The Best Wasteland Punk Tips and Tricks for Beginners and Newcomers
Wasteland Punk is a brand new survival RPG that was recently released in early access, allowing everyone to download and start exploring everything it has to offer. This game throws players in the midst of a post-apocalyptic world where they must gather bands of mercenaries to explore the barren wastelands in search of resources and other materials to use in the development of their bases, as well as for recruiting new members to their crews, and to expand and upgrade their facilities and vehicles.
In its current state, and considering that it’s still in early access, this game gives us a nice and satisfying experience, especially if you play Wasteland Punk on PC with BlueStacks, by letting us go out on expeditions to explore the wastelands, picking up loot and resources along the way, while also completing a variety of different objectives in order to score extra rewards. These expeditions, however, are rife with peril as you’ll run into nasty creatures and hostile people during your travels, which you must dispatch through turn-based combat, which is where your crew of loyal mercenaries come into play.
At the end of a long day’s work, you’ll get to come back to your base to relax and prepare for the next expeditions. And speaking of which, here are a few Wasteland Punk beginner tips and tricks to help you get started on the right track.
Welcome to Tombstone
Wasteland Punk is a story-driven game that begins with your crew heading towards Tombstone (or is it Tombstown? The game can’t make up its mind about this), an important hub, to rest, get their bearings, and pick up information on new bounties and expeditions. Shortly after starting, however, it’s apparent that the once-thriving town was under attack, and that some of its denizens were kidnapped by the Horde raiders, bandits that have turned to dark ways to survive in the wasteland.
Tombstone is your main town in Wasteland Punk, where you’ll find everything that you need. From places where you can recruit and meet new mercenaries, information spots to pick up bounties and objectives, a garage where you can inspect and upgrade your vehicle, and a residential quarter where your workers reside, among others. Whenever you’re not out on expeditions, you’ll probably be hanging back in town, checking up on matters, collecting gathered resources, purchasing upgrades for your crew, and hiring new mercenaries at the Bar.
Just like in any other game, you can upgrade certain facilities in your town to improve their usefulness. For instance, by upgrading the Bar, you can get access to mercenaries of a higher level. Similarly, by upgrading your Manor, you can assign more workers to resource spots, increasing your production per cycle.
However, upgrading buildings requires a variety of resources, including Scrap. And by going on expeditions and progressing in the main story, you’ll slowly unlock new features and other modes that will help you farm more resources. Nevertheless, you always get a steady income of these materials through your Manor, as long as you assign workers to the corresponding stations.
Upgrading your town will ensure that you’re always geared and prepared for all your expeditions, which brings us to our next point…
Hiring and Managing Your Mercenaries
Most of the actual gameplay in Wasteland Punk takes place through expeditions, exploratory adventures into the wastelands surrounding Tombstone. These trips are often packed with dangers as there are always raiders roaming the wilds, which is why you always need to keep a crew of mercenaries at your side.
As mentioned above, most of your mercenaries are stationed in the Bar whenever you’re in town, which is where you’ll also find new members to add to your crew. You can always hire new mercenaries by clicking the “Hire” button in the Bar, after which you’ll be presented with a list of candidates to choose from. This list is completely randomized, and you can either pay in coins, watch an ad, or use contracts in order to manually refresh it. Regardless, you never really know what you’re going to get, so it’s really up to chance when it comes to finding rare mercenaries in the Bar.
Your mercenary limit is determined by the level of your Bar, and the only way to raise it is by upgrading this building. These enhancements also allow mercenaries of higher ranks to appear, as well as increase the odds of better characters showing up.
And once you’ve hired all the mercenaries you want and your Bar is all nice and full, you can click on each individual character in your roster to take a closer look at their stats, as well as to equip them with gear and upgrade them by using XP. This is quite useful for when you find a mercenary or two worth keeping around, in order to unleash their maximum potential, as your gear will boost their stats temporarily, while increasing their level will give them permanent boosts. Once again, however, the potential of your characters is limited by the level of your Bar, which is yet another reason why you always want to upgrade it as often as you can.
Expedition Basics
Once you’ve got your desired characters lined up and ready to go, it’s time to go out on an expedition. Luckily, the game does a fairly good job of introducing you to these journeys.
As a story-driven game, you’ll almost always be tasked with story objectives and other reasons to head out, though there’s really nothing stopping you from going out on your own to explore as much as you like. To do so, simply click on the truck in the city screen, after which you’ll be taken to the expedition menu where you can choose your characters, as well as the area you wish to explore, before heading out.
Exploration in this game takes place through a grid-based map, where every tile you move across costs you valuable fuel, a resource that you can produce in your manor. You’re limited to a certain amount of fuel per expedition, which is determined by your current vehicle.
The objective of these expeditions, when you don’t have a story mission to complete, is simply to make your way across the uncharted territory, fighting enemies and finding points of interest, and picking up valuable loot along the way. These resources will allow you to develop many different parts of your town. Whether upgrading a building, outfitting a mercenary, or improving your vehicles, some of the most valuable treasures will come from these trips.
However, more often than not, you’ll run into packs of undesirables blocking your path. In these cases, combat is inevitable and you’ll have to fight your way through if you wish to continue exploring. These fights are marked by red circles on the map, and once you get in range of them, the fight will start automatically.
Combat in Wasteland Punk uses a standard turn-based formula, where your characters and the enemy take turns hitting each other until only one side remains. You can always view the turn order by checking the portraits on the top of the screen, and choose your moves accordingly. Keep in mind that, once combat is over, you’ll still need to continue exploring, so preserving HP is pivotal if you want to survive the longer expeditions.
Once you’ve completed your objectives and explored enough, you still need to make your way back to town, so it’s also important to conserve your fuel and to avoid wasting it going down unnecessary paths.
Manor and Resources
Like in many other mobile games with base development aspects, your city in Wasteland Punk can be continuously upgraded to improve its productivity. These upgrades, however, cost valuable materials that you’ll need to farm, either through expeditions, or by working on your Manor.
The Manor is where your workers reside, and is where you’ll also assign them to different production posts so they can generate resources. The number of workers available at any given moment will depend on the level of this building, with higher level Manors accommodating more workers at any given moment. Moreover, you can assign these units to any of the five production lines so they can generate resources every cycle—the more workers assigned to any of these resources, the more they will produce per cycle. The main resources available from the beginning are Fuel, Scrap, Parts, Electronic Parts, and Nerium, though you can only assign workers to produce Fuel and Scrap at first.
As you progress through the game and complete missions, you’ll slowly unlock all the different resource stations so that you can start generating other types of materials. Keep in mind that you can always change your worker assignments to suit your needs, such as by swapping to producing Scrap when your Fuel deposits are full, or vice versa, and so on with all the different resources.
Upgrading your town, hiring mercenaries, and going on expeditions are most of what Wasteland Punk is about. By keeping your town stocked, and your buildings upgraded, you’ll be able to play as much as you want while also unlocking more areas and more things to see.
