Guide/Early Game

Last updated for version `1.8.0-BETA-7`

🌀 *The content below transcludes to Special:WhatLinksHere/Guide/Early Game.*
The first thing you should do in *Horizon* (especially Desolation Mode) is in general to **explore** and **loot** everything and try to stick to melee fight most of the time for weaker enemies like animals. Its not a shame to avoid combat most of the time. The loot tables of enemies have been changed, and valuable loot can be found via locations at the beginning. Caps are easier to get from Charisma 10. If the player explores and solves quests, he quickly has enough caps to get equipment that is good enough for self-defense.

In Vault 111, you can find Antibiotics - Basic, a Bandage, a Bobby Pin, two Combat Stimpaks, 5x Portable Memory Device (allow to Save Game), Purified Water, RadAway, a Shoulder Bag, a Trauma Kit, and more. After leaving Vault 111 the player should receive a field kit as well as a weapon kit. Both items are consumeable items, bind these items to a `key` of your choice, as soon as possible. The Field Kit offer a variety of options, watch your basic needs of hunger & thirst, scrap various items in the field, track your skill points, change special horizon game options and read the documentation. The field kit also lets you craft energy ammunition, lock breaching devices and various healing items. The Weapon Kit allows changing ammo types in the field, this means you can use different calibers for a specific weapon. In addition to the kits, there is also the Horizon Holotape which holds more options ready, most importantly Auto-Save, change to stagger off and save ever X minutes. If you ever lose one of the kits (which technically should never happen though), they can be crafted in the Tech Lab, the holotape should respawn automatically in your inventar when dropping it. After familiarizing yourself with the kits and the holotape head over to Sanctuary Hills.

To help you get started, loot everything in Sanctuary Hills: 2x Magazines: *Grognak the Barbarian #3* and *You're Special* (+1 Perk Point) inside your house. Don't miss the Root Cellar (see picture). There you'll find an advanced safe, which you can unlock using an Explosive Charge a new item used for Lock Breaching. The Root Cellar will lead to ~3x Purified Water, 1x Supply Kit (used to fast travel and Settler Missions), 1x Vault-Tec Training Manual (another +1 Perk Point), 1x Custom SMG (new very versatile weapon), and other misc items.

💡 **Tip:** The Scrap Cleanup Station in Workshop>Architect>Utilities can help you scrapping the whole settlement in seconds fully automatic (see below).

You can also find some good stuff directly surrounding Sanctuary. To the south, the dead man and dog by the bridge, the duffle bag by the Minuteman statue. In Red Rocket Truck Stop you can and kill several mole rats here, both in the station itself and in the cave underneath it. To the north across the river, you can kill a raider and an attack dog and loot four Noodle Cups from their cabin (which satisfy both hunger and thirst). To the southwest, there's 4x purified water at a water tower, and also loot a half-buried steamer trunk just to the south of the tower. Don't forget Abernathy Farm there you can harvest and buy Crops and if your lucky trade for a powerful 2-handed weapon. To the west in the swamp, you can loot an armored vehicle wher you'll find an army helmet and to the east, you can loot a Revolver and some Bobby Pins at a water pump close to a raider camp fire.

After every major loot action, it is a good idea to deport the things you have found to a workbench of your choice and familiarize yourself with the workbenches. Browse through all the recipes at each crafting station to learn what *Horizon* has to offer for crafting. Essentially, it is advisable to follow the advices from the Settlement Building guide. Important: always use the Workshop>Architect buildings and not the vanilla buildings, with the exception of some crafting, power and water buildings. In summary, the following utility buildings are worth to consider building:

* Workshop/Crafting: Armor Workbench, Chemistry Station, Tech Lab, Weapons Lab, Weapons Workbench, ZX-1 Experimentation Lab
* Architect/Equipment Workstation: is an all-in-one crafting station for less workspace and movement hassle but tied to workshop progression mode called Workshop Technology.
	+ Architect/Command Workstation: later on, can help you too combining the last important crafting stations.
* Architect/Mailbox: to receive trading items and send Magazines, nuka colas, etc. the mailbox is absolutely essential to get many Vendor Credits ...
* Architect/Farming Workbench: for composting of your waste food items. Compost will be automatically be converted into Fertilizer which in turn is needed for a variety of item crafting etc.
* Architect/Resource Station: the most important workbench to build supply chains using Cargo Bots and in general to link your settlements!
* Architect/Recruitment Station: if you want to recruit settlers
* Architect/Scrap Cleanup Station: to quickly scrap your whole settlement. Note: some settlements offer Control Panels for more scrapping and hiding options.
* Architect/Caravan Travel Hub: exchange a Supply Kit against Caravan Supplies to fast travel to a conquered settlement of your choice.
* Architect/Shredder: if you lack Salvaging skill 20 you can scrap all your items using this building.

💡 **Tip:** Use Wilson to revolutionize looting which you can craft in the Tech Lab (Devices section).

Health: Whenever you are injured, bandages are ideal. In case of severe injuries such as limb damage, trauma kits but also glowing blood packs are required. For special cases do not hesitate to use combat stimpaks. These are the vanilla stimpaks and can heal you in an instant. Unwanted Chems can be converted into Pharmaceuticals which are used for some medical treatments. Hard liquor can be convert into Antiseptic. Increasing your Survival Skill and Medical Skill will give you more options for healing/curing. Most importantly medical skill will make your healing more effective at around 40 points, because its very hard to raise in the field you should raise medical skill by choosing perk points into Medic instead. Most of the skills in *Horizon* are tied to perks and vice versa so don't be confused here; medical is the skill and medic is the perk.

Be sure to save your caps early on for Doctors and/or items part of ammo crafting recipes. Don't be tempted to buy junk you don't need try to collect more than you buy and try to get an overview of what you really need. If you're short on caps, look for quests you can do that might earn some income. Any items you don't need that are worth decent caps you might want to sell, sell clothing items and various bottles.. However, you should also consider the benefits of scrapping these items for materials.

Dogmeat and your Companions will start off dealing weak damage in the early levels, however they are still useful. Companions will gain experience as they travel and fight with you, and will grow stronger over time (damage and defenses).

💡 **Tip:** *Horizon* is partially balanced using the mod "Everyone's Best Friend" which allows you to have Dogmeat and 1 Companion at the same time.

Try to use melee against easier targets to save ammo (molerats, dogs, etc.). Headshots are a big deal. Even a .38 can often kill a simple unarmored Raider in 2 headshots. Range matters so turn on your Range Finder to get used to the system! If you hit an enemy outside of the weapon's range, it deals weaker damage, up to -50%. Enemies wearing armor will always take more hits (including headshots), use tactics on armored targets. Save your explosives for really tough enemies, or large groups of enemies in a small area. Early game molotov cocktails are your best friend for crowd control (CC). Collect mobs, light mobs, lure mobs into mobs.

📝 **Note:** *Horizon's* combat is balanced very close to being realistic for the most part, however there's many factors to consider if you think your damage feels too low. As long as you use good weapons and keep them upgraded, you should be able to take down unarmored enemies quickly. If you are seeing different, you should check out the FAQ regarding troubleshooting.