First off, I am brand new to this game, but I freaking love it.

It's like mixing Ultima 5, Wizardry and Fallout in a blender. I have never played a game like this!

But I had a few slipups, for example I overlooked equipping my characters weapons at the beginning, so when I encountered my first fight, my characters barely survived it. Despite seeing as the battle never ends as I keep falling unconscious only to recover to run or fight. One battle, I was completely trapped in, as I couldn't run away, and I couldn't even quit the game to reload a save. Not even Alt-Tabbing the window worked with this game. I was literally forced to either kill or run or force reset my computer.

Any tips for a newb? :3

Also for a "wasteland" this place is looking pretty good if you ask me.

Intelligence translates into skill points. The only way to get extra skill points is to raise your Intelligence.

Weapon skills can increase when attacking enemies with higher armor rating. Other skills increase by use as well. It is therefore not necessary to put more than one point into a skill at character creation, and there is only one case where I would recommend it.

Weapon types are not created equal. The most important weapon skill is actually Brawling, which will last throughout the entire game. Starting with a score of 2 isn't such a bad idea here. Knife-fighting is useless, and Pugilism is only useful if you haven't found a good weapon. (Also, those weapons still use Brawling for determining how many attacks you get.) When attacking with an unloaded gun, your Brawling skill still affects the number of attacks you get, but your gun skill affects your accuracy and damage. At high Brawling, however, the strongest melee weapon is still a better choice, but melee with an empty gun is sometimes useful.

Clip Pistol and Rifle are weak (barring a certain glitch rifle you're not supposed to get), and melee combat is all you need while those are your main ranged weapons.

SMG and Assault Rifle are good, but it turns out that going Full Auto with them gives you a bonus to hit equal to the number of bullets fired, and ammo is plentiful enough for you to do that. Assault Rifles are useful enough against enemies with moderate armor that a single point in the skill will have a chance to grow if you choose to go that route.

Energy weapons are eventually worth investing into, but don't worry about that skill for now. (Such weapons don't appear until late in the game anyway.)

Anti-Tank weapons are good because they *ignore defense*, making them particularly useful against heavily armored weapons. However, ammo is limited and expensive. (It's expensive enough that it's worth selling some of the ammo you find for other things.) I recommend giving one character this skill; that should be enough.

Medic is surprisingly not as crucial as you might think. In the early game, it is rare for someone to be injured, as most enemies can't do enough damage for that to happen. (When it does happen, you can just reload.) Later, there's the superior Doctor skill if you have enough Intelligence. With that said, situations where Doctor will help bud Medic won't are rare even near the end of the game.

Thanks, and the whole "characters recovering thing" was apparently a glitch. As my characters died properly in every other battle.

Injuries only occur if you take enough damage to reduce your CON to a certain negative number. If the damage isn't enough, the character will only fall unconscious.

Medic and Doctor skills can be used to restore the character to the unconscious condition, at which point the character will recover in time. Doctor is better than Medic. (The developers didn't bother to try to make sure every skill remains useless, so Medic becomes obsolete (but still useful if you have it and not Doctor) once you get Doctor).

Of interest, unconscious characters are invincible; enemies can shoot machine guns or throw explosives at your party and your unconscious characters won't get hurt.

Oh okay thanks :3

Also I was in Highpool. And I give the game credit, for some reason the atmosphere started to get really creepy really fast.

But I discovered info about the cave, interrogated the kid about it. But I can't find the cave despite I more or less know where it is. Is there a "search" or "investigate" option that doesn't require a skill? Because I can't find it.

Or do I just have to walk over the area to find it? If so, I assume I have to do something else to trigger it appearing.

"Perception" is the skill you're looking for... a very important skill for all desert rangers.

Yup, you're on the right track then, just keep using Perception in that area (I probably couldn't hurt to use Perception a few times in each area you check, in case you fail the check).

One other detail I just remembered: A skill can't be raised through use higher than your level, so remember to radio back so you can level up.

(Most skills can be raised to 8 or so by use once you are a high enough level, provided the task is difficult enough.)