A General Strategy Guide for Fallout 3 - A work in progress

[nitnit]

(In case no one knows why I'm making all of these content posts, it's for the website I plan on launching in a couple months - all of these will be polished and placed on there, if you want to contribute to the site be sure to let me know)

(this is a work in progress! if you have any input let me know)


Fallout 3. I have a serious love/hate relationship with this game. On one hand I don't like how they messed up a lot of story elements from the original game, and it requires a completionist with patience to fully explore the world, but the world is huge and pretty well made.

I have however noticed some people complaining that the game is difficult... I don't really understand their pain, but I'm going to give a few tips to alleviate it.


General Tips:


- Don't be afraid to look online for help. There is a fallout wikia called The Vault that is a phenomenal database for this game. While it is fun to explore, you'll probably never find everything without this database.

- Save often. The game is full of glitches, and there are lots of little ways you can miss out on great rewards.

- Only collect items that have a good weight/value ratio. Early game I try to get things that are worth at least 5 caps per 1 weight, and later on I up my standards to 20 caps per 1 weight. If you don't care about caps at all only take unique items you want and ammo (which is weightless).

- Don't worry about karma. The karma system is extremely easy to abuse, just simply donate to a church or (rivet city if you blew up megaton) donate scrap metal to the guy in megaton to get it back up. Alternatively to lower your karma you can simply go up to an owned (red) terminal while hidden and continuously access it then exit out

- Buy the medical center for your house. It's the best upgrade you can get since it'll heal your radiation for free. After you acquire it, don't be afraid to take advantage of the water bubblers/pools of water/sinks

- When you can afford it pick up the laboratory. It will let you fully utilize the pretty powerful Psycho and Morphene (med-x) chems without fear of paying to get rid of the penalty.

- Collect all the SPECIAL bobbleheads, and the ones for skills you use.

- Collect books for skills you use a lot.

- There are some unique weapons that are really good you can acquire pretty early, examples are lincoln's repeater, blackhawk, xuanlong assualt rifle (read a guide online to get it so you don't screw yourself out of it), the alien blaster, and if you have operation anchorage the gauss rifle.

- If you're playing on a PC or you're just plain good at FPSes, use VATs less, if you figure out how your gun fires its projectiles you can be more deadly. However, if you're on a console, or just not that fantastic at FPSes then VATs it up.

- Free Fawkes! He is quite literally a beast, and is worth having a good karma for, even if only temporarily. He will annihilate most of your foes, and take an insane amount of damage, plus if you really need to you can give him stimpacks.

- If you're having trouble in the beginning, steal a bunch of stuff, get 1000 caps, and recruit Jericho. Also pick up Dogmeat. If Jericho isn't good enough for you, make your way down to the museum of history and pick up Charon, or become neutrally aligned and buy the Mr. Gutsy from outside of the Robco Factory)

S.P.E.C.I.A.L:


Strength is nice for carrying more, but unless you want to use melee/unarmed not too important

Perception is good at around rank 6ish but not really needed beyond that

Charisma is nice if you intend on interacting with NPCs a lot and winning speech checks

Intellect is great for getting more skill points per level, but if you don't care about skill points or are fine with going out of your way to get lots of books don't worry about it

Agility is fantastic for ranged VATs gun fighters since it gives you more AP, but if you don't like VATs or guns then don't bother

Luck is good for helping you score more critical hits and getting more positive random encounters. Each point of luck also gives you +.5 to all skills (rounded up). You'll want at least 6 luck so you can pick up the better criticals perk.


Skills:

Remember when planning your skills out that some armors have +skill benefits. If you are fine with keeping, for example, a lesko's lab coat with you at all times and equipping it when you want to hack computers, you could allot yourself ten less science skill points.

