Fallout - hints Taken from the Net Getting Started --------------- Your Character -------------- In my opinion, this is the character best suited for the completion and enjoyment of the game. What I advise you to do: STR: 5 END: 5 PEC: 7 INT: 7 CHR: 5 AGI: 5 LCK: 6 Why I advise you to do this: Increased Perception lets you shoot things with guns a long way away with more accuracy. Increased Intelligence lets you gain more skill points per level, and also increases the amount of experience you get from certain tasks. Increased Luck actually helps quite a bit -- you're more likely to succeed in using skills, hitting targets, causing critical hits, gambling well, and basically doing anything you want to do a little better. Besides, if you don't have sufficient luck, there's no way you'll be able to find the ULTIMATE WEAPON in Fallout. My preferred tag skills: Small Guns (recommended above all other skills. Being able to shoot guns good is ESSENTIAL to blazing through Fallout without a whole lot of fuss.) Gambling (get your gambling skills over about 75% with good luck and you'll never have to worry about money. EVER.) The last is a toss-up between Energy Weapons and Speech. Speech is always good to have, but Energy Weapons is a necessity a lot sooner than you'd think -- and a tag helps a LOT to become proficient in their use earlier. My preferred Traits are Skilled and Gifted. Gifted is an awesome trait -- +1 point to every attribute for the cost of 5 skill points per level, a decrease in your overall skill percentages, and a perk every four levels instead of three (which has never bothered me, I don't rely on perks). To balance out the loss of skill percentages, I choose Skilled -- it will bring your skills back to beyond their original levels and negate the loss of skill points that Gifted causes. So basically, with these two, you gain +1 to all attributes and a few percentage points for all skills for the cost of decreased Perk frequency. In my eyes, it's an easy choice. The name, sex, and age of your character are inconsequential. Some Rather Important Game Tips ------------------------------- My game tips aren't like anybody else's, I guarantee. But I can get a level 17 character in a day, and I always get at least 100,000 caps before I cease my play, so go figure. 1. In combat, always use targeted shots if using a rifle or pistol of any kind. Try to get close to your enemy, and shoot them repeatedly in the eyeballs. Usually, with a good Luck and good Perception and good Small Guns skills, you can kill any foe in one good shot by doing this. 2. When browsing over your fallen foes' corpses, pick up only money and healing chems (unless you happen to see they have better guns or armor than yours, or you need ammo -- and then leave behind any discarded munitions or armor on their bodies.) Carrying around thirty guns and leather jackets is really pointless. Take what you need, but don't play the pack rat. 3. Don't use Stimpaks or the like unless you're severely wounded (your HP counter is yellow). Stimpaks are your friends -- but don't waste them. You'll be a lot happier if you end the game by facing the legions of minigun toting super mutants with an inventory of 150+ Stimpaks -- quite easy if you're conservative throughout the game. 4. Don't do drugs. Drugs are bad. (Actually, this is a personal thing; if you enjoy being addicted to chems and having the wildly fluxuating stats that accompanies their use, then be my guest. I just stay away from them; I don't need them.) 5. Be careful who you kill. Don't shoot little kids, even by accident -- I hate nothing more than to have important people who I plan on completing quests for suddenly start shooting me because of a bad shot -- if this happens, reload your game and try again. 6. SAVE OFTEN. I MEAN, A LOT. I MEAN, SAVE AFTER EVERY BATTLE, EVERY JOURNEY FROM TOWN TO TOWN, EVERY LITTLE THING THAT SEEMS IN THE REMOTEST WAY RELEVANT TO THE GAME. A good character can get you through the game easily, but that doesn't mean that some yahoo with a 10mm piece of crap can't get lucky and critically hit you in the eyeball for 274 HP worth of damage. And if that happens while you're two steps from beating the game, and you saved back after leaving Vault 13 the first time, you're not going to be real nice to friends and family for days following. 7. GET THE PATCH to v1.1! This is essential. Not only does it fix a lot of stupid bugs and glitches, it removes the time limit from the game -- if you don't get it, you'll have to complete the game in 500 days, and that really sucks. Trust me. So UPGRADE. 8. Personally, I prefer to play the Good Guy. I just like being the champion of humanity in this game, though it's a choice you could deviate from and still have fun with the game. However, there are more experience points to be gained from peaceful solutions to problems, and being a Good Guy will definitely get the right people to like you in the right situations. Just a thought to ponder. 9. Here is a list of Perks that will, I assure you, help you to become a walking incarnation of death in the world. For your first Perk, choose Toughness. Choose it again a few times until something better comes along. I prefer to gain all three ranks of it, the 30% damage resistance boost makes me laugh derisively later on when raiders attempt in vain to do even a single HP worth of damage to me. More Criticals is another Perk I like to stock up in. More Criticals is fun. Here's the best Perk combo in the game: Action Boy (one rank) Bonus Rate of Fire (must be level 9) With these two, and the Ultimate Weapon, (to be mentioned later), you can easily do about 180 HP of damage to your enemies every turn, sometimes upward of 600HP) 10. If, at any point in your journeying, you happen to come across a crashed UFO with two alien bodies next to it, SEARCH THE BODIES AND TAKE THE GUN. TAKE IT. TAKE IT. KEEP IT. DON'T SELL IT. DON'T LOSE IT. KEEP IT. 11. If, at any point in your journeying, you happen to come across a lone traveller going through the mountains, make sure you TALK TO HIM ABOUT SINGING, and ASK HIM ABOUT THE CELTIC SONG. This will boost your charisma by one point. This is the only time in the game you can improve your charisma. 12. When you've worked up your weapons skills and gambling skills, try working on the doctor skill. It's MUCH better than the first aid skill, can repair broken limbs, and does 10-15 HP worth of healing with each use at high levels. - o -