Green-E66:

Eh, I decided that being a neutral/evil character was far more profitable, thus... =P Thanks for the help though. =D

Did you already do the Wasteland Survival Guide? Neutral, evil or no, it's a great questline (lots of neat goodies, plus the joy of Moira's dialogue), but Moira being alive (in some shape or form) is required.

Course there's always another playthru for that.

I played it for a bit at an internet cafe and made my character look like a cross between Chopper Reid, Chuck Norris and a Neanderthal... it was hilarious seeing what the game made him look like during his growth stages hahahaha

I'm booting it up for the first time. I think i'll play a Clint Eastwood "Man with No name" style character- grim, honest hearted mercenary. Gunslinger- pistols only!

TsunamiWombat:
I'm booting it up for the first time. I think i'll play a Clint Eastwood "Man with No name" style character- grim, honest hearted mercenary. Gunslinger- pistols only!

Make sure you look for a certain gun called "Blackhawk" then. Scoped .44 Magnum with extra power. Extra head destroying fun included.

Gotham Soul:

TsunamiWombat:
I'm booting it up for the first time. I think i'll play a Clint Eastwood "Man with No name" style character- grim, honest hearted mercenary. Gunslinger- pistols only!

Make sure you look for a certain gun called "Blackhawk" then. Scoped .44 Magnum with extra power. Extra head destroying fun included.

It's my favorite gun. It'd be nice if there was a quick reloading perk for one-handed/2handed weapons. It reloads sort of slow considering it needs to be done so often.

waffletaco:
It's my favorite gun. It'd be nice if there was a quick reloading perk for one-handed/2handed weapons. It reloads sort of slow considering it needs to be done so often.

There is a quick-reloading quasi-cheat. Before a weapon is out of ammo, switch to another weapon and then switch back. Your weapon will have a full clip again.

-- Alex

I played till I got outside when my OCD kicked in, started a new game this time with a character with slightly lower str and end, but with -9- int and 7 perception.

I'm gonna be a goddamned mad scientist!

TsunamiWombat:
I played till I got outside when my OCD kicked in, started a new game this time with a character with slightly lower str and end, but with -9- int and 7 perception.

I'm gonna be a goddamned mad scientist!

I'd fire up that OCD again and start with 9 Int, 6 Luck, 7 if you intend to wear a power armour helmet (and thus can't wear Lucky Shades). Perception is all but useless as all it does is give bonuses to a couple of skills, which will be outweighed by the extra skill points Int gives you anyway. Then as soon as you exit the vault pile down to Rivet City and get the Int bobblehead, giving you 10 Int by level 3 and the maximum possible number of skill points for the game.

what do you all do for caps, I've always got less than 500 and can never get anything I need?

BoVinE:
what do you all do for caps, I've always got less than 500 and can never get anything I need?

Beyond just scavenging as much as you can and finding traders (and when dealing with traders, repair broken items before selling them--often you'll get more for one decent weapon than two crappy ones), this is what I found:

1. Do quests and ask for payment (talk to everyone); most of them have a monetary reward in there somewhere
2. Find the ghoul who's making UltraJet and sell him Sugar Bombs for 15-30 caps a box. If you get the Blood Ties quest you will be told at some point three locations to search; the ghoul is in one of them (and that's in fact the place you'll want to explore closely anyway).
3. Solve the Blood Ties quest peaceably and sell Blood Packs.
4. Collect Pre-War books and sell them to the chick in the Arlington Library
5. Collect Brotherhood Holotags and sell them to the chick in the Citadel Archives
6. After helping Reilly's Rangers, agree to help them with their mapping project. This'll earn you LOADS, all for just wandering around. The hard part is just finishing the Reilly's Rangers quest so you can get to this point!
7. Sell Abraham Lincoln artifacts--there are at least three people who'll buy them from you, and it should be obvious when you encounter them.
8. Drink LOTS of Nuka Cola ;)

I found early on it was hard to hold onto my caps for long but about midway through, it became a lot easier, especially after helping out Reilly.

DeathQuaker:
I found early on it was hard to hold onto my caps for long but about midway through, it became a lot easier, especially after helping out Reilly.

Yeah, it's tough to keep a hold of your cash until the later parts of the game... but then it's absurdly easy. On my second run-through I ended with something like 16,000 caps and that's with multiple redecorations of my Megaton home and donations to the church in Rivet City. (The free purified water you get from Wadsworth helped out a bunch in the Karma end, too... or at least it saves on stimpacks.)

Another way to get caps is to search everything. There are a lot of desks and filing cabinets in the Wasteland with 1-8 caps apiece; individually they're not much, but after a hundred of them you're talking spending money.

Another is to sell ammo and guns you're not using; my character sucked with energy weapons, so I sold off every laser pistol and energy cell I found for cash.

If you bring scrap metal to the Megaton Water Works you get 10 caps apiece (plus XP); that's a better deal than running food.

