Guide/Metagaming

Last updated for version `1.8.0-BETA-7`

This guide gives an insight into why Outcast is not that difficult, how to survive without dying (Permadeath) and how to put in some serious difficulty.

## Preface

Desolation mode, outcast difficulty and permadeath mode does basically the following: prompt the player to think and change their tactics, i.e. not to run into the fight dull. Ultimately, the player will only get a positive result if he behaves cautiously. That's the real magic. It's almost the logical consequence.

### Logic

Those who particularly strive to challenge themselves can't come around a permadeath run and maybe can't avoid adjusting the difficulty either. Whether you adjust the damage you receive, the behavior, the intensities of various in-game mechanics, the number of attribute points, whatever ... at some point you reach a limit, namely that which the game and/or your own behavior patterns already offer. This limit might be when the word difficulty becomes relative and thus Metagaming will be inevitable.

Once you have found that routine for yourself, it doesn't matter which numbers you hand out or have to pocket, damage is relative, and only dealt when hit. It's all about strategy and tactics in the end, preparation is key. If you walk around unprepared, you lose. So let's dig into preparation.

### Difficulty

If you play on the highest difficulty "Outcast" and enjoy the survival and desolate aspects of Horizon it is highly advisable to avoid combat at the beginning of the game and explore the world of FO4 Horizon. On the one hand, this allows to collect experience points, and on the other hand to save resources regarding healing items.

Just like desolation mode deprives the player of important resources (especially ammo), outcast deprives the player of the possibility to withstand many projectiles on the battlefield, the player dies in very few shots. Just as there is a tactic for desolation mode (melee combat) there is also a tactic for outcast difficulty (this guide), like there is tactic for everything.

### Combat

Firefights are largely avoided till around level 15, the few fights that you get into are defined by outsmart the AI. The trick here is to turn a FPS into a Jump ’n’ Run game, at least temporarily. Since AI is programmed to follow this works like a charm. From an absolute point of view, the procedure described below can be viewed as a phase, namely the phase that you have to successfully survive until you can go into battle. Before one can hunt, one has to gather.

### Character stats

Skills, perks, specializations, etc. all follow a primary logic; increase defense, health and stealth (beeing hidden) and a secondary logic deal as much damage as possible in the least amount of time. Strike from the shadow, be the shadow. Any armor is also put into perspective. Because if you don't get hit, you don't have to heal yourself.

## Experience

Level 15 is the main objective of this "guide" - its a turning point at which the game offers all to overcome any hurdle. At level 15 the player can access a Specialization. Specializations can make the gameplay easy. First and foremost the Assassin specialization, greatly reduces the likelihood that NPCs will discover the player. This increases the chances of survival immensely. Which is not only beneficial for avoiding high incoming damage (3.5x) but also to save resources for crafting healing items.

1. 0
2. 800
3. 1900
4. 3300
5. 5000 V.A.N.S.
6. 7000
7. 9300
8. 11900
9. 14800
10. 18000 V.A.N.S.
11. 21500
12. 25300
13. 29400
14. 33800
15. 38500 V.A.N.S.

### Locations

*See: Special:AllMaps*

Each location yield Experience points (XP). Experience points can be increased significantly through Well Rested buff, Intelligence 10, Awareness 2 (level 15), etc. More experience points per location, more and faster leveling. Each discovered and cleared location also increases exploration skill (max up to 50) and thus the chance to find more and more special loot, a great sideeffect to have as soon as possible!

There are 300+ locations (Commonwealth Boston, Glowing Sea, etc.).

* 30 of these are workshop settlements
	+ The majority of the settlements (15+) can already be conquered with 0 skill and player level 1 with a clever way of playing.
	+ Detailed settlement takeover plans can be found in the settlement takeover guide.

With optimal preparation, one location yield almost 30 XP (Well rested buff + Intelligence 10).

