Greetings everyone, this is your resident Commissar here aka Maus. I’ve heard that there were some people having trouble with money and rations in their playthroughs so I thought I’d share how I solve that problem by taking a slightly unconventional approach by camping.

Through using the games camping mechanics, you can force encounters almost at will to farm drops. These encounters always drop money and rations by default, but the enemies themselves can also drop ammo, weapons and gear too, allowing us to repeat the process without having to buy much of anything. While RNG is still involved in this process, I find it’s more reliable than relying on random events.

This is how I've played the game ever since this version of camping was released, though I do imagine that this method will be changing soon so profit while you can.

This strategy can be somewhat hard in the early game due to a lack of equipment and weapon proficiency. However, the effects and gains from this method culminate over time making your soldiers both richer and more proficient as you do it.

What constitutes as early, mid or late game you might ask? This is what I’d consider that to be.

• Early Game = Start of Game and Before Sneaking into Ankuwa (radio mission)
  
  
• Mid Game = After Sneaking into Ankuwa and Before the Bunker Battle
  
  
• Late Game = After Bunker Battle and onwards.

Nothing is absolutely required other than ammo and rations, but you might want to obtain a Campfire. These can be found from random battles or in most stores. Primarily Isin and Eshnunna from my experience but the stores reshuffle every five days so check back every so often.

Why do you need to do this? Well a campfire is crucial for conserving rations as it will help reduce your food costs by 1/3 (33% less) while camping. Through this you can keep the group fully fed and happy while gaining even more rations from each encounter.

Campfire in Store

Before you start camping for all that dosh, let’s assess our situation and get the group in order.

Ideally, you’re going to want to start using this method before you’re out of ammo and food. If you find yourself short on food or ammo, be sure to buy some bullets at wholesale prices for your wholesale slaughter. Leah or Jakob will hook you up. Meals sold separately.

But if you have next to no ammo and no money to buy any, you’re still in luck. Your knife will be enough to get the job done in a pinch. It requires no ammo, does a good chunk of damage and everyone has one. You just need to get close.

I’d also recommend playing until you have about three to five people in your party. You can do it with as little as two people but I’d advise against that as numbers make a quite a difference, especially so in the early game. However, numbers are a trade-off between combat risk and food/ammo consumption.

Numbers Are A Trade-Off























More people means more mouths to feed but you can still do something to alleviate that.
If rations start to become a problem, set the rationing to a lower level to conserve food. You might have to deal with debuffs from hunger for some time, most notably reduced healing, but it’s impossible for someone to starve to death currently.

Rationing Menu














Ammo consumption can also be modified to an extent by choosing specific weapons or combat tactics. This isn’t a weapon guide so I won’t go too in depth on this part and let you decide what you want to use. But do remember each weapon can differ quite a bit in performance, even if they share the same class of weapon.

Bolt Action Rifles:

• Pros: Easy to maintain, Ammo is very common
  
• Cons: Low rate-of-fire making large groups harder to deal with, Slow reload

Auto/Semi-Auto Rifles:

• Pros: Good rate-of-fire, Decent mag capacity, Ammo is very common
  
• Cons: Higher maintenance cost, Uses more ammo

Handguns:

• Pros: Decent rate-of-fire, Fairly accurate
  
• Cons: Low armour-pen, Limited range

Sub-Machine Guns:

• Pros: Good rate-of-fire, longer range than Handguns, Large mag capacity
  
• Cons: Low armour-pen, Higher maintenance cost, Uses more ammo

Shotguns/AT Rifles:

• Pros: High damage, Very good anti-armour capabilities, Anti-everything
  
• Cons: Hard to Find, Limited range, Rare/expensive ammo
  
• (Shotgun rounds currently have a ridiculous amount of armour-piercing, making them scatter-shot AT rifles.)

With the party situation sorted, we can start camping to force encounters. I like to refer to this as “Inviting Investors”.

Camping can be done on any minor tile that isn’t a major location, excluding the “Base Camp” tile. The tiles circled in red are the spots I’d recommend as they’re located close to towns with stores just in case you need to spend your not so ill-gotten gains on repairing or upgrading weapons, restocking on ammo and food, or using the Inn to avoid combat and heal your squad.

Map of Rukh, Red Circles Are Recommended Camping Spots




















The individual tiles on the map don’t effect what encounter map you’ll get from camping, as these are randomly selected from a set of pre-generated locations. (correct me if I’m wrong) However, whichever map spawns seems to stick around so long as you remain on the tile between encounters. Ideally, you’re going to want a map that spawns you atop a hill, has a large open area, or has adequate cover around you.

When you open the camping menu simply set everyone to Rest. This will maximise Enemy Threat and greatly increase your chance of an “ambush”, as well as reduce the fatigue of everyone.

I don’t recommend using the other options as Administering Aid, Target Training and Maintenance get interrupted when you’re “ambushed” and Guarding defeats the purpose of this method. Who needs to guard anyways? Sleep is the most important thing when killing for profit. ( I'm calling it, just wait until this is changed so no guards means your soldiers take damage and/or lose items upon ambush.)

Set All to Rest to Increase Enemy Threat

Surprise! Okay maybe not but there are some baddies with goodies on the horizon.

