Fallout

[Azrael Strife]

When we announced that Fallout 3 was on the cover of Game Informer Magazine's July Issue, the internets went wild. There's only one person outside of Bethesda that's actually seen the game, and that's Game Informer Magazine's Associate Editor Matt Miller. There's probably a billion things you want to know about the game, and Miller has the answers. Well, some of them, anyway.

 

So let him have it.

 

Starting today and ending on Monday, June 11th at 12 Noon CST, we're allowing you, the reader, to ask Miller anything you want about Fallout 3. We're not promising he'll answer all of your questions, but if you bribe him with Cheddar Bay Biscuits, you never know.

 

Send all of your questions to askmiller@gameinformer.com and we'll be posting the answers in this month's Unlimited which launches on June 18th.

[whirlingdervish]

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.

 

 

It will be hard to find in fallout 1, as you will have to do a few quests for the brotherhood of steel to get access to a suit of power armor. I think there were only 2 sets of it in fallout 1.

 

 

In Fallout 2, you can actually buy regular power armor in the 2 weapon shops in San Fransisco.

Remember to inspect both of the tables of stuff in each store to access the shopkeepers 2 different inventories..

It'll cost you about 30-40 grand per suit, but your human NPC's can wear them so it's worth it to have a couple suits.

Once you have 40 grand in cash, just buy the power armor with cash only, and then steal the cash back from the shopkeeper. (it gets stored on his person)

buy,steal,repeat until you have everything you ever wanted.

 

works well for the best weapon(small gun) in the game too: the gauss rifle.

once the shopkeeper has a few, do the above procedure to acquire them for nothing.

 

Also, if you want the best NPC in Fallout 2, go to Vault City and in the courtyard outside, there is a bar with a lit up sign. There will be a guy behind the bar that is wearing leather armor. save your game, then try and talk him into leaving vault city with you. the magic words are "whats going on around here?" or something along those lines..

 

This is Cassidy. Give him power armor, a gauss rifle, ammo, and stimpacks, and watch the carnage that he creates.

[NKF]

I'm partial to Sulik and a .223 or a pulse pistol myself when I choose to hire an NPC. He's funny. But yeah, Cassidy's the man when it comes to rifles. Along with Vic, he makes a great sniper.

 

Power armor acquisition in Fallout 2 is simple enough. Buy it - as mentioned. Alternately, you can con your way through the Navarro base, or sneak in and nick the Enclave armor from the stores. This is the penultimate armour. The best can only be picked up in the end-game mission.

 

The plain ol Power armor can also be found in the ol' military base, but the mutants that guard it might be a bit tough for you unless you've got some Combat Armor/Bridgekeeper's robes and some decent firepower. Alternately sneaking your way in and grabbing it might work.

 

Combat armor can be obtained for free from Vault-15's second level after a short romp with some raiders (or quick talking your way in), and can be bought in San Francisco. You want to pick up at least three or four of these for the dermal impact armour and pheonix armour implants, which are worth getting if you're going solo.

 

In F1, get some rope (hit myself the first time when I forgot this - in fact you'll need 2-3 coils for the whole game) and gather some Rad-X (2 - 3 pills should do ) and RadAway and head to the Glow. Save before entering, as the radiation is incredible. Clear the first level until you can find the holodisk. A short hop and skip back to the brotherhood and you'll be able to join the order and go in. You might have to rescue the Brotherhood agent from the gangsters in the Hub. Although I don't remember if that gives you the Brotherhood Armor (upgraded Combat armor). I'd clear it anyway as doing both of these quests will net you a suit of Power Armor and the brotherhood armor. Alternately you can fix one suits in there if your skills are good enough.

 

For interim armor, you can buy combat armor from the high quality arms dealer in the Hub (Same place where you can save the Brotherhood agent - and score a Citykiller combat shotgun). One trick I noticed while playing my low intelligence character was that the arms dealer sold equipment a lot cheaper to my dumb character. It might be worth popping some mentats, smartening up, skip until you're in withdrawal and have dumbed down to 1 or 2 int before speaking to the dealer.

 

If you're a small arms expert, there's a chap in the Hub you can speak to who needs some help with some raiders moving into his home. Do this quest and clear out the raiders. You'll be given F1's only sample of the .223 pistol. This is well worth the effort and can easily blow most enemies away with a few well placed aimed shots. Even if you don't use small arms, you can give it to Ian if you've got him tagging along.

