OK, so I started Fallout 3 recently and I get the feeling I'm horrible at it. I run of bullets way to easily, enemies take a million hits to kill, I run out of health way too fast and stimpacks are scarce, for some reason I can't carry more than 150 bottlecaps. Is there something I'm missing?

Its about patience and perseverance. Try to use Hand-to-Hand equipment to level up then buy a pistol as soon as you can afford it. Maximise your skills beased on the role you want and always aim for headshots with ranged equipment. Treat the game like Oblivion with firearms. Its a good game, but the story sucks.

Haven't played Oblivion :p Alright I'll do my best. Combat isn't always the biggest issue. My main problem is losing health really fast and the only way I can regenerate fast is if I go back to Megaton to sleep there but it costs 120 caps which is only 30 below the maximum I can carry (why can I carry only 150 caps btw? Does it have something to do with the weight?)

Are you using the VATS? That can help you save energy and bullets during combat.

Are you using small weapons? At the beginning of the game, ammo for energy and big weapons is really rare. I recommend using the hunting rifle for a while.

You should be able to find some free places to sleep. If you cannot find a bed anywhere, I wonder if killing Silver (she lives just outside of Megaton [do her quest first]) will allow you to sleep in her bed. Also, disarming or blowing up the bomb in Megaton will net you a place to live in either Megaton or Tenpenny Tower respectively. Stimpaks were pretty abundant when I played, but I usually conserved them and ate large quantities of snacks/animal meat instead and then cleared out the radiation I took in.

I have no idea about the bottlecaps thing. That sounds like a glitch or something. Money doesn't have any weight, so I doubt it has anything to do with that.

You should definitely focus on doing quests in Megaton first though. Depending on how you complete the quests there, you can get a few perks that'll help you out later. Once you've finished all the quests there, you'll have picked up a few others around from small settlements around the place. Head over to Tenpenny Tower around level 10.

Dogmeat is pretty helpful, too. You can find him in the Scrapyard fighting some Raiders.

Can't believe there are people to who Fallout 3 is difficult.

Here are some tips.
1. As the post above already mentioned, use VATS whenever there's a chance.
2. Always sneak, even if your sneaking skill is low. It's easier to hit oponents and if they don't see you while you're sneaking your first hit will always automaticly score a criticall hit and that a good start when going to a fight. Also, while sneaking, you'll know that someone is attacking you even if you don't see them.
3. Don't waste your caps on sleeping in inns. When no one's attacking and you're low on health drink water if there a source nearby, don't bother with the radiation meter, there are Radx and Radaway's for that. Save all the stimpacks and food for battles.
4. When in a really tight situation a combination of Medx, Psycho, and Jet will make things a lot easier, but there's a good chance you'll get addicted, so use it as a last resort if you're running low on caps.
5. In Fallout 3 one the most important skills is repair. The bigger it is the better armor and weapon condition is when you repair them, and better condition means that your weapons do more damage and your armor has a higher damage protection, not to mention the higher price when selling.


why can I carry only 150 caps btw? Does it have something to do with the weight?

Must be a glitch. Have you tried the latest patch.

Smarty -

First off, is your explosives skill at least 25? If so, disarm the bomb, and you'll get a free house, 100 caps(more if you pass the speech challenge with the sheriff), and positive karma. If you want, you can also blow the bomb by talking to Mr Burke in Moriarty's...you'll get negative karma, a penthouse suite, and more cash than do-gooders. Either way, you won't need to worry about spending money to heal up.

I'm with Aniki on the 150 caps limit...it HAS to be a glitch, because caps, ammo, and most medicines have no weight; thus, you can carry as many as you want.

And though this may grate against some people's nerves, don't be too proud to lower the difficulty level(which you can do at any time). The hunting rifle is a great weapon to start out with for sniping(especially against Fire Ants!), but if you search a 'hollow rock' near the south end of Megaton, you can find a full-fledged Sniper Rifle(complete with scope!). Be careful though, it will degrade fast.

It never occured to me to diffuse the bomb in Megaton. I killed Mr Burke though.

I use VATS all the time and pretty much all I use is the hunting rifle. It's still hard to find ammo for it though. In buildings and such combat isn't all that hard, but in open field I can't help but be spotted by Raiders or those Super Mutants and I get destroyed. I'll try doing some sidequests or something to level up. I'll look into the caps thing. I'll try the latest patch or something, since it doesn't do it automatically.

What level are you now and what places have you been to?

Level 6. The last story-related thing I did was fix that disc for Three-Dog and now I'm off to find Rivet (or something) city. I'm trying to do some sidequests to level up some more before I do that. Because it is getting easier while I leverl up.

Yeah and the 150 caps thing was a bit of fail on my part. I kept selling my stuff to the same guy and apparently in Fallout 3, merchants don't have unlimited money. You see where I'm going with this...

