Role discussion/review: The Moonshiner

The Moonshiner is the fourth role that I started, and I avoided it, even after it was officially started, for quite some time. This is a bit ironic, as it's the one that, along with the Collector, at least for the time being, I spend the most time on. Although not as lucrative as the Collector in terms of bringing in cash, it is, however pretty lucrative and it manages to be so in a much more passive way. Rather than actually focusing on running all over the map to pick stuff up, I can get a batch of moonshine started, and then go do something else for quite a while, before doing a short delivery mission, running back to the shack and starting another batch, and generally very passively earning decent money. While I won't make over $500, like a coin collection will, which takes me an hour and a half or so to pick up, I can earn a net ~$200 every hour or so, and I only need to spend 10-15 minutes of actual game time to do so.

I'll say this up front first; the moonshiner update itself is notoriously buggy, and many of the problems that people have with the online game are especially rooted in this moonshine update. While there have been some fixes, the game still remains fairly buggy today. But, that is ambient stuff around the role, not directly associated with the role, so other than saying it up front so nobody asks down the line, I'm not going to consider it in my discussion/review of the role. The moonshiner role is different than the original three frontier pursuits roles in a number of significant ways, although then similar to them after that.

• It requires not just finding the NPC that kicks off the role, but also having at least some progression in the trader role before you can kick it off. Keep in mind that I am a late adopter of the Online mode of the game, so by the time I started, all four roles were available already. But you have to either have made a delivery or two with trader, or be at level 5 with trader (although quite likely those happen at about the same time anyway) before the moonshiner can be unlocked.
• It costs 25 gold, not 15 like the other three. To be fair, there is a lot more content for these than most of the other roles have, and then once you work your way through that content, it's both more fun and easier to just keep rolling with than most of the other roles too. But that's still a lot of gold bars to gate the content, which does kind of suck. Then again, people complain too much about that too. Given that you can do daily challenges for a few weeks, a few treasure maps, and some bounty hunter missions and easily get the gold necessary to play the role, if you're patient enough to wait a week or two (or three at the most), for the most part, the complaints about it are overwrought. Yes, it is expensive, but it's not like you really have to pay actual real microtransaction money in order to do it. You just need to be patient.
• It is not centered around your camp in any way, and in fact gives you a unique property; the first in this game, although we presume that more are to be coming in the future. While the camp's position on the map is variable, even if you stay in the same region, the moonshine shack is not. For instance, I keep my camp in the Heartlands >95% of the time, but it can be anywhere from northeast of Emerald Ranch to near Valentine, to down on the river by Limpany to next to Bard's Crossing and Flat Neck Station, and plenty of other spots in between. Practically speaking, there's a bit difference between some of those locations. The moonshine shack, on the other hand is always exactly in the same place. It's not like the homes and offices and businesses of Grand Theft Auto Online, although it has some similarities, but it does at least stay in the same place. You can relocate it, if you like, but it's a little pricey ($250) so you're best served by giving some thought to the location you pick (out of five options) at the beginning. I didn't, although as luck would have it, I picked a location that I quite like, and am unlikely to move my shack.
• Especially notable, the moonshine role has story missions which are not unlike the normal Online story missions; in fact, most players agree that they are better. Not only does it assume by default that you play the missions solo, which you cannot do in the Land of Opportunity storyline, but they have unique tactical challenges for you to deal with that are kind of interesting. They're a bit difficult; wave after wave of enemy for you to deal with, but with some health tonics and some care, they're not at all impossible to do solo.

Cripps does a poor job of posing, but here he is in his Collector themed outfit at his butcher table. Take note of the pith helmet, googles, and sweater in particular, which closely resemble your own outfit choices from this role.

So how does this all work? Well, first off, you go to Emerald Ranch and meet with Maggie, the real boss of the moonshiner business (unfortunately) and pick your moonshine shack location after paying your 25 gold for... a deed to the land, I guess, or whatever. The five locations are down in Hennigan's Stead, Tall Trees, the Grizzlies up near Cattail Pond, Heartlands, although it's in the far corner north of Emerald Ranch in the hills, and Bayou Nwa between Saint Denis and Lagras, more or less. All of them are a bit isolated, by design--if you're making and selling illicit moonshine, you want to be away from the prying eyes of the revenuers, right? Let's go through the five locations and I'll discuss very briefly the positives and negatives of each.

