Tips and Tricks

Operation Overkill is a survival simulator and an RPG. It has a number of twists — your goal is not to gain levels. Gaining experience and gaining levels will have the effect of shutting down areas of the game to you, and making the game significantly more difficult.

The main purpose of the game is to increase your stats, first via oracle hunting until your stats total 200 and then via Air Force Base upgrades purchased with huge amounts of crystals. When your stats are high enough and you have acquired the most powerful weapons and armor in the game, you can summon Overkill and defeat him.

Start with Kallahar’s OOII FAQ and the OOII FAQ

To succeed at this game, you will need to:

  1. Fight encounters using the action combat system (or cheat using scripts)
  2. Pickup ALOT of items that are lying on the ground after combat to sell at the complex
  3. Locate the Oracle revealing encounter for each level (1-5) and let that opponent beat on you while you miss until it reveals where the Oracle is.
  4. Plan excursions into dangerous areas of the map and attempt to find an invisible, moving oracle
  5. Level up slowly while accumulating as many crystals as possible & getting as many stat bonuses from the oracle as possible
  6. If you are NOT ready to fight at the next lower level of the map, haven’t found the Oracle enough to make fights very easy, drop a bunch of water crystals, pick one up, and repeatedly do FULL SURRENDER with 1 crystal to lower your exp. Consider doing this at level 4 (to avoid having to move to map level 2) and also again at level 6 (to avoid having to move to map level 3). Do NOT go below 8000 exp if level 4, or below 32,000 exp if level 6 when exiting the game, or the next time you sign on you will be “level drained” and penalized more stat points than you will receive when leveling back up again.
  7. Using millions of crystals to increase your stats through Air Force Base updates after the Oracle stops helping you
  8. Obtaining the best weapons and equipment while assembling a transmitter to summon Overkill

Survival:

  • As soon as possible buy an environmental suit and a medpack
  • Always carry around 7 water crystals with you. This will allow you to surrender 3 times when your health is critically low and you want to avoid being shot in the back when running. Surrender with (4), (2), then (1) crystal, unless they demand all your water crystals.
  • Stay near the complex and sell all equipment and weapons back for crystals
  • Always carry plenty of medpacks and rations and have maps for where you are going
  • Never let your HPs drop below 10, in combat or out of combat. If you run away from a fight, you can still be shot in the back with a random amount of damage
  • Always carry around a hemp rope at all times and later a Telegrasp as well.
  • Be aware of the weather, cyclones, and other dangers
  • Carry a ranged weapon in slot 1 and a hand-to-hand weapon in slot 2. Lightning usually hits the weapon in slot 1 first.
  • Diseases appear starting at level 4 and can cause permanent stat damage: for example, polio and rabies will drain strength, and black plague will drain both dexterity and hit points. High radiation will also permanently drain hit points as well.
  • Always carry around either a summoner or a silencer. Explore with the silencer, fight with the summoner
  • If encounters occur too often, such as with “feeding” + a summoner, then drop the summoner. You want to have a small break between encounters so you have a chance to heal.
  • Download and mark up the map of the game you are playing, and plan out all your trips and base locations before you make them. See maptalk for additional details on how to markup the map.
  • Watch your total ability score (complex/headquarters/records room) – simply str+dex+hp and use it as an indicator of when to go down to a lower level. If 90+, go to level 3, if 140+, go to level 4, if 180+, go to level 5

Combat:

  • Flee from any encounter that has a radiation level of 51% or greater, and flee from any beasts — they are easy experience, but you do not want experience. You want Oracle locations and equipment that you can sell for money
  • Every encounter type has a different level of difficulty, and a different value of equipment. Flee from harder encounters until you are ready for them, and when you can take on difficult encounters, flee from the easier encounters that drop less valuable equipment.
  • Hold down ‘5’ to find encounters. This is safer than using the L key
  • The Trignet ranged weapon is significantly overpowered as long as your dexterity is higher than your opponent

Bases: (see MapTalk for additional details on base placement)

