Your survival guide to the wastelands

When hitting Play there are three options presented to start with. Normal will always have random generation for every new run and is the default experience. Dailies can only be done once a day always rolling over at Midnight GMT+0, these runs have one set generation that every player shares. Weeklies can be played infinitely on the same seed within their 6 day period, ending on Sundays with the new ones starting on Mondays; these use crowns as modifiers which may make the game a lot easier or harder depending on the loadout.

The game always start with character selection, of which two are unlocked by default. Fish has good maneuverability and ammo recovery while Crystal has good defense, and either are great picks to start off with. The Tech Guide does a fantastic job at describing each character's strengths and weaknesses in each part of the game, as well as the technical aspects of their powers. Each character has their own unlocks; a unique b-skin which includes alternative spriting, a golden weapon that new runs can be started with, and starting with crowns which are gained through vaults but requiring beating the game to unlock.

The areas in the game follow a simple pattern. There is a major area which consists of three levels, where at the end of the third level awaits a boss fight. After which, a transitional area will be entered which is only one level but is in the dark making navigating more dangerous, yet do not have a boss fight in preloop. This process is repeated until the run is ended, either by death or by winning.

Each area hosts their own enemies and hazards, however some enemies may appear between multiple areas. Bandits and their variations are the only ones who appear in every major area in the game. A level may only be exited once every enemy is killed*. Upon clearing a level, an exit portal will appear sucking in nearby weapons and the player to the next level. Any pickups/radiation left in the level will automatically be attracted to the player, though if it makes contact with the portal the player will also gain them automatically.
* Some enemies may be in transitional animations(sleeping assassins, flying ravens, idpd yet to spawn, etc.) so even when the exit portal appears there may still be threats alive, just not required to kill at that point.

Each character has a default starting weapon which is usually the Revolver. There are also Golden weapons unlocked through the Scrapyards secret area that can be started with (explained in detail below). Only two weapons can be held, being the primary and secondary held weapons. Weapons can be found in weapon chests that spawn in every level, or drops from enemies. Weapons currently held from the player are removed from the drop pool, but are readded once that weapon is swapped out for another one. Each level exit portal entered will increase difficulty, which can increase the total enemy count per. level, but will also add more weapons to the drop pool. Every weapon has an equal chance to drop so long as they're within the drop pool; every level in Preloop adds new weapons to the pool.

Every weapon has a cooldown, some being instant while others taking a few seconds. Only the primary held weapon will cooldown, if swapped to the secondary weapon position its cooldown will freeze. Entering a new level will always reset cooldown on both weapons. "Hotswapping" refers to quickly dropping a weapon for another one, and then picking up the original weapon; this will also reset cooldown and can be done to rapid fire heavy-hitting weapons with higher cooldowns. The only other way to fire weapons more quickly is specific mutations (skills) such as Trigger Fingers and Stress.

If playing Steroids, no weapons are ever removed from the drop pool due to dual wielding. Both weapons held can be shot at the same time and will actively cooldown.

Many enemies are able to drop ammunition and weapons. The lower the ammo count the player has, the more likely enemies may drop ammo. Ammunition drops have a chance to convert to health drops so long as the player is not at max health; thus the lower the ammo the better chances are to regain health, and the lower the players health the more likely ammunition may convert to health. There are 5 ammo types which weapons may use one of; the exception being melee weapons, many of which do not consume ammo and can be used infinitely without any breaking mechanic. The player can hold up to 55 ammo total for each weapon type, bullets being the exception with 255 max ammo.

Each level will usually contain one chest for ammunition, one chest with a weapon in it, and one radiation canister. Sometimes the levels may bug and fail to spawn one of them, though this is a fairly infrequent bug. (3-1 and 3-3 being the most common). There can be some benefits to skipping weapon chests and radiation canisters; but there is no benefit to skipping ammo chests and thus should always be opened.

Weapon chests will always give a weapon within the current drop pool that's not held by the player. If a weapon chest is skipped completely (cannot be opened by the exit portal either), then a big weapons chest may spawn instead which will contain 3 weapons to choose from instead of its usual one. For every chest skipped a 25% chance is added until a big weapon chest is opened; in which it will return to a 0% chance. Skipping four chests in a row will guarantee a big weapons chest to spawn. Opening a normal chest does not reset the counter. Radiation is NT's form of experience. Upon gaining enough from enemies and rad cans, the player will level up automatically. Entering any portal will then allow the player to pick a mutation from a pool of 4 choices normally inbetween levels, with a total of 28 normal mutations. Mutations are essentially skills that power up the player, which generally either increase maneuverability, offense or defense. While not all mutations are equally balanced, within preloop each has a solid placement and are worth fully experimenting with as they all interact with different builds in different ways.

