The best save game is perhaps the following:

• Act II - Early Save.sav

The save game file is taken very early in act II, after the servoshell has been completely updated and "Ursula" the road train has been found, as well as updated with the drone addon.

This is because Act I consists in just one single mission in Nashville that is also inconclusive, working more as a rudimentary tutorial and guide on how to orient inside the game. The save game file does not advance the mainline story at all so there is nothing lost from the story generally speaking but offers some crucial updates that are mostly based on grinding.

At the very first POI in encased, the task is to retrieve an anomaly protector in order to be able to make the car start again. There are two relics on the level in the top-right shop on the map, but neither the relic obtained from the tree, nor the relic obtained from the boxes where the monster patrols is the required "anomaly protector" item. The item is actually to be found in a small box next to the tree that is hard to spot given the default perspective that overlays tree branches on top of the chest.

The armory in Concord (the very first base) can be robbed easily by just pickpocket the seller and then running away within the same room to take cover. Fortunately, the shop keeper's patrol patterns are contained and will not detect the player in hiding.

Note that with the "criminal" ability there is a very large amount of easy experience that can be made simply by randomly picking locks, stealing and pickpocket from random NPC whilst minding the experience gain instead of the rewards. In case the player is not caught there is no penalty for doing so and it does not get registered anywhere such that even friendly NPCs can be pickpocketted.

The downside is that once an NPC has been pickpocket, seven in-game days must pass till the player can pickpocket the same NPC again. Sleeping o just waiting works great to pass the time, even though, a successful pickpocket should include all the necessary items.

Note that firefly effects in foliage or on the floor sometimes indicate that a secret can be discovered at that location provided of course that the characters have a high enough perception level.

It seems that the developers placed secrets fairly consistently next to the "firefly" effect areas such that it is worth exploring it because it often is not just an effect.

The Cadillac-like cars cannot be used while wearing a servoshell - with the "used" word being meant literally, for example, the player must exit the servoshell just to open up the car trunk. Surprisingly, the car can be driven even if the player has a servoshell equipped, just by exiting the map on the green beacon wearing the servoshell, at which point, the player will be prompted on whether they would like to travel on foot or by car. It is very misleading but it works.

Cars are accessible in Encased without committing a crime, for example, stealing the truck in Magellan, after completing the first stage of the "emulator project" and entering act two. In act two, the player can travel the map towards the south to find a Phalanx base that contains a truck that can just be taken. Otherwise, there is one other random encounter where a Cadillac-like car is available but it cannot be used directly like a truck when the player wears a servosuit.

In principle, cars can speed up map travel and are also able to carry the player's entire inventory (which is less important because the inventory can be accessed just by camping somewhere on the map) such that they should not represent a priority. Vehicles also contribute to some random encounters on the map that can contribute to the story a little.

Lastly, "Ursula" (bless all those that fare inside her), is a vehicle that can be obtained via a random encounter that starts the The Return of Ursula side-quest, that is a functional RV, initially thought of as a train, that can be used for moving around the map, camping as well as containing all the science and worksmanship benches necessary to create items. Clearly, "Ursula" is the best vehicle that the player can use and in order to obtain "Ursula", the best way seems to just randomly explore the map.

The bed / resting place does not show up while holding Alt down but it is opposite to the chemistry bench.

The servoshell is an important component of the game hiding behind it most of the DPS of the player as well as the defense class necessary to participate in higher level fights. Both strangely and fortunately, the servoshell can be obtained fairly early, right after act I (act I consists in just the very first mission in Nashville). What is even better, is that the story must not be advanced in act II at all in order to max out the servoshell and all the components can be farmed just by traveling randomly through the map in order to discover the various points of interest. Some of this guide is sourced from a reddit post but with some clarifications where it seemed to be confusing or misleading, some images for the sake of orientation and some advice.

For the advice, the game offers a lot of rewards, especially in terms of experience, for just looting random items, such that, unfortunately, the tedious task of just checking every single container, fridge or box should be repeated for every town that is discovered. Sometimes, just opening a crate can reward up to 300 XP, which is quite a lot and will advance the level meter forward significantly. Note that although the story in act II does not have to be advanced at all, in fact, no part of act II has to be completed, farming the components and getting around in the wasteland will require some preparation and some decent gear.

