Survivalist First Week Advantage

This is my first time posting a guide to steam so bare with me. This guide's purpose is to maximize your community's first week so that by the end of it you should have no trouble collecting almost all of the insulin from Fort Kohai. Amass a sizable community of around 10-12 people (without recruiting the Fat Neil's or McCoy's), be able to use Joe as a one man tactical response team for all those nasty looters/ infected groups and finally be able to create a sustainable community with almost infinite food.

A thing to note: This is not an end all guide but more of a blueprint on how to set up a community that can endure till the endgame very quickly by recruiting and going to areas before they are revealed to you through the main story/side quests.


Update: I have finished the update for the guide. It should be much more clear on where to go and what to do. I've also changed some of the instructions around in order to decrease the set up time for building your base.

Due to the nature of the game I'll be posting this here as a preface as end game isn't revealed from the start and my guide references using certain tactics based on route choice..

Once you give a certain amount of insulin to Alice it will trigger her dialogue which gives you the objectives for beating the game. You are offered three choices on victory route. Money, Power, and Love. The end game has 4 similar requirements no matter what route. The only thing that changes is the last goal.

The first part is to get 1 5 star of every type of stat (it doesn't have to be the same person)
The second par is to build 4 defensive structures.
The third is having a sustainable food supply in the community menu.
The fourth part is to eliminate all hostile factions
The final part is based on the Path you Chose.

The Path for Money requires you to amass 100,000 gold.
The Path for Power requires your community to be 80% of the entire living population of the map (IE; the other factions either die or join you.)
The Path for Love requires you to keep Alice alive for a certain number of days to finish her storyline (IE: must have a certain amount of Insulin to trigger all her events)

Pick whatever goal you want as they are all easily completed with a strong enough economy. The Path of Power should probably be done only if you started recruiting all the bandits you could using the alternate way of recruitment. Otherwise you may end up just having to eliminate NPC's who won't join you.

In order to do fast play there are four steps. First, unless your at level 2 fitness Joe is going to be using kicks to deal with the infected to build it up. You can do this very easily but, just keep a close eye on getting swarmed. You shouldn't have too much of an issue on that as long as you play carefully, Joe should always be running when manually controlled until his fatigue gauge is 1/2 to 3/4ths of the way full. Let it settle then run again. You can increase how full you let the gauge rise as his Fitness levels up. Third, after your fitness is at level 2 you'll want to use your gun to cripple the infected with leg shots then just plug them till they die you'll want to get Joe up to level 3 in firearms as soon as possible. Finally, save frequently because you do NOT want to see "looters" as a random encounter until after you visit Buckeye.

There are two ways to approach the first step for Joe. The easier way (but takes a bit more time) is to go down and collect the pistol and the additional ammo (basically follow the quest until you get to "Shooting Practice" (be sure to take the additional ammo from the truck) before heading up to get the backpack however the gun *will* attract more infected if they are grouped up as they'll be drawn by the gunfire. The other way is to go directly as you start this means means you are going to have to kick to death the infected and be careful about not getting your fatigue too high but will 100% get you a level in fitness once you kill 7 infected with kicks. If you draw multiple infected before you level up fitness it's pretty much a game over it might be possible to juggle 2 of them through side stepping but otherwise it's NG.

Tip: With practice and good timing you can actually kick an infected as it tries to tackle you. If you are doing a melee only start it would be good to practice this technique. Especially since it will keep the infected from getting too far in one direction and making you pull more.

Regardless of which path you choose you'll start out the same by going west from the bunker to the mountainous area. You'll know you are in the right place because just to the south of that area will be one of the entrances to "Vince's Gang" (which is a looter base) it's easily identifiable by the fact that there is some man made barricades. From there head north a bit till you can head further west. After following the mountain ridge you'll fine a path that heads north. Your objective is to go north up the "hiking trail" and then continuing north till you get to the store "Cheap N' Easy" there will be around 5-6 Green Strain infected between you and the store so make sure to pull them one at a time.

