A Guide to Camp Upgrades in Red Dead Redemption 2

Once you get through the introduction of Red Dead Online, you’ll acquire a camp, which will be yours for the duration of your time with RDO. If you’ve been ignoring the Trader role in Red Dead Redemption 2, then you’ve probably mostly forgotten about it. However, once you buy into the Trader role, your camp becomes the main hub of your entire trading operation. Like anything else in Red Dead Online, you’re going to have to purchase some upgrades to make the most of your camp.

There are a lot of camp upgrades in Red Dead Redemption 2, so figuring out which ones to buy can be a little overwhelming at first. Thankfully, I’ve put together a handy guide to camp upgrades in Red Dead Online. Keep in mind that this guide is tailored to the Trader role, as traders are going to be the people who use the camp the most. Anyone else will probably continue to ignore it.

You can buy camp upgrades by visiting the Wilderness Outfitters shop (it’s the covered wagon that is set up at your camp). You can also buy role-specific upgrades in your Roles menu (in your Start Menu, go to Progress, then go to roles and select the specific role you want to make purchases for). Additionally role-specific camp upgrades can be purchased at Wilderness Outfitters, like any other camp upgrade.

Butcher Table – After receiving a letter from Cripps, then performing some tasks for the old man, you will have the ability to buy the Butcher Table for your camp. This costs 15 gold bars, but it’s the only way to buy into the Trader role.

Once you purchase the Butcher’s table, you’ll want to look into buying wagons as soon as you can. There are three wagons available as part of the Trader role, so here’s a brief summary of all three (the Bounty Hunter has a wagon as well, but I won’t get into that here):

Medium Delivery Wagon – This will allow you to sell more goods at a time. The default wagon holds 25 units of goods, while the medium wagon holds 50. At maximum capacity, you can sell a load of goods for $150 locally (and more than that if you choose a distant delivery). This costs $500, but you’ll make that back in no time by making larger deliveries. If you haven’t progressed your Trader role far enough to purchase the Large Delivery Wagon, this one will get you moving.

Large Delivery Wagon – This is your top-priority upgrade as a trader. You absolutely need this. It costs $750, but you’ll want to do absolutely whatever it takes to save that up to buy the wagon. This baby holds 100 units of supplies, which (despite the math not really working out) will sell for $500. If you choose a long-distance delivery rather than a local one, you’ll end up making $625. One distant delivery will almost pay for the wagon. This wagon is the tool you need if you want to make an absolute fortune in Red Dead Redemption 2.

Hunting Wagon – I file this in the “nice to have” category, but only because I typically run with a posse. If you mostly play solo, this will help you keep Cripps stocked up effectively. For $550, you get a cart that holds five large carcasses, ten medium carcasses, or an absolute boatload of pelts (I’m told 50, but I haven’t yet verified this number).

Aside from the wagons, there are several other camp upgrades you can purchase at Wilderness Outfitters. Here are the details:

Fast Travel Post – You can fast travel to your camp from any fast travel post in the game. However, you can’t fast travel from your camp until you buy this upgrade for $700. You also have to reach rank 65 before it unlocks (or you can spend 100 gold bars to unlock it early). You will still have to pay the fast travel fees whenever you use it.

There is debate over whether or not the Fast Travel Post is worth it (with many people feeling ripped off by the high buy-in price), but I consider this an essential part of your camp. Remember, as a trader, you’re making money really, really fast. Having to make long treks on horseback is slowing your progress. Don’t let travel hold you back from your true potential; pony up for the post and fast travel whenever you want to.

Stew Pot – The Stew Pot is good fun if you like it when you’re character’s cores are golden. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a pot full of stew that your character can eat. You can also toss in your own ingredients to upgrade the stew.

While there are a lot of different stews you can make, the only one you need to focus on is the Superior Quality Stew. Eating this will give your character gold cores for a full in-game day, and all it costs is three Big Game Meat (which can be farmed off wolves, bears, and gators).

There is always one stew better than the Superior Quality Stew, though it will rotate every day and require rarer ingredients (the Chocolate Game Stew, for example, requires three Game Meat, one Chocolate Bar and one Canned Kidney Beans). If you can make this limited-time stew, however, you will have gold cores for three full in-game day cycles. I make the top stew if I have the ingredients on hand; otherwise I ignore it.

If you want to know more about the Stew Pot, I have a lengthy, in-depth guide for that.

Weapon Locker – The Weapon Locker lets you store your guns. This will make them unavailable to equip from your horse, but you can return to your camp at any time to re-equip them. This isn’t useful in the early stages of the game, but once you start stockpiling weapons, it will keep your weapon wheel nice and tidy. Only keep the weapons on hand that you know you’ll need so you don’t find yourself endlessly tapping your way through menus during gunfights.

Dog – If your camp often gets raided while you’re off making supply runs, you might want to purchase the dog. At Trader Rank 8, you can teach your dog to warn you when thieves are raiding your camp.

Otherwise, the dog is just a little cutie who hangs out at your camp and poops. Also, Cripps doesn’t like dogs, so the dog’s presence will keep the old man on edge. This means you’ll hear some amusing exclamations from Cripps from time to time.

Deluxe Campfire – Upgrading your campfire will cost $500, but it provides the benefit of speeding up your crafting process. If you spend ludicrous amounts of time crafting at your camp, you might find this to be an efficient upgrade. Personally, I don’t find it to be worth the cash unless you’ve got money spilling out of your ears.

Larger Tents – There are several tent upgrades you can purchase, and they come with a boost to how fast your cores refill while in Free Roam mode. Obviously, the larger the tent, the larger the stat boost. The Covered tent is the largest — it will refill your cores to 75% when entering Free Roam, and cause your cores to refill 175% faster when resting at your camp.

Themes – Themes won’t help you do anything practical, but they will certainly make you look cool. The trader theme is particularly fun because you can see all the goods Cripps has been making. Of course, don’t waste good money on themes until you’re already rolling in dough (which you will be if you can upgrade your Trader role to its full potential).

Cripps’ Outfits – Like themes, the outfits for Cripps are just there for cosmetic purposes. I like to dress my Cripps up like a pirate, but that’s just for fun — it has no tangible benefit aside from aesthetics. These upgrades simply provide another opportunity for Red Dead Online‘s high rollers to flaunt their wealth.