Fallout 3 Help

[Bruce Edwards]

The games difficulty curve is designed so that you really shouldn't be exploring the subway until around level 8 or so.

Even if you get there earlier, however, the game is eminently survivable at low levels. The tricks are to:

1. Sink lots of points into Small Guns and Repair early on.
2. Don't be afraid to run away and return later, once you have healed and/or rested.
3. Sniping enemies from a distance is good.

Generally, at early levels, your best bet is to tool around the outer wasteland doing smaller quests. The 'Survivalist' quests you can get from Moira in Megaton are a great way to ease you into the game.

 

[Drexlor]

Just stay near Megaton and work outwards until you have a high enough level and some decent supplies. Don't be afraid to retreat if you are outgunned or to lower the difficulty.

 

[Siuki]

I'll do that. On a side note: Seriously? I can't wait to teleport back to Megaton and start wandering then.

He's totally serious. I've got a very heavily modded PC version of Fallout 3 that, among countless other things, slows my XP gain speed to 1/3rd of its normal pacing or so. I'm at level 18 after 50 hours of play on my current character, and even with that I still hve HUGE amounts of game content to go through, including about half of the quests, all of the DLC's, and most of downtown DC. If I didn't have my XP slowed i'd have hit level 30 a long time ago.

This game is gigantic.

The games difficulty curve is designed so that you really shouldn't be exploring the subway until around level 8 or so.

Even if you get there earlier, however, the game is eminently survivable at low levels. The tricks are to:

1. Sink lots of points into Small Guns and Repair early on.
2. Don't be afraid to run away and return later, once you have healed and/or rested.
3. Sniping enemies from a distance is good.

Generally, at early levels, your best bet is to tool around the outer wasteland doing smaller quests. The 'Survivalist' quests you can get from Moira in Megaton are a great way to ease you into the game.

Thanks very much, I'll be playing tomorrow with renewed vigor and a whole bunch of new ideas.

 

[MasterChief892039]

There's nothing wrong with your stats, you're just at a part of the game where the creatures are still challenging. Trust me, in a couple more levels (and once you've stolen enough supplies) you'll turn into an untouchable superbeast and just breeze through the rest of the game.
Hunting rifles are kind of lame IMO, but you get a lot of ammo for them early on so I assume that's why you're using them. If you can get headshots outside of VATS it'll serve you well, but if you're getting torso shots then that pause between shots will get pretty obnoxious.

My tips; get yourself a house in Megaton, steal everything in sight even if you're going for positive karma, and complete Three Dog's quest by installing the dish rather than passing the speech check, because Galaxy News Radio is just so damn charming.

Edit: And once you get to Rivet City, make sure you get A3-21's plasma rifle. It'll be your best friend for a good portion of the game.

 

[Tenkage]

Know whats interesting, In Fallout 3, in the beggining, you struggle to survive, saying every bullet, using every weapon you can find...then level 12, you pretty much live on Stimpacks, you carry an Army Platoon's worth of bullets and guns, and you can take the damage equal to Krato's (god of War) fist punch.

The Diffculting Curb starts hard then plunges straight down

 

[Upbeat Zombie]

What are you having trouble with? Finding quests, game to difficult, etc?
What I did was stick around megaton doing quests there until I was a high enough level to go into the city.

Sounds like a good idea, know any good ones to start me off?

Its been awhile sense I've played it. But I remember The Wasteland Survival Guide was a good beginner quest (except the Minefield part).

 

[Yureina]

By the way, once you have played through the game, if you have it on PC there is an extensive modding community for this game. The mods for the PC version can keep you occupied for a long time... long to the point that i'm still heavily playing this game.

 

[Siuki]

There's nothing wrong with your stats, your just at a part of the game where the creatures are still challenging. Trust me, in a couple more levels (and once you've stolen enough supplies) you'll turn into an untouchable superbeast and just breeze through the rest of the game.
Hunting rifles are kind of lame IMO, but you get a lot of ammo for them early on so I assume that's why you're using them. If you can get headshots outside of VATS it'll serve you well, but if you're getting torso shots then that pause between shots will get pretty obnoxious.