* ~300 locations, ~30 XP/location (INT10) → ~9000 XP → level ~6.5 = 30000 XP more to gain
* ~150-1000 XP per heavy populated locations; Feral Ghouls, Mole Rats, ...
* ~500-600 XP per heavy guarded locations; Mirelurk Queens or Behemoths
* ~100 per Yao Guai (10+)
	+ ~100 per Rad Scorpion (10+)

Most enemies can be outplayed by throwing them together with other races and types, while they are fighting each other you weaken the NPCs primarily with molotov cocktails a sniper rifle is godsent in this regard too. It works so well that herds of ghouls are no longer a problem as you don't even have to touch them as long as there are a few molotov cocktails available. Thus, ferals, animals, insects can be removed from the category "difficulty" because thery are no longer any threat.

In addition to enemies, quests also offer a very good opportunity to get XP quickly.

### Quests

Quests in FO4 are simple and basically only have the following claim: go to a location, get item, kill opponents, come back. It really couldn't be easier. The player gets around 150 to 300+ XP. With charisma 10, various speech checks can be completed 100%. This also brings more caps and of course more XP - technically for free. As a result, it makes sense to start with CHR 10 and thus get a maximum of XP with every dialogue. As a small thank you, the player gets caps from the game almost every time. One sees red.

...*detailed explanations follow*...

## Planning and execution

The important thing to understand is that you free yourself from wanting to determine every situation and eliminate every enemy immediately. With this kind of tactic, you always and constantly find yourself starting over again. Exploration is king.

### Leaving Vault 111

Leave Vault 111, sleep and quench all your thirst levels afterwards to max. XP gain. Sleeping right at the start will grant you a long well rested buff. Hunger doesn't decrease INT, so for close to 3 days there is no real debuff besides decreased healing (which should be avoided anyways).

If you raise medical skill as soon as possible you can balance the debuff and avoid eating for more then 2 days.

### Skills and perks

The following skills & perks are godsent for this run because they count all the time, don't degrade, are fixed:

* higher AP pool, faster AP regeneration: Fitness, Action Boy/Girl, Aquaboy/Aquagirl
* less radiation damage from swimming: Aquaboy/Aquagirl this makes swimming in Horizon fun again and you can cover large distances effortlessly at the beginning
* less incoming damage: Lone Wanderer, Moving Target, Sneak (yes, even sneak decreases damage, not visible to the AI, not getting shot, not beeing wounded)
* better healing is highly recommended, it starts at 40 Medical skill points or Medic 2 perk.

💡 **Tip:** In order to get perk points quickly, it is advisable to keep an eye out for Bobbleheads.

As a general recommendation, put perk points into passive skills first. Hunting and survival skill increases easily and quickly to 50 skill points with the amount of activities. Important food items to satisfy hunger and thirst can always be exchanged and can be found in abundance at certain locations.

### Settlements and loot

*See: Guide/Settlement Building • Guide/Settlement Take Over • Guide/Create Wilson*

Settlements are optional and ultimately not really needed, are nice to store loot and play around with production and settler missions. Its good to scrap settlements using the scrap cleanup station to gain more usefull components. It can help to build a recruitment station and at least 1 farming workbench per settlement. To recruit settlers while on the run and increase compost/fertilizer production at some point.

Try to gather two Stealth Boys for crafting Wilson later he can have a big impact on ganing alot of valuable loot.

#### Inhabited settlements

* Abernathy Farm
* Bunker Hill
* Covenant
* County Crossing
* Finch Farm
* Graygarden
* Greentop Nursery
* Hangman's Alley
* Nordhagen Beach
* Oberland Station
* Somerville Place
* Tenpines Bluff
* The Slog
* Warwick Homestead

#### Uninhabited settlements

* Boston Airport
* Coastal Cottage
* Croup Manor
* Egret Tours Marina
* Home Plate
* Jamaica Plain
* Kingsport Lighthouse
* Murkwater Construction Site
* Outpost Zimonja
* Red Rocket Truck Stop
* Sanctuary Hills
* Spectacle Island
* Starlight Drive-In
* Sunshine Tidings
* Taffington Boathouse
* The Castle

### All marked locations

This map is the basis for adequate planning with regard to which locations you want to run when and how.

### Proper weapon

A hunting rifle with a scope attached can be found very easily near Lexington, on top of a red rocket filling station.

