Fallout 3.....wtf do i do

Hey guys. I'm a pretty experienced RPG player, but Fallout 3 is honestly confusing me. I feel like I'm just thrown into the game with an under-leveled character and no idea what to do. How do i get caps? Why do all these optional missions have raiders which DESTROY me and my hunting rifle (which I have very limited ammunition for)

WHere can i get a sniper rifle? This game is hard....and I have no clue what to do. Help!

I went to the super market and got rocked. How can I get better gear?

I understand that it's not linear, I actually see a ton of similarities to it and oblivion. But oblivion I had spells and decent gear starting off. Fallout I am just wondering around getting owned and having no clue how to progress.

strange...i thought the early part was pretty easy. the only annoying part is this town where you have to kill alot of giant ants. even with a hand gun, human targets like raiders should be easy meat if you make good use of VATS. for example, find yourself a corner, pop out and fire a few head shots using VATS and duck back/retreat. a bit of agility and stealth is all you need.

as for gears..... a chinese assault rifle (which looks like an AK47) and a hunting rifle should be able to take you all the way to end game. they did when i played. do some research on point investment to maximise your damage output. you don't need a sniper rifle, honestly.

PS. note that i played only the vanilla game. i heard that the DLCs turn up the difficulty but i'm not sure.

For caps, if you can find any scrap metal bring it into Walter. He runs the Water Plant in Megaton (right next to the sheriff's house) and he'll buy them from you for a good chunk of caps. You need to complete an unmarked quest for him first, but it takes place entirely inside of Megaton so don't worry about raiders or mutants. Also, basically anything that isn't nailed down in the game can be sold to caravans and merchants. Also, before you ever go out into the wasteland, make sure you stock up. You'll want some fairly good armor in good condition, at least one gun with plenty of ammo, a melee weapon, ten or so stimpacks, and some drugs. You can acquire all of these in Megaton in one way or another (stealing, quests, buying, etc.) And when you do scavenge and venture out into the wasteland or ruins, once you get what you want, fast travel back to a city, it saves resources.

And there's an extremely easy way to get a sniper rifle, stealth boy, and a couple of stimpacks. Exit the gate of Megaton, go left, and hug the wall until you get attacked by a few mole rats. Kill them, and look around the east side of the wall for a rock surrounded by three dead trees in a triangular formation. Walk up to it and it should say "Open hollowed out rock" or something like that, just like when you open a dresser or shelf or whatever. There's some nice stuff in there for lower level characters. Also, if you're really bad in combat, seriously consider getting a companion.

yea, it is. but with properly invested points, a hunting rifle is just as deadly, and a close range burst of chinese assault rifle can kill almost anything in the game. remember TC, level up properly and make the most out of headshots. you'll be so deadly you won't even need power armour. i sure didn't.

level up properly

Jinroh_basic

This is big. Decide what you want your main traits to be early on. If you don't like to get into fights try investing in the sneak skill. Decide what weapons you feel comfortable with and focus on those skills. The repair skill is also recommended. It keeps your stuff in good condition and you can also sell higher quality goods for better prices.

I just stole everything I owned I was an excellent pickpocketer try breaking into megaton armory

Thanks for all the tips guys. I was thinking about a character who makes the most out of big guns and sniper rifles (is that energy weapons or what?)

I'm going to:

complete the water quest.

acquire sniper

see if i can get 1000 caps for the rock-it launcher. I guess the game is just taking me a bit to fully delve into, once I get going with a path and progression, I'm sure i'll have a much easier time. Just trying to get over the hump, and feel kind of helpless cuz I have no money.

maybe you can do so if you're playing the GOTY version (with raised level cap), but trying to be specialised in more than one fighting style is imo extremely inadvisable. you'd do well to focus on one branch (and imo, small guns is hands down the best) and develop your character as well as your tactics around it.

I'm literally awful at this game. I am trying to follow the main quest but I come up on these two super powerful brutes in a tunnel above this street that just rape me.

