Just a general talk-anything-you-want-about the Fallout games topic. There didn't seem to be one after a quick look in the older threads, so I created one.

I got myself the Fallout collection that includes Fallout, Fallout II and Tactics. The prize for me was Fallout as I'd never played it before, and I'm not terribly keen on Tactics.

Although I haven't understood all the ins and outs of the various subquests in Fallout, I've beaten the game in pretty much two days of gameplay (well, a couple hours and a day). I'm a bit disappointed as the game's very short. Also, those who know me know that I've got this thing for pistols, but this game feels extremely pistol-centric most of the way through the game. It even gave me access to my favourite weapon, the .223 pistol from the very start. Only one I found too, so it was well used by the time I was through.

The lack of a variety of wacky NPC buddies was a bit of a let down, but as I only use NPC companions to carry the luggage, it's not too bad.

Serves me right for starting Fallout II with all of its mod-cons. Still, it was a lot of fun.

And just as an aside, has anyone attempted to play a jinxed gunman? It's both funny and simply amazing. It becomes absurd later on once the failures start working to your advantage. Works best if you excel in a weapon with small ammo magazines.

- NKF

Bad followers? Butbutbut, Dogmeat! I mean, the best follower in the game is your dog and he bites hard, how cool is that?
I must say I like Fallout better than 2, despite that it's shorter. Although it could perhaps have used a bit more length, I wouldn't want it as long as the second, somehow your progress in the second just seemed too slow. Granted, you could have taken a lot of shortcuts (Navarro anyone?), but still. Plus I'm not a big fan of the tribals (minus Sulik), or New Reno, or all the technology (reffering to San Fran and the Enclave here mostly). Although 2 is not bad by any means, F1 just seems to have a more consistent design overall. Also the story of Richard Grey is very nice, though I've forgotten most of it by now, should play the game again.
If you have the will, play through it again and take different paths, especially with the Master. As I recall there are at least 3 ways to "defeat" him, two of which don't include confronting him in combat. Also, try getting into Necropolis within the first 30 (or 60?) days, you should notice a "subtle" difference. If you don't, try not getting into Necropolis within that time. I don't want to spoil it for you. There's more in the means of choices&consequences, but I'll let you discover that on your own... or using a walkthrough.

Hey, Dogmeat served me well right up to the room before I went to face off with the Master. Silly mutants and their miniguns! Saved me in one or two 1 HP moments against the Deathclaws too! Ian on the other hand lugged most of the rubbish I didn't need but did not want to throw out. You know, 'just in case'. Both of them still got into trouble by charging ahead whenever I wanted to use a stealthy attack or retreat.

You're right about the consistency of the stories when comparing the two. Fallout 2 is made up entirely of sidequests, actually, and seemed to string a series of joke and obscure pop culture reference after another. The only important bit was to get the vehicle that takes you to the end game fixed and pop off ol Frank. The low intelligence game really condenses the story even more.

I think I'll take my time through my second run through. Because I was so worried about the time limit I got the chip from the Necropolis in early Feb. Actually lost a lot of progress on the first try thanks to the dialogue option that took me straight to the military base. I honestly wasn't expecting that! Oh well, now I know.

I was wondering about the Master's dialogue choices. I might've failed the speech or intelligence checks, since I did want to try the reasoning line of dialogue options before resorting to violence. Didn't work.

- NKF

I can't remember exactly how you talked him out of his plan, but it was quite interesting. That Master is definitely the most interesting character I remember, both as himself and Richard Grey. Oh yes, about the time limit, it is possible to buy water in The Hub, I haven't tried this though, and don't know if it works multiple times.

Favorite moments anyone? one of mine was definitely the conversation with Laura, more specifically when you hit on her by saying something like this: "So, what's a girl like you doing in a place like this?"
And she replies: "Ehehe, waiting for someone like you to use that pathetic line on me." Comedy gold.

Heh. I've played through Fallout only once, and that time I never even met the Master. Just stumbled into the cellar and did the deed the easy way. And got the hell out of there. Worked fine...

I actually wasn't expecting to bump into the Master so quickly. I mean, I thought it was just to going to be another run of the mill vault, just with Mutants and drooling brainwashed citizens. It didn't have the same "this is jolly well a 'last level' level" feel that the Enclave oil derrick had. I always had the impression that the final showdown would've been in the military base (or as I'd assumed when I played Fallout II, the Necropolis).

I've just wiped out the mil base in my second play through with my regular solo munchkin character (by way of reducing charisma to 2 (or 1 without Gifted). That's loads of free points to allocate elsewhere). I've got to say that I'm starting to appreciate the weaker enemies a bit more. It makes a lot of the weapons like ye olde minigun feel very useful. I have yet to start an energy weapons expert, but I imagine the laser pistol will be much more useful in this game than it was in II (Well, it was good in II with a high critical character that rolled lots of instant-kills, and almost always better against the floaters than any of the other energy pistols).

Also just noticed that the deathclaw nest is a great power-leveling area. Might hang on to that area for a while until I hit level 21.

- NKF

Energy weapons: Turbo Plasma Rifle. 'Nuff said.
Also, I'm not sure how you went around to beating the Master, but there is a column which is a good hiding place.

Did you do the Blades vs. Regulators quest?
I have yet to explore the evil side of some quests (Gizmo for example), that should provide some entertainment. Oh and a character with low intelligence, I hear it's quite amusing.

