Starting Out: You Are a crew of 5, and a "Battle Wagon" or rather a truck, with some guns on it. You are tasked with clearing territory near your base, and completing missions while scavenging this Mad Max/Fallout Inspired game. Learn the controls via the settings, and note that SHIFT key will be your ally as you begin, as it slows time, and its very useful for intense drifts while fighting boarders and putting out fires.

Your Crew are invaluable in your conquest of the wasteland, and if you manage them right, and focus levels that are valuable, you can have a deadly crew in no time. They are supposedly supposed to die, but none of mine have died yet with proper juggling of health perks and stations for healing. (Look at the Yellow dot on each crews icon while driving to use their main ability quickly, it will appear when able to be used. This is essential as commander will give a notice if he sees relics/enemy war bands.)

Best crew members would be your War Drummer and Look Out/Commander, but keep in mind ALL crew can specialize in multiple roles/all roles depending your goals, but I feel leveling your crew to their specialty first is best, as they will be gunning/driving/commanding all game with a bit of other things. Your Gunners/Driver are essential too obviously, and they win the fights, but the bonus of 40% damage the war drummer(Badlander) gives plus their later call-ins are amazing.

Gunners: Your main people, focus on getting them to highest deadliness(Lvl 15) and you will get great perks, which multiply damage and give bonuses to each kill made. Early game focus having them on piercing guns like makeshift repeater, this is easily the best(early game), but most weapons are viable in good combos. Keep them forward/backward facing as you will encounter enemies there most, and try to have it so they can fire in a clear line of sight. This can be a challenge as higher up gives better potential for enemies to get close and for your guns to be unable to target them over walls/armor. (This gets more prevalent with guns going 360 degrees.) I find two facing forward tilted to left/right side and one back gunner on repeaters can be amazing, and if you feel frisky you could easily do 3 in the back. Get used to shifting gunners from point to point, and before you get war drums you will be able to keep more angles active, but I suggest switch one guy to reserves and recruit a dedicated badlander immediately. As you grow your battle wagon, you will want to use more of your unique blocks, and build up, but in my experience the first two bosses can be beaten with simple designs on base level. The perks make a huge difference. Also always use your active move to focus fire enemies who are troublesome. Great perks for them are perks which heal them based on kills, which are connected to health upgrades, and obviously damage perks. Gunners should wear simple gear, I find keeping them lightly geared lets them protect from boarders/fix things. They should have some basic protection though, and I usually make them fit their gun role based on appearance.

Drivers: Your driver is exactly that, the person who manages your truck, and travel. Its unique that they also are great at repairs, which makes having a secondary driver a must as you can stack perks, and some classes give more perk slots. If your driver gets shot up too much they will be forced to move to the back to heal, and if you don't want to get owned I would have a person ready to cover their role, I feel that person should be commander, as they can be sacrificed mid-battle, as all hands need to be gunning/drumming. The driver has some unique active moves which are unlimited just like gunners, but are more time specific. Their basic moves are drive, circle, and chase/bash, which is hard to achieve as most vehicles are faster than you. Circle is a great move for when you need to defend, and want to keep moving, but you also sacrifice your ability to dodge unless you take control. Your next move is just travel the highway, which is just a way to speed down the highway on NOS, which is unlimited on roads, and also keeps your engine cool, which is vital to beat Gekko in races. (More on him later) You also have a 180 move, which I have never used, but I assure you it does turn you around. The best move they have is side swipe, which annihilates any and all enemies beside you to either side with a huge side sweep, and this attack alone will destroy almost all vehicles. Keep moving, and keep them healthy, and you'll do great. Focus on health perks. Clothe them in health/protection, don't worry too much about speed, but be weary how far they have to walk to heal.

