Finally finished this fight in Whittier, but I lost Vax and one party member in the process. Where can I recruit after this fight?

As far as I know, the only available recruits in California will show up at the gates of your base. There's a priest and a punk. I'm not sure what triggers them showing up, but I assume you've already met them since you've been to Whittier?

Ye I have the punk, but Priest is gone and so is that Pistoler Pete guy, i don't know where they are and after Whittier I'm having trouble winning even smaller skirmishes, I have a party of six and 2 guys specialized in shotguns which was a huge mistake since shotguns are fcking useless in this game.

I declined Pistol Pete's offer to join me and never found him again after that. I think that the priest will disappear for good as well if you don't recruit him when you have the chance.

What about the three characters you chose to bring with you as extras on the chopper?

This is the first time I hear about these 3 characters..............I love this game, but some design choices and bugs are just flat out stupid - moronic (inventory crashes for example)..........I mean things like these should be explained. How the hell is someone playing for the first time supposed to know all these things?? I'm actually an experienced player and I managed to overlook very important things like you just mentioned - what does this tell you about the game?

I've now managed somehow to get through Hollywood and Griffith Park, now I'm heading south with my party of 6, hopefully I'll be able to get through, I'm playing on Ranger difficulty:

I have:

Rose,Pills,Slick,Bear,Ertan and Cold Eye in my party and I'm sure I'll need one more to have a chance in the next phase and I have no one to recruit:(.

When you leave Arizona, Vargas will let you choose up to three characters, out of those you have previously recruited but aren't currently in your party, to ride along as extras to California. If you weren't asked to choose you probably didn't have any to choose from.

You should be able to handle the remaining part of the game. Alot of it is luck and trying to minimize your chances of getting hit. Abuse the weak AI, try to get the enemy to come closer.

Though I admit that that dialogue is a little ambiguous, the first times I understand he was speaking about the current 3 NPC in my party, not extra three :P

The NPC avaliable in California appears as you upgrade your tower radios (They actually confirm this, saying their hear your broadcast). The only exception is the bastion's tower which trigger another event.

I probably won't have much good advice since I didn't have much trouble fighting Dugan on either normal or ranger difficulty and I'm sure you've already tried most options already.

I spent my first round just getting everyone behind cover and focused on taking out all the regular enemies first. I didn't use energy weapons and instead focused on sniper rifles and assault rifles. Are there any robots in this fight aside from Dugan himself? You could try hacking them. Can't remember if that was possible or not.

Worst case you could lower the difficulty. I think the only difference is the amount of damage dealt / taken.

HEHEHEHEHHEHEHEHEHEH E
Wait to the second battle AFTER that, hehehehehehehe, you are going to scream, a lot (just don't destroy your keyboard), but I'm not going to say anymore.

Anyway, one question your battle with Durgan has the skorpitron or just an ambush from all the sides? (in the normal version is the skorpitron) If is th second, try to shoot to durgan to head and arms, that will have you a chance, after that focus to a side from the bush first ( launcher rockets mostly) for having a cover.

if its the skorpitron, leave the skorptron to the end (AND AVOID meele against him).

Which setting are you playing? Supreme Jerk is a evil JERK setting (I can't be mad with that, the name said it), and honestly totally unbalanced in the DC. Anyway, I was able to finish the game with only 6 characters in the jerk mode and with only one energy-weapon user, BUT, had to reach the maximum level and rely in luck, a lot. So, honestly I didn't like

P.d. in the bastion there is a secret book for one last skill which can increase your critical hit rate to +99% (you need Perception 9 or 10), an user with shotgun and blunt weapon is the walking death (Almost anything except heavy weapon and laser). So, if you don't have it, you can reload a previous save point for getting and farm a little more of XP.

EDIT:
For the finals battles, in the DC edition the best items are the one which increases your awareness and speed, that is because increase your initiative, if you shoot first, you can't kill them in one single attack but you can hurt their heads, arms (ranger enemies) or legs (meele mostly) and give you more chances. Basically is that, the game is balanced in normal, the other 2 settings only make your team useless and the enemy sponges. In the jerk mode you do only half damage and they double (plus extra levels and HP).

In the Ranger mode, I'm able to finish the game with my ranger's team at level 20 but in the jerk I was forced to reach the 50th level for having a chance. However, I usually don't do min-max stats, so maybe that was a factor.

Not been able to play the game yet due to a terrible bug (which by the sounds of it, was with Unity itself, rather than the game, so damn tricky to fix), but it's interesting that they have redone some combat, like a different setup in the Dugan fight. It could be quite tricky in the original (especially trying to keep Vax alive), and it sounds even trickier now.

Would be nice if there were more possible recruits in California, in case something like this happens, and people want to just get on with it instead of reload until all survive. One thing I always dislike in games like this, is that you only get one chance to recruit people, and you need to temporarily add them to your team/remove somebody else, or they bugger off forever. Amazing that after all these years, games still have this idiotic mechanic. Would it really kill them with some sort of "Please stick around, and we'll get back to you if we need you." variant?

In California there are several well-populated areas, so it would be pretty easy to squeeze in a few recruits here and there. Most probably have a team from Arizona they want to use, but it would be good with some more guys just in case, and for variety.

Well I just finished the game, had to drop difficulty in both Dugan and the final fight - I blame poor game design for this - I've never dropped difficulty in any game in 25 years of gaming. Wasteland 2 is a very good game, but certain design choices in regards to party recruitement, party members leaving, hit chance, etc...are really really annoying, borderline idiotic. So I spent like 90hrs completing the game, was very fun, but each day I had a dream when I was sleeping, a dream of murdering Brian Fargo for some of his 'ideas' and near gamebreaking bugs even so long after game release.

Just by curiosity, which setting was you playing ?

Looking above, it appears to be Ranger difficulty. As mentioned I've not been able to play the new version of the game, but in the original at least, it wasn't a problem to go through the game on Ranger. Most fights were fairly easy, and we tended to take more damage from friendly fire than enemy fire, especially by Vax (which I hear is a much bigger issue now, as he's more hard-hitting).

Good to hear you managed to finish the game though. Did you bring many other people to the final fight? It's a tough one, but you can bring quite a few allies with you, which should held a great deal.

(Unless they radically changed this in the Unity 5 edition).

Nope, at least that you were a jerk in your game, you should easily got the support from everyone ( AG/Highpool, Both nomads tribes, Bob, merchants, cowboys, the other groups from Damonta, Vargas, mutants, etc).

Honestly, in the DC is the first time I'm able to take Vax outside of the train graveyard, and yeah, he was the main reason to reload many battles (I'll never take him again more far than Damonta). I was so happy when die at hand of the jerks in Rodia

The DC in supreme jerk, honestly is not fair nor funny (I did, yeah with small team, and little support from other NPC, yet I feel the game cheated instead of be funny), but ranger should be O.K. and fun. Maybe if in future patch, some synth's weapons are touched and the high armor for human enemies become conductive my opinion could change, but right now the game mechanics are semi-broken.

Anyway, I'm not sure if the battle with Durgan changed with the DC or because in my previous games I was playing at Ranger instead of Supreme jerk... but, I'll never forget my face when the Skorpitron appeared behind Durgan, this time was just... bleh, just some synths