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Fallout 3 general tips

From The Vault

The purpose of this page is to collect quick tips for Fallout 3 from players in the field. Perhaps one might see this as a more practical version of Moira's Wasteland guide.

Contents

[edit] Stats (S.P.E.C.I.A.L., Skills, and Perks)

[edit] S.P.E.C.I.A.L.

>> NEVER START A CHARACTER WITH ANY S.P.E.C.I.A.L. STAT RAISED TO 10 <<

You should only raise your SPECIAL attributes to 9 max, because each stat has a related bobblehead which can be found throughout the wasteland, worth one point to the related stat. If a S.P.E.C.I.A.L. is set to 10, you are WASTING one point which you could be spent on a different stat and made up using the bobblehead.



To see a technical breakdown of the effects of each S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attribute, see each attribute's page. Below are player comments on the relative use (or uselessness) of each attribute.

  • Strength affects carrying capacity, which affects how often you'll have to head back to town to sell stuff. Strength is also more useful to melee players than shooters since it increases damage done with Melee Weapons but does nothing for any of the ranged weapon skills.
  • Perception is very useful for getting the jump on enemies, and as such, is more useful for stealthy players.
  • Endurance is of most use to melee players. It grants a bonus to Hit points, radiation resistance and poison resistance.
  • Charisma affects Barter and Speech and is perhaps most useful to relatively non-violent players. If you enjoy combat and scavenging, Charisma may be of little use to you.
  • Intelligence is most useful to players who want to boost many different skills because every point in Intelligence will give you an additional skill point to spend when you level up (worth 19 skill points per point of Intelligence by lvl 20). It is also relatively more useful to non-stealthy fighters since every 1 point in Int. increases Repair and Medicine by 2 (it also boosts Science).
  • Agility is very important to stealth players, but also important to most shooters and VATS users. Agility boosts your Action Points, Sneak, and Small Guns (which offer more flexibility, competitive damage, and a lower cost compared to Energy Weapons).
  • Luck is most important to players who rely on critical hits, as every 1 point grants 1% to your crit chance. Luck also makes a relatively minor impact on all of your skills (Luck / 2, rounded up). Luck of 5 is a prerequisite for the economic perks of Fortune Finder and Scrounger. Luck of 6 is needed for combat perks like Mysterious Stranger and Better Criticals.

[edit] Skills

  • You should only put a max of 80-90 points in a skill when you level because
    • The respective bobblehead will increase it by 10
    • Many perks increase 1-2 skills by 5-15 points
    • Several pieces of clothing increase 1-2 skills by 1-5 points.
    • Extreme players may also want to only increase their skills to 50-60 with skill points, as it's possible to gain 40-50 skill points per skill with skill books (and the Comprehension perk, which doubles the bonus).
  • Fallout 3 is primarily a shooter. As such, the Small Guns and Repair skills are two of the most important skills. Both boost the damage you deal with conventional weapons. Earlier on in the game, Big Guns or Energy Weapons are not practical alternatives to pistols, assault rifles, shotguns, and long guns (Hunting Rifle, Sniper Rifle, etc.) due to their rarity and/or the fact that their damage is not significantly better than their Small Guns equivalents. However bear in mind that later on in the game, advanced Energy Weapons are some of the most powerful in the game.
