This guide is a collection of basic information, general advice, and a few pro tips. It's intended for new players and also for old players who haven't played since before May 2019 when the van and truck stopped being available immediately.
Useful Hints and Tips
Key Concepts and Features
This guide is how about how to survive and make enough money to make a cool Satsuma in a reasonable amount of time. It's both for new players and those who haven't played the game in a year or so and are lost by the changes in the meantime.
- This guide assumes you know the following things. If you didn't know this already, don't consider these spoilers as until you understand these things, you have no hope of getting anywhere in the game.
- There is no "right" way to play MSC. You actually never have to touch the Satsuma 'kit" at all to still have a good time enjoying 1995 rural Finland. If you choose to build the Satsuma, you can make it a street rod, a rally racer, a drag racer, or whatever pimpmobile you want, and switch back and forth at will, as long as you've got the money. You can be a good, hard-working person or a layabout drunk. You can have a home or live on the street. Whatever you find enjoyable, within the limits offered by rural 1995 Finland.
- There is 1 save slot. Unless you manually copy your save files to a safe location, starting a new game overwrites the previous save.
- No quicksave. You can only save at toilets/outhouses, of which there are only a few scattered across the map. Strangely, this does NOT decrease your need to drain your bladder. But more to the point, it means you must sometimes go through much gameplay and accept must risk along the way between opportunities to save.
- Saving also quits the game to the main menu. When you continue the game, the in-game time will have advanced 1-2 hours. Because various NPCs and events are only available at certain times of day, this can make it hard to keep appointments. Thus, you sometimes need to go long periods without saving, to save time in the gameworld.
- Permadeath is on by default (toggled at bottom of driver's license when starting a new game). If you die with it on, you start over from scratch (although your previous character gets a tombstone at the church). Also, quite a few achievements are only available with permadeath on. Dying without permadeath is (without cheats) often almost as much of a pain as with, in terms of the recovery process. So try not to die. It will suck either way.
- There are a gazillion ways to die. You can avoid many by not being a reckless, drunken idiot, no matter how much the game tempts you. A few ways, even if you're being careful, are just BAM!, you're dead (such as meeting a reckless, drunken AI idiot head-on at a blind hill or corner). Others can be held off (most of the time) with proper risk management. But the bottom line is, expect to die and don't get upset when it happens. Learn from your mistake (if you made one) or curse fickle Fate, and go on as best you can.
- There are survival aspects: You have to buy (and consume) groceries, pay bills, not burn your house down, etc. This requires money, getting which requires fuel (which requires money) and time. It also puts you out on the dangerous roads where you're at risk of dying all the time. And all this not including the vast amount of extra money you need to build a decent Satsuma.
- There is a totally optional story involving a love interest for the player character. Without spoiling the details, understand that following it WILL end your game, although you get an achievement for that. So, if you want that achievement, go for it. Otherwise, put it off until you've done everything else you want to do with your current save.
- You cannot get all achievements in a single play-through. Many require getting killed in stupid ways and are only available in permadeath games.
- Don't be afraid to use mods or even "cheat". MSC is, after all, an early access game so there are bugs. Even if you play permadeath and accept the consequences, there will be times when a bug kills (or otherwise totally hoses) you, as opposed to your own stupidity. So have the capability to recover from such things. You'll find a list of recommended mods later on in this guide, the first few of which are present specifically for such instances.
With that said, on with the recommendations for how to get started.
Important Health and Safety Tips, and Other Useful Tidbits
Here are some things which new players, and returning old players, need to know to stay alive and/or avoid the consequences of dying.
Cheating Death with Alt-F4
Whether or nor you have permadeath on, dying sucks. Fortunately, you can cheat death with ALT-F4. You know when you die because the screen gets covered with blood and you start screaming. This lasts a couple of seconds. If you hit ALT-F4 during this time, you quit the game and can reload from your last save. But you have to be quick on the draw here. If the word "Saving" or the newspaper showing your death ever appears on screen, you're too late and must suffer the consequences.
Given the strong incentive to save infrequently to avoid wasting in-game daylight, using ALT-F4 often makes you lose the better part of a day's work. But that's better than starting all over or getting home from the graveyard and collecting all your scattered possessions.