 

- NKF

[Slaughter]

There are some very good guides to character creation at No Mutants Allowed, GameFaqs.com and so on. Gives you suggestions for many different styles of play.

[Azrael Strife]

Yay! I got Fallout 1 and installed it, having some issues with sound, hope I can work them out.

 

Question: Is it necessary to read a character creation guide, or a game guide, to play the game? I'm always wary of reading such guides as I like to play the characters the way I want to. Is it possible to finish the game without reading guides or will I ever have to be on the lookout for special items such as ropes, coils, etc, etc and won't be able to finish it if I don't get them? I hate those games...

[Knan]

Just stumble along as you like. No dead ends (at least not because of your character creation choices)

 

You might of course find yourself with a save where you're horribly, deadly irradiated and with no radaway within days of travel. In that case, hope you have an earlier save somewhere.

[Azrael Strife]

Good, then I'll keep that in mind and keep a fair amount of saves then

 

I went against my usual good judgement and made me a thief specialised in small arms, in honor to our three-lettered-name friend with a love for pistols I usually make myself a heavy warrior in RPGs, but in Fallout 2 that did just not end up well for me, so let's see how this goes! (Dunno when I'll be able to play it, but at least it's there to play every once and then (

[Slaughter]

No need to read guides as Knan says. It's worth a look for inspiration / hidden secrets at a later play through. Let us know how you like Fallout!

[whirlingdervish]

This thread and the excitement following the F3 trailer got me to start up a new character over the weekend in Fallout 2..

 

I'm sitting at my desk now, longing to go home so I can finish my walk back from Gecko with the car parts.

It's driving me nuts!

 

 

I guess I forgot how addictive these games are..

[Knan]

This thread and the excitement following the F3 trailer got me to start up a new character over the weekend in Fallout 2..

 

Heh, welcome to the boards!

 

All good games are addictive... and some not so good games. Sinking shipping from your friendly local german submarine to the Das Boot main theme... shooting supermutants in the eyes with a hunting rifle... annoying lobstermen by shooting them point-blank with the heaviest you've got.

[NKF]

Fallout 1 isn't terribly complicated, and a walkthrough isn't necessary. In fact, you might actually beat the game without even knowing it. There are two 'final bosses' - and meeting the one voiced by the late Tony Jay might catch you by suprise if you're not ready for it.

 

It helps having a bit of advanced knowledge so that you can set your character up right from the get go. Nothing like kicking yourself later when you realised that there's an Irishman out there who can give you a permanent +1 Luck upgrade after a bit of a sing-song - only to realise you started with a full 10 luck. Mind you, if you suddenly realise later that you don't have the prerequisites to get some great perk, such as the ever useful Slayer or Sniper perk, fear not. Buffout and mentats can fill in the gap for you. (Actually, they can fill the gap for every occasion where a stat check is performed, and the negative effect for the meds down-time can be useful when used 'creatively')

 

There aren't too many places where you must have X and only X in order to achieve Y. It's mainly the rope, and you only need two coils. Even then, these are optional for winning the game. Most of the other places that need something to fix some problem can be solved through a variety of means, or the key's somewhere in the same screen.

 

Speaking of rope, the first coil of rope is needed for a bit of unnecessary (but useful for EXP at the start) exploration in order to advance a sidequest in one of the early towns - and can be bought there. The other coil is essential to get Power Armor without resorting to violence. You should be able to get two coils in Shady Sands if I remember correctly, through barter and searching the garden area.

 

Azrael Strife: No matter what character build you end up with, don't forget to put a few points into sneak (no need to tag it). It's always a good idea to enter sneak mode the moment combat starts. If your skill is good enough, you should be able to control the flow of the battle by only alerting one enemy at a time by attacking them (or they initiated the combat). Running away from the mob on the first turns helps obscure you some more.

 

Since you're starting with small arms, here are a few tips I can offer. You start with a 10mm pistol. It's not very flashy, but it'll do you for a bit. Try to use up the 10mm AP ammo before starting on your JHP stock. The AP ammo doesn't work very well in this game, so you want to get rid of it quickly (or perhaps barter it). It does all right damage, so you won't be limiting yourself too much when fighting rats and unarmoured raiders. Use unaimed shots until you've built up a fair amount of skill. Luck and some perks can fill in the gap when you're not aiming at the eyes.