• Hennigan's Stead--the positive is that this is far away from most player activity, and is kind of isolated from other players. That said, most of New Austin is kind of dead, and there isn't a lot of other things to do near here either, meaning that you'll be running back and forth from your moonshine shack to... wherever else you need to go to do something else. Its lack of central location puts it far away from most else of what you'd need. Also, the moonshine wagon needs a bit of a delicate touch; you'll break your bottles if you're rushing around over tight curves and roads where it's easy to get your wheel running over a rock or banging into a tree or whatever. It's not the worst, but it's not the best either in terms of the routes to make deliveries.
• Tall Trees--I picked this one based just on the fact that I felt like I wanted to spend more time in this region and get to know it better, and it turns out to have been a good choice. The roads are usually pretty good, and most deliveries end up going out into the Great Plains--although when you have to cross the Montana River that's when you need to be extra careful--and it's close to Blackwater. It's also right around the corner from Manzanita Post. Although you can already fast travel to your shack, you can't fast travel out of it, and this is the one that's the closest to a fast travel post.
• Grizzlies--while isolated and in a beautiful setting, where you see relatively few other players, making deliveries from this shack is a nightmare just based on road quality. I do not recommend. Plus, it's a pain to get to or from when you want to go do anything else.
• Heartlands--Some of the deliveries here are not good; the terrain is too hilly and fraught with too many tight curves and whatnot if they go in a certain direction, but they're OK if you go towards Emerald Ranch, on the other hand, or some of the other nearby shacks or homesteads. It's also quite close to Emerald Station with its fast travel post. For an isolated backwater shack to brew hooch in, it's relatively well connected. It does seem to be a popular one, however, so you'll see more player activity than in some of the other spots.
• Bayou Nwa--lots of players swear by this location. The place is flat (although there are lots of trees and bridges, so it's not like deliveries are super easy), it's close to Saint Denis and Rhodes, with their many amenities, it kind of has that moonshiner vibe already, being that it's in the bayou, and there are fast travel posts nearby at Lagras, Saint Denis and Rhodes. Also, depending on what kind of moonshine you're making, much of the flavoring ingredients can be found nearby. I need to stock up on vanilla flowers, for instance, every time I'm in the area anyway, but if I were already there, it'd be easier and I'd waste less time riding across the map.

Maybe there isn't a bad location per se, but the Grizzlies and Hennigan's Stead seem the least desirable, while the other three are more popular. In general, it's considered wise to set up your camp either in the same region or an adjacent one, so you can more easily get from one to the other. I haven't taken this advice, and I keep my camp in the Heartlands. I've tried a few times to migrate to the Great Plains, but I was doing this often during the peak camp bugginess, and I found that I was frequently getting bumped or losing my camp and unable to set it back up in that area, and I finally gave up. I do admit that spawning in my camp in the Heartlands, doing a few camp things, and then having to run all the way to Tall Trees to do moonshiner stuff is a minor drag, though. Ironically, if I could actually choose my site within the regions, I'd probably move my camp even further away, and put it in Calumet Ravine, or near the Wapiti Reservation (keep in mind that the Injuns haven't been relocated here yet in the Online mode). That would be even more inconvenient, but I love that area and don't have enough of an excuse to spend time there, so I'd prefer to put my camp there and see it more often. So clearly running around the map a little bit every time I log on isn't as much of an issue for me as it is for most other players.

After you pick your spot, you need to do the first two story missions (in any order) first in order to get set up. One of them has you rescue Marcel, your arrogant blowhard French guy who talks too much (like Cripps) every time you interact with him. He's the moonshine "cook". The other one is stealing a still set from a rival. After that, the rest of the story missions are optional in the sense that you can do everything else without needing to do them to unlock anything else, but I recommend doing them sooner rather than later as it is a great source of role XP (and XP generally) and the missions are pretty fun. They are like story missions from single player, in many ways, but quite imaginative; in one you take a steamboat from Annesburg to Saint Denis, fighting revenuers on boats and on the shore the entire way, in one you are in a burning fire running around killing revenuers while trying not to catch on fire yourself, etc. It's fair to say that the moonshine story missions are the best story missions in Online by far, and comparable if not even better than many of the story missions from Single Player.

