Fallout

[Knan]

Heh. Bet you played a jinxed character with Luck 1 in order to be that unlucky.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Really? Never had any trouble with random encounters that I can remember. Plasma rifle and gattling guns pulverized most resistance just fine . Guess I've never really played the games on the harder difficulties however.

I was playing the game on the easiest setting, and while searching for, Reno for example, I would encounter packs of Mutants with very powerful weapons and Aliens that would kill me in something around two or three rounds, not a chance

 

Maybe I just suck at Fallout

 

You shouldn't be seeing mutants near Reno... In fact, you only see them towards San Fran and ocassionally in the area around NCR and the Military base. Maybe once near Broken Hills if you're really unlucky.

 

Aliens are only in the desert between San Fran and Mariposa Military Base, so...

 

Moral of the story: Don't go exploring until you have the weaponry to kill what you find.

[Azrael Strife]

Really? Never had any trouble with random encounters that I can remember. Plasma rifle and gattling guns pulverized most resistance just fine . Guess I've never really played the games on the harder difficulties however.

I was playing the game on the easiest setting, and while searching for, Reno for example, I would encounter packs of Mutants with very powerful weapons and Aliens that would kill me in something around two or three rounds, not a chance

 

Maybe I just suck at Fallout

 

You shouldn't be seeing mutants near Reno... In fact, you only see them towards San Fran and ocassionally in the area around NCR and the Military base. Maybe once near Broken Hills if you're really unlucky.

 

Aliens are only in the desert between San Fran and Mariposa Military Base, so...

 

Moral of the story: Don't go exploring until you have the weaponry to kill what you find.

It's been ages, I don't remember what I was looking for But I do remember being killed a lot while going to Reno and I couldn't seem to be able to get decent weapons anywhere, not to mention armor....

[baby arm]

Here is the Van Buren (Fallout 3) tech demo! No, I don't mean the video of the demo, this is the actual demo.

 

There's a wait of about 20 minutes at the moment.

[Slaughter]

Yeah baby!

 

*downloading*

[Cpl. Facehugger]

But I do remember being killed a lot while going to Reno

 

Hmm. Chances are you got jumped by claim-jumpers or someone who tends to carry around heavy weapons. That happens sometimes near Redding. Especially when you don't have goot armor.

 

and I couldn't seem to be able to get decent weapons anywhere, not to mention armor....

 

Decent weapons are often taken from the still-warm corpses of your fallen foes. Armor is trickier, though. It's a bit of a cheat, but I typically went down to Algernon in Reno, got the EMP 'nades and electronic lockpick, and then returned to the toxic caves. That provided me with Mark II combat armor, which is basically the best you're going to get until the power armors and brotherhood combat armor becomes available in the military base, Navarro, and San Fran. (T-51B PA is in Mariposa military base... with a bunch of killer mutants with heavy weapons. Go loaded for bear. Advanced PA is in Navarro, which you can actually get for free and without fighting. The problem there is that you have to be extremely careful about what you do in Navarro, lest you bring the wrath of the whole damn Enclave down upon you. Dozens of power-armored, plasma-toting troopers with hundreds of HP each.)

 

Or you can just download one of the various mods out there. I prefer MIB88's 'Megamod' because that restores a lot of the cut content to the game. And, more importantly, it lets you salvage armor from your defeated foes. Makes getting combat armor for everyone a lot easier and more convenient, I"ll tell you that. And you can finally put all your human characters in PA, while before there were only three wearable suits of PA in the game IIRC.

[NKF]

"A"

 

Keep tapping A when you jump into a random encounter. That gives you the first turn. Immediately hit "1" to enter sneak and run away. As long as you're not noticed, you should end combat. Keep tapping A again to enter combat and keep running. It's cowardly - but it's better than getting barbecued by a flame gecko or a Enclave trooper's pulse pistol in nothing but your musty Vault-13 jumpers!

 

If you get spotted, this whole strategy will backfire, as initiating combat often causes you to lose a turn if your initiative is low. Particularly with Deathclaws, who almost always get two turns if you start combat and they spot you or get alerted to your presence (by being shot).

 

As for the area round Reno, there is the encounter with the raiders with the flamer, 40mm pistol and the .223. Because of the flamer, this encounter is lethal if you're just starting.

