Marceror

Visit the doctor in Highpool or Ranger Center and they should be able to help you out.

For all the A-teamers out there: By the way, glad to hear you're up and running now CoM_Solaufein.

Save it for when it counts. You only get to fire it once.

That list was created during the beta. Most of the companions have since had their stats changed in the final release. Many rather dramatically.

Not sure what the issue is with crashing. I would report it at the inXile forums. I have not had issues with crashing myself. I think in more than 200 hours I might have had a single crash, in an earlier iteration of the beta. So far no crashes since the game went live, and I've been playing a lot (pretty much cleared out a 4 day weekend for myself). Sorry to hear that some are having these kinds of issues.

Why d'you figure they're playing builds of the BB rather than the whole game? I'd be okay playing the same version as the internal testers! But no, probably for the best that I not be spoiled like that.

Don't like? Bump the difficulty above Seasoned and no more magical heals.

I'm playing on ranger also.

am noticing slower leveling, particularly the xp gains for successful... whatever. example: our safe cracker/locksmith leveld' much faster in the beta. additionally, survival (skill) points is more expensive, so you probable got fewer. am seeing folks planning on having each character fill out three skills and two weapons. that strikes us as an extreme optimistic plan. other newness: combat armor now requires min str o' 5, not 4. virtual all npcs has different skill packages from beta. high combat initiative is actual more valuable than it were in the beta, but is also harder to acquire high ci... folks new to wasteland 2 might not realize that ci doesn't simple determine order of attacks in a turn, but will also decide how many turns you effective get in a combat encounter-- high ci = more attack opportunities. HA! Good Fun! The beta always had accelerated leveling, so it was expected that leveling would be slowed down for final release. Regarding CI, yes, it's arguably more important than Action Points. What good are AP if you don't get to attack?

Thank you . By the way, I'm pretty sure it's just the CHA total of your 4 created rangers that count for this. The NPCs you add don't count. At least, that's how it worked in the most recent beta version.

@Hiro - RTFM is not a bad policy.

Ah, chronic restarters syndrome (CRS). I believe your local doctor should be able to prescribe something to help with that.

The game difficulty has definitely been kicked up since the beta, which is very welcome -- and something many of us have been asking for. I'm playing on Ranger difficulty and happy to have some challenge in the game. Speaking of challenge, I just completed the Leve' Upe Mines and OMG. That was some HARD fighting! On my second try I got through without losing any rangers, but only just barely. Good stuff.

So the direct answer to your first question is, if a guy bleeds out he/she dies. Game over for that character. But what I think you're really getting at is can you replace that character. If it's an NPC you can replace with another joinable NPC that you meet in the wasteland and convince to join your cause. If it's one of your 4 rangers:

"What will I do on my first play through? I will likely play as a Chanter, though that is still up for debate. I will use only pre-made NPCs because I want to experience the content OE created for them. Beyond that, no idea. It depends on what the game throws at me.

The point is there's a lot of different, valid ways to approach combat. Grouping subsquads could certainly be useful, as could a formation system. Hopefully inXile will continue to support the game and add improvements. In the meantime, I'm perfectly fine with manually positioning my squad. @Keyrock - the formation topic has been brought up a couple of times on the inXile forums. I wouldn't advise you to visit them just yet, unless you're supremely patient. They seem to be overloaded with activity, so they are extremely slow and often pages just time out. Hopefully they're doing something to improve that situation.

One thing that is sorely missing from the game is formations. Rather than having to individually place each character before combat, I'd love to be able to set up a few custom formations so that I could quickly get my team into place just by selecting that formation. Also important to consider is whether you want some characters to begin combat in the crouching position. It takes 2 action points to do it, so it can be a boon if you do that before the fight starts. It can also work against you if you end up wanting to move a character, because it's also 2 action points to stand up. Something to think about.

You get a gold star and bonus points for the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer reference (which is the origin of my handle). One of my favorite SNL sketches. Phil Hartman was pure gold.

Keyrock's words are as true in our time as they were in his. You raise some very good points. Group control is evil and shouldn't be used. Just hit U to select your party.

