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For the hardest difficulty mode in Fallout: New Vegas or the achievement/trophy unlocked for beating the game in said mode, see Hardcore mode. For the difficulty mode of the same name in Fallout Shelter, see Survival mode (Fallout Shelter). |
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Survival mode is a unique gameplay mode in Fallout 4 with significant differences to other modes. Survival mode was added to the game for all platforms on March 29, 2016. It replaced the existing Survival difficulty, which was renamed to Very Hard.
General features
Survival mode can be accessed in the options menu. Unlike Hardcore mode used in Fallout: New Vegas, Survival mode can be set before starting a new game. This mode also cannot be toggled freely. Once Survival mode is activated, turning it off will permanently disable it from being reactivated for that save file.
In survival mode, autosave and manually saving from the menu has been disabled. The only means of physically saving the game is to sleep in a bed, on a mattress, or in a sleeping bag. The exit save function is still available, but is a temporary save that is deleted automatically upon loading. Additionally, the use of console commands is disabled.
Ammunition now has a set weight, per rounds, based on the ammunition type. For example the 10mm round has a weight of 0.025 per round, where as the mini nuke has a weight of 12. If one becomes over-encumbered, their Agility and Endurance will drop by 2, they will suffer from Fatigue and they will take constant damage to their legs. Rather than permitting fast travel while over-encumbered, the perk Strong Back eliminates these negative effects. Further to this, carry weight for the Sole Survivor and their companions has also been reduced.
Locations take 35 in-game days for non-cleared locations and 80 in-game days for cleared locations to repopulate enemies and loot, as opposed to the standard 7 and 20 days respectively. Additionally, the workshop's inventory has been restricted, which may affect the availability of production items.
| GAMEPLAY | NORMAL | SURVIVAL |
|---|---|---|
| Saving | Manual, quicksaving and autosaves are available. | Sleeping in any bed for one hour is the only way to save the game. |
| Fast travel | Fast travel is available. | Fast travel is disabled. |
| Locations of interest | Easy detection of locations of interest. | Detection of locations of interest are significantly reduced. |
| Location repopulation rate | Repopulate after 7 or 20 (for "[Cleared]") in-game days. | Repopulate after 35 or 80 in-game days. |
| Stronger enemy spawns | Stronger enemies appear as the player character levels. | Stronger enemies spawn with regularity. |
| Experience gain | Normal rate. | Enemies yield 2x experience. |
| Available perks | Adrenaline perk not readily available. | Adrenaline perk is given. |
| Wellness | Not subject to Exhaustion, Hunger or Thirst. | The Sole survivor is challenged to stay hydrated, fed and rested. |
| Fatigue | Not subject to Fatigue. | Subject to Fatigue. |
| Illness & antibiotics | Not subject to illness. | Antibiotics are needed to heal illness. |
| Healing radiation |
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| Healing rates | Food, stimpaks and RadAway heal instantly. | Restorative items recover HP at a significantly reduced rate. |
| Crippled limbs | Crippled limbs auto-heal after combat. | Crippled limbs do not auto-heal. Must be healed by a stimpak or by a doctor. |
| Carry weight |
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| Overencumbrance | If the Sole Survivor exceeds their carrying capacity, they will be unable to run or fast travel. Ranks 3 and 4 of Strong Back will negate these penalties. | If the Sole Survivor exceeds their carrying capacity, they will be fatigued, their Agility and Endurance will be reduced and will take periodic limb damage. Rank 4 of Strong Back will negate these new side effects. |
| Companions | If knocked unconscious, companions will get back up after combat. | If knocked unconscious, companions will not get back up after combat. They must be healed first, or they will return to their designated settlement. Non-NPC robot companions will instead be destroyed rather than returning to a settlement. |
| Workshop | No limits on overall workshop inventory capacity. | Workshop inventory capacity reduced. May affect availability of production items (food, water, etc). |
Fast travel is disabled, with the exception of entering the institute, which can only be entered via fast travel while they are an available faction. Being a member of the Institute however, will not allow one to bypass fast travel's elimination as the only outward teleportation point is the C.I.T. ruins.
