Maps
Challenges
Do at least one daily challenge every day. The streak will increase the gold payout. This section has my notes about how to complete some of them quickly-ish. Seems like the streak resets at 28 days since December 2020, boo!.
General
Desert Sage
Between the two Os in Gaptooth Ridge on the map. Near Tumbleweed.
Alligators
Around Lagras lake. Use the Lagras fast travel point.
Longnose Garl
Go to the inlet north of Saint Denis. On the map, almost right on top of the
E in Lemoyne.
- Bait: Crayfish. Buy from the bait shop further north.
Press the middle mouse button (eagle eye) to see the fish. You are looking for the big ones. Try to throw your bait close to them. Going first person might help.
Source for the location: https://www.reddit.com/r/RedDeadOnline/comments/gdaewh/longnose_gar_location_and_how_to_catch_rdr2_online/fpgejgu/
Catch Fish with Food
Make sure to use the bread bait. The cheese bait did not work for me (26 Feb
2021).
Catch Fish with Live Bait
Live bait is either crickets or worms. However, there is a "catch" (lol). The first time when you use a bait, it's live. Sometimes, the bait is not removed after catching the fish. These subsequent catches with the original bait do not count.
So if you catch a fish and the bait is not removed, change the bait so you get a live one.
Alpine Goats
Alpine goats are domesticated animals. You can find them in a ranch to the East
of Emerald Station. There should be a goat around. If not, use
Online > Free Roam to join a new session. Rinse and repeat.
Source: https://www.guidestash.com/guide/red-dead-redemption-2/alpine-goat-location-red-dead-online/
Collector
Collector challenges are mostly straight forward and can be completed quickly by using the collector's map.
Yates Diamond Ring
To force respawn, go to the location at the western edge of the map (not south
west, just west). North of Little Creek River and north of E in West
Elizabeth on the map is a group of houses. The ring is in a lock box on the top
floor of the house. If it's not there, press escape to open the menu, select
Online and then Free Roam. You will be back in the same area and the ring
has respawned. You can do it once per reset.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Wqqoxtfttc
Possible with other jewelry?
Moonshiner
Revenue Agent Blockades
At least true in Bayou Nwa (probably in other places). The blockades have three wagons in them. One is full one moonshine and one is completely empty. The last one has a lockbox in it. Inside the lockbox there is always:
- A bottle of Moonshine.
- Cocaine gum.
- Gold pocket watch (worth 7 or 8 dollars). Note that you can only carry like 5-6 of them at a time so sell them to fences as soon as you can.
- Regular revolver bullets.
Make sure to loot it.
Quaker's Cove Moonshine Mission
This is a stealth mission and is pretty easy to do. Obviously, use the bow.
- #3 is moving between where he is in the picture and #6. Along the red line.
- #5 is in a shack and cannot see #1.
- Kill #1 when #3 is not walking towards it. I do not think #3 can see #1 anyways.
- Move around the shack and kill #2. #2 is sitting on a chair on the docks.
- Either wait for #3 to get to where he is in the picture or if he is moving back towards #6, you can kill #4.
- #4 is fishing and looking towards the sea. The corpse will fall into the water. Even if it does not, #3 does not seem to see/care.
- Kill #5 in a shack. #6 is looking down and does not see him.
- Go by the shack where #5 was killed and kill #6. He seems to be looking down and does not see you.
- This step and the next are interchangeable.
- Go slowly into the shack, #7 is sitting besides the still and does not notice you. You can kill him, no need to panic or be quick. Take your time.
- Poison the still.
- When leaving, go where #6 is. There is a table with Apple (and other things on it) and a box on its right side (East).
- Leave.
Trader
When doing delivery missions, use the railroad tracks to get there if you can. Usually, the drop off location is a train station and near the railroad tracks.
Good Camp Locations
Bayou Nwa
I put my camp in Bayou Nwa. I go around the Lagras lake and kill the large alligators. There are usually a few spawn around the camp. The alligators are not that valuable but they are easy to kill and do not run away unless you shoot them directly.
Shoot them with the bolt action rifle in the head so the pelt quality does not go down. The smaller alligators that you can pick up are more valuable.
The alligator snapping turtles are considered large animals so you should shoot them in the head with a rifle. They are also and are usually sedated with three shots to the head, so good for those "sample x creatures in 10 minutes" challenges.
You will get a lot of big game meat from the alligators. Large alligators drop 5
pieces and the maximum is 2030. Fortunately, one of the superior stew recipes
needs 3 big game meats so you can always create stew. When going to the butcher,
you can sell 20 of them for $15 which is OK money. Be sure to sell all of your
big game meat at the butcher because you will be getting a tone of them.
Skin the birds and sell the feathers. Do not donate them to Cripps. Kill them with the Varmint rifle.
