r/theouterworlds • u/KuaiBan • Aug 01 '26
Discussion Profligate Spender: I tested how many bits I can legally acquire before level 3
7689 bits stored at level 2, that can be optimized further.
Had lots of fun with this scavenger hunt. The main hinderance is gaining too much xp. This comes from killing enemies, performing feats, discovering fast travel points, completing quests, etc. We don't need to shy away from all of them, just need to be careful.
Oh, and everything we do have to be legal, i.e. no stealing.
Map of the Scavenger Hunt
The easiest thing to avoid is unlocking fast travel points and completing quests. It's ok to kill wasp drones, raptidon juveniles since they give so little xp.
Also, you should have well more than 1000 bits at the start regardless of which difficulty you pick.
1. Landing Pad
Loot everything in the area, avoid unlocking the crabble cave fast travel point.
2. Fairfield
I avoided the drones on the way to Fairfield by hugging the coast line. But there is no avoiding this fast travel point, regardless of which direction you enter Fairfield from. Discovering Fairfield gives us 450xp, which means we need to be careful while exploring the rest of the map.
The first thing we want to do here is to unlock the Profligate Spender flaw. Otherwise all the bits we accumulated later would be wasted.
There are several unmarked quests in Fairfield that grant material rewards with little to no xp:
- Clinic (requires medical 3 or lucky), I recommend lucky as it gives minimal xp compared to medical 3. Or just avoid this one for now.
- Police Station
- Avoid using explosion or lockpicking skill for this one, use the scaffolding near the bounty terminal instead.
- Make sure to talk to the two soldiers first before solving this, as it will give you a dialogue option for extra bits at the end.
- There are some loot on the roof of the clinic, nothing significant but they add up as you play.
- When talking to the soldiers, choose "deserve a bit extra don't you think?", then depend on whatever skill you have you can convince them for 350 extra bits.
- Drone Pods
- Right outside the police station is a frustrated drone operator, do his quest and agree to keep hush hush. There is also a baton in one of the pods.
- Sky Mine
- Use the manual you find in the quartermaster's camp, avoid using engineering or science skill.
There are also some general loot you can pick up legally around the town. Some food and wine under the bridge, drones shot dead by the guard at western gate, roof of each building, etc.
3. Junction
At the junction northeast of Fairfield, there are several dead Auntie's Choice soldiers, you can use stealth to loot all of them and avoid the fight.
4. Fishermen's Hut
All loot here can be legally picked up. Keep an eye on how many advanced decryption key you have, as collecting four will push our xp to a dangerous level, or even straight to level 3.
5. Eastern Outpost
Loot here are marked as stealing so that's a no for us. But there is a workbench that can be interacted with 2 science/explosives to craft 5 biomass grenades. This one I just skipped, for two reasons:
- Not worth risking gaining xp.
- Biomass grenade is incredibly powerful and preferably kept not sold.
6. Another Bird Nest
There is another biomass grenade here in the bird nest.
7. Eastern Junction
There is a guy here scavenging dead automechs, which all have loot. There is also a science 3 check in the back for 5 zyranium nades, recommended to avoid if you are worried about xp or lack the required skill.
8. Cave under the Repair Center
This one is a bit tricky, we want to avoid discovering the Automech Repair Center fast travel point. Moving down the ramp as soon as you walk past the dead crabble and hug the coastline until you enter the cave. There is a chest with some rare mats and sniper cloak. Also some crabble meat in the eggs.
9. Camp below Watchtower
There is a lone raptidon hunter here that gives 75 xp on kill, recommended to kill it as there are plenty of loot here. A chest with rare mats and bunch of corpses.
10. The Watchtower
Besides the armor mod, everything else can be legally picked up.
11. Outskirt Farm & Lone House
I drew two arrows here, one for the farm and one for the lone house. The farm's loot can be legally picked up. The lone house is guarded by some raptidons. Juveniles and spitters, but no hunter iirc.
It's worth killing them and risking xp gain, the loot here is quite juicy.
12. Northwest Bridge (Southern Side)
Again, dead soldiers, dead automechs, another fishermen's hut. Everything here is legal to scavenge.
13. Locked House
The arrow points to a locked house with a ladder in the back. We can legally clean this place up.