Alongside the changes to fast travel, the compass's range of detection has been significantly restricted to a manner of meters for locations of interest and completely removed for NPC detection, hostile or otherwise.
Combat
In combat, there have been several key changes. Firstly enemies have had their attack strength and overall health/damage resistances increased, resulting in more challenging battles. Also the encounter frequency of higher level enemies has been increased, adding an additional layer of difficulty.
Experience Points however, have been doubled. Additionally new perk, Adrenaline, is automatically applied to the Sole Survivor for every five enemies they kill. This perk gradually increases up to a 50% increase in damage.
Health and well-being
Prior to survival, only Fallout: New Vegas' hardcore mode made food and drink a necessity. The Sole Survivor must remain hydrated, eat periodically and have a regular sleep cycle in order to survive. Failure to manage one's well being will result in negative effects such as Fatigue, Hunger and Thirst, reducing maximum AP. Additionally one can contract an illness from various sources, such as over sleeping on a mattress or from use of medicinal items.
Additionally sleeping in a bed for less than 7 hours no longer heals Hit Points (HP). Furthermore, the healing rates of restorative items are significantly slowed and the use of medicinal items such as Stimpaks, RadAway, and chems can result in thirst and in some instance cause the Sole Survivor to become ill. However, visiting a doctor for purposes of restoring health, removing rads, and curing addictions still carry no side effects.
If one is crippled in any form, this no longer recovers with time and must be rectified with a stimpak, by sleeping in a bed until the Sole Survivor is well rested or by visiting a doctor. The third rank of Adamantium Skeleton however, largely negates this effect, as it makes the Sole Survivor's limbs immune from the effects of crippling.
When downed in combat, companions will no longer heal themselves automatically and thus require a stimpak to recover from their injuries. If left unattended, they will leave the Sole Survivor's travelling party and return to their most recent settlement to recover. Generic robotic companions constructed in the robot workbench as part of the Automatron add-on function differently to other companions. As they no longer hold essential status, they will explode on death, becoming unrecoverable.
Wellness
There are five stages in each category of wellness that span in-game hours. The increasing thresholds for each form of wellness are on a curve, for example, it takes about 6 hours to go from well-fed to peckish to hungry, then a further 12 hours to go from hungry to famished. The following table shows the approximate times that it takes for a character to go from completely satisfied to the listed condition in each area. In-game time is expressed in "hours" and real-time is expressed in "minutes." These effects can be sped up when using certain items. Stimpaks and other drugs inducing dehydration, RadAway causing hunger, etc.
Thirst
Thirst will negatively impact the Intelligence, Luck and Perception stats, making it more likely one will drink directly from manual water pumps, water fountains and open water sources such as puddles and rivers. Drinking from irradiated sources has the possibility of afflicting one with an illness. As a means of ensuring one has a steady supply of water, the Sole Survivor can now fill empty bottles with dirty or purified water. Dirty water is obtained from sources such as rivers, puddles or ponds. Purified water is obtained from water pumps and water fountains.
| THIRST | Parched | Thirsty | Mildly Dehydrated | Dehydrated | Severely Dehydrated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Effects | -1 INT | -2 INT -1 PER |
-4 INT -1 LCK -3 PER |
-8 INT -2 LCK -5 PER |
-10 INT -3 LCK -7 PER Periodic Damage |
| Duration
In-game (hours) |
4 hours | 9 hours | 18 hours | 30 hours | 45 hours |
| Duration
Real-time (mins) |
12 mins | 27 mins | 54 mins | 90 mins | 135 mins |
Hunger
While the Sole Survivor is hungry, the healing and bonus properties of food consumption is suppressed until enough is consumed to make the survivor "well-fed." However, eating something that grants a bonus (e.g. the +1 Agility of deathclaw steak) while hungry will remove the bonus if it is already active. For example, eating a deathclaw steak while not hungry to gain the bonus, then becoming Peckish, then eating a second deathclaw steak to become well-fed will negate the +1 Agility bonus and would require eating a third deathclaw steak to regain it.
