. If you want to get access to the city itself, move to the gate, and use the Tracking-Answer during the following conversation. The nearby junk market will offer you the supplies, you will need to overcome your character’s weakness.
Combat
If your character is engaged in combat, you will most of the time search for a way to escape. One of the few exceptions are single looters and melonheads, you should be able to beat them to pulp, with a crowbar or a monkey wrench. Fighting a Bandit, Raider or even one of the more monstrous inhabitants of Michigan is always risky, even if you have a ranged weapon at hand. Your best friend will be the “Lure”-Move, not only can it knock down your enemy, it can inflict up to three wounds at a time.
The easiest way to retreat from combat ist to use the “Desperate Retrear”-Move repeatedly, but even if your Athletic-Ability prevents you from tripping, this can backfire if the enemy is wielding a ranged weapon. In this case cover should be mandatory, until the enemy has emptied his clip. If your enemy manages to force you into close combat, use “Dodge” to avoid injuries and use “Lure” to make him fall. If your enemy is “Fallen” you should be able to retreat.
Fighting a single looter or melonhead is quite unspectacular. Use “Charge” to close in, “Lure” to cause injuries and knock him down and “Parry” to prevent injuries. Most fight will be over within 10 or 15 rounds, and you should be able to leave the scene nearly unharmed. But be aware that looters can use “Lure” too, so have your bandages ready if things go sour.
If you wield some kind of ranged weapon, your “Ranged” and “Athletic”-Abilities will give you a huge advantage over most enemies. But be careful if your enemy wields a ranged weapon too, cause this can turn the encounter into a deadly shootout. If not use “Run” and “Sprint away” to keep a healthy distance and use single shots to wear his strength out.
Daily Survival
Getting something to eat shouldn’t be that much of a problem. Your “Botany”-Ability and the Squirrel Snare will allow you to scavenge berries, mushrooms and meat from plains and forests. If you cure meat it is even possible to keep a small emergency supply at hand, but be aware that cured meat will increase your thirst. Mushrooms can be used as a emergency supply too, because they will last for up to 166 turns. If you want to get some extra meat, hunting deers is relatively easy, but try not to get kicked.
Without the “Tough”-Ability, drinking unboiled water can be dangerous or even deadly. Until you found either a can or an pan, use berries and mushrooms to keep you hydrated. Glass bottles can be used too, but they will shatter if used this way. At least fire should never be a problem due to your “Trapping”-Ability. After you acquired a water tester and AA-batteries, managing your thirst won’t be a problem.
Getting enough sleep can be problematic, if the “Insomniac”-Trait let your character wake up too often. Using sleeping pills is only recommended if you sleep in a totally safe location like a building within the Sprawl, but if your character is tired or weary, and the sleeping value of your campsite is high enough, you should be able to sleep several turns at once.
As someone who tries to avoid fighting, using torches or flashlights or sleeping near a campfire or under a tarp shelter, should be avoided. If you want to travel at night, a pair of nightvision goggles or the night vision upgrade should work best. And if you want to use a tarp shelter, the campsite within the Sprawl is safe enough to draw no unwanted attraction.
The best way to prevent diseases is to avoid the main reasons for getting ill. This includes drinking unboiled or poisonous (from the black swamp area) water, eating spoiled or uncooked meat, eating poisonous berries and mushrooms and applying dirty rags or unboiled water to open wounds. But if you are ill, and normally your “Medic”-Ability should warn you if something is amiss, try to drink bark tea and use some antibiotics to keep the disease from getting worse. Enough food, water and some rest are helpful too. If you can’t keep the disease from getting worse, the Nanomedkit and the Haggerton Health Clinic in Detroit are last resorts, but be aware that the clinic charges $363 for a treatment. If you managed to get CRS or Blue Rot, you shouldn’t hesitate to use a Nanomedkit or pay for the treatment.