Go into the store and collect the Fitness Magazine here. There is also a backpack in a wrecked pick up truck to the north west so collect that as well. After that head back down to the bunker and drop off what items you don't need right now then make your way east from the bunker until you can see a road that goes north to south. stay in the chasm and head north until you find a wrecked car which will have an assault rifle, 360 rounds of ammo, 400 "cash" and a small backpack. Run back to the bunker and drop everything off except the backpacks and the skill book then continue with the story (Note: If you took the easier route by taking the handgun when heading up the mountain keep the gun and 100 rounds of ammo on you before you start.)

Follow the story being as swift as possible in order to collect Alice. However before you actually go to Sienna you'll want to stop down to the house just west of the hardware store and grab the other small backpack from there leave all the food here however as it's not that far from base and you should get all the stuff you can from Sienna instead due to distance. Joe should hit level 2 fitness right around here so it's time to switch over to firearms. At this point start making your way to Sienna go into the store just as you get to Sienna's main gate and grab the Firearm magazine. After meeting with Isham and collecting the insulin head north till the road curves to the west you'll want to make a quick detour all the way through the town to the wrecked car there to get an additional fitness book. At this point load up as much assault rifle ammo as you can carry then get the shotgun shells if you have room to spare (after collecting the weapons of course) also load each character up with around 70 pistol ammo each. From there head due east until you get back to the bunker (make sure that Joe carries the other weapons to prevent the other two from wasting ammo) .

Once you get back to the bunker your character's split up. The first thing you should do is have Isham and Joe both go into the bunker and offload all of their gear except for a Pistol and around 50 rounds of ammo on each (Joe should keep the skillbooks). You also want them to switch backpacks so Isham has more than 70 with the larger pack (he should have 72). This will allow Isham to collect two wood planks. Also and I can't state this clearly enough DO NOT HAVE THE GREEN STRAIN ANTI-GEN ON YOU. You shouldn't be getting bitten by infected anyhow but, it's also important to not have it on Joe for the next part of this guide.

Once you've sorted everything have Isham follow his quest chain using the command system. Double click to have him run there. (Making adjustments when you need to further the quest) Alice should be set to gather ammo from the gun store (which she will do once she wakes up)and you will manually take control of Joe. The first thing Joe needs to do is head is load Joe up with 150 or more rounds of pistol ammo and head east towards Sundance (just keep following the Highway).

At this point Isham should have been able to get to the hardware store and have it explained that you need 8 pieces of wood planks. However instead of gathering those planks from the hardware store use the command to get the planks from the first house you saw as you were entering Dejado to speed things up a bit. (Make sure your not tabbing away too long from Joe else he might go chasing after things he shouldn't yet).

Once Isham is set up collecting wood planks switch back to Joe and continue to head to Sundance. Make sure to only use your gun on the way stating with kneecapping all infected that jump at you and then blowing them away as they hobble to you. Ideally after cleaning out Sundance you should hit level 2 in Firearms at least. Continue using firearms here however.

Don't worry about raiding anything but food (and skill books) from the stores for now but collect the rest if you have space to spare. The things you most need from Sundance are the DIY skillbook from the Cheap N Easy and the farming supplies from the house by the garden shop (the farming skill book and a watering can). Once you have collected all of those things you can head back to the bunker . If you're "lucky" you'll get attacked by Infected and not looters

Attacks: Every day (roughly) an event will happen where either Infected or Looters will attack you. The direction they come from is chosen from any infested town you have discovered including Dejaho. The difficulty of the battle is determined by chosen town. For example, if the infected come from Sienna they are going to be a group of green strain infected. However if they come from Buckeye they will always be a blue strain of infected. So as more towns are found the odds of it coming from a more dangerous region increases.

Have Isham deal with the attack using melee (give him Joe's fitness books if Joe can make it back in time). With a bit of luck Isham may get to Fitness 2 after the attack. Alice should offload all her stuff and be set to collect wood planks as well when she wakes up for now. But this will only be temporary until we get our new recruits so make sure t keep tabs on her.

When you're back at the bunker now things start to really pick up the pace. Hand off the DIY handbook to Isham if he's at Fitness skill 2 if not hand him a fitness book as well and store the rest of the stuff. Next with Joe gather 2 cement and help to gather 24 pieces of wood planks (total) Grab the cement from the hardware store and use the remaining weight to pick up the water/food in the other buildings.

