FreedroidRPG Guide and Walkthrough

Table of Contents

1. Guide (v1.0)

  • Hacking
    • Hacking robots doesn't last: robots are reset to hostile state if you leave the map for a while. Same for killing bots, they respawn. Don't waste time assembling an army of bots.
    • Hacked robots are dumb and attack any robot they see, even if they are far weaker, even if they are outnumbered.
    • Hacking robots really helps when you're facing a strong robot and you're weak, but you've got enough hacking cores to defeat it.
  • Game dialogs are punishing (one misclick can be death or getting a quest bad/wasteful ending). DO SAVE before talking to anybody. Do save often too, it's easy to get killed after quite a bit of xping/looting and having to do it over (no auto-save).
  • Items however are maintained, feel free to drop items anywhere, you can get them later (no storage/chest system needed in this game).
  • You can run around (Ctrl+click) most parts of the game, bots are normally too slow to keep up, provided you let your stamina get restored. This allows checking out any part of the map early.
    • You also should run around robots to easily finish some of the dungeons, they are quite time-consuming otherwise. "Clearing" area is not as rewarding as it sounds (unless mandatory for a quest), do that later when you're really strong.
  • Don't waste money on armor, which gets easily and frustratingly destroyed. Invest money on upgrading Check system integrity and Emergency shutdown program skills, which allow restoring health and lowering heat respectively, for free. Eventually you'll restore health in 0.5s. Alternatively upgrade Repair equipment so you can repeatedly restore your items for free.
  • Many masters require skill points (melee, ranged, programming, hacking, treasure, robot parts), don't invest them immediately in the base stats.
    • Many "pills" can be found in the game, granting +1 to strength and dexterity. Weapon upgrades can also improve base stats. This allows saving basically all skill points for paying the Masters.
    • Mastery skills: 4 levels (5 for ranged), (~10% boost per level, see below)
    • Programming reduces heat cost.
    • Melee improves firing rate, as well as increases strength effect (damage)
    • Ranged reduces reload time and improves firing rate, as well as increases dexterity effect (bullet damage)
    • Strenth and dexterity are (100+points)% modifiers (cf. Tutorial for more general overview)
  • At first get some basic upgrades in Melee, Hacking, Treasure and Programming. Ranged weapons are available a bit later.
    • Then you can specialize your character: hacking/programming + programs (i.e. magic & spells), or melee + strength&dexterity (requirement for nice weapons), or ranged (especially if you got your hands on powerful weapons early).
    • Eventually, the game suggests you try and master all stats.
  • Unfortunately I don't have good advice to break & loot many barrels at once. They don't break with grenades, and this game really lacks an auto-magnet for cash and bot parts. Just be patient.
  • The Town from Act 1 is the only Town, and the central point for the plot.
  • FreeDroidRPG 1.0 mainly contains "Act 1", Act 2 is in-progress and not very interesting to play AFAICS.
  • North is top-right.

2. Walkthrough (v1.0)

2.1. Wake up

  • Open chest first, then kill robot.
  • If you didn't do the tutorial, consider doing so. Some parts of the game are a tad complex, or you might miss them entirely.
  • Keep the fork and plate for the town restaurant.
  • Accept to deliver the cube.

2.2. Increase base stats - Base Melee and Hacking

  • Talk to both Engel blue guys, pick up their loot (they kill bots on sight), and invest skill points in recyling bot parts. Those parts can be sold for needed money early, but keep them later for crafting weapons and some quests-related items.
  • Start exploring Town (see below) to get some easy experience points (Cube, Butch and Stranger/Kevin quests).
  • More hacking points (Skills > Hacking > Level) gives you more hacking nodes, so you can control tougher bots earlier. Get your first hacking point, just above the gate of the Town, by beating nethack:
    • Stay at Level 1 and click-spam Pray/Attack/Go Up (first line); Pray odds are in your favor, bump your character to 3000HP.
    • Go down to level 7 then down again for a few (random) levels until you get the amulet.
    • Go up (keeps doing so even if your character does down, also don't pray) until you reach level 1 again.
  • Find Sorenson in town North-West, sign her deal with your name, she dies and you get your first programming point. You can buy the same books she had from her sister Tamara in the Library.
  • Find Tamara in the Library (mid-East), buy System integrity (health) and Malformed packet (ranged attack). No need to upgrade Malformed packet, as it takes more and more heat, and you'll find upgrade as loot over time.
  • Find red-hat guy above town Library who sells the automap for 50 bucks.
  • Find Red guy Pengragon guy near desert gate to get first point in Melee. (5 skills points)
  • Find Iris around sound-west of the Town in one of many small appartments, she teaches you better treasure/loot rate.
  • Find the abandoned facility beneath Broken Glass Path (?) (south of Kevin's) area, break all barrels for easy money (~$4000) and books.
  • Find Erin at the South of the map, and between her 3 payment methods chose money (easiest to gather, unlike skill points which are incrementally hard to get, and DO NOT pick weapons as the drop rate for great sword and light saber is really rare and they can't be bought). Upgrade melee as much as you can.
  • Find Duncan (red-hat guy near desert gate, selling bombs): he wants you to find another guy in the desert (~north). Run around tree-chopping bots, and do whatever you want (sparse, kill, give cube, keep cube), no consequences whatsever. Sparing him gets you some pills and a Repair Book, killing him gets you Pandora's cube, which you can exchange for some XP and 1 Plasma Shockwave Emitter from Duncan, and gets Tania hostile (as well as Master Yadda in Act 2).
  • Town Maintenance Tunnels > Mini-Factory (Weapon upgrades)
    • Talk to Dixon to open Maintenance Tunnels
    • Maintenance Tunnels -> West
    • Use Terminal in the center to open gate
    • North to Mini-Factory
    • Interact with the Terminal on the right, it's broken
    • Go back up, ask Butch for Elbow Grease
    • Apply Elbow Grease to the left of the Mini-Factory
    • Interact with the Terminal on the right
    • [Leave Factory Manual there, no more need for it, saves inventory space]
  • Find Samson north of Library and get more programming points. They are not Hacking points, they make skills cheaper to use. This requires getting the first programming point from Sorenson's death. Plus 9 skill points. Note: the game news say you can get master at programming, but this is in Act 2.

