Neuro Hunter

Neuro Hunter Walkthrough/FAQ V. 1.0 by Jarrett Blake a.k.a. 'Mentil'
1/27/2006

I'm making this FAQ for the English version of Neuro Hunter, because I got
stuck many times and couldn't find a decent resource to help me.
I use the terms 'stat' and 'skill' interchangeably here. Programming is
obviously a skill, but Constitution is more of an RPG-traditional stat.


Walkthrough:
First, you'll want to talk with Toadstool, he'll give you a basic idea of what
to do. Wander around the caves and get used to the game's melee mechanics. Slay
everything for fun and profit. Upgrade your weapon as soon as possible, it
makes a huge difference. Eventually you will come across a guard named Marks.
Talk to him to get a quest to find his helmet, in exchange for access to the
Miners' Colony. The helmet is inside a container somewhere in the caves. Steal
whatever you need from Marks, like the miner's breastplate and bat. Save first
in case you get caught. Approach from behind in order to increase your chances
of success. If you get caught stealing or assaulting people about three times,
the security system will be sicced on you. Which is cause for a reload.

Talk to Lester in his room to find out that you need to talk to the Chief
Engineer. Go to the next room over and get hired by the Chief. Go back to
Lester and get your radio repaired. Proceed to plunder everyone and everything
in the area that you can. Go on to the caves and slay stuff. Talk to one of the
miners to get a simple quest. Talk to Lester after you're done to find out that
you should go to the prison colony. Talk to a miner to find out that the Chief
is the only one who can let you into the prison colony. Talk to the Chief and
he tasks you with helping three miner's colonists before he'll help you. Talk
to Nina, in the mess hall, to get a fetch quest. Go to the pump room, in the
southeast area of the initial caves, in order to get her item. Talk to Andy, in
the final room in the storage area, to get a quest to get him a reducer.
Buy/find the components then create the reducer for him. Kathryn's quest
doesn't count as a 'good deed' apparently. Talk to the old man in the Generator
Room for the final help quest. Talk to the Chief again for your prisoner's
colony lift key, and head northwest through the tunnel, and take the first left
to reach the lift.

Now you're in the prisoner's colony. Slay all the monsters, and don't worry
about the two heavily-guarded containers, they can be accessed once you disable
the turrets. Wander around, looting and slaying. Go to the bar and talk to the
bartender, he'll tell you what you need to do. Go back to the main open area,
and head up the stairs to get to Bronsky. Talking to him makes the other
prisoners leave you alone. He tasks you with opening the sluice gate, and gives
you some cyber battle units (warrior and guard.) Go west to the showers, and
find the man hiding there. He asks you to help him escape. Head east to access
the computer room bordering the sluice gate (the large gate
that, on the outside, had a keypad next to it, which said something like 'you
have to conquer the cyber sector first' when you tried to use it.) Use the
terminal that says 'cyber enter' and prepare for your first cyber scene. Fun.

Now the turrets are disabled, and the gate should open too. Go through and open
those two containers that were guarded before. Go back to the man in the
showers, and tell him you opened the gate. Find the materials he asks for, give
them to him, and he'll leave. He actually remains in the area, just outside
the sluice gate. Talk to Bronsky, he'll reward you with the computer room key.
Go through and copy schemes from the terminals, then access Bronsky's room.
While relieving the room of its possessions, the drunken guard will catch you
red-handed. Bribe him with a devil's salt to get him out of your hair. He'll
give you the key to storage room 22 as well. While you're there, copy then
delete the report contained in Bronsky's terminal which recommends punishment
for one of Bronsky's men being insubordinate.

Go to the bar. Talk to the stationary man there (the one other than the
bartender) and he'll task you with getting and deleting one of the reports on
Bronsky's terminal. You should've already done that, so talk to him again and
he'll reward you. Go into the hospital area, and talk to the doc. He'll task
you with finding an interesting sample, in order to gain access to the medical
lab. Walk outside and Kathryn will be waiting for you. She'll initiate a
conversation with you, and tell you that she knows what the doc wants, but will
only tell you after you do her a favor. Run back to the miner's colony
merchant and buy a unique helmet for her. Run back, and give it to her. She
should be hiding out in an area inbetween the sluice gate and the tunnel. She
tells you that there's a special part in storage area 22. Use the storage area
22 key that the drunken guard gave you, and clear the place. On the floor,
behind a container, you will find a unique monster part. Pick it up and give
it to the doc. He'll give you the key, after you shake him down. Enter the
medical lab, then use the lift to get to the generator level.

