Coco's Guide to Starting Out
This is a cynical, insincere, abrupt and highly subjective guide to making as much money as quickly as possible. It is aimed at a newly subscribed player with money burning a hole in his pocket and impatience nipping at his behind. The emphasis of all my advice is caution and protection of your characters
Basics
- I can give you one single piece of advice that will obviate the need for the whole of the rest this page.
- I can give you one single piece of advice that will save your hard earned racing winnings and that $20,000 too.
- I can give you one single piece of advice that will save the lives of your first four (or so) characters.
- I can give you one single piece of advice that will kickstart your empire by a factor of 50% to 100%.
That is it, pretty much the best advice anyone ever gave to a newbie in DW. You might be lucky enough to be reading this before you have bought your first car, if so please go back to the lobby and ask anyone there how their first solo scout went. I estimate over 80% of players have been premature (in some way) in their first solo scout
Borrowed vehicles
Take an Antagonist for your first Team Scout - buy a spare HMG magazine and sling it in the cargo too (If you must solo take the Desert Striker). The Moose has two good, reliable, and predictable weapons - HMG does more damage and has 20 rounds, CR is more accurate . These are safe to fire at point blank range and you can afford to start firing earlier to get sustained fire bonus. In a team scout, the battle will be won just as you are about to reload the second mag. Vulnerable to Rockets because of weak bottom armour.
The Desert Striker is an opportunity sniper, go wide of the initial confrontation and look for weak, turtled, or trapped cars. Other easy kills are slower cars that have no weapon to bear on you and are more interested in some other car. A single HMG will chew through side armour in 4 or 5 shots , but the Vampire must maintain speed and not get obsessed with a single target. NPC cars are very good at protecting their weakened armour. Vampires can switch targets to exploit cars that are involved with other fights, and your teammates will love the 'wingman' support.
The Mutant Marauder is a handful. The Rocket Launchers are 'burst' effect and can harm you and your friends too - do not go to point blank with this car. That said, Rocket Launchers are accurate and good with crowds of tightly packed NPC cars. Stay wide of the fray and start to orbit with your left and right Machine Guns. Side weapons can inflict up to 3 rounds worth of fire before the enemy has you back in his front arc again - and all the while you are firing and trying to evade his front arc. Of the three, the pickup is the car mostly likely to flip or roll , but has a good chance of recovering ( as opposed to the Chomper chassis , which is infamous for ending combats upside down)
All three sound like exciting vehicles, but most people find the Antagonist (Moose chassis) the most reliable and forgiving.
It is also the common basis for your first owned car.
Owned vehicles
The best suggested chassis to get when you're starting out would be either a Moose or a Mercenary. These are balanced mid-price vehicles that can bring down a bigger car and (more importantly) escape a difficult scout. These two chassis will get you into a fight and pound the enemy on an equal basis, but more importantly they will get you out of trouble just as fast.
Build precise mission orientated vehicles - do not buy a chassis and fill it full of all the guns and armour it will carry. Buy the best weapons for your crews skill and maybe one backup weapon - no more . If you want to experiment - do it in an arena (you can take your vehicles in there and fight NPCs AND resign).
Have a plan - This might only mean a simple mode of attack i,e speed and range you want to engage enemy. If you are going head-on take a rollcage. If you plan to out drive the enemy in a standard close in melee take at least a 2.5 litre or more
Look at your allies' strengths - If your fighting partners are all knuckleheads - let them take the initial salvo and you can take the overshoots or go wide and outflank them. If you a ultra new in town plead incompetence and take 3 crew instead of 2 because vets will gift you crappy cars they cannot be bothered to drive back to town
Keep your CR DOWN - This is a great way to start and will pay dividends later when you scouting alone . Low Cr cars will encounter low CR pirates - when you are out alone you should be driving very efficient cars and when combined with your low scout skill you will only encounter comparable enemies. Approx guide - Muscle cars under 120 cr : Sedans under 150CR : 4x4 under 220 CR . What is the point ? You are gonna use all the non CR advantages available to give you an edge.
The Devilish Detail Little things add up to give you a fighting advantage.Things that cost no CR included -
- Gunners are more accurate than drivers who also act as gunners
- Gunners can reload their own weapon (drivers cannot)
- gunners can drive home loot cars
- Spare ammo cost no CR
- Toughness cost less CR than armour (chomper with 84 armour is little more than a symphony with 84 armour)
- Better Engines dont cost CR ( they are the best defense there is ! Muscle cars survive because of speed)
- GREAT Gunner skill will (of course) cost no CR and will swing an even battle .