 

However, if you're going for small arms specialisiation, I'd attempt to go after them for the .223 pistol. Go all out, or start combat first, use sneak and run off as far as you can and attempt to draw one away. If you've got a hunting rifle, stay in sneak, move far away and fire on the one with the .223 pistol (or flamer). Stay in sneak. Hopefully you'll only attract the attention of the one raider. Finish the raider off, grab the gun and make a break for it. (Alternately, go to Reno, and try to look for a Gangsters vs. Yakuza fight. Let them slug it out and snatch a .223 sniper rifle in the carnage. The tommy's quite decent but the damage is a tad too variable. The wakizashi's not bad if you're a budding melee expert).

 

---

 

As for decent protection early on, you have many options. Some of them can be done through outright cheating. Like heading for San Fransisco, "stealing" the money off the two traders. Using this cash to buy stuff for barter, stealing the money back from them, and repeating ad nauseum until you can buy the TB-01 Power Armour off Lou Chou (check the other table! Both traders have two sets). You also have the option of Tesla Armour if the impressive damage modifiers take your fancy. If you want more gold coins, wander around the city in the wilderness screen a couple of days until their stock to regenerate. Thank goodness you can work with more than 999 coins in this game! (Note, while in the area, you can pickpocket the HK G11e off hubologist encounters - for barter).

 

A simpler method for obtaining protection is to cross your fingers and hope like mad that you get the Bridge of Death special encounter. A Monty Python reference. Respond properly the first two times, then ask a question for the last. The robes are equal to that of basic combat armour, but without the weight. It's quite easy to get this if you start with high luck.

 

Another method is to try to make a break for Vault 15 - which is just to the left of NCR. Use the safe path of going for Klamath -> Modoc -> Vault City -> Whatitsname-headed-by-Marcus -> NCR -> Vault 15

 

If you can fight, fight your way in. If you can't, get some Mentats (one of the cities along the way will have some) or pump up your Speech skills.

 

Do everything you need to get the Vault 15 keycard, save at the elevator and head on in. The reason you save before entering is to attempt to con your way through the first guard without intiating combat. If you can get past this, you'll have free reign of the goodies. Alternately, if you do tick off the first guard, hit A to start combat first. Sneak away. You'll drop out of combat. immediately initaite combat again and repeat this until you get into the vault and down the elevator. So much ado about nothing! Just don't speak to anyone where possible.

 

Race into the Vault elevator, go to level 2, head to the room with the locker containing Combat Armour, a .223 pistol and some .223 ammo and a Cat's Paw magazine (if you're collecting them). If you want to use a lot of save/reloading, pickpocket all the raiders for their meds, ammo and frag grenades. Before you go, you might want to grab the P90 and its incorrectly loaded 9mm ammo. The guard in the hallways of level 3 has it. Brilliant weapon.

 

I'd recommend doing this even if you've already got good armour. You'll need some of these as raw material for for advanced combat implants should you want to take them.

 

From here, if you're a big-gun enthusiast, head to NCR and pickpocket one of the combat-armour guards in the gun dealer's tent (the one next to Son-of-Bob's). Nothing like instant access to a Bozar - although I prefer the Light Assault Gun for its more efficient ammo consumption.

 

You might also want to pickpocket the slavers of their desert eagles, .45 ammo and stimpacks. Doing all this should set you up with quite a kitty if you're only just starting. Also disarming the slavers makes the enlistment into the Rangers a breeze.

 

If you want the Enclave power-armour early on, the moment you leave Arroyo you could just head straight for Navarro. Save before entering so that you can avoid the dialogue path with Smitty that gets him angry. You could try conning him into thinking you're a new recruit. Whatever you do, get in without causing a fuss.

 

If you can't con Smitty, the rear entrance in the woods is a good way to get into the base, but I think you need an electronic lockpick to break through the door. You can get both a Mk I and Mk II electronic lockpick from San Francisco, if I'm not mistaken. Buy some mentats if your skill levels are too low.

 

Alternately, use sneak, and enter combat mode and charge through the front gates. Once you get past the gate guards, you'll be able to do all the Navarro quests as long as you don't get close to the gates. Actually, I can't remember if this sets off the gun turrets. Look, I don't want any of you to fry me for suggesting this and it ends up backfiring, so save before you do this.