Your most important skill is your primary weapon skill, unless you want to make your character a certain way for roleplaying purposes, this should be small guns. You can increase small guns +15% through clothing

Next you should get lockpicking to at least 75 and science to 50 to make the game a good deal easier. You could also boost lockpicking to 100 if you want to get a lot of good loot (including a great sniper rifle) without glitching, and 75 science if you want to get the computer hacking achievement. Also if you plan on getting the cyborg perk you'll need 60 science. You can increase lockpicking by 5% through clothing and 10% through science

A 60 in medicine will allow you to pick up the cyborg perk and give you a few dialogue options for quests. It will also give you more health per stimpack and more rads eliminated from radaway. A nice "luxury" skill.

Speech is another great skill, however if you save right before a speech check, you can simply reload until you win. If you don't like reloading either due to laziness or personal discipline, then increase this one, you can sometimes double your rewards, half your costs, and occasionally bypass entire quests. Keep in mind you can raise it by +10 permanently from passing a speech check with an NPC related to the Oasis quest. ALSO if you take the impartial mediation perk and maintain a neutral alignment you'll get another +30 passive bonus to speech, and through clothing you can raise it another 20%

Repair is also fantastic, and you'll probably want it up to 100 by the time you're level 20. Early on it can help keep your weapons powerful and your costs low, and later on you can keep your stuff in top condition - higher than the best NPCs can offer. It will also allow you to make crafted items in higher condition (not that big of a deal for the most part). You can raise your repair by +5% through clothing.

Barter is a fun skill for greed, but you should get to a point in the game where you have a ton of money just from looting and selling items from random encounters (probably after you activate the enclave) You can increase barter by +10% through clothing.

Sneak is another good one, but not vital. It can be helpful for securing those sneak criticals, but with the operation anchorage chinese stealth armor, and stealth boys you could get by without it. You'll need an 80 in sneak to get the Ninja perk, very useful for a melee character You can increase sneak +15% through clothing

Lastly you might want to level up another weapon skill

Energy weapons will let you use the alien blaster/firelance/guass rifle/plasma rifle/metal blaster - all fantastic weapons. You'll need 60 in energy weapons to get the concentrated fire perk if that interests you. You can increase energy weapons by 15% through clothing.

Big Guns will let you effectively use Gattling Lasers/Vengeance, missile launchers, and the Fatman/MIRV, as well as the near infinite ammo Rock-It-Launcher. You can increase big guns by 15% through clothing.

Explosives will let you use the robot disabling plasma grenades better, as well as the very poweful nuka grenades and bottlecap mines. You can increase explosives by 15% through clothing.

Melee is good for silent killings, and early on in the game when ammo might be scarce. You can increase melee by 10% through clothing

Unarmed is also for silent killings without ammo, but is probably only really useful for a role playing character. You can increase unarmed 15% through clothing


Perks


All around great perks:

Toughness
Cyborg
Better Criticals
Finesse
Silent Running (unless you hate sneaking)

At level 20 you either want Grim Reaper's Sprint or Ninja. The former is great for a VATs user, the latter is great for sneak attacks and melee/unarmed characters.

Solar Powered would be great, but is simply outclassed by those other two. Perhaps when the level cap is raised it will be useful.


If want to acquire a lot of skill points, get the educated and comprehensive perks early on

Commando
Sniper
Gunslinger
Action Boy/Girl
Concentrated Fire


If you insist on playing unarmed make sure you pick up 3 ranks of Iron Fist, Paralyzing Palm, and Ninja


Decent "filler" perks (perks if you feel you will make use of and there are no better ones)

Black Widow/Lady Killer (better for female characters since there are more male enemies)
Robotics Expert/Entomologist (Robotics expert is better since robots are harder enemies than insects)
Impartial Mediation (best "skill" perk, but requires you to stay neutral for the bonus)
Bloody Mess (the +5% damage ends up being less than you'd think, except for on weapons like the fat man and MIRV)
Adamintite Skeleton (better than some people think, lets you save stimpacks from missteps on mines or explosions)
Strong Back (+50 carrying is always cool)
Animal Friend (a one rank investment is recommended to get mutated bears to leave you alone)
Light Step (only good if you don't want to slow down to disarm stuff)
Demolition Expert/Pyromaniac (only good if you use those weapons)
Mysterious Stranger (amusing but unnecessary)
Nerd Rage (hard to stay at 20% and not die)
Night Person (only work half the time..)
Master Trader (by level 14 and with that much barter skill you'll probably have little need for the discount)
Lifegiver (just taking intense training and getting +1 endurance is usually better)
Chemist/Chem Resistant is good if you plan on using a lot of chems.
Cannibal and Mister Sandman are both cool RP ideas, but offer pretty marginal benefits gameplay wise.