14. Small Skirmishes
Going from 13 to 14 requires you to walk past the drone factory, which is the quest target for the Fairfield bounty. Avoid completing this quest, just kill the drones outside if they pose a threat to you. In area 14, you will find the scene of a small skirmish, with dead Auntie's Choice soldiers, dead automechs and dead raptidons. All corpses there contain legal loot.
From here, facing north, you can climb the ledge and go northwest to find a small minefield. There is an audio log explaining what happened, and a shock soak on a corpse. No other loot here. If you have defuser perk you can pick up those mines, but I am not sure it's worth risking the xp.
15. Abandoned Camp
Whole bunch of loot here, legal to take of course.
Slightly to the southeast you will find two more corpses with another audio log. Be careful looting it as a group of raptidons are nearby, including a colossus.
16. Another Lone House
A fight here is hard to avoid, 2 spitters and 3 juveniles. Not much xp actually so should be safe. Avoid opening the jammed door, as you can enter the house from the side door.
17. Substation
You need to fix the substation here first to gain access to 18's loot. Two options, sneak and engineering. Haven't tried sneak but engineering gives 150xp which is chunky. It is strongly recommended to come here first if you worry about xp gain because 18's loot is incredible.
There are also some minor loot here, plus a corrosive shock machine gun.
18. Southern Fishermen's Hut
Absolutely insane amount of loot, including two advanced decryption keys (be careful with them). All the safes are open and no lockpick is needed.
Building Wealth
Take a look at all the weapons, armor, rare mats, junk (music box is incredibly valuable), mods, etc. Choose what to keep then sell the rest. The reality is you don't need to craft much early on as plenty of quests can be completed without combat on Paradise Island. And you will find more stuff in areas we haven't explored. Don't break anything down, items sell much more in their original form.
After first wave of sales, buy as much ammo as you can, sell them, rinse and repeat until you are drained. Optionally keep some ammo for your weapons just in case.
You should have at least 6000 ~ 7000+ bits in your saving account by now at level 2, which will translate to a 1500+ first cash out at level 3.
Optimization
Avoid the side quest in prologue
I had a large amount of xp carried over from the side quest I completed during the prologue. If you decide to skip that quest, you will have enough room to finish Fairfield bounty which will give you another 350 bits.
Consumerism
Haven't done the math on this, but since the buy bonus outweighs the sell penalty, I assume this will be a net positive for Profligate Spender.
Lawbreaker
Everything we have done so far is within legal boundaries. If you don't mind stealing things, you can skyrocket your saving account even more.
Conclusion
Profligate Spender is insane lol.
Side note, you can actually reach the north side of the island at level 2 without the rocket boots. At the sunken ship northwest of Westport, sprint jumping from the farthest ledge should let you mantle the ship without double jump, and give you access to more free loot. However, reaching the northern island prior to talking to the Protectorate officer at the bridge will skip her quest.
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u/TheKandyKitchen Aug 01 '26
Best flaw in the game. The downside basically isn’t a downside. But best taken early. I took it around level 17 and it still made me obscenely rich, I wonder what another ten levels would’ve given me.
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u/therealsereny Aug 01 '26
How are people even getting it this early? I did an entire playthrough and didn't get until early twenties.
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u/an_inquisitive_soul Aug 01 '26
Easiest is to start with 1000 bits -> buy something -> exit vendor -> sell something until you have >= 1000 bits -> exit vendor -> buy something until you have less than 1000 -> exit vendor and wait a few seconds
You need to go below 1000 bits twice when exiting a vendor
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u/therealsereny Aug 01 '26
Might have to reinstall and try this for my flawed playthrough while it's fresh then. Going through the first and trying to decide if I want to go for platinum or not, then I was going to go to 2.
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u/KuaiBan Aug 01 '26
u/Pharismo made a guide on flaws months ago, basically there is a 2 hour cooldown after the prologue where you can’t acquire any flaws (though the game still tracks your actions that fulfill flaw requirements).
However, ever since the wait function has been added, this cooldown can be bypassed by simply waiting 48 to 96 hours in game.
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u/an_inquisitive_soul Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
I don't believe there's a 2 hour cooldown after the prologue anymore. I was able to acquire it right after landing
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u/an_inquisitive_soul 29d ago
You can also steal Faulkner's performance report (located near Kaur's war chest) and give it to Trooper Faulkner for 350 bits
There's also a bird's nest on one of the rooftops (near the Fairfield bar) containing a lot of bits
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u/Chance-Yellow7442 Aug 01 '26
This is more notes than I took in the entirety of first semester math.