Fallout 3: Am I doing something wrong? **No Spoilers**

Hi guys. I think I've played about 3-4 hours of Fallout 3 and I'm in a dilemma here. I'm always running low on bottle caps (money), weapons/armor are always in need of constant repair. Obviously, I don't have the money to repair so I can optimize my weapons. I find that melee weapons are a lot more useful than range weapons.. Some of the guns like the laser gun barely does any damage. Most of the guns are extremely weak. I find myself using a lot of frag grenades, even land mines, and eventually duking it out with a bat, pipe, or brass knuckles.

The quests (to me) are worthless except to unravel some backstory. These quest trips cost you more weapon and armor repair, not to mention unecessary deaths, and medicine (aid), making the quest reward worthless. I'm always running out of ammo. Over encumbment always gets the best of me.. because there are always more things to loot than you can hold on a single trip. And you can't help but to loot as much as you can because you need money. I'm just frustrated. I want to enjoy the game, not be boggled down by the lack of resources in order for me to advance and make progress. Maybe I'm doing something wrong?

I would appreciate any helpful tips and advice. Thank you.

When I was a few hours in the game was exactly like this for me also. I was contanly out of caps. Whenever I'd become over encumbared I'd use that time to repair my weapons/clothes with items I'd picked up. The game is all about stats and leveling up though. I'm about 32 hours in now and I can carry heaps, I've got perks giving me extra cash. I'm still constantly repairing my stuff though with the weapons I find around. The more I play though the more evil I become, good guys just finish last. I'd try and be good but the cash rewards just weren't worth it. I went from Very Good to Very Evil within a couple of hours.CellAnimation

I have been restraining myself from stealing, because I want to be "good" and not evil. And then on my second playthrough, I'll go evil. Like you, I'm finding it hard not to go evil to make more money. I guess I'll just have to be more diligent and persistent, and continue on. I might go evil soon though if things don't pick up.

I didn't have this problem probably because I played a Saint that also stole.

It's an RPG so everything is going to feel weak at first especially when the condition of your weapons are low. I guess if i played a non stealing good guy I'd do a lot of sidequests and look for ones that offer money for common items such as the guy in Megaton that trades scrapmetal for 10caps a piece, there's a person that trades Prewar books for 100 a piece and there's a ghoul that trades 30 caps for sugar bombs.

Stick to using weapons you're finding a lot on dead bandits. be it 10mm pistols or AK's. This way you'll always be able to repair these yourself. same thing with armor.

Repair and Barter skills are important in saving you money and if you're having a hard time in combat raise sneak. a sneak attack shot can turn almost any battle into an easy win.

just remember that the game is all about stats and try to build your character acoordingly. look in the book and plan your character ahead by picking out perks you'll want.

I dropped down to very easy, found it a bit too easy and moved it to Easy, enjoying every second from then on. Like you I was barely breaking even, just using up ammo for every battle...not getting anywhere.

I suspect if you follow the main quest it will give you access to lots of neat items from what I've done of it. But if you just roam the wastes Normal is more of a pain than something I enjoyed. Easy is was great, although I'm 30+ hours in and  some enemies might be a tad easy. I wish it had a slider like oblivion though.

Are you actually paying to have people repair your items? At the beginning of the game I almost never spent any money at merchants. All my supplies came from exploring and I repaired all my items. Invest some skill points into repair, I suppose.

If you are running out of money try repairing items you don't have any use for, like guns and armor and then sell it to merchants-it'll reduce the amount of weight you have to carry and the value will increase. Try to assess the value/weight ratio of items; alcohol and drugs can fetch a pretty good price and usually only weight 1 pound. Just mouse over things and check them out.

As for you not being able to hit anything or do any damage, all I can say is it depends on your skill with the weapon. If you find yourself running out of ammo try using VATS to shoot the weapon out of the hands of your target or cripple their arm, then rush him with your melee attack. 

Playing the game as a good character all the way through is possible. I'm at level 20 and I've got more crap than I know what to do with. 

Thanks everyone.

*SPOILER ALERT*

I just got done playing some Fallout 3 and I've finally reached the DC Area/GNR station. I'm playing on NORMAL, and I managed to get a nice stash of weapons, including Fat Man, and several frag grenades, as well as aid items. It's getting better and better. Like some of you guys said, it's an RPG so I have to invest my points wisely and I'm trying to do that with caution. What I do now is hoard everything, fast travel, and sell 'em, every single time I'm overloaded. I even stashed a lot of things away into one of my locker's in my Megaton home. I managed to repair my armor, and a few weapons,w ith close to 1k (caps) left over. I will continue to play on NORMAL, so I can get the most gameplay hours I can. I have to admit, it was slow at first, but things started to pick up once I hit downtown. The Fallout squad sequence was AWESOME. Taking down the Super Mutant with the FAT MAN, was very satisfying, lol. I tried to take the suit from one of the fallen squad members, but it was too heavy, and I couldn't wear it either. At least not yet.

