I decided to write this article as I’d mentioned this method in another post and it seemed like it wasn’t a widely known technique - apologies if that isn’t the case!
This technique is most helpful on the older consoles with their horrendous loading times - if your game boots up in a few seconds from your SSD then you really don’t need to read this.
So… we all know what a pain it is to farm sets of Pimpernels, Sand Hawks or Fibbers - when you find one you want you have to “dupe” it - transfer it to a 2nd character, save/quit that character and then exit the game without saving player 1. You can then amuse yourself for the 2 minutes it takes the game to load back up again (on PS3) by humming a jaunty tune… before having another go.
I figured, since you have to add a 2nd character anyway, you may as well add one that will also receive the quest reward – double your chances and get 2 guns per turn-in! To do this you simply need some characters who haven’t completed the quest before - I use my mules. Once you’ve found one gun (or 2 if you’re really lucky!) you can save them to Sand Hawk Sid (he holds my Sand Hawks) and then bring in Pimpernel Patty (you can figure it out) and go again.
The only thing you have to do differently to the standard method is make sure you save (and the 2nd character joins) BEFORE the final mission objective triggers – player 2 won’t get the item if they join at the turn-in point. This is pretty easy for a lot of situations as there is a tiny final objective, such as “Return to Captain Scarlett” for the Sand Hawk quest – as long as player 2 is there before that then they will also get a Sand Hawk (don’t move forward too fast and trigger the objective before the automatic player 2 save!). Some objectives are more time consuming, such as beating Mal for the Fibber, but I still think this method saves considerable time against a single item turn-in.
If you’re going for multiple guns then you still have to position player 2 close by, so you can transfer items without triggering a save. If you’re just going for a Slag Eviscerating Ruby or a Rustler’s Orphan Maker then you don’t have to move player 2 from where they start – just run the main player to the turn-in and then check both inventories before (most likely) exiting the game to try again.