Walk around, and end up at an impassable area where the ceiling caved in.
You'll get radioed that you need to go to the biologist's colony. Back in the
miner's colony, get the war laboratory key from the Chief (I think) and cyber
steal the caves key from Marks. The caves is just a nice place to slay monsters
for experience, it isn't neccessary (I don't think.) In the war laboratory,
you'll find a rifle (yeay!). Clear the area (of course) then return to the
prisoner colony's infirmary. Talk to doc, where he'll task you with finding his
stolen spectrum analyzer. Talk to the crony standing near Bronsky and make him
fess up to it. Threaten him and you can buy it off him for 50 credits. Go back
to the doc and give him the analyzer, and he'll say that he needs you to show
the intriguing sample to the head of research in the biologist's colony. Take
the key, go back to the medical lab, and enter the lift to the biologist's
colony.

Use the cyber area in the first room to disable the turrets-gone-amok in the
next room. Talk to the guard, and he'll summon the man who you're supposed to
give the sample to. Go through the door and talk to him again to give him the
sample. Wander around aimlessly, taking everything that isn't nailed down.
Don't mind the Quantums (the blue ghosts), they can't hurt you and you can't
hurt them. Talk to Julio in the northeast, and he'll task you with clearing
out the greenhouses in the southwest. Talking to the guard guarding the
greenhouses, he wants a favor before he'll let you in -- an electric shocker.
You should've obtained the scheme by now, yet lack a key component. Go to the
prisoner's colony in order to get Bronsky's shocker. Talk to Manini and he'll
propose a coup. Go to the doc and badger him until he confesses to wrongdoing.
Go to Bronsky and cyber steal an incriminating note. Talk to the bartender and
the stationary man who gave you a quest earlier to get allies for the coup.
For the final conspirator, find (Lee Harvey?) Oswald outside of the sluice gate
(he still hasn't escaped, apparently...) Talk to Manini again for a cutscene
where Bronsky gets his.

Go to where Bronsky used to stand, and talk to Manini. He'll give you Bronsky's
shocker, and tell you where to get the final component to produce another: an
electrician in the miner's colony. Now that Manini's left his shop, pilfer it.
Run back to Lester and pester him for the component. He'll give it to you after
you pay off your 500 credit debt. Make your shocker to keep, and run back to
the biologist's colony and give one to the guard. Enter the greenhouses and
slay everything inside. On the way back to Julio, talk to another guard
standing next to some turrets and an open cavern. Talk to him and he'll let you
in and even sell you stuff. Wind through the passages and kill everything for
experience and items. Talk to Julio again and he'll agree to give you the
generator room key. Go to the southeast and enter the lift.

Run around into the cave, avoiding laser turret fire. Kill everything, and make
sure to loot the disk on the ground next to a human corpse. Use the disk to
obtain a key. Go back to the other side of the generator level, and use the
cyber area to disable the level's turrets. Go back to the generator room thru
the biologist's colony, and the disabled turrets will allow you to progress to
the generator. Do a very difficult cyber battle to turn off the generator.
Go back down to the biologist's colony, and get arrested.

Talk to your cellmates, then to the guard, then to your cellmates again. Talk
to Julio, and get released. Open the container in the jail to get all of your
gear back. Go to the colony leader's room to download the Railway key; nab the
high-tension cables while there. Go to the prisoner's colony, then to storage
area 22. In the northwest is a lift to the railway. Avoid the deadly electrical
arcs on the stairs, and go the other way. Use the terminal on the wall and do a
cyber scene to disable the electrical arcs. Go back to the stairs, and go up
them. Gas blocks one direction so go the other. Eventually you reach an
on-the-wall terminal which disables the gas, with yet another cyber scene.

