Fallout 3 starting tips?

The Game Room
1

Seeing that there is a Fallout 3 vs. Oblivion thread below, I may as well jump in one with my own.

I have just gotten the game and is getting my ass handed to me. I just reached Megaton, only has a 10mm pistol and wherever I go I am owned. There was a giant scorpion at the super market; once I ran into three Talon mercenaries. There’s nothing I can do.

What is the best way to prep myself before exploring? I keep finding myself running out of ammo. And the raiders in the market can kill me from a distance with their combat shotguns.

2

Yes I died a lot early on because I wanted to explore as much as possible before doing any storyline missions. That involved a lot of sneaking, and it’s possible, but difficult and relies a lot on luck.

After I got tired of trying to fend off giant rad scorpions with a bb gun, and getting my ass handed to me, what I did is concentrate on the megaton quests. There’s quite a few of them to do and they all give you some rewards that help with either your stats or your cash reserves. After you have some better stats and have some money to buy some weapons, you’ll find it a bit easier.

3

You’ll need to level a bit before taking on the wild great yonder. Unlike Oblivion, this has a relatively fixed level system, meaning that straying from the newbie friendly zones will mean getting your arse handed to you in a paper bag. There’s plenty of quests in Megaton that I can recommend. Off the top of my head - and it’s been some months - I recommend the scrounging quest from the merchant, the family letter quest and the disarm/detonate nuke quests. There’s also the fire-ants quest. I can’t remember who gives these quests, but just talk to everyone in town.

As for the initial combat, it can be a right pain in the ass. Stock up on medkits as much as you can and use the assisted targeting system as much as possible. Remember that you can stack up shots by repeatedly clicking the limb you want to shoot. Keeping your pistol in high repair is also vital.

When you’ve gained a few levels, get the quests to nick food from the supermarket and take it nice and slow. Try to single out the bandits and go for headshots - they have nice weapons and are relatively speaking easy to take down. Talon mercenaries are and will always be a pain in the arse.

4

Or you can cheat your butt off. There’s a ton of cheat codes for Fallout. I cheated my first time playing, giving myself extra ammo, better weapons, and the ability to carry it all. I wanted to start exploring the world immediately and didn’t want to wait around.

5

If you are doing the Supermarket quest for Moira, That is is pretty tough at starting levels. Some of the other Megaton ones are easier. And there are a few nearby places where you can pop some easier bandits for supplies and exp.

Or you can just run directly and get the cool hidden stuff like a sniper rifle or a minigun :slight_smile:

6

I ran into a guy that said he’d do some repairs, but the costs were high (for me, coming right out of the Vault). What do I need to know about repairs?

7

Every Weapon Takes damage fairly quickly, and loses stats. Every NPC repairman charges a lot, So it’s worth while to get your repair skill up. There is a maximum repair level that is based on your skill or the skill of the NPC. I think most of them max out between 50-80%. So eventually you will probably want your personal repair to 100%, so you can get full damage. However, In order to repair yourself you need a weapon of the same type to break down for parts. And you never get full value(although it might depend upon your skill level)

For example, You have a 10mm Pistol at 30% status. You find another 10mm at 15% status(most weapons you loot are pretty bad shape) When you go to repair and break the 15 down and fix the 30 you may only get 37% status weapon as a result. It also MAxes at the repair skill. So if you have a 50% and 40%, and your skill level is 58% you will only get a 58% gun. It’s better to not repair. It will tell you how much extra damage you will get before you commit, so you will know what you are getting.

Don’t worry too much early. It isn’t linear. A weapon at 50% status probably does 75% of max damage, and one at 80% probably does 90% max damage. If you can repair them to around 50 it works pretty well. Later on some of the weapons are just so damn rare it’s hard to find a second to repair them with very often, so when you do, you will want to be able to take them to 100% with your skill, so you don’t waste a point of it.

Personally I never pay an NPC to repair. By the time of the game I don’t need that money for ammo, I can repair better than them.

8

Focus on your own repair skill; it’s essential for any build of character.

You can repair your gear with anything that is (or is very similar to) the gear you want to repair.

Starting tips; it depends on what character you’re making, but for the best chance of survival you want to focus on small guns. A quick tip to start off with; in Springvale there’s a small house with an ex-hooker in it. Tell her you want some of her caps in exchange for telling Moriarty she’s gone and you’ll get 300 caps - money for nothing.

Always try and sneak-critical to the head when beginning combat. In fact, you should be crouched pretty much all the time in combat.

In difficult fights, save VATs until you’re really in trouble - you don’t take damage when firing in VATs, but can still dish it out.

If you’re short on money or ammo (or both), loot, sell, buy, repeat. Raiders shouldn’t be too tough if you follow the above combat advice; once you’ve iced them take all their stuff and flog it to Moira to buy more bullets with. .32 cal is a good choice, the hunting rifle is cheap but lethal early on.

