New Game+
Refined guide for NG+ based on WilliamK's Speedrun Notes
Due to the increased amount of running around with Chapter Select, starting a new character is thought to be faster.
Chapter Select adds a lot of routing due to backtracking to base, but it makes most of the game a breeze. Using Scout class benefits of Stealth Camo and Fox Walk, along with purple and orange gear. To get to the maximum benefit, you will have to do a lot of online co-op grinding.
Also of note, Chapter Select will require you to set up your base in a preferable way for speedrunning.
You will need to unlock another character slot if you don't do Chapter Select.
Your main character will provide all the resources, equipment, etc. to do the run.
Co-op is very helpful, as some gear recipes are locked behind co-op. You will also get resources more quickly than grinding containers in single player.
Preparations for NG+
You should do digs at your base to improve your base resources.
You want Goat Meat and Clean Water Bottles in your repository, so you don't have to collect them during the opening tutorial. The Goat Mutton cannot be spoiled!
Also have all of your equipment, weapons, gear, etc. set to a loadout (loadout settings transfer over) so you spend a fraction of the time you would equip them normally.
Just have one loadout for NG+, and manually add what you need during the base digs. This is to prevent the glitch where your food/water vanishes from equipping loadouts.
Make sure to remove everything from a character and place into the repository when done with a speedrun before deleting the character!
Cheat Engine can set up your resources as well
4 Sensor Unit
8 Electronic Circuit
8 Titanium Alloy
16 Concrete
32 Steel
1 Battery
This guide will assume new character, not Chapter Select.
Resource Grinding
Co-op is excellent for resource grinding, between Kuban Energy, building materials, and finding recipes.
Otherwise, single player grinding is not too bad with the proper setup.
Level the Scout Sub Class. Get Scavenger, Fox Walk, Dex Super Boost, END Super Boost, and Stealth Camo. Unit Enhancement is excellent for placing co-op Machine Gun Turrets.
Set up a character with minimal gear equipped. Naked or lightweight DEX gear. A Melee weapon to break apart boxes and barrels. Have as many survival bags equipped as possible.
Go from transporter to transporter, picking up everything.
If you go over 100%, diving is the fastest method of moving.
If you go over 130%, attacking with a one handed melee is the fastest method of moving.
The Ruins have some nice goodies, as well as some of the random huts and buildings across Afghanistan and Africa.
Rinse, repeat.
To farm containers, rest in a tent to get requests from crew. Go to the container and open, hope for good stuff!
Food
You will want food that does three things
Status | Food |
Sprint Speed Up | All Soups besides Bear, Smoked Equine and Rodents |
Stamina Recovery Speed Up | Grilled Equine, Steamed Bird, Oriental Stork Heart Split Roast, Black Stork Heart Tacos |
Stamina Consumption Speed Down | Steamed Equine, Grilled Bird, Oriental Stork Heart Split Roast, Black Stork Heart Tacos |
Weapons
In terms of weapons you can honestly take whatever you want, outside of the forced time sections defending teleporters/diggers we really don't fight anything in the run unless backed into a corner or bad AI RNG/pathing. Although William pretty much uses ranged weapons only this can be very resource intensive. You can definitely use Melee weapons, however they are not as safe to use and exposes yourself to more attacks from the wanderers, which can kill or knock you down. Ranged weapons are also generally faster and provide more DPS enabling you to quickly tap wanders in the head and move on.
Most perks are useful, the best for running are Durability Boost (Chance that Durability reduction with use does not occur), Stability Boost (Reduces hand shaking when readying this weapon), Critical Hit Boost, and Attack Stat Boost. Make sure to fully upgrade your weapons of choice.
Primaries
Blue Recurve Bow
Heavy Arrows are 3 steel and 6 aluminum for 10 arrows.
The Bow and Heavy arrows are going to save you a ton of resources if you are patient in using them and collecting a fair bit of your arrows during defenses and digs.