Ai Rally Cars
There are now 9 AI rally cars running the race from 1000-1800 both Saturday and Sunday. These guys are like Pena only way worse: there's more of them, they go way faster, and they'll run you over without hesitation. Do not drive the dirt roads during racing hours in anything except the tractor or truck, and think twice before even trying that. So, for most of the weekend, the only safe way to leave home is with the boat.
So, doing jobs is largely out for the weekend. However, you can use this time to partake of the social aspects of MSC nightlife (the pub, the dance pavilion, ventti), de-stress in the island sauna, or work on the Satsuma.
Note: Also new is that during racing hours, the rally is shown live on TV (on the default starting channel) so you can watch the AI drivers crash.
The Helmet
You now have a motorcycle helmet. It begins on the desk beside your game. Put it on by focusing on it and hitting F. Take it off by looking straight down and hitting F.
There are a number of basic things to know about the helmet:
- Operating the Jonnez without a helmet at a police checkpoint results in a fine.
- Must be wearing the helmet when entering the rally race.
- Cannot eat, drink, or smoke while wearing the helmet.
- Helmet can be repainted.
- Makes wrecking any vehicle somewhat more survivable.
But, the most important thing about the helmet is that it protects you from bees in the eyes, a new way to die. Basically, if you drive a vehicle at high speed with no face protection, there's now a chance that you could just die out of the blue from getting hit in the eye by a bee. This applies not only to the Jonnez but also any vehicle without a windshield, However, it's not a problem with the boat and it's hard to get the Gifu fast enough to worry about it.
Limited Stock at Teimo's Store
Teimo's store now only restocks once a week instead of every time you load the game. IOW, if you buy all the sausage on Monday, there will still be no sausage in the store on Tuesday.
Restocking occurs at 0001 Thursday morning. However, if the player is in the vicinity of the store at that time, restocking will not happen. Also, if the player saves at the store's privy after 2200 Wednesday night, the store will not restock due to the time advancement putting the player back at the store at midnight. Therefore, the best bet is, don't go to town on Wednesday night.
Don't Burn Your House Down
There are many ways you can accidentally burn your house down. Besides the obvious (lighting fires and fireworks in our near the house), using any of the electrical appliances in the house can also start a fire. So for safety's sake, do the following:
- Move the portable grill and burn barrel out to the front hedge well away from your house. Do any cooking on the grill, not the stove or the indoor coffee maker.
- Don't leave the TV on for too long.
- Don't use the electric sauna. If you want to use a sauna, use the wood-burner at the island cottage.
Free Stuff
No, not vehicles or their parts. See a wiki for where they are. I'm talking about player survival-related stat-changes, which are even more important.
- Free drinks: Besides the old kitchen sink, there are now new hand-pumped water wells scattered around the map: Jokke's house, haunted mansion, Ventti house, Grandma's house, and north end of strawberry complex.
- Free food: Catch, cook, and eat fish. Also, kill a moose (best to hunt them with Gifu) and cook the meat. Immediately or it rots. So have the portable grill with you.
- Free fatigue increase: During the night, turn on the TV. All stations are off the air and a test pattern is showing. Stare at this and your fatigue increases quickly. Very useful for when Jokke calls at 0200 and you want to go back to bed. About 1/2 a fatigue bar will let you sleep until about 0600-0700.
- Free fatigue decrease: Drink as much as you want of Grandma's coffee. Only available when delivering groceries in good weather at Grandma's house. IOW, it can be raining elsewhere on the map, but the sun must be out where she lives.
- Free stress relief: Hang out on the island, take a shower, chop firewood, and drink Grandma's coffee.
Alternative Transportation
Should you find yourself afoot on the paved roads, you can ride the bus. Just sit at a bus stop and eventually the bus will come. Pay the ticket and get off at the stop closest to where you want to go. Beats walking.
On the dirt roads, you can hitchhike and get a ride from Pena, your drunken, murderous cousin driving the little green car that frequently kills you. This is free. Be sure to wear your seatbelt. You can also get an achievement for flipping him off but be prepared to die if you do.