2.3. Town outsider

  • Talk to Red Guy at the east entry gate
    • Kevin quest
    • opens gates
  • Talk to Spencer
    • Give cube to spencer, you can read its content first in the Town terminal. Do whatever you want, there's no implemented consequence for the cryo'd people. Hiding gives more XP but less money.
    • Talk some more: Quest: Red Guard, Quest: Warehouse
  • Use automap to locate people in this otherwise vastly empty map.
  • Base quests 1: Butch
    • Talk to him, get medecine from the Doc, give him medecine.
    • Don't eat the Brain Enlargement pill..
  • Base quests 2: Arena
    • Go to Arena, talk to Mike the robot, complete beginner's challenge; use hacking to gather bots, heal them and you between waves.
  • Base quests 3: Dixon: underground Mini-Factory and Singularity
    • Multiple ways to do it: kill all robots in -1 (hostile) or kill all robots in -2 (deal). Also Nixon is a pacifist, so you can make him hope to deal with sentient bots, or go down neutrally.
    • Go to level -1, find Singularity (big robot) at the end behind the barrels-blocked area, talk to it and offer to clear -2.
    • Go to level -2, defeat all robots (it actually doesn't matter if you hack or kill them).
    • One tough robot around the Singularity in level -1 though, try and hack it
    • Depending on deal with Nixon, you get different low reward. Nixon's crumpling Helmet can be exchanged (if equipped) with Bruce (far South-East of Town). If given for free, Bruce gives a Desk Lamp, which can be exchanged to Iris (treasure girl) for a Source Book of Invisibility early. This needs to be done before joining the Red Guards.
  • Optional quest 3B: underground factory, level -2
    • Run around robots, or blast them with an EMP
    • Go around to South area, then North-West.
    • (Save and) Speak to robot.
    • Grab its book from the Library and come back.
    • Try to save the bot, so it'll teleport you back. Whether you did or not, it'll teleport itself to the bar. Get 1500xp there.
    • Mid-difficulty robots on the East, plus some items, if you're strong enough.
  • Pre-req: Dilithium
    • Crystals Fields area (South-East of town, enclosed by walls of vegetation), find the latch to the Crystal Caves.
    • Explore it thoroughly, dodge bots, get 8 Red Dilithium Crystals, or at least 5 for all quests, that's the only way to get them, and they don't respawn.
  • Base quests 4: Michelangelo (optional)
    • Bring him 3 Dilithium
  • Optional: you can get a Double-Barrel Shotgun and some ammo early for $2000 (really $1500) from the shop owner with her quest.
  • Optional: the Rubber Duck found at the town pool can be exchanged with DocMoore.
  • At this point you can already join the guards (talk to chief Spencer) and unlock ranged weapons, even without much skills. Just don't anger everybody or you'll have more mandatory quests.
  • Optional: you can get a Super Exterminator in the secret area in the desert (~West), click on "Unknown Place" among the rocks, insist if your character can't seem to get in. Don't ask for a reward. You need a 1 Dilithium. You'll need access to the ammo shop, and money to repair it ASAP. I broke mine after some barrels-breaking though, keep repairing it often. It only has 2 clips, but bullets cause high damage and explodes on impact.
    • Also you can save Tania the scientist but this is more difficult and only helps with XP. Talk to her to get Network Mapper even if you don't start the quest right away (unless hard mode). Getting ammo for the Super Exterminator, or good hacking skills, is recommended. Break red walls to clear yourself a path to the underground hatch, go back up, use the terminal to disable the guns, rush to defeat aggressive SADD. Clear the outside exit from havesters and stock an energy drink for Tania before you bring her back to town.
  • Base quests 5: warehouse
    • Clear level 1 of all robots. Hacking doesn't help much as the hacked robots are so dumb they go kamikaze and get killed immediately.
  • Optional: warehouse -2
    • Some loot but nothing much, one skill book and a non-working terminal at the end.
  • Optional: Master arena ("Time to say goodnight")
    • Complete Arena level 2 (and 3?), speak to red guy "arena master", this opens master arena. It's tough, ensure you've got either solid weaponry or hacking skills.