My tips; get yourself a house in Megaton, steal everything in sight even if you're going for positive karma, and complete Three Dog's quest by installing the dish rather than passing the speech check, because Galaxy News Radio is just so damn charming.

Edit: And once you get to Rivet City, make sure you get A3-21's plasma rifle. It'll be your best friend for a good portion of the game.

Good advice, but I'm kind of regretting putting skill points into Small Weps now.

 

[Siuki]

What are you having trouble with? Finding quests, game to difficult, etc?
What I did was stick around megaton doing quests there until I was a high enough level to go into the city.

Sounds like a good idea, know any good ones to start me off?

Its been awhile sense I've played it. But I remember The Wasteland Survival Guide was a good beginner quest (except the Minefield part).

I can probably disable the mines easily. Are you talking about Frag mines? I grab those off the floor.

Know whats interesting, In Fallout 3, in the beggining, you struggle to survive, saying every bullet, using every weapon you can find...then level 12, you pretty much live on Stimpacks, you carry an Army Platoon's worth of bullets and guns, and you can take the damage equal to Krato's (god of War) fist punch.

The Diffculting Curb starts hard then plunges straight down

I've been hearing that, but I need to experience it for myself first.

 

[ROTMASTER]

best way to get to the museum of technology is to head to the south east corner of the map and take the subway tunnel just north of revit city that should be your fastest and most enemy free path
also dont get sucked into fallout like i did i got over 300 hours on one file and there is NOTHING left in the capital wasteland of ANY value to me all that remains is junk like coffee mugs, bent tin cans, and empty bottles the only ammo i can get now comes from respawning enemies (cuz everybody else dead) even shrapnel in revit has nothing because i crashed the economy. i even have every teady bear, on my bed.....
also i found that about 50 hours in on a file you should not be running out of ammo and you sould be 1 shoting almost everything i know i do (even deathclaws using the MPXL Novasurge)
also if you do blood ties the extra hp bonus from blood packs helps plus because i murdered everybody there and stole everything i found a great deal of stimpacks (stimpack count 563 in inventory)
i did all this without mods of any kind and on the xbox 360 version

 

[Bruce Edwards]

There's nothing wrong with your stats, you're just at a part of the game where the creatures are still challenging. Trust me, in a couple more levels (and once you've stolen enough supplies) you'll turn into an untouchable superbeast and just breeze through the rest of the game.
Hunting rifles are kind of lame IMO, but you get a lot of ammo for them early on so I assume that's why you're using them. If you can get headshots outside of VATS it'll serve you well, but if you're getting torso shots then that pause between shots will get pretty obnoxious.

My tips; get yourself a house in Megaton, steal everything in sight even if you're going for positive karma, and complete Three Dog's quest by installing the dish rather than passing the speech check, because Galaxy News Radio is just so damn charming.

Edit: And once you get to Rivet City, make sure you get A3-21's plasma rifle. It'll be your best friend for a good portion of the game.

I would agree that A3-21's plasma rifle is excellent, but IMHO the Hunting Rifle is awesome.

Most of my level 20ish characters generally wind up using the humble Hunting Rifle for most of the game. Plentiful ammo, accurate (Headshots are so fricking easy with it), and it has fearsome damage once you're Small Arms is high enough.

When you are running through the wasteland dealing with random spawns every few hundred metres, the hunting rifle comes into it's own from an ammunition and weight perspective.

 

[Yureina]

Good advice, but I'm kind of regretting putting skill points into Small Weps now.

Don't. Small guns are yummy especially when you pick up some Chinese Assault Rifles. Even so, they will eventually be outclassed by the Plasma Rifles of the late-game, but that is only after... something happens. Lets just leave it at that.

 

[Chaosweaver]

INT 5 probably isn't helping you.

I always set it at 8 to start with, take an early perk to get it up to 9 and then find the Bobblehead to get it to 10.

More INT = more skill points into Small Guns, Repair, Speech etc.

