Is there a way to reduce the frequency of random encounters? Like, is there meant to be a skill I have to pick?
Because I cannot go 5 seconds without running into yet another band of criiters or bandits who just appear out of the ether to annoy me for the 100th time with the same combat encounter.

Its actually making me consider dropping the game, which is a pity because I really wanted to try this.

There is no way of reducing the frequency of random encounters.

However, if you are trying to rest (by skipping time) to heal your characters, it's best to head out into the deep desert (make sure everyone has a canteen first!) until you get a message stating "It is VERY hot!" (or something like that). On those squares you can rest indefinitely without being interrupted.

EDIT: Another thing you can try which might help ameliorate the situation is to turn up the speed of the combat messages, so the combats will take less time.

Yeah I know about the desert trick, I do that to regain health.
The problem is just walking through needles or any other city area. About every few steps I get jumped by teleporting Jerks who just show up within melee distance.

Does perception allow you to spot them further away?

Nothing that I'm aware of affects the random encounters, unfortunately.

I should state that I have only ever played the original game, not the remaster, so I'm assuming that things are the same in both. I do not know if perhaps the remaster has different random encounter rates, but I have not previously heard of any mention of it if so, and there have been previous complaints about the random encounters in the original game, particularly in Needles.

Seems to be faithful to the original then. Getting constantly jumped in Needles and Quartz is a common occurence.
Fortunately I have so much pistol ammo and SMGs so they just die, but its still kind of annoying and I'm worried that later in the game I'll run into constant difficult encounters that just kill my rangers through attrition.

Am I right in guessing that everyone should be armed with assault rifles and at least kevlar after you finish Needles? What about the recruited rangers? Won't they just waste ammo because of their love for burst fire?

I never allow NPCs in my party (except perhaps the first time I played over 30 years ago, I really don't remember), so I'm not sure how the ammo situation goes with them on board.

I also normally play using Brawling almost exclusively, but sometimes I change it up and challenge myself a little by using guns instead. But yes, at the time you finish Needles assault rifles are the best, and you should be able to find four assault rifles in Needles to equip the party. My memory is a bit fuzzy on the armour, but I think in Needles I have at least one using a radiation suit (which is better than a kevlar vest but not as good as a kevlar suit).

Only brawling? How do you fight robots with knives? Don't they have high armour class that cancels out the damage from knives and axes?

If you have enough skill in the relevant weapon type, you will do so much extra damage that the enemy's AC won't be enough to negate it, even if the enemy has the high AC that robots and some humans do. Note that this only applies to melee weapons, though it does apply to ammo-less guns that are used in melee range (which do, in fact, use the relevant gun skill for damage, though I believe the amount of extra damage per skill level is 2d6 as opposed to 3d6, or something like that).

Also, the Proton Axe is incredibly powerful, on par with the strongest energy weapons, I believe. You may not be able to go full auto with them, but you do get extra attacks based on Brawling; that plus the fact that you don't need ammo makes up for it. (Note that, at least in Classic (haven't tried the remaster yet), it's always the Brawler skill that gives you the extra attacks.)

The problem with melee is that you need to close into melee range, and during that time enemies will be firing at you, and furthermore even once you're in melee ranged combat always happens before melee.

In practice, I find that melee-only works rather well up until assault rifles become available, at which point you can switch to using those for harder encoutners.

By the way, if you go full-auto all the time, you don't need to worry about your skill, as full-auto gives you a *huge* bonus to hit in this game. Save your skill points for other skills, though putting a point into Assault Rifles so that you can get more through use on high AC enemies seems reasonable. (Also, there's another weapon skill that comes later that you may want.)

Oh that's interesting, I didn't know that melee weapons get that much of a boost. It didn't mention it in the game help page or the wiki.
How high does knife-fighting, pugilism and brawling have to be before you get a damage boost? Does strength affect it too? I gave thrasher 40 strength because the idea was that he would be the melee specialist.

I believe a skill of 1 is high enough to get some boost, but of course higher skills will give a bigger bonus.

I believe damage from melee weapons may get a small bonus from both Strength and Luck. Ranged weapons only get a damage bonus from Luck, but since the damage increase is per bullet, perhaps it might add up if you can find some way to shoot multiple bullets at once.

Unfortunately, the effects of stats, and the distinction between them (do we really need Agility, Dexterity, and Speed in the same game?), are not really made clear to the player.

Brawling is very OP in this game, it not only gives you extra attacks but you also get double XP for killing enemies with it. You get two attacks at Brawling 2, three attacks at Brawling 4, etc (increases every 2 levels). Brawling weapons are club, ax, chainsaw, proton ax, and (technically) spear, in addition to weapons with empty clips, but if there is any ammo in the clip your character will always fire instead of brawl. I only use the first four listed.

There are only a handful of enemies essentially immune to brawling (most notably some robots). I give one character energy weapons for those.

Firearms without ammo are actually not Brawling weapons; they use the corresponding weapon skill. (For example, a clip pistol that's out of ammo still uses the Clip Pistol skill.) This applies to to-hit, damage, and is the skill that's checked for an increase.

On the other hand, extra attacks always come from Brawling, even if the weapon actually uses another skill. This means that, even for characters not using Brawling weapons, if they're going to be fighting in melee you may want to have them practice (preferably against high AC enemies) with Brawling weapons from time to time.

Spears are rather unusual weapons in this game, in terms of how they behave:
* They are single-use ranged weapons.
* In terms of usage, they act like anti-tank weapons. This means that, once you throw a spear, you no longer have a weapon equipped, so you need to spend a turn equipping another. (Or, you can just fight with your bare hands, which acts like a melee weapon that uses Pugilism.)
* Spears do not ignore enemy defense. This is in contrast to anti-tank weapons, which do.
* Spears use the Brawling skill for to-hit, and Brawling is also the skill checked for an increase. Worth noting that the chance of gaining Brawling from throwing a spear is higher than the chance for using a melee weapon. (Worth noting, however, that the enemy's AC still needs to be higher than your skill level for the skill to have any chance of increasing.)

Wait, so that means that Manglers still deal about 4d6 damage no matter the target's AC?
I wish I knew that when I was fighting the scorpitron. And that I leveled up Thrasher's dex.

How do I level up brawling quickly? I found a proton axe and gave it to Thrasher and have him running around soloing mobs while the party stands back, but its still at 2?
How many enemies do I have to kill before it rises?

Edit : I guess it depends on XP, because it just got up to 3 after killing some warroids and 4 soon after in the Vegas Sewers

It depends on a few things:
* A skill can't be raised above your character level through usage. So, a level 3 character can't raise a skill above 3 through usage.
* Each task has a difficulty. A skill can't be raised above the task's difficulty, and the higher the difficulty relative to the current value in the skill, the higher chance of an increase. For combat skills, the target's AC is the difficulty; this means it's best to fight high AC enemies like robots and some humans. (Just be aware that humans, even the heavily armored ones, have low HP, so if you're not careful you might kill them too early.) On the other hand, animals, which have low AC (but sometimes high HP) are not good targets for practice.
* Some actions give a better chance of a skill increase than others. For example, throwing a Spear at an enemy is more likely to increase Brawling than swinging an Axe (or other melee Brawling weapon) at that same enemy. This doesn't affect how high the skill can be raised.