A few FOT questions.

[Justinian]

I got a little busy right after buying FOT a while back and never played it through. So, being less busy these days, I've been playing through it on Hard/Tough Guy mode. I'm on Scott City near the end and have a couple questions.

I'm trying to play through as a good guy and can't seem to get past this mission without taking a massive karma hit because I have to kill Kerr the Merchant. Is there any other way to proceed? I was hoping to get my karma to "Savior of the Wasteland".

Secondly and relatedly, I've only been able to get to "Guardian of the Wastes" despite (so far as I know) never killing any civilians except the ones who attack you in, uh, that one city where you first get the Hummvee. And I've tried to complete all good side missions on every level. Is there some way to iincrease karma that I don't know about?

Failing that, is there a way to hex edit your karma? None of the character editors I've looked at seem to do it. I don't want to change anything but Karma.... I've played through the entire game on Hard/Tough Guy and its been pretty hard, I have no desire to play through the entire game again just to test to see if I can get my karma higher.

 

[alec]

I'm trying to play through as a good guy and can't seem to get past this mission without taking a massive karma hit because I have to kill Kerr the Merchant. Is there any other way to proceed?

I don't think so. To get the best mission ending for Scott City, you definitely have to kill Kerr. I usually torture the poor bastard to death with a Cattle Prod or I blow up what's left of him with some Cordex, but then again: I don't care about karma very much. However, I do know that you can kill him with Poison as well (one of the humanoid robots in Scott City has Poison on him). Maybe this reduces the "massive karma hit" you want to avoid, but I'm not sure.

Secondly and relatedly, I've only been able to get to "Guardian of the Wastes" despite (so far as I know) never killing any civilians except the ones who attack you in, uh, that one city where you first get the Hummvee.

You mean the Macomb mission, right? I don't know if killing these civilians lowers your karma, but I don't think so since they attack you and all.

Is there some way to increase karma that I don't know about?

Hm... The best way to increase your karma, I think, is to complete all mission objectives without making innocent casualties. Kind of logic, n'est-ce pas?
Having the Brown Noser Perk might do some good as well, but I'm not sure about that (maybe it only influences your rank and the quality/quantity of the recruitments pool).
Doesn't helping the Quincy ghouls also lower your karma (I remember that Barnaky didn't like that at all.)

Failing that, is there a way to hex edit your karma? None of the character editors I've looked at seem to do it. I don't want to change anything but Karma.... I've played through the entire game on Hard/Tough Guy and its been pretty hard, I have no desire to play through the entire game again just to test to see if I can get my karma higher.

I honestly don't know. Anyone else maybe?
But why that preoccupation with good karma, anyway?
Oh, and don't give up now: if you already did the Scott City mission, you are not that far away from the end.

EDIT: just a little warning: if you are so preoccupied with good karma, you will have to watch what you do in the endgame!

 

[Justinian]

I'd like to have "Savior of the Wasteland" rep for the endgame because I read that you get a different ending for that. I figure it is a lot easier to lower my karma deliberately right before the end if I want to see the other endings, not so easy to raise it.

Right now I don't think I'll get above "Guardian of the Wastes" though.