xtisme, there should be a dead alien with a 1950s-style ray gun near that wreckage. It’s a pretty cool weapon, although ammunition is hard to come by.
Also, go find Mama Dolce’s food processing plant (near the Falls Church/Arlington Metro Station exit) - without spoiling it, let’s just say you will not be short of Chinese assault rifles after a couple of hours there…
FinnAgain, the first time I played through the game I tried mastering all weapons before realising it’s a fool’s game. Small Guns is by far the most useful given the frequency of weapons you can use with that skill. Melee is my backstop, and Energy Weapons only because I want to play with the lasers.
I’m trying to build skills sparingly - Barter is pointless as I’m fairly wealthy as is (no buying themes for me; tried that with my first character), Speech is fairly useless for the way I’m playing it (and when it’s critical, I’m not too proud to stoop to save-and-reload until it works with a “SPEECH 4%” option), Science and Lockpicking I’m only building a little as they’re not difficult areas (to hit 50% chances) and Sneak is the next one I want to work on.
My first (good) character was a master in Barter, Speech, Medicine, Science, all the “nice” stuff. Now I’m playing it the no-karma way…
Chinese assault rifle - for all medium-range combat and for the tougher end of the monster spectrum.
Sniper rifle - for the long-range work (I had the Reservist’s sniper rifle in my previous game).
Combat shotgun - for the close-range work (mole rats and feral ghouls a speciality).
Shishkebab - for those panicked melee moments where I’m caught short.
I also keep a healthy stock of frag grenades for robots and frag mines for fire ants.
I haven’t had the heart to part with my 10mm submachine-gun (and I have about 1,000 rounds of 10mm to get through, so I’ll keep using it until it wears out), and my 10mm silenced pistol (thanks, former Mr Burke!) is quite handy for those evil “break into your house and assassinate you so I can loot your stuff” no-goodnik kills.
Pretty sure that she’s pulling your leg. The best melee weapons are probably
-“Occam’s razor” combat knife
-“Stabhappy” combat knife
-“Jack” ripper
-The Ant’s Sting
-“Butch’s Toothpick” switchblade
-Fawkes’ super sledge
-The Shishkebab
There may be one with a ‘lighsaber’ graphic, but there is certainly nothing as powerful as a lighsaber would be in the game. (No one-hit-kills like a flamer can pull off).
I think she was probably talking about the Shishkebab which is a flaming melee weapon that does set your enemies on fire, but that’s not a lightsaber.
!!!
Go back there!
In or around the wreckage is Fallout 3’s Alien Blaster and some ammo. Or (i’m a bit fuzzy on this) it might be the Alien Blaster variant that I think is called a “firepike”, but I’ve never found the alien ship myself . What I can tell you is that it’s one of the most powerful energy guns in the game and the firepike sets your enemies on fire when you hit them.
True.
That’s why choosing the correct perks is so important. You can’t keep leveling up to get more.
I hope the limit is only there until the first downloadable content appears (a la Oblivion).
On the subject of fancy flying saucers:
As well as the alien blaster by the wrecked flying saucer, if you ever see a luminous green explosion in the sky overheard, don’t do what I did and run the hell away, wait, watch where the fragments land, and you’ll find ammo and a Firelance Alien Blaster (as mentioned by FinnAgain), which does between 80-120 points of damage depending on your skills.
Agree without reservation on Barter. There’s no point in putting a single skill point into it. If you can deal with the save-reload trick for a 4% chance, more power to you. It’d drive me bonkers. Science probably doesn’t have to be above 50% but having lockpicking at 100% can make a whole lot of areas much, much easier. The broken off bow of Rivet City comes to mind.
And yeah, I’m almost done with a second play through and my next (and probably final until I get bored again in a few years and pick the game back up) will be an evil female character with the black widow perk.
Personally, I prefer the “xuolong” (or something) assault rifle that you get
from a quest that starts in the museum of history, I think
The Victory sniper rifle (forget where the hell I found it. Doesn’t fire as quick as the reservist’s rifle, but does knock opponents down on critical hits)
The Terrible shotgun that you get
from the bartender in green hills, or whatever the raider base is called that has a super mutant behemoth in an electrified cage
I find that with those, the hockey guy’s AP granting mask, Action Boy and Grim Reaper, nothing actually gets close enough to me that I need a melee weapon. Ever.
Cool, I’ll keep an eye out for those. I normally stick with the gun-related perks but few of the unique guns - I’ll check them out (I missed a lot of side-quests on my first play-through).
Ronald obsessed-with-Nuka-Cola-woman (can’t remember his name) in Girdershade has a fairly nasty unique sawn-off shotgun you can whack him for, but the two-shots-before-reload limitation is a bit of a pain.
The save-and-reload Speech tests are a real pain, but I’m only planning on doing it twice -
Once for The Family, so I can convince Vance to play nice and ultimately get the Shishkebab schematic for free, and once for Mayor MacCready to get into Little Lamplight hassle-free.