  • Repair is primarily used to keep your weapons and armor functional, but only works if you can find or purchase an adequate supply of similar armor/weapons to use for parts (which is a problem for some items more than others).
    • Keep in mind that some advanced versions of a weapon can be repaired with parts from their baser cousins. For example, the Silenced 10mm Pistol can be repaired with parts from the standard 10mm Pistol. Lincoln's Repeater can be repaired with Hunting Rifles. Beware: Chinese Assault Rifles cannot be repaired using standard Assault Rifles (because they are not advanced version of each other) but the Xuanlong Assault Rifle is an advanced version of the Chinese Assault Rifle and can be repaired with them.
    • Your Repair skill partially determines the initial condition of schematics weapons.
    • Repair is also needed to disarm the triggers for a wide variety of Traps like bear traps, tripwires, and pressure plates.
  • You may wish to start out with a minimum of 25 points in Lockpick and Science (either naturally or through gear). Locks and computers have 5 levels of difficulty, and you can deal with each if you have the correct skill at 0 (accessible at any level), 25, 50, 75, or 100. Having Lockpick or Science with points between those is useless.
  • In addition to increasing your grenade damage, mine damage, and granting access to certain Perks, specific levels of Explosives are required to disarm certain explosive-based traps.
    • 25 is required to disarm (or arm)Megaton's bomb
    • 30 is required to disarm hanging Frag Grenade clusters (know as "Grenade Bouquets").
    • 45 is required to disarm Rigged Computer Terminals
    • 60 is required to disarm exploding baby carriages
    • Your Explosives skill also determines how close you can get to mines before they detect you, as well as how long the mine will beep a warning before it goes off. There does not appear to be a fixed Explosives skill necessary to disarm a mine. If you can run up to it and click on it fast enough, you may be able to disarm a mine with very little Explosives skill, but if you're slow it may blow up before you reach it.
  • Tag the skills you will use most early in the game rather than worrying about what you will use the whole game. Tagging a skill is a one time boost of 15 points and thereafter has no effect. So if you tag a combat skill and don't fire a shot until level 4 because you did Megaton quests then those points were essentially wasted and would have been better spent on Lockpick or even Speech, (if you don't have the patience for TONS of reloads for speech challenges). Think about what you will be doing from levels 2 to 5 or so and tag skills for those levels, then spend your points on level ups building up your other skills. There's no reason not to get an early jump on a skill you'll use at the beginning even if you don't intend to raise it to high levels. As long as you have even 5 Intelligence a tag is only equal to 1 level's worth of skill points.
  • As mentioned above it can be very useful to get Lockpick and Science to 25 early on, making them excellent choices for tag skills, and if you got the right outfits during your escape you really only need to raise them to 20 anyway, (or 18 for Lockpick if you have the 1 Perception cap and your Perception isn't already 10... which it should NOT be yet).