This game just throws you in.....obviously my character sucks because i shoot them in the head with the sniper and it literally does nothing.

I'm literally awful at this game. I am trying to follow the main quest but I come up on these two super powerful brutes in a tunnel above this street that just rape me.

This game just throws you in.....obviously my character sucks because i shoot them in the head with the sniper and it literally does nothing.

I'm literally awful at this game. I am trying to follow the main quest but I come up on these two super powerful brutes in a tunnel above this street that just rape me.

This game just throws you in.....obviously my character sucks because i shoot them in the head with the sniper and it literally does nothing.

Mega_Mustaine

Your effectiveness with a given weapon is going to largely depend on how skilled you are in it's class. The sniper rifle is in the 'Big Guns' class. If you're specializing in 'Small Guns' or 'Energy Weapons' then you're not going to be as effective with it. Personally I focus on 'Small Guns' and have been able to effective use hunting rifles as my primary weapons even into advanced stages of the game. Also if you're having that much trouble with the game try lowering the difficulty level down (it can be raised or lowered at any time during the game). Also I wouldn't advise trying to tackle the main quests early on, as many of them lead you deep into the DC ruins, which can be an absolute deathtrap for lower level characters. Try doing some of the side quests you get around Megaton. These can be a good way to build up your character's level and/or earn caps. Also loot, loot, loot. Virtually everything in the game can ether be of use to you or can be sold for caps.

BTW: Keep your Karma good. It's easy to go from good to neutral to evil and much harder to go from evil to good.

For the people having trouble are you using / do you understand V.A.T.S ?

In my experience V.A.T.S made this game's combatamazingly easy.

For the people having trouble are you using / do you understand V.A.T.S ?

In my experience V.A.T.S made this game's combatamazingly easy.

Chickan_117

yea.... almost too easy. sniper + better criticals + grim reaper's sprint = win.

I just stole everything I owned I was an excellent pickpocketer try breaking into megaton armory

son_of_akiller

[QUOTE="son_of_akiller"]

I just stole everything I owned I was an excellent pickpocketer try breaking into megaton armory

TheEldestGod

I remember it being really hard to make money at the start of the game, but it started getting a lot easier later on. Just do some easy side missions to make money and avoid fighting hard stuff.

I thought the game was really hard in the beginning. They start you out with some ridiculously underpowered weapons - I remember shooting a guy 10 times in the chest and it didn't even slow him down. Just get to Megaton, which is south of vault 101, and that can be a safe haven. You can do some quests there and build up a bit of money. One thing I'd recommend is that when you level up, invest a lot of points toward your repair skill. You'll often get lots of identical weapons from enemies you've killed, and if you go into your pip boy, highlight a weapon and hit triangle, you can combine several (identical) weapons together into a single weapon that's in a much higher state of repair, and much more effective. Once you get the repair skill up to 100 you can really start kicking some butt. It's also very useful because you'll often end up picking up more stuff than you can carry, so you can drop a lot of weight by combining weapons together. It works with armor as well.

Another decision you want to make early on is whether to get a house in Megaton (diffuse the bomb at the center of town), or to get a much nicer penthouse apartment at Tenpenny Towers (talk to one of the people at the bar in Magaton and he'll give you some device to detonate the bomb). Your house will be your base of operations for the whole game, so it's kind of important to get one you like.

For money early in the game, you can pick up a lot of tin cans and bottles. It's time consuming and they're not worth much, but it you're patient you can at least get some money. You sell all that junk to various vendors - the woman at Craterside Supply, the woman who runs the diner in Megaton, the doctor, etc. If you clean out everything at the Super Duper Mart (which will take several trips) you can get a pretty good start in the game.

I remember it being really hard to make money at the start of the game, but it started getting a lot easier later on. Just do some easy side missions to make money and avoid fighting hard stuff.