Go back to where the gas was, and go past it. Go down the stairs you eventually
come to, and you'll see a human. Talk to the Specialist and he'll tell you
that you need Silver Flame. Run allll the way back to the miner's colony, and
talk to the Chief. He'll tell you that the miners are sick and that in order
to make silver flame you need rocks. He also tasks you with finding a cure for
the miners. Get rocks from the storage area he gives you a key to (you only
need 2 or so) then run back to the biologist's colony. Talk to Ivan in the west
branch to get a virus culture. Go down the ramp in that room to pick up a
container for silver flame. Ivan gave you a scheme, so produce the silver
flame. Run back to the Specialist, and give him the silver flame. Enjoy the
cutscene.

Talk to the Specialist after the cutscene in order to get the Secret Laboratory
key. Steal the silver flame from him if you want, just because you can. Run
back to the biologist's colony. Go to the secret laboratory in the northeast,
near Julio's room. Talk to the leader, Stan Wright, to get a cure for the
miner's illness. He also tasks you with getting the head researcher and colony
leader freed from jail, and to get some documents from the war laboratory.
Make a short trip to Julio and ask him to release the two men. He says he will,
if you wipe out turncoats in the temple past the greenhouses. Head back to the
miner's colony to give the cure to the chief. He rewards you with a very nice
laser rifle. Go to the war laboratory and go to the now-unlocked officer's
room. Inside is a terminal which contains a document you'll want to copy, as
well as a couple components for a plasma rifle.

Head back to the biologist's colony, and go west through the greenhouses, into
the now-unlocked temple area. Try not to fall, and go into the temple. Talk to
the cultists (or not) and go into each of the four rooms, killing everything
and opening the containers in the far ends of the rooms in order to get the
four pieces of the amulet. Talk to the cultists and they will move to the other
side of the room. Talk to them when you have all four pieces and they will give
you the scheme to combine them. Combine them, and talk to them some more for
background info. Head back to Julio and show him the amulet. He agrees to
release the prisoners. Head back to the jail and tell them that they're free.
They and Stan will meet in the circular apartment area guarded by a turret, to
talk. Talk to each of them and Stan will tell you that the sample is from one
of Hacker's creations. Stan will give you the lift to Hacker's place.

Start heading towards Hacker's lift, north of the temple lift past the
greenhouses. On the way, you'll run into Kathryn. While chatting with her,
you'll get a radio message that a plasma gun scheme has been uploaded to the
colony leader's room. Head there and download it. If you're lucky, you have all
the pieces (most are found in the war laboratory.) Head to hacker's lift and
notice a disk left in front of it by Kathryn. Read it for her farewell message,
and take the lift. Gun down the flying drones (you can now) and go east. Go
through the door and you end up in the final boss room. You get a radio message
from Hacker, and proceed to get assaulted by his 'army' of super mutants. Use
the plasma rifle and aim for the crystalline silver flame in their stomachs,
it's the only place you can damage them (this game has locational damage?!)
After 10 or so direct shots, each mutant will go down. They have a nasty area
effect attack, so try to herd them all into one mass, and run em around in
circles. Once you take the final one down, walk through the other door and
you're presented with the final cutscene. Congrats on beating the game.


Stats:
Constitution - affects max hitpoints and carrying capacity. You are unable to
run once your capacity is exceeded.

Programming - affects the life points of the Instiller program, used in cyber
battles. considering how frustratingly difficult cyber battles often are, you
will want this to be high once cyber battles start appearing. Also determines
how quickly you can download data via cyber steal (and thus how large of files
you can cyber steal.) Files over 512 in length are apparently undownloadable.

Stealing - affects chances of successfully stealing. with no points invested,
you still have over 50% chance if attempted from behind, so this stat can be
put off indefinitely

Intuition - affects circle size on radar. i found it to be useless, aside from
when a monster is a few feet behind you. but if a monster is a few feet behind
you, it's probably smacking you, which you'll be aware of due to screen flashes
and audio cues.

Lockpicking - determines what level of locks you can pick. i raised this ahead
of the curve, but i think it's required in order to open combination-locked
containers. some plot-related stuff is inside containers, so it's probably good
to raise

Design - high design skill required to create more advanced stuff. design of 6
required to make item involved in main plot, although this can be increased by
2 for free via implants

Weapon - high weapon skill required to use the better weapons. weapon scored
near the end of the game required skill of 6, to give you an idea. raise early,
forget about it later

By the end of the game, you will obtain enough Neuroaxons to max all of your
stats, so don't worry too much about having misinvested (especially if you
ignore the Intuition and Stealing skills.)