 

For small arms in general: Quickly replace the 10mm pistol with a Desert Eagle. You can find quite a number of them if you take on a particular band of raiders quite early into the game. A hunting rifle is a must have starter weapon for the .223 FMJ ammo (It's even better in Fallout 2, where the plain unmodified rifle actually makes weak skilled small arms experts shoot better).

 

When you hit the Hub, if you've got enough experience levels, you can take on a quest to earn the .223 pistol to replace the hunting rifle. It's only a single-shot gun with a 5 round magazine, but it's a brilliant weapon. Very heavy hitting and has amazing range for a pistol. If you don't use it, Ian can use this gun very well. You might've noticed by now that I fully endorse this weapon.

 

Then try to keep an eye out for a Winchester City-Killer combat shotgun (.45 gauge), a sniper rifle (.223FMJ) and the SMG (10mm), the best burst fire weapon in the small arms category. This should just about cover all the major ammo types you'll be picking up.

 

The 5mm ammo can be used by the assault rifle, but I've found the assault rifle to be relatively weak. Although a well placed burst can do wonders against unarmoured enemies. You're generally better saving the ammo for the minigun (~80% big gun skill is all you really need if you choose to master it).

 

The 14mm AP ammo and its related weapon doesn't really live up to its expectations. It has stats that look as though it should match the .223 pistol, but the nature of the AP ammo cripples it. Better than the 10mm pistol though, so don't hesitate to use it if you get one early.

 

The 9mm mauser is a one-of-a-kind weapon that probably won't satisfy you unless you've mastered instant-kill criticals. The ammo is incredibly limited too, which is why I say it probably won't satisfy.

 

Lastly, as a treat, look out fo the Red Ryder LE BB gun (take special note of the LE) in a special random encounter. A close match for the .223, but faster with unvaried damage. Its ammo is heavy, but well worth every BB ball you can find (and unload every plain BB gun you can find). If you've got 'better criticals' and 'Sniper' with a luck level of 10, you'll be dealing gobs of damage with this weapon alone. If you picked the distressingly funny and totally awesome (seriously - it's awesome!) Jinxed trait, do NOT use this weapon. One failed attack will sometimes cause you to lose all your ammo. With a 100BB capacity, this will turn out to be an absolute disaster.

 

As you can see, I waste my time thinking about this stuff while playing the game.

 

- NKF

[Knan]

Sneak? *semi-boggle*

 

Almost never use that, apart from in FO Tactics... *note for future runthrough*

[Kernel]

Apologies for hijacking this thread but...

 

I've seen a lot of people here discussing the Fallout games and they sound like good games to play. But I've never actually played them myself except for a demo which quite a while ago. From what I remember of the demo and from what I've heard it sounds like the Fallout games are a bit like Jagged Alliance 2 and the XCom games? Given that I used to play the XCom games and JA2 quite a lot is it worth me trying to find a copy of the Fallout 1 and 2 somewhere?

 

How easy are they to get working on XP? Or is it better to run them in something like Dosbox?

 

Thanks for any info you can give.

[NKF]

Yes, sneaking has to the potential to make you invisible except to the current attacker or enemies you've attacked. Use the '1' key as a shortcut to activate it.

 

Kernel: The first two Fallout games are well worth getting, but they're not squad combat games like JA and the X-Com games. That said, I highly recommend getting them. They're windows based games that utilise Direct X, and can play on XP machines just fine.

 

- NKF

[Slaughter]

...

 

How easy are they to get working on XP? Or is it better to run them in something like Dosbox?

 

...

Fallout is THE turn-based post-apocalyptic RPG. As NKF says, they're not squad based (except for Tactics I guess), but you'll love them anyway. If not I'll eat your cat...*quickly tweaks the universal translator so the humans won't be suspicious*...eat my hat

 

You can get all 3 Fallout games in a nice box from GoGamer.com in the US and Amazon.co.uk in Europe (as well as many other stores).

 

As for running the games, the only trouble you might get is installing them. Should that occur, No Mutants Allowed can help you. Now go get the games!

[NKF]

With Fallout 2, be sure to get the latest updates too. The plain vanilla game did some very nasty things to the Highwayman (i.e. your wheels and main storage vault) by having it either vanish completely (very bad), have it suddenly appear along the northern coast when it runs out of fuel or you'd end up towing the back end with you everywhere you went. Not compulsory, but useful if you picked the Small Frame trait and want to beat some self imposed date limit.