Falconthefirst

it takes a little getting use to on what to do the sniper rifle you can buy in the museum and on the ship i can't think of its name. Caps you can get from looting dead bodies stealing selling and from doing quest and whatdifficulty do you have it set on?

It's difficult starting out, as the op pointed out, there's no gradual progression. Once you're in the world, you're faced with almost every level of enemy. There's harder enemies in certain areas but for the most part anyone/anything can kill you. Your initial stats are pretty important, there isn't much room for error. Focus points on a few traits, you don't want to spread the points thin.

While in the world, take your time and pick your battles. Keep your eyes open, mainly for raiders, and don't ever rush in guns a-blazing. I found my fave gun was actually the hunting rifle - very plain but relatively plentiful, so ammo wasn't too hard to aquire and a modest repair skill kept it operating a long time. It's also possible to somewhat "snipe" with it, just obviously not at a great distance. I ended up using this a lot against raiders & lower level mutants. I didn't really use VATS a lot - i favored wounding, retreating, then slowly picking off. For instance, enemies have a real hard time chasing you with a bullet in their leg.

I'd also advise not tackling buildings & subways unless necessary to the main story, at least until you've gain experience/weapons while free-roaming. That school is one of the first places i tried, and i got whomped. I tried a couple times until i realized it was just a bad idea at the time. The supermarket is a FANTASTIC place to go if you take your time clearing it out, as once you clear it out, it stays cleared out and becomes a valuable safe haven. You can store gear and sleep. The supermarket pretty much became my in-game home.

Oh, and don't waste bullets on lesser creatures like mole rats - melee them instead.

Idk, I always found this game incredibly easy. On the hardest difficulty I completed Fallout 3 and all the DLC's without dying once. VATS makes the combat in this game incredibly easy, you just need to know how to use cover and properly distribute VATS action and ammo.

If your having a hard time, make sure and do EVERYTHING possible and collect every item you can while in the original Vault 101. If done properly you can reach level 3 befoee you exit the vault. Then go to megaton, make sure you have 25 demolition skill and defuse the megaton bomb, then talk to moira and do the first three Survival Guide mission. This is the general path i take right off the bat every time I start the game, it should work pretty well if done correctly. :)

I was in the same boat as you when I first started playing. But when I hit level 5, 6 I had alot more skills, stimpacks and ammo which increased the joy and survivability by tenfold. You don't get big guns or plasma / laser weapons until later so don't focus on those yet. It's the easiest to take 'traditional' weaponry like your hunting rifle. Finding hunting rifle ammo is a bit hard in the beginning, but you will gain skills after a few levels that increases all ammo you find in ammo boxes. Also you can try to scout out the area for buildings with raiders, just save alot and clear them out for some nice caps and ammo. It's 100000% worth to go on and experience the game, it gets easier fast. Super mutants are mortally dangerous in the first levels, but easy to kill once you reach level 5++PetJel

Actually, if you want to create a character focoused on laser weps, you can find a laser pistol in the supermarket. Again, the supermarket is a great place to start.

Lover the difficulty maybe? Cause if you're getting owned at the lowest diffuculty then i don't think anyone can help you.

You do what you want and you survive. It's the beauty of it...

The only thing I can think of that is hard at the beggining is getting mobbed by 3 or 4 enemies at once or running into random yao guai.

It is a must that your character has at least one combat skill at 35 - 40 right from the start of the game. Small guns is easily the best choice if you aren't gonna rely heavily on combat because small guns are very common, do a lot of damage, and you can use wide range of guns. Pistols, shotguns and SMG are great up close, assault rifles and rifles are good all around guns, and scoped revolver and sniper are only good guns in the game to use at long range ( apart from scoped Gauss gun ( energy weapon ) introduced in Operation Anchorage DLC ). Big Guns are close range, lots of ammo guns or explosive guns. Energy weapons are good too but I prefer Small guns. I also had boatloads of fun with melee, hand to hand and explosive weapons. If you are fast or well armored you can quickly aproach enemies and tear them to pieces with axes, power fists, rippers. Unique explosives like nuka grenade and bottlecap mine can do as much damage as more powerfull big guns. Grenades and mines are very common, grenades can sometimes be troublesome to throw accurately. Demolition expert, a perk available at lvl6 increases explosive damage by 20% each time you take it, up to 3 times, that can make your explosives very powerfull.

