The Nearly Ultimate Wasteland Guide

The Nearly Ultimate Wasteland Guide was created by Per Jorner based on the Enigma Lake decryptor. Since Per's site went the way of the dodo, his walkthrough was archived here for convenience.

Transcript
Version 1.2

Written and coded by Per Jorner

''Wasteland is a great game the first time through. The world is so large, and it takes so long to figure out what you actually have to do. But after a long struggle (usually about a hundred hours...much less if you have help) you finally set the sequence in Cochise, and walk, do not run, to the nearest exit. It's worth it.''
 * --John Strohm

Introduction

 * ''Something, the sound of metal on metal, grinds in the darkness...

What is Wasteland anyway? It's a post-apocalyptic computer role-playing game (in the sense that you batter lots of monsters into oblivion and take their stuff) which was released in 1987 and is still considered by many to be one of the best computer games ever created. It's a strangely satisfying mixture of exploration, item hoarding, frantic combat, certified cyborgs and toaster repair.

You may know I already wrote a couple of guides for the first two games in the Fallout series. Fact is that even before I came across those games I toyed with the idea of writing a walkthrough for what was then my favourite computer game - Wasteland - but what for? Does anyone have access to this old game any more, let alone play it? Even the Fallout guide met with only a fraction of the interest that was lavished upon its Fallout 2 counterpart. But in any case, working on those two was fun (of course, or I'd have been crazy to do it; some would say I still am) and provided me with the necessary impetus to realize that older idea.

If you've consulted this document before, you'll notice that as of version 1.2 it's advanced from the original "pretty good" to "nearly ultimate" like the others. The reason for this is that the game files of Wasteland for the PC have now been decrypted and dissected, allowing for much more reliable and detailed knowledge regarding game mechanics, map data, item data and so on. As a result, the game holds few secrets or surprises any more (but rocks all the same). Special thanks to Displacer, Ian Goodale and Nick Walton for hard work and helpfulness making this information available and accessible.

For a few useful notes and details I'm indebted to the Wasteland FAQ by Stephen Sedmak and Chris Baer, and Stephen Mackie's Wasteland file for the Universal Hint System. I also got some tips on bugs, cheats and exploits from the Wasteland Underground section of the Wasteland Ranger HQ-Grid website. Thanks go to Andrew Schultz for his creature lists which I used for information and verification, and to Wild Bill for his walkthrough, facts and comments. Cheers to Wasteland fans everywhere!

Please note that spoilers abound. The first time you play a game like this, you really shouldn't be using any kind of walkthrough whatsoever. If you don't care enough about the unique experience of finding out and doing things on your own to abstain from spoiling it, you probably have better things to do with your time than play the game at all. So, in case this is your first game, don't read beyond Preparations. Of course you will anyway if you want to, so I don't know why I'm writing this. :)

If you spot typos, have something to contribute or want to complain that my inclusion criteria are arbitrary, please mail me. There's no big point in mailing me with gameplay or technical questions that don't have anything to do with the guide itself (unless it hints at a deficiency therein); it can be assumed that everything I know has gone into the guide.

Comments and additional information have been marked in the following manner:
 * ★ A green star marks reliable information or advice.
 * ★ A red star is used for speculation or trivia.

Preparations

 * ''Four foot tall pears, pleasingly plump, perfectly prepared possibly, to plummet perilously from their precarious perches and pummel any passing pedestrian to a pasty, putrid, pulp.

The first thing you have to do is get hold of a copy of the game. There are a few ways of doing this: Please do not mail me asking me to share or help you locate game files, or ask for help with emulators; I simply won't do it.
 * Play the original Apple II or Commodore 64 version on an actual Apple II or C64 machine.
 * Download an Apple II or C64 emulator from the net and locate the corresponding game files which should be available on several dedicated sites.
 * Find a copy of the PC version. It has been given out with magazines and included on two Interplay budget compilations; none of these is still available, but if you're scouring the budget bins or scouting for used copies they're probably easier to find than the original.
 * Search a few abandonware sites to see if the PC version is available for downloading. Such sites will sometimes tell you where a game is available for purchase if it's currently being sold.

This guide basically covers all three versions of the game. So what's good and bad with either version? I find the C64 graphics and presentation most attractive of the three, but they come with the most sluggish interface. The Apple II version is easier to handle but subjects you to a garish colour scheme. One advantage of the PC version is that you don't have to swap disks, virtually or otherwise; another endearing feature is the ability to make macros, which means you can rest for a long time with a single keystroke or set up a skill such as Picklock for quick use. It does come with PC speaker clicks, though...

A few pointers on the emulated C64 version (CCS64 2.0): Additional info on the Apple II version (AppleWin 1.12): You can take advantage of dual disk drives by keeping disk 1 in the first drive, inserting another play disk in the second and pressing 2 when asked for it. As long as you keep to these two disks the game will load from either drive as appropriate. Some pointers on the PC version: Whichever version you're using you may want to make a complete backup of your game at, say, each quarter-way point through the game (roughly when leaving Quartz, leaving Vegas, and leaving Darwin). Not so much because you could corrupt the files as because you could actually get stuck or kill off some or all of your party permanently. In the emulated versions just back up the playing disk images, in the PC version back up the Game1 and Game2 files.
 * Unless your disk set contains prepared play disks, you'll have to start off by using the in-game disk copying utility, getting a taste of that old disk swapping. You have to do this once for each disk, after that be sure to make copies of the fresh playing disks and put them in a separate directory. Then whenever you want to start a new game (or employ disk swapping cheats), copy these into your "play" folder.
 * In my experience you cannot begin a session by loading a saved state into the emulator. I'm not sure why, but this will cause an I/O error when you try to read from any of the play disks. You must start by booting from the first master disk, but after the title screen comes up you can load any saved state.
 * You probably want to up the speed a bit, in the range of 200-300%.
 * The game saves each area when you leave it (including if you use the view command to control a party on another map), or when you use the save or radio commands. Entering a location also saves your party (no matter which disk you're on), and this is what you get if you choose "no" when the game asks if you want to load the last save. If you choose "yes", you'll get the party which is currently saved on disk 1, i.e. using save or radio or entering any location on disk 1. Of course, maps will always be in the state they were last saved, even if this happened in between saving your party on disk 1 and turning off the computer. This means that although you'll usually answer "yes" because it's faster, it can in rare circumstances lead to a situation where you've taken crucial items from a location but don't have them. In that case you might have to resort to disk switching.
 * You can use save state as a quicksave function. Very useful when disarming bombs, picking up random loot bags or checking whether it's worth it to blast open a door or recruit an NPC. Remember though that the game saves each map when you leave it. It's OK to load a saved state from the previous map you were on (because you bring back the "proper" state of that map, and the last map was never saved anyway), but if you enter a sequence of maps and then load state you may miss out on enemies and items.
 * Yep, disk swapping cheats work just fine (see Addenda).
 * Don't mess with or close the emulator while the game is saving to disk. This may result in pretty much the same thing as if you ripped a play disk from a real disk drive while it was working (i.e. the loss of your game).
 * Apparently you can get freak I/O errors when loading maps which will mess them up, e.g. allowing you to walk through walls. If this happens I suggest you exit the game or load state immediately to avoid saving any corrupted data to disk.
 * The Esc key which is referred to in the guide is the "up arrow" key on the C64. The emulator uses the identically placed § key.
 * S is used to view enemy groups in combat. Selecting a group is equivalent to an attack command (for NPCs pressing S is the same as pressing A).
 * The restart function will let you replay the game using the same characters, keeping your ranks and skills but losing items and money. Make a new set of game disk copies, select Restart, insert disk 1 from your previous game, then insert the new disk 1. Your last saved set of characters will be stripped of items and money and placed together in the lower right corner of the world map. Any existing changes to the destination disk (e.g. the bases being visible on the world map) will not be affected. This procedure can easily be emulated using the disk swapping cheat, which also lets you keep your stuff.
 * The original Apple II disks work like the C64 ones with regard to preparatory copying, except that play disks 2-4 are identical to the master disks and so can be copied much easier. However, in all likelihood you won't even have to copy disk 1 the hard way as the sets of disk images found on the web (cracked or uncracked makes no practical difference) should include prepared play disks. Apart from those you only need the master boot disk, so you can make backups of the play disks and start playing right away.
 * In the emulator I got I/O errors most of the time when I selected Start from the boot disk but did not choose to use the last saved game. Apparently this has been reported before.
 * You can boot from a saved state and continue from there.
 * You can move and rest by holding the corresponding keys depressed, which is not possible in the C64 version.
 * Ctrl-A is used instead of S to view enemy groups in combat. Ctrl-S can be used to invoke the first skill of the first character (make it Picklock or something).
 * It's a good idea to play with speed set to double and raise it to max when resting.
 * The utilities menu has a print function which doesn't seem to do wonders in the emulator.
 * The PC game originally came on two 360 kB disks and could be installed onto three play disks or a hard drive. The set-up program also had options to reset the game using the master disks (with or without keeping your characters, minus cash and equipment), or to change the graphics mode, replacing the installed image files. For a long time now, the game has been distributed only as a set of installed files using the EGA graphics of the original. See Addenda for details on how to reset maps through file swapping.
 * The game doesn't ask if you want to use the last save or not, but automatically loads the most recent party state and position from the appropriate game file. This means you have to be a little extra careful about changing maps with injured party members, for instance. In a pinch it may be possible to trick the game by resetting the file that contains your unwanted party state. Thus, if your party has something horrible happen to it and is saved only in, say, Game2, you can replace that file with its original state and force the game to load your last position saved in Game1 instead (restoring your real Game2 afterwards if appropriate).
 * I'd ignore the clumsy mouse interface altogether and park the pointer at the bottom of the screen. If you're not using a computer from the early 90s or a DOS emulator you'll just have your party zipping off in the wrong direction at the speed of light.
 * Take care if you want to exit without saving; when the game asks if you want to save, any keypress except N or Esc is taken to be affirmative! This is also true when you select ammo in your inventory and the game asks if you want to reload.
 * Because of a PC-specific bug, you should always save (manually or by instantly leaving for another map) after exiting an important shop. If you die, quit without saving or otherwise shut down the game before this, the shop will disappear permanently after you load next time. Note that the game is only saved in the shop if you actually buy or sell something, and not before you leave. If you accidentally sell off a valuable item and can't stand having to buy it back, closing the game while still in the shop lets you avoid the bug. The weapon shop in Darwin never disappears since you don't end up on the shop square when leaving.
 * Ctrl-A is used instead of S to view enemy groups in combat.
 * You can activate a print function by pressing Space to view the character roster, then P. Trying to go through with this only freezes my game.
 * In Windows XP you may experience occasional lock-ups, as well as graphical glitches if you Alt-Tab out of the game and back again. If you suffer badly from these issues, try DOSBox.
 * ★ There has been talk of two different PC versions which differ only in minute details. I can say with certainty that this is not the case. For one thing, I cannot really imagine why any publisher would want to make minor and inconsequential alterations to a re-release (heaven knows they never do it to fix bugs). For another thing, the perceived differences can usually be explained; for instance the supposed non-existence of the Onyx ring in the Citadel, reported by players who have as a rule been looking for it in the wrong place.

Character design

 * ''You did it! Gee you are good at that. Maybe you should go adventuring with a skill like that.

OK, first of all delete those pre-defined characters. They've got lousy stats and you don't want to go through the game with characters made by someone else anyway. Here's some stuff to think about:
 * Sex doesn't affect your stats or anything else of a technical nature. There are two places in the game where sex matters, and none is even remotely significant. Nationality doesn't do anything as far as anyone knows.
 * You need about 10 skill points for the basic skill assortment. Every character should then have 5-8 points for specialization if they started out with IQ 15-18.
 * It's not worth it to buy more than 2 levels in a skill, and in fact for most skills there's little reason to buy more than 1. They will go up anyway as you use them, and in many non-combat situations you can keep trying until you succeed.
 * Initial MAXCON ranges from 22 to 36. You can use it as a deciding factor if you roll stats that are OK but not great.
 * After you start playing you can only acquire new skills at a library, and the first one is in Needles. That's quite a bit into the game, so choose wisely at the start.
 * You get to keep any unspent skill points left over from character creation.
 * You don't have to start with four characters, but there's no particular reason not to. If you're going through the whole game with only two or three characters, a high starting IQ is even more important.
 * In theory you can play through the game with a single character, providing you recruit Vax at the very end for some quick hacking assistance. IQ 16-17 will be enough for the initial skill array if you forgo some marginal skills. *Carrying capacity will be one of your greatest worries, but at least you don't have to invest in medical skills...
 * It might be a good idea to make notes of which character has which skills, both for character creation (so you don't accidentally duplicate a skill) and for convenience during play.
 * Every skill is associated with an attribute, e.g. to be really good at Gamble it's even more important to have a high Luck. In fact there are often attribute checks accompanying passive skill checks, for instance there might be slightly harder AGL and LK checks complementing a Silent move check; I generally won't mention these.
 * If you think rolling for stats is the most boring thing imaginable, don't sweat it. You can probably finish the game with quite sucky attributes (except maybe IQ) as long as you get the right skills and equipment.
 * Except for which type of pistol you get, starting equipment does not depend on chance or skills.
 * ★ There's a way to get more guns and ammo at the start of the game, but it's something of a cheat. Just trade all equipment to one of your characters, enter the Ranger Center, delete the others and create new ones. They'll have new weapons, and you can then repeat the process. If you're playing the PC version you can even set up a macro to this effect.

Attributes

 * Strength (ST): Affects close combat damage, but not carrying capacity. Can be used to kick in doors and break open containers. You'll want one character with ST 15 or so, otherwise not a priority.
 * Intelligence (IQ): You need this for initial skill points, 15-18. You shouldn't accept any lower than that since you'll want to raise it to 23 eventually.
 * Luck (LK): Is checked in many different situations. A high LK lets you hit more often in close combat and do more damage in ranged combat.
 * Speed (SP): Affects order of attack in close combat, and is also used to avoid the odd hazard. A mêlée party will want average rather than abysmal Speed.
 * Agility (AGL): Used for athletic skills, and may also affect evasion in combat. Helps you avoid things like traps and pineapples. Not a very important stat.
 * Dexterity (DEX): Affects shooting, so a medium to good DEX is preferable. Used for things like picking locks.
 * Charisma (CHR): Can be used in a few places to minimal effect. Helps a little with contrary NPCs, which is not important at all.

Skills
The numbers within parentheses below represent the IQ needed to learn the skill and the basic cost of the skill respectively.

Skills that every character should have: Skills that two or more characters need: Skills that only one character needs: Mostly pointless weapon skills: Skills which have no significant or exclusive applications: Weird skills:
 * Brawling (LK/3/1): The primary hand-to-hand skill which you need in case you run out of ammo at the wrong time. Buy 2 levels, because it will double your number of attacks (you can imagine that this makes a difference), and you'll want to use this early on.
 * Climb (AGL/3/1): A cheap convenience. Though only one character really needs it to get you past obstacles, you can raise it for free later, which is gratifying.
 * Swim (ST/3/1): See Climb.
 * Perception (IQ/6/1): Useful for finding many things, such as land mines.
 * Assault rifle (DEX/9/1): Used for the best low-tech weapons.
 * AT weapon (DEX/9/1): Good to have in case you must blast off a rocket.
 * Energy weapon (DEX/23/3): For all weapons powered by Power packs.
 * Medic (IQ/15/2): Put this on two characters for healing early on. Getting 2 from the beginning is not worth the cost.
 * Doctor (IQ/21/3): Get this for everyone that lacks a well-developed Medic skill to be on the safe side later in the game, especially if you play with four or fewer characters.
 * Picklock (DEX/10/1): Used to open many doors.
 * Silent move (AGL/10/1): Put this on the lead character.
 * Demolitions (IQ/13/1): Used when throwing Grenades, so load all of those on one character if you're not selling them. This is not used for opening doors.
 * Bomb disarm (IQ/15/2): You might want to put 2 here because the consequences of a failure can be aggravating. That's 6 skill points, so you need an IQ 16-18 character for this.
 * Safecrack (DEX/15/2): Used in a few places.
 * Helicopter pilot (DEX/19/3): You don't really need this.
 * Toaster repair (IQ/20/3): Used very late in the game.
 * Electronics (IQ/20/3): No very significant use unless you play a smaller than usual party. Metal Maniac has this.
 * Clone tech (IQ/22/3): See Helicopter pilot.
 * Clip pistol (DEX/3/1): Bad idea, Brawling is much better early on.
 * Knife fight (DEX/3/1): Don't know why you'd want to fight with knives.
 * Pugilism (ST/3/1): Brawling is much more powerful and you need that anyway to get multiple attacks.
 * Rifle (DEX/3/1): Can easily be bypassed in the weapon progression.
 * Knife throw (DEX/6/1): See Knife fight.
 * SMG (DEX/9/1): See Rifle.
 * Acrobat (AGL/10/1): Not useless, but marginal as long as you have Climb.
 * Gamble (LK/10/1): You don't need extra money, and there are no quest applications.
 * Confidence (CHR/11/1): Very marginal social skill.
 * Sleight of hand (DEX/12/1): A rubbish skill.
 * Forgery (DEX/13/1): See Sleight of hand.
 * Alarm disarm (IQ/14/1): See Sleight of hand.
 * Bureaucracy (CHR/14/1): See Confidence.
 * Cryptology (IQ/16/2): Used once, a pure convenience.
 * Metallurgy (IQ/17/2): Only good for some decidedly minor cash and random encounter changes in the Mine Shaft.
 * Cyborg tech (IQ/24/3): See Cryptology.
 * Combat shooting (SP/11/1): This skill only appears in the PC version and can only be learned during character creation. Most likely it doesn't serve any function in the game whatsoever.

Sample parties
First your basic four-character party. This set-up assumes you're going to use Brawling consistently until you get your hands on assault rifles in Savage Village (or until the going gets so tough you have to start using them). It's only a suggestion, you can dump some worthless skills and substitute others. If you're playing the game for the first time, dropping Assault rifle to 1 and losing either Acrobat or AT weapon will let you buy Clip pistol, Rifle and SMG to experience the proper weapon progression. And here's a functional two-Ranger party with one stealth character and one tech character:

Future developments:


 * Ideally every character should have Medic 3 or Doctor 1 around the time you get to Vegas and Energy weapon 1 when you're done with it. Furthermore, a few of them need 3 additional skill points for the other advanced skills. This means you want to raise IQ at least 6 points for each character, or until you get to 23.
 * After that, raise LK and MAXCON if you're going to beat the game primarily using close combat (gets a bit hairy at Base Cochise), or LK, DEX and MAXCON if you're going in shooting.
 * It's normal to be around rank 12-15 at the very end of the game if you get the maximum number of NPCs and don't go out of your way to fight random encounters; that means your PCs have had some 25 character points each to spend, of which 6-9 have gone into IQ. A party of two might be around twice that rank.
 * Some NPCs such as Covenant need to spend about 6 points in IQ to get to 23, which means you can have them purchase an advanced skill other than Energy weapon.
 * If you're getting Cyborg tech, be sure to give it to the character you want to do the mind maze with.
 * A character can't have more than 30 skills (29 for some NPCs). Learning a 30th skill bars you not only from gaining another but from raising your old ones in libraries as well.