Implants:
Implants are divided into two types: normal implants, and super implants.
Normal implants increase one stat by 1, and reduce another stat by 1. Super
implants only increase one stat, without any stat reduction. You can equip one
normal implant and one super implant at any given time. This means that it's
possible to increase any given stat by 2. A good strategy is to keep implants
on that give +2 constitution in battle areas, +2 stealing when stealing, +2
programming when doing cyber battles (or cyber stealing an extra large file),
or +2 when designing something complex. Incidentally, implants will not
increase your stats over what's possible via increasing them with experience.
So, maxing a stat then putting on an implant which increases that stat will not
improve that stat's functionality. A possible exception to this rule is with
Lockpicking (unconfirmed.)


Weapons:
Rusty Knife - Upgrade from this as soon as possible! The game is at its hardest
while you're stuck with this.
Hunting Knife - Better than the rusty knife, but you should have the commando
knife ASAP anyways.
Commando Knife - Found in a container in the initial caves, at earliest. Try to
obtain the bat first, though.
Bat - The best weapon in the game which uses no ammo. Bought (stolen,
preferably) from Marks in the initial caves.
Circular Saw - I never used this, so I don't have much to say about it. It
consumes (I believe) 3-volt battery power and doesn't do a whole lot more
damage than the bat.
Drift - Apparently somewhat like a pneumatic hammer, does great damage but
attacks slowly. Ammo, in the form of Drift Balloons, is plentiful; this should
be used throughout the midgame.
Electric Shocker - Much faster attack speed than the drift, but does less
damage. Great if you like to dodge enemies' attacks while attacking. Can
disperse Quantums, although there's no point in doing so. Uses 3-volt
batteries.
Crossbow - Created with a scheme, or found strewn about later in the game. Use
it to get used to the game's ranged fighting mechanics.
Elite Crossbow - Created with a scheme. The best crossbow in the game, worth
keeping due to the number of bolts that can be found/created.
Rifle - Found in the war laboratory, and a few other places. Handles like the
crossbows, but fires faster. Quickly replaced by the triple-barreled rifle, so
make sure to pick up three of these. Uses shells.
Triple-barreled Rifle - Created with a scheme. The best shell-firing weapon in
the game. Alternate fire does less damage per round consumed than the single
fire. Make sure to put it away while attempting to loot/open containers or
you'll end up wasting shells on accident.
Laser - Obtained after obtaining a late-game quest. Secondary fire uses no
more battery power than the primary fire, but does much more damage. Requires
5-volt batteries.
Plasma Rifle PSG-A - Obtained shortly after the Laser, and does even more
damage, using the same battery type even.


Items I never found a use for:
Ruby Druse
Silver Flame (aside from the quest)
Empty Disk

Everything else is used in a scheme


Cyber world:
Certain panels, terminals and even a few containers will, when used, enter you
into the 'cyber world.' Terminals which enter you into cyber battles will say
'Cyber Enter' on the screen. There are two types of cyber challenges: one where
you try to get your Instiller to the other side in a game similar to the
classic puzzle game Minesweeper, and another (the cyber battle) that is a
real-time 'strategy' type battle.

For the minesweeper-esque puzzles, instead of trying to figure out the puzzle,
I just send my Instiller to his doom, thru the middle of the minefield with
disregard to his life. With a few points invested in the Programming skill,
he can survive two or three mines. After a few tries (there is no punishment
for failure) you will eventually cross to the other side. Or you can attempt
to play the game by the rules, if you really want to (I prefer the original.)