I suggest you to go to Springvale school, you can get some pistols there and assault rifle located in bug mine. From there go to Megaton, find Moira in her shop, she can give you good armor, you can do 1st chapter of her book without much problems. From there it's totally up to you where to go next. You can wander in the wastes north and west of Megaton or you can go visit more straightforward DC ruins. Wherever you go you gonna have lots of fun.

Another thing, if you have DLC I don't suggest doing them. You can try Anchorage from at least level 10, same goes for Pitt, Point Lookout has very strong enemies with very powerfull repeater rifles, it is however the most interesting of all DLCs. Wait until level 15 but you can try it out before that. I was about level 14 when I first went into there. I had very high small guns skill and was struggling to kill them with powerfull Double barreled shotgun. You can get into conflicts with larger number of enemies very easily, and the first quest in main quest of that DLC requires you to kill at least 50 of those enemies in a small mansion ( awesome quest by the way ).

Don't try to make pacifist character and you should be just fine. I don't recommend stealth character for your first playthrough but whatever suits you.

Further to marinko123'spost I recommend using the perk that allows you to assign an additional SPECIAL perk whenever you can until your intelligence is maxed. A higher intelligence gives you more points to assign to skills each time you level up. If you have a high intelligence right at the start you will end up closer to having all your skills at 100 by the end of the game.

Also raise all your skill to around 85-90. There are bobble heads for most skills which give you an extra 10 points plus there are a few books around which give you 1 point. By the time I hit level 20 I had almost everything at 100. I think I didn't get big guns, barter, explosives and melee weapons. However they were still high. I was unstoppable :)

The hardest thing I found at the start of the game was that I ran out of ammo fairly often and had to resort to a melee weapon. Don't worry too much about buying ammo as the game's economy is terrible, you can collect a full inventory of crap and still be unable to afford much ammunition. I found the best method was to take out raider camps. Raiders usually have ammo boxes lying around and almost always carry armor/guns. I picked up all the guns I could find and changed often.

Another trick to winning fights is using VATS properly. The easiest way to win a fight is to run at an enemy until you're fairly close. Hit the VATS button and go for headshots. If you're close enough you'll have a 70% or higher chance so a couple of shots should finish the enemy. With this method you should be able to wipeout the enemies fairly easily.

Head to Megaton and sell your stuff from the vault and start doing the side quests there. Once you've done some side quests, buy some gear, and buy a Chinese assault rifle, then start doing the main quest. Early on in the main quest, you can get eight Fatman rockets (in the area where you encounter the Super Mutant Behemoth in the square, they're found on the dead body by the fountain) which you can sell for tons of caps. The Sniper can be found from Arkansas who is found in the Mine town (I can't remember the name.

Thanks for the tips everyone! The game was actually set at the hardest difficulty, so I went down to normal and am having a much easier time. My hunting rifle is actually pretty solid on this difficulty and can take out raiders in a few shots.

I just completed the second chapter for the side mission in megaton, and have collected an assault rifle, shotgun, and sniper rifle. Those turtle crab things were hard though, I barely made it through and used like 10 stimpacks.

I also beat the huge brute in the game, and I just want to get 1000 caps for the rocket launcher schematic. But I basically get 200 caps and then need to repair a weapon or something. Any ideas how to get more caps?

Thanks for the tips everyone! The game was actually set at the hardest difficulty, so I went down to normal and am having a much easier time. My hunting rifle is actually pretty solid on this difficulty and can take out raiders in a few shots.

