Fallout Studios Forums

Several people will have invested in Fallout 3 for Christmas, and here we can post various tips for them, spoilers should use spoiler tags but general tips are fine in plain text.

To get the best out of the game, I have found you only need 5 skills. Science, Repair, Lockpick, Speech and a combat skill of your choice.

Head shots do massive damage, the flashing bar of enemy health shows the amount of damage you will do with 100% accuracy from your VATS combat.

Do the side quests to get the best out of the game (as is true with any RPG).

Repairing items is paramount to getting the best out of them, stores can repair for caps up to their repair percentage (not many over about 55% afaik), or you can in the selection screen using two weaker items to make a stronger item. Choose the item you wish to repair and then hit r to choose from other items that can be scrapped for parts. Once you've selected the item to be scrapped it will be consumed by the repair and the original item will be in better condition.

Only repair guns when a)It improves damage or b)You have a longer reloading anim, as this is when you'll end up being shot
Repair armour when it improves your damage resistance

It is wise to check the items you can repair, since sometimes a can be repaired using b, but b is lost, however if you repair b with a, do you end up with a better product? (Often the case with armours)

Post your own tips.

Get to 100 lockpick ASAP, the amount of useful materials you will obtain with it is huge. Science is also useful, but less so, especially since you can boost it by +5 with Mentats and +10 by obtaining a reward for an early quest. When you maxed lockpick, try to invest at the very least 5 point in repair every level; this is an extremely useful skill that gives you more powerful and reliable weapons, and also makes you able to carry more money in loot; when you can't carry anymore weapons or armour, just repair your items with the things you can't pick up anymore and your loot will be considerably more valuable. Repair 45 will allow you to dismantle shotgun traps, which you can take with you then, as well. Same 5 point tactic goes for speech, speech is useful in a plethora of circumstances.

Early perks you should take are the ones that give you extra skill points when you level, and the one that gives you two skill points instead of one every time you read a skill book (it may not seem valuable at first but there are countless skill books). Do not take the perks that give you extra experience; your level is capped at level 20, which you'll reach anyway, and you're wasting three very valuable perk spots. For the same reason, do NOT choose the Here And Now perk which grants you another level immediately. Another perk you should take ASAP is the Sniper perk if you use firearms (sneak attack headshot criticals with, for example, a sniper rifle, do insane damage and can take out almost all enemies from safe range).

VATS, though it doesn't mention it, degrades your weapons much quicker than firing them normally would. It's powerful, but use it sparingly .

Once you obtain a house (which you should ASAP - you can sleep there, and from that point on the amount of stimpacks you will need to use approaches zero), buy the My First Infirmary. It heals you, your limbs, and most notably removes your radiation, for free.

You might want to obtain a unique weapon early on. Ones you can obtain quite quickly are Ol' Painless, The Kneecapper, A3-21's Plasma Rifle, and the Alien Blaster. Another useful one to obtain is The Terrible Shotgun, though this is slightly more difficult to obtain.

Side quests are very useful.

Collect weapon schematics. If you obtain more than one of a same type, for example if you collect two Bottlecap Mine or two Nuka Grenade schematics, you can make two mines/grenades for the usual amount of ingredients needed to make one. You will be able to create three with one portion of each ingredients if you have three schematics.

For weapons like Rock-It Launcher, Shishkebab and Railway Rifle, one schematics make a weapon with 80% of your Repair skill, getting two allows you to create a weapon with 110% condition of your Repair skill, three schemas allows 120% condition (extra durability).
Edited by Waris, 26 December 2008 - 14:47.

I've found that when I have a higher skill I degrade my weapons slower than at lower skills. WRT to the radiation and the infirmary, I collected more than enough RadX and RadAway to stop me pissing green so other than the bed it was largely redundant, the Nuka Cola machine boosts the effectiveness of all Nuka Cola and other than stims and water the Ice Cold Nukas are the best health for radiation items in the wastes.

Dauth, on 26 Dec 2008, 16:46, said:

Nuka Cola has weight, I never saw a point in them (or any consumable, for that matter). By the end of the game you'll have a few hundred stimpacks too much anyway.

A tip on repairing rely on checking the condition rather than DR/DMG, when repairing an item, check if it adds 20-25% condition, as that is the most optimum you can get out of one repair.

