FC3: Tips and Tricks

[Art Blade]

FC3 TIPS AND TRICKS

Hey guys.. about time to start a collection of useful stuff :)

Feel free to post what you think might help others. The stuff you keep doing or avoid doing  :-()



1) As soon as the first set of missions allow you to free roam, go hunt the animals you need to upgrade your gear. Good gear can't be wrong when you get back into the missions. Don't buy armour vests for hunting -- they only stop bullets. I don't buy them at all.. when it depletes, you're most likely to have to restart anyway.. save the money instead  ;)

2) The final upgrade will always be one unique animal which you can only get by doing the corresponding "Path of the Hunter" mission which you will find in liberated outposts. Path of the hunter missions usually require hunting with a bow. If you have your own, you'll have a better scope/visor. You can always use your own weapon for the Path of the Hunter missions as long as you're carrying it with you, i.e. your own shotgun.

3) Ammo is expensive. Focus on weapons that are also used by your enemies so you can loot their ammo rather than buying it. Almost all your enemies have either Assault Rifles or Shotguns. SMGs, Launchers, Sniper Rifles, Pistols.. hard to get lots of ammo for those. Of course you can do what you like, but soon a new weapon will be unlocked and the money for it.. better have some at hand :)

4) Only collect plants for syringe recipes that you actually have and use. Keep your rucksack space free for loot rather than clogging it up with plants you won't be using any time soon. If you have plants, immediately make syringes so you keep your rucksack clean.

5) Focus early in the game on the XP that gives you health and helps you healing yourself. You will eventually get enough XP for the other stuff.

Spoiler

after completing plot mission 11 you'll unlock 26 more perks to spend XP points on

Get a third and fourth health bar as soon as possible. Get the perks that allow you to restore health without medicine. If you heal yourself like that, you'll save room for syringes that will be more useful. By the way, if you find a med kit, it will refill all unused syringe slots with healing syringes.. in case you're wondering why you haven't got any room for crafting other syringes any more it is probably due to that circumstance.

6) when you're walking around in the woods, keep a shotgun in your hands. It will take out animals much more efficiently than most other weapons.

7) Use your camera to see if predators or other enemies are nearby in sight. Use the zoom both to see farther and tag predators/enemies that are farther away. You can use your weapon scopes to tag single hostiles as long as you aim at them properly but the camera can tag a group at once.

8 ) Noise (gunshots) will attract predators and enemies. Stealth will be more rewarding (actually, it will give you more XP, too) when it comes to violence.

9) Unlock Radio towers first, then take down nearby outposts. Every radio tower both reveals the surrounding map and gives you a new free weapon. Outposts will turn into a fast travel location and provide you with a safehouse including an arms dealer vending (and buying) machine.

10) Taking down outposts without being detected will give you 1,500XP. Undetected means, the motion detection meter must not flash. Usually that means, stay out of sight. You can use explosives and all the gear you like, just stay undetected. Save your game before attacking (PC: hit F9 to quicksave, F11 to quickload) and in case you screw up (got detected) just hit ESC and quit to go to the main menu. There click Story, Load, and load your savegame (compare the time stamps in the lower line of the savegame descriptions) and try again. If you screw up you'll get 500XP and 550XP if no alarm was raised.

11) Dogs that belong to an outpost do count when it comes to detecting you -- be careful. They are easy to miss (sorry for the pun  :-D ). Some outposts have a predator in a cage, like bears and leopards.. shoot the cage once to free them. They will most likely mop up the place better than you could. As long as you have tagged at least one enemy who belongs to the outpost, you'll still get a "success" message and XP even if a bear did all the wet w@&k for you  :-D

12) best observe an outpost from an angle and for some time using your camera so you actually do tag all personnel (and animals) on the compound. Makes it a LOT easier to track them down once the siege begins. :)

[fragger]

Great collection of tips there Art, nice w@&k :-X :)

[PZ]

Excellent idea, Art, and excellent post, kudos  :-X

[durian]

Good tips Art  :-X

Always have 1-2 animal repellent syringe. It's very useful for stopping the most dangerous predators (especially tiger) from attacking you. When you're being atatcked by an animal ... as soon as you inject this syringe, the animal disappear immediately! ;D

Don't waste it on the less dangerous animals like the rabid dogs. They're annoying, butjust a shotgun shot bring them down.

Other syringes are very useful too like the Fireproof syringe which protects you from burn damage when you encounter the chager guys who throw molotoves at you.

[JRD]

Indeed, good and valuable tips, I didn't know about the final upgrade being a unique animal you can get doing the PotH  :-X

Although a shotgun comes in handy when walking around the woods, it usually attracts more attention than I want to get. Instead, I usually carry a silenced weapon like a SMG (even the 6P9 will do) so I can hunt/defend myself without having all enemies in the area coming after me as I skin my catch  ;)

I also managed to hunt several animals like pigs, boars and goats with my knife hence saving precious bullets and not having uninvited guests showing up!

[durian]

The alarm system at the outposts.
If you shoot an alarm box, only that box is disabled, whereas if you manually disable 1 box, all of the other ones will be automatically disabled too.

[PZ]

When attacking an outpost, shoot the alarm system by using a sniper rifle or disable it to prevent the reinforcements to arrive.