Still poor at posing, but here's Cripps in his Trader themed outfit while whittling around camp. While there are design cues common to that of your own outfits, this is a little bit more distinctive looking.

Maggie, who sits upstairs in the shack at a desk, not only gives you the story missions, but also bootlegger missions, which benefit your business, and some of them are quite fun too. One variant is helping clear a drunk patron from a bar and getting him home, my favorite one is getting into a fist-fight with a rival gang in a saloon, including a big boss boxer. Sadly, all of the bootleg missions I've done and those two have only come up once or twice each. Most of the time, you just go to a roadblock of revenuers and kill them all, or go to a rival still operation and blow it up. In theory, you can sneak in and poison their moonshine, but realistically, I almost always get seen, so it just turns into a "kill everyone and blow up the still." Which is fine, because then I have a good dozen bodies or so to loot, which is nice, because they tend to have moonshine related stuff and moonshine recipe items on them which is helpful.

Maggie is also the store for shack upgrades. There's not a ton of these, but there are some. I'll talk about most of them in the list of unlocks, because most of them do have to be unlocked before you can buy them anyway. Some of them are essential, and some of them are merely cosmetic. And after that, you'll get to the point where all of your business is downstairs with Marcel. I, actually, almost never see Maggie anymore. I enter my shack from the side door, not the front door, and just head immediately down the stairs to talk to Marcel about making and delivering moonshine. Once you have the still and Marcel, you can start making moonshine, but you'll want to unlock all of your options, because making better moonshine is very much worth it. Making unflavored weak moonshine is almost certainly not even cost effective; I think I even made a batch or two where I literally lost money. But you will want, as soon as you can, to get to strong moonshine, and you'll want to do either a two or three star flavored version for best financial results. Curiously, it's not a given that you'd do three star over two star, although most likely you will.

All of the three star recipes require a collectible as one of the ingredients. Because it only gives you twenty dollars more per delivery than the two star recipes, the net profit difference between the two is only about $10-12 or so (the ingredients are either flowers or antique alcohols.) It is also my experience that the Wild Creek three star always has a buyer, but that the other three star recipes may not have a buyer. Making a batch and then finding that you don't have a buyer other than cheapskate Bert Higgins kinda sucks. Having that happen and then waiting an hour or two (two full hours is the max amount of time for the buyers to reset) and then still not having a buyer for that particular flavor really sucks. But again, the Wild Creek seems to always have a buyer, so that's the one I make.

The bounty hunter themed outfit has less common themes with the player outfits, although he does sport an eye patch and a wide-brimmed hat. Honestly, I think the mercenary outfit that I got from the Outlaw Pass 2 looks at least as bounty hunterish as this one, though.

All of the flavored moonshines require three ingredients to add the flavor, and these are mostly things that you find out on the map in free roam. Wild Creek, the three star one, for instance, requires the creek plum flower (a collectible; you can only grab a maximum of three per day before the collectibles reset), a vanilla flower, and wild mint. The evergreen two star moonshine requires winterberry, evergreen huckleberry, and ginseng (if I remember correctly, either Alaskan or American is fine.) For quite a while, I was making the evergreen moonshine and selling it, because I didn't want to spend collectibles to make three stars, but I decided that getting creek plums wasn't too hard, and was worth the trouble. You can pick up up to three every day, but you can only carry ten at a time. If they change the collector role making finding creek plums more difficult, I'll probably revert back to the evergreen moonshine, which doesn't require any collectibles, only "regular" ingredients that reset every few minutes and can be picked up much more easily (the winterberry is the most difficult to find, but I know several locations in Cumberland Forest behind Valentine, as well as some up near Brandywine Falls near the observatory or mad scientist lab. The payout for a delivery of three star moonshine is $247 and some change, while the payout for two star is $226 and some change. For only twenty dollars, and ten dollars (roughly) net, you can see why I don't think making three star recipes is essential. The two star recipes are almost as good, and getting the ingredients is arguably easier, and will absolutely be easier if the collector role makes finding the collectible ingredients more difficult.

Of course, now that I have my own bar, making the three star stuff has another value; I can drink it and get all three of my stat rings turned gold. If you make two star, you only get two rings turned gold (health and stamina is what I remember from evergreen.) Drinking your own product is best when it's three star, but that's a minor thing. I usually drink every time I'm downstairs, but it doesn't last super long, and mostly only matters for my delivery mission.