So, let's say you died in a non-permadeath game and find yourself afoot at the graveyard. Go to the town bus stop. Ride the bus to the stop in the SE corner of the map, just S of the dirt crossroads. Walk to the dirt crossroads. Hitchhike with Pena, who will take you home. Hopefully before you starve, die of thirst, or stress out.
Other Info
This guide just hits the high points of important concepts without going into any detail. If you want more detailed info, check out the many wikis (official, semi-official, and reddit), plus YouTube. Just be advised that any advice from prior to late-2019 is probably obsolete so check the date.
When to Build The Satsuma and What It's Good for
When to Build the Satsuma
There are 3 main things to consider here:
- The 1st time or 3 your build the Satsuma, even armed with tutorials and a handy guide on the flag in the garage, it will take a lot of playtime and mental effort. Losing this investment is a major reason to turn permadeath off. But the more you build the car, the more you memorize it and the faster you work, so this initial investment decreases significantly with the learning curve, making permadeath less scary.
- Many key parts of the Satsuma (mostly in the engine, some in the transmission) wear out with use and abuse, and the parts you have to start with are already on their last legs. If you build the car with them, it will almost immediately break down and you'll have to disassemble it again for rebuilding. OTOH, you can build the car with brand new wearable parts from Fleetari but getting the full set costs about 7084mk.
- Getting the Satsuma built the 1st time, although a major hook of the game and a big personal goal of new players, is really just the true beginning, not the end. The real meat of the game is what you do with it once you have it running.
Here, your goal is simply to slide down the learning curve on building the Satsuma, plus learning a lot of lessons about surviving the Finnish roads during your grocery runs and odd jobs. You're not really trying to make significant progress in the game, you're just learning how to play it. So, protect your time investment by turning permadeath off and building the car with the crappy starting parts. Even go get it registered (assuming it doesn't break down en route there). Then quit and start over because you've got a crappy car and you will have noticed many things in the game world you could have done better.
Subsequent Playthroughs
Once you've gotten a handle on Satsuma construction, the general game mechanics, have become familiar with the map, met the important NPCs, etc., you can now play the game properly, as if you were a true Finnish redneck born into the gameworld, turning wrenches and driving stupidly fast on very bad roads for nearly 2 decades. Now you can turn permadeath back on and not start building the Satsuma until you have enough money to replace all the wearable parts (and maybe get some of the aftermarket parts that won't fail your vehicle inspection). By this point, losing Satsuma construction progress by untimely death won't bother you so much as you're now good at it and will consider it less of a pain than recovering from a non-permanent death.
Purpose of the Satsuma
Every vehicle the player can drive in MSC has a specific purpose and isn't all that great at other jobs. The Satsuma is unique in that you can configure it to serve 1 of 3 distinct purposes and, with enough money, can change it back and forth between these versions. These versions are:
- Street Rod: Essentially the default as you must initially build a street-legal vehicle to pass inspection. Cannot enter the rally. A pimped version of this is the only way to catch the girl of your dreams (which ends the game). In the meantime, you have a light utility vehicle that's more fun but less-capable than either the van or the Ruscko, but you can sleep in the back seat so don't have to get home before you die of exhaustion.
- Rallycar: Start with a street-legal, registered Satsuma then apply a bunch of expensive aftermarket parts to make it rally-legal, and a few more to make it faster, then go court death and bankruptcy competing in the weekend rally races. Otherwise, as a utility vehicle, you gain cargo space but lose the built-in bed, and the girl is not impressed.
- Dragster: Specialized to accelerate as quickly as possible in a straight line on pavement so not much good for anything else, like driving anywhere in Finland other than on a runway. However, it has the most cargo space due to being stripped down as much as possible to minimize weight. You CAN drag race in the other versions but won't do as well as a specialized dragster.
Note, however, that the Satsuma is also unique in that everything on it can be damaged from wrecks or hard use, and wearable parts continually die slowly from just regular use. Thus, using the Satsuma for a utility vehicle saps its lifeforce, leading to increased maintenance costs and the time sunk in repairing/servicing its problems. It's thus best to limit use of the Satsuma to pursuing one of the above goals unless money and doing repairs don't bother you.