### NPC farming

*See: Guide/Combat Tactics*

.38 and 9mm cartridges are very good against all kinds of insects. Against mole rats, radstag, mongrels, etc., fast or medium speed melee weapons are ideal. Molotov cocktails are used against ghouls after everyone in the location has noticed the player, is following the placer, boom fire. A combat knife or switchblade is sufficient when weakened or another location with different enemy spawns - watch the party fighting against each other.

In general collect enemies and eliminate and/or weaken them with a moltov cocktail.

### Permadeath pattern

Stay hidden, avoid critical fights, run away from the first fights and avoid the main quest or sidequests such as Concord first, instead, explore the Commonwealth and focus on the landscape around BC. The city holds too much risk without good preparation. Use a melee weapon and only focus on melee fights as long as you dont have any long range rifle (e.g. hunting rifle). If possible attach a 4x scope to a Custom SMG which works wonder with .38 and 9mm early game already. For humanoid and factions .45 in a Custom SMG can insta kill humans which leaves problematic encounters to super mutants, synths, creatures and to some extend mirelurks. All others should be manageable.

The main quest requires firepower at the latest with Fort Hagen. A Gauss rifle is recommended for this, an energy rifle with MX ammo or similar is also good as well as any large caliber ballistic firearm such as a hunter rifle or machinegun with .50 ammo. A mini nuke is enough for Kellogg. Stealth boys are recommended for Greentech Genetics (but can be used in Fort Hagen already) and the like, so that the whole building can be walked through quickly. The courser also has problems with a mini nuke.

Stealth Boys are key for difficult locations and/or power armor. And that's sort of the trick. Choose fights carefully, avoid the fight if necessary via Stealth Boys, prefer high penetration, look out for specific objects. The only thing that is a big problem here are random encounters or the player threat level.

* Player Threat Level – can be bypassed by not carrying items that increase the threat level
* Dynamic Encounter – chances increase with the amount of enemies killed, which means fewer encounters are randomly generated if you kill less enemies. If you run through the quest without killing anything, you absolutely bypass the dynamic encounter mechanics.

## Survival roleplay restrictions

Desolation Mode teases with heavily limited loot similar to the Loot Respawn addon, however this can be amplified significantly. After all, it's a survival game. The following settings are intended for all survival role players. Of course, this can be expanded even further.