This is where the advanced skills are available:


 * Needles: Electronics, Toaster repair, Doctor.
 * Las Vegas: Electronics, Toaster repair, Doctor, Energy weapon.
 * Sleeper Base: All.
 * Darwin: Toaster repair, Doctor, Clone tech.
 * Citadel: Electronics, Toaster repair, Clone tech, Energy weapon, Cyborg tech.

Area walkthrough
"From the depths of the wasteland appears a hostile adversary."General notes:


 * The term PC ("player character") is used in the guide to denote the characters you create in the Ranger Center, and sometimes more loosely to denote any member of your party whether created or recruited. NPC ("non-player character") always denotes a recruited character.
 * Whenever you use a skill successfully, whether actively or passively, there's a chance it might go up if the difficulty level of the check or enemy is greater than your current skill level. In some places in the game you can provoke such checks repeatedly, and you'll then notice that the skill of every party member will eventually rise to a certain level as you do this.
 * You need at least one level in a skill to raise it through experience. You can't raise a skill to a higher level than your rank (except during character creation), but that should rarely be a problem.
 * You gain ranks when your experience count reaches 1000, 3000, 6000 and so on, each new rank spanning 1000 points more than the previous. The highest rank ("Supreme Jerk"), and hence skill level, is 181.
 * You can be promoted more than one rank at a time, so you never risk "wasting" experience. Incapacitated party members can't be promoted.
 * Loot bags will remain on the map indefinitely, but once you pick something up you must keep it, sell it or lose it forever.
 * The random components of a loot bag are fixed when you first step on it, not when it is dropped or when you first view the contents after selecting a character. Luck does not affect the contents of loot bags.
 * Many loot bags trigger special events when ransacked. You can actually avoid lots of unpleasant things (traps and ambushes) by leaving an item in the bag, but that's silly. At other times you must empty a bag to make something good happen, even if you don't really want the stuff.
 * There are usually several ways to open locked doors, boxes and cabinets. Weak doors can be opened with Strength, Picklock, a Sledge hammer, a Crowbar or some kind of axe (not all ways will work for all doors). Generally, any door that can be smashed can also be picked. For some "vaultlike" doors Safecrack provides an alternative. Strong doors need TNT to blast them open, or exceptional Strength. The contents of chests and cabinets on the other hand often object to being blown apart. A few doors found late in the game require the use of Plastic explosives or rockets.
 * You can never fail to use an item properly, unless you count a couple of instances where skill checks follow directly on item use (loading the howitzer in Needles and clearing the deadfall in the Mine Shaft). For instance, a Sledge hammer will never fail to open a door which is set up to be hammerable, and TNT will either blow something up or else remain in your inventory. However, a few items, notably Ropes, are flagged to disappear on use and do so even if it only results in a message explaining why using a Rope wouldn't be of any help.
 * You can only divide your party into four groups. You cannot disband a created PC forever unless he or she is dead.
 * Time does pass for all parties when you move around with one. Inactive parties won't trigger events or random encounters, though.
 * You can press  to rearrange skills or items in the character display. Use this to put active skills such as Climb, Picklock and Doctor at the top of the first skill selection list so you don't have to scroll to find them.
 * Each character can carry a maximum of 30 items. There are no encumberment or bulkiness factors, i.e. you can carry 30 Matches or you can carry 30 Engines.
 * There is no "quest" experience for doing extra stuff like talking to the riddler, delivering the Bloodstaff or flying the helicopter. You do get very minor experience for active or passive use of skills or attributes, though.
 * Using the radio command, entering a new area, or leaving a shop where you bought or sold something saves the game automatically (while entering libraries or hospitals never does). Don't do this if you have dead, poisoned or seriously injured party members and are not sure you can save them. Yes, it is possible to lose an entire game this way.
 * Radioactive squares are marked with a trifoil symbol during night hours (18-06). You will never be radiated unless you step directly on such a square. Unless otherwise stated, stepping on radioactivity does little or no damage assuming you have decent armour.
 * The game never checks to see if you should know a password or not, e.g. you can dig up the nomads' cache before doing the Visa card quest.
 * Time is generally not a factor in the game; you can leave people waiting and time bombs ticking to deal with them at your leisure. Apart from waiting for clones to develop, the only time I know of when you're actually on a timer is when a certain base is about to blow up.
 * When there's a square with an automatic (passive) skill check, you can often bring on a failure by using another skill that doesn't apply to the situation. This is useful mostly when you want to trigger the appearance of more enemies, e.g. in the Mine Shaft or the Courthouse.

Some general notes on shops:


 * Shops can be divided roughly into two categories: shops that only buy and sell tools and equipment, and shops that buy and sell everything. In the first category you find the Highpool shop, the nomads' trading car, the Agricultural Center (which only deals in farming stuff) and the general store in Darwin; in the second you find the Quartz and Needles shops. The black market in Darwin trades only in weapons, ammo and armour.
 * Shops do retain items you sell them. You can sell off items you find but don't want to use at the time (e.g. Power packs) and buy them back when needed (cash is probably not an issue). Sell such stuff in one shop so you know where it is, I suggest the Quartz shop since it's the most accessible.
 * When selling items you get 75% of what you pay for them in the first three locations, 50% from Quartz onwards.
 * You can't sell off quest items. If you know you have no further use for them, drop them.
 * Shops do eventually run out of stock items such as 7.62mm clips, though it never happened to me during normal play; presumably there are 255 of most shop items from the start (Howitzer shells in Darwin is a known exception).
 * The shops in Quartz and Needles are essentially one and the same, sharing a single inventory. This can be of some use if you accidentally "kill" one of them in the PC version.
 * Shop inventories save to disk after you finish buying or selling with any single character, but your party is saved only when you leave the shop altogether. See the cheats section in Addenda for a way to exploit this peculiarity.

Notes on the world map:


 * If you go into the desert (more than one or two paces) you'll suffer heat damage. Each character needs a Canteen to be protected from this; high ST also helps.
 * Don't go into the desert northeast of the Desert Nomads. Darwin is surrounded by a belt of radioactivity which deals about 15 points of damage for each step.
 * Don't jump into the river unless you have good Swim on all characters. You can eventually raise Swim to 6 in this way, but until you gain a few ranks it can take quite a while before you get to climb out (you don't even get to do it automatically when you reach a bridge). Good Luck helps you crawl ashore.
 * You can pass by the Guardian Citadel safely if you heed the warnings.
 * Enemies will not appear on "hot" desert squares, so you can rest safely if you're surrounded by such squares (Canteens are recommended for this). Just to the left of Las Vegas, the middle square is both cool and safe.
 * Random encounters are the same all over the map (i.e. no mad robots outside Vegas or Cochise to prevent you from going there at an early stage).

Some suggestions for macros if you have them:


 * Lots of Esc's for resting (outdoors or indoors). I always have this on F1.
 * Picklock, Climb, a Shovel and the like, letting you choose a direction.
 * Perception, used on the current square.
 * Medic or Doctor for your 1-2 best doctors, letting you choose a character.
 * Basic combat orders.

Apart from these you'll probably want to make temporary, specialized ones to deal with particular situations. For instance, when in Faran Brygo's lair without the Cryptology skill you may want to create a macro for using IQ on the secret door so you can just keep a function key depressed until it works.


 * ★ A slightly edited Ken Stone on macros: "'Invalid' keystrokes in a macro are ignored. For example, when setting up a combat macro I set the second party member to attack '21', i.e. attack the second batch of enemies, and if they don't exist, the first batch of enemies. Likewise the third party member is set to attack '31' and the fourth to attack '421'. Also I set the macros to 'AS': attack, single shot. If I am using mêlée weapons, the S is ignored." Consequently a basic combat macro for two characters might look like this: "A1SA21SY".

Highpool
"A tumbleweed bounces past you. You hear the distant laughter of children."This is visible just to the west of the Ranger Center. In the largest building you'll find a shop. Open the door with Strength, a Crowbar or Picklock and you can go in and read a few notes. This will also make a couple of Juvies appear, and you can kill them with no repercussions (they'll have a Mangler, which is a kind of rocket). You can open the door without angering anyone by using IQ or Perception, but what good is that?

If you go into the bottom left building there's a small stash in the bed (contains a Leather jacket if you make the first Perception check, just some cash if you make an easier one), and a water pump that needs fixing (IQ or Perception will confirm this). Once you've got a spare Engine, use it here to fix the water purifier (what is this, Fallout?). The generous reward will be 4 Leather jackets and some other stuff. Good if it's your first armour!


 * ★ In the Apple II version only, you may receive a lesser reward for installing the Engine: 3 Leather jackets and minor cash. The trigger for this is that your first character carries a Mangler, indicating that you killed and plundered the Juvies.

The bottom right building has a doctor, but it's just not worth it to purchase healing (especially if you have a resting macro). Use doctors in the rare event that you get an affliction.

You can talk to the kid standing in the corner about "dog", "bobby's dog", "rex", "jackie" and "cave". If you then say "bush", "bushes" or "cave" he'll tell you where the cave is and run away. Go to the square between the two trees and use first Perception, then a Rope on that square to enter (you can do this before talking to the kid).

Inside the cave you have to use Climb to pass the rubbly bits. After the first obstacle you'll be attacked by a dog. You'd better equip your pistols, 'cause fists don't do much damage to it. In the upper left corner you find Jackie who can be recruited into the party. If you take the Jewelry, then once you get up out of the cave and go north you'll encounter Bobby (the kid you talked to before) who complains that you killed his dog. He won't actually move to attack you, but you must waste him anyway unless you want to run past him in combat mode.
 * ★ Before climbing the first heap of boulders, you can shed some light by using a Match on any of the squares that yield the message "Even here the cave is very dark"; this will have the effect of replacing the Rabid Dog with a weaker Spiked Mut (sic).

When you feel you're finished with Highpool (do the Engine thing first), step in the creek south of the bridge. There are two "slippery" squares which will make kids appear. Killing both groups makes two more appear, kill them too. Eventually a Chubby Kid appears. When you've killed him and taken his stuff, you'll face the Red Ryder (a 40s western hero). He can be pretty tough for a low-ranked party. Once he's taken care of, the creek will dry up and you can't enter any of the buildings any more.
 * ★ The valley doesn't change until you empty the Red Ryder's loot bag, so if you resist the temptation to grab that clip you can kill the kids and still retain access to the doctor. But it doesn't matter much. I actually like the descriptions of the empty valley a lot.
 * ★ You can kill the dog and trigger Bobby's appearance after you kill the Red Ryder, and emptying Highpool does not remove Bobby if he's already spawned nor any remaining Brats. If you have characters inside any of the houses they can still do the stuff there - like enrage the Juvies or fix the pump - except that the store disappears. If the Juvies take that party segment out, however, it'll be lost to you.

Agricultural Center
"A large farmer is walking around among the green leaves of this carrot patch. Sensing your approach, he stops moving and watches you with his ominous eyes, filled with hatred for you and your kind."When you enter and step in front of the (closed) shop you'll meet some troubled people. If you decline to help you may be pelted for 1 hit point by a kid, and you can then press Esc and change your mind about helping. Once you offer to help you're transported into the garden. You can pick or smash the doors to get out again if you want. If you walk in the middle passage you'll be exposed to pretty harmless catapult fire, which can raise Perception providing you already earned a rank or two.

Moving about the strange plants, you'll face some randomly popping rodents as well as stationary ones (you need to actually step on the plants to find some of those). In the second row from the left in the bottom section you find Harry the Bunny Master. Beat him up (ignore the Bunnies until he's dead, he hits hard) and you'll have saved the poor farmers; random attacks in the garden will continue, but the catapults stop.

Go over to the guy by the root cellar and you'll get to go down there. In four of the crates you'll find some stuff. You can read a diary if you use Perception on one of the tables. The shop will have opened as well, but it's basically just a place to sell off Fruits.

In the bottom left corner of the garden there's a passage leading to a cave system. It's a pretty minor area with rodents; exiting to the desert from there takes you outside the Agricultural Center.


 * ★ Two loot bags, containing a Fruit and a Grenade respectively, can be found in the caves if you carry a Match as you enter the map.

Desert Nomads
"The guard looks at you sternly and replies that the Atchison clan has no time for small talk."Follow the mountains to the north, skipping by the Guardian Citadel, until you get to the square with the tents, and enter. Go to the caboose at the east end of the train and accept the Brakeman's mission (you won't get a second chance). Beware that the random encounters can be quite difficult at low ranks (the experience values are higher than most monsters before the Temple of Blood in Needles), so don't linger.

The hobo in the central car will give you ten pieces of rather cryptic foreshadowing if you use Snake squeezins on him. If you like gambling, use the casino car to raise Gamble to 10, maybe even making some money in the process, then move on. The trading car contains a shop that has an Engine for Highpool. The engineer will react to the keywords "chat", "brakeman", "hobo", "visa card", "atchisons", "topekans", "caterpillar" and "sante fe" (notice the typo).

When you have Head Crusher's codeword, "caterpillar", give it to the guy in the leftmost tent. Grab the Shovel, go 2w, 11s and use the Shovel on the ground to reap some loot. You'll be ambushed by three Rail Thieves, but they're not that tough.


 * ★ If you tell the guard "ladybug" or "lizard", the two fake passwords from the paragraph book, you're instructed to read the fake paragraph 42... which however refers to a completely different place in the game. 67 is the correct number of the fake Atchison reward paragraph. You can also say "chat" here to little effect.

At the middle tent you can say "chat", "atchisons" or "caterpillar", whereupon you're invited into the tent (actually, you can just go in). Enter and dispatch the Topekans and take their stuff. That ought to teach them. You can let the Broken toaster lie there until later, unless you want to carry it around for most of the game. Finally, at the tent on the right you can drop the same three words to provoke a reaction, but you can't do anything there.

Mine Shaft
"Some pre-holocaust miner has hewn a tunnel into the living rock of the mountain. Now the smell tells you it is home for many desert creatures."Beginning with the chamber to the right, there are four groups in there which only appear if you fail a Luck check when you step on their square: some Scavs by the door (who turn up automatically if you blow open the door with TNT), a pack of Rad Rats two squares below that, a Glowviper by the wall, and a lot of Cave Critters in the corner heap (usually you get a Rope instead). The chance of getting the first three encounters is greater if you keep your party together, and all four can be triggered by using, say, ST on their square. Pick or pry open the chest to get the Gas mask s.

Use Perception on all the green corpses to gain some small random treasures (if you fail you get nothing). Whenever a group of Drools leaves a loot bag behind, taking the loot will trigger an ambush by several Little People with guns which can be dangerous especially if your party is weak and not equipped with ranged weapons.

In the forked tunnel with a corpse north of the entrance, use Metallurgy on the innermost square in the lower tunnel (not on the wall). Then use a Pick ax on the same square to earn a few dollars each time. Yawn. Done repeatedly this will increase the frequency of random encounters in the mine, which becomes noticeable around the 30th time and maxes out at 34, at which point you'll face new monsters every two paces or thereabouts. In the diagonal tunnel directly to the left there's a trap which will cause a rockfall. To avoid triggering it you need to send forth a lone character with both Perception and Sleight of hand (or if you fail the Perception check, a difficult Luck check also does the trick). You can clear the collapsed tunnel with one TNT if you really must, but a failed Demolitions check will hurt you and seal the tunnel permanently.

The end of the short tunnel in the northwest corner of the map can be mined as well. The first three times you do this will each enable one more random monster: the Gecko, Skink and Shell Cougar, respectively (but there is no change to encounter frequency). Watch out for the nearby Shadowclaw! This formidable reptile also appears randomly, though thankfully only one at a time. The corpse in the spirally tunnel has a Bullet proof shirt. You can admire the largest boulder in the world (the big round thing, like a ball of twine except it's made of stone), but not do anything with it. And that's it for the mine.

Savage Village
"Lizards are everywhere."The place of the Junkyard Village in the order of areas is a little tricky. On the one hand, you're really only supposed to be able to figure out the password ("redhawk" or "red hawk") after you've been to Needles at least. On the other hand, if you finished the game already you'll know the password, and you can blast the gates with TNT anyway. Alternative ways of breaking down the gates include using a Spear or a Flamethrower (which costs one charge).

If you do, or if you refuse to lay down your weapons, any Scavs and Pack Rats you find inside will be hostile. Round them all up, including the women and children. You should find large quantities of Spears as well as several M1989A1 Nato assault rifles. Groovy. If you fall (or jump) into the well there are some Lizards to fight. Use Climb to get back up.


 * ★ There are several ways of turning the villagers hostile, including emptying any loot bag dropped by a group (though you can kill any number of them as long as you don't take all their stuff). Refusing to lay down your weapons is special in the way that it results in one extra group of huddling villagers, while also reducing loot very slightly.

Kill the Reclaimers and other sentries to the northwest, enter the stores and take their stuff. When you open the chest you may be inflicted with Desert dust, which is a potent poison (Bomb disarm, high Picklock or a Crowbar helps you avoid it). In that case, go straight to a doctor (using Medic along the way if necessary), or the poisoned character will die. In the upper left corner of the map there's a hidden door which must be spotted with Perception and opened with TNT or a Proton ax but just goes to the world map.
 * ★ A cheap trick to get good weapons straight away in a game is to go here first of all, give the password at the gate, then go pick the door to the room with 1-2 assault rifles and 1-2 LAW rockets. The Scavs will be upset, but you now have the means to show them you don't really care. Sell the rockets in Quartz to buy clips. This is a bit more efficient than fiddling with pistols, rifles and SMGs at the start of the game.

The chieftain lives in one of the buildings at the top. Tell him "redhawk" (or "red hawk") or that you bring a gift, and you can enter. He doesn't care that you butchered his people (bit of a primitive game engine). Bring him Redhawk (who will stay in your party) or the Grazer bat fetish and he'll tell you where Base Cochise is (but not actually make it appear on the world map - only Max does that). If you don't value what the Junk Master has to offer, you can instead take him out; to do this you must break down the door while it's still there (Sledge hammer, Proton ax, TNT). His wife can be found hiding in a corner, and the villagers will not be amused.

Quartz
"As you step next to a pile of laundry... two super ninja coydogs surprise you."There are six manholes, arranged in a three-by-two pattern, which will "teleport" you across town. This is good if you want to avoid random encounters. There's nothing in most buildings except snakes and the like which will bite and poison you unless you make Luck or Perception rolls: tarantulas (Bug byte), rats, snapping turtles, flying scorpions (Bug byte), a snake (Desert dust), scorpions, black widows, yellow spiders, more rats (Rabies), and a transparent snake. For some reason, disturbing vermin and not getting bitten leeches 5 experience points each time!