Useful Flags
Below are a couple of flags. One for building the car, one a wiring diagram. The car-building one I have modified heavily from an obsolete version. The wiring diagram is my own creation.
Other Vehicles and Their Uses
Besides the Satsuma, the player either begins with or can acquire a number of vehicles, each of which is useful in 1 or more ways in accomplishing the main goals of staying alive, making money, and getting the Satsuma into shape to accomplish one of the main game goals. These are:
- Jonnez ES "moped" (actually a minibike as it as no pedals): Available from the start. Cheapest vehicle to operate as it can circumnavigate the whole map on about 1/8 of a tank Runs on 2-cycle fuel. Unique in that you can pick it up and stow it inside larger vehicles, so you can use it to get home after staging the other vehicle away from home, then getting back to it when needed. Reasonably fast but can't carry passengers and, unless you have the "Carry More" mod, you can only bring 1 item with you on a trip. Thus, without this mod, it's pretty useless except to get home after staging a vehicle elsewhere, to get to the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned strawberry field, or to deliver adverts for Teimo or Fleetari. With the "Carry More" mod, however, it's quite useful as a grocery-getter, bringing supplies to Grandma, picking up Satsuma parts from around the map, and making low-volume kilju runs (either delivering to Jokke or picking up the empty bottles at the landfill).
- Boat: Available from the start. Runs on 2-cycle fuel. Only way to get to the island where the kilju bucket, fish trap, camera, coffee pot, camera, wood-fired sauna, and fireworks are. Also allows direct trips from home to the dance pavilion and ventti house. Not much good for anything else at present You can, for example, toss the Jonnez in the boat and sail to the town, then use the Jonnez to move purchases from the store to the boat but this often doesn't end well due to the Jonnez being a bit glitchy when put in other vehicles.
- Kekmet Tractor: Available from start. Burns diesel or fuel oil, reasonable fuel efficiency for a heavy vehicle. Only vehicle that can pull the firewood trailer, which can also be used for carrying wrecked vehicles (including the Satsuma), lots of groceries/kilju bottles, or large car parts. Has front forks that can upright overturned vehicles or put them in the trailer. Can tow junk cars to Fleetari for money but is slower at this than the Gifu truck. Essentially indestructible unless overturned.
- Hayasiko Van: Initially owned by your uncle and only available occasionally for short-term loan after playing the game a while. Eventually, however, you get it for keeps (see the Uncle section). Burns diesel or fuel oil but as you'll frequently be on the policed roads, you should only run diesel. Good fuel efficiency--can circumnavigate the map on 1/8 of a tank. Can carry the most stuff and also 1 passenger but limited to 80kmph on the blacktop or you'll get a speeding ticket. Can easily carry the Satsuma rear seat or the sketchy sofa found at the landfill so you can have a bed wherever you roam. Also good for high-volume kilju runs. Nice to have but, if you've got the "Carry More" mod, you won't really miss it if you were used to having it from the start in earlier versions of the game.
- Gifu Sewage Truck: Initially owned by your Uncle and only available after he loses his license (see the Uncle section). Burns diesel or fuel oil but diesel recommended or your uncle will have to sell it, depriving you of it. High operating cost due to large fuel tank and burning nearly 1/2 of it circumnavigating the map. Indestructible (except for the windshield) unless overturned so fear no wrecks, which can be useful for meeting your girlfriend. Only vehicle that can suck septic tanks, which is a highly profitable job. Can also tow junk cars to Fleetari faster than the Kekmet. Has built-in sleeper cab and 1 passenger seat but otherwise not much cargo capacity--the Jonnez will fit inside but complains the whole trip.
- Ruscko: Can be acquired by theft or by gambling. Must be de-wasped prior to use. Burns gasoline. Has passenger seat. Not quite as much cargo space and rather worse performance than the van but you can sleep in the back without furniture. If you can't get the van early enough to suit your needs, consider stealing this. Otherwise, not very useful, more a prestige item. And it looks like crap unless you use mods to pimp it.
- Other Vehicles: You can briefly come into control of various NPC-driven vehicles if you dispose of their drivers. However, these vehicles never pass into your permanent ownership and respawn with their resurrected NPC drivers when you save/quit/reload.