Worthless Perks:

All Skill Perks (unless you seriously need the skill points)
Rad Resistance (unless you really have no other worthwhile perks)
Fast Metabolism (unless you're bad at combat/searching you'll probably have a surplus of stimpacks at around level 10)
Lawbringer/Contract Killer (unless you want it for the RP value, or if you like collecting fingers/ears... seriously though the money isnt really worth it)
Scrounger (unless you suck at obtaining caps. only other real use is getting a few more alien energy cells from one container)
Child at Heart (you very rarely benefit much from it)
Here and Now (may sound cool, but you end up losing a potential perk)
Swift Learner (you'll hit level 20 pretty easily without it, trust me)
Lead Belly (just buy the infirmary for your house and cure your rads)
Explorer (just use a map online)
Infiltrator (just learn to save, or don't auto pick)
Computer Whiz (just learn to save, or press B after 3 tries)
Fortune Finder (you get like 3 more caps per nuka cola drank, and you could have sold that nuka cola for 20 caps....)



Weapon Tier List (incomplete and subject to change)


Special Tier (great damage output, but may have limited/expensive ammo, and are hard to keep in tip top condition, or another disadvantage)

MIRV (fires 8 mininukes at a time. hard to justify its use since none of the enemies are really powerful enough except maybe super mutant behemoths on very hard. Misuse may kill you)
Fatman (not needed for most single targets except maybe behemoths, good at taking out groups of enemies I guess)
Firelance (breaks quickly, very limited ammo)
Alienblaster (very limited ammo)
Vengeance Gattling Laser (breaks easy, hard to repair, lots of ammo)
Miss Launcher (relatively expensive to keep full of ammo)
Burn Master (only really good if enemy is crippled, ammo is kind of expensive/rare)
Flamer (same as burnmaster, but outclassed by burnmaster)
Nuka Grenade (good damage, limited amount of nuka cola quantum, a material used to make them)


Top Tier (good damage output, relatively easy to keep full of ammo and maintain):

Blackhawk (you must ask for a reward to get it. magnum ammo can be kinda scarce)
Lincoln's Repeater (magnum ammo can be kinda scarce)
A3-21's Plasma Rifle (easy to miss out on)
Gauss Rifle (hard to keep repaired, and may be difficult to aim with, but nice damage and knockback)
High Tier (slightly outclassed by top tier, might be better to use if you don't have the resources)


Xuanlong Assault Rifle (easy to miss out on if you mess up the quest)
Victory Rifle (almost the same as a normal sniper, but knocks enemies over on a crit, including behemoths and deathclaws, crits with this can make them a lot less threatening)
The Terrible Shotgun (only good at point blank range, breaks fast)
Metal Blaster (better to aim with at medium/short range outside of VATs)
Plasma Rifle (outclassed by the unique one)


Armor Tier List (incomplete and subject to change)


Godly Tier:

Winterized T-51B Power Armor
Winterized T-51B Power Helmet
(these two are in this tier because for some reason, whether it be glitch or not, they seemingly never degenerate)
Chinese Stealth Armor (has a stealth boy like stealth field effect)
Leodux's Hockey Mask (+25 AP)



Top Tier:

T-51B Power Armor (the highest DR in the game, but you cannot repair without an NPC)
T-51B Power Helmet (outclassed by the winterized version since the latter does not degenerate and offers the exact same benefits)
Prototype Medic Armor (injects med-x into you when you are at 20% health, you cannot become addicted to it this way and you can stack it with another med-x)
Tesla Armor (nice bonuses. Note: I don't like the helm.)
Tribal Power Armor (nice stat boosts and +15 AP. unfortunately subtracts 1 agility.)
Ashur's Power Armor (+1 Charisma, +1 Luck, +10 Radiation Resistance, +1 Strength, -1 Agility)
Ranger Battle Armor (lower DR, but nice +5 AP, +10 small guns, and +1 luck)