During Defenses and digs wanderers will explode when they die meaning the arrow is immediately dropped onto to the ground rather than you having to dig the arrow out of their body.
The bow and heavy arrows will pretty much one shot every enemy within your level range.
Grenade arrows can be very useful for clearing out large group of wanderers, of note it seems as if grenade arrows will make wanderers ricochet onto each other to take more damage if they are close together in groups. However, you will need to find the recipe in co-op to make grenade arrows.
Blue AM MRS-4R (5.56mm) or SVG-67 (7.62mm) Rifle
An advantage of using the rifle is instead of crafting bullets for it, you can craft the green rifle to get free 30 rounds for resources that are more abundant rather then using up your gunpowder/copper/lead
You can use the rifle in dangerous/close situations to quickly eliminate wanderers, I recommend use quick single shots on their heads to conserve ammo although.
5.56 ammo is cheaper to craft than 7.62 ammo
S1000 Shotgun (12ga)
Great for general crowd control
The shotty is mainly recommend for the Seth boss fight, with an attack lv. 2 Blue S1000 with overpressure rounds, Seth can be killed in two shots.
Due to the effects of overpressure on durability, do not use the shotgun until Chapter 20.
Secondaries
AM D114 TC (.45 Calibur) or Geist P3 (9x19mm)
Pistols have their uses. Specifically whenever you are carrying one of the survivors out you are unable to use melee/primary weapons, limiting you only to pistols. You might want a pistol to dispatch a wanderer in your way so they don't hit you and knock the survivor out of your hands.
Also of note the pistols have the fastest draw/ready speed of all weapons, which can be useful.
The D114 can be equipped with a silencer, which is great for stealth in certain Chapters.
The Geist P3 is automatic, and its bullets are cheaper to make than the D114. Good for warning shot strategies.
Standard Ammo | Gunpowder | Lead | Copper |
9x19mm | 1 | 1 | 1 |
.45 Caliber | 2 | 1 | 2 |
12ga | 1 | 3 | 3 |
5.56mm | 2 | 2 | 2 |
7.62mm | 3 | 3 | 3 |
Gear, Equipment, and Gadgets
[For Chapter select, use stuff with the most dex/endurance(prioritize dex) and for chest having ammo consumption down is rather nice]
Gear | Stat Upgrade |
Blue Head | Dex Lv.2 |
Blue Torso1) | Vit Lv.2 |
Blue Arm | Dex Lv.1 Str. Lv.1 |
Blue Legs | Dex Lv. 1 |
Survival Equipment Gear Slot | Equipment |
Gear-1 | Medium Grenade Pouch |
Gear-2 | Small Grenade Pouch |
Gear-3 | Medium/Small Heavy Arrow Quiver |
Gear-4 | Primary Weapon Holder |
Gear-5 | Small Heavy Arrow Quiver/Small Left Gadget Sling |
Gear-? | Medium/Small Bottle Holder |
Gear-? | Secondary Weapon Holder |
Medium pouch recipes are only found via co-op.
If you plan on getting the Medium Grenade Pouch, get two Wolf Cages, and capture Side Striped Jackals. They are small animal indicators. You need 12 Side-striped Jackal Pelts.
If you plan on getting the Medium Heavy Arrow Special Quiver, get two Wolf Cages, and capture Gray Wolves. You need 6 Gray Wolf Pelts.
Between medium and small grenade pouches, you will have 16 grenades.
Between medium and small heavy arrow quivers, you will have 120 heavy arrows.
You can also send your exploration team to hunt for rare pelts.
Gadget Slot | Gadget |
Slot L-1 | Grenades |
Slot SP-L1 | Med Spray |
Slot L2 | C-4 |
Slot R1 | Normal Fences |
Slot SP-R2 | Kuban Crystal |
Slot R2 | Lures |
Slot ? | Iron Watchtowers or Sandbag Footholds |
Slot ? | Machine Gun Turrets |
Slot ? | (Strengthened) Molotov Cocktails |
Grenades are a must. Grenades are really cheap to make and you should have the resources to have a massive stockpile. They also do not reduce in damage scaling depending on level. In other words, overpowered!