Pump your small guns skill. Small guns dominates all the Fallout games early on, but Fallout 3 most of all. You may honestly want to consider starting over and making a character that is more small guns oriented. In Fallout 3 you need a high repair skill too (this is one of my main complaints about the game) so that should be your second most invested in skill.

I can't fathom why you'd only be able to get 150 caps, I didn't think there was any money limit in this game.

Not really. Fallout 3 is so easy that you can survive with without waisting skill points (or perks) on small guns. Of course the game becomes a little bit harder at the beginning, but it doesn't take a long time to get a big gun or an energy weapon.

Yeah and the 150 caps thing was a bit of fail on my part. I kept selling my stuff to the same guy and apparently in Fallout 3, merchants don't have unlimited money. You see where I'm going with this...

LOL, yeah, I get it. No problem buddy. Go to Rivet City, and you have another shop. Get a quest to deliver a letter from Lucy West in Megaton, and at the end of that quest, you'll have access to another shop. Between all of that, you should be able to start getting tons of cash.

General pointers below, so if you don't want anymore, don't look.

Heads up on divvying up skill points...stop leveling each skill at around 80, and use skill books to make up the difference. Otherwise, it will be far too easy to find yourself 40 points shy of maxing out two or three skills. This is a non-issue if you have the Broken Steel expansion, but...oh, and if you DO have BS, don't grab ANY bobbleheads until after you get the Almost Perfect perk at level 30.

Not really. Fallout 3 is so easy that you can survive with without waisting skill points (or perks) on small guns. Of course the game becomes a little bit harder at the beginning, but it doesn't take a long time to get a big gun or an energy weapon.

I agree with this, but small guns is still the most effective path towards success in combat early in the game and so it is the best path for someone who is new to the game and having a hard time with it.

Small guns are dominant because you can master them early and then easily plow through the rest of the game using only them, putting points into no other weapon skill. It's much harder to do that with any other weapon. This is true in all 3 Fallout games.

My second Fallout 3 character exclusively used hand to hand attacks and I didn't have much trouble, but I'd have had a much harder time if I didn't play through with a small guns oriented character first.


Go to Rivet City, and you have another shop.

If he's having trouble this early in the game, "go to Rivet City" isn't very good advice. He can't get to Rivet City.

I run to Rivet City the second I get out of the Vault. You can make it there at level 2 if you know the way and don't dick around.

The INT bobble is in Rivet City. It's helpful to get it early to maximize the skill points you have available.

I do think I will finish the game at least once without using any bobbleheads or skill books though.

I found this sidequest with a guy that wants to cure his people. In a place called the Pitt. I was gonna go but it said I wouldn't be able to return for a while, so I stayed. I might have had my ass handed to me anyway, I don't how powerful the enemies are over there.

Right now I'm doing the sidequest where I deliver that letter from Lucy. Her parents are dead so I'm just trying to find her brother now.

I also got the idea quickly that small guns dominate so I spend many points on that skill as level up.

Small guns do indeed dominate early to mid game, but near the end, I say it's more efficient to switch over to Energy Weapons, especially if you get the android's plasma rifle(arguably one of the best weaps in the game). It also helps that you get loaded down with laser and plasma rifles/pistols, so why not use them?

And yeah TK, it IS possible(as Blameless said) to get to Rivet City at any point, but I admit, you do have to know the path(circumvent the entire ruins, and then stay on the shoreline), and know enough to not sightsee on the way.

I seriously just got kidnapped by aliens... And Bethesda acknowledges every stereotype that has been set about aliens. It would be nice to see some creativity.

You'll do ok then :)

I seriously just got kidnapped by aliens... And Bethesda acknowledges every stereotype that has been set about aliens. It would be nice to see some creativity.

Yeah, that's probably the worst of the DLC.

Small guns do indeed dominate early to mid game, but near the end, I say it's more efficient to switch over to Energy Weapons, especially if you get the android's plasma rifle(arguably one of the best weaps in the game). It also helps that you get loaded down with laser and plasma rifles/pistols, so why not use them?

And yeah TK, it IS possible(as Blameless said) to get to Rivet City at any point, but I admit, you do have to know the path(circumvent the entire ruins, and then stay on the shoreline), and know enough to not sightsee on the way.

Sure, but you could instead pump your small guns to 100 and then spend all your other skill points on other non-weapon skills that are extremely useful—repair, speech, hacking, lock picking, sneaking—to get those up to high levels fast, and still easily dispatch any enemy in the game. If you make your character's sole weapon focus energy weapons, you'll have an incredibly hard time early on because you won't have easy access to any energy weapons, so you have to put some skill points into a combat skill that you have easy access to right away, and then build your energy weapons skill later which ultimately results in a waste of points on the earlier combat skill that you're never going to use after you've got good energy weapons.

