Interesting/good-to-know facts about the game/mechanics

So as me and my friend have been playing this game over and over again for quite some time now, I have decided to collect all the (not-so-well-known) info and data we have collected so far. This list may be incomplete and will be expanded both here and in the comments section when we find some new interesting mechanics or stats for the game.

It is important to mention that I run the vanilla game, unmodded, so all of these exploits are present in the vanilla version. More or less may be available depending on the mod(s) you have installed; I have never modded the game.

NOTE: These strategies/data are 100% valid and able to be pulled off (albeit not all of them are easy!) and come from many separate characters/playthroughs. Validations for the tips/data/tricks listed here:

1) I have played through the game with only one character on Normal

2) I have played through the game with only one character on Very Hard/Apocalyptic without dying once

- At least half of the time, pickpocketing people nets some kind of drug, which can be traded in from varying values, 10-30, so it is a worthy support/non-combat skill putting points into, especially if you have a party, which you need to equip with up-to-date equipment, and that is a lot of value.

- Camping is not affected by difficulty or location, you can even be ambushed in the New Government HQ (courtesy of BrainRipper)

>> While camping in NGHQ, pu can be attacked by one of the following: 3 bears, 4 wolves, or 1-2 Seekers (NOTE: tested with 1 character only) (courtesy of my friend)

>> The strength of the random ambushes/raids scales with your character level (courtesy of my friend)

>> When ambushed by humanoid opponents, the number of opponents usually mirrors that of your party, meaning the more men you have, the more will attack (the minimum seems to be 1-2) (courtesy of my friend)

>> When animals attack, you'll get attacked by 3-7 animals, regardless of the size of your party. (courtesy of my friend)

- Getting the "[Character] has driven a car for the first time" 500 XP bonus can be achieved by any and all characters; the only requirement is for them to get into the driver seat of the car. They WILL get the 500 XP regardless of their driving skill.

- Increasing the value of armor with the Strengthen Armor skill does not increase its value (courtesy of my friend)

- The melee skill Knockout can occur with any melee weapons.

>> On the topic of melee weapons, if you have the skill "Combo" and you character begins their 3-strike combo, if you pause after each hit, you then are able to select another target within selecting range (that is, which you can target with your mouse) and the next strike will hit that enemy instead. Thus making the melee-fighter class one of the longest (if not of the longest) ranged fighters. With a good enough melee weapon and max STR/Melee Weapons skill, this means you can instakill enemies from across half the map without getting close to them or even detected by them. Video

- You can reset the AI of the Ratskulls in Spirit Springs by killing one of them stealthily without being heard or seen. I don't know why, but the others noticing the death but not you seem to freeze in place and enter a constant "semi-alert" state. Note, that as far as I am aware, it is only possible when killing them instantly and quietly so as not to draw attention to the character, so it seems to only be possible with a character who has 99 in Throwing Weapons and 99 in Sneak

- When enemies are unaware of your presence, you do much more damage to them. When they are aware of you (e.g. are shooting at you actively or you are detected and they run towards you) they either get a bonus to their health, armor and evasion values, or you get a debuff. Not confirmed. It is possible that, when surprised, they lose the armor bonus from their Agility skill, although this is just a hypothesis.

- It is possible to reach level 2 in the starting area if you only have 1 character in your party. By doing all the quests (including the "Visit Father's Grave" quest), you'll be 50 XP short of levelling up. The area has wolves, so killing them grants you your first level-up.

- Getting the Medicine skill to 75 and picking the "Heal Light Wounds" perk gives your character immortality, provided you don't take more than 15% of your HP as damage in one hit. Whenever you are at or above 85% health in the middle of the combat, pause the game, and heal yourself with the Talent.

- It is entriely possible to raise your Attributes above the maximum 20 (some of them) with drugs and/or the Increase Morale talent (works for every Attribute), thus giving you even more bonuses than they already do. Using drugs AND the Increase Morale talent before every level-up (after acquiring them, of course) gives your character(s) an incredible boost in HP and generally improve their usefulness in both battles and other situations. (courtesy of my friend)

- If you have maximum Speech and close to maximum (around 18) Charisma, and make some good deals with a trader beforehand, you can get more for less. You can offer items of less value for items of more value and still get the deal. With max Charisma, max Speech AND the maximum bonus from the previous trade, you can get up to 20-25% more than what your offer is worth (estimated guess, I do not remember the exact numbers).

- The talent "Blast Locks" bypasses every boobytrap in every lock, so if you know which safes/chests you want to open and bring the appropriate amount of Gunpowder with you, you are way better off with this talent than with the entire Lockpicking skill set.