I just completed the second chapter for the side mission in megaton, and have collected an assault rifle, shotgun, and sniper rifle. Those turtle crab things were hard though, I barely made it through and used like 10 stimpacks.

I also beat the huge brute in the game, and I just want to get 1000 caps for the rocket launcher schematic. But I basically get 200 caps and then need to repair a weapon or something. Any ideas how to get more caps?

Mega_Mustaine

Did you even go to Megaton? That's the place to start if you're struggling.

Thanks for the tips everyone! The game was actually set at the hardest difficulty, so I went down to normal and am having a much easier time. My hunting rifle is actually pretty solid on this difficulty and can take out raiders in a few shots.

I just completed the second chapter for the side mission in megaton, and have collected an assault rifle, shotgun, and sniper rifle. Those turtle crab things were hard though, I barely made it through and used like 10 stimpacks.

I also beat the huge brute in the game, and I just want to get 1000 caps for the rocket launcher schematic. But I basically get 200 caps and then need to repair a weapon or something. Any ideas how to get more caps?

Mega_Mustaine

I wouldn't bother with the Rock-It Launcher. It's not that great of a weapon and the novelty of firing tin cans and teddy bears at your enemies wears off quick. Save that thousand for something more useful. The Railway Rifle is much better as far as custom weapons go.

You have to explore.... the whole point is to start off with a overwhelming feeling of hopelessness... you have to explore to find weapons, caps, ammo, etc.... you sound like you're just expecting to be armed to the teeth right from the start and that just is not the case.

[QUOTE="Mega_Mustaine"]

Thanks for the tips everyone! The game was actually set at the hardest difficulty, so I went down to normal and am having a much easier time. My hunting rifle is actually pretty solid on this difficulty and can take out raiders in a few shots.

I just completed the second chapter for the side mission in megaton, and have collected an assault rifle, shotgun, and sniper rifle. Those turtle crab things were hard though, I barely made it through and used like 10 stimpacks.

I also beat the huge brute in the game, and I just want to get 1000 caps for the rocket launcher schematic. But I basically get 200 caps and then need to repair a weapon or something. Any ideas how to get more caps?

worlock77

I wouldn't bother with the Rock-It Launcher. It's not that great of a weapon and the novelty of firing tin cans and teddy bears at your enemies wears off quick. Save that thousand for something more useful. The Railway Rifle is much better as far as custom weapons go.

yea dude i tried this game months ago and was walking around with a freakin BB gun of all things getting pwnt by rabid dogs and other stuff. They tried to make it FPS type but I couldnt shoot anything. And the whole pausing thing, click on their head or whatever is really weak and boring imo.

The Chinese Assault Rifle and the Combat Shotgun are two of the best guns for most of the game.

As part of the main quest, you'll most likely run across a town in a canyon called Evergreen Mills. If you fight your way through there and get to the big building at the end, you can get to the tunnels underneath. Then fight your way through there and you'll find a vendor called Smiling Jack. Kill him and you get his "Terrible Shotgun". If you keep that thing repaired to 100%, it has a damage rating of 80. :twisted:

Honestly, this is the great thing about this game, the survival, escaping by the edge of your teeth, ducking, diving. Just try to be more sneaky and don't leave yourself so open + step your game up. This is a very unforgiving game.

yea dude i tried this game months ago and was walking around with a freakin BB gun of all things getting pwnt by rabid dogs and other stuff. They tried to make it FPS type but I couldnt shoot anything. And the whole pausing thing, click on their head or whatever is really weak and boring imo.

ekultus

It's really not that hard even if you don't use the V.A.T.S. system. If you're having trouble with this game turn the difficulty down. If you're still having that much trouble then you might just suck at games.

Find a place you can loot.

Once you find a place, grab a lead pipe or some kind of melee weapon that isn't your bat. Find enemies and kill them. Bashing their brains in with a pipe is much better than a gun because they all start out in to ****er and are useless until you can repair them. It's better to get up close and personal at the start because it does significantly more damage.