If a radiation canister is skipped then the one in the next level will be overflowing. This will be a slight net loss of rads if opened; however if the overflowing version is skipped as well a secret enemy will appear that will give an excess of rads but at a high risk to the player. Any ammo chest variant being skipped provides absolutely no benefit and thus should always be opened.

With all these general details in mind, it is time to dive into each specific area.

The Desert

Sprite
Name	Bandit	Maggot	Maggot Nest	Big Maggot	Scorpion	Golden Scorpion	Big Bandit
Health	4 HP	2 HP	12 HP	22 HP	15 HP	40 HP	100 HP

The Desert (also known as The Wastelands) is an area spanning the first three levels of the game. While it's the easiest area being first, new players may find themselves dying due to rushing through.

These levels are usually very open and filled with many props and few walls for cover. Normal desert levels is to be expected, however there are some level generation variants such as grey flooring that has increased amounts of big maggots and nest spawns.

The enemy layout is simple here, as there are three main groups. Maggots will try to follow the player and do melee damage, but can be one-shot by any weapon. Bandits hold mid-range and shoot bullets often randomly, which can damage a player who isn't paying attention. Scorpions hold the back-line trying to stay away from the player, and will shoot spreads of pellets to chip damage. As the first areas of the game basically any weapon is going to be more useful than the revolver, however generally having one weapon to deal with close/mid range and one weapon to deal with ranged scorpions is recommended.

Secret Area: Oasis

Sprite
Name	Bandit	Bonefish	Hermit Crab
Health	4 HP	6 HP	12 HP

The Sewers

Sprite
Name	Bandit	Rat	Green Rat	Big Green Rat	Ballguy	Toxic Ballguy	Gator	Buff Gator	Assassin
Health	4 HP	7 HP	4 HP	35 HP	5 HP	21 HP	12 HP	30 HP	7 HP

Rats are delicious!

Secret Area: Pizza Sewers

Sprite
Name	Rat	Turtle
Health	7 HP	12 HP

Scrapyards

Sprite
Name	Bandit	Ballguy	Raven	Sniper	Assassin	Fire Salamander	Big Dog
Health	4 HP	5 HP	10 HP	6 HP	7 HP	25 HP	300 HP

Secret Area: YV's Mansion

Sprite
Name	Mole Fish	Mole Sarge	Jock	Fireballer	Super Fireballer
Health	5 HP	14 HP	25 HP	60 HP	25 HP

Vaults & Others

All Areas
Name	Mimic	Health Mimic	Hostile Horror
Health	12 HP	15 HP	60 HP
Vault Levels
Name	Grunt	Inspector	Shielder	Crown Guardian
Health	8 HP	10 HP	45 HP	70 HP

Crystal Caves

Sprite
Name	Bandit	Crystal Spider	Laser Crystal
Health	4 HP	18 HP	45 HP

Secret Area: Cursed Caves

Sprite
Name	Bandit	Cursed Crystal Spider	Cursed Laser Crystal
Health	4 HP	18 HP	45 HP

Frozen City

Sprite
Name	Snow Bandit	Snowbot	Wolf	Tank	Golden Tank	Lil Hunter
Health	8 HP	12 HP	15 HP	50 HP	70 HP	140 HP

Secret Area: Jungle

Sprite
Name	Bandit	Jungle Bandit	Jungle Assassin	Maggot	Fly
Health	4 HP	9 HP	12 HP	2 HP	40 HP

The Labs

Sprite
Name	Freak	Explo Freak	Necromancer	Turret	Rhino Freak
Health	7 HP	5 HP	6 HP	40 HP	80 HP

The Palace

Sprite
Name	Bandit	Grunt	Inspector	Shielder	Guardian	Explo Guardian	Dog Guardian	The Nuclear Throne
Health	4 HP	8 HP	10 HP	45 HP	35 HP	50 HP	160 HP	1500 HP