Now, those costs are gross revenue for every batch sold, assuming no damage to any bottles. The net cost takes the cost of moonshine mash out. When I was focused on leveling up the moonshiner role, I did enough bootlegger missions between batches to keep my mash price down. Now that I've reverted to a more passive way of doing the role, I just buy the mash at full price. That means that I need to take $50 out of the sale price, and that's my profit; it's less than $200. Just under for three star, and closer to $175 for two star. Because I'm doing it so passively, it's worth it to me to not feel the need to spend the time doing bootlegger missions, and I just make less per delivery. But still enough that it's a steady stream of income; I can make enough to buy what I want, after a few deliveries at most, without having to spend very much time doing it. It's ideal for me. I love having moonshine batches brewing in the background while I'm doing whatever else I'm doing, and when it's done, I go make a delivery and start a new batch brewing.

A few other tips on making deliveries. Most of the time, you'll be stopped by a roadblock of revenuers. Not every single time; occasionally I'll have them wave me through, I've had them stop me but then let me go, and sometimes the roadblocks don't actually have anyone at them. (I presume this is because some other player helpfully came by and killed them a few minutes earlier, in order to loot their bodies and pay it forward to make the delivery easier.) Most of the time, they want to stop me, will see my illicit moonshine, and start shooting at me. To avoid damage to your wagon and its cargo, the best way to handle these roadblocks is to stop your wagon just before you get to the little yellow spot and then just shooting all of the revenuers, looting them, and getting back on your wagon and continuing your delivery. Otherwise, your cargo will almost certainly be shot by the revenuers, and you'll lose some of your cargo and have a massive decrease in the amount of money you make from the delivery. You want to avoid having any bottles break, and its worth it to go to somewhat extreme lengths to avoid it.

Another tip is that the AI will drive your wagon for you without error or damage if you pull up your gun as soon as you start your wagon and put it in aim mode, and keep your gun aimed while you're moving. You'll want to go back to manual steering when you get to the roadblock and probably also to your destination to make sure that the AI doesn't screw up and hit something (which has happened, and routinely happens at some destinations), but other than that, it's a pretty good way to protect your cargo. Do it again after clearing the roadblock, but keep your gun trained behind you, and you can pick off revenuers who gallop up to attack you from that point on, which is almost every single delivery. Again, if you don't, they'll shoot at you, they'll hit your cargo, and they'll damage it. It doesn't take much damage at all to significantly reduce the amount of money you make from your delivery.

The tier one moonshiner outfit. I tried to do the best I could with color schemes to mitigate the awfulness of this outfit, but you can only do so much. I'll never wear this, I don't think, unless I'm just in a mood to be silly. Speaking of color schemes, I do notice that I tend to lean heavily towards dark ones, and my character wears a lot of black.

Anyway, I have plenty more to talk about, but I think it can be saved for the various unlocks, because much of it relates to those items and if they're worth getting or not, and how they impact your moonshiner business itself.

Tier 1: Novice
Level 1: Two role unlock tokens.
Level 2: Berry cobbler moonshine recipe, plus two unlock tokens.
Level 3: Two role unlock tokens.
Level 4: Bootlegger opportunities (allows certain free roam bootlegger missions to pop up on the map; notably roadblock clearing and rival still smashing.) Plus two role unlock tokens.
Level 5: Bold dance unlock, plus two role unlock tokens. The dances can be done at various places, but are mostly for your moonshine bar.
Tier 1 unlocks: 