[edit] Perks

  • Black Widow (female characters only) is much more useful than its male counterpart Lady Killer (male characters only) because most of the human enemies you'll face during the game will be male, making the 10% damage bonus really worth the perk point.
  • You may find Swift Learner and Here and Now to be of very little use, at least with the current level cap set at 20 (30 with Broken Steel add-on). Appropriate use of your bed to grant the Well Rested bonus and even occasional execution of side quests should grant you more than enough EXP to hit level 20 before the end of the main quest. Since there is a level cap (and thus a Perk cap), you may find other perks more useful.
  • Perks that add to your radiation resistance are generally a waste, since you can buy an infirmary for your house (whether it be in Megaton or Tenpenny Towers) that rids you of your radiation for free, as many times as you want.

[edit] Weapons, Armor, & Drugs

  • Assault rifles (Assault Rifle, Chinese Assault Rifle, etc.) can be pretty inaccurate beyond 10 yards or so until your Small Guns skill improves, even in VATS. You can raise your Small Guns skill (which includes rifles) by taking the Gun Nut perk (level 2; 3 ranks) and increase rifle accuracy in VATS with the Commando (level 8; 1 rank) and Sniper (level 12; 1 rank) perks, though if you're planning on using Assault rifles and other conventional arms, you should be dumping skill points into Small Guns. An early 50 or 75 in Small Guns makes short work of just about everything. Bloody Mess (level 6; 1 rank) adds 5% to all damage, which doesn't hurt either.
  • You will want to carry an assortment of weapons with you, as ammo of one type can be scarce early on. Ammo has the added benefit of having zero weight, so you can carry it all - all the time. There is really no need to sell it (unless you're strapped for cash) because you will eventually pick up a weapon that uses it. One load out could include a 10mm Pistol (for soft targets like animals or Ghouls or for exploding mines you cannot disarm), a shotgun (perfect for when you lead an attacker to follow you around a blind corner and VATS them in the FACE!), an assault rifle (for mid-range engagements), and a long-barreled rifle (for long range fighting). The Assault Rifle family seems to be the most flexible, with a good combination of accuracy, range, damage, and magazine capacity. The Scoped .44 Magnum is also an excellent long-range weapon if you aim by eye. And remember, crouching increases accuracy.
  • As you run across various pieces of armor and clothing that boost certain skills by as much as +5 or even +10, you might want to carry some of them with you as you adventure--they do come in handy. Obviously you have to balance the usefulness of the skill/stat boosts with the extra weight, but most clothing is light. An alternative to carrying the extra clothing around would be to leave it at your house and just grab it when--for example--you need to make repairs or you need to trade.
  • If you've invested some skill points in Repair and obtained a house, a good way to ensure that your weapons and armor are kept in top condition is to collect and store multiple copies of your items in your home. When you return home from an outing, patch up your gear and store the excess "spare parts" equipment you collected in a desk or a locker. As long as you scavenge diligently and go home to repair on a regular basis, you'll keep your equipment in good shape without having to lug around tons of non-loot stuff everywhere.
  • It can sometimes be quite difficult to keep certain weapons or armor in top shape, even if you have 100 Repair, because you can't find or buy enough of the same item to use for repair parts.
  • If you find yourself constantly running low on ammo, here are some ways of increasing your supply:
    • Protector Casdin of the Outcasts, who is found at Fort Independence (nearly due south of Vault 101), is friendly and with a little chat will allow you to turn in laser and plasma weapons, sensor modules, scrap metal, and most pieces of power armor for 5.56mm Rounds and Frag Grenades (along with Radaway and Stimpacks). See The Outcast Collection Agent for a complete list of what he'll take and how much he'll give you for it.
    • Once you've visited Canterbury Commons, you can invest in the weapons merchant Lucky Harith, who will increase his supply and offer much more ammo.
    • As a "good" karma player, you may have little need to visit Tenpenny Tower. It is worth the trip though because two of the NPCs there (Chief Gustavo and one of the store vendors) usually carry a plentiful supply of ammo.
    • You can also help your ammo problem by taking perks that improve accuracy in VATS and using VATS more. The more accurate you are, the less ammo you waste. Also keep in mind that headshots do double-damage, (or quadruple-damage on a critical strike).
    • You can also take a shopping tour, visiting Moira in Megaton, Flak or Shrapnel in Rivet City, Chief Gustavo and Le Chic Boutique in Tenpenny Tower, Quartermaster Durga in the Citadel, and Lucky Harith's caravan. You can easily buy thousands of rounds per trip this way.
    • If you own The Pitt and have finished the quests, you have access to an ammo press that changes any ammo type into another. For instance, lets say you have about 300 10mm Rounds, but you badly need 5.56mm rounds, just put the 10mm rounds in and go to the nearby terminal and select 5.56mm. All of the ammo put in will come out as what you selected. Remember that you can only change conventional ammo in another type, scrap metal can also be converted into ammo as well.
  • For lower level players different kinds of meat are ideal solution to restore health. The best meat kinds are Mole Rat Wonder Meat and Yao Guai Meat. Second type can be purchased from hunters.
  • Assigning Stimpaks to a hotkey allows healing while reloading, when accessing the Pip-Boy is not allowed and enemies may still damage the player.