War Drummer/ Badlander: They are one in the same, but its what they're technically called. They stand around, and bash drums which inspire your gunners to do 40% damage for the first kit. I never take them off the drums unless they are very needed, as the boost they give turns even bad weapons into great ones. They really are a great character, and the perks they get give you amazing help. The first is simple, and boosts range of the drummer, but I always keep my guns in range so not used, but the next is to speedup gun cool-downs allowing more accurate shots. The next Is really OP and lets you bash drums and knock out all nearby vehicles, and just kill them while they drive aimlessly, or sometimes they'll do it to themselves by hitting a wall. They then get a song to slow the worms, which is useful, but I have yet to face big one. The next perk is a rain call, and fills your water container and puts out fires, which is useful, but I never get lit on fire so its rare. The final perk is amazing and heals all in the crew, which makes it worth the grind. When you hit this perk you can go whichever way you want, but I usually add health to them, and give them perks based on healing. Clothing is the best, most unique gear I can afford, and I usually let them stand behind some walls in middle of truck bed. They have a sphere of influence so as they get higher, their radius shrinks below them, so they can't buff straight up and down. They're also good at repairs.

Commander: (Note: These guys will give your crew more perk slots, very vital) Your best crew, and most useful person. Go straight for max level. They get call-ins which bring in a few really good allies who distract, and handle the enemies pretty well, assuming they don't get stuck. Their basic move is binoculars and is obvious, but its useful when vision is all you have. Keep them on this station as much as you can, but I will use them to handle boarders as they're usually just sitting. I recommend a good wall or solid defense based around them, as they can make a huge impact on a battle. The next perks they get are gasoline drop, loot locator, Experience booster, and best of all, friendly battle wagon. The Gas drop is great, and I make sure all my crew hit 5 on boyscout so they reach the perk, and can switch with my main commander to call in gas and go back to their role. This works with the reinforcements so you have like 10+ call ins for them, and 5 for gas. The loot one is one I never use, as I just see it through the binoculars anyways, and the experience boost is great when your about to finish a boss. The war wagon is a great call in, and seems to last a minute, and during that time a random friendly war wagon will come and wreak havoc on anyone. They are limited when it comes to call ins, and they can't solo any bosses, but they will take a champion easy. Keep your commander close to healing, and they will be set, and give them perks you want. I usually give them clothes based on healing/fighting.

Random Crew types: Guards/Medics/Engineer
These crew aren't specified, but can be roles to fill as you will encounter issues they will have to fix. You get to decide which is best, but I find the best offense eliminates the need for them.

Your battle wagon at first may not seem like anything more than a dumpy truck with tiny wheels, no armor, and some basic equipment and guns, but that quickly changes as you return to the citadel for the first time. When you enter the garage, assuming you grabbed a relic or two, you will have a few pieces to add to your battle wagon. Early on you will be limited by weight, materials, and space, but as you take on more, and more enemies, you will quickly grow to rule the wastes.

Tips for building:
Early on its implied you simply build wooden armor, blocks, and structures, and less of the unique buildings like the car parts, and other items, but I had the most success with a mix of both early on, and found no issue handling enemies, or the weight needed to carry these heavier pieces. Always focus guns to a direction, you can achieve this in a few ways, but I believe the best is to rotate gunners at least until you get added crew. By rotate I literally mean you keep three lighter guns facing in each direction, or a variation of this (3 facing forward, but 2 off put sideways, etc.) and you have a gunner operate each side, usually the first gunner takes left, second takes middle guns, and third takes right guns, for simplicity. You could stack all guns on one side, but the issue comes from when you're turning/being pursued. You may also note I mention 3 gunners, not 4, and that's because one should become a badlander, the perks are amazing.

Later on you will get better armor, unique parts, 360 degree guns, more trailers, and better engines all allowing you to customize to your hearts content, but some notes to keep in mind is that 360 guns will focus enemies they may not be able to hit, costing you health as they don't switch targets. This applies to walls, blocks, and unique buildings which impede shots, so keep in mind where you place guns and defenses, but unique structures like bus/airplane seem to have the ability to shoot through parts of their walls(acting as windows) which makes them very useful. Double/triple layer armor is a good idea as well, even later game, and used in front of unique structures. Keep in mind areas with acid rain will need to have shelter spots, extra length can make you more at risk to other weather like acid, lava, or rocks.