I will continue to play on NORMAL, and stick with being "good." So far, I have not stolen one object/item. On my next run, I'll go "evil." :twisted: I could really use more events like the downtown sequence. That was a lot of fun.

Are you actually paying to have people repair your items? At the beginning of the game I almost never spent any money at merchants. All my supplies came from exploring and I repaired all my items. Invest some skill points into repair, I suppose.

If you are running out of money try repairing items you don't have any use for, like guns and armor and then sell it to merchants-it'll reduce the amount of weight you have to carry and the value will increase. Try to assess the value/weight ratio of items; alcohol and drugs can fetch a pretty good price and usually only weight 1 pound. Just mouse over things and check them out.

As for you not being able to hit anything or do any damage, all I can say is it depends on your skill with the weapon. If you find yourself running out of ammo try using VATS to shoot the weapon out of the hands of your target or cripple their arm, then rush him with your melee attack.

Playing the game as a good character all the way through is possible. I'm at level 20 and I've got more crap than I know what to do with.

blaaah

Excuse my ignorance but how do you repair items yourself? I've been trying to figure that out for the longest. Thanks in advance.

[QUOTE="blaaah"]

Are you actually paying to have people repair your items? At the beginning of the game I almost never spent any money at merchants. All my supplies came from exploring and I repaired all my items. Invest some skill points into repair, I suppose.

If you are running out of money try repairing items you don't have any use for, like guns and armor and then sell it to merchants-it'll reduce the amount of weight you have to carry and the value will increase. Try to assess the value/weight ratio of items; alcohol and drugs can fetch a pretty good price and usually only weight 1 pound. Just mouse over things and check them out.

As for you not being able to hit anything or do any damage, all I can say is it depends on your skill with the weapon. If you find yourself running out of ammo try using VATS to shoot the weapon out of the hands of your target or cripple their arm, then rush him with your melee attack.

 

Playing the game as a good character all the way through is possible. I'm at level 20 and I've got more crap than I know what to do with.

Elann2008

Excuse my ignorance but how do you repair items yourself? I've been trying to figure that out for the longest. Thanks in advance.

Open your pipboy, click on the item, and click R, and you need two of the same items. 

[QUOTE="Elann2008"][QUOTE="blaaah"]

Are you actually paying to have people repair your items? At the beginning of the game I almost never spent any money at merchants. All my supplies came from exploring and I repaired all my items. Invest some skill points into repair, I suppose.

If you are running out of money try repairing items you don't have any use for, like guns and armor and then sell it to merchants-it'll reduce the amount of weight you have to carry and the value will increase. Try to assess the value/weight ratio of items; alcohol and drugs can fetch a pretty good price and usually only weight 1 pound. Just mouse over things and check them out.

As for you not being able to hit anything or do any damage, all I can say is it depends on your skill with the weapon. If you find yourself running out of ammo try using VATS to shoot the weapon out of the hands of your target or cripple their arm, then rush him with your melee attack.

Playing the game as a good character all the way through is possible. I'm at level 20 and I've got more crap than I know what to do with.

Captain__Tripps

Excuse my ignorance but how do you repair items yourself? I've been trying to figure that out for the longest. Thanks in advance.

Open your pipboy, click on the item, and click R, and you need two of the same items.

Thanks a lot! I really appreciate it.

I have been restraining myself from stealing, because I want to be "good" and not evil. And then on my second playthrough, I'll go evil. Like you, I'm finding it hard not to go evil to make more money. I guess I'll just have to be more diligent and persistent, and continue on. I might go evil soon though if things don't pick up.

Elann2008

Do you want to be good just for the roleplaying feel or because of Karma? If you're worried about Karma, then it's all right, mang. I stole everything I could and my Kama picture was the Jesus-look-alike picture for most of the game.

I was pretty weak in those first few hours but I kept doing quests & selling the stuff I stole in order to make money. My main complaint is that I never found a trader who could repair anything past 50% Good luck, Sir.

Type

key ( ~ )

the enter > player.additem 0000000F 10000

then you get 10000 bottle caps if you whont more then type a larger number

Being good in this game certainly doesn't pay off.

example

I completed a mission for this woman and when she offered reward i let her keep the money and played the good guy. But after completing the mission i was very low on health with no aid and she was a doctor and i asked for help for which she said "that will be 100 caps" which i didn't have.