The Quartz Emporium is the building in the bottom left corner of the Quartz map (Scott the bartender will give its location away). It's a pretty good shop if you want to unload junk or buy 7.62mm clips. By the time you're taking on Quartz, if not sooner, you should be able to afford Bullet proof shirts for the whole party.

Go into the graveyard to the east by picking or smashing the gates or climbing the wall. Kill the undead and hold on to that Broken toaster, or leave it there for now. (A pity you can't use a Shovel on the graves.) There's a doctor in the northwest part of town, on the north side of Pyramid Drive.

Scott's Bar
The building to the southwest of the graveyard is Scott's Bar. You can talk to the guy in the northwest corner, buy him three drinks ($10 apiece) and answer his three riddles ("toast", "r"/"letter r"/"the letter r", "urabutln") and he'll only tell you to say "urabutln" to the barmaid. You don't have to answer the first one correctly in order to move on to the second. If you get a question wrong your lead character actually loses a minor amount of experience.

If you go near the ramp to the stage you get to kill a few punks, and after you loot their bodies you find a clue (IQ and Perception will help you interpret the writing, but it's a red herring anyway). Step into the center of the stage and you get to fight a few Bouncers. There will be an "invisible" loot bag where they were... but if you step up to retrieve it, you're stuck. There's a number of ways to please the crowd and escape: Agility, Acrobat, Confidence, Sleight of hand, Charisma, Intelligence or Knife throw (use them on your current square). If you do something unamusing, you get hit with bottles.

North of the bar there are some more punks. Shove them or ignore them and they'll fight you. If you apologize you'll get thrown out of the bar; if you tell them to chill out they may leave or attack. (Pressing any other key than A-D will let you walk away and the square will look empty, but stepping there again brings up the dialogue window.) Disband a character and walk along the row of seats until you find Ellen, tell her "urabutln" to get a Room key #18 (she also responds to the keywords "drink" and "chat"). Scott himself can give you coffee at $10 and very minor clues.

In the southeast corner of the main hall is the Head Crusher. The tricky thing here is to use the Brakeman's Visa card on the chair, not on the table or Head Crusher himself. You get a password in return and can then talk to Head Crusher ("chat" and "dancer" are valid topics, but they lead nowhere; "thanks", "thank you", "bye" and "goodbye" all make him disappear).

Go into the men's room, kill the Outlaw and talk to the other guy ("ugly", "riddler", "riddles", "courthouse", "mayor" and "gang" plus the same four farewell options Head Crusher has). Send a woman into the ladies' room and use IQ, Charisma or Confidence on the women for a minor clue. Both rest rooms are safe for resting, should you need it. You can also disturb a card game by the rear entrance for some cash (after killing the owners, of course). This might actually be easier if you enter that way in case you're not using ranged weapons.

Stagecoach Inn
This is the blue building northwest across the street from the large blue Courthouse, which will be covered later (in the PC version these are both white, not blue). If you go to the lobby and rent a room you will get a Passkey for $50 (no real point). Use Climb, Strength or a Sledge hammer on the railing, kill the Clerk and dogs, then use Bomb Disarm (or Safecrack, for some reason) and Picklock on the cabinet for a Plastic explosives and some cash.

In and around the cantina there are some thugs. Harass the cook and take his cleaver. Bwahahah. Afterwards he'll toss oranges at you, but you can placate him with a Snake squeezin for a hint. Now let's go through the rooms, starting with the one in the bottom corner and going counterclockwise. Note that in addition to the normal Picklock, Crowbar etc. all the rooms can be entered using the Passkey.


 * 1) 10 is your room and is empty. #11 has Bums and Mongrels in it. Fight them and get the Snake squeezin from under the chair. You can talk to the green bum and ask him about "chat", "money", "secret", "gang". When you say "courthouse", "mayor" or "back way" he'll tell you about the secret passage to the Courthouse and pass out. If you say "snake squeezins", you'll lose a Snake squeezin if there is one in your lead character's inventory, or else he'll attack and leave a loot bag when slain. Mmm... loot.


 * ★ If you ask the bum about money and find the bag under the chair, you can leave the room and go down to the fence, then step on the third square from the east wall. You'll find a loot bag which is a duplicate of the one from the chair. In the PC version you can use this bug to cheat (see Addenda).

In room #12, step on the green guy by the table and the others will become available for slaughter. There's nothing more you can do with the writer. In #14 there's a lone survival nut. He's not visible at first, run into the room and he'll appear. There's a cache under the chair in the corner. In #15 there are some thugs and dogs. Use Perception successfully on the table for another bottle of Snake squeezin.

Pick the door to Housekeeping, then use Perception, Demolitions or IQ on the shelf with the chemicals to gain one Chemical. Pick the cabinet, dispatching any angry Housekeepers that appear. Note that you probably want to leave both the Chemical and the Servo motor where they are for now. Use your newly acquired bottles of booze on the bums to make them leave. At the end of the passage is an exit to the Courthouse. If you enter from that direction, the hobo closest to the exit will leave of his own accord.

Room #16 is empty. In room #17 there's some loose change under the bed.

Room #18 contains Laurie, the sister of the guy in the men's room at Scott's. There are several things that can happen here:


 * You have the Room #18 key and use it on the door, then tell her "urabutln" or "uraqt2". She'll give you a swag bag and the password to the Courthouse.
 * You have the proper room key but don't give her the right word. She'll then request a Servo motor. If you already have the one from Housekeeping, you'll give it to her automatically and get the reward.
 * You enter the room using Picklock, a Crowbar or the Passkey and step forward when warned. You'll get a grenade tossed at you, then Laurie attacks. Once she's dead and you loot her things (Servo motor), the game will call you "scum" and you don't get the swag bag.
 * Enter the room in the wrong way, but use Bureaucracy, Confidence or Charisma on the square where you're standing. You'll then get to enter a password as above. If you fail two attempts at pleasing her, she'll attack (but not toss the grenade).
 * You force the door with ST, a Sledge hammer, a Pick ax or explosives, somehow killing Laurie in the process. No loot for you.

Room #19 is empty. Room #20 holds some thugs, and you must use Bomb disarm (or Safecrack) on the bed to gain the contents of a small cache. Once all the doors are open you can discard the keys if you didn't already.


 * ★ There's a small Easter egg just outside the inn. From Ben Morgan's walkthrough: "If you walk north and stand on the tree just outside the entrance and walk into the wall of the building directly north of you, it gives you a message."

Courthouse
The Courthouse is the big building two blocks north of the bar. If you enter from the front, say "muerte", "squint" or "mulefoot" if you want to do things peacefully, the last two names leading to Confidence and Bureaucracy checks (if you tell them "ugly" or anything else, or if your name-dropping fails to impress them, then the password is "muerte"). I suggest you don't (more kills for you). In case you fight, emptying the loot bag nearest to the exit spawns several new groups inside. You can rest undisturbed at the entrance, and in the jail on level 3. Going towards the stairs you may be attacked even if you gave the right password, and again outside the room to the left; these are related to Silent move, so walk around a bit if you want the kills. The door to the stairway which goes directly to level 3 can be opened with Safecrack in addition to Picklock, as can the door which awaits you at the top. Opening the first vault door with explosives instead spawns three extra groups, two on the ground floor and one on level 3. If you go into the atrium (the secret passage to the Stagecoach Inn is in the back), you can use Climb on the vines to get to levels 2 and 3 and then smash the glass to get in (which may increase the rate of random encounters slightly in the Courthouse). Trying to use a Rope on the ground floor just loses you the Rope. If you come to level 2 directly from level 1, thugs will appear at the stairs and ask for the password ("muerte") if you fail a Silent move check. If you come here for the first time from any other direction, they just attack. You can search the drawers in the room to the left (use Perception) for some Snake squeezin which will come in handy, and here you also find the password to the hideout. The green guys in the passage usually don't do anything, though they may also demand that you give the password (still "muerte"); fail and there will be more enemies for you to kill (to ensure this, use anything on them that is not Bureaucracy, Confidence, LK or CHR). In the room on the lower right there are some poker players. Now make sure you have Silent move on your party leader. Open the door and then step onto the sentry. If successful, you'll dispatch him without him sounding the alarm. In either case you have to fight the people in the cell. You get a Jewelry and a paragraph reference for each of Huey, Dewey and Louie. If you didn't knock Louie out, the torture victim will be dead. Otherwise, use a Snake squeezin (which is used up) or a Canteen (which is not used up) on him to revive him, then recruit him. This is Dan Citrine and he's actually good for one thing other than carrying stuff.


 * ★ Strictly speaking that would be two things: he's also good at wrecking the game, although it's debatable whether this is good for you. See the cheats subsection in Addenda for more details.

There's not much to do on level 3. The Knifers by the atrium most often take off when you approach, though they can also fight and in that case leave behind a Sonic key (which you'll find later anyway). You can trigger the fight by using an irrelevant skill or item on them, or you can try to raise Confidence or Bureaucracy by using it on them. In the jail, the three cell doors can be opened with Safecrack. The one on the upper right sets off an alarm if you blow it up which may increase the frequency of random encounters; consequently it can also be opened with Alarm disarm. Recruit Mayor Pedros if you like. In the cell to the southeast, if you step on the bed without Dan Citrine in your party, a guy runs out the door. If you have Dan with you, you earn $1000 instead.

Hideout
The hideout is the blue building northeast of the Courthouse. First, go into the alley beside it. If you have Silent move you'll knock out some sentries, so you may want to send in those who haven't (you'll get to fight two more groups that way). Use a Rope on the wall where it tells you to. You can now walk up and down the glass (or press Esc) and quickly raise the Perception of all characters to 3 if your rank allows it. Afterwards you can break the glass with a Crowbar or the like and end up inside, fighting lots of people.


 * ★ If your group has five or more members when you sneak into the alley, you automatically get the "success" result, and if it has one or two members you always get the "fail" result. Presumably these have been switched around, as it would make more sense if reversed.

If you enter by the front door you can give the password ("kaput") and not be attacked. If you say "thanatos", the old password, they ask for the name of your section leader, the correct answer to which is "stinger" or "pigface" (two names shouted by some goons in the Courthouse), or "madwolf", "skulker" or "grunt" (three names not mentioned in the game at all). You can then kill anyone you like without turning the Pistoleros hostile, including Ugly, as long as you don't empty any of the loot bags. Make sure you kill everyone anyway (they're utter wimps) and you get quite a lot of clips. Finally, giving the wrong password on the way out lets you fight an extra enemy providing you didn't already turn everyone hostile.
 * ★ If you type in "mors" or "azrael" from the fake paragraphs you'll still get to enter unmolested... but at the same time the game surreptitiously changes the gender of all your characters! You can just say "mors" again to reverse this effect, though.

Use Climb on the fence to enter the kennels. Go behind the curved counter to find a secret staircase. Go down there and use TNT on the left door (Picklock works if you're really patient) to find Ace, who's actually a half-decent NPC. The other cell is empty, so don't bother.

North of the officer's club you can pick up 3 Chemicals from a table if you make a Perception check (but there's no reason to do that just yet, or perhaps ever - they'll eat inventory space). The cabinets must be Picklocked, if you smash them you don't get any stuff (forcing them with Strength works, but using a Crowbar is a no-no). Explore the pile in the corner for some super ninja coydog action.

Kill the Guard. Step behind the table in the next room to reveal a safe. If you enter the numbers on the ID bracelets of the triplets in the Courthouse ("11-16-27" or "11 16 27") you can loot a Kevlar vest (wahoo), a Sabot rocket and an M19 rifle (all that in a wall safe?). Safecrack also works if you give it enough tries.


 * ★ It's slightly more difficult to notice the safe in the PC version, which has led some to believe that it's not there. It is, however; you just need Safecrack or very good Clip pistol to spot it, whereas in the first two versions low Perception will do (the Clip pistol check is a Perception check mutated by a bug). It also seems other skills may be randomly used for this; it has been known to raise Picklock and Bureaucracy in addition to the aforementioned skills.

Enter the room on the right. It appears Ugly set up Felicia the bomb and she has no chance to survive make her time. You can let him go, in which case you get the bomb disarm code ("11-27-57-04-30"), or you can easily waste him (Uzi SMG Mark 27 and Bullet proof shirt). If you didn't get the code, use Bomb disarm or Demolitions twice to save Felicia, who will join you as an NPC. Or you could fail and check out the "Felicia parts". Then open the door to the vault (Picklock works fine) for some major cash. If you made the deal with Ugly, there's a third loot bag in the vault containing an Uzi and a Quasar key you don't need. After you're done carrying all the loot to the shop, I suggest you get rid of Mayor Pedros, Felicia and/or Dan Citrine if you picked them up as mules.
 * ★ Yes, you can make Mayor Pedros kill his wife with his bare fists. Primitive game engine and all that.

Needles
"The girl behind the counter, writhing and bleeding, gasps, 'Would you like... fries with your... order?' She dies."If you recruit Ace and go to the broken-down jeep north of Quartz, he'll fix it and you'll automatically drive to Needles and the gas station. The jeep will remain there until you get an Engine, talk to the mechanic (hope you saved $100 for this occasion) and step on the car with Ace still in your party. This whole jeep thing is rather superfluous, but it serves as a sort of link between areas.

There are two places in Needles where there are radioactive squares: down at the waste dump, and up in the northwest section around the temple. Watch out if it's daytime. Walk around the sand dunes in the southern part to raise Climb and Acrobat to 3. When you reach the crest of the largest dune you find a clue (the password to the Savage Village). You can ride the train if you like (whee?). Try to take the shortest route whenever you're moving around in Needles; the random encounters can be quite annoying and are not worth much experience.

In the enclosure to the northeast there are several useful buildings, among them a doctor and a library. Enter the ammo bunker (the stair thing). Pick up the stuff from the corpse and the shelves (quite a lot of ammo). You must use Bomb disarm on the shelf with Plastic explosives, and it isn't possible to do anything at all with the unstable TNT that doesn't involve combustion.


 * ★ You'll find several fake Bloodstaffs throughout Needles. They can be dropped at once. When you find the real one it will be sort of obvious.

In the police station you can talk to a detective who'll give you some superficial info on the Bloodstaff mystery. Fighting the police robots in the barracks doesn't alert anyone. You can also pick the cell doors with impunity and recruit Mort if you like. If you pick the door to the room with the carrier pigeons you will find a couple of buttons if you pass a Perception or Picklock check. Pressing 0 opens the armoury and turns off the alarm (pressing either button after that does nothing). I wouldn't do that, however, since you miss out on killing an Auto rifle. Pick the door to the armoury (difficult) and step inside. This doesn't turn anyone else hostile, either. The real police fight only starts when you kill the guy by the counter, then step on the square where he was. The most convenient way to take out these goons is probably to fire full auto at each group.
 * ★ Developer Easter Eggs Dept.: Tell the clerk that "todd" did it and you get a message.

In the southeast corner of Needles, enter the Servants of the Mushroom Cloud church. Use the Ruby ring from the ammo bunker in front of the bishop. He'll tell you to retrieve the Bloodstaff (whatever that is). If you bring a fake one, he'll break it and throw you out. When you give him the real one you get a big loot bag including an Engine (for the jeep), several assault rifles (as if you didn't have enough by now) and a Kevlar suit. You can also talk to him; when you learn the codeword from Charmaine you can return and tell him "dipstick" to get the Bloodstaff back from him. You can do it now if you want to save yourself the trip.
 * ★ If you tell him "pastel" or "buzzard" from the fake paragraphs, you get a correspondingly fake Bloodstaff (and you cannot pick up the real one afterwards). Charmaine will not be pleased.

Enter the waste dump, preferably during nighttime. On the second level you can make it to the stairs without using explosives; going into the room on the right is pointless. On the third level you have to blow up two doors before you can get anywhere. The Pit Ghoul is a fearsome opponent, but a full round of assault rifle auto-fire will probably get rid of it (and is much cheaper than pelting it with rockets). Watch out for the contaminated square with the barrel. If you blast into the lower room you find 2 Rad suits, some weapons and ammo, but there's nothing in the other.

Downtown
In the western part you can buy hobo dogs. You can take an Ax to the trees for an amusing message. Kill a couple of guards and gain entry to a basement with a Bloodstaff verification device (does this make sense to anyone?). Use fake Bloodstaffs here to make them go crunch. As you enter the basement there's a sort of harmless trap.

South of the hobo dog stand you can break in and get some minor item off the desk. You can buy Snake squeezin for $15 in the restaurant (use Climb on the fence to get there if you hate stairs). In the occult shop, use Perception on the crystal ball for a cute message. In the empty room you can read some messages, including "No mutants allowed" (though in the PC version it says "Mutants not allowed" instead - sheesh), game credits, and something that looks oddly like a Tomb Raider reference although that didn't exist at the time. In the next room there are two bums. Using 2 Snake squeezins on the one on the right will give you the password to the gambling club. You can rest safely in the deserted office, the shop or the basement.


 * ★ You can get a super loot bag in the restaurant (see note below).

Once you have some Howitzer shells (there's one or more in the ammo dump, and more in the temple), use them on the howitzer to the northeast. This may improve everyone's AT weapon as well as Demolitions, and unless you manage to blow the howitzer up you'll get to select a firing trajectory. Each one will make a crater, smash a wall or something (high and low west are basically the same). Having party members stand around where the shell lands triggers a message but does no damage. The only trajectory that really changes anything is the high southwest, which will hit the hobo dog stand. Go talk to the girl behind the counter for a laugh. Ah, the world would be safer without nameless scum.

If you go to the east side, you can buy drinks (not Snake squeezin) for $10 and enter Leroy's arms shop to unload junk and maybe buy clips if you don't have a lot already. Kill the loitering Jerks. Recruit Christina standing nearby and take her Rad suit, Geiger counter and stuff (you don't get it if you kill her). There's a bottle of Snake squeezin on the ground behind the club. The password to enter the club is "acapulco"; I wouldn't gamble there, but theoretically doing so can raise your Gamble skill to 25 if you have truly outrageous Luck.


 * ★ You can rest safely in Leroy's. Less useful in the C64 version, but nice if you have unconscious party members who can't sell their stuff, anyway. If the shop bugs out, random encounters can appear on the vacant shop square.
 * ★ The Acapulco club is one of the places where you can encounter the "super loot bag" bug, or as it ought to be known in the C64 and Apple II versions, the "empty loot bag" bug. The reason why this happens is that the club only has one loot bag associated with it. So if you play in one seat, leave the winnings then play in the other seat and win, you have two bags which point to the same contents. If you loot one, the other will be empty, but will still remain on the map. In the PC version you can get weird stuff from the remaining bag; see Addenda for more information.

If you disband a male character to go with the three-legged (!) prostitute you get Wasteland Herpes. In the room to the northeast with a dead body, walk around the junk for a while and you should find two minor treasures. You can raise Perception if you're lucky. Use 2 TNTs (or a high Strength, 20 will do it) on the rubble in front of the enclosed alley to interrupt a gang meeting. The leader has an AK 97 assault rifle which I suppose would be a good weapon if you didn't go to the Savage Village yet.