  • Bases provide radiation decontamination, allowing you to use the combat suit rather than the environmental suit
  • Storage in bases is important since all other items dropped anywhere else are subject to being swept up by Hydrites when too many items are dropped in the wastelands
  • Teleportation range can be quickly determined by the base rangefinder or by a simple formula. Look at your destination X,Y coordinate and compare it to the base location, and write down the differences between the coordinants. To know if you are in range, look at the largest difference first and make sure both numbers are smaller then these: +-13/+-3, +-12/+-6, +-11/+-7, +-10/+-9.
  • Make sure that your bases on each subsequent level are within range of each other. This allows you to quickly teleport from the top level down to lower levels
  • Start with maps of all 5 levels and plan your bases to provide you with all the following conditions with some regard: Close access to the complex, prison, and level 5 Air Force Base, a somewhat centralized location that lets you teleport anywhere on the map, somewhat hidden from other players. Quick access to being able to return to the complex to either sell valuables or purchase equipment is more important than other considerations.
  • Storing essential equipment in each base will often come in handy: a few rations, medpacks, hemp rope, telegrasp, etc along with enough crystals to repair the Telepod if you break it by teleporting to a non-base location. 31000 or 56000 crystals per base is a good number.
  • If you break down the defenses of a base, you cannot claim ownership of the base, upgrade, or even build or repair a broken telepod. The one exception is if the owner of the base is camping within the base. Once you get the shields down to 0%, the act of entering the base will cause the owner to leave the base and attack you. If you flee, you have to quit the game and rejoin to get another chance to attack. If you defeat the defender, you take ownership of the base.

Oracle Hunting:

  • The Oracle is an invisible, moving encounter somewhere in the wastelands which provides a permanent boost to stats and for good measure removes radiation, hunger, and a supply of water crystals.
  • 1 type of humanoid encounter per level provides you with the oracle’s location, but only if you have a Galacticom & you are not penalized with low experience for that particular level, so always carry around a Galacticom in your inventory
  • If you do know the Oracle revealing encounter, run away from all other encounters, fight to get the opponent’s health below 50%, switch to fists, and miss until the Oracle location is revealed or until your health drops to around 10.
  • Teleport from a base to either the exact square or a square as close as possible to the Oracle’s location to minimize the chance of the Oracle moving. Verify that the Oracle is not in solid rock first.
  • If the Oracle has moved, use a Trikorder to locate or move back and forth repeatedly and explore the area. A silencer and plenty of rations are recommended. The same method can be used if the Oracle is in a solid rock wall to “wait” until it moves out of the wall
  • If you do not have a Trikorder and you discover from an encounter that the Oracle is within a rock wall, another strategy for very difficult maps such as ABYSS is to use a silencer, run back and forth across the map a couple of times in order to get the Oracle to move, and then try to discover the Oracle’s location again from an encounter. Once you discover the Oracle is on an accessible square, move immediately to your basis, and then teleport from a base to the exact square.
  • If you gain levels too fast and can’t handle encounters that are more difficult, consider either surrendering to keep exp low or even choosing to die to reduce your character level so you can use an Oracle encounter at an earlier level again.
  • The Oracle has a threshold set by the sysop — the # of times max per day it can be found. This is independent of the player. For example, if this value is 10, the Oracle will bless players 10 times maximum in one day, then the 11th find will warn the player without giving any blessing, and the 12th find will curse the player and damage their stats. If a BBS system sets this value to a low value such as 1, make sure that you check the frontier log first just in case other players reach this maximum number before you start searching for the oracle!
  • If you don’t know the Oracle revealing encounter, take note of every humanoid that says anything that does not contain a map coordinate, and then run away from all of these unproductive encounters. Use a table such as the following and erase the names of encounters that make “normal” statements:

1 – Bandit, Beggar, Cobra-Man, Grave Digger, Insane Dwarf, Madatem, Scavenger, Shockel, Skinless Man, Wanderer
2 – Convict, Hydrite, Insectoid, Katang, Mantis Warrior, Quazsit, Road Warrior, Sand Ogre, Subow, Union-T, Vendor, Zombie
3 – Caterian, Cyborg, Ex-X, H’Dryzoid, Hexman, Hitman, Hydrite Soldier, Mutoid, Omay Resca, Tellerite, Terminator, Tracker, Stalker, Vengier
4 – Bag Man, Beserker, Caturant, Diabla, Dredvault, Eliminator, Mad Medic, Omega Man, Revlis, Robapiveron, Vishnu, Whirling Devil
5 – Alien Hunter, Black Geozal, Cypher, Daemon, Death Stalker, Flunnizud, Hydrite Guard, Jublata, Killer Android, Kyro Daemon, Lerumnod, Lez-Mot, Shrie, Yajirom
AFB: Axethim(Remote), Imeg-Rewa, Inot, Iron Methir, Luapzuf, Mutant Wixel, Nagolman(Rusted Wire), Nosajav(L), Orkaner(L), Reject Vex, Rus Magnon, Shillis(L), Strokram