Good one; I did not know that you could disable the alarm system - really cool.  :-X

[durian]

Good one; I did not know that you could disable the alarm system - really cool.  :-X

I just edited it.

[PZ]

Do you need to do this while the outpost is still in enemy hands or can you manually disable the box in a cleared outpost?

[durian]

Do you need to do this while the outpost is still in enemy hands or can you manually disable the box in a cleared outpost?

When the enemies are still at the outpost.

[PZ]

 :-X

I was in the "sell" area of a safe house vending machine and accidentally hit the square button on the PS3 controller.  Up pops a menu item asking if I want to sell all unusable items - all crafting items will be retained.  This is not in the menu, but is a quick way to get rid of all the unusable items you loot/collect.

[durian]

:-X

I was in the "sell" area of a safe house vending machine and accidentally hit the square button on the PS3 controller.  Up pops a menu item asking if I want to sell all unusable items - all crafting items will be retained.  This is not in the menu, but is a quick way to get rid of all the unusable items you loot/collect.

Nice find. I didn't know this. This is very good as it saves your time.
Some of the greatest discoveries and inventions are accidental   :)

[JRD]

Do you need to do this while the outpost is still in enemy hands or can you manually disable the box in a cleared outpost?

I just have to ask... why would you consider disabling an alarm if you already cleared the outpost?  ????

[PZ]

I just have to ask... why would you consider disabling an alarm if you already cleared the outpost?  ????

I wouldn't if it were only the alarm for that one outpost, but evidently if you manually disable the alarm in one outpost, all alarms are disabled.  >:D

I just had a great outpost experience.  I'd equipped an M16 with silencer, and approached an outpost from a sniper vantage point.  Patiently waiting until things were just right, I managed to pick off all the pirates but one (couldn't see him from my point).  Sneaking down I manually disabled the alarm and received the "All alarms disabled" message.  Moving to the outpost sniper platform, I finally found the last guy and silently ended his suffering ... and earned 1500 bonus points.

What a satisfying clearance  ^-^

[fragger]

I was in the "sell" area of a safe house vending machine and accidentally hit the square button on the PS3 controller.  Up pops a menu item asking if I want to sell all unusable items - all crafting items will be retained.  This is not in the menu, but is a quick way to get rid of all the unusable items you loot/collect.

The "sell all but crafting items" option does appear in the menu in the PC version :)

[Art Blade]

shshsh!!  :-()

[Art Blade]

Poker games:

Play on easy ($100) and keep hitting the left shift key for "help" every time a new card is being dealt. "Help" is nothing else but a chart with probabilities (percentages) of hands you're still able to get which is interesting to watch as the game progresses. The expert level ($250) will only show your cards and the ones on the table. I like to use the help function just because it is easier to see all cards from left to right rather than the sometimes not so easy to read cards on the table (when they are turned 90°).

Opponents seem to be sure bet guys, the probability that they do have good cards when they raise you is very high but to my surprise they also bluff once in a while 

The game will auto-save after leaving the poker table but will not override your "save1" (quicksave/manual save). In case you screwed up big time.. go to the main menu and load save1 to get your "refund"  :)

[Art Blade]

Excellent idea, Art, and excellent post, kudos  :-X

I just waited until now to say "thank you"  :-D (no, I didn't forget..  8-X :-[ :-() )

[fragger]

Here's a kudo from me too Art, meant to give you one but got sidetracked :)

[Art Blade]

very nice of you, fragger  :) cheers :)

another tip:

Replenishing ammo

Walking over a weapon or touching an ammo pile will NOT replenish your weapon -- only your ammo pouch. So, first reload your weapon(s) to make room in the pouch and only then grab your ammo.

Good thing about abandoned weapons: they will not go to waste if all you can get out of them is just the one bullet you fired a moment ago. If you fire some more and reload and go back to the weapon, it will give you some more until its magazine is empty :)

[Art Blade]

Good tips Art  :-X

Always have 1-2 animal repellent syringe. It's very useful for stopping the most dangerous predators (especially tiger) from attacking you. When you're being atatcked by an animal ... as soon as you inject this syringe, the animal disappear immediately! ;D

Cheers, durian :)

By the way.. that repellent syringe comes in VERY handy when you do the unique animals Path of the Hunter quests. For example, the black panther.. I used the Hunter's Instinct syringe to find him, then the repellent before I shot arrows at him. Whenever he wanted to attack me.. he turned away but stayed in sight so I actually ran after him to finish him off  :-D

[PZ]

Nice  :-X

[durian]

Cheers, durian :)

By the way.. that repellent syringe comes in VERY handy when you do the unique animals Path of the Hunter quests. For example, the black panther.. I used the Hunter's Instinct syringe to find him, then the repellent before I shot arrows at him. Whenever he wanted to attack me.. he turned away but stayed in sight so I actually ran after him to finish him off  :-D

Nice tip. I'm about to hunt black panther to make the extra large syringe holder

[Jim di Griz]

A good initiative as always Art - thumbs up for that.

Though this'll be possibly a bit late for most, I found an intractive map of the islands - pretty big. Takes some faffing to get used to it but it does seem good  :)

Interactive maps
Who would have though IGN would have come up with something as useful?

[PZ]

Nice one  :-X

IGN has in the past come up with reasonable maps