 

[Siuki]

There's nothing wrong with your stats, you're just at a part of the game where the creatures are still challenging. Trust me, in a couple more levels (and once you've stolen enough supplies) you'll turn into an untouchable superbeast and just breeze through the rest of the game.
Hunting rifles are kind of lame IMO, but you get a lot of ammo for them early on so I assume that's why you're using them. If you can get headshots outside of VATS it'll serve you well, but if you're getting torso shots then that pause between shots will get pretty obnoxious.

My tips; get yourself a house in Megaton, steal everything in sight even if you're going for positive karma, and complete Three Dog's quest by installing the dish rather than passing the speech check, because Galaxy News Radio is just so damn charming.

Edit: And once you get to Rivet City, make sure you get A3-21's plasma rifle. It'll be your best friend for a good portion of the game.

I would agree that A3-21's plasma rifle is excellent, but IMHO the Hunting Rifle is awesome.

Most of my level 20ish characters generally wind up using the humble Hunting Rifle for most of the game. Plentiful ammo, accurate (Headshots are so fricking easy with it), and it has fearsome damage once you're Small Arms is high enough.

When you are running through the wasteland dealing with random spawns every few hundred metres, the hunting rifle comes into it's own from an ammunition and weight perspective.

The hunting rifle's been my friend through the start of Fallout 3 like a security blanket in your childhood.

 

[Kabutos]

I would hold off on going into DC until you do some more side quests and level up some more. Stick with Small Guns; they're more viable than Energy Weapons as the ammo costs less and they're easier to find. Level up your Repair skill and repair your gear on your own. Also try to up your Luck with the bobblehead and Lucky Shades, as Luck increases your chance at crits. Also get some better gear; your armor is pretty bad.

Your Int is also pretty low; I would've spent the points you put in End into Luck and Intelligence, since Endurance is more for melee characters.

 

[Siuki]

Good advice, but I'm kind of regretting putting skill points into Small Weps now.

Don't. Small guns are yummy especially when you pick up some Chinese Assault Rifles. Even so, they will eventually be outclassed by the Plasma Rifles of the late-game, but that is only after... something happens. Lets just leave it at that.

The current Chinese pistols I find suck ass at 2-3 DMG, maybe because they're made in America?

 

[MONSTERheart]

Having the DLC will help you immensely. Operation: Anchorage and The Pitt give you lot of good items with comparatively little challenge. And, if you're willing to glitch a little, you can get some indestructible items from O:A. I have me an invincible Gauss Rifle and Zingwei's Shock Sword. The game isn't even a challenge on Very Hard.

 

[Siuki]

I would hold off on going into DC until you do some more side quests and level up some more. Stick with Small Guns; they're more viable than Energy Weapons as the ammo costs less and they're easier to find. Level up your Repair skill and repair your gear on your own. Also try to up your Luck with the bobblehead and Lucky Shades, as Luck increases your chance at crits. Also get some better gear; your armor is pretty bad.

What would you suggest, so I know what to look out for?

 

[Siuki]

Having the DLC will help you immensely. Operation: Anchorage and The Pitt give you lot of good items with comparatively little challenge. And, if you're willing to glitch a little, you can get some indestructible items from O:A. I have me an invincible Gauss Rifle and Zingwei's Shock Sword. The game isn't even a challenge on Very Hard.

Got the GOTY edition. Bought it on the Gamestop sale thingy for $40. Saved $70 on actual price and additional DLC.

Are the DLC enemies relative to yours? I'm at lvl 5 right now.

 

[Yureina]

Good advice, but I'm kind of regretting putting skill points into Small Weps now.

Don't. Small guns are yummy especially when you pick up some Chinese Assault Rifles. Even so, they will eventually be outclassed by the Plasma Rifles of the late-game, but that is only after... something happens. Lets just leave it at that.

The current Chinese pistols I find suck ass at 2-3 DMG, maybe because they're made in America?

I said Assault Rifle, not Pistol. The Pistol is only something worthy of being vendored. The Assault rifle is yummy.

Edit: I would not do the DLC stuff so early on. Some of the items you get, especially from Anchorage, are a bit... too awesome for a low level character.

*cough* Winterized T-51B, Chinese Stealth Suit, and Gauss Rifle. *cough*