Temple of Blood
Now, could this have anything to do with the Bloodstaff thingy, I wonder? Let's find out. Go to the building in the northwest corner of Needles. If you enter from the right you find the garage, but there's nothing in there but mutant scum (of the non-animated variety). Enter from the south instead.


 * ★ If each party member carries a Robe in their inventory (you don't have to wear them), you won't have to fight two guards in the hallway. You still have to fight random encounters, though. And you want to kill those guards anyway. So don't bring Robes (and I doubt you'll have found that many anyway, unless you got lucky in the downtown basement). There are squares in the temple which raise or lower the frequency of encounters depending on whether you have Robes, but the difference will hardly be noticeable, and there's little to stay around for.

Go into the room full of people and sit on a chair to find a word you'd better remember. You can also find this in one of the rooms to the left. North of there you can torture yourself in several ways: step on the electric floor, sit in the electric chair, or walk into the laser beam over the bed. Turn off the laser instead and you can recruit Ralf the bum.

Return to the altar room and cross it. Raid the locker rooms and kill the gamekeepers. When you agree to play, you're teleported onto the chessboard (no way back, but it's no big deal). The correct path is 1n, 4w, 2n, 5e, 1s, 2e, 4n, 2w, 1s, 4w, 2n, 2e. Add that up and you get "30" (or "thirty"), which is the answer to the question. If you get it wrong you have to do it all over again, if you get it right you end up by a lake of blood. Everyone should have one of those.
 * ★ For every time after the first that you step on the wrong square on the chessboard, everyone will be zapped for 5 points of damage irrespective of their armour. If you want to run quickly across the board you can take "only" 10 points of damage by going north once, west once, then north to the exit.

The way out is right behind you, but first let's do what we came here for. As you traverse the lake you can raise Swim to 2 and take damage from the water and from fish (they don't bite through Kevlar vests, though). Using the Swim skill actively helps. In the northwest corner there's the important password if you didn't find it already. Also if you go around the walls you'll find five groups of Glowing Slimes, I like those. There are two in the southwest, two in the southeast, one in the northeast, walk one step in from the wall to find all of them.
 * ★ Walk up to any of the cave walls and bump into it repeatedly, and you get a secret message. The funny thing about this is that the game keeps track of where in this message you are for every square of wall around the lake!

On the island there are four Snipers to be killed. Use TNT on the gates to blow them down, or high Picklock. Using explosives is better, since it spawns two more groups of enemies inside. With good Perception you'll notice a pair of pressure plates and be asked if you want to jump over them. Don't do it at first if you want to pick off the dogs from a distance. If you do step on the plates, it brings out an Auto Laser Turret which will fry your whole party at the same time. Ouch! You can pointlessly destroy the inactive turret with TNT. Fight through the patrols until you get to the priest, then kill him and take the real Bloodstaff.
 * ★ If you have save state available, use it before taking any loot bag inside the walls - they are extremely random. You could get 2 LAW rockets and 7 Power packs, or 1 LAW rocket and 1 9mm clip. In fact, these are the only loot bags in the game which contain not just random amounts but also random items; the variable content can be any of the four ammo types or Howitzer shells.
 * ★ You may want to trigger the appearance of the turret sooner or later, because you can raise Assault rifle to 6 just by sniping it with single shots. If you have NPCs they may start firing full auto and actually kill the thing, though. The experience is sucky. This little exercise is not recommended in the C64 version where you can't rest up without having to go all the way to the world map.

Return across the moat and ascend the stairs. You'll arrive at an old hollow missile with an acid bath (don't step in it) and a guy who's been trapped for months (apparently the cultists have been as well. Just don't ask me why they designed their secret base this way). Tell him "motekim" and the way will open to an electric field which teleports you outside the temple. Now all you have to do is deliver the staff to the bishop.
 * ★ You can get down to the lake again by going back to the chessboard.
 * ★ If you tell the guy in the missile "atom" or "mortar" from the fake paragraphs, those standing by the console will take lots and lots of damage in an explosion, and any surviving party members will be stuck forever since there's no way to get out.

Las Vegas
"A cool breeze sweeps silently through the blackness and chills you to the bone. A lupine howl echoes through the darkness and comes at you from all sides. You feel surrounded and uneasy."If you got here using the jeep, it'll disappear and you'll be deposited in the southeast part of Las Vegas (you can dump Ace now). The library is the blue building at the bottom right of the map.

Cross the street to the west and enter the "small beat up building". The first thing you find is a beggar. If you attack or select chat twice you get to kill him, but he only has a pointless Visa card. If you give money (a mere $10) you can talk to him: the topics are "faran brygo", "big boss", "fat freddy" (a password!), "robots", "death machines", "max" (a clue!), "mushroom cloud", "ace" (but not "covenant", for some reason), "hospital" and "library". Now you know some of what's going on in Vegas. When you're done, go into the next room and fight a Slicerdicer.

Generally, deserted houses only contain things such as a snake (Desert dust), spiders (Bug byte), a rat (Rabies), fuzzies, a centipede (Bug byte), scorpions (Bug byte), ants, turtles, another rat, or cockroaches. Not all of these drain experience like their Quartz counterparts, which is however scant reason to seek them out. But you can rest by the entrance. On the outside map you can also rest safely in the airport and in the centre of the pond.

By the way, you'll encounter lots of robots in Las Vegas. Some are random (and annoying), others appear in large groups with different kinds. I suggest you use full auto on the large groups and Warroid Mark 3s, and single shot on the weaker random ones. Another Vegas feature is land mines. Stepping on them can raise your Perception and does little or no damage to people in Kevlar vests or better, so you may want to do this. Here's a complete list of where to find them:


 * 1 beside the library.
 * 1 in the block with the Slicerdicer building.
 * 4 in the rectangle in the southwest corner of town.
 * 1 in the street just north of that rectangle.
 * 1 outside the airport.
 * 1 just north of the racetrack.
 * 6 to the left of the road southwest of the temple.
 * 4 in a row above the casino.
 * 1 in the street outside the casino.
 * 4 on or around the golf course.
 * 3 in the triangle east of Fat Freddy's.
 * 1 behind the building just southeast of the Scorpitron.
 * 1 in the L-shaped alley just north of Faran Brygo's.
 * 1 across the diagonal street to the west of there.
 * 5 in the triangle in the northwest corner of town.
 * 2 in the rectangle to the east of there.

There's a doctor in the large square blue building on Flamingo Avenue, in the southwest part of town, and another doctor in the pink building in the northwest that has one door to the north and one door to the south (it's brown in the PC version, as are Fat Freddy's and the temple; the Apple II houses are simply purple/orange instead of blue/pink).

On the golf course you can find some hidden items. At the top you will see a cactus on the middle of a straight line between two flags. Go two squares east from there and you'll get the message that something is buried; save before using a Shovel to retrieve it. Now, you may find that it is a Sonic key (yes, in all versions). However, it's more likely that it will be some ; you'll want those instead, hence why you saved first. The condition for getting the key is actually that everyone in your party makes a LK check.

South of the temple in the central eastern part you find a RadAngel begging to be whacked. Northwest of there are a few Gundroids who guard a Sonic key. A posse of 10 Cyborg Commandos in the northeast part of town also have one of those as well as a Kevlar suit. Evidently there's no shortage of Sonic keys.

The jail is the building in the northeast corner of the map. Pick up a book from a bed to read a paragraph. Open the door to the jail cell and you can recruit Covenant (use Strength or Picklock to free him). Use Alarm disarm or Picklock to open the door to the room with the loot bag - or just use TNT on it, so you get to kill the people who come running. There's no way to avoid taking damage from the electric floor.

Somewhere in the centre of town where several streets intersect you'll find the legendary Scorpitron. It's basically a mean robot that wants to kill your party. It's also completely immobile. You can use it as a target to raise Assault rifle and AT weapon to 6, and Energy weapon as well if you have the patience to let it be until after you finish the sewers (although Brother Goliath in the Citadel makes a more docile target). When you're tired of the Scorpitron it helps to spend a couple of  to get rid of it.

Two houses west of the Scorpitron on the south side of the street (south and west from Faran Brygo's), there's a building you can enter to find an assortment of odd enemies, one of which is carrying a Proton ax. This is the best mêlée weapon in the game. Finally, there's a small room with Insects directly east of Spade's Casino.

Spade's Casino
The casino is the blue L-shaped building southeast of the golf course. Step on the empty spot by the bar and you'll get to see a guy named Crumb who tells you the password to Faran Brygo's place. When you come back the empty spot will be filled (more people to kill for later). You can gamble here and win consistently with high Gamble, but the winnings are so small it's not worth the time. With low Gamble, don't even think about it. The slot machines don't involve Gamble at all, just Luck.

Open the door (angering the guards if you use any means other than Picklock or a Crowbar) and climb the stairs. Ahead of you there's a creaky board (you'll be notified if you make your Perception roll). With decent Perception or Silent move it's easy to avoid the board, so use some other skill like Safecrack on it to trigger an attack, which means you get to fight some extra enemies.

In the room to the southwest you'll get a message that the table is rigged if you make a Gamble or Electronics check, but it doesn't lead anywhere. Kill Al and take some stuff from the table. The loose board disappears once you've opened either of the doors to Al's room.

Go north and kill the Kutie. Open the door with a Proton ax, TNT or Electronics, then use Climb on the shaft to end up in a basement (apply a Rope first if you want to be able to climb back up again). You can use a Shovel, Pick ax, Proton ax or high Climb on the loose wall to the upper right to leave the casino. Walking around the rubble will raise your Climb skill to 4. Don't bother with the door, there's nothing in there (and the room below that is just the one shown when you meet with Crumb).

When you feel you've had it with the casino, kill everyone. (This will not stop you from meeting Crumb if you didn't do that yet.) The Guard Leader has a Kevlar suit and a Laser pistol; there's another Laser pistol and an Antitoxin in the crowd. Interestingly you can still gamble at the tables as long as you don't empty any of the loot bags, even if you've killed all including the croupiers. Climb behind the bar and step on the chute to enter the wine cellar. There's stuff in the heap on the right and in the middle shelf. Go to the northwest corner and you'll find a hidden door (this will just take you outside). If you want to you can enter the fallout shelter by forcing the shelves (Proton ax, TNT) and the doors (Proton ax, Electronics, TNT), but there's nothing in there.

Fat Freddy's
This is the pink building two houses north of the casino. You'll know it because as you step up to the door, Thugs attack. Inside you can gamble (best place for it once you have a high skill, and you can raise Gamble to 12 here) and approach a door. If you give the wrong password you get boxed. Say "bird" and you're let in.


 * ★ You can get super loot bags here using the same routine as in the Acapulco club in Needles.

If you decline Fat Freddy's offer you'll be gassed. Unless someone in the current party is carrying a Gas mask you'll be transported to the jail (with all of your equipment, conveniently enough). Use Dexterity to free yourself, then Picklock to free Covenant if you didn't already do that. You must recruit him to be able to open the cell door from the inside. You can then return to Freddy and kick his butt. If however you do have at least one Gas mask, those who do not will be temporarily rendered unconscious and Freddy will attack. Anyone who is disabled by the gas, whether you end up in jail or not, also lose half of their current CON.
 * ★ If you visited the jail earlier and killed Covenant, or recruited him and dropped him off, you'll be stuck forever if your entire party is imprisoned. (Disk swapping may help.)
 * ★ If the cell door was open before your people were stuffed in there, then someone trying to save them from outside must "close" the door before it can be opened. Such a rescuer will also automatically untie the ropes when approaching the prisoners.
 * ★ There's a bug here in all versions of the game that can be exploited to resurrect dead party members. Just make sure they're not carrying a Gas mask when you refuse the job, and they'll go to UNC no matter if they were dead or wounded before.

If you accept the mission you get $1000 and are sent away to kill Faran Brygo and return with the Onyx ring. When you do so, Freddy will attack and you get to kill more people.
 * ★ If you didn't get the ring from Faran Brygo there's one in the Guardian Citadel.

Faran Brygo's
This place is located two houses east from the Scorpitron, on the north side of the street. Enter and give the password "kestrel". Then go north and say "crumb" or "crumb sent me". If you ask what you can do for Brygo, you get to read a paragraph and are then thrown out. In this case you can't kill Faran Brygo any more.


 * ★ If you tell the doorman either of the fake passwords "phoenix" or "clover", you'll get in, but all your characters regardless of location will be afflicted with Wasteland Herpes!

If however you tell him what he can do for you, or attack, Brygo runs and you get to kill a couple of Guards. Go behind the desk and enter the passage. Kill the Lunatic. You can examine the room with the computers if you want (I think 50% is a closer estimate, but what the heck). Go into the next room on the left and pull the lever to open a passage further ahead. Then go into the dead end on the right and a way will open. The way you came from originally has been blocked off, so keep moving right. An exit is at the top, but instead go down and blow open the door to the bathroom (very high Picklock also works).

Use Cryptology (or IQ if you don't have this skill, but it's harder that way) on the southmost wall. A passage will open to the vault. Save before taking the loot bags - you can get as many as 20 rockets from one of them, or as few as 3! A Sledge hammer or high Picklock works on the next door, or if you want to blow it up TNT is not enough, you must waste one of your newly acquired Sabot rockets if you didn't bring Plastic explosives. In either case you'll trigger an explosion. Shoot all that moves. When you have the Onyx ring, leave through either exit and remember you can't come back in again.

Temple of the Servants of the Mushroom Cloud
The temple is the big blue building in the middle east part of town, with two doors on the south side. The password is "oppenheimer" or "einstein", or you can enter anyway if you say you have a gift and then say "bloodstaff". I'd blow down the doors with TNT instead, because this way you get to battle several groups of Temple Guardians, who shoot very badly and give lots of experience. Just auto-fire them until they lie down and don't get up.


 * ★ You can also find a camera to the left of the door and use Plastic explosives or Electronics on it... but this just causes the guards to attack you in a more vulnerable position, and you still have to open the doors with TNT (they'll close if you had already opened them).

If a door is described as "locked", use Picklock. You can raid one store for several Rad suits, another for lots of 7.62mm clips (good thing since you used up yours by the entrance). In the room with the suits there's a hidden door to the right. Further in you can take damage from electricity, heat or cold if you so choose. Using Electronics on the panel in the cooling chamber is bad, since it will fill the central hall with radiation (disintegrating the surrounding doors) unless you turn the pumps on again before leaving the room. There's nothing in the room with radioactive sludge, so don't go in there.

Go into the meditation rooms to the left and kill everyone. Beware that Radiation Angels leave a contaminated square behind when killed which hurts you when you step on it. To the right you have a hospital, a library, and Dr Mike Scot(t), a not so good NPC. You might as well kill him, he's got a higher experience value than any other NPC except for Vax.

Use 2 TNTs to blast open the security doors to the north, or if you have the Electronics skill that works too, even though it may take a few tries. Talk to Charmaine, tell her "faran brygo" sent you (if you say "fat freddy" they'll attack). Now you'll have go to Needles for the Bloodstaff if you didn't bring it already. When you present it to her, Charmaine will merely open a couple of doors. You can actually kill all the worshippers and still talk to Charmaine, but if you step on the square in front of her they'll really be pissed. If you bring her a fake Bloodstaff she'll get angry and you don't get another chance, but you can go and open the secret doors with a Sonic key anyway.

Go into the left-hand side of the complex and kill some Techies. One will set off a "nuke grenade" even if you kill him first, so send someone with a Rad suit in to take the loot. The secret door is on the bottom left; follow the passage past a hidden message to the top (another secret door here) and go down the ladder.

Sewers
Whack the nearby cyborgs (triggering the stupid trap) and grab 1 Power converter and 1 Servo motor. Use a Rope into the river to throw it across. Kill some more bots and grab 1 Rom board (you must empty the loot bag from the ambush to get this) and 1 Fusion cell. You can dig through the hollow wall to the south if you want (TNT or a high Strength will do it if you forgot your Shovel/Sledge hammer/Pick ax), but you'll get down there eventually anyway. Whatever you do, don't get swept away by the river; you'll be washed out onto the world map as well as catching Sewer rot.


 * ★ It's safe to rest (preferably using a macro) while standing on a rope or inside a dug tunnel.
 * ★ You can wade reasonably safely through the water in the first section (not the second) if your whole party has decent Swim. A trick is to throw a Rope across the river as far to the right as possible, walk onto it and step repeatedly into the current to the left; this will eventually raise your Swim to 4 (perhaps not very useful, but satisfying). You can raise it to 5 by stepping into the swift current in the tunnel and crossing over to the other sewer map, but then you will get Sewer rot. You cannot get back the same way.
 * ★ It's possible in the PC version to miss out on the Rom board from the ambush if the entire party fail their Perception checks. This triggers a bug where a "river" tile is created on your current square, sweeping you "downstream" and shuffling you into the wall to the right. This doesn't seem to happen in the other two versions.

Use another Rope by the chasm, this time on the square where you're standing (if you do it from the south side you must use the Rope on the middle square, or it is wasted). Should you fall down you have to disband your party to climb up one character at a time (you must use the Climb skill actively to scale the south wall). When you meet the Centron Deluxe Models, fire full auto a lot. Pick up another Servo motor. Beware that Tronnosaurus; it has six attacks and hits hard. As you progress through the sewers, also pick up laser weapons and use them to fire single shots at cyborgs (providing you raised Energy weapon to 1 in the library first) and you can easily go up a couple of skill levels. The wall to the southeast in this part of the sewers can be dug through. Leave the map to the far right.

A Cyborg has a Kevlar suit to be looted. A nearby cache with Power packs has a stupid trap on it, and one of the adjacent walls is loose. The unobvious way forward is in the top left corner. Pick up a Servo motor and a Chainsaw in the next area (avoid the river - Sewer rot, you know), and there's a stupid kind of spike trap that's unlikely to trigger unless you use any skill on that square. One group of Centrons and Cyclons on the right doesn't appear until you take the central upper route past the Boa Tronstrictor. Now it's time to dig again, in the north wall between the patches of river. In this section you'll find an Android head.

Return through your tunnel and find the next exit in the southeast corner. Another Tronnosaurus wants a whipping. Take its Rom board and Kevlar suit. Pick up another Servo motor nearby. Use a Sonic key on the door to open it, and finish off that last Hexborg to get a third Rom board.

Finally it's time to use all that electronic junk. From top to bottom, use on each of the four workstations:


 * 1 Android head, then 1 Rom board.
 * 1 Fusion cell, then 1 Power converter, then 1 Servo motor, then 1 Rom board.
 * 1 Servo motor.
 * 2 Servo motors.


 * ★ You may want to save before rebuilding the android, since there's a bug which causes the last unit to reset if you select "Prep for assembly" after applying only one Servo motor, effectively gobbling up a part without recording any progress. If this happens you can use the disk/file switching cheat to go and get more (here or in Quartz), but remember to back up your original files.

You must finish the last three stations before completing the assembly at the head. Max will awaken and reveal the location of the Sleeper Base as well as Base Cochise. The door you came from closes permanently shut, while an exit opens which will take you outside Las Vegas.