• Toxic moonshine pamphlet ($500) allows the creation of toxic moonshine which can be thrown like a Molotov cocktail, and creates a green cloud that damages everyone in its range.
• Holme Gloves (8 gold) I bought some on sale, because they're pricey for an outfit, cosmetic item, but they do look pretty cool. They are two-toned padded leather with a lattice pattern on the backs of the hands, in a variety of bold colors.
• Levens gun belt ($215) A good looking gun belt, with triple Xs on it, the universal symbol for hooch. It's pricey, but looks good.
• Norfolk Roadster - Speckled gray and black coats ($150) I'll talk more about this horse breed in the top tier, but I'll say now that it is a fan favorite, and considered one of the best horses in the game.
• Bar Expansion ($950) This is VERY pricey, and it's even more pricey to update the decor (the cheapest alternate is 10 gold; the other two are 15 gold each). And while it's really cool, it's worth noting that it's mostly just cosmetic. You don't make any money for having your speakeasy here, although you do open up the possibility of drinking your own product, and inviting other players to your bar to serve to them and interact with them as well. There are a number of daily challenges that pop up routinely that involve this, so while you don't make your money back in terms of cash, it does open up lots of opportunities for making gold bars back as parts of daily challenges. Plus, it's just really pretty cool for its own sake.
• Ivers Saddle ($550) Very expensive, and honestly, not one of the best-looking. It has an art-type pattern on it, but the colors are not attractive. The best thing about the saddle are the shine bottles hanging from it.
• The Gatlinburg ($250) (Presumably named for the town in Tennessee at the gate to the Smokies national park, and famous for its hillbilly moonshiners of the past.) All of the moonshiner outfits are fairly "dressy" and fancy looking, but for some reason, the first two have aprons on over their actual clothes, which look ridiculous. One of the least attractive of the outfits, and I don't even like the hat. I only bought it so I could take a picture for this review series.

The tier two moonshine outfit. Given how similar it is to the tier 1, I tried to go with a different color scheme while still avoiding the white apron, but I don't know that it looks any better.

Tier 2: Promising

Level 6: Wild Creek moonshine recipe, plus two unlock tokens. I actually think this is the best recipe. At strong level, it's a top price moonshine, plus it has easier ingredients to find than the other three star recipes, even though the sale price is the same, and it always has a unique buyer available, unlike the other tree star recipes. I make this almost exclusively after I graduated up from the evergreen moonshine.

Level 7: Ingredients satchel upgrade. I haven't double checked, but I presume that this stacks with the trader ingredients satchel upgrade. I can carry 30 of all ingredients in my satchel, I believe. Plus two role unlock tokens.

Level 8: Two role unlock tokens.

Level 9: New buyer order. I don't remember what it was like before I had this, but now that it's unlocked, I always have Bert Higgins, who will buy anything you want to sell, but at a reduced rate, and a specific buyer who wants a specific recipe at a specific strength, and will pay full price for it. Plus two role unlock tokens.

Level 10: Two role unlock tokens.

Tier 2 unlocks:

• Darrow Buckle (6 gold) a belt buckle for your gun belt. Not as attractive as some others that I got for less, but still... if you like buckles, here you go. I haven't bothered buying this one either.
• Flammable Moonshine ($20) Like fire bottles, but not exactly. You pour it first and then shoot at it to set it on fire. This features heavily in the last story mission, but I otherwise haven't used it for anything.
• Sawed-off Shotgun Varient ($450) Although I've kinda been meaning to, I still haven't bought any sawed-off shotguns, so I haven't used the variant skin, obviously. It's really pricey, especially considering that if you carry sawed-off shotguns, you probably carry two. It does look nice, though. If I had the guns, I'd buy the variant skins for both. One of these days I'll get around to it.
• Nevin hipflask (8 gold) A gun belt decoration. It costs twice as much as the collector's compass, and honestly, I don't like it as much either. I haven't bought it yet, because I just always use the compass.
• Band expansion. There's no listed price, and I didn't pay for it either, although I wasn't sure if that was a limited time thing or not. This comes with the moonshine bar, and is half the fun of the bar. (That's because I didn't buy the bar until after I'd passed this level, though.) You can play all of the instruments and you can dance to the music too. It doesn't really have much tangible benefit, although just today there was a daily challenge to play for four minutes with my band, and another one to dance for four minutes. One gold bar for taking a few minutes to do something that's kinda fun anyway. These come up pretty regularly; at least two or three times a week, so again, you make pretty decent gold by having this. 
• Condenser upgrade ($825) Although expensive, this is a must have purchase. It allows you to upgrade from weak to average strength moonshine, and is also a necessary component of eventually getting to strong moonshine. Your income will be seriously limited until you get this, which will bump up your sale prices considerably.
• The Dagenhart ($348.25) While marginally better than the Gatlinberg, because the apron is waist down, this just looks like the Gatlinburg with a less obvious apron. I don't like it any better than the Gatlinburg, and I can't imagine I'll ever wear it, or even the hat from it. Ugh.