The Citadel is your base of operations, and where you must return for the first few missions. Later on you will be able to return to any base, and leave from any base, regardless of the base you entered. The citadel, if captured implies you would be defeated, but I have never seen this. This base is composed of your garage, storage, mission tent, statue commending crew, and best of all the band.

Here you can customize your vehicle, access storage(and merchant later), checking stats and looking at new missions. Its important to note you can simply check a mission parameters and edit your battle wagon to make that mission easier, like a defense mission I always add extra storage, not extra gas, and more guns and armor.

This list will be completed in time, it is challenging to get good info with speed of combat, and number of enemy types per faction. Each faction seems to have a variety of each type, so I will break them down into types, not by faction.

MotorBikes/Quads/Motor Halftracks:


Bone Picker: Dirt Bike with a slicer on the front. 2 crew, Driver and gunner.







Arsonist Hog: Pyro motorbike with sidecar, equipped with flamethrower. 2 Crew, driver and gunner.







Dodgem: Klowns very unique bumper car with poison launcher, and single crew.









Trucks/Vans:


Raptor: Vulture main vehicle/technical, and deadly at bashing into you full force. At least 2 Crew, a driver and gunner, but main purpose is to ram you.








Coyote: Gun Nutz Truck, comes with 3 crew, a driver and 2 gunners.








Dust Devil:Gun Nutz Truck with 3 crew, driver and 2 gunners.








Chucklewagon: Klowns Van that launcher stink at you. Unique that they only have gun on the right side. 3 Crew, a driver and two gunners.

Cars:
Talon: Vultures hotrod with 2 crew, driver and gunner.








Blaze Runner: Pyro Car with flamer, 2 crew, driver and gunner.









Tickler: Clown "Car" but really is a tricar poison launcher with 2 crew, a driver, and gunner.

All missions take place in the badlands, and they can vary quite a bit. These range from races with Gekko, ambushing supplies, convoys of fuel, or simply rescuing prisoners captured by enemies. Later on each faction gets unique missions based on their locations, and the merchant, and wormologist show up later to provide more variety to the missions in the form of escort missions. More advanced missions involve taking outposts, and strongeholds, which can be simple as taking out a champion, or as complex as taking on a full fledged boss.

As you travel the badlands you will come across all kinds of loot, from rubber tire bits to scrap metal, and you are limited to the storage and weight capacity of your vehicle at first when it comes to scavenging. If you stack a bunch of storage you will be limited in defenses on your battle wagon, but if you're crafty you can manage. I recommend once you hit 1000 of each supply you stop collecting them, and leave space for better resources which you will likely encounter more frequently as you head east. Make sure you hit caches, and crates, but keep in mind caches have better loot.

Relics are unique world building structures, or items which allude to the past in a very poignant way, many of which are ironic plays on classic wasteland tropes like vaults and so on. You can easily spot most in the distance as unique structures, but keep and eye on your binoculars as they will get a yellow dot if you are in range of one. You must get pretty close and use the binos a second time, and then the cache will appear giving you access to unique and rare upgrades for your crew/battle wagon. These seem to be based on location, and aren't random, so if you know where a relic is, you can simply go to them assuming you have the fuel, and strength to get back, which is unlikely as this map is huge.

This is the guide for relic locations, go check it out: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3476149575

Outpost are the local area bases, and are attached to the strongholds, and are protected by reinforcements, towers, and a champion, who upon defeat adds that outpost to your factions. These are easy to defeat with reinforcements, although I don't ever feel they're necessary.

Strongholds are where each factions boss resides, and is the regions local base of authority. Each connects to outposts, and are where you typically face a new region at. They're defended by champions, reinforcements, very deadly towers and a unique boss with perks, and deadly skills. The best way to beat these is focus fire on towers, killing them first while reinforcements distract vehicles, and then focus the boss down with perks, especially badlander skills. After capture they usually give unique faction based equipment which help on the new regions you will face.

