Guide Sandbox
This is a step-by-step structured route through quest content, to level up new players who want to survive while they explore and get stronger. It should work pretty well, down to "STOP".
This guide starts you in Hub and surrounding area, completing easy tasks. Then you venture abroad, go north, return with a car, and use it to advance. You'll level up, get more Perks, make Caps and buy Skill Books, establish a base and set up a Safe House network all over the map. You'll recruit some NPC followers, and get into tougher fights. Later, you'll power-level additional Characters, using a leveling build, and learn to use the Reroll feature. Your next characters will start faster with immediate access to your whole network, gear and Vehicles, all prepared in advance by the lead character you start with using in this guide.
PROJECT STATUS: Jan 2024, Levels 1-12 should work fairly well. In re-work yet again to include a few more advantages before venturing north. Prior to this, it was tested 30+ times from 2020 to get best results.
Description, Advice, Config Stuff
- Lander's Point is an amazing tutorial camp feature for new people who do not use a guide like this one. This guide skips it, so you go straight into the real world
- The game has an excellent Item Highlighter, which makes it much easier to see items on the ground, boxes and bookshelves that can be searched, resources that can be harvested, etc.
- Right-click your game client Desktop shortcut, go to Properties and Open File Location. Then Edit the Reloaded.cfg file
- In the "Reloaded" section, find (or add) the line called "ShowItemContours=" and set that to 3. Save the file, close the game client and re-launch
- Or you can use a player-provided tool, possibly obtained via the game forum, like FallCraftPlus.zip, (last working link)
- Let's set your combat mode to Real-Time (trust me) by using this in-game command: ~combatmode rt (run in RT mode for now, to stay alive and exit encounters quickly)
- You can set Combat Mode to Real-Time by default, so you don't have to manually type this command each time you log into the game, via FOConfig.exe
- Your progress will vary from the XP and Caps targets in this guide. It will be close, but it will not match exactly. Don't worry about that - just keep pushing through the "harsh".
The First Character Build
This first character will become your base commander to support your additional characters, but starts out as a lone survivalist. He is tough, and uses Combat Shotguns and all other Small Guns weaponry.
| PvE | The Porter/Payback Build | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S | P | E | C | I | A | L |
| 7 | 1 | 10 | 1 | 10 | 10 | 1 |
| Traits: | Good Natured | Heavy Handed | ||||
| Tag Skills: | Small Guns | Close Combat | Outdoorsman | |||
Strength 7 (10 on Drugs, for good Carry Weight)
Perception 1 (he is not a sniper - that's later)
Endurance 10 (for max HP)
Charisma 1 (can get 3 Companion Followers later, depending on Speech)
Intelligence 10 (Swift Learner +10% XP, and Educated for Skill Points overload!)
Agility 10 (for max combat speed)
Luck 1 (nobody can have it all)
Traits: Good Natured (to recruit more followers sooner) + Heavy Handed to punch so hard when you need to, you often knock your opponents down
Tags: Small Guns, Close Combat, Outdoorsman
This is the build for this guide. It uses Small Guns like Combat Shotguns, pistols, and SMGs. With some Levels, recruit NPC companions and build a combat support team to follow you and back you up in fights. Your combat-capable lead Character will move around easily on The World map, dive into most of the Quests, and sets up for your expansion, which will include additional Characters like Big-Gunners, long-range Snipers, Energy Experts, Close Combat Specialists, and more.
| CHAPTER 1: This adventure begins... |
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