I really had to resist the temptaion to kill her where she stood:evil:

Being good in this game certainly doesn't pay off.

example

I completed a mission for this woman and when she offered reward i let her keep the money and played the good guy. But after completing the mission i was very low on health with no aid and she was a doctor and i asked for help for which she said "that will be 100 caps" which i didn't have.

I really had to resist the temptaion to kill her where she stood:evil:

dannyw7982

being downright evil on the other side of the coin isn't that good either. You may kill a lot of people that buy mundane items for a large profit. The best character to be is a neutralish character.

My character was good but I stole anything valuable that I could find. In fact I stole so much between levels 8 and 14 (the achievement levels I think) that I went neutral for a bit and got the Neutral Achievement. I was never short on caps and I ended the game with a stockpile of weapons, ammo, scraps, drugs, armor and food and over 20,000caps.

I'm new to this forum and I haven't even bought fallout 3 yet, but could you tell me if I change difficulty during the game, I can carry on the same game with a different difficulty setting?

I played through the game as good as one could be (50+ hours), as a good guy early on I did have my problems as mentioned with others, but once I allocated my points, and went on an exploring spree I didn't have a problem. So being good isn't too rough, in fact it makes it easier in some instance to get some really powerful characters to side with you.

Before completeing the game I had a place for armor, a place for weapons in my house over 250 stimpaks sitting in the fridge, and an addition 250+ more in my characters pockets. 3 - dirrferent followers from Charnel the Ghoul, Fawlks, and the dog. Doing the scrap metal missions for the ghouls, and finding the pre-war books for the librarian is a quick way to boost up your money, and the number of stimpacks. The dog is especially handy in the fact you can send him out to find stuff for you.

The game is much easier if you turn to stealing and murder. It's really not a game that rewards you too much for doing the right thing. Don't worry about the negative karma. You can do a few good karma sidequests later and still get the good ending. There's also a perk that allows you to kill evil characters and turn their fingers in for good karma.

I actually murdered everyone in megaton, looted the town (which gave me loads of weapons and money early on), then nuked it, and still got the good karma ending by doing what I mentioned above.

Besides, I liked the main quest, but I thought the sidequests were mostly boring, errand boy type stuff, and they usually don't have big rewards. It's much easier and quicker to steal and kill people for what you need, and I don't think you're missing much by not doing some of the side quests.

it can be frustrating early on in the game, you always feel extremely vulnerable and can only just about manage to scrape together enough caps to keep yourself with an adequate weapon and stimpacks, but i think that was the sort of survivalist atmosphere beth wanted to create.

i would definitely not advise being good. my advice would be to rob whenever possible and slavery pays a fortune too! also its good to be a lockpick expert as there is generally a lot of very valuable booty behind very hard locked doors.

its definitely worth persisitng with, im now 50 hours in and level 18 and absolutely deadly with a plasma rifle and the velsa armour 8)

I'm new to this forum and I haven't even bought fallout 3 yet, but could you tell me if I change difficulty during the game, I can carry on the same game with a different difficulty setting?

MixJam

im pretty sure you can, yes. im sure i read someone say they cranked up the difficulty against lesser enemies to bump up their xp points.

I generally didnt have any problems getting money and ammo. A few thoughts on how to make a profit:

1) Work on your repair skill. Unlike the old fallouts, repair in F3 is very important. Both to make a profit and to optimize your weapons. A high repair score will enhance your damage as much or more than a high weapon skill. For example, the highest repair skill I've seen on an NPC was 24 pts. Paying to have that NPC repair a weapon might cost a quick 500 caps. However since it only get's your weapon to about a quarter of it's max condition your damage will be around half of it's potential if fully repaired.

2) Tied to the first point. Where possible, use weapons you find often. At first you'll find a lot of hunting rifles, hand guns and some sub machine guns. Just because you found one chinese assault rifle dosent mean you should ditch your old assault rifle just yet. If it's easier more regular assault rifles, stick with it so you can keep your gun in good shape.. save the chinese assault rifle until you get more of them.

3) Some quests will 'open' PC's that'll pay you for various otherwise worthless items.

In Megaton the water treatment manager will pay 10 caps pr piece of scrap metal.

An NPC in Arlington (I think) library will pay 100 caps for old pre-war books (not the burned or charred ones). 

One of the Ghouls you meet on the way to the 'Vampire' place buys boxes of Suggar Bombs.

One of the Vampire guys will buy blood packs (though after the vampire quest you can use those as stim packs so you probably wouldnt want to sell them).

I'm sure there's plenty others, those are just the once I've come accross.

I'm new to this forum and I haven't even bought fallout 3 yet, but could you tell me if I change difficulty during the game, I can carry on the same game with a different difficulty setting?

MixJam

Yup, you can change the difficulty setting without starting a new game. I hate it when games don't have that option.