If you are looking for pro tips and general gameplay tips for new drivers, you should check out this guide.
Pro Tips for the New Driver
This guide will show you tips and tricks for beginners in the Pacific Driver.
General Gameplay
1. Saving while in the garage, then loading that save in your next drive (say, to get something important that you forgot), will load you back on the road at the beginning of the drive — meaning to say you are unable go back to the garage unless you go through the whole escape sequence. Kind of annoying, but meh.
2. Leaving the car running drains some amount of fuel, but I’ve found that going through the motions of turning the ignition and then getting into drive does NOT make up for the negligible fuel savings if you decide to turn off the car every time you get out of it. If you know you’ll be away from the car for more than just a couple minutes, then you should maybe turn it off.
3. In contrast, try to save as much battery as you can, since teleporting the car (and getting revived, etc.) uses up a lot of power. Also, because driving in the dark/fog with no lights is not an enjoyable experience.
4. I felt like this wasn’t made clear in the tutorial levels, but escaping (i.e. racing towards the yellow pillar of light) is made much easier by getting to the minimum distance away from your nearest and most accessible gateway – and then starting the escape sequence. The map will tell you when you’re too close to a particular gateway to start the escape.
5. Nothing super bad really happens when you take a Stable Anchor from it’s pedestal, despite the very loud and scary music sting that plays.
6. The amount of “energy” you get from an Anchor is shown by how big it appears on the map. If you already have enough energy to go home, small Anchors are very much not worth your time if they are hard to reach/surrounded by anomalies.
7. If you have even the slightest bit of “loot bug” syndrome, you will soon be drowning in basic materials after a couple of drives. Don’t worry too much about missing a car, or house (or two) if you don’t feel like going through them.
8. Speaking of materials, save your chemicals! In the early game, 9 times out of 10, you will have more than enough mats to craft a whole new part, rather than use chemicals to make Repair Putty.
9. Pick up the mats from the Matter Deconstructor, and don’t use the vacuum to scoop them up — you may lose them! I’ve lost three Dumpster Pearls worth of mats from using the vacuum this way. IDK if this is a bug, but it does seem that dropped items from other sources are safe from this happening to them.
10. Check the car’s status screen in the garage before leaving! God forbid you go into a drive with half a tank of gas and a dead battery, because you left the car running while messing around in the garage. (Totally did not happen to me.)
Which Upgrades To Go For
Out of all the upgrades to choose from, I feel like better tires should be prioritized the highest.