 

It doesn't really matter if you botch it and go hostile with the whole base. As long as you can get into the quartermaster's room, nab the advanced power armour and break for the exit, you'll do fine!

 

---

 

Difficulty levels can be abused in two ways. The first is to use the hardest setting to lower some of your stats so that you can make more efficient use of your skill points (combined with the down-time of using drugs, you can make a few skill points and the points you get from reading books go a VERY long way!). Okay that's a bit sneak. But is it a cheat? Don't know. Dumbing yourself down just to better understand something technical so that you're even better at it. Very eccentric.

 

The other use is more legitimate. It's to change the number of enemies you'll encounter in random encounters. Later on, once you're powerleveling, it can be quite useful to use the hardest setting just to get a giant mob of aliens and deathclaws or centaurs. Doesn't do much for the occasional bonus 'cave' missions that appear in the dead woodland maps that never receives full sunlight.

 

- NKF

[Slaughter]

Fallout 3 voice actor announced.

[chocolatemouse]

I am scared by fallout 3, fallout 2 was my favorite game for it mood, it political incorrectnes, it various places.

I hope this will stay and that it will not just be a small graphic demo all politically correct .

 

 

Nose kisss

[Slaughter]

Amen to that! Never cared much for Bethesda's games, so I fear the worst. Hope they prove us wrong...

[chocolatemouse]

Amen to that! Never cared much for Bethesda's games, so I fear the worst. Hope they prove us wrong...

 

Bethesda had to a great tradition of games daggerfall was a wonderfull game , giant and not so correct politically,morrowind was excellent for being modd friendly, near infinite with mods.

This stopped with oblivion, the graphics transforming the game in a costly 3D demo . I was a fan of elderscrolls since years, daggerfal and arena being as old than xcom but oblivion killed this love story. All i can hope is that with fallout 3 they will bring back their soul.

The great fallout home stay https://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=34207 ( no mutant allowed site) sadly their download section is a chaos with nearly no descriptions of mods.

Fallout 2 should desserve a such great modding community than the xcom.

 

Nose kisss

[Cpl. Facehugger]

I am scared by fallout 3, fallout 2 was my favorite game for it mood, it political incorrectnes, it various places.

I hope this will stay and that it will not just be a small graphic demo all politically correct .

Nose kisss

 

Take it with a grain of salt, but over on the Official FO3 forums, the Devs admitted that they have a hidden thread with all sorts of sick, mature stuff that they want to work into the game.

 

In fact, conversing with the Devs, I've found them to be decent people who seem to care about Fallout. Time will tell, however, if this is truth or in fact a clever ruse.

[Space Voyager]

This stopped with oblivion, the graphics transforming the game in a costly 3D demo . I was a fan of elderscrolls since years, daggerfal and arena being as old than xcom but oblivion killed this love story.

Darn, I really liked Oblivion... I have no idea about major (skins, terrain) mods, but I had approximately 10 mods installed and it worked nicely.

 

I only played it through once though. Mods or no mods I can't force myself to waste long hours of play again just to try a slightly different approach, especially since I played as mage/thief, which interested me the most to start with.

[chocolatemouse]

Darn, I really liked Oblivion... I have no idea about major (skins, terrain) mods, but I had approximately 10 mods installed and it worked nicely.

 

I only played it through once though. Mods or no mods I can't force myself to waste long hours of play again just to try a slightly different approach, especially since I played as mage/thief, which interested me the most to start with.

 

The problem with oblivion is that it is a game made for elite machines, and oblivion in itself is the smallest of all the elderscroll games, the one with the less in game content ( all being given to graphics). Then more graphics mean less game.

My idea of a game, and more of an rpg it is to have fun with, a long fun, not to say wow the graphics then to say it is already finished ?

[Space Voyager]

The problem with oblivion is that it is a game made for elite machines, and oblivion in itself is the smallest of all the elderscroll games, the one with the less in game content ( all being given to graphics). Then more graphics mean less game.

My idea of a game, and more of an rpg it is to have fun with, a long fun, not to say wow the graphics then to say it is already finished ?