If you got injured in whatever way, your treatment should always match the severity and type of injury. Bleeding wounds should always be bandaged and cleaned with either boiled water or alcohol. Cuts are very prone to infections, so make them your first priority. Bruises are normally not that dangerous, cleaning them with boiled water is mostly enough. Internal bleedings can’t be stopped, the only way to deal with them is to wait and hope for them to get better. The same is true for broken ribs. Broken Limbs should be treated with a splint as soon as possible, to prevent severe pain and long healing duration. Pain caused by an injury or cleaning a wound with alcohol can be managed with painkillers to avoid disadvantages. If your character has very little blood and no clean rags are available, you have to use dirty rags, but combine this with a dose of antibiotics or bark tea.
Packing your Bag
Due to your inability of using a melee weapon effectively, caused by physical weakness,a melee weapon is not mandatory, but recommended. To reduce weight, using the crowbar you need to scavenge, is a reasonable choice. But if you need a lighter alternative, the meat cleaver will do just fine.
While not as powerful as the shotgun or .308, the .45 pistol or .38 revolver are much lighter and can be carried around in you backpack. But if you want a ranged weapon for everyday use, a bow is the weapon of choice. The sling may be easier to acquire and stones can be found everywhere, but be aware that one stone will weight 0,5 kg, meaning four stones are heavier than a compound bow with arrows. To reduce the weight even more, use the greenwood bow. The damage is equal, but the greenwood bow is unwieldy and need to be replaced fairly often.
A small emergency supply of five mushrooms and one bottle of water is useful, but will add around 0,8 kg weight to your backpack. To have access to enough clean water the two options are the pan (the can will really annoy you over time) or the digital water tester. As long as you have access to electricity, use the water tester to safe nearly 1,3 kg of weight.
If you want to travel long distances, try to get the smaller version of the sleeping bag. Otherwise the sleeping bag should always be stored at your safe campsite.
Most of the time two shoes, a jeans, two t-shirts and a hoodie should be enough to keep you warm. The coats are very warm, but extremely heavy. The nightvision goggles may weight 0,74 kg, but they are really worth it, if you want to walk or scavenge at night.
At least 5 clean rags and 3 drops of alcohol should be carried in your backpack all the time. Pour the alcohol in a plastic bottle, to safe 0,53 kg. Some painkillers and antibiotics should be carried with you all the time.
Instead of the binocular, a scope with a string or half a pair of binoculars are lightweight alternatives.
A lighter and a multitool are always useful, but crafting materials should be stored at your campsite.
General Hints
If you remove or trade-away your bracelet, you will be attacked during the next round by a nearly invulnerable enemy. You should never remove it for whatever reason, except you have a deathwish or tons of shotgut/.308 ammo.
Managing your inventory plays a vital role during the whole game. To store as much as possible in you sled or backback, don’t forget to rotate items by using the arrow keys.
If a Hex is littered with loot, it will attract enemies like a beacon. So, destroy everything you don’t need, or you will be payed an unfriendly visit by some raiders. If you kill an enemy, don’t forget to destroy the body afterwards, or the NPCs will litter around with its remains.
Every enemy you will encounter, follows a daily routine, similar to your own. This includes collecting stuff and sleeping. Especially Looters tend to fill their campsite with boxes and backpacks full of various items, so try to sneak in and fill your pockets.
Even if the game offers you the option to feed on your fellow humans, you should try to avoid this at all costs. After two warnings you will suffer an incredible heavy penalty, that can easily kill your character over time. Be aware that the Zoom Zoom’s Barbeque can cause the warnings to trigger without showing the messages. And don’t try to sell this stuff, people really don’t like it.
Over time every item with a durability will dissolve into nothing. Try to replace them before they crumble to dust.
The area near Detroit is most of the time peaceful and safe. Scavenging may offer nearly no loot there, but it is perfect to take a nap or get some rest.
Neo Scavenger is a tough game, and you will see more than one character die. You can’t carry anything over to your next character, except the knowledge you gathered about the game mechanics. So, every death will give you the chance to get even further next time.
Try out another character build once in a while. The game will be much more exciting
Not your preferred playstile? See my other Guide [link]