Once you enter combat with your “ambushers” it’s time to take the goodies they brought you by killing them- I mean liberate the goodies from hostile oppression. If you keep your game paused, you can easily spot where they spawned in by the big red exclamation points in the darkness.

!!!












Once you’ve seen where they’re coming from, keep the game paused and look for some cover or terrain you can use. The “ambushers” will always run straight towards your initial spawn location making them quite predictable.

Position your soldiers in accordance to the cover you have and the direction the enemy is coming from. Splitting your soldiers into smaller groups can also help by creating extra firing angles and protecting them from possible grenades.

"Warfare, especially unconventional, is a game of positioning" -Some Attache with a Very Fancy and Long Name
























Now sit back, put your soldiers in free-fire and watch as these loot-piñatas walk into your bullets. Out here, “Open Season” is the policy for all targets.

When The Rocks Start Speaking CSV

Now after hopefully coming out victorious you can now make like a scav and claim all of their goodies for yourself since they won’t need them anymore.

Early on, these encounters drop about 12-50 rations and $120-$230 per battle on average, plus ammo, guns, equipment and other loot-drops. Items dropped by the enemy will appear on the following screen.

Average Early Game Drops



















In the mid-late game, or if you’re just lucky, camping encounters can give around 36-84 rations and upwards of $300-$600 per battle, plus anything they might drop during combat.

Lucky Mid to Late Game Drops



















Something to note is that your units gain weapon proficiency and experience from combat. As you do this more and more, you’re soldiers will become more accurate killing machines. Eventually you’ll be able to simply form a line and volley fire the enemy before they even return a shot.

This gets even easier if you get better weapons too but keep an eye on ammo consumption. We still gotta make a profit ‘ere aye? Now rinse and repeat the steps again and again until of your needs are met.

It Might Be Outdated But Why Change A Tactic When It's Proven?

They have a what? Okay, don’t panic. Sometimes your “ambushers” will come prepared and bring a tank with them. This can be something that puts your money-making scheme on hold as an unprepared encounter can end badly. However, disabling the tank is easier than you might think.

Rukh Infantry Supported by a Tankette




























The easiest way to deal with enemy armour is your own. Roll up your tank (or someone with an AT rifle) and blast away.

"That one bounced!" "We've penetrated their armour!" -Generic Tank Crewman



















The second easiest way to deal with enemy armour is a fist-full of frags. Frag grenades are something that you can find somewhat commonly in the wild or while partaking in this grinding method. Simply toss a couple of these at the tracks and they’ll hop out for you.

Grenades, a True Cure-All.

























You know what those experienced in the art of salvage say? “Spare the metal, kill the meat!” –Eyepatch-Girl probably.

If you can find one, a flamethrower is an excellent tool at boiling crewmen out of tanks. Or you know, turning the ammunition into a firecracker. However flamethrowers are quite rare and ammo can be costly

Cooking With Katya Episode 5























Another way of dealing with tanks is to use a shotgun at point blank range. “But Commissar, that’s suicide! Shotguns don’t go through armour!” you might say. Normally you’d be right. But as of 8.1 and 8.1.1, shotgun rounds have a ton of Anti-Armour capabilities. Plus these tank crewmen aren’t that competent.

Simply just sprint up to it from a slight angle to stay out of their gun-arc and apply your shotgun rounds directly to the tanks forehead or anywhere really. It’ll explode in about four shots.

"Tankette is picking buckshot out of their teeth!" -MOH Allied Assault




















If you have no other AT-munitions, you can still disable the tank using nothing but a bolt action rifle. It takes some time and planning to do it relatively safely though.

Split your forces into two groups if you haven’t already. Attract the tanks attention with one group and fire at the side of it with the other. This gives you a larger target to hit while also preventing it from returning fire. Over time, your rounds will de-track the tank or outright kill the crew. If they don't die, the crew will jump out when it's disabled and then it’s open season.

Step 1



















Step 2



















Now you’ve learned to deal with tanks (free of charge) and earned some spare-parts as a bonus. Nothing can stop you now!

It’s now day 132, and instead of escaping Andarushia you made your accidental landing a business decision and accumulated the GDP of a small country as well as murdered a third of the Rukhian armed forces.

Upon the pile of skulls and mangled tank wrecks sits you and your mounds of money-bags strapped down to your tank. What are you even going to do with all of that?

Maybe pay Kaedae back her life savings?

Thank Leah with your wallet everyday as you buy up all of the best weaponry?

Maybe bribe Generalisimo and buy your way out of the country?

I don’t know, don’t ask me. I’m not your Dad. I'm your Commissar. I burn through money like I do soldiers. En masse.

The world, or Rukh at least, is yours now! make the best of it and have some fun with all the things you can afford!

This Empire you've built, all financed through the blood of your enemies!



















I'm legally required to say that an untold number of Rukh soldiers were definitely not harmed in the making of this guide. Trust me, this information and these images were obtained through completely ethical ways and in no way were associated with any war crimes or unethical actions associated with The Zabala Incident, Eshnunna's Night of Slaughter, The Burning of Ankuwa, or The Massacre of Arroyo de Santana Station.