Tip: When you get back to the bunker Joe will most likely go to sleep. If you manually control him he will wake back up. A good idea is to use up your stamina getting back to the bunker go in and drop off the planks then let him stay in the bunker till his fatigue goes back down. This way you actually regen a bit of sleep gauge at the same time while you are waiting.

At 8 wood planks start having Isham build the fence. (keep collecting with Joe manually) he'll need 2 more for the gate (if the gate is being built on your trip there or back there is another opening to the east to get back in.) 8 more for a shack and 4 more for an outhouse and 2 more for a well (as well as the 2 concrete) after building a well he'll want to build a watchtower. When placing the Shack and outhouse do it near the bunker (to speed up the building progress) The well on the other hand should be placed in an empty spot with no mountains or cliffs anywhere near it. (give yourself a fairly wide berth of flat land) it doesn't have to be near the bunker but it should be in a spot that you've already explored and killed the infected in the region.

Tip: If you manually tell Isham to build something he will continue to work on it so long as he isn't interrupted by you (if you run into him with your controlled character or an Infected attacks him. This means he will forego sleep so long as you don't give a chance for the AI script to take over. Use this to your advantage to get everything built in one sitting.

While Isham is building you should take Joe to the hardware store for the lumber and a quick run to the water tower in Dejado to fill up whatever inventory space he has left before heading back to the bunker from then you can gather wood from the nearest source. Once you've gotten everything built up to the watchtower , then empty everything from his inventory. Head down to south west of Dejado (directly south of the first building in Sienna) and find "Tom N' Butch". At this point you should NOT have the Green Strain Anti-gen on you. Butch will ask you if you have it and since you don't he will tell you where to get some. However, instead of going to there head back to the bunker picking up wood planks on the way (should be able to carry 3 or 4 of them).

On arriving at the bunker also pick up a handgun and 200 rounds of ammo if you are not at Firearms Level 2. If you are take the fitness/firearm skill books, the Anti-gen and the backpack. Make sure to go through the "unknown" areas so you can kill any infected you find on your way to and from the place. When you get there give it to him for free (this is important!). He will cure Tom from turning into an infected and be very grateful. The next thing you should do is ask Butch to join your community. Because of the steps you took he should be willing to join with no further actions and Tom also joins with him.

While your three main survivors can level up to 5 stars in everything everyone else you recruit will have a starting amount of stats and a hard capped maximum that they are able to go to. I will list the numbers based on Current/Maxmum on the ones this guide covers.

Tom's Stats: Fitness 3/5, Firearms 1/5, Construction 2/3, Farming 0/5, Medicine 0/4
Butch's Stats: Fitness 4/5, Firearms 3/3, Construction 1/3, Farming 2/2, Medicine 0/2


The next step is to load them both up with items and send them back to the bunker. Have Tom collect all of the crops still left at the area and get all the corn from the house for him as well. Which should net you 16 corn total.

For the next step Joe will be heading south east of Tom N' Butch's house (once you see the highway follow it south) and head directly to Buckeye. Note: Buckeye has Blue Strain Infected and will be tougher than the greens you have been fighting (but shouldn't be an issue due to fitness level). You can probably take 2 or 3 at a time but anymore than that will put you at risk. When you get to Buckeye the most important things to do is enter each of the 3 shops and pick up the Skillbooks (A constuction book a firearm and a fitness book) as well as the all important Sniper Rifle and all the sniper rifle ammo. Run around the area clearing out the nearby blue strain in the town and then head a little north of the Water Tower and you'll find a shack with another sniper rifle, more ammo and another firearm skillbook this brings Joe to 5 in firearms (including skill books). At this point have Joe head back to the bunker. Focus on using only melee while holding the sniper rifle for a wider view

In the meantime Isham should be finished with his construction of everything and should be switched to gathering wood planks (He'll also be able to remove the Toolbox from his inventory now). Butch take the backpack from Alice and gather Wood while Alice starts ammo collecting and Tom on the other hand should pick up the Farm Book and manually plant all of the corn you gave him around the well (do not use the farm auto function yet) make sure to space the corn as closely as possible to save time and room. Once all of it is planted then go ahead and use the middle mouse button to have him auto farm. However make sure to open his inventory and uncheck "replant crops". The reason for this is because even though Butch has a higher current farm skill he will never be able to get any better at it. With the farming skill book however Tom will be able to plant crops and can quickly level up to be Butch's equal with the Corn you took from their former base. Tom will also end up having a lot of idle time at first so you may want to have him gather water from the well and throw it in storage to keep the community from having to run all the way back to the well all the time.

