Chromosome Evil – Useful Tips and Tricks

Here a list of tips and tricks that did not fit well in the above sections that can really help your playthrough.

Tips and Tricks

Zone Map Tips

• Recruiting events and character order are always the same when using the recruit action. As a result, you can test what classes or events occur during recruiting in any zone using a save or autosave, reload, wait until you’re in a residential zone, and spend less AP to get the same sequence of events. This can be very helpful if you’re missing a particular class, such as a medic or engineer.
• Do not spend food and AP to lower aggro in a zone if you are about to run out of fuel and you’re not in an industrial zone. It’s just a waste of AP and food since your aggro will skyrocket as soon as you leave. With that said, do your very best to never get in this situation and always have fuel (150 units or more).
• Try to only recruit more characters when you have either tons of AP and/or it only costs 1 AP.

Event Tips and Tricks

• There are many choices in the game, but one “choice” can really backfire. Do not choose to gain a permanent +1 AP over more expensive workshop upgrade costs. The upgrade costs are already fairly expensive–making them double just for a bonus +1 AP can cost you the game. For example, just upgrading the capacity once makes the cost go from 100 tool components to 200 tool components. If you choose the +1 AP option, this would be 200 tools to start and 400 for another member.
• After you rescue Beta Squad Trojan APC driver, choosing to move as quickly gets you to the next map with no loss to AP. Choosing to take time to explore takes 1 AP (no days lost) but discovers a farm on the map (3 AP cost for the location). Because of this, only choose to take time if you have unlocked the AP bonus and do not need to recruit. Otherwise you will not have enough AP to actually be able to visit the farm and you will miss out on food, fuel, ammo and other really helpful resources.
• Choose the leave early option to gain +1 day during the game’s start. The other options do give nice bonuses, but the extra day, especially when you have a much larger AP pool, translates into a LOT more resources and experience as well as one more day to get vaccine and satellite progress. In my first playthrough, it allowed me to finish my satellite progress right before the final mission. I’d almost assume choosing the +1 day is mandatory for hard difficulty playthrough’s for these reasons as a result.
• I’m fairly sure you should always pick to explore the zone you need to instead of pursuing the main missions. Why? So you can focus on resources you need the most at the time. In fact, the game, once you have run out of a certain amount of flexible time, will make you take main missions instead of giving you the option of which zone. So pick the zone you need when you need to, especially if you’re low on ammo or fuel. If you’re not low on either, feel free to pursue the main mission. After you finish each main mission, you will be randomly assigned to a zone type, residential, industrial, or downtown.

Exploration Map Tips

• TV Traps electrocute barricades. Not that useful, but if you were wondering why you can use tools to construct a trap at certain TV’s, that’s why. Other traps like gas ones tend to work better.
• Be careful of fire and poison pools (little red embers or green puddles) as they can kill characters that have no resistances or immunity very quickly. Any character with high Body stat will have more resistances. Medics gain immunities to Bleed, then Poison, and at max armor Fire, though upgrading a Medic to max armor is not recommended. Engineers gain immunities to Poison, Bleed, then Fire in a similar manner.
• If you have a little bit of extra time while on an exploration map and there’s either an extra resource or door that a low level character can interact with, grab it on your way to the evac point. Every item interacted with 100% gives experience, even doors you don’t actually end up needing opened.
• Resources, AP desks, and doors can all be interacted with multiple characters if there is a spot next to the target to speed up the process. Use this mechanic to access these faster.
• If you do not hear moaning yet, you do not need characters defending chokepoints yet. Once you do hear moaning, get ready for incoming enemies though.
• Character levels and stats are not as important as making sure you have enough ammo and your men stay alive. Do not get greedy and put your men at risk. “Under control” situations can quickly spiral “Out of Control” and kill or injure your squad when it was not necessary.
• Always, always balance the use of ammo needed to fight off enemies against how much resources you might actually recover. If you find you’re using more ammo than resources gathered, it’s time to leave. In fact, it was probably time to leave a few minutes ago.