Snorri Godi's Guide to Progressing in Radiation Island
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This guide is describes one approach to beating and having fun in Radiation Island. It is not intended to be exclusive - there are lots of ways to play this game, that's part of the fun of it. But it seems to be how I've settled into making progress while still getting to all of the sights and experiences of the game.
I typed this in one sitting, so there are going to be typos and errors - please feel free to fix. Some of you will find little of interest here, some will find interesting tidbits - take what you can use and leave the rest.
SPOILER ALERT - I've got a couple of things in here that might be considered "spoilers".
1) Get established
When you first start, you've got nothing. In the first phase, starting at the beach hut, you need to get the very basics established. Start with the nearby military base and huts - these are unoccupied, and so ready to loot. Your priorities should be (more-or-less in order):
- Collect a food reserve by picking up fruit where ever you can find it. Not that much is needed, because you'll always pick up fruit whenever you see it.
- Collect (or make) clothes. You are very vulnerable naked, get covered up! Usually you can find basic clothes, but I seem to often have to make my first pair of shoes.
- Collect or make a long-range weapon. You can make spears or a bow, I often seem to find a crossbow very early which I like a lot. You need this to pick off wolves, crocs, and bears.
- Find or make some bandages and splints - maybe I'm just a klutz?
- Make a couple of basic axes for back-up weapons and for wood collection
- Expand your backpack - shoot wolves (the house behind the starting hut is good for this) and collect their leather to expand your backpack. Three rows worth is good to start with.
2) Exploration
You need to be able to get around the island easily, and this means "finding" all of the teleport huts so you can teleport wherever you wish. Run (don't walk) from station to station. My advice is to stay focused, don't get distracted collecting loot or killing things at this time, if you run nothing will keep up with you and you'll get where you're going unscathed. Collect loot from the boxes at the teleport huts, of course, and pick up fruit whenever you run across it (you don't have to stop, just tap it on the run).
You're likely to quickly fill your backback - no problem, teleport to a favorite hut, build a box, and store your stuff away. If you already know which hut you will use as a base in the future, start there.
3) Plunder the island
Once you have all the bases, you're ready to gather resources in earnest. Start by choosing a teleport hut to serve as your home base. It needs trees nearby (for wood to make boxes and cook), few enemies or predators wandering about (so you can teleport in and out freely), sulfur and lead ore nearby will be helpful later, and a crystal conversion station helps. I like the hut on the top right, behind the standing stones - it is the only teleport hut on the first island with a crystal machine. It is a good hut for taking on the First Tesla Tower because of it's teleportation anomalie in the stone ring. This will teleport you to a mountain that has a hanglider on and is overlooking the FirstTT. Don't try it yet but you can glider off the mountain to the TT.
Start by chopping trees for wood - lots of it - and building boxes to store the loot you already have. I make stacks for each kind of item - clothes, food, resources, weapons, meds, &c. Make the rounds of the teleport stations and collect everything you've already gathered, and new stuff from their boxes, and box it up at home base.
Now make a furnace. Cook all your meat and refine any ore you might already have. If you haven't found a shovel and iron or titanium pick, make them.
Now systematically go from station to station, and dig at each "X" on the map to find buried boxes. Collect their contents, and while walking from X to X mine any lead ore or sulfur you run across. Fight off any animals or zombies, and collect whatever they drop when you kill them. Usually I'm still using a crossbow at this point, but before long you're likely to kind a pistol to use if you wish. Gather all of your loot in boxes at home base - when you're full, go home and empty out, replenish anything you need (food? arrows?) and head out again. Be sure to collect or make leather whenever you can, and expand your backpack up to the maximum so that you don't have to run home as often.
At some point, you're likely to find a rifle and bullets. This changes everything - you'll need to keep an eye on your bullet supply, but you can now treat enemies and predators more as resources rather than dangers. Start refining lead ore to lead ingots, using wood so that you make charcoal, and mix these with sulfur to make rifle bullets. Other weapons are now obsolete. If you only have one rifle, make sure to put it away if you're about to be killed in a "hot" environment, otherwise you'll have to go back and retrieve it without a backup gun.
4) Lower the Tesla towers.