[edit] Combat

  • Sneaking keeps you safe. Beyond all its other benefits, it's the one way a player has of getting an early-warning before being attacked, even with a single digit sneak skill. Sneaking, at the very least, helps keep a player from being blind-sided.
  • Sneaking will only grant automatic critical strikes (sneak attacks) if your condition is [HIDDEN]. Even if enemies haven't found you ([DANGER]) but are merely searching for you ([CAUTION]), you will not get an automatic critical strike.
    • Note: the Silent Running perk is the only way to decrease the time it takes for the [CAUTION] warning signs to stop flashing red.
  • Sound does not seem to be a major factor in gameplay. In close quarters with enemies nearby, you can bump into shopping carts, which make a loud noise, yet your enemies will not be disturbed by it. The sound of gunfire also does not alert enemies (unless your shot fails to kill or discharges close by). Kill shots are nearly inaudible, but misses and non-kill shot hits are heard and will alert other enemies. In this case, a kill shot can be either:
    • A single shot outside of VATS that kills the target (like a [HIDDEN] sniper rifle head shot) or...
    • A V.A.T.S. attack (regardless of the number of attacks or bullets fired), so long as all targets engaged are killed before VATS ends and you're returned to normal time/perspective.
    • This also brings up the advantages of using the Silenced 10mm Pistol and the Dart Gun, whose shots are silent and are rarely noticed by enemies.
    • Running still makes noise, which can attract and scatter enemies in adjacent areas, which eliminates the element of surprise (i.e. using explosives to take all of them out at once or scoring a sneak attack critical).
  • V.A.T.S. seems most useful when you have multiple (weak) opponents in front of you, or when dealing with enemies in close quarters. Due to its accuracy (specifically with near-by targets), V.A.T.S. can be especially deadly with fast-moving targets. For example, if you wait for a hostile opponent to round a corner and have a powerful weapon (such as the Combat Shotgun) ready, as soon as he pops his head around, you can go into VATS and queue several headshots, each with a very high (most likely 95%) hit probability.
  • If you don't want to sneak around, acquiring a good NPC companion is an excellent idea. There are 4 pretty tough fighters you can get, (Charon, Star Paladin Cross, Fawkes, and Jericho) but only Charon and Jericho are available early on and also Charon does not require a specific Karma (SPC and Fawkes both require good Karma and Jericho requires bad Karma). See the Fallout 3 Companions page for more details.
  • Respawning mostly appears to occur at sites associated with Fallout 3 random encounters. Some known sites where respawning include:
    • The Capitol building will respawn Super Mutants and Talon Company mercenaries within the building, and perhaps outside as well.
    • Super Mutants have also been known to respawn across the Mall, including the Lincoln Memorial.
  • You can tactically reload by mapping your weapon of choice to one of the hot key slots. Once the weapon is assigned if you tap then re tap that option your weapon will be reloaded faster and have no chance of jamming. Works even faster if weapon is holstered.

[edit] Leveling

  • Sleeping in a bed you own (like the one in your Megaton home, or beds you rent from inns) grant you the Well Rested effect, which increases experience gains by 10% while the effect lasts.
    • The Well Rested effect lasts 12 hours from the time that you wake up. So if you wake up at 10am, you'll stop gaining the extra 10% EXP at 10pm.
    • Waiting or sleeping in a bed you do not own will not grant you the effect, and if you have it activated, sleeping anywhere else will remove it. It is therefore useful to finish the main quest in Megaton quickly and gain your own house.
  • Players should keep in mind that there is a level cap. Once you reach level 20/30 you can no longer gain experience, so perks like Swift Learner and Here and Now are completely useless at that point and have taken up the place of a perk you could be using.
  • Often times, you'll come across a computer terminal located next to a locked safe, which usually means that the computer will allow you to unlock the safe. If you have the adequate skill levels to both pick the lock and hack the computer, pick the safe's lock first. Even with the safe unlocked, you can hack the computer terminal, giving you experience points for both the lockpicking and hacking successes, instead of just the hack. Also, you can hack the terminal first, just don't activate the command that unlocks the safe.
  • It is possible to fly through the main quest line and finish the game before you reach the level 20 cap and before experiencing the vast majority of content in the game. If you wish to ensure you reach level 20 before you finish the game, you may wish to stop progressing the main quest line during The Waters of Life and instead do as many side quests as possible. As long as you do not enter the Rotunda in Jefferson Memorial, you will not trigger the event which causes the respawning of enemies at previously visited locations. Avoiding this trigger makes this an ideal place to halt your progress along the main quest line and instead pursue side quests to your heart's content.
    • A good alternative for combat oriented players is to finish the The Waters of Life by leading Doctor Li and the scientists to the citadel. This will allow you to receive Power Armor Training and will spawn lots of walking XP in the wilderness. You will level quicker by finishing this quest, however it will make the wilderness a far more hostile/dangerous environment thanks to Enclave spawns.