The cyber battles are a huge pain. First you decide which units you want to put
in. It took me a while to realize that it's possible to have multiple copies of
units sent in (aside from the Instiller.) There is often a limit on how many of
one unit type can be sent in, however. I personally like the Guard unit,
because it dies less quickly than the others. Press the 'p' button on the
keyboard to pause, escape to exit the cyber battle. You can rotate the
playfield while paused, and probably change units and issue commands as well.
The goal is for your Instiller to capture all of the red Generators (the large
structures) before it dies. Turret towers shoot at your units, but your
Instiller can capture them in order to make them friendly and attack enemy
units. Enemy units wander around, typically sniping your wussy units into
oblivion. They can only be seen if a friendly unit is within visual range (and
line of sight, probably) of it, which is nearly firing range. It's possible to
angle your Instiller in such a way so that it can capture a tower yet the tower
is unable to fire back.
Later on you will find energy recharge stations which can restore energy to
friendly units a certain number of times (approximately 5) before they become
nonfunctional. Since your Instiller will likely by that point have 5-7 times
the life points of your other units, repairing only your Instiller is a wise
idea. Also around this time, you will come across mines. Mines are invisible
and indestructable unless a Radar unit is somewhat near it. Radar units are
very weak so learning how to protect them is key to these battles. Mines
automatically destroy a unit caught in its explosion (including your
Instiller,) and the blast radius is quite large, which is why Radar units are
so essential.
Successfully completing a cyber battle is almost always required, in order to
disable a number of laser turrets in the real (in-game) world which will rip
you apart otherwise.


Tips/Cheats:
Put off investing in intuition and stealing skills, they can be done without
and the points are better spent elsewhere (like constitution.)

Sell your most expensive item (miner's breastplate, triple-barreled gun,
whatever) to a merchant, then steal it back for a quick profit. Sell it and
steal it again ad infinitum, they will never run out of money or care that
they're buying a stolen item. Actually, since the only use of money is for
buying from merchants, and anything on a merchant can be stolen, money is
arguably useless.

Hack the game's .ini files. If you've never edited an .ini file before, then
this option probably isn't for you. You can change the components required for
the construction of an item, modify the damage of weapons, reduce the point
cost for skill upgrades, hack your savegame to give yourself more ammo, make
the game think you completed a quest, et cetera.


LAQ: Likely to be Asked Questions
Q: Is there any way I can open that container next to the bartender in the
biologist's lab, without getting caught?
A: Not that I know of.

Q: Aah the view just looks WRONG, and is very touchy.
A: Hack console.ini to change the POV from 45 degrees to 50 or 55 degrees.

Q: I can't find the pump oscillator.
A: Neither could I, I had to hack the .ini so that the plasma rifle doesn't
require one. It's probably inside the research room in the war laboratory.

Q: How do I get the key to the research room, in the war laboratory?
A: I have no idea.

Q: I can't make the jump on the bridge in the gold room in the temple.
A: It's difficult, but possible. The turrets' lasers will knock you to the
side, especially while you're jumping.

Q: This game is too difficult.
A: Try circling around the acid-spitters while you smack them. This is
especially effective against the large slow grey dinosaur-looking ones. Or
soften them up with ranged weapons. Running backwards while firing at melee
attackers is an effective strategy. The damage per second of the
triple-barreled rifle's alternate fire can save your life, as well. Don't
forget that time pauses while you're in your inventory, so abuse that fact to
heal up at the last minute. Carry lots of food/bandages/drinks/linament; and
invest in spices and pick up cancerus meat, since making spiced cancerus meat
is one of the easiest ways to get good food. And increase your Constitution
stat as early and much as possible.

Q: The cyber battles are too difficult.
A: Take things slow. Try to group some of your units, and pause if you find
that your units are charging into a group of enemies (or pathing into a
turret's fire, or into a mine, etc.)
Once you get the radar unit, you will run into mines in almost every cyber
battle.

Q: This game runs slow on my computer after playing a while.
A: It apparently contains some major memory leaks. After a while of playing,
it will use up over 1 gigabyte of memory. Changing maps and loading certain
maps (and loading saved games) seems to exacerbate the problem.

Q: Where is the Hunting Crossbow? Ya know, the one listed on the official
website?
A: I haven't seen this bow, or even the scheme for it. I think they took it out
of the game.


Contact Info:

If you have a question or are stuck, email me and I will attempt to help you.
If you have details for an area (or person's name) that I am wrong/sketchy
about, then feel free to fill me in.

Email me at: mentilbot@lessrock.com (remove 'bot' and 'less') but be aware
that I rarely check my email. So ensure that you're REALLY stuck, if
relevant. Also, I cannot give more detailed .ini file hacking help.