In other words, small guns is the most efficient use of skill points on a combat skill. Energy weapons are more powerful later in the game, but then it doesn't actually matter, because mastered skill in any gun type will allow you to always win with no trouble using VATS. So the most efficient character is always one that uses small guns exclusively because he/she can fight most effectively early on, continue to win with the same weapons later on, and then focus exclusively on whatever other skills the player desires.

Keep in mind I am only pointing this out because it is the easiest path through the game. The whole point of Fallout is character and game path versatility, and while Fallout 3 does this least effectively of any game in the series, it still does a pretty decent job of it. You can make a character who focuses on pretty much any set of skills and win that way, and it's really fun to do so. But for a new player who has yet to understand what's really effective in the game, a small guns character is by far the most effective way. After he's beaten the game and is more comfortable he may want to go through again with a totally different character.

Agreed TK. I reiterate/clarify that early to mid game, Small Guns is the way to go. But late game, when you start picking up laser/plasma rifles/pistols regularly, Energy Weapons are better.

Perhaps it's because I played the original without Broken Steel for so long, but I still have the habit of stopping my skill point dumping at 80, then filling in the gap with skill books. BS makes this a non-issue, but the habit still remains.

And while we're on the subject of BS, that also makes Small Guns deficient against two enemies(which thankfully are somewhat rare): Albino Radscorpions and Super Mutant Overlords. Is it possible to beat them with small guns? Absolutely. Is it going to take a while, and a significant chunk of ammo? You betcha. Pound for pound, I've found that energy weapons can drop those two(along with any other enemies) a lot faster than small guns alone. I'll acknowledge that Overlords still have the classic 'Shoot them in the head' weakness, but do you really want to go up against an Overlord with a Tri-Beam Laser Rifle? Not without heavy firepower, I would think.

But as you said, it's all a matter of how one wants to make their characters. This is Kent Brockman, and that's my two cents.

Yeah, that's probably the worst of the DLC.

I don't know about the rest, but this one was the most fun I've had with a sidequest in Fallout 3. Plus I picked some ridiculously strong weapons and I now one shot everything in sight. And I have like 500 bullets. And I can get more by just going back. So yeah, I am officially no longer having trouble with Fallout 3. Only trouble right now is getting to Rivet, which is apparently a huge ship that I can't reach. I only found a door that leads to it, but it's locked and I can't pick the lock. Any suggestions?

Wrong door, buddy. Get to the top of that small steel structure next to the other half of the ship, and look for an intercom(small white box). Carry on as normal.

Just as a hint, depending on what you do in two different quests, you'll be coming OUT of that door, not going in.

Yeah I found that after a while. I went to Vault 112 after speaking to Doctor Li and it was pretty fun there in that simulation.

WHITE KNIGHT GLOTY

Which makes no sense, since I steal everything not tied down :erm:

Best thing is to explore the general area after the vault (especially the school) rinse the treasure and level up a bit while fighting easy foes then do 'Blood Ties' (From Lucy West in Moriaty's), it is an easy mission that can get you a bunch of XP (and speech challenges)

Picking the right perks is important too. For example pick Comprehension when you first get a chance and go looking for books, easy way to max out stats.

obviously, dont wander too far off into the wasteland (specially DC and the north) when you are just getting started.
also, it may not be much, but if you have the space, collect as much junk as you can, each bottlecap that is worth, will help you buy supplies (25 tin cans got me one stimpak when i wa sshort on money and couldnt sell anything, you get the idea).
also, pillage downed enemies for everything they have, sometimes raider armors can sell for up to 60 caps (which is a lot at the start)

on the weak enemies like mole rats, use melee weapons.
for weak human enemies, use melee weapons too, but in VATS, and aim for the head.

Vault Boy says: When you get near an area that's full of mines(such as the aptly named Minefield), quick save. Find out where the nearest mine is, and if you fail to disarm it, reload your save. You can get lots of cash for little effort and weight!

It's easy XP too, but that takes up a lot of time and is really boring.

Reminds me of how I went up that alley in Seward's Square and was like....I don't like that sound......this is gonna be bad.........KABLOOEY

Btw I already finished Fallout 3, no need to keep this thread going :p

I'm kinda using it now, so it's all good :)

Reminds me of how I went up that alley in Seward's Square and was like....I don't like that sound......this is gonna be bad.........KABLOOEY

You know, I was thinking at first that "I'm tough enough to survive whatever he throws at me, I have Hellfire Armor and max level, I can handle it!"

Yeah...>.>

Anyway, when I shot the guy and started checking the area later, I learned real fast why I didn't survive...hell, even Behemoths buckle under 3 Fat Man shells and six or seven Frag Mines!!!

Vendetta avenged, or w/e verb goes there.

Damn porch monkies.

Damn porch monkies.

They're still people too...