Speaking of which, when you come out of the vault, see Springvale, turn right and navigate your way around the back of where the vault is (you can go left, but you’ll bump into raiders). You’ll see a barn. Save. Approach. A random encounter will spawn - sometimes these are very good (e.g. the Firelance, a powerful alien weapon falling from the sky) and sometimes very bad (Radscorps, Talon Company). If you don’t get a good one, reload and approach again. There’s a hunting rifle and ammo in the barn too, up the stairs.

9

Or a swarm of Deathclaws :frowning:

10

That’s a bad one, at low levels you’re pretty much screwed.

The Super-Duper Mart is another location for Random Encounters, which is why the OP encountered a Giant Radscorp there.

11

You still take damage in VATS. You do seem to fire faster, a certainly more accurately than you do outside of it, but go up agains a pair or more of minigun wielding super mutant masters, and if you have low enough health to begin with, and/or have chained enough shots in VATS, you will die before you exit VATS mode. This is even more annoying if you have a massive AP pool, and your target steps behind a tree.

Min/maxing tips: start with 8 Int. At level 2 (when you first leave the vault) take the perk Intense Training, and add a point to Int. Before doing anything else, sneak your way down to River City, go into the lab, and grab the Int Bobblehead in the Science Lab. Do NOT talk to anyone in the lab while doing this (except the old guy, if you want) as it will cut out a couple of useful quests. Fast travel back to Megaton, or the Vault. At level 4 take the extra skill points perk, to get yourself 23 skill points per level from then on.

Easy mode is maxing Sneak, Small Guns, and Repair. Remember that each skill has a bobblehead, and that bobblehead is worth 10 skill points. Also, you can get 2 points of Luck and and a point of Per from wearing the Ranger armor, Luck Shades, and a hat. Don’t spend your perks on things that raise your skills (Little Leaguer, etc.), spend them on things that give you combat bonuses (Commando, Action Boy/Girl, etc.) or on Intense Training. After that, Lockpick or Science with a slight lean towards lockpick.

Stat order of importance: Int (skill points), Agi/Per (action points/enemy awareness), Luck/Str (adds to every skill, and effects how often you crit/how much you can carry) Cha/End (Perk access/Perk access and effects health).

Basic gameplay: sneak when you’re outside of a town, or known safe area. Use terrain against your targets. Use VATS at the beginning of every combat, and as then again as soon as your AP have refreshed enough to get a kill with what ever weapon you’re using. When you’ve cleared out an area, put all the loot in a container near the travel point so you can lug it to your house. Only sell things you don’t need (armor that doesn’t repair the ranger armor, pistols, etc.). Some items don’t have weight, these I don’t sell unless I need to buy something from this vendor right now.

12

Do stats max out at 10? So if I were to leave the Vault at 10 INT, I’d be doing myself a disfavor because, to quote a wise man, “The bobble, it does nothing”?

13

Do not blow up or defuse the nuke in Megaton before you’ve got at least some gear and skills.

Doing either triggers the random appearance of either Talon Mercs or bounty hunters gunning for you, anywhere. Good source of gear once you can deal with them, quick source of death otherwise

You also might want to head to the far SW of the map early on.

A quest there gives you a ghould mask that makes feral ghouls not attack you on sight. Makes crawling around the D.C. sewers a lot less risky as you get to pick your battles.

@**Munch **: yup, skills cap at 10. No need to raise them above 9 - a few bobbleheads are annoying to find and get before you can deal with lots of muties and/or bandits though.

Other tips :

  • Until you’ve got a combat shotgun and tons of ammo for it (or a shish-kabob and melee skills, but melee is much more dangerous a route than Small Arms/Heavy/Energy Weaps obviously), do NOT go near mirelurks (those giant crabmen). Their only weak spot is the head, which you can only hit reliably at point blank… and they need three shots on average, so the double-barrel is out.

  • There’s at least one spot in the game where you can, voluntarily or not, skip a number of steps in the main questline, and the plot exposition (and EXP) that goes with them. Avoid hitting switches willy nilly in garages out in the sticks. A garage with only rats in it, located roughly in the middle left section of the world map has a secret vault hidden under it. If you use the button that opens the trapdoor leading to the vault, you’ll find it, and your father in it. So until you’ve got the quest to find your father in an unknown vault, don’t hit switches unless you know what they do :slight_smile:

  • As has already been said, Repair is a tremendously useful skill. Helps you keep your guns and armor in tip top condition, and even boost them at higher levels of skill.

  • Bottlecap mines. Buy them, learn to make them, use them, love them. Regular mines are a bit weak, but bottlecaps will blow even a master mutant to bits in one go.

  • Beware of cars. You see, all those derelict old cars strewn across the landscape have a nuclear engine under the hood. Guess what happens when you pump high explosives or lots of firepower into them ? So if you’re taking cover behind them, run away at the first hint of smoke, or a grenade/rocket tossing enemy. And if a bunch of enemies take cover behind them, smile, and shoot the car.

  • don’t neglect lockpicking and computer : you can get quite a bit of stuff and miscellaneous EXP by opening chests and reading secret files.