Joe should have 5 in Firearms skill (including skill books) so you can perform one last task before letting him sleep. Unless you're taking down looters don't use your guns until Joe has hit a natural 3 in Fitness and even then it may just be easier to keep using melee to prevent from getting swarmed.

Head back to the bunker and offload Joe's stuff except for the one of the fitness skillbooks the firearm skillbooks and a loaded sniper rifle then head west to where Vince's Gang is. Snipe and kill all but one of them and recruit the last one (if you end up having the "bold" linked one be the survivor reload and try again. The two you have a choice between are Richard who goes by his "censored" nickname and Pearl.

Richard's stats: Fitness 3/4 Firearms 1/3 Construction 0/5 Farming 0/5 Medicine 0/2

Pearl's Stats: Fitness 1/3 Firearms 2/5 Construction 0/3 Farming 0/3 Medicine 1/2.


While Pearl would make a great guard, Richard has the better overall stat potential. If you start your assault via the east entrance you will have a better chance at getting Pearl while going the North entrance will lead to you most likely getting Richard. The outhouse has a firearms magazine in it putting Joe at level "6" for firearms which while doesn't have meaning as is it *will* matter if he gets crippled arms (each crippled arm gives a -1 to firearms till the arm is better) So keeping him at a level "7" will in effect make him always have level 5 regardless of battle damage (which is where you want to be). Hand over the backpack and the fitness skillbooks over to the new "recruit" (if the skillbooks put them at cap just give them enough to get to the cap and have Joe keep the remainder) and let Joe finally get some rest.

An alternate method is to go up to the bandits and let them rob you (only have a couple gold on you) and then you can spar them to get all three of them if you don't have gold they'll steal your items instead. However doing this will take longer to get any of them as a recruit. Also considering that unless their fitness is high they won't be able to take goods without a backpack there's really no point in getting additional mouths to feed. But if you're going for the "Power" ending (more on that later in the guide) then it might be beneficial to do so. All bandit camps that aren't immediately hostile will function in the same way.

The new recruit should work on bringing Wood Planks back to the base until Joe wakes up. While you can take over these buildings they are so out of the way that if the AI chooses it as a drop point it will be pain to get to them. A rule of thumb is one outhouse for every 4 people in your community to keep them at full positive for community gauge and 2 sleeping spaces for every member of your community. With the skillbooks you have Isham should have level 5 in construction and this will allow him to build the all important barns which provide 4 sleeping spaces and have 4,000 lbs limit. For now just build one near the farm that you are creating (not on top of it give enough room to have a large amount of corn to be planted) give the corn in the shack to Tom to plant. Once it's finished have him continue to build a couple more barns to get to 20 sleeping spots and then another couple of outhouses as a recruitment spree is about to happen. Once he's finished you can have him gather more Wood Planks.

At this point if Looters spawn as the random encounter you should be fine as long as you take Joe to Snipe them in the head as they walk on up. If it's just infected have anyone with high fitness (artificial or natural) take care of them. If it's looters give Joe a Backpack then have him snipe them and loot their corpses.

You should manually take control of the new recruit and gather the wood planks while waiting for Joe to wake up. If you picked Richard you may want to take the cement back first as with the skill book he'll be able to get 2 at a time. If Isham isn't awake by the time you get 12 Planks you'll want to cancel his gathering and instead focus on building barns when he wakes up.