- Poor gun Skill ? Give them inaccurate weapons - get the car to point blank and hose off! (cheap too)
So in a nutshell - lots of guns and lots of armour makes you a target for more enemies - be efficient and drive a lean, mean car
Engine
You should go with the biggest engine your car can fit unexposed. If you cannot afford to buy the best available engine you are not ready. On the Moose that means 2.5 litres and on the Mercenary 3.2 litres .
The only two designs to use exposed engines are courier cars and mortar cars - both are always facing away from the enemy.
Spirit Chassis with a 3.2L exposed and 20 tank (Fr 10 Re 18 Le 12 Ri 12 To 5 Bo 5) has 110 cargo and can run un-escorted.
Land runner with a 4.0L exposed and twin CGLs rear (Fr 15 Re 28 Le 20 Ri 20 To 5 Bo 5). Lower armour to keep CR down.
Armor
Armor Grade
A armor weighs half of what B armor weights but costs four times as much B armor is the normal armor in terms of weight and cost. C armor weighs twice as much as B armor and costs half as much
It really comes down to a choice between B and C grade as A is much too expensive for anything but racing type events. C armoured cars will be slightly slower and if you're going with a smaller engine, too much C armor isn't a very good idea. If you cannot afford to buy the B Class Armour you are not ready. The place you'll really appreciate having a lighter and faster car will be when running away from encounters you realize you can't win.
You can't get refunds on your armor so switching the armour type later will be an expensive and time-consuming process. I'd recommend dishing out the extra cash for B armor for your first car and C on your second to see which works out better for you.
Armor Facings
You should put 100% of the maximum armor points that the chassis can take. If you cannot afford to buy a fully armoured car you are not ready.
To start with you can evenly distribute the armour on your front and sides with 5 to 7 points on top and bottom. As you play you will redistribute the armour to fit your style. Slow tanks (with C armour) tend to have more on the sides e.g. Front 23% Rear 23% Left 23% Right 23% Top 4% Bottom 4%. Fast, dogfighters have maximum on front e.g. Front 25% Rear 19% Left 23% Right 23% Top 5% Bottom 5% . The best feedback is the bullet-ridden absence of armour as you roll back into town. Look at the holes left by the last encounter and adapt your armour to deal with it - some people take more hits to their sides, while others take all their hits to the front
Weapons
You need a minimum of 2 crew (second guy to drive home your precious, looted car) and therefore 2 guns, and maybe a third weapon to experiment with. The priority is 2 good, accurate guns with lots of ammo - the Machine Gun family fits the bill very well - Twin Medium Machine Guns (2xMMGs) being the classic safe bet this can configured in many ways -
The regular Machine Gun and Gatling Gun are a bit low-damage, but make up for it by only being 20 bulk. Machine guns are probably the most versatile of all the weapons for any situation and you will pick up fesh ammo for it after almost any fight. Twin Gatling Guns are the mark of a good gunslinger, but the GG is not accurate, and Newbies need to hit once before they can hit twice in a round.
Car Rifles generally get outperformed by other weapons, but are more accurate. Rockets, on the other hand, do splash damage, which can damage several cars if they're grouped tightly together and being hit with several rockets per turn can cause a car to flip or at least lose control. Rockets are also decent at damaging the characters inside vehicles. Rockets are a poor starting choice as they are very dangerous to your crew at point blank range and can harm other players who are trying to help you - avoid them initially.
Dropped weapons (mines, Flaming Oil Jets, dropped spikes, etc.) can be unpredictable and are designed for inter-city travel. Mines or flaming oil jets in the right place can heavily turn the tide of battle in your favour, but looted cars with no tires will have difficulty escaping if you have a return encounter.
The more expensive/rare weapons (Lasers, Car Cannons, Anti-Tank Guns, etc.) really aren't worth the investment when you're just starting out compared to the cheaper alternatives.
Misc. Stuff
Ammo
You should bring 1 reload for all your weapons, possibly even more for weapons with 10 or smaller magazines. Dropped weapons usually don't require reloads since mostly they're used at the start of the encounter to get an initial advantage or for an escape during a return encounter.
Passengers
Each passenger takes up 20 bulk.You might take a third crewman to drive home loot cars or you may have a third weapon depending on your design.Vets are generous to newbies, so having a second loot car driver could double your haul for any one scout. Massed scouts are safer and yield bigger hauls of loot too. You only usually find four 4 crew in a larger 4X4 (Landrunner or Apache chassis) combat vehicle. Faster sedans like the Voyager and muscle cars like the Phoenix make great taxis for intercity runs with 3 paying passengers though.
Fuel
Fuel is the last thing you need to concern yourself with, a size 2 tank will do fine. If you insist on an early grave then please get a 5 to 8 size tank and scout out as far as possible (max 50 mile range).
Expiry
Currently, this is a post Firelight but pre-camps and pre-Fog of War guide