 

- NKF

[Matri]

My introduction to Fallout started with Fallout Tactics.

 

Single player was okay, but online was fun. During my period online, the trend was WW2 rules. Points limited character/team with really outdated equipment. No medkits, no stimkits, no Pancors, no Gatlings... Pretty much limited to stuff you can find in World War 2.

 

I made my sniper build then. Was the only twink-grade character I've ever made. I get a minimum of 70% accuracy on all called shots, even at maximum range. Was using the M1 Garand. Scored criticals on pretty much every other shot, and had excellent hide ability. Give me 4 shots and I'll hit you in the eyes (reduced Perception), groin (reduced movement), Left Hand and Right Hand (damage weapons). Pretty much if you see me I've already hit you.

 

Got challenged to a sniper vs sniper shootout once. Poor sap never stood a chance. Hit his eyes on the first shot, cut his Perception in half so he was pretty much blind. Spent the rest of the match harassing him with called shots.

 

Good times.

[Kernel]

Thanks for the info. I see Play.com also do the box set for

[baby arm]

Here's a peek at Fallout 3.

 

And here's a short overview if you're too lazy to read the article.

[Azrael Strife]

Ahhhhh crap, it's a first/third person RPG monster! I was really hoping for an old-school RPG a la Fallout 1/2, hope it's good though, but for now I'm pretty disappointed

 

Edit: the screenies look pretty damn sweet though! but the "supermutant" looks 100% like an orc, it's even wielding a warhammer!!

It looks cool, but this does not seem like Fallout to me

[Gimli]

Yeah, some things don't look good, and the things that could be good, I won't know until I play the game. Right now I am not interested in getting the game. Has anybody thought about critical failure? I wonder if/how they are going to put that there.

[KoMik]

I think it shouldn't be called Fallout 3. At least for the honour to the orginals' turn based system, and fans of it.

 

That's all.

[Azrael Strife]

I agree it has the potential to be a terrific game, but as you say, it shouldn't be called Fallout 3.

 

That aside; I'm having a lot of fun with Fallout so far! my decision to make me a thief was a good one, I'm stealing this poor town's silly, I have enough ammo, stimpacks and bottlecaps to survive well now (I hadn't figured those were the actual money, heh). And I've stolen a piece of rope I'll see what's done with it later.

I also hired Ian for 100 bottlecaps (and stolen back the money afterwards, heh)

So far I'm only in the first town in the way to Vault 15, I helped clear the Radscorpion cave and make the anti-venom, now moving to the vault.

 

My only concern is the time limit I have to deliver the water-purifier chip back to Vault 13, should I be too worried about running out of time or should I have enough? I'm scared to 'sleep until healed' because of it, dunno how long it'll take me to find the bloody chip.

[Gimli]

It's not that pressing, you have more than enough time. Also, without spoiling much, you can buy water in one of the locations, and extra days to the time limit. You'll be fine even without it, though, unless you are totally careless. By the way, when you get to Necropolis, be sure to post about what you find there. Then we'll let you in on a little secret. That's all I am going to say.

[NKF]

Be absolutely sure you save before launching right into the Necropolis, particularly if you like to talk your way through problems.

 

I agree, the time limit's not too bad. It's worrying at first if you keep watching it, but concentrate on finding the water chip and you'll do fine. A few hours rest will not hurt you any. One time saving tip is to not waste time dilly dallying about the wasteland in an attempt to level up. You can easily get away with being low levelled for the water chip quest. Until you hit the mutants, most of the random encounters don't offer buckets of experience.

 

For healing, use the doctor skill (1 hour per use) and first aid (30min per use - watch for the books), stimpacks (hint: these are hot pickpocket items), and running around in the wasteland when travelling between towns. Combining these together and your health will top up just nicely. A few hours of rest won't hurt you either.

 

edit:

 

Just realised something when I was reviewing some of my old savegames. One very important time saving tip: Until you've got the waterchip and are ready to head home, try not to use any of the Brotherhood of Steel's medical facilities. They offer a few special medical operations that you'll definitely want to take advantage of. However, each operation can take several weeks to perform. Naturally, each operation will cut away at your time limit. Unless you can afford the time, wait until the water chip quest is done.

 

- NKF