Joe should wake up just as it's time for Richard to go to sleep. If it's a little bit soon for Joe's gauge then you may want to gather some more water with Tom before you wake him up. Once he is awake give the backpack sniper rifle with around 40 rounds of ammo, 10 bandages and all of the gold to Joe, (you may want to give back the fitness skillbook as well) and it's time to take him to Fort Kohai and have him fist fight Chris and Bob for some money which will net you 100 gold and 25 gold respectively (bandage up after each fight try to avoid damage to the legs as it will decrease your fitness).

Note: If you level up medicine you can in fact "repatch" your wounds this includes boosts via skill book. So you can use it as a quick way to get a little bit more medicine exp.


After that take the quests from Sarah and Ed. Sarah will give you a free bulletproof vest at the start but have her stay put at the Fort since she'll only get in your way during combat. Go do Ed's quest first which guides you to Connie just north of the town and give her a book. After that head over to get Sarah's done.

There are only 3 looters here the one in the watchtower is "Bold" so kill him first. Then it's left to Jacob or Jesus that will join you after you kill the other off.

Jacob's Stats: Fitness 0/4, Firearms 0/3, Construction 0/5 , Farming 0/2 Medicine 0/3
Jesus' Stats: Fitness 1/4, Firearms 3/5 Construction 0/5, Farming 0/4, Medicine 2/4

Obviously Jesus is the better of the two to get. The best way to get him is to approach from the east and snipe the guy in the watch tower before sniping the looter immediately approaching you after which "should" be Jacob.

Have them grab as much of the loot as they can from the looter camp and head to the bunker. When they arrive have them gather ammo from the gun store along with Alice. You may want to escort them partly the way there if you haven't cleared the area but it probably won't be necessary. Give any corn to Tom then have him plant it.

Joe should head back to Kohai in the meantime and turn in the quests then challenge Sarah to a fistfight for more gold and finally you can recruit Sarah, Ed and Nat (who comes with a Backpack, a Toolbox and a Watering Can.

Ed's Stats: Fitness 1/4, Firearms 2/2, Construction 0/4, Farming 0/5, Medicine 0/4
Nat's: Fitness 2/3, Firearms 2/3, Construction 4/5, Farming 1/5, Medicine 0/2
Sarah's Stats: Fitness 4/5, Firearms 3/5, Construction 2/5, Farming 0/4, Medicine 3/4

Give the backpack to Sarah and have her collect Wood Planks, while Ed and Nat clean out the gun store of it's ammo.

Once you've got them pick up Zee's, Charlie's and Ida's quests and cancel Alice's gathering of bullets to have her come too Kohai and talk to Annie to get her quest then she can return to gathering ammo. Take Joe south of Fort Kohai and finish up Zee's quest. You can actually go behind the little outcropping and Snipe the entire lot of them before they get to you just be careful because it may be guarded by a White Strain (either give it a head shot. or cripple it's legs then shoot with the pistol til dead).

Your Choices here are:
Will's Stats: Fitness 2/3, Firearms 2/3, Construction 1/5, Farming 0/4, Medicine 0/3
Bob's Stats: Fitness 2/4, Firearms 1/4, Construction 3/3, Farming 0/5, Medicine 0/4
Tom's Stats: Fitness 4/4, Firearms 1/5, Construction 1/4, Farming 0/4, Medicine 1/3
Cynthia's Stats: Fitness 2/3, Firearms 2/2, Construction 0/2, Farming 0/2, Medicine 0/4

Ironically Bob is the easiest to get because he's in the Watch Tower and won't chase you so if you go to the outcropping you can snipe Will and then kill the other two who turn hostile. Will/Tom and Cynthia all require a variation of a frontal assault with Cynthia being the hardest to recruit due to the way they rush out.

Once you've finished escort your new minion to Fort Kohai and then it's time for a shopping spree. Start by buying the Skill books (Firearms, Fitness and Farming) and Backpacks (Wabbit,Regular and Large) from Jacob. Then buy the Skill Books (Fitness, Farming), Backpacks (Wabbit, Regular) and Watering Can from Eliza and hand them over to your new recruit to take back to the bunker for distribution. The reason you waited till now is so that your rep was as high as possible and you could get the deepest discounts for everything (books should be 50 gold each if they are any higher your rep isn't capped yet) you should also sell whatever pistols (empty them first then sell them), bullet proof vests (only they sell for 30 gold or higher) back to them. Don't accidentally let them get over their weight limit. I don't *think* they can suffer penalties being NPC's but not 100% certain.