The tier 3 moonshiner outfit, a fancy one for a night dancing and drinking in my bar, perhaps, or for walking the streets of Saint Denis while trying to look like a local. Doesn't really look appropriate for a camp out in the Heartlands in the mud, but whatever. 

Tier 3: Established

Level 11: Cheerful dance; another option for when you're dancing with your band, plus two unlock tokens.

Level 12: Spiced Island Moonshine recipe; one that at three star I've not always been able to sell. It also requires a collectible alcohol to make. Plus two role unlock tokens.

Level 13: Two role unlock tokens.

Level 14: Two role unlock tokens.

Level 15: Master distiller reduces the time it takes for a batch of moonshine to brew by 25% at all strengths. This turns strong moonshine from a 60 minute process to a 48 minute process, for instance. Plus two role unlock tokens.

Tier 3 unlocks: 

• Savatier monocle (8 gold) It's a monocle. Either you think that's awesome, or you don't. Needless to say, I have one. I'm thinking about getting some more, but the color differences are probably not really very noticeable given its small size. Some of them, though, have tinted glass which will show up more.
• Norfolk Roadster Piebald Roan and Rose Gray Coats ($550) I quite like the piebald roan. I should point out that the real horse breed, which is now extinct, although it contributed to several existing breeds, was more commonly actually called the Norfolk trotter, but it's still the same breed.
• The Pittsburg ($446.75) The first good looking moonshiner outfit, although it seems much too fancy for day to day running around doing free roam stuff. Maybe I'll try it anyway, just because, though. It'd be fun to hunt animals in a super fancy dress suit and top hat.
• Neat Center Parted (2 gold) The moonshiner haircut. Sadly, it doesn't come with a facial hair variant, and it's really nothing special anyway, other than the prominent widow's peak that it features.
• Polished Copper Upgrade ($875) Upgrades your moonshine strength to strong. Again, despite the high price tag, this is an essential purchase.
• Levens holster ($150) As always, if you're going to buy the gun belt, you need the matching left-hand holster.

The even more exaggerated tier 4 moonshiner outfit. Really fancy. Because my hats are the same color (or nearly so, anyway) for tier 3 and four, I can swap them between each other and still look like it fits; and the default color Stuart top hat would match this color scheme quite well too.

Tier 4: Distinguished

Level 16: Two role unlock tokens.

Level 17: Materials satchel upgrade plus two role unlock tokens.

Level 18: Two role unlock tokens.

Level 19: Protection. Greatly reduce the risk of attacks. Attacks on what? Your camp? Your moonshine wagon during deliveries? I'm not actually sure what this does. I rarely get attacked, although I do usually fight the roadblock, and that always prompts follow-up attacks while I'm finishing the delivery. Maybe this changes the percentage that the roadblocks will hassle me. Plus two unlock tokens.

Level 20: Rowdy dance, plus two unlock tokens.

Tier 4 unlocks: 

• The Wilksboro ($545) Similar to the last outfit, except with a tail on your coat and an even higher top hat.
• Hangover ($300) An emote. Similar to that of the collector, this is certainly appropriate for the role. And it'd good for a laugh here and there. Otherwise, though, I'm not quite sure who would use this and for what.
• Norfolk Roadster Dappled Buckskin and Spotted Tricolor Coats ($950) The roadster is a fan favorite horse. While it doesn't have max anything, I don't think, it has near max stamina, really good health, and near max speed, and I have no complaints about its demeanor when under attack (just this morning I got attacked by a cougar and then a wolf pack back to back, and my roadster handled them both like a champ.) It's one of the best all-rounders, being really excellent at everything. In order to get better at any one stat with another breed, you have to sacrifice things of equal value. I got the dapple buckskin, because the spotted tricolor looked too similar to my Criollo, and while I don't necessarily really love that coat pattern, it's worth pointing out that the white face mask markings do make it very distinctive looking. Again, as with all top tier role horses, you actually need to completely finish the role before you can buy it.
• Stuart Top Hat ($250) A very odd looking and tall hat that unlocks once you finish the moonshiner role. It's very distinctive, and the fact that you can buy it for cash instead of gold is attractive, but I also think it looks kinda silly.