Sleeper Base
"All around you, set off behind thick crystalline walls, are the blurred outlines of monstrous suits of armor."You will find this base in the northeastern corner of the world map, scenically placed between the river and the mountains. Don't load up your inventories before going here, such as restocking clips after the sewers; there's quite a lot of stuff to carry away from the base. Go into the room on the left for a Secpass 1 and some clips. One cubicle in the lower row has a Secpass 3 in it. Go to the northeast room, use first the Secpass 1 and then the Secpass 3 to open the doors. Use Picklock on the cabinet. Then disband a character with high AGL or DEX as well as LK (if that wouldn't happen to be your lead character) and step into the bottom left corner of the room. If things go well you end up with 1-5 Power packs and maybe a Laser pistol. By the way, you can drop the Secpass 1 already.

In the lower right room (use Secpass 3 to enter) you can mercilessly whup some spiders who are ferociously guarding books, and enter a library where you can learn Clone tech. In the lower left room you'll find a Warbot dropping a loot bag with a Laser rifle in it along with random amounts of Power packs and. The enemies in this place are wimps, really.

Onwards to level 2. Use Secpass 3 for the next five doors. There are medical facilities charging you in post-apocalyptic dollars, as well as two "normal" libraries which teach Energy weapon and Cyborg tech. In the empty square room on the right you get to read a paragraph. The room on the top left is genuinely empty.


 * ★ From Andrew Schultz' walkthrough: "In level 2 of Sleeper Base, in the room above the morgue, on the east wall, one up from the bottom: 'Wanted for crimes against computer software, Nishan Hossepian, $5000 Dead or Alive.' (He drew up a lot of the graphics for this game.)" This message can be found in three more places around the map.

Skip by one door. Open the next using Secpass 3, then use Perception on the desk to retrieve a Secpass A (this is getting complicated). This card opens two doors on this level, to the computer console and to the clone laboratory, but for the moment you can do nothing there.

Go to level 3 and use Secpass 3 on the first door. Use Secpass A to enter the central room with a desk and chair in it. Using Picklock on the desk yields 1 Secpass 7 and 1 Power converter. Move next to the wall where the blue corridor starts and you should find a secret door which however cannot be opened yet. Use Secpass 7 to open the three doors on the left side of the map. The cabinet always has 1 Power pack in it. Continue up (Secpass A now, for some reason) and you'll find a computer with personnel notes which give some background to the game's plot.

Use Secpass 7 to open the door to the lower right, then apply your leftover Rom board from the sewers to the door to the helicopter simulator, which can now be opened with Secpass A. You'll have to disband a character to enter the simulator which functions as a one-skill library for the Helicopter pilot skill (you must also pass a DEX check when entering; just try until you make it if your score isn't stellar).

Now, station someone at the power computer in the northeast corner (Secpass 3) and send the others to the blue corridor. Turn power on and you can now use Secpass A to enter the corridor. The zigzag pattern on the floor shows that your crew will be zapped if you step on it, so shift to your lone character and turn power off (they must have synchronized their watches or something). Walk your party across the shiny floor, turn power on, open the door (Secpass 3). The next bit with only one trapped square may not look so dangerous, but it is, so repeat the procedure. When you've opened the last door (Secpass 3) you get to fight a few bots and open a door (moderate Picklock or Safecrack will do it). Your mighty reward: 1 Fusion cell and 1 Plasma coupler, none of which you need. Use the same trick to get out. That means we're all done with this level.

Back on level 2 you can open doors with the Secpass 7. The strongbox thingy contains Rad suits. The store to the right of the armoury contains... lots of guns and clips! And Jugs. One must not belittle the power of Jugs.


 * ★ Unless you're slightly deranged I wouldn't recommend going back and forth to a shop and selling off all the loot in the store. It's a lot of work and you simply don't need the cash. But if you're deranged I won't hold it against you. You see, I do it myself.

Enter the room to the northeast, use the Power converter on the console. Go to the room with the previously inoperable terminal and determine that the chemical levels need rebalancing. Use Clone tech on it, then choose "install manual outflow device". Use a Jug on the terminal and you get a Clone fluid in exchange. Take this to the room below, put it on the character you wish to clone, then disband that character and let him or her walk into one of the incubation chambers. Conveniently you get your Jug back. Since there are four chambers you can grow four clones at a time. After 2 days have passed you can return and recruit the clones providing you have room in your party (you get to enter a new name for them, too). A clone has the exact same rank, skills and attributes (even SKP) as the original at the time of incubation. It also inherits its behaviour from the original, i.e. you have no more control over a clone of an NPC than over the NPC itself.
 * ★ You can get a pretty powerful party by fleshing it out with clones of your best character, but it seems a bit iffy to me. Another interesting prospect involves playing with a solo character and creating six clones once you get to Sleeper; the rest of the game would be laughably easy.

The only place you (probably) cannot enter when you first get here is the armoury; for that you need a Secpass B from Darwin or the Citadel. To destroy the crystalline wall, use 4 TNTs in the same spot. Inside the room you will find:


 * 7 Pseudo-chitin armors
 * 25 Power packs
 * 1 Meson cannon
 * Random amounts of, LAW rockets and Sabot rockets

Darwin Village
"A steel balcony stops you. Beyond is Finster's mad vision of Earth transformed."Darwin should be approached from the north, because of the radiation, desert and all. It's not that big. There's a library, a doctor, and a general store where you can pick up one or two Fruits (hint hint).

Go into the tavern, buy a drink and chat with the bartender: "chat", "finster", "base", "plague", "isolate". Then say "drink" and buy another drink. He will tell you to investigate the base, and you'll get different paragraphs for all of the above topics, plus you can ask about "password", "metal maniac" and "brian the fist" (which gives the entry for Mad Dog Fargo).


 * ★ Brian the Fist is one of the default characters in The Bard's Tale and yet another name derived from producer Brian Fargo. Presumably it was used as a placeholder while deciding on a name for Mad Dog and then somehow never switched out.

If you walk into the room with people you can tell that they've been poisoned if you pass a Medic or Doctor check. Enter the building southwest of here, use a Chemical and a Fruit on the workbench (in whichever order, but nothing else in between or you lose what you already used) and you end up with an Antitoxin. Go back and use one Antitoxin on each poisoned guy to revive them. They're Mad Dog Fargo and Metal Maniac and they make worthy additions to your party. Since this is the only time you use Antitoxin, you only have to bring one of the Chemicals from Quartz if you got the Antitoxin in Vegas.

The password to the black market shop is "cretin" in the C64 and Apple II versions, "cretian" in the PC verson. After two failed attempts the thugs will attack. Step over their dead bodies and enter the shop, which has several nice items: Chainsaws, assault rifles, Rad suits and Kevlar suits. You can also buy a couple of Howitzer shells and carry back to Needles to practice your mortaring skills. Incidentally, all three indoor areas are free of random encounters.

Project Darwin
You enter the base between the brick walls on the south edge of the town map. To get inside you need a Secpass 7 from the Sleeper Base. You can open all the doors in here with that card, but there's nothing in the rooms. If you take the elevator to the upper level you can open more doors and talk to Finster, but it leads nowhere. To force a confrontation with him you must free his prisoners.

Returning to the lift, you'll discover it now offers to take you to the lower level. This will prompt you for a password, which is "proteus" (apart from the bartender this is scribbled in a room in Quartz, which is a bit far-fetched). Use a Crowbar, the Secpass 3 or something to open the prison door. A slightly different approach is to fail to give the correct password three times, whereupon you're placed in the jail cell yourselves (conveniently with all your stuff etc.). Use Agility or Dexterity to get free and open the door from the inside with the same result. Any non-bound party members can go and free the others and mock them.

You can also take the long way around. On the ground level, go to the strange teleportation thingy and enter Finster's landscaping project. Optionally use Climb to scale the hills and force open the hatches found inside the holes (a Sledge hammer or Crowbar works fine) to fight some "mutants". You can use TNT to seal the hatches before or after opening them, but this doesn't seem to do anything (possibly it decreases the frequency of random encounters ever so slightly). In the lower middle part there's a sort of valley where you can trigger an ambush by Spawn Wolves and Spawnmasters if anyone fails a Silent move check. One of the latter groups leaves behind a valuable loot bag containing 2 Laser carbines and 1 Pseudo-chitin armor, which would be your best armour yet unless you already went to the Citadel. At the far east side of the compound there's another slope leading directly into the lower level.

Anyway. Go back up to Finster and he'll throw a temper tantrum, so there's nothing for it, you have to kill him. Take his head. Go to the room on the right, give the head to your character with Cyborg tech (if you have one, although this skill isn't strictly necessary) and disband that character into the little room with a computer. Use the head there. As soon as you pass an easy Cyborg tech check or a hard IQ check (just stand on the mindlink and press Esc until it works), you hook up into a strange virtual reality...


 * ★ If for some reason you use the Android head from the sewers instead of Finster's head it blows up. You wouldn't ordinarily be carrying that at this point. If necessary, you can assemble Max using the head you get in the next part.

Mind maze
Now this is fun. It's completely wacky. It's brilliant. In the first room you can read some messages by moving about. You can also take the cowardly way out, but let's not. Enter the coloured thingy for a mathematical question. The first answer is "32", the second is "512".

In the next room there's a monster, the Night Terror. You don't have to fight it, and unless you have exceptional mêlée skills or can set up a macro I don't really recommend it; sure, it's worth 64,000 experience points (which translates to several ranks) if you beat it with the Proton ax, and it can't really hurt you if you're in Pseudo-chitin armor, but it does have on average 24,000 hit points as well.


 * ★ If you need to rest your champion up in the C64 version you can switch to your other party and have them walk around outdoors for a while. Should your character die in the mind maze, there's no way of getting them out, so you may want to quit right away. If you're playing the PC version, or if you didn't save to disk 1 before dying, close the program before the game can switch back to your other group and save the dead character. If you must, disk/file switching can be used to enter the maze with another character and retrieve the corpse (see the cheats section).

The next answer is "20" (see note below). Tricky, but if you get it wrong you'll be told the correct answer. In the room below you'll be teleported around. You need to visit three corners in succession - bottom left, top right, top left - after which Finster starts harassing you. Then use IQ, DEX or Acrobat on your current square repeatedly until you end up in the lower left corner (Acrobat doesn't work in one square on the right). Walk over to the exit. Type "finster" or "irwin finster" or "irwin j finster" or "irwin j. finster" to proceed. Kill a spider. Use ST, IQ, Confidence, Forgery or a Knife on the web to make it disappear (why not Bureaucracy?). The next answer is "nothing", "0" or "zero".


 * ★ Brian Hoyt cracked the mystery of the "20" question: "I realized that the numbers are the same as the dice used for D&D;. The mathematical justification could be that those are the increasing progression of numbers that can construct a regular 3D polygon. I'm not sure that this is the justification for the series, but it fits." Seeing that several of the game designers wrote RPG products as well I have little doubt that this is it.

Next, baseball. I don't pretend to know how the hell baseball works. Apparently it involves DEX and ST. You can hit a home run, which means you skip to the next part of the virtual challenge. You can strike out, in which case you end up in the showers. You can hit a single, in which case you can just step back and try again (seemingly a bug). Or you can hit a double or triple, in which case you move on to the next challenge if you make a Silent move check, or are gunned down and go to the showers if you don't. In the latter case, use Luck, Charisma, Confidence or Bureaucracy until the coach lets you out and you're transported across the chasm.

When you've come this far there's no going back! You can use Strength, TNT or a Sledge hammer on these webs after bumping them. You'll have to kill one Android before entering the enclosure from the upper right and finishing another. Step in the bottom left corner of the enclosure to open the way ahead. Go north, run towards the Finster and two more appear. Kill them all, take the Android head and answer the next question with "iceberg".

Next you're presented with a dilemma. It doesn't matter which way you go. You end up in a small room where you can bump the walls for little philosophical tidbits. Use IQ repeatedly to get out. Finster will get mad and try to fireball you (IQ or Perception lets you avoid the razor trap if used in the corridor five squares from the top), and you'll have to kill him one final time. Strangely enough you get a quite physical Secpass B to take away from the virtual experience.

Guardian Citadel
"This is a workbench that looks perfect for fixing all sorts of broken appliances, like toasters!"This is one of the first places you come across, but probably one of the last areas you'll tackle in the game. As you move close to the Citadel there will be hostiles on the battlements. If you're low-ranked, you can't hurt them and they can hurt you (the game even tells you as much). If you're high-ranked they'll probably run away instead, and you can happily shoot them down with rockets; one LAW rocket should be enough for each and you should have lots and lots even if you haven't been to Sleeper One. Luckily there are no random encounters in here.


 * ★ The weapons and armour warnings actually look for specific items: Pseudo-chitin armor, Power armor and the five energy weapons. Having even one of these items in your inventory, whether equipped or not, will cause the corresponding message not to be displayed. If you're toting Red Ryders and wearing the "NAME AC" for armour you'll get both.

Brother Goliath is another of those stationary critters that are excellent for target practice. You can raise Assault rifle and Energy weapon to 7 just by taking single shots at him from two squares' distance. For some reason I found it difficult to raise Brawling by pummelling him with things (and he hits back!), but a trick is to buy lots of Spears in Quartz and toss them at him, which will eventually raise Brawling to 7 as well. Kill him and take his Pulsar key when you're done.
 * ★ If you want to use Brother Goliath for early target practice, the closest you can get without being shot at is two paces east and two paces north from the top left flag. Note that you must earn a few ranks before you can raise your skills, and that you may be about as likely to jam your weapons as to actually hit him.

You can use TNT on the "weak" walls in the center, and get away with using only one charge if you blast a hole just west or south of the gates (bump the wall before exploding it), but use two TNTs on the gates instead to prompt the arrival of three more groups of monks. Go around and clean out the place. In the museum, use Picklock or a Crowbar on the display cases for a Quasar key, a Grazer bat fetish and a Broken toaster plus a bit of junk; using explosives, a Sledge hammer, an Ax or a Pick ax on a case destroys the contents except for the key. There are some monks skulking in the dining hall, and you get the Ion beamer from Brother Austin on the left. Safecrack will open the door to the armoury with guns and ammo. If you empty the bag with 2 Laser rifles, 1 Meson cannon and 12 Power packs you'll trigger a trap which will demolish the room when you move (destroying the other bag if it's still there). If you are very lucky you can prevent this with Bomb disarm for a couple of Plastic explosives, but it's better if it goes off since this causes more monks to show up.

The next part may be slightly easier if you take the door from the kitchen instead of going up the main hallway. Pick the doors to the cells and kill their inhabitants. One of them will leave a corpse behind when you've taken the loot bag. Use first Perception and then Bomb disarm or Demolitions on it, and if done right you end up with 1 Onyx ring and lots of Plastic explosives. If you fail your Perception roll or use the wrong skill you get the ring, but if you take it the charges go off.

Open the door to the shrine on the left, kill the priestesses, then use Perception on the triptych to gain a Blackstar key. In the slightly larger cell on the right someone will throw explosives at you which can do a bit of damage. In the top left room on this side of the map there's a brick type of wall, with a bomb trap in front of it (in the PC version the wall doesn't have the brick look). You can raise Perception if you step on the trap several times, but only until it goes off (boom!). In the northeast corner is the entrance to the jail where you'll find a Proton ax and Redhawk, a sucky NPC that you can safely ignore.

Go to the left of the main hall and check out the room on the upper right. Apart from a hostile librarian there's a shelf you can step on to enter a library that only teaches certain technical skills. In the upper dormitory you can fight a monk who then wants to strangle you (Strength and Pugilism checks here; the faster you defeat him, the more Power packs and cash you get). He guards a Nova key which you must have for later.

In the lower dormitory there's a trap, a few bags with Power packs and a note with a password. The stores don't have much interesting in them. Go out into the hall, take the door to the left of the portcullis, kill the monks, then use Strength (20 is recommended, but a middling score will do it given enough attempts) on the wheel to raise the portcullis.

On the third Citadel map, enter "rosebud" into the terminal to open the doors (enter something else and you are rewarded every third time with a mild electric shock). Each of the five loot bags contains one Power armor as well as some Power packs (as if you didn't have enough of those). Go down and to the left, shoot some people, and continue. Enter the room and use Perception on the desks to gain 1 Rope, 1 Secpass B and that password again.

Return the way you came and head right, killing people as you go. There are two things here: a helicopter and a toaster repair workstation. Bet you've been anticipating that the whole game through. If you've been thorough you'll have found such appliances in the Topekan tent, in the Quartz graveyard, and in the Guardian museum. Use a Broken toaster on the table, then Toaster repair, and you get some stuff and a useless Toaster. There are four sets of items:


 * 1) Plasma coupler, Fruits, Visa cards.
 * 2) Nova key, 1-4 Power packs.
 * 3) Pulsar key, Sledge hammer, 4 Power packs.
 * 4) 1-6 Plastic explosives, Engine, Snake squeezin.

The game doesn't discern between different Broken toasters, i.e. you get the first set of items for the first one whichever you use and so on. Thus you need four toasters to get all four sets of items, and you'll only get the first three in a regular game. How do you stick an engine in a toaster anyway?


 * ★ Unused code strongly suggests that a fourth Broken toaster was meant to be found on some monster in the Las Vegas sewers, but it never made it into the game. This would seem to solve the old mystery of the missing toaster. Previous theories have included the idea that the mismatch was a nod to players who had figured out the disk switching cheat, or that it was simply a result of miscommunication between area designers.

Open a hole in the fence with TNT or any kind of axe. You need someone with the Helicopter pilot skill to get anywhere. Use the skill on the chopper to unlock the pilot seat, then you can take off (pressing Esc if you don't want to go). Going to Savage Village, Quartz, Needles, Las Vegas or Sleeper Base will just deposit you on the world map next to these places. Going to Cochise, however, will fly you into the location and may actually have an effect on the place. This is continued in that section.
 * ★ The helicopter can only be used once, after that it will be gone. There's also a slim chance you'll fail your skill check and crash the helicopter, in which case you don't get to go anywhere (save before trying). If you want to fight the Cochise perimeter bots for fun and experience, I suppose the best use for the helicopter is to fly to Quartz or something to unload stuff in the shop.
 * ★ As pointed out by Ken Stone, if you take the helicopter to Base Cochise after winning the game, it will be as if the base had never been destroyed; this will also open the base up on the world map so you can leave and re-enter at will.
 * ★ If Sleeper and Cochise are not on your world map (which could be the case if you've been using the disk swapping cheat or the restart function), you can still choose these destinations. Going to Sleeper will not put your destination on the map, but going to Base Cochise will.
 * ★ If the helicopter is already at Cochise, flying there again (which requires extensive file/disk swapping) will just deposit you on the world map next to the base.

Base Cochise
"My mission? To repopulate the Earth with pure life once my minions have exterminated all other life. I will win."This place is located at the top left corner of the world map and doesn't appear until you talk to Max. The only items you really must bring are the four keys from the Citadel plus either a Secpass B or a Rope. You may want to bring a Rad suit, but it's not strictly necessary.

