Exploration

This page deal with Exploration aspect in Obscurum Pandemic.
Each character has one selection among seven backgrounds, leading to 7 starting locations. They are 3 in the North, 3 in the South, and one in Hopeville.
Amnesiac starting in Hopeville has the pretty unique option of able to choose, equally, to continue explore the North, or the South once they get out of Canyon Wreckage. Technically Swat Trooper could do the same as Amnesiac, even earlier, but that require Trooper punch through the battlezones at low level to break out to the North. Barely doable, but player personality is such that continue exploring the South make more sense than doing so.
The more you explore, and kill hostiles on your way, the more this contribute to Empire's prevalence in the North and the South. Let's say you explore 90% of the map markers on the North exclude the Nellis and Camp Guardian, which mean you sweep through the North's hostiles once. When you open up Empire mode and produce troops for the North, this will show that North Prevalence is 90+. After that most of the area get the hostiles sweep clean save for Legions.
Legions are mostly unkillable unless you get Doctor's high level perk Legionophage. Meaning they will always exist and kill Empire Citizen, thus drive down prevalence, making way for Marauders' resurgence. Thus you need to explore on the outside and kill hostiles there to gain back points.
When exploring, rad resistence is an issue due to red fogs everywhere. Worse, Toxic Anomalies and red fogs can have some invisible attacks with no signs at all. And hostiles on the wild will take pot shot at characters when they notice you and have spare time.
Thus, wearing high DT/DR armor and helmet is a necessity, unlike vanilla game. High sneak characters can try to slink through, but their speed of movement will be quite slow. MedX ingestible (and Slasher) can be another assistance if you can find them. Swallow Antirad is obvious.
Contra hit squad consideration. Contra hit teams often appear in indoor cells which raise the difficulty, and blood pressure. To reduce such things, explore indoor by day and outdoor by night is certainly a valid strategy.
Visibility at night is an issue. Glow cell ingestible allow some kind of weak white light shining outward a few paces. This make a replacement for Pipboy light. There's also Night Vision Goggles, sneaksight helmet etc... that can provide vision in the dark if you dont want to use glow cell.
After opening up Empire mode, you can build a vehicle BTR amphibious tank. It has 3 default location to teleport to (dock by Caville Tavern, Clark Field, and 188 Trading Post) and can use the locator to register other locations. This vehicle is mostly used as cargo transport, and a tactical obstacle in places too flat to hide (like Ivanpah Dry lakes and others)