The seven weather types
A new weather type is rolled every day. Most are random, but the Rad-Storm is a scheduled event. Each type changes what your trips cost and what you can do:
| Weather | What it does |
|---|---|
| ☀️ Clear | Best visibility. Ranged weapons deal +5% damage. |
| ☁️ Overcast | Grey and cool. Fewer wanderers on the roads. |
| 🌧️ Rain | Your barrels fill (+15 base water that night). Open-air trips cost 4 stamina, but rainwater tops up thirst. |
| ⛈️ Storm | Dangerous. Fishing and hunting are closed, every trip costs 10 stamina and ranged weapons deal 5% less. Barrels overflow (+25 water). |
| 🌫️ Fog | Many more ambushes and wanderers. Ranged weapons deal 10% less. |
| 🔥 High Heat | Open-air trips cost extra thirst, doubled at noon and in the afternoon. |
| ☢️ Rad-Storm | Fishing and hunting closed. Every open-air trip exposes you to radiation. Underground trips are safe, but something hunts in the storm. |
High Heat and Lady Midday
High Heat doubles your thirst cost around midday. If you walk out at noon or in the afternoon with your thirst below 60%, your vision blurs and a pale figure shimmers on the road: Lady Midday, the Noon-Stalker. She is a boss with a burning thermal sickle. Her signature attack is announced with a shimmer in the air and the warning “take cover”: if you are not in cover when the blade lands, it hurts badly.
- Avoid her completely: drink before you leave and stay above 60% thirst. Or take your trips in the morning and evening.
- Fight her: she is a melee boss with a modest damage reduction. Bring a Guardian ally so you start in cover, and punish her between sickle swings.
- Reward: Scrip, Tech Data and Medicine.
Rad-Storms and the Unknown Threat
When a Rad-Storm rolls in, open-air trips cost you: either spend 2 Medicine (and strip +3 Tech Data from the irradiated electronics) or lose 20% Max HP and 10 stamina. The barrels fill with filtered water, which is a small mercy. Underground trips (the Tunnels, the Bunker) are safe from fallout.
The first time you leave camp during a Rad-Storm (at level 4 or above, once per day), the Unknown Threat finds you, wherever you were going. It is a mini boss with a unique three-phase cycle:
- Shrouded pulse. The Threat hides inside a radioactive shroud and takes 50% less damage. It fires a radiation pulse that ignores both armor and dodge. You cannot avoid it; you can only survive it.
- Exposed. The shroud drops. For one round the Threat takes 40% more damage. This is your window: unload your strongest attacks and have your Striker act now.
- Radiation burst. A huge attack for 1.5× damage that also hits your allies for 40% of the damage. Standing in cover cuts the damage by a quarter.
Then the shroud rises again and the cycle repeats. The fight is won by patience: survive the shrouded rounds, burst on the exposed round, shelter for the burst.
Curing radiation sickness
Radiation sickness cuts the damage you deal by 30%. You have three ways to deal with it:
- Decontamination Flush (fast, expensive). The Medical Infirmary offers a Decontamination Flush that cures the sickness completely for 35 Medicine and 15 Water.
- Daily Rad-Meds (slow, cheap). Take 1 Medicine per part of the day. While you are medicated the penalty is halved to 15%. The Infirmary can also auto-dose you every part of the day so you do not forget.
- Keep dosing until cured. After 25 total doses the sickness fades by itself.
The Flush costs 35 Medicine, more than the 25 doses the slow route needs, so you are paying for speed. If you are rich in Medicine, flush; if you are poor, medicate and keep fighting.
How to plan around weather
- Check the weather before you pick a trip. Storms and Rad-Storms close fishing and hunting.
- Store Medicine before a known Rad-Storm. Tunnels and the Bunker are your safe trips that day.
- On High Heat days, go out early and drink before noon.
- Fog is the time to bring your best armor and your squad: more ambushes, weaker ranged weapons.
- Rainy nights are free water. Do not spend a day on a water run when rain is coming.
More guides
Beginner's Guide
Your first week decides the rest of the run. Here is what to do, in order.
OPEN →Combat Guide
Fights are turn-based and every Action Point counts. This guide explains the rules underneath.
OPEN →Squad Strategy Guide
Who you place where before the first shot matters as much as what they carry.
OPEN →