There are several groups of robots outside the base, some of which guard machine parts; grab the Plasma coupler if you don't have one and ignore the rest (though you could grab a Rom board, a Power converter or a Servo motor in case you desperately need them for unfinished business - say, if Laurie is still tapping her fingers and looking at her watch back in Quartz). Use Climb to get up on the roof (throwing a Rope will facilitate this, but it'll disappear) where you can fight more robots. If you arrived in the helicopter you'll start out on the roof, and if this is your first visit to the base, all robots except for two groups will be gone already and their loot lying about (it must have been very frightening when that chopper came roaring in and crashed on the roof). If you had already entered the map before, taking the helicopter puts you on the dome but doesn't kill the bots.

There are two ways to enter the base: either use Picklock, TNT, a Crowbar, a Pick ax or a Sledge hammer on the outer gates and a Secpass B on the inner ones, or use TNT on one of the weapon pods on the roof and then lower down a Rope. You end up in a hall with two moving walkways going up and down. If you got in using a rope, use Climb on it to get back up again.


 * ★ If you want to earn experience, you can equip your party with Chainsaws/Proton axes, open one of the inner doors on the outside map and stand behind the other. You can then wait for random encounters which will pop up within whupping range. Beware however that the Chopters on this map cannot be hit with mêlée weapons, so keep some backup weaponry handy. This is related to a bug in their creature definition which leaves them unable to attack unless they are at 10' distance - if they're at 14' they'll just stand there trying to enter the square you're in.
 * ★ There will never be more than three groups of random monsters on the outside map at the same time. If you lead such groups to one side of the map, hop into the desert and repeat until you have three groups standing around where they can't see you, you'll effectively be free of random encounters entirely on this map.

Go north and talk to the computer: "chat", "finster", "mission", "base cochise" are valid topics. After you pick the last one, there'll be new messages for "mission" and "base cochise". If you type "break" you'll fall down a chute and may be in trouble if you didn't bring a Rad suit, so don't do that (yet). Instead locate one of the hollow panels at either end of the gallery, force open the hollow wall with a Crowbar and slide down (both exits take you to the same place).

Use Picklock to open the doors here. The forcefield will take you back up, the ladder will take you to the next level. Let's explore this one first. Round the corner and fire full auto on the Xenon Laser Cannons. Use the terminal to extend the bridge and cross.


 * ★ Stepping into the moat without wearing a Rad suit will have different effects depending on where you do it. Crossing the retracted bridge or walking on the edge of the contaminated area incurs little or no damage if you're wearing Power armor. The rows exactly one pace in from the edges, however, deal about 20 points of damage per step regardless of armour.

In the room with machinery, go to the nearest terminal on the left and type "run". You'll get to choose a robot type. The first two will just attack you, but the admin type is actually an NPC named Vax, and a good one (comes fully equipped as well). You can use Picklock or a Sledge hammer and then a Crowbar, Sledge hammer or Pick ax on all the other terminals to open and smash them. Four of them will decrease the number of robot varieties that appear in random encounters on this level (though they aren't removed strictly in order from hardest to weakest). Or you can take a Crowbar, Sledge hammer or Pick ax to the security cameras; the ones facing upwards, of which there are five, instead add encounter types (potentially attracting random Octotrons and Xenon Laser Cannons). The corridor is initially free of encounters, but smashing a camera enables random encounters in the squares around it.

If you follow the twists and turns you'll come to a roomful of Octotrons guarding a stash of 2 Power armors, lots of rockets (take five or six if you don't have any explosives) and Power packs. Two more Octotrons can be fought a little further down the corridor if your party has at least three members when you approach, and if you didn't smash the camera at the top of the vertical stretch; a lone Silver Strangler around the next bend pops up only if you send forth a single Ranger, and if you didn't smash the camera between the two doors.

Now that you've extended the bridge, go back up and say "break" to the computer. You'll end up back on the Octotron map, in one of the empty rooms at the bottom. Just patiently go all the way back to the entrance level and there will be new robots positioned near the computer, leaving loot bags with rockets and Power packs behind. Each of the hollow walls will also harbour Laser Pod Blasters. When you've blown them away you have to use TNT to open one of the passages up again. The computer won't want to chat any more, and the new tunnel just leads to the same place.

Climb down the ladder. You'll face four rather simple challenges which involve reaching a console to open the next door. In the first, just disband a character with good Climb and Agility to cross the pipes (everyone will take damage if you bring the whole party, but Power armor will absorb it anyway). This can raise Climb to 4 if you didn't already. In the second room just move forward and avoid the mines that will pop up if you have a half-decent Perception skill and step on the proper squares. As you continue down you'll find some robots.
 * ★ You can rest safely in any of the first three challenge rooms, and in the ladder room on the next level.

In the third room you'll need high Luck to avoid taking quite a lot of damage. The fourth room is the toughest, a "combat simulator" (what's so simulated about it?) with twelve Xenon Laser Cannons. Burn those Power packs, they don't get much tougher than this. If you're not looking for trouble you can get away with fighting only two groups by hugging either wall on your way to the console. Take the ladder down.

Open the door with your Secpass B or Plastic explosives. Kill the sentries and use Plastic explosives to open the other four doors, despite them having card slots and all. Start by going to the upper left room, but take care, there's radiation all over the place. The safe path from the entrance is 2e, 4n, e, n, 4e to the glass wall and 4w, 2n, 3e, 2n, 3w, 2n, e from the entrance to the cylinder. If it's between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. you can navigate safely to where you need to go. Blow away the glass wall (Plastic explosives or a rocket) and use a Plasma coupler on the machinery. This will open the small room in the corner; go in there and use the Blackstar key on the cylinder.
 * ★ Uranium hurts for about 7 points of damage each step, wastelandium twice as much. The plutonium dust deals no damage to characters wearing any decent armour.

The northeast room holds manufacturing facilities designed to pump out robots faster than a party of adventurers can kill them, which is pretty fast. Use a Crowbar or just about anything else on the machinery at the top to stop the conveyor belt from shuffling you around (if you get grabbed, Acrobat helps you jump off and can increase to 4). This also turns off random encounters on this level entirely. Use the Nova key on the cylinder.

In the bottom right room with electronic devices there are four interactive terminals. The upper right console determines the frequency of encounters on this level. Successfully using Electronics or Alarm disarm on it won't lower the encounter rate very much since it's pretty low to begin with. If you want to increase the encounter rate (use IQ or LK instead of Electronics) you'll have to fail quite a number of times before the difference becomes noticeable. The upper middle console controls what kinds of enemies you'll face: each of the eleven plates represents one variety. Turn all of them off (Electronics, Alarm disarm) and you'll only face relatively weak Laser Pod Blasters; instead turn them on (IQ, LK) and you'll face upgraded Threshing Crawlers, Xenon Laser Cannons and fearsome bands of Fusion Octotrons! The terminal on the left controls the machines in the factory; using Electronics successfully here will let you ride the belt without taking damage, but it doesn't allow you to reach the corner, nor does it stop robots from being made. Below the lower middle console you can raise Perception and Cryptology by noticing a sign. After you've installed the Plasma coupler this console becomes operable; its function is described below. Use a Pulsar key in this corner.

Finally go to the lower left room. If you're lucky you can raise Brawling (or Pugilism) to 8 by wrestling robots, or if you're not so good at that you'll have to fight Silver Stranglers. Whack the Fusion Octotron and use the Quasar key on the cylinder in the corner.

Once you press a key to initiate self-destruction, the small rooms will close. This means you need to divide your party into four groups, sending one into each room. Next you'll be prompted for a colour sequence; you must get the order of rooms and colours right:


 * 1) Northwest, red.
 * 2) Southeast, yellow.
 * 3) Southwest, green.
 * 4) Northeast, blue.


 * ★ How to figure this out? Well, you were given a number for each cylinder when you activated them (the keys can only be used in one order). When you've used all the keys the message "#1342-666" pops up. The first four digits represent the order in which each cylinder must be used. The colours simply go in the order they're presented.
 * ★ After the cylinders close, you can open them up again by tampering with the cylinder closing system in the computer room. Successful use of Electronics causes all four cylinders to open without aborting the code sequence, so you can enter the full code using the same group (meaning you can beat the game using only two characters). Starting over with the code closes the cylinders again, but you can use the system repeatedly until you fail your skill check; when this happens the squares go black and the terminal can't be used again (which is a bug), though you do get another chance at raising Perception and Cryptology (which is a corollary bug).

Enter the code correctly and the cylinders will open. You have exactly one hour before the place blows, with one minute passing for every four steps taken. Move your parties together as quickly as you can, since time passes for everyone while one group moves. It is possible to make it by taking the long way back, but you'll notice an escape pod appearing above the place where you entered this level. Use it and you end up beside the big mean computer. You can then leave through the main gate, or climb the rope if there is one. (There's something that looks like a chute on the right side of the computer room, but it just acts as a regular wall if bumped and cannot be opened.) If you run into opposition, be aware that time will pass during combat, each round equalling one step.
 * ★ Be careful when leaving the base. Remember that the game is saved every time you move to a new map, so if you take too long you may end up in a situation where you cannot possibly make it out in time. Using save state or making a backup at an early stage may be prudent. If you lose your entire party this way you won't get to keep playing from your last save after rebooting, your characters will simply be gone. (In the C64 version I'd recommend you refuse to insert disk 1 when the game innocently asks you to.)

If you make it out, you get to read a few messages and see some nice graphics. You can now keep playing the game if you like. Radio Ranger Center and you'll get 10 character points and 10 MAXCON in addition to any ranks you may have gained normally. And if you didn't make it out... well, you still get to see some graphics. :)

NPCs
"The woman spits on the ground but joins you."Information and hints on NPCs include:


 * NPCs differ from regular PCs in two significant ways. One is that you don't get to decide which group they will target in combat, or whether they'll fire single, burst or auto. The other is that they'll sometimes refuse to trade away equipment or perform an action. If they do, just try again (so this feature is more of an annoyance than anything else, with the exception of Redhawk). Over time they become less prone to rebellion.
 * If you fail to hire an NPC, just try again. I've never seen an NPC resist more than one recruiting attempt.
 * When you disband an NPC permanently, make sure you use the pool cash command on someone else first. If you used the NPC as a mule and sold stuff to a shop there's a chance he or she is still carrying the cash.
 * You can save the game (save state in an emulated game) to recruit and evaluate a new NPC if you already have all slots filled. If they suck, reload.
 * The rank of a new NPC is pretty irrelevant. An NPC like Redhawk who needs special treatment until he can realize his potential for fast initial advancement isn't better than a higher-ranked NPC like Covenant who pulls his weight from the beginning.
 * Even sucky NPCs have at least one use, as mules. You can also disband them from your main party and use them as decoys to draw enemy fire.
 * NPCs don't leave loot bags if killed. As a rule they also give very little experience, and have much less MAXCON if you fight them instead of recruit them; exceptions to the latter are Christina, Mort and the doctor who have much more.
 * You can get most of the best NPCs pretty early in the game if you want to, if you know what you're doing anyway. Once you've got 2 Chemicals from Quartz you can go to Darwin and get Mad Dog Fargo and Metal Maniac, and for Covenant you just have to dodge into Las Vegas and push a button. However, you shouldn't do this until your PCs have reached rank 5 or so, or you risk your NPCs sucking up all the experience and preventing your PCs from catching up.
 * It's possible to delete all your PCs in the Ranger Center and keep playing with an NPC-only party, if for some reason you'd want to do that. Reportedly fights become much tougher when you can't select firing modes.

Here are the candidates for Rangerhood:

Jackie: Found in the cave in Highpool. Rank: Private (1).

Skills: Knife fight 1, Brawling 1, Pugilism 1, Swim 1, Perception 1, Silent move 1.

Rating: Argh.

Dan Citrine: Found in the Courthouse in Quartz. May have a strange effect on the game if allowed to lead your party (see the cheats list in Addenda). Rank: Private 1st Class (2).

Skills: Clip pistol 1, Knife fight 1, Pugilism 2, Swim 1, AT weapon 1, Gamble 2, Confidence 1.

Rating: Yech. Drop him after you get the cash stash.

Mayor Pedros: Found in the Courthouse in Quartz. Rank: Private 1st Class (2).

Skills: Brawling 2, Clip pistol 2, Pugilism 2, Swim 1, Assault rifle 1, Acrobat 2, Confidence 3, Bureaucracy 3.

Rating: Tons better than Dan Citrine or Felicia. Still, urrgh.

Ace: Found in the hideout in Quartz. Rank: Specialist (3).

Skills: Brawling 2, Climb 2, Clip pistol 2, Pugilism 2, Rifle 2, Swim 1, SMG 1, Silent move 1, Demolitions 2.

Rating: Now we're talking. Give him Assault rifle and AT weapon and you have a decent fighter/mule... but there are better choices.

Felicia: Found in the hideout in Quartz. Rank: Private 1st Class (2).

Skills: Climb 2, Clip pistol 1, Knife fight 1, Swim 2, Picklock 2, Forgery 2.

Rating: Gaah.

Christina: Found in downtown Needles. Carries good stuff when you meet her. Reportedly she likes to fire full auto a lot. Rank: Senior Specialist (4).

Skills: Brawling 3, Climb 2, Clip pistol 3, Rifle 2, Knife throw 2, SMG 3, Assault rifle 3, AT weapon 2, Silent move 3, Alarm disarm 3.

Rating: Intriguing array of combat skills. She's not too bad, but probably not on a par with your PCs when you find her.

Mort: Found in the Needles police station. Rank: Senior Specialist (4).

Skills: Brawling 1, Confidence 3, Bureaucracy 2, Gamble 2.

Rating: Horrible skills. Sure, you can buy Brawling 2 and Assault rifle 2 with the points he already has, but there's just no reason to have him.

Ralf: Found in the Temple of Blood in Needles. Rank: Specialist (3).

Skills: Brawling 2, Knife fight 1, Clip pistol 1, Swim 1.

Rating: Urrk.

Covenant: Found in the jail in Las Vegas. Rank: Grenadier Major (10).

Skills: Brawling 3, Climb 4, Clip pistol 4, Rifle 4, Assault rifle 5, AT weapon 3, SMG 3, Silent move 3, Medic 4.

Rating: The first NPC that you could never be wrong to include in your party. Overall good stats and skills.

Dr. Mike Scot: Found in the temple in Las Vegas. Rank: Corporal (5).

Skills: Knife fight 1, Knife throw 3, Perception 2, Gamble 4, Confidence 2, Forgery 2, Bureaucracy 5, Doctor 5.

Rating: Good IQ, but he lacks the basic skill assortment, and his other attributes aren't too great. Hold out for something better.

Mad Dog Fargo: Found in the bar in Darwin. Rank: Lance Corporal (6).

Skills: Clip pistol 2, Pugilism 3, Swim 2, Perception 3, Assault rifle 4, AT weapon 1, SMG 1, Gamble 2, Picklock 2, Silent move 1.

Rating: Very good stats and skills all round. Needs Brawling.

Metal Maniac: Found in the bar in Darwin. Rank: Command Corporal (7).

Skills: Brawling 2, Climb 1, Perception 3, AT weapon 3, SMG 3, Bomb disarm 1, Safecrack 1, Cryptology 1, Metallurgy 4, Electronics 2.

Rating: Very good. Needs Assault rifle. Electronics might come in handy.

Redhawk: Found in a cell in the Citadel. Will never trade anything away while conscious. If you want something he's carrying, sell his Canteen if he has one (and if he asks you why, just smile slyly), then drag him through the desert for a spell. Rank: Private (1).

Skills: Brawling 2, Climb 3, Perception 4, Knife fight 3, Knife throw 4, Swim 2.

Rating: Eurgh.

Vax: Found in Base Cochise. Carries Power armor, Pseudo-chitin armor, a Laser rifle and lots of Power packs. Rank: Corporal (5).

Skills: Electronics 5, Toaster repair 10, Doctor 4, Clone tech 3, Energy weapon 5, Cyborg tech 3.

Rating: Easily the best NPC, and probably better than your regular PCs if you didn't spend extra time gaining ranks. However, would you really want to drop one of your other dear NPCs at this point? And if your party isn't full, isn't it because you weren't looking to fill it anyway?

Combat
"Farmers cheer nearby. Murdering the cute little animals has rescued their major food supply."

General

 * All experience for a monster is awarded to the character that deals the killing blow.
 * You get double experience for any monsters you kill in close combat, whether with fists or mêlée weapons.
 * At the beginning of the game it'll be a little while before you gain skill levels for free, so you may want to start with 2 in the combat skills you expect to use a lot early on. As previously noted, you always want to start with Brawling 2. If you need to raise a combat skill to level 2, go to the rail nomads. If you need to raise it to level 3, go to the Temple of Blood and fight random bots.
 * Your number of mêlée attacks per round is equal to 1+Brawling/2 rounded down. This goes even if you're fighting with your fists (in which case Pugilism is used to determine chance to hit and damage).
 * Close combat damage increases with weapon skill, ranged damage doesn't.
 * Only four groups of monsters can be active in combat at the same time.
 * Monsters can run diagonally and you can't. Deal with it. They have unlimited ammo, too (but at least they don't use up those clips you'll be picking up later).
 * Two squares which touch corners are considered adjacent.
 * Every point of AC is significant, shaving off a die's worth of damage (applied after preliminary weapon damage has been determined). Getting those Leather jackets or Bullet proof shirts as soon as possible will help you in the beginning. After you get Power armor you won't be hurt a lot by anything except at Base Cochise.
 * Put your best armour on your best medic.
 * If your entire party is unconscious or worse, combat will end and time will pass until someone wakes up or everyone is dead. Those wasteland monsters are so very sporting! Even most traps and hazards (such as the blazing desert) ignore those who are at UNC or worse.

Damage and healing

 * A character that is unconscious (UNC) will heal back to a positive CON, and faster than the usual healing rate. In fact, this can happen so fast that PCs revive and get knocked out several times during the same battle.
 * This coupled with the fact that monsters don't finish off unconscious party members can easily lead to a very weird form of area conquest which relies on your entire party constantly hovering around the edge of consciousness. Monsters will knock your PCs out but never quite finish them off, until you eventually wear the opposition down. Retreating to the world map and resting up just isn't worth it, because those points will just be quickly lost again and not heal up as fast as the "negative" CON points.
 * However, it can happen that you face so many quick opponents that your conscious party members will always be knocked out before they can do anything like reload, fight back or run away, in which case you may have to admit defeat.
 * A character that is wounded (SER, CRT, MRT, COM) will just get worse. If everyone is at SER or worse you lose the game.
 * With Medic you can only reliably help someone who's at SER or CRT, though it's possible to treat someone at MRT if you keep at it (high IQ helps, as does having a macro). Doctor lets you help anyone with relative ease.
 * If early in the game you have more than one wounded PC, heal the least wounded one first. Time doesn't pass while you use healing skills, and this way you have a chance of raising your skill level to deal with more severe cases. Obviously, you must have gained at least one rank.
 * You can use healing skills during combat.
 * A diseased character will not heal. Being at UNC and diseased counts as being wounded for the purposes of losing the game. Diseases can only be treated in a hospital.
 * Desert dust and Rabies are the only diseases that actually keep inflicting damage, but you can use medical skills to keep them in check until you reach a doctor.

