Another progress report:
Core City and the Tchort Institute are full of fun quests, but I find both too big for the content they have available. I agree with whoever said the city feels a lot like the New Washington section of Flashback, which is one of my favorite levels ever. However, I don't like at all how the main quest was handled since it's both railroaded and extremely vague. I could take the complete lack of direction if you could actually find the acid hunters on your own, but no, you have to ally yourself with a company
and fight enough times in the arena so they can just tell you where he is and that isn't intuitive in the slightest.
On the subject of the Arena, I'm now part of the Carnifex Kill Club.
It was a very AoD-esque fight considering that I only won through reloading enough times for my sound strategy to work (aimed sniper shot, flashback to stun, get up real close while stunned, burst twice).
I also killed those two psychic bitches on the island in a single turn with the use of the AFX sniper rifle and blitz. It didn't take nearly as many reloads.
Now I'm in a bit of a tricky situation. I've run out sidequests I want to do (things left undone: all the gang war crap in the Junkyard crap I don't care about because one gang's as bad as another, protectorate/drones stuff because I want to maintain neutrality and they both come across like jerks, playing soldier for the Institude), and I've unlocked the point of no return quest, but I'm only freshly level 17. I'm getting the impression that may be "underleveled," but I don't want to wander around all over the place scrounging for oddities.
Unless there's an extreme difficulty spike, I think I might be able to manage through stealth and being extraordinarily well-supplied. I'm open to advice.
And while I'm at it, is there a place I can buy/find a gas mask? I think I vaguely remember seeing one for sale at least once but figured "eh I'll buy it later when I need it" but when the time came when it'd actually be useful, I couldn't find any shopkeepers who'd sell one whatsoever. I've just been eating the damage and healing afterwards, but that's probably not the best of ideas in the caverns.