In Fallout II there's only 1 character that you can converse well with in the low intelligence character game - everyone else thinks you're a simpleton. It's funny but you can be a brilliant scientist and repairman (for those computer and repair jobs), but your dialogue choices are utterly destroyed (all part of the fun!). Luckily you still have mentats to smarten up for dialogues that might have good rewards. I also think you can use mentats just before you level up to get the maximum skillpoints.

As for the energy weapons, I thought the alien blaster would be the weapon that turns enemies into aged prawns. Wish it wasn't so easy to get it in Fallout I. It was an utter ordeal of patience (and lots of money) to purchase in Fallout II, and was worth it. Only thing I don't like about it is how messy this thing is with loot dropping to the ground whenever the enemy is zapped into dust. The violence settings fixes this problem though.

Myself, I've always had a soft spot for the laser rifle. Seems to do wonders against Floaters and Centaurs and Fallout II's Aliens.

- NKF

Lol Rainman, now that's a build I haven't seen.

Eh? I've never found it in FO2. Where do you get it?

The whole area north of Modoc. I suggest going to Modoc, saving and then wander about like mad until you find "A Trader and some Guards" - or was it "and his guards"? Either way, it's "Trader" not "Merchant".

You'll probably have to do this a number of times as he might try to sell you some sort of rubbish. I think he charged $22000 for the blaster. Might be able to pickpocket him for it instead.

Either way, it's quite a gruelling ordeal to get, but it's well worth it. Don't think Sulik or Lenny can use it like the Pulse pistol though. Haven't bothered to try.

Another great Fallout II energy weapon is the solar scorcher. -1 AP, power that about matches the laser rifle, free recharges during the day or an entire batch of batteries (small or large) for a dinky recharge at other times. Quite wasteful, but good to know that you can recharge it if you're desparate. Still a whole batch of batteries for only 6 shots is a bit much when you can use the same in a laser rifle for 12/24 rounds. Might be able to use a partial batch instead for the best results.

- NKF

Wow. Interesting. If I find him, I'll make sure to kill him and take the gun from his still-warm corpse!



Indeed. I love the scorcher. 20-60 damage versus 10-30 for the laser pistol, recharges in the day [also in well-lit facilities like V15 if you repair the generator and V13, for instance...) for no AP (quite handy in combat, I must say...) In fact, it's my weapon of choice unless I'm facing something tough like Enclave troops, in which case I use the most powerful weapon I have.

Bethesda has (finally!) opened the official F3 website http://fallout.bethsoft.com, together with a section on the forum (click the poster). Also, if you take a look at the source code, you will see they are planning a countdown.



Hmm, apparently IPB doesn't allow coloring of text within quote tags. Anyway, it's the line before the last one.

You used a code tag which doesn't support embedded comcode. Quote tags always work though.

- Zombie

Graak! I was sure I wrote "code" tags, not quote. Anyway, it's common to use code tags for this, I didn't know quote tags work as well, because as I understand it, code tags ensure that the code within is disregarded by the software. Is the same true for quote tags?

You did use code tags. I edited your post so that it contained quote tags instead.

Like mentioned, code tags will not handle comcode tags within. It treats everything as text. Quote tags do not have this limitation and thus you may use comcode freely.

- Zombie

It's only been open for one day and the new Fallout 3 Forum is already 10 pages deep. I don't have the e-stamina to keep up with it all myself, but a number of the Codex, DAC, and NMA folks are there contributing to the chaos. Fun/frustrating times are ahead!

I hope F3 follows in the same steps as its excellent predecessors. Wonder what the timeline will be? I mean, will it continue in the lineage of the Vault-13 hero? Either way I hope it doesn't turn out like Fallout Tactics. I mean, all I did was wander aimlessly in the wasteland for several real hours fighting rats and radscorpions and nothing else. Uninstalled it immediately after that. Might have to give it another try. The recharging AP in realtime seemed quite clever, but would've benefited from a pause mode too.

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In the mean time I finished the dim-witted character for Fallout.

The dim-witted character was a really great game. Had to use Mentats to get the .223 pistol and use the brotherhood's stat upgrades for all but intelligence(had to keep it at 3, after all), but it was real fun. Because of the lower number of skill points, I had to major in big guns as the primary attack skill as it doesn't need to be maxed to work at its best. To make the best of it, I went for the fast shot trait.

I haven't been able to max this character yet, but I can't seem to get the perk that gives me one less AP for ranged attacks. Am I doing something wrong here, or is the fast shot trait and the perk mutually exclusive in Fallout 1?

One thing I noticed that the dim-witted character really benefited from were the overall lower trading prices. The chappy in the Hub with the expensive weapons shop for example sold me a suit of combat armour for about half the normal price of a fairly intelligent character (6 - 8 int). Good stuff. I must try this with a normal character suffering from mentat withdrawal

Just going through the energy weapons expert game. It's not as much fun as it was in Fallout 2, even with the Turbo Plasma losing its -1AP. It's too easy.

- NKF

This may be a little on the side, but check out the Van Buren video and screenshots at No Mutants Allowed (Van Buren was the codename for Fallout 3).

*starts sniffling*

"Well, maybe Bethesda will make a true sequel like that..."

*breaks down crying*

Always looked like a most interesting game, too bad I could never cope with the exaggerate random encounters which would invariably kill all my