- By the late-to-end-game, Heavy Weapons dominate everything due to their damage and the abundance of ammo for them at that point (usually after the Shadows HQ or Vesseltown).

- Speech as a skill is not necessary for a one-character-only playthrough. Sure, you can get some neat bonuses by persuading others and trading is easier, but since you'll have everything to yourself, all the loot can be put into use for you to buy equipment. Thsi results in you having hundreds, if not thousands worth of items being stashed away even around mid-game (good example: getting Rosy and taking the sniper from Keno gets you a total of 250 value "banked" straight away, and when you begin to get items of 40-50 value which you already have during mid-game, you can pretty much buy anything you want without that much of a fuss).

That is all I can remember off the top of my hat, but I will update this article or share more in the discussion section as soon as I remember something more. I hope it helped some of you!

EDIT: spelling

- If you play through the game with one character only, kill off most of the enemies and do 90% of the quests, you can end up at level 27. If oyu manage to do all quest (I failed some and even skipped the Gorge area entirely) and somehow kill every enemy (wolves included), it should, theoretically, be possible to reach around level 29-30. This is at least 270-300 Skill Points and 27-30 Attribute Points, not counting if you max out Intelligence and/or use drugs as boosters. If distributed appropriately and planned consciously, this is should be enough to max out around 5-6 Skills and 3 Attributes.

- In Copper Hill, you can go immediately for the Shadows in the titular town in the southeast corner of the map right from the get-go, immediately after you enter the area. This way you skip all the quests leading up to that point. You can kill the real general and take the documents from him and then proceed to Vesselwown in under 15 minutes approximately.

>> However, doing so will cancel the entire questline of the Nomads, as they will be gone from their settlement if you return to them after killing the general.

>> Also note that, while the town is surrounded by a minefield, it has no mines at the western side of the field for some reason, and there is a conveniently-placed opening in the fencing/wall of the village, so you can march right in from the side and take out most of the town stealthily. The opening is accessible from the "Camp of displaced city dwellers", and it is the opening right behind the 2 bears on the eastern side of the crater, not hard to miss.

- If unseen by the enemy, attack with fists (and, presumably, with all melee weapons) instantly kill them (so not only throwing weapons have this ability).

- Having either the "Self heal if under 50% HP" or "Self heal under 25% HP" options active only work if your character survives the hit taken which caused their health to drop below the threshold. If the character would die from the damage taken, they will die, as the game works like this: first it deduces the damage from the character's HP, then it heals them, so it's not a simultaneous action, it is not determined before applying the damage to the character's HP, but by checking if the HP remaining after the damage is above or below the given threshold. Therefore, if a character's HP reaches 0 after taking the damage, they die and cannot heal themselves.

- There are 3 main breakpoints in the game (only counting the main areas which you MUST travel to and clear) which test your build/party, basically early- mid- and late-game. These are: Spirit Springs (you should have good combat abilites/a well-equipped party by that point, that is the first step-up in difficulty looking at the sheer number of Ratskulls present); Vesseltown (you need to have pretty much maxed out the combat skills of your party or close to max, with the best weapons available and A TON of healing there, else you will fail even with a full party, you also need to prioritize defending weaker/support party members, e.g. Agnes) and, of course, the Biosphere (you should have all main skills of every character close to max, they need to ideally be equipped with the best armor and the best weapons of their weapon class of chioce, you should buy/get ALL the healing items the party can buy/carry, a ton of ammo for the weapons, etc.). You need to make sure you are prepared to take these areas on, or else your party will be obliterated even on Normal.

>> As for non-essential hard areas, there are 2 really hard ones, which are (in order): Camp of the Desert Monks (I think your party or, for that matter, even your one character will be underleveled when you first gain access to the area, the Desert Monks have insane HP and can dish out terrible amount of damage; area not recommended before having done Spirit Springs despite it being available very early on), and Vulture Gulch (if you choose to do the Three Brothers quest, that is. The ambush atthe end of the quest is really unexpected and even when you initiate combat, the camps' dwellers can give you a hard time; area not recommended before having done Spirit Springs). Honorable mention to the ambush at the end of the Garden of Eden, it can be tough protecting the 2 good-for-nothing NPCs against the final ambush.

- Using "Heal Light Wounds" on yourself counts as a separate action and will immediately cancel any other action, such as attacking or walking/running. This would not seem much, but just keep in mind that in tight situations where you want to heal yourself with this skill your character will stop doing any previous action, which later will have to be reinitiated, as in clicking on the target again if you want that character to continue shooting/attacking. Becomes more apparent and important on one-character-only runs where you want to use that Talent to heal yourself.