Once you have a good stockpile of resources, a rifle and plenty of ammo, you can start lowering the Tesla towers. Your starting hut had a note on the floor with the code to the first tower, you presumably picked it up. Go to this tower and enter the code at the control box to lower it.
I like a couple of approaches to getting in and lowering the towers against the protecting bad guys. One is "hit-and-run" - rifle in hand, just dash in, enter the code, and try to dash out again before you're killed. Shoot only in immediate need, and don't take time to collect anything except for the note with the code for the net tower. The other strategy is to approach the tower slowly, use cover, and wait for the bad guys to come to you - and pick them off one-by-one as they do. Assuming you have the ammo (and medic kits), you can usually clear out the opposition, stroll into the tower and lower it, and collect all the loot from boxes and dead zombies at your leisure.
Each new tower has a note near the control box with the code for the next tower. Be sure to pick this up. Work your way from tower to tower. Some are easy, some very difficult, but with a rifle, ammo, and med kits, you'll be fine.
5) Prep for the next island.
Once you've lowered all of the towers, and looted to your hearts content, time to get ready for the next island. You should have boxes of loot of all kinds, be sure you have a full suit of strong cloths and a spare set, plenty of food, iron/titanium mining tools, shovels, have a max'ed out backpack, and meds. But you probably don't have a lot of rifle bullets - if not, make a big stockpile. Be sure you have at least one extra rifle.
6) Next island.
Load up your backpack with a good mixture of loot, but leave at least a couple of slots open to pick things up. Go to the bottom-most teleport hut, and run to the bridge to the center island. When you get to the other side, run to the adjacent teleport station. Now cinch up your testicles and make your way, either along the shoreline couter-clockwise or diaginally across, to the teleport hut next to the bridge to the upper-right radial island (we need names for these!). This is a tough road - lions and zombies everywhere. Watch out especially for Zom-zillas, they will outrun you and kill you in one strike.
Once you get to the upper-right hut, assess your situation. If you are low on bullets or meds, teleport back to the bottom hut, go back over the bridge to the starting island, replenish your supplies, and make you way back. You can teleport most of the way, you just have to walk the bridges.
Now cross the bridge to the upper-right radial island. As soon as you get there, dash to the boxes of loot right in front of the bridge entrance - you will usually find a machinegun and some bullets, and nearby there will be a note with the code to the first Tesla station on this island. By the time you do this, you will be fighting your way out - there will be soldiers all over you. Kills them as you can, but get out and run to the closest teleport hut. Good luck, mate!
7) Get established on Island 2.
Repeat step 2 on this island - run to each teleport hut to "discover" it. Collect food, lead ore and sulfur as you go, but don't dawdle. Kill bad guys and predators only as you need to. Once you choose a home base for this island, build some boxes and collect the loot from each teleport station. Build a furnace and make machinegun bullets if you have a machinegun, or rifle bullets if not and you're low on them. I like the teleport hut at the top right because it's very close to a great place to farm zombies.
Now make you way back-and-forth from your island 1 home base to your new home base, ferrying essential loot to your new home. Start with the essentials, because a bug in the app may result in the loss of your box contents at your old home base (at least this happens a lot to me).
8) Zombie farming time.
Now farm some zombies for their resources - and good resources they will be. Adjust your backpack load to the bare minimum, but with plenty of ammo. From the upper-right teleport hut, make your way straight back up the ridge behind the hut - on the other side of the peak is a deep mountain pass full of zombies. pick a high spot along the side, and pick them off one-by-one. A single shot usually is enough, for some reason. Move from spot to spot along the side of the valley, picking off zombies as you go. Once you've cleared the valley, go in and harvest their loot. You'll get machineguns, lots of bullets, lead, titanium, meds, crystals, everything you need. Usually there are black clouds hovering over this valley - straight beneath each one crystals accumulate in great quantities. Watch out for zombie-wolves at the lower end of the valley - they shoot green radiation at you and are deadly. Come back to this valley whenever you need resources.
Once you have a machinegun and bullets, everything changes again. You can now move about and kill with near impunity. You'll need a bit of food, meds, shovels and picks, but mostly you're interested in sulfur and lead for making machinegun bullets.
9) Exploration, harvesting loot, and lowering towers.
Now dig up all the boxes on the island. You'll find some really cool places this way, and collect mondo stuff. Keep an eye on your bullet supply, replenish as needed.