Money:

  • The bank provides 6.25% interest per day. If your bank account has 940,000 crystals, this is equivalent to 58,750 crystals every day
  • The fastest way to make money is to kill level 5 characters equipped with the best weapons and a telegrasp. Run away from all encounters that do not have the best weapons, and also all of those with 51% radiation or more, use the telegrasp to teleport to the Complex, and use a chain of bases and preferably a script to quickly return back to level 5
  • Most equipment is not worth the trouble of picking up and selling, only transport the more valuable stuff

General hints:

  • If the Hydrite Soldier reveals the oracle, fight at the entrance of the prison. This makes the oracle-hunting process very easy and fast:
Hydrite Soldier Oracle Hunting

  • Oracle revealing with level 1 & 2 encounters is far easier than level 3+ because your opponent misses so much more frequently at these levels. Avoid killing anything and level up as SLOWLY as you can until you have great stats from finding the Oracle a lot of times. Full surrender a couple of times with only a few crystals in your inventory is an excellent way to lower your exp to avoid reaching Level 5 & Level 7. This will ensure that you can continue fighting on lower levels.
  • Make sure you have plenty of ammo (200x) in your weapons when entering a prison or the final spaceship. Keeping a telegrasp on hand for both locations is very useful in case you surrender or are disconnected, as it will literally help you escape from jail the next time you log in.
  • The Air Force Base requires the following: a Gasmask, Code Key, Lazer key, Telegrasp, Remote Control, and a Silencer. If you are transporting large amounts of crystals, do not carry a long-range weapon, or make sure your long-range weapon has no ammo
  • Death drops your experience by 1/2 and removes 8 stat points. Once you level back up to your old level this translates to a -4 stat penalty. If you have died more often than you have found the Oracle, consider starting your character over from scratch
  • Winning the game requires ~90+ strength and hit points, 76 dexterity with a Trignet will outclass Overkill’s 75 dexterity and give you the first shot. (to reach this, roughly 2.8 million crystals are required for upgrades at the AFB after the Oracle stops helping you) You also need a Xendrix with 200+ ammo, polycarbon armor with 100+ hits, either a Alien Skull or Hydrite Egg (the fake overkill will tell you which one) and a ton of Medpacks and preferably a Vacpack to use before entering room 4 on the spaceship.
  • Missile launches require a floppy disk from Lez-Mot (level 5 encounter) Diabla (level 4 encounter) and require you to solve a game of mastermind. 20 attempts, A-Z (case insensitive), a ‘phi’ character means a character of your last attempt is correct but in the incorrect place, a ‘infinity’ character means that a character of your attempt is in the correct place. After the 20th try, the floppy disk will be destroyed. First try all of the possible letters: ‘ABCDE’ ‘FGHIJ’ ‘KLMNO’ ‘PQRST’ ‘UVWXY’ ‘Z….’ and then refine your attempts. 50% of the time a missile will explode, 45% of the time the missile will be a dud, and 5% of the time the missile silo kills you and destroys the silo. It is possible to use missiles to blow up walls, get rid of pits, merge disconnected areas of a map, make terrain capable of building a base, and killing campers & player bases. Target 1 square away from a player’s base to drop their shields to 0%, or target the base directly to completely destroy it. A missile will not explode if the launch X,Y is within 2 sectors of the Complex, Hydrite Prison, AFBs/Silos, or the “outside” walls.

SPOILERS AHEAD !!!

The actual sequence of steps you must complete in order to win the game is to first build a character that is strong enough to kill several Hydrites in a row without healing, obtain a set of 3 keys, break into the Hydrite Prison and obtain a code key, take this code key along with a gas mask to the Air Force Base on level 5, kill enough creatures in the Air Force Base to obtain a laser key and remote control, use the remote control on a trap door to get to a new “Complex” where you can purchase stat upgrades and buy the most powerful weapons in the game.

You then must use a Techkit purchased from this Air Force Base along with various items obtained from the wasteland: a Broken Keypad (Alien Hunter-level 5), a Clay Package (Dreadvault-level 4), an Alarm Clock (Vishnu-level 4), and a Rusted Wire (Hexman-level 3) to create an “alien device” used to summon the final series of battles and finally Overkill himself.