Hey, i just started and this game is amazing. Played it so much yesterday i had a dream about it lmao. Anyway i have a few questions: What is merchandise for? Can i sell gear? And what's the most efficient way to raise my and my follower's combat stats?
There are a few things you can do with merch. You could just sell it. You can use a workshop to break it down into components. Or my personal favorite, just donate it to the Islamic church for standing. Once you get their standing up around 5-10 they'll start paying you passive income and that will ramp up indefinitely the more merch you give them. It's not a huge amount of income unless you have a crazy number of perfectly trained scavengers but IMO it's better than selling it directly and I would rather have my workshops produce production points to build swords/rifles/etc.
You can sell in Redhaven at the market, or in the shops around town. You can also take the ferry to Hannah Bay and get better prices for the stuff they buy there.
Once you decide who you want your primary combat team to be you will probably want to train at home with them as followers. You can train both melee and ranged that way up to 120 for followers and 130 for MC. You get bonuses if you have a dojo in your yard. You can also just randomly gain points from combat and that ramps up all the way to 150, but it's slow (especially for ranged). So I prefer to train ranged up to 120 as soon as I've got my stamina to a reasonable level. Higher skill improves both your chance to hit AND your damage. If you do a lot of capturing with whips then melee will go up fairly quickly with or without any training so I frequently don't bother training that at all.
Also if you're a new player I would HIGHLY recommend getting the Aim implant from the doctor's office once you unlock Crystall Hills. That makes MC pretty much guaranteed to hit with ranged even if your ranged skill sucks. It does not improve damage though (tested with and without at 150 ranged, zero difference).