High Tier:

Lyndin's Power Armor (this is the top of the high tier, best benefits out of high tier)
Enclave/Brotherhood/Outcast Power Armor



Worth a mention:


Advanced Radiation Suit - +40 radiation resistance
Lesko's Lab Coat - +10 science, +20 rad resistance
Naughty Nightwear - +10 speech
Roving Trader Outfit and Hat - +10 barter total
Red Racer Jumpsuit - +5 repair
The surgeon's labcoat - +5 science, +10 medicine
Vance's Longcoat - +10 small guns, +1 charisma, +1 perception
Poplar's Hood (+10 sneak +1 agil)
Lincoln's Hat (+1 int +5 speech)
Button's Wig (-1 Perception, +1 Intelligence, +5 Barter, +10 Speech)
Ghoul Mask (feral ghouls won't attack you)




TO DO LIST:


Work on tiers
Create sample stating characters
Create short "quick start" walkthrough to get players in a good place early on.  

[Tron714]

i like it, its useful but theres www.fallout.wikia.com xD
not gonna burst your site though.

oh i think theres a error on your weapon list for the licoln repeater. the ammo isnt a magnum i think, it uses stronger than .44 magnum ammo. one of my favorite guns btw xD

i also applaud your achievement completion for fallout 3, i dont have the time to crank out alot of the achievements. Makes me wish i was 14 again without a girlfriend, then again i dont  

[nitnit]

I actually mention the fallout wiki in the article, it's a great resource, but there's no real strategies just a bunch of information you have to look for. As for the website, it's not a fallout website, just a general gaming/pop culture site that will have many articles, I just happen to be playing fallout a lot recently.

There are faqs/walkthroughs, but I feel that some of them aren't accurate (in my opinion at least). I also haven't really seen many lists saying what weapons are the best, something that I intend on exploring with this guide thing.

As for lincoln's repeater, it definitely is magnum ammo, believe me. That's what makes the repeater so much stronger than the hunting rifle from a "logical standpoint" if you will.

Also, thanks, if I get some time this week I should finish the remaining three achievements, but I'm seventeen with a girlfriend, whom I see on a regular basis, so saying you aren't fourteen without one isn't a very valid excuse xd  

[pathetic_negi_magician]

This guide pretty much matches up with what I've figured out from playing through three different characters.

But perhaps you should include details on which followers are more useful, what weapons and armor bring out their potential, and possibly the multiple followers glitch?

Edit:

Also, details on how to keep your save file down, such as by avoiding laser and plasma weapons, as well as closing doors. Because as it's been proven before, the larger the save file is, the more likely the game is to perma-freeze.  

[nitnit]

I was avoiding the technical tips and glitches/exploits. Though I guess my negative karma trick is an exploit. As for followers it's pretty much (in approximate order) Fawkes, Charon, Jericho, Clover, Star Paladin Cross, Butch, Dogmeat.

Let me make it very clear, Fawkes is godly. I've never seen him die. I'm curious what challenges await me in the capitol building when I go after that behemoth, but we'll see.

Also Charon is very good. I've seen him get beaten up by high level enclave squads and deathclaws/giant radscorpians, but against most enemies his shotgun is very lethal.

The recruitable Mr. Gutsy robot is very decent until the mid teen levels since by then the other followers surpass him (they scale with your level)


What I used to judge that was mostly their default weapon (since it has infinite ammo) and endurance. Star Paladin cross is low because her damage is mediocre and you can give power armor to other followers, except for fawkes and dogmeat. Butch is low since for him to be useful you have to provide him with a new weapon and ammo, and Dogmeat is ranked lowest because he has this terrible tendency to run up to high powered enemies (at level 20 especially) and get killed quickly.