[edit] Economics

  • Similar to games of The Elder Scrolls series and previous Fallout games, the amount of weight you can carry is limited by your Strength, which determines your carrying capacity. In addition to the weapons, armor, and medical supplies you carry to survive, you can collect other objects to sell to merchants to make money. This "other" category of stuff can be seen in your inventory under Misc. (though you can certainly collect and sell weapons, armor, and medical supplies!) and can be broken up into two types: stuff for crafting and stuff for selling. Most of the stuff you can use to make weapons (from purchased schematics) has a bad value-to-weight ratio, while the stuff you can't craft with has much better ratios.
  • Probably the most important thing to learn how to calculate in the economic aspect of the game is the Weight-Value Ratio, or WVR. This is simply the value of an item divided by the weight of the item. For example, the value of a Bottlecap Mine is 75. The weight is 0.5 Wg. That equates to a WVR of 150 caps/Wg, which is excellent. However, other items one might consider loot, such as the Conductor (30 caps/5 Wg) have a much lower WVR (6 caps/Wg). Proper use of this statistic allows the player to carry large quantities of value without all the weight.
  • Repair comes in handy when you are picking up a lot of items and start to tip the scale. For example, if you have picked 4 Assault Rifles at a weight of 7 each, you can use Repair to combine them into one if your Repair Skill is high enough and/or their condition is bad enough, getting rid of weight of 21 while retaining most of the value. You come out a little behind in caps than if you sold them individually (usually), but if the alternative is not to pick them up because you would be over-burdened, then pick them up and combine them
  • Early in the game -- including just before leaving Vault 101 -- a player should pick up everything not nailed down and loot every dead body found because you start with zero caps. You can adjust once you have accumulated more caps, such as not bothering with 1:1 WVR items like dishes, and later not bothering with 4:1 and 5:1 items. If you are taking your time playing the game, you should eventually have so much that you don't need to pick up anything but special (e.g.: "named") items (like Eugene), Skill books, etc. This fact is why you don't really need to ever voluntarily put any points into Barter or Speech. You won't be able to sell all the stuff you pick up anyway.
  • The best source of caps is to turn in items to specific characters who are looking for them, like Scrap Metal or Pre-War Books. Taking into consideration the compensation you receive, the WVR is considerably higher for all these items. Because they are not being "sold" to a merchant, characters will give you a flat rate no matter how low (or high) your skill is. This gives an even higher value than their modified quest weight-value ratio would indicate. The downside to this is that these items are rarer, but the benefit of hanging onto them outweighs similar items. It is also worth noting that these characters never seem to run out of caps, so you don't have to worry about the well running dry.
    • Pre-War Books can be given to Scribe Yearling in Arlington Library for 100 caps and 10 EXP.
    • Scrap Metal can be sold to Walter in Megaton for 10 caps and 5 EXP.
      • See the Scrap Metal page for more info on other characters interested in purchasing it.
    • Sensor Modules can be turned into Brotherhood Outcast Protector Casdin at Fort Independence.
      • He'll also take your high-tech equipment. Their state of repair does not concern him. Thus, after investing in the trade caravans, you can buy extremely cheap (and broken) lasers and power armor and trade them with Casdin for other items (like Stimpaks, ammo, etc.) worth far more, thus enabling you to turn a profit.
    • Sugar Bombs can be sold to Murphy in Northwest Seneca Station for 15 caps a box.
      • A successful Speech check when you first talk to him will net you 30 caps per box
      • You'll probably meet Murphy during the Blood Ties quest.
    • Strange Meat (worth 2 caps) can be traded to Eclair in Little Lamplight for Cave Fungus (worth 50 caps).
    • Buffout (worth 20 caps) can be traded to Knock Knock in Little Lamplight for Cave Fungus (worth 50 caps).
      • Note that Buffout, as a drug, has no weight, but Cave Fungus has a weight of 1. Thus, unless you need a large amount of cash, it is unnecessary (and annoying, as you cannot simply "give all") to trade your entire stockpile at once.
    • Blood Packs can be turned in to Vance in Meresti Trainyard for 15 caps after completion of the Blood Ties quest.
    • Nuka-Cola Quantum can be turned in to Sierra Petrovita or Ronald Laren during the course of the The Nuka-Cola Challenge quest for 40 caps each (or 80 to Ronald if you pass a speech test).
    • Nuka-Cola can be converted into Ice Cold Nuka-Cola if you buy the My First Nuka-Cola Machine for your house. This doubles its healing power, with no effect on value or radiation. As Nuka-Cola is plentiful in the Capital Wastes, and the other healing items are worth more (Stimpaks value 25, Blood Pack flat 15, Cave Fungus value 50), this makes Ice Cold Nuka-Cola one of the better choices for healing items (with weight) to carry.