Keep your bases happy, but keep in mind they can go down randomly so more territory actually helps, as its less likely a single place will constantly go down. You can ignore them until they're about half way down, then do a simple delivery or defense and it will boost the whole adjacent area, but you can also clear out enemies by simply killing them near the base that's unhappy, and that will help.

All factions come in Early and Late game variations where they start to specify in a damage type like burn, slash, etc. Its important to note all seem to have boarders, ram, and also have variety to their gear. (Some will have both flames/blunt)

Vultures: Early on will be the first you likely face, and I believe they're intended to be before Gun Nutz, but you can face either first. They are Bird based crews/vehicles with an emphasis on bases high up on the map, and specializing in slash based weapons. They're weak to gas I believe, although most weapons will tear them up, just not slash. They will cause bleeding effects, and cause crews to quickly get knocked out. Later they get far more slash weapons, and can easily tear up a crew if they're exposed so keep them covered especially with armor. They seem to drive 1950s era cars/hot rods.

Gun Nutz: The other group you will face first, if you don't encounter vultures first. They are military based who focus on piercing, and later on blast damage. They are very weak up close, and to fire, so get close, and side swipe their gun trucks, or risk being shredded. They will tear up all armor, making it pretty useless. The blast effect will do similar damage to your armor, but seems to be more about splash, and if combined will disable systems fast. They are equipped with military trucks, half tracks, and humvees, with a few motorbikes/tracked motorbikes. Mostly inhabit military bases/airfields.

Pyros: They are obviously the fire guys, and specialize in it to the extreme. They will launch a lot of fire your way, and can be the most challenging in my opinion as their fires spread, causing huge system damage, crew death, and needing water to put out, which will run out. They're firefighter theme is very ironic, and they inhabit oilfields of sludge which they caused, and east a volcano. Armor-piercing is the best way to handle them, and stay far from them. They are likely to crash into you, and burn you, and if you hear glass breaking be sure to focus fire on that vehicle as his hits will cripple your whole crew, leaving you dead in the wastes. They are only focused on chaos, and destruction.

Klowns: Klowns are the later game faction you face, and you may likely encounter them with orator forces first. They come with a wide variety of clown themed vehicles, mostly consisting of food trucks, but they also have some unique mini clown cars. They are the most heavily armored of the four, and their weapon specialization is poison. They are very good at gassing your whole crew if your don't focus fire the bigger vehicles. They can be very brutal, but are weak to slash damage, and can be shredded from a distance to maintain your crews health. If they get close they will bash you, and poison you, and can cripple your crew early on runs causing a need to retreat. They inhabit barren salt fields. They also seem to be the most evil, claiming to be kind, and then kidnapping newcomers.

Orator: The Orator is a person who runs their own faction, like you, and wishes to achieve the same goal, so they are your nemesis. A faceless enemy until you finally face them, they field all the factions vehicles mixed with vehicles that buff them, and debuff your crew. The badlander is a must here as they can deal with this debuff. They're all classes, so a varied arsenal, good armor, and great angles is key to success. They also field some decent battle wagons, which have actual crews, and can do just as much damage to you as you can to them. Use everything you got to beat them.

Vultures Boss, Lord Griffon: Birdbased leader who likes to pretend he can fly, and live up on high mountains. This guy specializes in spins, and will try to fly at you, bashing you with his vehicle.

Gun Nutz Boss, Major Krank: Military man, and nuke riding maniac, he rides a literal bomb into combat, not smart. He is a joke, and spends all his time trying to shoot you.
Pyro Boss, Chief Dante: Fire based firefighting chief, they specialize in lobbing blobs of lava at you, destroying you from the bottom up.
Klowns Boss, Giggles: Giggles the clown just wants to poison you, and that's enough said.
Orator: Orators goals are unknown, and they seem to want to unite the wastes, but attack you on sight, strange fella... or fart smella?