You can make a ton of caps doing the Nuka-Cola Challenge quest, but that takes a long time and a lot of searching to complete.

Another way to boost your cash stocks is to keep a high Barter skill; that'll get you a better price on selling loot, and lower your purchasing costs. Also, if you complete the Wasteland Survival Guide you get a bonus selling in Megaton and Rivet City.

-- Steve

BoVinE:
what do you all do for caps, I've always got less than 500 and can never get anything I need?

Stealing everything thats not bolted down. I mean everything. Open every box. Pick every pocket. Steal Steal Steal. Then Jump back to rivet city, or my hometown of megaton and slipping into the roving trader costume (did anyone else get that wierd cutscene with the trader dude who dropped dead wearing this suit?) and then selling it. Bit time consuming but there some special people who give you bumped up prices for certain stuff;

waterguy in megaton gives you 15 caps for scrap metal (which is just about everywhere) After you do a really easy quest for him. you need 30 repair to do it though.

ghoul in the subway near the vampires gives me 45 caps for sugar bombs.

I invested a lot in my speech and barter skills so i tended to make lots of caps.

Also, remember to strip the dead.

BoVinE:
what do you all do for caps, I've always got less than 500 and can never get anything I need?

In the long run, the Repair skill gives you a lot of money. There's two parts to this:
1. Repair lets you keep your stuff in good condition without paying for repairs.
2. Repair lets you pick up a lot more loot. Just mush it all together into a few good items. Instead of having to carry three crappy assault rifles and ten busted-ass sets of Raider armor, you'll be carrying one assault rifle and three sets of Raider armor and getting even more money than the individual bits would fetch if you never repaired them.

Also remember that once you've exhausted a merchant's caps (when the number turns gray), you're basically just giving stuff away. Find another merchant or start picking up items.

-- Alex

I'm trying to find some nuka grendaes they are so awsome

That Head of State quest is bugged. I got rid of the Super Mutants and slavers at the Lincoln Memorial and told Hannibal about it, he said he would gather his people within the hour and then meet me at the memorial; I waited the hour (until I saw the whole gang start to march) then fat traveled to the memorial and they NEVER showed up. I Actually tried escorting them personaly, but the group would just wander aimlessly troughout the waistland (and we all know how big the waistland is). WTF?

laikenf:
That Head of State quest is bugged. I got rid of the Super Mutants and slavers at the Lincoln Memorial and told Hannibal about it, he said he would gather his people within the hour and then meet me at the memorial; I waited the hour (until I saw the whole gang start to march) then fat traveled to the memorial and they NEVER showed up. I Actually tried escorting them personaly, but the group would just wander aimlessly troughout the waistland (and we all know how big the waistland is). WTF?

It's flaky. They travel very slowly. I think it takes them 2 or 3 days to get there, if they don't die along the way. Try checking the spot the marker points to (Metro near the memorial) in a few days.

-- Alex

laikenf:
That Head of State quest is bugged. I got rid of the Super Mutants and slavers at the Lincoln Memorial and told Hannibal about it, he said he would gather his people within the hour and then meet me at the memorial; I waited the hour (until I saw the whole gang start to march) then fat traveled to the memorial and they NEVER showed up. I Actually tried escorting them personaly, but the group would just wander aimlessly troughout the waistland (and we all know how big the waistland is). WTF?

That happened to too. I fixed it by going in the nearby metro station, and waiting for 24 hours. As soon as I came out of the exit they were stood in front of me.

Give it a go.

Bowstring:

laikenf:
That Head of State quest is bugged. I got rid of the Super Mutants and slavers at the Lincoln Memorial and told Hannibal about it, he said he would gather his people within the hour and then meet me at the memorial; I waited the hour (until I saw the whole gang start to march) then fat traveled to the memorial and they NEVER showed up. I Actually tried escorting them personaly, but the group would just wander aimlessly troughout the waistland (and we all know how big the waistland is). WTF?

That happened to too. I fixed it by going in the nearby metro station, and waiting for 24 hours. As soon as I came out of the exit they were stood in front of me.

Give it a go.

I found them by trying to retrace their route, and caught up to the group at the Metro station across from Rivet City where their pathfinding had gotten hung up on, of all things, Syndney trying to get to Underworld. All I had to do was talk with Sydney and everything unjammed.

(Fallout 3 is an amazing game with tons of fun stuff, but the pathfinding and AI collision avoidance is terrible.)

-- Steve

Can you get melee weps in fallout?

Neosage:
Can you get melee weps in fallout?

Yes, but they're somewhat unsatisfying because you can't target body parts in VATS like you can with ranged weapons. Also I think they're all pretty horribly outclassed by the shotgun.

Some of them do look pretty cool, though.

-- Alex

Do you have to aim with VATS? I'm pretty competent in first person shooters so I reckon I could pull of head shots without the system.

Sorry if this is obvious, but I'm exploiting your knowledge.

