The bedroom is the first one I max, then the bathroom. Doyle is a sound investment.
That 15k you're spending on your getting your eye gouged out is pretty much what Combat Armor costs for the entire team. I'll save my money (and my poor eye!) and get there the old-fashioned way.
A bounty a day is a damned fine income. Sometimes you make 150 less is how I look at it.
Ok yeah those bounties are nice and I can see why you like a combat build now. My first bounty was 2 guys in combat armor with assault rifles. Ouch.
This was day 1 so I had Loren, Ansen, Peasant, and Rifle Savant all with rifles and my main with... a dagger. All of us wearing leather armor. First round we take one of them down to about half and Rifle Savant takes a dirt nap. Second round we kill 1 and Ansen goes down. Third round I actually don't lose anyone but everyone is almost dead now. Fourth round I finally kill the other one. Was definitely wishing I had a combat build for that one. If I remember right, it paid $1500 plus they actually dropped about $700 cash and an assault rifle on top of that.
That could bring in some serious cash, although not all of them pay that much. Now I'm going to have to try a combat build again
Edit: So I started a soldier build, starting ranged skill of around 60 and clearing the map was definitely a lot easier even with a slave taking up a slot to build respect most of the time. Only had to go full merc for the big fights like multiple assault rifles in the same group. Unlocked Crystal hills on day 10 with everyone already wearing combat armor, my bedroom, bathroom, and yard fully upgraded, Rebecca maxed out on respect and willing to fuck, Juno maxed on respect and not willing to fuck yet, and Michelle just picked up 1 day ago and ready to fuck already.
The only mercs I hired so far are Ansen, Peasant, Loren, Rifle Savant, Bud, and Doyle. So my salary cost is still low, and the normal random arena fights are so far not a problem with just rifles and combat armor. Currently using Ansen, Loren, Bud, and Doyle for the tough fights and swapping in Michelle to build respect the rest of the time.
I went with Teen Subduer as my only charm perk. Only had to break out the dagger for a few fights on 1 day to gain the 1 melee skill I needed to hit 40 for the arena. My intelligence is 49 so I did preread several books on the days I was doing house upgrades, but didn't finish any of them. Will have to see how long it takes me to get some Int from carousing and poker, but the girls seem plenty manageable so far at 25 charm with teen subduer.
Just realized I haven't sold anything yet either so I should be able to take the ferry and cash in for a bunch of money soon. So I'm definitely way behind in skills progress compared to a science build, but I'm way ahead in money and influence, and progress with the girls is roughly equivalent except that I haven't unlocked the ones that require taking classes.
I think a science build would pull ahead if you kept to the low level mercs and made sure to keep 15k ready to drop on that aim implant as soon as you unlock Crystal Hills. Then you'd have 105 aim without having to put any character creation points into it. It would take you longer to get there though with your main character contributing basically nothing to any of the fights for the first week and a half or so.