I can't comment about the quantity of game content since I only played Oblivion. But it took me tens of hours. I ran all around the map and it seemed vast to me. True, you were able to complete the game pretty fast if you decided to, but you could wander around for a loooooong time, doing side quests.

As I said I don't know how much content Morrowind had but Oblivion has had enough to make me more than satisfied. I can't play such games endlessly anyway. And graphics looked like crap on my computer... A tree was a greenish sheet always turning to me (sprite). I had to dumb down the graphics manually (there's a file where you can adjust the tree, grass etc. density) so that the game didn't fall to 3 fps.

 

I guess it's a good thing I didn't play the previous games or I might have been dissapointed.

[NKF]

Morrowind's "main story" is pretty short. Half the time you completely lose the plot by wandering around the ashland, in the rain, running from damned cliff racers, blowing the last charge of your precious custom enchantments (uh - my AA-guns) on the stupid things and generally having a ball of a time. But again, completely losing the plot, by getting caught up on the various side quests. Half the time you have to trek from one end of Vvardenfel to the other on some silly Fed-Ex or fetch quest.

 

In my case, I spent more time looking for a good place to call my own, getting lost or exploring Daedric ruins (and getting whacked to bits). For as long as I've had the game, I still haven't completed the main quest or even started on its two add-ons. I'm that bad, or am I just having too much fun?

 

I dread to think what'll happen if I were to pick up Daggerfall or Oblivion if they had the same sort of gameplay. Wonder if the looping potion enhancement trick is in these two games?

 

- NKF

[Space Voyager]

Wonder if the looping potion enhancement trick is in these two games?

Nope. I know about this cheat from the forums and it's not back in Oblivion. Otherwise you can wonder aimlessly through Oblivion for as long as you want... unless you're seriously short on real-life.

[Azrael Strife]

New Fallout 3 artwork

[Slaughter]

Tease me - please me...

[Azrael Strife]

Now you've done it, I'm attempting to regain hold of my Fallout 2 copy, also trying to get my hands on Fallout 1.

 

Which one do you fallout-freaks prefer the most? I've only had experience with 2, enjoyed it quite a bit if it wasn't for all the times I was helplessly massacred by random encounters

[NKF]

F1 is short and sweet, while F2 gives you more toys to play with and you can spend more time wandering around the wasteland power levelling to your hearts delight and craft some simply amazing characters. Both of them are definitely worth picking up. Neither is particularly better than the other, although F2 just has more - and makes powerful weapons from F1 (like the 10mm SMG) and the ever loveable Dogmeat look a little weak.

 

- NKF

[Slaughter]

I agree with NKF. You should play Fallout first if you can get hold of it however. It will get you properly into the Fallout gameplay, and it is short as mentioned. Thus you'll not get massacred in the wasteland as with the 2nd. And by the time you get to the second, you'll be ready to tackle it . Let us know what you think!

[whirlingdervish]

I agree.

 

Play through the first then start on the second.

 

BTW, I found the most effective way to win at both is creating a character with these attributes:

 

for tag skills, select

 

unarmed combat

small guns

steal

 

for traits select

gifted

finesse.

 

on the stats, make sure you have 10 agility

and high perception and intelligence.

 

 

now you've got a combat ready sneak theif that will kill most anything easily from start to finish, and who can "liberate" any item in the game..

 

look for a red ryder LE BB gun in the abandoned shack special encounter too.

25-25 damage and low AP cost.

[NKF]

There's so many ways to set up a killer character that can power through any situation. It really depends on how you want to beat the game. The main thing is to set up your SPECIAL stats properly - taking into account the permanent SPECIAL upgrades in the game (note, F2 doesn't seem to have a permanent AG upgrade anywhere in the game, so go for a straight 10 at the start). Then picking up all the right traits through the game.

 

On a first run through either game, a small arms expert is the way to go. It has the best selection of firearms to choose from and the ammo is generally plentiful. In Fallout 2, one of the most powerful single-shot weapons in the game is a small arm.

 

On a second or third run, try some of the more exotic weapons or go for melee skills.

 

- NKF

[Azrael Strife]

I recall having great difficulties getting decent armor (I could never even get Power Armor), will I find it through a "regular game" or should I be on the lookout for a specific place? (I'm talking of F2)

 

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll try my hand at F1 when I get the chance.