In the beginning of the game however, if you don't want to go solo pick up dogmeat and either jericho, charon, or mr. gutsy.  

[nitnit]

I officially have every achievement unlocked now. And everything was easy. =/ Guess that's why very hard mode is pretty popular.  

[Tron714]

i think fallout is pretty easy. you should probably make a little guide about being over powered quickly in the game. by running to the crashed alien site and picking up the alien blaster. for a emergency option, when your about to die xD  

[pathetic_negi_magician]

^ But the Alien Blaster has a limited supply of ammo, and is better saved for when you get the almighty Fire Lance. (Mind you, it's not a fire-attribute weapon.)

And nitnit, I'd be willing to help provide some articles on video games. Mainly RPGs, but that's because RPGs are my niche.  

[nitnit]

We'll probably try to get the website going in a month or so, but knowing us who knows how long. Expect a domain name like "metaridley.com" or something along those lines. What we'll probably do is let anyone contribute, put up good articles, and anyone who consistently submits good articles (like 1 or 2 a week) will get a piece of the profits (if there are any, I honestly don't know how well this will work, and we gotta cover costs first)  

[Tron714]

pathetic_negi_magician

^ But the Alien Blaster has a limited supply of ammo, and is better saved for when you get the almighty Fire Lance. (Mind you, it's not a fire-attribute weapon.)

And nitnit, I'd be willing to help provide some articles on video games. Mainly RPGs, but that's because RPGs are my niche.

Just be conservative of your ammo, there really is no point in saving as much ammo as you can. Its not like that every character out there is impossibly hard.  

[nitnit]

The only problem with saving it until finding the firelance is the fact that the firelance is obtained from a rare random event that you can sometimes not even notice.  

[Tron714]

I think what would be useful is spawn points. And how often they spawn. There is a raider with a book in his inventory that spawns every week from his death. Something like that would be useful.

What i would like to know, is if there is a spawn for Nuka Cola Quantum. This is for the Nuka Cola Challenge of course, i kinda sold and drank them before i found this quest sweatdrop

And i stand corrected about the .44 ammo for the Lincoln Repeater, finally decided to look at the ammo description when i played Fallout 3 again.  

[pathetic_negi_magician]

ninja
Nuka-Cola Quantum is hard to come by. I don't know the odds, but it's possible to find 1 in each vending machine you come across.

However, as soon as you get within a certain distance of a vending machine (in the overworld) or enter the room it is inside (in buildings/ the subway system), the contents of that vending machine is determined. So if you save outside of most subway stations, you can reset until you find them.

Just be aware that it might not work when you use auto-saves, so try a hard save outside of the subway.  

[Haratio TaFotter]

pathetic_negi_magician

ninja
Nuka-Cola Quantum is hard to come by. I don't know the odds, but it's possible to find 1 in each vending machine you come across.

However, as soon as you get within a certain distance of a vending machine (in the overworld) or enter the room it is inside (in buildings/ the subway system), the contents of that vending machine is determined. So if you save outside of most subway stations, you can reset until you find them.

Just be aware that it might not work when you use auto-saves, so try a hard save outside of the subway.

Its worth noting that this works for a little while. There several quantums that are made to be outside of the vending machines. If you have high luck though, you increase your chances (I have a frined who made his character with maxed out luck and found quantums in machines ten times in a row).  

[nitnit]

There is no spawn points for nuka cola quantum. There are 93 in preset locations (laying around), and there is around a 10% chance of getting one in a vending machine (luck doesn't effect this very much actually), and one of the random encounters is a guy who'll sell you one for about 100 caps.

Also I don't really see the point of including spawn points. Usually it's random, though I guess you could mention that there's usually deathclaws in old olney and raiders outside the super duper mart. Also which raider carries a book and respawns weekly...? I've never heard of such a phenomenon. I was under the impression there's only around 25 of each book in the game which with the appropriate perk would allow you to raise each skill by 50 (if you actually plan it out ahead of time you can infact get every skill up to 100)