Medical Sprays are for safety. Dying is really bad!
Fences are a must. Great for general defense. Used to backdoor Ruins 01 and rescuing Nicholas.
Iron watchtower or Sandbag Foothold for a shortcut in Ruins 03. Since you don't need these until later, equip them in Chapter 15.
Lures are essentially stronger Kuban Crystals. Really cheap to make at 1 empty bottle.
C-4 are an extension of Grenades. They do more damage than grenades, but you must detonate them. Used in Ruins 01.
Machine Gun Turrets can be nice for some things but are not as important. Nice for the final Chapter Defense during the final waves.
(Strengthened) Molotov Cocktails are essentially weaker Grenades.
Gadget | Resources Required |
Grenades | 3 TNT, 1 Spring, 5 Iron |
Med Sprays | 2 Aluminum, 1 Golden Crescent |
C-4 | 3 Composition Explosives, 1 Electronic Circuit, 4 Adhesives |
Iron Watchtowers | 6 Steel, 18 Iron, 14 Screws |
Sandbag Footholds | 14 Clay, 4 Wood, 4 Nails, 6 Gunny Sacks |
Normal Fences | 6 Iron |
Lures | 1 Bottle (Empty) |
Machine Gun Turrets | 3 Sensor Units, 1 Firing Unit, 8 Steel, 1 Electronic Circuit, 11 Gears, 7 Gunpowder |
Molotov Cocktails | 1 Oil, 1 Rag, 1 Bottle (Empty) |
Strengthened Molotov Cocktails | 1 Napalm, 1 Rag, 1 Bottle (Empty) |
The Run
Opening
Unconfirmed for console, but loading into the initial area, returning to main menu, deleting avatar, and starting over saves a few seconds on initial loads for PC.
After skipping second cutscene A Psuedo-His, mash enter for gender, then provide a name. Enter, single letter, Enter, down, Enter
After explosion cutscene on Mother Base, create an avatar. Enter, up twice, enter, left, enter.
Chapter 1: Tutorial
Chapter 2: First Memory Board
Chapter 3: Three Memory Boards
Chapter 4: First Transporter
Chapter 5: Miranda Rescue
Chapter 6: Ruins 01
Before going into transporter, level up to 5/max level
Chapter 7: Digger Retrieval
Chapter 8: Base Camp Dig
Now that you are level 5, you gain another survival equipment slot. Redo your loadout
Watch out for the Cursed Quiver Glitch! Here's how it can
occur. Here's how to
fix it
Chapter 9: Wrecked Base Dig
Chapter 10: Chris Rescue
Before going into the transporter, level to 10/max level
Chapter 11: Ruins 02
Chapter 12: Nicholas Rescue
—-
It is easy to get lost going to Nick, pay attention to landmarks (the arch, the fort, the tree, the wall, the hut, etc.)
Chapter 13: Fallen Village Dig
Chapter 14: Base Camp Expansion
Before building the expansion, Level to 15
Chapter 15-1: Africa Dig
Now that you are level 15, you gain more survival equipment slots. Redo your loadout
Chapter 16: Africa FOB
Chapter 17: Seth Rescue
Chapter 18: Investigate Sahelanthropus
Chapter 19: Secure Sahelanthropus
SAVE THE GOATS IN THIS THRILLING 15 MIN DEFENSE!
Chapter 20: Wanderer Seth
Level up to 20 before fighting Seth
Chapter 21: Ruins 03
UPDATED START OF MOVEMENT SHOWN HERE
Chapter 22: Deserted Mine Dig
Chapter 23: Archaea Blade Trap
Chapter 24: Lord of Dust