Dead end in-game

[Heat]

So I've been playing XPZ for about three years now, and lately - latest major story mission was "Capture Aurora" and the Dr. X trap WAAY before that - I feel like I missed something bc I've reached a dead end in reseach since nothing new is popping out and all these gauss/plasma gun stockpiles in my hideouts are making me nervous. I'm absolutely oblivious to the backend aspects of the game, so I'd greatly appreciate if someone took a peek at my save and told me what I did wrong and if there's a way I can progress somehow - with or without tinkering with the files. Peace.

P.S. And yes, I savescum since I'm a very casual player, sorry

[Iazo]

Don't be sorry for savescum, play how you want, it's single player, though there are easier ways to get ahead, and savescumming might get you into bad mindsets. Well, no matter, let's look at your save.

I looked, things look wrong. On which Xpz version you played this save? This version looks...OLD. Like, at least one year out of date old. Maybe 2 years.

  You should be trying to head to School Graduation, and the only thing OBVIOUSLY holding you back are bounties.

You have not bothered to do any Bounty Hunting past the very start. You are missing Bounty Hunting Badge C and B, and also pretty much all the prizes except a very few at the start. Without getting deep in the weeds, you need at least favours from the big 3 Bounty players, Jack, Mutant Alliance, and Zaxx bank, the last of which is blocking you from Diplomacy and consequently School Grad.

Also, your monthly activity is low. Especially for Year 7. I cannot know why at the first glance. Having a score of 8k in Jan 2607 is really not what it's cracked up to be. I would have to play your save and see why.