14

I had a bitch of a time with the supermarket quest - I eventually turned down the difficulty. You can change the difficulty on the fly, you know - move it up and down as you like.

15

Yep. Skills also max at 100. So don’t use any skill books past that point. You can, without mods, take 10 points of Intense Training, which gives you a stat point to put anywhere. So you have 35 + 5 + 7 + 10 possible ability points, with 14 of those being required. Assuming you’re min/maxing a small guns/stealth character, the end result might look something like:

S 8
P 10
E 6
C 5
I 10
A 10
L 8 (Ranger armor gives you +1, Luck 8ball gives you +1)

If you really take it far, you’ll switch into +Cha clothes when you deal with people.

The other 10 perks you’ll want are:
Silent running (also gives points into stealth, but the running in stealth is why you want it)
Commando
Bloody Mess
Educated
Sniper
Action Boy/Girl
Better Criticals
Black Widow (if you’re really into min/maxing a female is better than a male, because there are more males in the game for this perk to affect)
Finesse
Grim Reaper’s Sprint

Note: Even on the hardest setting such a character makes the game trivial to the point of being boring.

16

Well, only 10% of the damage.

Re stats: if you’ve got Broken Steel you can get 10 in all S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats without much difficulty. Take the ‘Almost Perfect’ perk at level 30 then get the bobbleheads.

Better Criticals is essential (and Finesse enhances your chance of a critical).
As is Grim Reaper’s Sprint.
Avoid ‘Here and Now’ and ‘Swift Learner’ like the plague.

@ Kobal2 - Talon Company and the Regulators come after you because of karma levels, not because of the bomb.

17

Do they now ? I humbly stand corrected. Learn something new every day.

18

Actually you’re half right; Burke does send Talon Company after you if you diffuse it, but the Regulators are a karma thing. You can also get Talon Company after you purely through karma (and random encounters) anyway, so you might as well complete The Power of the Atom if you’re good karma already. Talon Company are good for loot, too.

Another tip: If you’re in a fight you can’t handle (Super Mutant Brutes at low levels can be a pain), cripple the head, run, and go into sneak mode. Crippling the head also cripples the perception stat, so they’ll have a harder time finding you. When the detection indication reads [HIDDEN], you can go for kill shot.

19

What you do first is going to depend a great deal on what sort of build you’re trying to make. I find small guns and energy weapons wildly overpowered, so I tend not to train them – and big guns is totally useless since they nerfed their accuracy in one of the patches. That means I usually play either a melee or unarmed ninja-type with high stealth. Without stealth they’re totally useless, since every enemy in the game can run (and does) run backwards, shooting with 100% accuracy, faster than you can run forward.

Anyway, if you’re going with a weapon build, you probably want to try and find some raiders and loot their ammo and weapons. Springvale school is good for that, and the ones outside respawn. The best way to take them down early is with mines – and there are two easy ways to get a shitload of mines. First, Moira’s quest to Minefield (natch) will yield an armload of mines for you while you do the quest, and if you sneak around at night you won’t even have to do any combat at all. And since you’re going to want to sneak over to Rivet City to grab the intelligence bobblehead early, take the bridge which crosses right near the Anchorage Monument. It has a truckload of mines set on it, free for the taking. Between those two you should have something like 30 or 40 frag mines, more than enough to take down several groups of Raiders and loot their stuff, which should get the ball rolling for you.

If you’re making a melee/unarmed build, I recommend you just wander around near Megaton (the area just south of Megaton, near the ruined overpass, is good) and hunt down dogs, small radscorpions, and molerats to build up your skills.

Incidentally, I strongly recommend you grab the two cross-repair mods which will allow you much more leeway in repairing your armour and weapons. It’s one of those things which should have been made that way officially. Instead of needing an identical weapon or armour to salvage for repairs, they only need to be similar; so, for example, a .32 revolver can be used to repair the .44 scoped magnum, and the automatic rifle can repair the Chinese automatic.

If you’re going to play a ninja-type build, you may also wish to consider downloading the melee pack, which includes a bunch of new melee-related perks and a whole pile of new melee weapons for variety.

Edit: If you’re planning on running any mods, DO NOT download the 1.5 patch, since it breaks almost every mod in existence.

20

I’m surprised people are having difficulty early on. Even with difficulty pumped up all the way and never blowing points on the Firearms skill, I’ve never had much difficulty with the raiders at the Super Duper Mart (whom I refer to as the Heads Just Pop Right Off Gang). I sneak in, I raid their unprotected weapon and ammo store to the right just as you walk in, and then I sneak forward taking off one head after another. If I fuck up and confront more than one at a time, I back around a corner and make them come to me as my AP refreshes.

And yet, Gukumatz recommends the fire ant quest as a place to build XP? Holy crap, that quest is murder. When I see that kid coming at me, I start running. I don’t do that quest until I’m bulging with 'nades. Am I just playing completely differently from everyone else?