Indeed. The more I play the game, the more I love it. And yes, you can recover from certain mistakes without too much difficulty. Forgot to give someone demolitions? Okay, when one of your character's levels up, there's your chance to add the skill. Before I created my first party I watched a couple of short let's plays. I paused a lot and paid attention to all of the abilities and skills, and got a general idea how they worked from watching the let's plays. Then I went and built a spreadsheet in Excel where I could enter my character builds. It wasn't anything overly fancy, but it gave me a place where I could iterate and try to build a starting party that was good from the outset. I hate getting 6 hours into a game only realizing I have made MAJOR mistakes. I still expected my party to suck, but to my surprise they were actually extremely effective. I changed a few things during my second run through. A few were improvements, a few were just for the sake of variety. But basically I didn't feel the need to make any sweeping changes. What I also enjoy is that I have based 3 of my rangers after my 3 sons, and the fourth after my niece. I have selected skills that I feel are a complement for their personalities. -It just so happens that my eldest son is very effective with computers and is extremely intelligent (he's autistic in RL, but extremely high functioning - age 11). So he's my techy/infiltrator guy, and my smart ass. -My second son, age 7, is very outgoing and seems to have natural leadership skills. He's also a smarty-pants (not quite to the level of his older brother, but still). He's my charismatic leader, surgeon/medic, and kiss ass. My charismatic genius as I call him. -My youngest son, nearly 4, looks like he's going to grow up to be a football player. He isn't afraid of anything, and he can make both of his older brothers cry if they get in his way. He's in the top 97% percentile for his height and weight, and he's freaking strong. If he hits you, you're going to feel it. So he's my melee/bruiser guy, and my hard ass. -My niece, age 8, is a little more quiet and withdrawn. I could see a life in the wasteland, after losing her parents, turning her into a deadly killing machine. So she's my sniper and deady as all get out.

I've seen that also. When it happened to me recently my sniper had been knocked out in a fight. I used the trauma kit to revive her, but noticed that she was still bleeding (bleeding effect). So I used a suture kit to stop the bleeding and all was well. The game can be pretty unforgiving with things like this. You really have to pay attention to what is going on. When in doubt try using the surgeon skill a second time to see if any surgical items can be selected. Of course, this presupposes that you actually HAVE the necessary item, so... make sure that you do. Antiobiotics, antivenom, suture kits, trauma kits... always make sure you have some of each in your surgeon's inventory. You will generally find them as you play through the game, so no need to go out and buy a bunch (unless of course you're guys are going into critical condition left and right).

1 or 2 only to start, since I usually have so many skills I want to cover.

Thanks guys. Unlike with PoE, you can absolutely screw yourself over with the wrong party, so I hope my pointers help you to avoid some mistakes. They certainly should. And for me, the enjoyment of the game is far, far sweeter knowing my victories are due in large part to assembling a well-optimized squad, rather than anything I randomly pick being an "I win" decision. I can't remember the last time a game drove me absolutely bonkers the way WL2 has. It's a work of freaking art, and a grognard's paradise. Brian Fargo is my new hero. Oh, another bit of advice. Make sure to pick up a shovel!

A couple more tidbits: Always remember to reload your weapons after combat. Not doing so can be disastrous. Make full use of ambushes. If your enemy isn't in range of your weapon yet, don't necessarily be hasty to run to him. Set your weapon to ambush so when he arrives in range you get an immediate attack against him, and your squad's line is in tact. Do a bit of quick math. It might make sense to do a burst fire with your assault rifle, and then switch to a handgun for a follow up shot. Or start with a burst fire, and switch to a single shot. Try to get as much lead out per turn as possible. The best defense is a good offence, and all that. Pay attention to those action points you store when not all used in a single turn. They can give you additional options during your following turn. Always have a backup weapon. If your primary weapon jams in combat, you're going to need this. Hint: melee weapons and energy weapons don't jam. Weapon mods are your friends, especially the magazine that lowers jamming by 4%. This is another area where luck helps (i.e. with weapon jamming), even though I don't believe it's documented. Increased range, accuracy, etc from other mods are great as well. You're going to want to have someone skilled with modding weapons. On the topic of weapon mods, selling weapon parts after stripping a weapon is a great way to earn cash.

I did one run through with a high luck party, and will say that I was rolling in great gear, ammo, money, etc. Really, I had way more than I needed. I wouldn't advise investing too much here, but I wanted to point out that there is more than combat benefits to be gained by luck.