Yah, the schmuck in Girdershade has the “Kneecapper”, which is a great small gun but its reload time and two shot capacity means that you should probably only use it if you’re going for the Xbox achievement that you get from attacking enemies with each of the unique weapons at least once. Or maybe fighting lone animals in the wasteland, maybe… still probably better to save shotgun shells for the combat shotgun.
As a side note:
It’s great fun to kill him by sneaking up to him and ‘reverse pickpocketing’ him so you can drop a frag grenade in his pocket. He screams a bit and runs around, and then explodes. You don’t even take a karma hit, I don’t think. And then you have a shiny new sawed off.
Then again, it’s great fun to kill lots of people using that technique, too.
Oh, and: the Xulong is from one of the museums… I think it’s actually the one where you get the lunar lander’s dish for the GNR quest. There should be a number of terminals you can access which ask you for a prime number. If you correctly solve the puzzle you’re given a location on your map, and when you get there you find a dead guy with the unique assault rifle on him. It counts as a “Chinese” type though, and so you need Chinese assault rifles to keep it repaired.
The good thing about themes is that the science one gives you an energy weapon skill book and the love one gives you a speech book. Other than that, not worth it.
The fatboy nukes are pretty much one shot kills too…but I’ve only used a few though as I have only like 6 rounds for the one launcher I have. I’ve found that the sniper rifle at medium range usually does most of the random baddies in one shot (it’s pretty funny to see how people fly back from a shot…it’s no mystery seeing this game why people have the impression that gun shots should do so much to a person, or why the Kennedy Assassination CTers think some of the things they think). The combat shot gun also does most random raider types and ghouls in one shot if they are at close range…but you have to let them in more closely than I like…which is why I generally don’t use the thing even though I have a ton of ammo and lots of extra weapons to repair them.
Yeah, but I meant if you were a melee spec’d character. Grenades are explosives, IIRC. Although, to be honest, I hardly ever used them at all except the ones designed for disabling robots. I’m not sure if nuka grenades retain their potency for killing things if you have a low explosives skill.
Yeah, they do. I rarely use grenades at this point. (I’m only level 7 or so and haven’t even gotten to GNR yet. I’ve been messing around with finding bobbleheads–yeah, I’m using a bobble head guide and a map to the various locations.)
But I’ve started selling my frag grenades because Nuka Grenades do soemthing like 3 times the damage and take up the same amount of inventory space. And there’s seems to be a decent amount of materials for making them (Vault 106, for example has a lot of turpentine and that boxed stuff. And tin cans are everywhere.)
I’m finding the best weapon to use on a regular basis is one of two of the unique weapons; The plasma rifle you get from the Replicated Man quest, and Lincoln’s Repeater, which is also just fun to use. Still takes a few shots from either to take down a Deathclaw, though.
Nuka Quantum is easy to find? Geesh, I can’t even get together 30 bottles for the Nuka Grenade Recipe. I did buy the recipe off some random caravan, though.
Hello. I’m completely new to the Fallout series. I just purchased this game along with the guide for PS3 (it was bundled together). Do you think the guide will come in handy? Or should I just explore on my own?
No, it’s not at all easy to find. You’ll be lucky if you can make 20 quantum grenades. Five or 10 is much more likely.
Neighbor: the guide will definitely come in handy for your second play-through, but it will definitely spoil the everliving fuck out of the game. And a lot of the fun is finding out things for yourself, at least the first time.
I’d advise that you play through without knowing anything the first time (you can do it in about 15-25 hours) and then if you really like the game, use the guide to explore absolutely every nook and cranny.
How does the Silent Running perk function? Are you in ‘sneak mode’ even while running? Or is it that while running, you are only as observable as if you were walking? Or something else entirely? I took this, and I’m not sure I’m seeing a difference.
Er, make that, as long as you do the quest instead of buying the schematic, you’ll only have a few extra. If you buy the schematic you should be able to make anywhere from 30-50 reasonably enough. Above that, you’ll probably need a guide.
Marmot: you can move quickly while in sneak mode without penalty. Otherwise you have to move slowly to avoid a ‘noise penalty’.
Despite having played Fallout, plus Morrowind and Oblivion, I found some of the gameplay non-intuitive and a guide helped. There’s also the possibility that I’m just dense, or didn’t read something I should have. First time through, I ended up holding on to my first Groknar comic for ages (thinking I had to collect a series or something) before realizing I was supposed to read it. Second time through, I realized that best was hording skill books waiting for the perk that doubles their gains…oh, that and getting a house ASAP because of weight issues. Third time through, I’m cheating on the weight issue as inventory management is a nuisance (plus I like decorating my home with Nuka-Cola quantum and toy racers)
. What I can tell you is that it’s one of the most powerful energy guns in the game and the firepike sets your enemies on fire when you hit them.