If you are going Love Route. Head back with Joe as well to pick up a pistol and 500 rounds of ammo since you'll now want to level firearms to level 3.

Head south to get Annie's quest done and then make your way to Buckeye to complete Ida's quest. You'll find the building you are looking for in the northwest part of the Town. After this go ahead and do Charlie's Quest and have Charlie sit it out back at Fort Kohai. Going around to the backside of the Devil's Gulley encampment will allow you to snipe easier. However the person in the Watchtower is "bold" so you'll need to run a bit and kill them as the 3rd one in order to recruit. An alternate method is to go up and try to "greet" them so that she'll jump out of the watch tower. Back up and then quickly head shot her before she gets a chance to talk then eliminate two more. Regardless of which choice you make you'll need to purge the area of Blue Strain Infected first to make it so they don't overwhelm you. There are also two crates here. One with a blue strain anti-gen and one with a box of chocolates.

Your Choices here are:
Augustine: Fitness 2/4 , Firearms 1/2, Construction 0/3, Farming 1/5, Medicine 1/3
Lucretia(in black outfit): Fitness 0/4, Firearms 3/5, Construction 2/4, Farming 1/2, Medicine 0/3
Tom F: Fitness 1/2, Firearms 1/2, Construction 2/4, Farming 1/3, Medicine 2/2

After you've finished here head back to the bunker with your recruit in tow and let Joe rest up again. He should be at level 3 Firearms with all the running around. While you're waiting for him to replenish his sleep gather a bunch of water from the well and stash it then take one of your 1 star fitness units to scout the surrounding area to get a clearer picture of where to build barriers for your community. Finally after that use one of your Wood Plank gathers manually for a while.

Isham should start walling off your community with wooden walls/gates once he's done building Barns and Outhouses but make sure to have them in a closer choke point because you'll want to build a secondary fence made of chicken wire later. if you make them about 5-6 spaces apart it should be enough to keep the wooden walls safe.

Once Joe is awake head back to Fort Kohai making sure to take 9-10 bandages with you as well as your standard loadout of sniper rifle with 40 rounds as you should go back to melee now. Take Annie's money when you turn in the quest and also give her the locket. When you turn in the quest to Charlie he will turn into an infected and attack you. Then you'll have to let anyone else in Fort Kohai know of his death (even though they um.. saw it happen and all). Finally, when you turn into Ida she'll call a town meeting which you'll have to wait for.

Meanwhile back at your community you may finally get all of the ammo from the Sienna gunstore. If you do switch to collecting from Buckeye but, watch out and take over for them if they get attacked since it might be a Blue Strain. Meanwhile you may want to have one or two of your backpack wearers start gathering chicken wire from Dejado. As you start to empty out Dejado start sending them out to Sienna and then Sundance to collect building mats.

Once you've finished with all of the turn in's turn in Ida's quest. She'll call the meeting and you'll get a new batch of quests to spy on Los Cero's and make alliances to prepare for war. This will lead you to the Fat Neil's and McCoy's. Wyatt also has a quest to broker a peace between the two factions. If you are going for the "Path of the Righteous Man" Awardment do not take Bud's quest.

Start the quest chain for the McCoy's and the Fat Neil's and head over to meet both sides. Filipe is the Trader for the McCoys and Lola is the Trader for the Fat Neils. Manuel in McCoy territory has a Bounty and Jane has one on the Fat Neil side. Don't do "Tit for Tat" or "Eye for an Eye" just yet.
Instead do their "bounty" quests and the fist fighting. At this point Joe's probably gained a level in medicine and that means he may be able to make a bit more gold by playing doctor to the people he beats up. Once you've finished beating down as many people as you can without getting to 75% blood loss then it's time to do the bounty quests. Start with the McCoy's Bounty as it's closer if a bit messier.