In order to get the initial servoshell:

• there is a cut-scene that triggers in the garage in "Magellan Station", "Warehouse and parking lot." when getting to one of the garage doors and listening to a cut-scene between two individuals trying to get inside
• helping them out, talk to both of them and head to the "Magellan Station", "Military post." by using the elevator
• one of the men from the warehouse will be there and talking to him will start a quest that sends the player back to Nashville (a shovel is required)
• in Nashville, the "server" room in the sewers must be opened up again, the easiest being perhaps to destroy the metal door with explosives because the lock picking skill required will be too high for the player,
• after getting into the server room, there will now be a tent, a safe and if the screen is dragged all the way to the right, there will be a way to dig through the room to the other side and from there again to a set of sewage stairs going up,
• the sewage stairs will lead to the parking lot for trucks (not the regular parking lot that will now have some cryptids around) that can only be reached this way,
• the beacon has to be placed on the belt and then set down, almost right-about anywhere in that parking lot, with no combat needed if the player wishes to avoid conflict with some paroling cryptids,
• there will be a portable ladder to the right of the parking lot that can be clicked in order to get out, or the sewers can be used again to return and leave Nashville

After returning to Magellan and going back to "Magellan Station", "Military post." via the elevator, the player will receive a "shell" of a servoshell, or rather a "frame", that is functionally equivalent to an MK. 0 servosuit.

The servoshell can now be upgraded from Mk. 0 all the way through to Mk. 3. Doing so will require some resources to be collected that are non-trivial:

• CPS, these are little rods, sometimes glowing, sometimes extinguished (the glowing ones are needed) that can be collected from various traders in the game. One other way to get a bunch of these is to just (re)load the warehouse tile set over and over again because the armor merchant in the warehouse sells them from time to time and (re)loading the tileset will make the merchant restock with a given probability that the merchant will end up restocking some CPS.
• MOBIOS armor plates can be collected from MOBIOS and if you are completely lost what that is, it is those spider-like critters / robots that dig into the earth. If you want to quickly find out what one looks like, take the elevator and head to "Laboratory and medical aid station." and there will be a friendly MOBIOS roaming around.

Killing a MOBIOS will usually drop a "MOBIOS Armor Plate" which required to upgrade the servoshell. There is little point to discuss CPS, as non-trivial as it is, CPS can still be found at vendors quite a bit so with time these will be stacking up but MOBIOS is somewhat more difficult to get. Here are some MOBIOS locations:

• Picnic Neutral Zone - there are some quests to complete here, especially one that sends the player into the swamp on some pest control routine. As the swamp is entered there is MOBIOS crashed into the water and it will require the dismantling skill in order to extract the armor fragment.

• Sonora Storage Bunker - this a zone that the player is sent to in order to recover Yoko, a robotic girl with the quest starting at an NPC named Akira in "Magellan Station", "Laboratory and medical aid station." After freeing Yoko, there is an additional quest involving valves and pressure pipes that will stop the geyser in the same room where Yoko is locked up. Stopping the steam will allow the player to access a cave underneath that will two cryptids and a MOBIOS.
  • Regrettably, the servoshell has to be left behind before going down inside the cave such that the battles will be more difficult but all the enemies can be kited to the entrance and then the player can go back and forth between outside the cave to heal and then back inside to chip at the health of the MOBIOS robot. In fact, the battle with breaks by going outside the cave where the mobs do not follow, ends up being quite easy.

• There are random map encounters that places the player on the same tile as MOBIOS robots, two of which can always be looted in order to obtain a MOBIOS armor. There is no special trick here, they're all random encounters so the player must just explore the map. Generally speaking, MOBIOS robots are surprisingly not that difficult to kill: they have a ranged fireball attack, they can swap places with one of the player's characters and at close range they deal large radiation damage, however, all of the aforementioned are actually easy to mitigate and not that critical if the player is leveled up enough.
• Morbidly, there does not seem to be any immediate consequence for killing the friendly MOBIOS within "Magellan Station", "Laboratory and medical aid station." however, as this sort of games go, it might have long term consequences in case the robot turns out to have a special later use. However, the friendly MOBIOS can be killed easily and some caution must be exercised to attempt and not draw the aggro of the other NPCs, at least one of the NPCs becoming hostile along with the MOBIOS.

After obtaining sufficient resources, the servoshell needs to be upgraded at a servoshell upgrade station, such as the one in the "Picnic Neutral Zone" or the one in "Magellan Station", "Laboratory and medical aid station." but in order to do so, one extra special ingredient is needed, namely the "technical manuals", just like the ones used for weapons. Here are the locations of the manuals:

• the MK. 0 to MK. 1 manual can be found in "Magellan Station", "Military post." by going through the janitor's room and unlocking a large door room with multiple lockers across the walls,
• the MK. 1 to MK. 2 manual can be found in the "Isosuit Lab" in "Carmine Heights"; note that "Carmine Heights" is a map location that might pop up later on in the game as part of the storyline but it is still a zone that can be discovered just by traveling the map. The manual is to be found within a locked container that has to be lockpicked and in stealth mode because there are two NPCs lingering around,
• the MK. 2 to MK. 3 upgrade needs a "classified" manual, that is to be found in a red locked container south west most between the warehouse rows in the Phalanx base. Again, interestingly, the Phalanx base at this point is not revealed on the map, nor does the player have any business going there, but apparently it is still a location that can be discovered just by exploring the map.