The best repair NPCs are the caravans merchants at 65-75, although you must invest in them and they are prone to dying - grabbing a "essential caravan" (prevents characters from dying; "killing" essentials just make them unconscious) mod is paramount if you're annoyed by losing 1100 caps investments.

INT counts for alot more than any other characteristic, since bonus skill points are derived from your INT stat (I believe it's one bonus point for every stat point past 1) although never go past 9; this goes for every stat, as bobbleheads can fill up that last point.

Generally speaking, any weapon that is not hotkeyed you should stash, chances are that you'll neglect using such weapons as tabbing has a delay.

Pay attention to armor stats, look out for equips that add perception and charisma (usually glasses or hats, look out for ranger armor), by choosing perks like toughness or cyborg, you can easily compensate for the lower DR.

If you kept your perception at 5, a general indicator that enemies are nearby (even though red bars haven't popped up) is if you can't wait or sleep, start sneaking around and generally you can catch them unawares.

Never invest more then 90% in all skills, because BobbleHeads (or however they are called) improve your skills by 10%, making the points over 90% a waste of valuable points.
EDIT: fixed ammount of points you get, thanks Waris.
Edited by Dutchygamer, 30 December 2008 - 11:38.

10 points not 15%
Edited by Waris, 29 December 2008 - 11:40.

you can always go back to megaton right? becuase that is where my stash is...

also, stashes never disappear right? because mine is in a locker

(im only a little bit into the game)

If it is inside your house, yes.

If not, no.

However there has been a rumour your items sometimes disappear from your lockers, even though it doesn't happen that frequent.

I read that somewhere, so if you're interested, do some research on it, if you're not, just ignore this, but don't blame me if your lockers are empty!

Anyone here feel the MIRV is rather useless other than for having some random sadistic fun ?

Waris, on 29 Dec 2008, 12:40, said:

Aw damn, you're right.

You can have a third partymember if you are willing to sacrifice dogmeat.

Just kill him as soon as you get him, and then immediately go and get your second follower. (I did it and got Charon)

Really? I thought you can only have one follower AND Dogmeat (unless you keep Sidney around by not giving the Declaration to Washington, you can have her, a companion and Dogmeat). You better be sure about this.
Edited by Waris, 31 December 2008 - 17:48.

where can you get the damn lawnmower blade? ive been looking for one (shishkebab!) but it is nowhere to be found

It's inside a lawnmower, genius.

Actually also by some lawn mowers too

I had almost maxed lockpick and science, good small guns and energy but shitty big guns skill. You dont really need big guns.

I reccommend explosives tho, and sneak too. Barter and speech/ unarmed are also kinda useless unless you wanna be that kinda character.

By the end of the game i had like 70 radx/ra away, and like 80 stimpaks, not to mention countless chems. (and 10k caps)

Alien power cell is not easy to get in capital wasteland. But if you have a higher luck with S.P.C.E.C.I.A.L, you can get alien power cell from random encounter(not every time).
If you can see some explosion from sky.
Edited by MR.Kim, 31 December 2008 - 19:23.

Waris, on 31 Dec 2008, 18:42, said:

Proof.


Charon, Sydney and Star Paladin Cross.

Another one: try and get the Dart Gun Schematics and the necessary parts asap. It's very handy against Deathclaws (and even with it you must be carefull)...

MR.Kim, on 31 Dec 2008, 21:18, said:

This explosion, which I guess is a simulation of an alien ship crash-landing, also provides you with the Firelance.

Well, I got only 10 alien power cell at first random encounter and no firelance. Hmmm....

Here is some funny tip(Maybe some glitch or bug something). If you have a contract killer perk or earn it, go to Scrapyard and there is small building office from scrapyard's main gate.
Enter the office and try kill to Daniel Littlehorn. But eventually, he can't die. Because, he is an invincible NPC. No matter what use MIRV and any weapons, you can't kill him.
I tried to kill him, but it didn't work.

umm not dachamp, on 31 Dec 2008, 13:02, said:

I'm swimming in lawnmower blades. I got like 5 from going through the subway tunnels. I've pretty much got all the Shishkebab materials except for the schematics themselves.