Tactics and behaviour

 * A burst attack uses up 3 rounds of ammo and can damage more than one monster in the same subgroup. An auto-fire attack uses up the remainder of the clip (4 rounds required) and damages all monsters in all groups in a square; the more bullets fired, the greater the hurt.
 * Grenades, TNT and Plastic explosives damage all monsters in a square. Rockets and Flamethrowers only damage one target.
 * Attacking with explosives replaces the weapon in the character's equipped item slot if they have another one, attacking with throwing weapons or rockets doesn't.
 * Obviously you should divide your attacks when facing multiple groups or subgroups, unless there is an enemy or subgroup that is particularly dangerous and must be finished off at all costs.
 * There are two exceptions to the above. Firstly, when you have several PCs auto-firing a group, have them all target the strongest component of that group. If the targeted subgroup is gone by the time a character gets to fire, he or she does nothing that round.
 * Secondly, if you have reason to think your whole party might fall unconscious or combat might end for some other reason, nullifying any damage inflicted on monsters (see below), you should focus on a single group hoping to deal lethal damage.
 * If you walk around with a ranged weapon equipped and loaded, you'll automatically initiate combat with hostile critters as they come into view. If neither you nor the monsters have ranged weapons, however, combat will only begin when you step next to them. Since monsters never move outside of combat, this means you can sometimes sneak through hostile territory more efficiently if you unequip any ranged weapons.
 * NPCs may fire wilfully at other critters than those who initated combat, turning them hostile. This can be bad if that's another NPC you wanted to recruit.
 * Monsters cannot pass tiles that contain loot bags, messages, radiation, skill checks etc., or which are otherwise flagged as monster-free. If trying to move towards you into such a square they'll get stuck; even if equipped with ranged attacks, they'll just stand there instead of firing.
 * Multi-monster groups with both ranged and mêlée attacks will always run at you.
 * Monsters always go for the closest group. They disregard groups with no conscious members, but such groups can still prevent them from moving within range of your other characters. This way NPCs can be used as decoys and barriers while your PCs stand farther back, sniping.
 * Monsters with ranged weapons may target (or spray) unconscious party members in the group they're attacking, but in that case will always miss. Monsters with mêlée attacks always target conscious characters.
 * Monsters have no recollection of damage outside of combat. Thus you cannot hope to defeat a tough enemy by inflicting small amounts of damage and running away (or falling unconscious) in between, and also any critters that run away and manage to end the fight will have to be worn down all over again. Since monster hit points are randomized for each battle it is possible to find yourself in an easier fight next time, although there is no way to know in advance.
 * Consequently you can end up in strange situations like firing rockets at a charging Tronnosaurus, and ending combat even if you don't kill it because you're no longer readying ranged weapons - resulting in a fully healed cyborg no longer interested in fighting you. In such a case you may want to save and repeat until you get an outcome that doesn't involve a total waste of resources.
 * Monsters will sometimes run away if you damage them too much, if they can't hurt you, or if you're just too scary. If you don't have ranged weapons you'll have to run after them and corner them (at which point they'll fight back). If you end combat and then come across the same critters, they'll run at you again if their previous retreat was just the result of lack of hit points. You may also witness monsters floundering back and forth as you first hurt them, then "reset" their hit points by inflicting enough damage to kill one of them off, then start wearing them down again and so on.
 * Fleeing monsters never run off the edge of a map.
 * Animals don't seem to run away. Neither do robots with ranged attacks, while those with mêlée attacks sometimes do.
 * If you run from a group of monsters spawned in a random encounter, they will remain in place even if you leave the map and return.

Weapons

 * Reloading a weapon eats up all the ammo that was in the weapon. You can tell a character to reload a full weapon, which effectively disintegrates a clip.
 * Weapons bought in a shop are always fully loaded.
 * Unjamming a weapon in combat automatically reloads it if you have a spare clip.
 * Any unloaded gun can be used as a decent mêlée weapon. The gun's associated skill helps with this, i.e. having a high Rifle skill will let you whack someone harder with an M19 rifle.
 * In fact, you can do some damage with any item (like a key) providing your Strength and Brawling are good enough.
 * If you find a weapon you're not going to keep you can still use up the ammo in it first. Sadly you can't scrounge Power packs from Laser pistols and the like.
 * Although the 45 pistol does an extra die of damage compared to the 9mm pistol, it's not really worth it considering the minimal clips (this is sort of an academic question anyway).
 * If you're using Brawling, get Chainsaws for everyone that doesn't have a Chainsaw or a Proton ax when you get to Darwin (and remember, you can actually go there pretty early in the game).
 * The Flamethrower cannot be reloaded unless you sell it to a shop and buy it again. You could say it costs $1500 to reload. Jamming a Flamethrower is no fun. Use of the Flamethrower isn't governed by any weapon skill.
 * The Spear is really a Brawling weapon and not an AT weapon, even though its function is identical to the latter category. It's possible to jam a Spear!
 * AT weapons ignore armour.
 * Use up Manglers and Grenades before you get to Las Vegas. Use up Sabot rockets before you get to the Citadel. Use up LAW rockets before you get to Base Cochise. In fact, Cochise will probably be easier if you forget about rockets entirely, simply because auto-firing with energy weapons is more effective.
 * You can fail critically with a rocket or a demolition charge, in which case it says your weapon fails to detonate. This seems to be no worse than a normal miss, though.
 * Power packs are limited in number; then again, once you finish the Sleeper Base and Citadel (primarily using assault rifles and/or rockets) you'll probably have more of them than you can carry on several journeys across the desert to Base Cochise.
 * The Meson cannons are very good for firing single shots, the damage approaching that of a good rocket. For firing full auto, however, you'll want to equip your people with Laser rifles and the Ion beamer instead, the clip sizes of these weapons resulting in greater total damage.

Items
"Who wants loot?"Armour:


 * ★ The Rad suit protects you from being irradiated or damaged when you step on a contaminated square.

Weapons (listed by type and approximate order of badness):


 * ★ The damage value represents the number of dice thrown. For guns, the value after the slash is used when fighting with an unloaded weapon.

Ammo: Items which have general or plentiful use:


 * ★ The standard advice is to keep a Canteen on each character to prevent heatstroke. However, you never really have to go out in the desert except when going to Base Cochise, and even then you can take the helicopter. By selling off your Canteens in Highpool you free up 4 inventory spaces, and you can always buy them back if you ever want to walk to or from Base Cochise.
 * ★ Crowbars, Pick axes, Shovels and Sledge hammers can also be used as inferior mêlée weapons doing 3 dice of damage but having no associated skill. Other non-weapons have a single damage die.

Items which have one-time or one-place use (unless otherwise noted): Items which have no use:

Creatures
"She's beautiful, and she glows."These lists are known to be correct for the C64 and Apple II versions. One difference in the PC version is that the female pics from disks 2 and 3 have essentially been swapped around as concerns their looks. I haven't verified that all the experience numbers are the same, but I know of only one instance where there's a confirmed difference, the Rabid Dog in Highpool (the experience value after the slash is the PC one).

The hit point value given here is in fact a seed used to randomly determine actual hit points. For monsters with a value no higher than 255, which is almost all of them, the true number of hit points will range from 25-125% (averaging 75%) of the listed value. For the handful with values in the range of 260-390, true hit points will typically be 10-25% higher and less random, while the significantly tougher monsters (the Finster Leviathan and the Night Terror) work similarly to the ordinary ones.

You'll notice that a monster's experience value is always a multiple of its hit points; this multiple divided by two, rounding up, equals its AC (works the same as for PCs) and also its challenge level, the number that defines how high your attack skills can rise when fighting the monster.

Disk 1
Kid: Wolflike dog: Rodent: Lizard: Revolver guy: Harry the Bunny Master: Rifleman (also disk 2): Mutant: Smiling woman:

Disk 2
Chain biker: Ghoul: Switchblade punk: Shotgun thug: Bum: Mastiff: Pony-tail woman: Beard guy (also disk 3): Moustached revolverman: Triplet: Ugly John: Worm: Christina: Policedroid (also disk 4): Riflebot: Blood priest:

Disk 3
Turretbot: Sitting guy: Spiderbot: Pistol guy: Glowing woman: Woman: Cigarette guy: Gambler: Prostitute: Fat Freddy: Scorpitron: Cycle cyborg: Insects: Robed guy: Crime boss: Hooded glowering guy: Charmaine: Goggled cyborg: Mech: Revolver nun: Praying nun: Smiling monk: Visa monk: Leather nun:

Disk 4
Moustache guy: Uzi bandit: Sitting ghoul: Wolf: Rocketbot: Spider: Cannonbot: Tankbot: Hovering clawbot: Chubby android: Finster android: Another Finster version: Red flamerbot: Thresherbot: Pincerbot: Octotron: Vax:

Addenda
"You've walked into a cactus. The spines poke holes in you."Miscellaneous stuff.

Paragraphs
One noteworthy thing about the fake entries in the paragraph book is that almost every one that doesn't just contain some codeword has something in it which is very hard to take seriously. While it makes sense that the purpose of these paragraphs should be to obscure the real ones and not to actively trick the player, it could also be seen as a missed opportunity to instill a sense of uncertainty in the casual paragraph book reader/glimpser. I wonder if it hadn't been possible to skip the false ones and incorporate most of the real ones into the game, if the book wasn't just intended as a crude form of anti-piracy device. I suppose one point is that you don't have to note down important numbers and passwords yourself, and they probably had great fun writing it. After you've finished the game you should definitely read the book.

Proper entries: 2, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17, 20, 21, 23, 26, 28, 29, 30, 32, 34, 35, 37, 39, 40, 41, 43, 46, 47, 49, 52, 53, 54, 56, 57, 60, 61, 63, 65, 66, 69, 70, 71, 76, 77, 79, 80, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 90, 91, 96, 99, 100, 101, 103, 104, 107, 109, 110, 111, 112, 114, 117, 118, 119, 121, 124, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 136, 137, 139, 140, 141, 146, 147, 148, 150, 152, 155, 156, 158, 160, 162.

Fake entries (including a few Martian entries which do not fit directly into that story): 4, 5, 8, 9, 12, 13, 16, 18, 19, 24, 25, 27, 31, 33, 36, 38, 44, 45, 48, 50, 51, 67, 68, 73, 75, 87, 92, 93, 94, 95, 98, 113, 122, 123, 131, 132, 143, 144, 149, 154, 159, 161.

Why-the-heck-are-you-reading-this entries: 1, 22, 145.

The "Martian chronicles" fake entries (including a double-fake entry!): 42, 55, 58, 59, 62, 64, 72, 74, 78, 81, 82, 89, 97, 102, 105, 106, 108, 115, 116, 120, 125, 133, 134, 135, 138, 142, 151, 153, 157.

Diseases

 * 1) Radiation poisoning (all over)
 * 2) Wasteland Herpes (Needles, Vegas)
 * 3) Bug byte (Quartz, Vegas)
 * 4) Sewer rot (Vegas)
 * 5) Desert dust (Savage, Quartz, Vegas)
 * 6) Rabies (Quartz, Vegas)

Ranks
The designations of the ranks from 1 to 30 are: The Wasteland Ranger HQ-Grid has the complete list if you want it.

How to finish the game in one hour (if you hurry up)
This time frame assumes you're playing on the PC, that you've finished the game at least once before and that you're familiar with the specifics of traversing each area. I'll be skimming over some inventory and character micromanagement as well as alternative sources of equipment and experience.

Create a band of Rangers that don't overly suck: IQ 15+, decent LK and DEX, Assault rifle 2, AT weapon 2, Medic 1, one character with Picklock, Safecrack and Perception, one with Bomb disarm. Go to the Savage Village and get assault rifles and rockets. Pop into Needles to raid the ammo bunker for some TNT and clips. Sell all your excess items and buy 7.62mm clips and Kevlar suits in Darwin. Also pick up a Shovel for the sewers. Go to Las Vegas and kill robots using full auto to collect some LAW rockets and, but avoid the Scorpitron. Get a Sonic key, fill up on clips in the temple, enter the sewers and kill things to gather the machine parts. Hoard the Laser carbine and any Power packs you find. Return to the temple to rest up whenever necessary; the huge band of Cyborgs outside the assembly room is especially difficult, so try out the carbine on them. Put Max together and leave. Hopefully you'll have earned enough ranks to raise IQ to 23 and buy Doctor and Energy weapon for all.

Now head down to the Citadel and approach in the centre. Kill Brother David and the nuns with assault rifles and Brother Goliath with rockets. Take the Pulsar key. Blast a hole in the wall by the gates and go left. Kill the monks and nuns with rockets and/or the Laser carbine and/or assault rifles, open the armoury and equip two characters with Laser rifles; from here on you can kill your enemies easily. Move to the next map, keeping to the left, and open the portcullis (use a macro if you have no really strong character). Pick up Power armor for everyone. Kill some people for the Secpass B before going back. Search all the cots for Power packs and the Nova key, then get the Blackstar key. Back on the first map, get the Quasar key from the museum and the Ion beamer from the doctor. Ditch your assault rifles and clips, grab all the ammo you can carry, then head off to Cochise.

This part may actually be easier than the sewers or the Citadel. Get the Plasma coupler on the left side, firing full auto at anything that looks even remotely threatening. Use TNT and your Secpass B to enter, then skip by the next two maps in no time. The challenge rooms should present little difficulty; just fire relentlessly at the Xenon Laser Cannon clusters and rest up when needed. If you're getting low on ammo at this time, you can revisit the Citadel or hop over to Sleeper for some 30 Power packs. On the last map, destroy the conveyor belt first to stop random encounters. Use the Plasma coupler, blast the Fusion Octotron and whatever robots appear in the OSHA room, then use the keys to win as usual.


 * ★ Wild Bill comments: "Probably possible in 20 to 30 minutes with the Needles super loot bag cheat for the 'NAME AC' as armour and the Red Ryder (with Rifle skill) as weapons." It is: I made it in 30 minutes using the pre-rolled characters with some room for improvement, and Chaos recorded a speed run in less than 17 minutes. Chuck Kwaske also points out that by using characters from a previous game with the Helicopter pilot skill, you can skip the sewers entirely. This wouldn't exactly count as starting a game from scratch, though.

Version differences

 * The Apple II version has a special outcome of fixing the pump in Highpool. The PC version has a special outcome of looting some cyborgs in the sewers.
 * If you talk to the guy in the men's room in Quartz and tell him "gang", he'll give different addresses. In the C64 and Apple II versions he says Target Trail, which is where the Stagecoach Inn is, on the PC he says Devastation Row, which is the location of the hideout.
 * The password to the black market in Darwin doesn't match the paragraph book in the first two versions (though the official hintbook said "cretin"), but was fixed in the PC version. Ironically, one release of the PC version was accompanied by a hint sheet listing "cretin" as the password for the black market.
 * The super loot bag and disappearing shop bugs only happen in the PC version.
 * The mysterious Combat shooting skill only surfaces in the PC version.
 * Finding Ugly's safe works differently in the PC version because of a bug.
 * Minor graphical differences: for instance, unlike the 8-bit versions, the PC version has different tile graphics for the Cochise cameras depending on orientation. In Kesa's house a square with a message is marked by an obvious green tile in the PC version.
 * Minor map differences: for instance, in the PC version you can walk in the wall by the exit from the wine cellar at Spade's. A ruined house in Vegas has a wall square with minor bugs in the C64 and PC versions.
 * Minor textual differences: for instance, the PC version corrects the word "pennonts" from the two earlier versions (which could be a typo for "pennons" as well as "pennants"), although it neglects to fix the recurring misuse of "lay" instead of "lie". The computer in Faran Brygo's HQ is an IBM AT in the PC version, an Apple IIe in the others.
 * Minor interface differences: for instance, different key shortcuts and not being able to enter lower-case letters in character names on the C64. I actually always use upper-case names in the other versions as well to set them apart in the message window. The C64 version doesn't let you type in the apostrophe in the "bobby's dog" keyword. Obviously, only the PC version has mouse support.
 * The Apple II version has no sound effects, and only the C64 version has the "screen shake" explosion effect.
 * In the Apple II and C64 versions only, time passes slowly while in the normal map view even if you don't do anything.
 * In the Apple II and C64 versions only, you gain minor experience when walking in the desert with Canteens.