The amount of food that must be eaten to do this is relative to its quality (or price), i.e, a ribeye steak satisfies hunger more than a grilled radroach. Certain foods, such as soups and certain crops, will satisfy both hunger and thirst.
The Cannibal perk has a special interaction called Dark Craving when eating a corpse is used to satisfy hunger.
| HUNGER | Peckish | Hungry | Famished | Ravenous | Starving |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Effects | -1 END | -2 CHR -1 END |
-3 CHR -4 END -1 LCK |
-5 CHR -8 END -2 LCK |
-5 CHR -10 END -3 LCK Periodic Damage |
| Duration
In-game (hours) |
6 hours | 12 hours | 24 hours | 36 hours | 64 hours |
| Duration
Real-time (mins) |
18 mins | 36 mins | 72 mins | 108 mins | 192 mins |
Sleep
Sleeping for at least one hour on any bed, mattress or sleeping bag will save the game, and remove any Fatigue the player character has developed from being tired. The Sole Survivor cannot sleep more than 3 hours in a sleeping bag or a tent, and more than 5 hours on a mattress. To sleep for longer amounts of time, it is required to use a real bed. Attempting to sleep for longer than these times will result in one waking up at the time threshold and any further attempt to sleep may result in an illness (e.g. parasites.)
Sleeping for seven hours or more allows one to recover health and if sleeping in a bed as opposed to a mattress or sleeping bag, will ensure one is well rested and minimizes risk of illness. Being only asleep for one hour in any bed, even at a workshop settlement, will still grant a high risk for illness, in particular parasites. Lethargy, insomnia and weakness are common.
Consuming caffeinated drinks such as Nuka-Cola will delay the need to sleep for some time.
| SLEEP | Tired | Overtired | Weary | Exhausted | Incapacitated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Effects | -5% AP Refresh | -1 STR -15% AP Refresh |
-1 AGI -1 LCK -2 STR -30% AP Refresh |
-2 AGI -2 LCK -4 STR -50% AP Refresh Can't Sprint |
-4 AGI -3 LCK -6 STR -75% AP Refresh Can't Run |
| Duration
In-game (hours) |
27 hours | 40 hours | 55 hours | 69 hours | 82 hours |
| Duration
Real-time (mins) |
81 mins | 120 mins | 165 mins | 207 mins | 246 mins |
Note: The in-game / real-time data in the tables above are approximations only.
Notes
- Because all characters are much weaker in terms of health, direct "guns blazin'" fighting can result in a quick death, especially at lower levels.
- Supply lines allow workshops to share items used for crafting. Cooking stations therefore share the raw meat, crops, water, etc that are stored in a workshop's inventory, so long as the settlements are connected through the supply line. However, already-cooked food cannot be stored and then picked up anywhere along the supply chain, but rather only at the settlement in which it was stored.
- There are several methods to move more quickly around the Commonwealth in Survival.
- One option is the utilization of vertibirds using a vertibird signal grenade, which will allow "fast traveling" using the map.
- An alternative is to teleport to the Institute, then to CIT ruins, which effectively places one around the middle of the Commonwealth and can significantly cut travel time.
- Additionally, since the player swim speed is significantly faster then the walk speed, swimming the canals can be an effective method of transportation.
- Some legendary effects on armor increase movement speed, decrease the AP cost of sprinting, increase AP regeneration, etc, which also help with lowering travel time.
Bugs
Starting in Survival mode and later changing the game mode will not change the water production from Water Purifiers.- When first joining the Railroad after completing Tradecraft, the message "You can now fast travel to and from Railroad HQ" still appears, despite the fact that fast travel is disabled in Survival mode.