  • Every item in the game has a fixed value that is honored by every merchant in the game (altered by your Barter skill, see below). For example, Moira in Megaton will give you exactly the same amount of money for a Toy Car as the merchants in Rivet City will. Some quests will lead to improved prices available from certain merchants, but for the most part one merchant is as good as another in terms of selling your stuff to.
  • When picking up items, it's important to consider that the Value of the item is altered by your Barter skill. With 13 Barter, you will only gain 50% of the items stated Value. So that 100 cap Sheet Music Book of yours will only gain you 90 caps if you have 100 Barter.
  • Weapons that are in good repair have a high Weight-Value Ratio. Weapons that are nearly broken don't. Especially if you're consistently finding the same type of weapon during a single trip, you should repair your "loot" weapons as much as your Repair skill will allow to increase their value and decrease the weight that you're carrying.
    • If your Barter and Repair skills are high enough (72 and 100 are high enough (modify this down via testing)) you can make a good deal of caps by buying smashed high-value gear from merchants, repairing them, and selling it right back to them. For example, buying three mostly-broken laser rifles for about 100 caps each (300 total), merging them and selling the one laser rifle back for around 600 caps can boost your wealth quickly.
  • Pick up any ammunition you might find. It can be sold if you don't plan to use it, and since it's weightless, there is no honest reason to leave it where you find it. Also, if your Barter skill is high enough you can supplement a traders lack of caps on hand with the random ammo they're selling.
    • The same can be said about weightless misc items such as Pre-War Money and Pencils.
    • The same is true of many medical supplies, which are also often weightless. Mentats, for example, are useless if your Perception and/or Intelligence are already maxed since they don't raise them above 10.
  • One of the best places to get good loot is the Capitol building. Super Mutants and Talon Company mercenaries are fighting each other for control of the building there. That means there will be lots of weakened enemies to kill and lots of bodies to loot. Hunting Rifles and Assault Rifles are everywhere. There is even a Super Mutant Behemoth (mutant). Be prepared to make multiple trips as you will not be able to carry everything out in one trip.
    • If you have low Strength and get encumbered very quickly, here is a tip. Loot until your weight is as close to max as possible. Then backtrack and stash everything you want in a container near the entrance. Then go back and continue your hunt. Once the dungeon is cleared, go sell and store items in your house, then fast travel back to empty out said container. (You do not have to put loot in a "container". Just drop it on the floor/ground and nobody is going to take it. In fact, if you have so much loot you can't sell it all, there is no real advantage to carrying it all back home. Just make a note of where you dropped it and go back if you need more caps. Any special items should be carried back, of course.)
  • If you are going to a place where you are sure to get a lot of loot, take a companion with you. When you talk to them and select "Trade equipment" you can give them some of your items. Remember that they have a weight limit too. Unlike you, at the follower's weight limit, he cannot carry more at a slower pace, he simply cannot carry more. Have them carry around as much as possible until you go to sell your stuff. See the Fallout 3 Companions page for details about how much weight each follower can carry.
  • It's a REALLY BAD IDEA to carry substantially more than your "weight limit" as dictated by your strength. Not only are you insanely slow, but the game tends to freeze and crash every time you travel from one area to another (for example, from Megaton to Craterside Supply, and vice versa).
  • There are 4 Caravan Merchants (Crow, Lucky Harith, Doc Hoff, and Crazy Wolfgang) who loop around the Capital Wasteland and stop at certain points (like Megaton, Temple of the Union, Rivet City, Canterbury Commons, etc.). They can be excellent sources of rare equipment. You can also upgrade their inventories and repair skills by investing in them through Uncle Roe in Canterbury Commons. Once you've fully invested in him, Crazy Wolfgang has the highest NPC repair rate in the game.
    • They can be hard to find. One of the easiest ways to force their appearance is to stand outside one of the main cities (they never come inside), and if the merchant you want is not there, use the Wait feature to wait 1-3 hours. Waiting for a few hours (3 hours seems most reliable) will make a merchant appear, and you can continue to wait in 1-3 hour increments to cycle which merchant is outside.
      • Waiting in real(game)-time for 1-2 hours will not have this effect. You have to use the Wait feature.

[edit] Display settings

  • It is REALLY helpful to have LOD and Fade display settings over at least a half or you'll be walking around in the fog and be able to see enemies only in VATS. If not else, put actor Fade as high as you can. for love
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