One annoying issue with carcasses, corpses and items in them disappearing when they go off screen. Even if I ran moved past them 30 seconds ago.
Great Plains
Great plains is another good camp location. The camp will be around Blackwater, so you can get there quickly. Sometimes, the camp is close to Manzanita Post.
The area is mostly flat and you can use the hunting wagon easily. There are deer, elks, coyotes, and bison around. Unfortunately, none of them have "big game meat" that is needed for the superior stew.
If you have put your Moonshine shack in the same area, the shack is super close to Manzanita Post.
Be sure to go near the Quaker's Cove. There is usually a stealth moonshine
operation (which is super easy, guide above) or a hideout.
Random Tips
Selling Items to Gus vs. Donating
It's better to donate items but you can also sell items to Gus so he can craft
items and trinkets for you. Especially, you should go for the Buck Antler Trinket
which somewhat helps and preserves pelt quality. If you shoot a 3 star animal
the pelt quality might not drop.
To make the trinket, you need a Dane Topaz Necklace, two buck antlers and some
cash. Different trinket bonuses stack, so ideally, you want to have all of them.
You can buy each one only once.
Look out for a 30% discount at the Gus store weekly bonus event. I bought all trinkets during one for cheap.
More info about all the trinkets you can buy: https://www.reddit.com/r/RedDeadOnline/comments/ia92c4/before_you_buy_trinkets_gus_trapper_store/
The Hunting Wagon
I would say it's not really a necessity. It is convenient if I find a bunch of animals in the wild and I kill them.
It also spawns only on major roads so call it near there there. The reddit comments mentioned looking at the ground in first person when summoning. Because it gets summoned out of sight so looking down might help? I have not been able to prove this.
One good thing about the wagon is that you can put stuff in it and then dismiss it. Later in camp or at the shop you can summon it. The stuff on the wagon persists between sessions.
It has a capacity of 10 points for carcasses and big pelts (e.g., large alligator pelts). Each large carcass or large pelt is 2 points, each small carcass (e.g., birds) is 1. I have read the limit on the number of non-large pelts (the ones you can stow on the horse without taking space) is 50 but I have never reached that limit.
It's very fragile. I have had my wagon break down when going through mud.
One trick to make things easier:
- Hunt with the horse.
- When the horse is full or you are near a main road with a bunch of carcasses.
- Unload everything from the horse.
- Summon the wagon.
- Drop everything in the wagon.
- Dismiss the wagon.
Buy the Outlaw Pass
I got the Outlaw Pass 4. I bought the gold with microtransactions but I had bought the stand alone game for 5 USD. The pass gave me 15% and then 30% role bonus which helped me make more gold and money. It also gave me back 30 gold bars along with a 10 gold bar discount on the bounty hunter license. So it pretty much paid itself back.
Getting to rank 100 in the pass was not that hard. It's quick because the XP needed for each rank is the same.
Starting Out?
Start with the Collector's track. Go to Madam Nazar and buy the bag. It costs 15 gold bars. Then you can start collecting. Use the online collector's map to figure out what is where and collect everything around you.
You can get 10 gold bars by enabling 2FA in your Rockstar account.
https://jeanropke.github.io/RDR2CollectorsMap/
Then buy the shovel and then the metal detector. Be sure to buy the shovel first, because the metal detector is useless without the shovel.
On consoles, the controller vibrates when you have the metal detector out and
you are around special locations. On PC, sometimes you have to first person
(press v) and then see where the detector starts blinking more rapidly.
I still do not know if it's possible to find things with the metal detector that are not marked on the map above. Do I go around with the detector in my hand and hope to find things? Not sure. I am on PC so I cannot rely on the controller vibration.
After doing missions, delivery sessions, events and more, you will have enough cash and gold to buy the other items for professions. If you are not in a hurry and you can wait, wait for a weekly bonus that has these starting items at a discount. For example, I started the hunter track with a discount and bought the Naturalist role item a few weeks later when it was 15 gold bars instead of 25. Later, the moonshine shack was also discounted.
These weekly discounts usually come with XP and payout bonuses. This means you can concentrate on that role to get to level 20 faster (especially with the boost from the Outlaw pass).
Bugs
The game has a bunch of bugs. Here some screenshots and description about funny things I have encountered.
Sentient Clones of Myself
I died and then something bizarre happened. The game started creating clones of me every few seconds. These clones started walking away. If I attacked one, it would return fire and kill me. I did not manage to kill any of them. Such a cyberpunk experience.
Naked People and Ship
Going around Bayou Nwa (I think), I started encountering some naked NPCs.
There was also this big ship on the ground.
Matched with Someone who Looks Like Me
Doing a mission and matched with someone who looks like me.
Turned into a UFO
Don't ask me how it happened.