Danny Ocean:
Do you have to aim with VATS?

Nope, you can play the game without using VATS at all. VATS is just there whenever you decide you'd like to use it. It's all down to personal preference, which is why I like the implementation Bethesda made with VATS.

I have had to forbid myself from playing this game until after finals. My brother just got it and I know that if I got my hands on it I would retreat into some dark corner and not emerge for at lest an month. This has happened to me before with Morrowind and Oblivion, and it will happen again with Fallout 3. Hopefully though I will be able to hold off until next week when finals are over with. To be honest I am looking forward to being able to play Fallout more than I am being done with college for the Holidays.

Fallout 3 owns, I can't wait to get my hands on the MIRV.

Lt. Sera:

Danny Ocean:
Do you have to aim with VATS?

Nope, you can play the game without using VATS at all. VATS is just there whenever you decide you'd like to use it. It's all down to personal preference, which is why I like the implementation Bethesda made with VATS.

I like the way that your character's skill stats come into play in both; in VATS it's hit probability with strikes doing a standard damage amount, but in free-aim shooting your shots (minus a weapon's tendancy to spray; keep 'em repaired!) hit according to how good you are but damage per hit depends upon your character's weapons skill. I think it's a wash as to which is "best", so you can pick the one you prefer. (I'm decent at aiming, but I turned into a total VATS-whore for the camera work.)

-- Steve

I don't understand how some people are struggling to build up a good supply of caps - I've only just accepted the quest from Three Dog and I already have over three thousand. It's not like you need to buy anything anyway, since there are loads of drugs, stimpacks, guns and weapons lying around. My (weighted) inventory basically consists of an SMG, a hunting rifle, clothes, leather armor, some bottlecap mines and several bottles of water/cola. Everything else has either been dumped or sold (with a barter skill of 15, I might add). For a while I carried around one of each small gun but it occurred to me that I was just wasting space and slowing myself down. So far I haven't encountered an enemy that the SMG or rifle couldn't handle. If worst comes to worst I can always fast travel back to Megaton and pick up the Fat Boy.

GloatingSwine:
I'd fire up that OCD again and start with 9 Int, 6 Luck, 7 if you intend to wear a power armour helmet (and thus can't wear Lucky Shades). Perception is all but useless as all it does is give bonuses to a couple of skills, which will be outweighed by the extra skill points Int gives you anyway. Then as soon as you exit the vault pile down to Rivet City and get the Int bobblehead, giving you 10 Int by level 3 and the maximum possible number of skill points for the game.

Nothing personal but isn't the point of a role-playing game to... y'know... play a role? Creating a perfect, guide-worthy character with optimized stats seems a little pointless to me. I am currently an intelligent, agile and lucky scumbag and all my decisions are made toward that end. On my next playthrough I'm planning to go for a stupid-but-kind melee fighter with high charisma, strength and endurance. No doubt I've missed several key items of treasure already and will never have access to the infinity plus one sword!

harhol:
I don't understand how some people are struggling to build up a good supply of caps - I've only just accepted the quest from Three Dog and I already have over three thousand. It's not like you need to buy anything anyway, since there are loads of drugs, stimpacks, guns and weapons lying around.

For me it was blowing my money on ammo; I was shooting my way through the game, taking down every hostile even if I had to pursue, and with early skill levels it took a fair number of bullets to take each baddy down. Once I got Small Guns up a couple of notches and took the Scavenger perk (more ammo in caches) things got a lot easier financially.

-- Steve

I blew all my money on ammo as well. On hard, every single raider just took too many bullets before going down. On lower difficulty I had zero issues with caps.

OK, I have an issue that has really been bugging me lately. Is there any way to make this game actually challenging? On Very Hard I got to the third-last quest in 4 and a half hours worth of game play (yes, I did skip a lot of the side quests) and even after downloading a bunch of mods that supposedly made the game harder, I was still having a really easy time with it.
Now, apparently, it's just me, as everybody else seems to think that Very Hard is, well, very hard, but this is just making the game really boring.

Anton P. Nym:
For me it was blowing my money on ammo; I was shooting my way through the game, taking down every hostile even if I had to pursue, and with early skill levels it took a fair number of bullets to take each baddy down. Once I got Small Guns up a couple of notches and took the Scavenger perk (more ammo in caches) things got a lot easier financially.

I made sure to pimp Small Guns as much as I could. Granted it's something of a safe (boring?) option but I didn't know how difficult the game might get. I have 10 agility and I also took the perk which gives you Repair +5 and Small Guns + 5 three times, so by level four or five I'd effectively maxed it out. All my other skills except sneak and repair are diabolical though. Everyone hates me and I can't carry anything or use grenades/mines/medicine. An endurance stat of 2 ensures that I go green within a matter of seconds as well. The exploration is harder than the fighting!

Richard Groovy Pants:

Mod it.

Well, aside from the retardation of having to mod a game to make it even remotely challenging, how?