Be on the lookout for Zom-zillas, they can sneak up on you and squash you in one step. A clip and a half of machinegun bullets will finish them off. There are a couple of places full of zombies, and a zom-zilla or medic-zombie can ruin your day while you're distracted. Beware also of clouds - black ones, blue ones, or yellow ones. None are good, and they will chase you, so keep your distance. If you've got one after you, run away as fast as you can, and as soon as you're clear of other bad guys, teleport away.
Lower all of the towers as you did on the first island. Do not try to climb past the blue clouds to get to the Tesla tower on the small island - you can't do it. This tower is accessible by teleportation - swim in the lake surrounded by Stonehenge, and dive to the swirly teleport zone, it'll take you directly to that tower.
At this stage, you may not always wish to sleep in a bed. Often I'm in a remote spot with lots of opportunities (the shipwreck zone, for example), and would rather not go home. If you collect torches every time you stop at a station, you'll have a good supply. When nightfall arrives, find a local high spot, one that's hard to climb up, and camp out (start a fire if you have can). Use torches to stay warm and keep an eye out, and when necessary switch to your gun to kill approaching bad guys or predators. When dawn arrives, get back to work!
10) Third Island.
Once you've looted the second island, lowered the towers, and accumulated a huge stockpile of machinegun bullets and other resources, you're ready to move to the final radial island. The process is much like the previous one - go to the center island, walk to the upper-left teleport hut, and cross the bridge to the new island. Pick up the first tower code slip at the foot of the bridge. Run to all of the teleport huts, choose one to establish as home base (I like the upper central one in the mountains), ferry your stockpile from the old island to this one, and start exploring and looting this island.
By now, enemies and predators should be no problem for you and your machinegun. Keep collecting lead and sulfur, MG bullets, meds and crystals as before. In many ways this island is a lot easier that the prior one, except for two things: the clouds are more numerous, more mobile, and more agressive; and enemy bases are usually radioactive. Always be on the lookout for clouds, and avoid them at all costs. Radioactivity in bases means you should keep a good supply of meds, especially radiation pills, and focus on the hit-and-run approach to lowering towers. Some bases are very difficult to find your way into and around, don't get lost! Unlike island 2, I never stay out at night, the clouds will be all over you.
11) The Center island.
Once you've lowered all the towers on the radial islands and amassed a stockpile of loot (especially MG bullets), you're ready for the central island. You already have the three teleport huts in hand, choose one to serve as home base, and move some food, some guns, a spare set of clothes, and all the ammo and meds you have to this home base. I like the upper right one, because the adjacent radial island (#2) is the best source of bullets (by farming zombies or making them).
There isn't much to explore on this island, other than the three teleport huts the main attraction is the central base with the last Tesla tower. So fill your pack with meds, a bit of food, a spare gun, and lots of ammo. Let's roll!
As before, you can use either the hit-and-run or slow approach methods to get to the tower and lower it. For me, the slow approach method seems to work better. Walk up from your home base toward the tower, killing zombies and lions as they come. Don't worry about picking up what they drop. Once on the central plateau, walk through the woods and circle at a good distance around the perimeter of the central base, killing enemies as need be. Once an entrance gate is in view, wait and let them come to you. When they stop coming, approach the entrance gate and wait - again, let them come to you and pick them off one-at-a-time. When the coast is clear, move in to a doorway to the central building, and enter. Quickly make your way to the middle of the building (use the curved walls to keep track of the direction to the center), jump up onto the center map table, and shoot everything that comes - you'll get a deluge. When the carnage is complete, stroll over to the control box, and enter the code. Mission accomplished! ~Tips~ Build wood walls and put them at the entrances of Telsa towers they keep zombies out. Just make sure to put them so you can also get out
Telsa towers have A set of stairs to go to the roof. It is kind of like a "safer" point. Zombies can climb up but at a slow rate easy to kill with Mellee weapons. If a zombie makes it to the roof you can go around in circles and they will fall back to the ground Fire clubs are better than torches they act as weapon and light When attacking a base make sure to get to Highground zombies can't get you directly but scientist zombies maybe shoot acid at you I highly recommend that you save your progress on iCloud the game crashes and you will lose all of your progress made