Loose ends and oddities

 * In Needles there's a message in the police station about a "bum" with sensitive information. Who wrote this, and for whom? Whom does it refer to? Ace? It doesn't seem like Mort or Ralf has any hidden knowledge (at least none that is revealed in the game). The description might fit Kesa, but there's no indication that he ever left Las Vegas.
 * Why shouldn't Ace and Covenant be able to get you in to see Faran Brygo without going through Crumb? Why doesn't Faran Brygo have any reaction towards them?
 * What kind of job did Charmaine have in mind for the Rangers in the future?
 * Why does it take a strong character a lot longer to heal up than a weak character? Admittedly most RPGs have this little feature.
 * When and how was Finster made into or replaced by an android? It can be assumed he wasn't always a robot, seeing as he was the first director of Base Cochise, which itself saw the birth of the first sentient computer. Is the "creator" that Finster refers to Major Harrison Edsel who worked at Cochise and designed the computer? Or is it the computer itself, which Finster now appears to serve?
 * Is the Bloodstaff supposed to do anything except drain and/or purify blood? You'd think so given that everyone wants it so badly. However, the fanatic you meet in downtown Needles has had the staff used on him but is still alive, and seemingly still faithful to the Mushroom Church. And why is Bill Dugan (of the blood cultists) missing from his office, when it's the second-in-command mushroomer who went missing in downtown Needles (and then turned up dead, killed with the Bloodstaff)? Could it be that the two cults got mixed up in either or both of these cases?
 * What is the significance of character nationality, if any?
 * Why don't you get Rabies from being bitten by the Rabid Dog, or Desert dust from being bitten by the Glowviper ("the most deadly snake in the desert")?
 * Were there more uses planned for skills such as Forgery and Metallurgy?
 * Why does Max put Base Cochise on the map but the Junk Master doesn't, considering the former paragraph doesn't specifically mention its whereabouts but the latter does?
 * What does Combat shooting do, if anything? Why is it there? Reportedly the skill exists in the first two versions, although it never appears in any interface, so it's possible it was dropped during development and accidentally resurfaced in the PC conversion.
 * Why is Medic/Doctor used to heal Vax? Why does he have all the characteristics and weaknesses of a human, e.g. being cloneable and susceptible to disease?
 * Who are the guards jeering at the party outside the Citadel when everyone inside is dead? And who are the people cheering you on in the mind maze if there's no one else outside?
 * According to designer Ken St. Andre the game takes place roughly in the year 2050, fifty years after the war. Have the contemporary factions and communities of the wasteland been stable on a significant part of this timescale, or are they just the current result of ongoing fluctuations and interactions? It's easy to see how some could remain constant (the Guardians), less easy for others (the Agricultural Center). Do places like Quartz, Needles, Las Vegas and Darwin have a significant offscreen productive population as opposed to gun-wielding maniacs? Why in all this time has the Ranger community never got actively involved with the neighbouring area to the northwest? From the reactions of various people in the game it would seem the Rangers are known but visits are so infrequent that each "Ranger spotting" is a notable occasion.
 * Why did Finster suddenly want to drive the workers out of his base, and why did he have to fake a plague to do it? Or if the plague is real, what's the deal with the poisonings?
 * What exactly were the workers doing in the base? With all the secrecy surrounding the breeding projects, why would Finster want to expel some but imprison others?
 * Why does it say in the mind maze that Darwin was established after the war, when it clearly existed for many years before? Is Finster simply rewriting history in his own mind? It's highly doubtful they would be handing out Nobel prizes after the war. Similarly, the message that the kitchen has never been used seems to contradict the information from Sleeper Base that Project Darwin was staffed and in operation before the war.
 * On the ground floor of the Courthouse, a square yields the message that you hear people in the room to the north if you pass a Silent move check. However, if you then enter the room it is empty - yet the occupants magically emerge once you return to the square that triggers the ambush.
 * There's a bunch of unused creature definitions in the game: a Bouncer in the Quartz hideout (replaced by the Widowmaker?); a Spiker in the Stagecoach Inn; Brothers Greg, Robert, Carl and Richard in the Citadel; a Gambler in downtown Needles; a Woman on the Vegas misc. buildings map; and finally Clawer Leader and Clawman variants in the sewers using the Tronodile picture. The PC version is known to contain two unused robot animations.
 * What's the first name of the Needles detective, Sam or Spam? Both are used in the game as well as the paragraph book.
 * What's the story with Max and why did his appearance coincide (relatively speaking) with the arrival of the robot army? If he and Vax are two of a kind it might shed some light on his disposition to side with humanity, but it doesn't explain why they were created in the first place.
 * What is the origin of the cyborgs? Max seemed to consider them an independent faction.
 * In the PC version, if you go to Needles and disband a character in a location where howitzer rubble may appear, then change to your other party, you will see ghostly rubble under the disbanded character.
 * In some places doors or other barriers may appear in previously open squares, e.g. the jail door in Vegas; any disbanded characters standing in such a square can then walk in either direction as desired. Incidentally, it's fun to imagine a disbanded character's casual reaction as Fat Freddy's thugs walk by dragging the rest of the party, stuff them in the cell and take off again.
 * Position your party in the doorway to Fat Freddy's office and disband a single character to step forward and decline his offer. A massive gunfight starts right away, but someone still finds cause and opportunity to smuggle your sleeping character off.
 * If you place a group on the bridge in Base Cochise and then retract it, they can hover above the radioactive moat indefinitely as long as you don't press Esc while viewing them.
 * What's the deal with the Agricultural Center catapults? Assuming their function is to stop the rodents from spreading beyond the vegetable patches, why are they operated from within the gardens?

Cheats
Disk swapping (C64, Apple II): This cheat takes advantage of the way the game is saved. By exchanging any play disk with a pristine or used copy of the same disk you can make forays into already visited areas, killing things, grabbing equipment and possibly even hiring multiple copies of the same NPC. Keep backups of your "real" game disks to eat your cake and have it too. To get endless duplicates of items and ammo, play until you have a disk with one or more easily accessible and untouched loot bags of plentiful stuff (e.g. the Citadel for Power armor, a Proton ax and near unlimited Power packs). Now whenever you enter a location on this disk, use that copy; when leaving, insert a dummy copy of the same disk. You can then pick up the loot as many times as you like. You can exchange disks whether you are in the game or not; in the latter case you have to keep in mind where your party is saved (usually disk 1), while in the former case this is not a concern. Note that Sleeper and Cochise will disappear from the map if you put in a virgin copy of disk 1 (unless you are on the world map at the time), so you have to go through the Vegas sewers again or ride the helicopter if you want to visit them (unless you swap back to a copy of disk 1 where they are visible, of course). Here's what each disk contains:


 * Disk 1: The world map and all the early minor locations.
 * Disk 2: Quartz and Needles.
 * Disk 3: Las Vegas and the Citadel.
 * Disk 4: Sleeper, Darwin and Cochise.

File swapping (PC): The principle is the same: the game is saved in two files which can be exchanged for untouched versions to reset areas. Your party will be saved in either file depending on which location it's currently in; resetting that file while the game isn't running will cause your game to revert to the last save in the other file, but resetting the older file will leave your current party untouched. There is a utility by Jeremy Reaban which will let you save your party in a separate file which can then be reintegrated with the map files after you exchange one or both. It's recommended that you observe caution when doing this as someone reported being stuck inside Base Cochise after a file reset, although that could be worked around with further swapping. Game1 has the contents of disks 1 and 2 of the 4-disk versions, Game2 has the other two.

Super loot bags (PC): There are four places where you can do this: the ghost chair in the Stagecoach Inn, the Needles restaurant, the Acapulco club, and Fat Freddy's casino. Once you get two loot bags that point to the same memory address, empty one, then view the inventory of one of your characters (but you don't need to drop an item, as is sometimes said). When you go to examine the other bag it will seem empty, but press K to scroll down and you'll be presented with a weird list of stuff. Navigating this list can be tricky, and you will sometimes have to press Enter or Esc to get anywhere. Stuff to look for includes Pseudo-chitin armor, Ion beamers, Proton axes,, several quest items and the Red Ryder, a very powerful rifle that uses 7.62mm clips and does about 700 points of damage with each hit (enough to kill all but the very toughest enemies in the game). There will also be nonsensical items such as "Russian", "Female" and weird strings of text which can mess up the screen. After you stop viewing the contents of the super loot bag it may lose its powers or only show a limited selection of items; in that case view the inventory of a character again and you should be able to repeat the process. The contents of these bags depend on the location and are not random. They don't "reset" if you turn the bag back to normal (e.g. by gambling again), but most items other than cash can be taken any number of times anyway.


 * ★ One super loot bag item beginning with the word "NAME" (it's the text at the head of your character roster) that is found in the Acapulco club is of special interest as it may have extraordinary powers, although results will vary from time to time. It may function as a very powerful suit of armour (press N when asked if you want to unjam it, then E), which will stop any damage that does not bypass armour (the roster will only display the last two numbers of the AC value, usually 27, but it's actually above 100). If it's not wearable it can probably be used as an excellent mêlée weapon that does about 900 points of damage (255 dice!). Finally, you can occasionally sell it for around $32,000. Brendan further points out that at any one time these items all work the same when equipped, and that once equipped, they retain those properties until unequipped: "So you just have to pick it up, equip it, see if it is the armour, if it isn't, drop it. Then go to the other loot bags, come back to the Acapulco one and check again. If you get the armour, all of them are armour, so make sure to get 7 of them before leaving the club. Once you equip the armour, never unequip it or equip something else. When you re-equip the 'NAME AC' armour, it becomes the weapon so once you have it, keep it equipped for the rest of the game." Other bug items can have similar properties, but are generally much less reliable. For those in desperate need of money, Ngli found that "Russians" can be sold for $16,160 each if you take them over to Leroy's right away the first time you visit the map.
 * ★ Taking items from super loot bags may mess up map data, causing other squares to behave strangely. For instance, as discovered by Wild Bill, if you grab some Throwing knives from the Quartz super loot bag, leaving the inn by the main exit will deposit you on the wrong square outside or even toss you out of Quartz entirely. Wild Bill also recalls other incidents related to this: "Once when leaving Fat Freddy's casino I arrived inside Base Cochise, rather than back in Vegas. Had not picked up the Secpass B key yet, so was hopelessly trapped inside Base Cochise by the autosave, with no way out! Once when entering Freddy's office there were no characters present there... no opportunity to accept or decline the offer or just attack. Game was locked up, restarted and tried again... same results." Meanwhile, Brendan had a spooky turn of events in the same location: "I tried to raise Gamble on a slot machine, then suddenly it turned into a doctor's office and I think it only cost $4 to examine. So I went to the next slot machine, it too worked for a while and then did the same thing. Soon all the slot machines were these stupid doctor's offices." Well, it would be spooky if it happened in real life, anyway. Effects can include pretty much anything from stumbling across freak messages or spawning groups of invisible enemies to becoming utterly stuck or crashing the game. If you want to cheat in absolute safety, don't use your regular files or disk images while taking the items, and back up your game beforehand.

Negative skill point (all versions): First you must play until you have a skill which costs 192 or more SKP to raise in a library (happens at skill level 6-8). You must also be of high enough rank to buy another level, and have enough skill points to buy the first level in this skill (1-3). If you now try to raise the skill, not only will you get a new skill level, but you will also gain a skill point if the cost was 255, or 64 points if the cost was 192. This can be repeated until the skill goes as high as your rank will allow (or until you reach 127 skill points; in this rare case, spend a few points elsewhere). The two skills you are most likely to use this cheat with are Energy weapon (you'll probably get 6 late in the game) and Gambling (but in this case you won't get the huge initial SKP boost).

Endless skill checks (Apple II, PC): In the PC version, set up a macro so that your characters do something repeatable that earns experience, such as trying to climb the rubble under Spade's casino (bring an NPC who lacks the Climb skill), stepping over the creaking board, or running up and down the window at Ugly's hideout. If there are only skill checks involved, as opposed to attribute checks, each character needs one of those skills to gain experience. Weigh down the function key and let it sit there for a long while. Depending on your system you may have to lower the key repeat speed, lest your computer protest by way of halting the game's progress and beeping. In the Apple II version, weigh down Esc or a direction key as appropriate, then turn up the emulation speed. Here you can also take advantage of the fact that in the 8-bit versions you gain experience when stepping on hot desert squares even if you have Canteens to protect from sunstroke. Early in the game you can actually earn several ranks just by spending a minute idling in the desert.

The far-away friend (all versions): This is really only worthwhile in the C64 version, if that. Disband a character you don't want in your party and put it on the world map. Play as usual with your regular party of six or fewer characters. Whenever you want to heal them up (from UNC or better), switch to the lone character and keep pressing Esc for as long as you like; time will pass for your main party as well, but they won't trigger random encounters. Of course, the game will keep asking you if you want to switch to your lone character during combat, and I doubt many players would be willing to put up with that.

Suffering for science (all versions): This trick is from Wild Bill's walkthrough. Trade all your Canteens to your medics and wander the desert until your other characters are dying. Then fix them up, eventually boosting your skill level. Remember that you have to earn a few ranks first to raise the skill level cap. I don't think this should be needed for Doctor, but if you like your skill levels high there you have it.

Helicopter simulator (all versions): This is much easier to accomplish in the emulated versions. Save state just before leaving the sewers after putting Max together. Exit to the world map and save. Load the save state and leave again; you'll notice that instead of being forwarded to a spot near Las Vegas you are standing in the mountain range in the southwest corner of the world map. Now take a step to the right and you'll hit the square that is used to forward you to Cochise from the Citadel. Note that if after doing this you load state again, or use the helicopter properly, you will get stuck in the mountains since both transit triggers have been used up. Using disk swapping to restore disk 3 without restoring disk 1 can also produce these results. In the PC version you have to resort to some clever file swapping to accomplish the same effect. Should you ever get stuck you can use the party extractor in conjunction with file swapping to restore the triggers and free yourself; in the C64 and Apple II versions you will have to revert to an earlier save if this happens, or use the restart function.

Resurrection (all versions): Using the bug related to Fat Freddy's sleeping gas in conjunction with disk swapping, you can bring any dead character back to life without affecting your current game.

All in your mind (all versions): If you like you can do the mind maze with two or more characters using disk/file swapping. Have a character enter the maze as usual, making sure the others are carrying the Secpass 7. Switch to the outside group, exit to the Darwin town map, then re-enter the base using a fresh disk 4 or Game2 file. Go and kill Finster again, get one more character inside the maze, repeat as desired. Once you're done with the maze, optionally restore your original disk or file.

Safe resting (all versions): If all your characters are in one group, then pressing V will cause time to pass, but not trigger random encounters. It's somewhat slower than pressing Esc, but that's not much of an issue in the versions with key repeat.

Item duplication à la shop (all versions): Save outside a shop, enter and sell off anything you'd like more copies of. Return to the character selection prompt, then close the game without leaving the shop (this will not trigger the PC shop bug). Now load and enter the shop which will have the stuff you sold in its inventory. It's not free, but uncomplicated, and Power packs don't cost a lot anyway. Buying instead of selling will have the opposite effect of destroying shop items, which will usually not be much of a concern unless it was something you had sold and wanted to retrieve.

Dan Citrine (all versions): Because of a recurring error in the game's "scripting", if you keep Citrine in the first party slot he'll mess up or nullify many hazards in the game, ranging from humble cactuses to lethal traps. For instance, if disbanded on his own he can walk around the chessboard in Needles with little risk of punishment, leaving blank squares in his wake (although they are reset if the turrets are triggered). He can also lead your party through the corridor of danger in Sleeper Base in relative safety. It doesn't always work out in your favour, though: if you take him to Fat Freddy's and let him give the wrong password at the door, nothing happens, the door can't be opened - and if you then step on that square without Dan Citrine in the lead, you end up in an infinite boxing glove loop. Play around with this at your own risk.

Pseudo-FAQ featuring Ken St. Andre

 * Q: I read this latest Wasteland walkthrough and marvelled and laughed here and there. A: That's - that's a good thing, right?
 * Q: I'm always amazed at the tack walkthroughs for a game take. The writer always starts with the assumption that there is a correct way to win the game and that this walkthrough is pretty much it. As if we figured it out and designed it that way. Reality check. We didn't. A: I guess it all reads a little oddly if you're not used to walkthrough-speak: "Do this, go there, kill those, now do that, etc." I figure it's not because we who write them actually think readers will reverently follow our instructions to the letter, or that we think they'd never find the shop on the left unless we said it was there, or that we think there's a single ceremonial way to play the game. It's a matter of practicality; there just wouldn't be much of a point to stopping every once in a while to remind the reader that it's an open game. Instead we describe everything that can be done in whatever order seems appropriate, using imperatives and enumerating the obvious because in the end it's just more efficient that way. One guy referred to this type of writing as "strident mood", and I suppose that's as good a term for it as any. But it's all for everyone's convenience, really.
 * Q: The original sequence which I've never seen anyone show is: Ranger HQ, Quartz, Las Vegas, Needles, Las Vegas, Sewers, Sleeper Base, Darwin, Savage Village, Cochise Base. A: Didn't you just say...
 * Q: And the bloodthirsty attitude... I thought the Rangers were good guys. Boy, was I mistaken! A: As I see it, it's because you can't attack the green guys that it feels like the game's telling you that all the blue guys are there to be converted into experience and loot. You get such funny messages, too. Can you really blame us - I mean, seriously, loot. And experience?
 * Q: Oh, and all you reviewers, try to remember. We were creating this in 1986. A: Most certainly! The greatness of a CRPG isn't in fancy graphics or endless maps, but what you bring alive in the player's mind. For putting together effective, evocative, humorous messages, for capturing the horror and action of a strange post-apocalyptic world in the limited environment afforded by 8-bit computers, for creating something more vivid and memorable than countless games since, you rule.

What's new
New stuff in v1.1:

Noted freak I/O errors occurring in the C64 emulator, added a note on the logic behind the "20" question in the mind maze, noted you can crash the helicopter in the Citadel, added a couple of "loose ends" in Addenda, noted that the Servo motor bug in the sewers is not PC-specific, added the Insect house in Vegas, added the Quasar key in Quartz, noted that Secpass B isn't necessary to win the game, added getting stuck with the helicopter, noted that the shops in Quartz and Needles share the same inventory, added some details from Wild Bill's walkthrough (opening Vegas doors with Electronics, Faran Brygo's trapped door, scaring off a hobo in the Stagecoach Inn, using Bureaucracy in the Courthouse, a "cheat" to raise Medic and Doctor, three more topics for the nomad engineer, cutting down trees in Needles, disappearing loot bags in rodent caves), made a few minor clarifications and specifications.

New stuff in v1.2:

Made countless edits and clarifications, added numerous skill checks and other details, cleared up most remaining uncertainties, added some creatures and fixed the experience value of others, added several notes and details in Combat (e.g. monster damage isn't stored outside of combat), added to and cleaned up the loose ends list in Addenda, cleared up everything to do with the helicopter, noted Bomb disarm works in the Citadel armoury (thanks to Ken Stone), added coverage for the Apple II version, improved version details overall (thanks to Andy E. and Chuck Kwaske), made several modifications and additions based on input from Wild Bill (e.g. moving tools from the weapon category in Items, effects of mining, not needing the Cyborg tech skill), added all missing dialogue options and passwords including several names you can drop in the Courthouse and in Ugly's hideout, added an outcome of the Laurie encounter, figured out the Cochise security consoles including the cylinder closing system, noted which sources of radioactivity also do significant damage, added a proper speed run, added several cheats in Addenda including the weirdness of Dan Citrine, added a lot of information on super loot bags and the "NAME AC", added a little numeric info in Creatures, added using a Match in Highpool and Agricultural Center, noted the oddity of Cochise Chopters, added a reward note in Highpool, cleared up finding Ugly's safe in the PC version, fleshed out the version differences list, added limit to random groups outside Cochise, added house colour specifications by version (thanks to Silencer), verified that the Flamethrower has no associated skill, added weapon damage in Items, identified all paragraph entries as real or fake, added enraging a bum in the Stagecoach Inn, added details on triggering fights in the Courthouse, added safe resting places, added fighting the Junk Master, noted the monsters popping up in the Mine room, completed the mine list in Vegas, added a "sucking wall" bug note in the sewers, solved the toaster mystery, partially figured out the Cochise assembly stations and cameras, added a pseudo-FAQ in Addenda, matched attributes to skills (thanks to Displacer), generally freshed up the attribute and skill lists, added a second sample party, noted that the Riddler and vermin may drain experience.

Version history
V1.0, 17/4 2003: I decided to skip the "preview" stage since I don't really know who'd be previewing it.

V1.1, 17/2 2004: First update, some minor additions and fixes.

V1.2, 11/10 2006: A very thorough overhaul with plenty of new stuff, warranting a name change.

Copyright notice
Needless to say, this guide is Copyright 2003-2006 Per Jorner. All rights reserved as regards the writing and general design, except for the background which is stolen. Of course that doesn't mean I have any claims on the information contained within, i.e. I don't mind if you grab every single piece of info and put it in your own walkthrough as long as you use your own words to do it. Feel free to copy this HTML file and post it somewhere open and relevant on the net, as long as you don't make any changes to it and don't make any money off it.