* **Difficulty**: Outcast (3.5x incoming damage). Why? To make use of bandages and to show that combat is not that easy early game, to force the player to explore. To extend the overall exploring phase.
* **Permadeath** = 1, no reload allowed, no alternate death, no revival mode. Once killed, new game required!
	+ It is allowed to generate a save, at the end of Vault 111, to load and thus skip the prologue (home, vault 111, etc.) once dead, to beginn a new game.
	+ Savety saves allowed (Horizon Holotape), the games loves to crash randomly, but not ultimately needed since Horizon is very stable.
* **Strict Carry Weight** = 1
	+ Here you can also set a weight limit as a goal, namely approx. 50 kg or 100 lb (Inspiration: Real Life Carry Weight)
* **No manual magazine reload**, magazines must be fired empty because we dont have an unlimited amount of magazines available. Alternatively unbind the reload (`R`) key.
* **No "Hold Breath" while sniping**, (`ALT`) key, this makes sniper rifles overpowered, enemies can't even see that far.
* **Advanced Timescale Mode**, since the game only applies timescale 10, dynamic timescale changes to crafting, workshop, etc. aren't applied. Thus the player is forced to wait after various actions. The side effect is that the player is extremely dependent on searching for food and that food and water enjoy a completely new relevance. A "Better Wait" mod is highly recommended, otherwise you will need a chair ... to wait. If you really want to push it to the extreme, take a 6 face (6-digits) die or one with even more digits for activities that take up time such as building (see below)
	+ **Crafting**: every workbench use requires 1 hour wait afterwards, same applies to crafting in the field.
	+ **Salvaging**: appliance salvaging requires 1 hour and vehicle salvaging 3 hours to wait, this extremly puts salvaging on a total new level.
	+ **Building**: every workshop use requires 1-12 hours to wait aferwards (use a 6-digit die and multiply the number by 2), it takes time to build, to think about a structure you want to build, to gather materials, to construct, to fix mistakes when building, to fight weather, environment.
	+ **Healing**: depending on injury requires hours up to to days for proper recovery. Stimpaks aren't allowed in combat anymore instead use an adrenalin injector to buff pain resistance (overcome limb damage for a while), to allow to move to a settlement;
		- **bandages** require 1 hours to pass, allowed in the field
		- **medicated bandages** require 2 hours to pass, allowed in the field
		- **first aid kits** require 6 hours to pass, allowed in the field
		- **trauma kits** and **glowing blood packs** require 5 days to pass (fractures are difficult to heal) in a settlement of choice, not allowed in the field
			* **adrenalin injectors** are the way to go in case of "quick limb recovery" in the field, afterwards require trauma kit or glowing blood pack treatment in a settlement
		- **stimpaks** of all kind, require 5 days to recover in a settlement, can only be used in case of limb damage (to be able to properly move without restrictions)
* **Root Cellar**, from vault 111 to treasure vault. Super cheesy early game, not allowed here either. The door is locked (imaginary) and can be cracked with master lockpicking (similar to gaining access to the cryolator).
* **Wilson** can be used to zone loot but not to abuse to give him all loot. With the SPECIAL limitations (see below) he is very difficult to craft anyway.
* **Power Armor frame and parts must be purchased**. Any world item, any loot from corpses, anything attached on power armor frames, any PA piece will be scrapped and not used. Frames will be scrapped too. Its only allowed to purchase frames and pieces from the Brotherhood of Steel (BoS).
* **Weapons** in containers, corpses, as part of loot must be scrapped. Weapons can only be bought from Weapon Vendors and can first be used with a skill of 10 (thus require the appropiate bobblehead).
* **Trading** is broken and too powerful. No trading against any food items such as purified water bottles, noodle cups, etc. This prompts the player to generate food through loot and/or settlements. Cargo bots which allow for "courier trading service" and "market trading terminal" can be used as usual.

### Skills and perks

* Perks – require skill, dynamic skill gain must be 50 in order to choose any perk tied to skill, thus weapon skill require 90 points in order to choose any appropiate weapon perk!
* Salvaging – field scrapping, appliance and vehicle salvaging requires to reach 50 skill point first in order to use the function and perks tied to it.
* VANS – Not allowed. It's just too powerful and groundbreaking and more of a cheat than desolation.
* Explosives – Defusing mines requires skill gain via books > Demolition Expert is not allowed to choose. Boobleheads and research is the way to go.
* Armor And Clothing – No armor except power armor allowed. No Tailoring or Armorer overkill. The ugly truth is most armor is extremly cumbersome and doesn't protect. Disposable Ceramic Plating is allowed though.
* Power Armor – Wearing power armor requires metalworking 180.

Dynamic skill gain, books/research (magazines and guides) and bobbleheads is the way to go. You will quickly find that a large number of crafting recipes are locked because the skill is missing. Perks may not be unlocked if they are linked to skill. As a result, everything has to be worked out. This means that crafting devices is already "late game" because they require engineering skill which is difficult to skill. This makes previously quickly unlockable recipes a problem. Any workshop level is also hard to skill now and that's exactly what survival is all about. Time, finding a solution.

### SPECIAL attribute points

The player has crawled out of a cryo chamber and can barely walk. STR, END and AGI start at 1. These can only be increased through leveling. CHR, INT and LCK can be increased up to 10 at character creation as these are largely passive. PER can be increased to a maximum of 4 points at character creation because the player is dazed.

attribute point max at character creation
* Endurance
* Agility
* Intelligence
* Luck

With STR, END and AGI 1 the game gets extremely difficult at the beginning. Since incoming damage is already very high together with Outcast, you die in 1 to 2 hits. Even melee combat is very dangerous and resource-hungry (medical treatment items). The background for this is simple, the player is forced to gather, since combat will be the end. This simply creates a very good progression and the path to the point at which the player can go into combat without problems is extremely extended.

📝 **Note:** since VANS is not allowed this greatly affects early game and overall gaming experience.

## See Also

* Difficulty
* Desolation Mode