2.4. Town Red Guard

  • As a Red Guard you get access to range weapons and even more importantly ammo.
  • Benjamin (ranged weapons master) is working on a weapon, chose between heat/rate/plasma, and after opening Hell Fortress you'll get a matching Laser Electro Rifle (damage, laser ammo) / Laser Pulse Cannon (high rate, laser ammo) / Plasma Cannon (plasma ammo) / Energy whip (melee, unbreakable). The Laser Electro Rifle is like a Exterminator (blast damage) but with 8 slots, with cheaper ammo, I'd recommend it.
    • Range master offers leveling in "ranged" skill.
  • When master in melee/ranged/programming, you can ask Samson for a reward: extra time to hack bots through Animal Magnetism. However this is only the first level, so only +0.5s..
  • Get data cube from Kevin (hacker North-East of Town), request Hacking reward, bring cube back to Richard (programmer in Town Citadel), talk to chief Spencer, this open gate quest.
    • You can dodge Level -1 robots and clear Level -2, only 5 (tough) robots there, bring some ranged weapons or spells.
    • Don't kill Kevin for town reputation that'd be a waste.
  • Far North area, optional quests mostly useless: nothing to do with the Cult AFAICS; little to gain in the Portal (2 weapon add-ons you could build yourself) and its area remains sealed.
  • Optional: Secret Area far East, John (red-hat guy) has puzzle: go to left entry to his basement (South of his house), then take the South exit, talk to him and get some pills. The area requires ranged attacks due to many firing bots.
  • Disruptor Shield Base: quite long dungeon to open gate to Hell Fortress; lots of robots and loots, but feel free to run through robots to save time, and come back later well armed to loot. No quick exit at the end, Buy a Teleporter Homing Beacon from the Skippy red-hat guy in town so you come back when you complete the mission, without crossing all the (re-populated) levels again. In some parts you can't just run & dodge the bots, so be prepared. You need some kind of ranged weapon for the tough robots that have high close-range damage: with good Hacking can hack + Malformed packet (slow), otherwise you should have good ranged weapons by now (faster). Invest some time/money to upgrade health/cooling spells to recover quickly, if they're not already at a good level, if only to save your time.

2.5. Hell Fortress

  • South. Run through first building. Break red walls if possible for later shortcuts.
  • Locate undergrond entry west of exit, talk with Will Gapes, fetch him food from Michelangelo, get ID.
  • Explore the top house. This is a red herring, this leads to a Terminal which is not the upload console we're looking for. However this opens the Factory gate.
  • Left house is final factory.
    • It's HUGE, you could spend a couple hours looting it.
      • Beware that even 300 laser ammo will get used eventually, that ranged weapons can break, and that the factory spans multiple areas so robots will have respawn on the way out.
    • Just run South as much as you can, avoiding bots. Final area has much round traps, don't step on them or you'll be overwhelmed by strong robots.
    • Follow the traps area North then East until you find an underground trap door, top of an area full of red dots on the ground, go to East exit.
    • Last chance for XPing, then Act 1 will be enemy-free.
    • Destroy the final robot (basically unhackable), go to the terminal, hack it and deploy the firmware update.
    • Spencer comes, end of Act 1.

2.6. Maxing stats

  • Before ending Act 1, you can grind in the Factory or clear out previous dungeons faster, now that you're better armed. Break barrel stocks for fast money.
  • You'll need a lot of skill points for the masters, hopefully you saved them. You can get expert (level 4) in programming and melee, and master (level 5) in ranged. There's currently an early spot in Act 2 to get master for programming and melee.
  • Most skills can be pushed to level 9 by spamming the Library after joining the red guard until she offers the book you want to upgrade. Hacking is the first can be pushed to level 9 through Kevin. Extract bot parts to level 5 by blue guy Engel. Treasure Hunting to level 5 through Iris. Animal Magnetism to level 1 through Samson. Network Mapper only to level 2 through Tania, and John's house. Use Weapon obviously stays at level 1.
  • This is optional but recommended if you want to try Act 2.

3. High-level overview

  • Open the Disruptor Shield Base area:
    • Complete enough Town quests to become a Red Guard. This unlocks ranged weaponry.
    • Complete Kevin underground station to get his data cube.
  • Complete the Disruptor Shield Base (Far-North area) to open Hell Fortress area.
  • Complete the Hell Fortress factory area (Far-South, end-game).
  • Act 1 remains available, but no more xping/looting, so do that before triggering the end-game. One-way travel to Act 2 now available.

4. Easter-Egg

  • If you're mean with Dixon and get him angry, mean with Bruce and get him hurt, reached the Disruptor Sheild mission, configured robots never to ask for confirmation for destruction (not drain), then drain a hacked robot, and do not confirm (N), then you get "Nobody's edge" blade, an evil lightsaber (actually an indestructible powerful knife).

5. Links

6. Licensing

Copyright (C) 2025 Sylvain Beucler

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

Created: 2025-03-02 Sun 09:11

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