The McCoy's Bounty is a bit troublesome because the group is actually surrounded by white strain infected. White strain is the most durable and most dangerous. A single bite will instantly kill you so be very careful as you make your way there and only get in one fight at a time if you can help it. However that's the real danger as there are only three looters here. The one on the west is bold so kill him first and your choice is between Billy and Sally

Billy's Stats: 4/4 Fitness, 0/3 Firearms, 3/3 Construction, 3/5 Farming, 0/4 Medicine
Sally's Stats: 0/3 Fitness, 1/5 Firearms, 3/4 Construction, 0/5 Farming, 0/3 Medicine

To the west is another white strain but also 3 Looters. Occasionally the white strain might go attack them. Regardless kill them all and collect the molotovs from the crate they were guarding. After that head back to the McCoy's and turn in the quest. At this point buy the farming books and Backpack from Felipe then head down to take out the Dry River Gang.

The Dry River Gang is difficult due there being 7 guys. Because there are so many and they are fortified well you won't have much of an opportunity to pick which you get as there are only two that stay in the watchtowers and one of them is bold. Approach from the front and snipe the first one while letting the rest come to you. After that only two in the watch towers are left. Kill the one at the main gate before heading around to the side entrance (all the way around) and recruit Charlie and send him back to base. Strap the backpack you had from the McCoys on him and offload all you can to him then send him to the bunker. slowly until he gets to sundance then let him run back.

Charlie's Stats: Fitness 3/3, Firearms 1/2, Construction 0/5, Farming 0/5, Medicine 1/3

To the south there is a crate with a shotgun and some ammo with three looters to the west. In the ridge below there is another crate with Cheap Vodka,water and a box of chocolates to the north west there is another crate with molotov's and a firearm skillbook. After you get these head back to the Fat Neil's to turn in the quest then head to lola to sell your empty pistols and good vests before buying the Farming, Fitness, Medicine and Firearms skill books as well as the Wabbit Backpack from Lola. At this point head back to Fort Kohai and buy all the insulin without going under 200 gold to give to Alice since she's probably just about out (should get you about 9-10 days of time). Also talk to Eliza to pick up her bandit raiding quest.

After the hand off of insulin you'll trigger Alice's event to choose your game ending. And if you choose the love path you'll push right into her firearms level up quest and fitness level up quest. Let Jim rest and take either Butch or Sarah to explore Sienna and map it out really quick. Once Jim is awake have him talk to Alice and choose a path. If you choose love do the firearms quest but ignore the fitness one if it triggers until you get 4 stars for Joe.

Head south out of Sienna and follow the road making sure to kill the two looters blocking the path and you'll find a group of red strain infected guarding a military vehicle kill them and search the vehicle for the Neural Imaging Device which will show you how people feel towards your character. After that continue following the road making sure to carefully clear the red strain enemies and you'll eventually find another set of looters (4 in all) inside the police car is another backpack.

Head back to drop everything off and then give Sarah a construction book and a toolbox to have her start helping isham with the walls to enclose the community. You'll also want to start building more barns and outhouses so that you can easily recruit more members to the community. Finally after beating the crap out of both the McCoy's and Fat Neil's you can most likely use aggressive tactics to force them to get along (The Imaging Device will help you to find out if you have enough credibility to use a certain option. As long as the dot is within the shaded area for a response it will succeed)

At this point you'll be around day 7 or 8 with crops coming in by the bushel shortly. You should recruit a second character to become a farmer and transfer books over to them when tom starts hitting the 5 star cap. Then continue to manually plant more crops building a second well if needed as they expand. As they improve their skills to no longer require books you can transfer those books to another potential farmer until you run out of watering cans. Isham and Sarah should continue to wall off the Base and when they are done put Watchtowers (or their improved stone tower version) so that people without backpacks and good firearms skill can become security guards. You'll also want to build a barn near by the towers and move some food and water into each barn. This way you've got a great sustainable base while Joe can roam the waste pursuing justice... or at least more insulin.

Thanks to Bob for making a great game and I can't wait to play the sequel. Also thanks to all the people who read this guide and if it helps you or if you think there is something that isn't quite clear let me know via steam. And to everyone out there in the desert keep an eye out for those White Strains.