Fallout 3 discussion

[frogbeastegg]

My Fallout pack has arrived, and I've installed and tested Fallout 1. It works.

I have the Virgin White label Fallout collection; it's all on one DVD, and has no hint of whether it's already patched or not. Is there any way I can tell if I need the official patches?

So, anyone got any tips for a frog? Character creation, things to do, things not to do, easily missible quests/places/goodies ... anything?

[econ21]

Is there any way I can tell if I need the official patches?

I suspect you are fine. I got the white label CD collection and I think it had the patches on, but I did not need to install them or something strange like that (it's been a while).

So, anyone got any tips for a frog? Character creation, things to do, things not to do, easily missible quests/places/goodies ... anything?

The Fallouts are like the BGs in that there are lots of things that are potentially missable. The problem is that if you use an external reference to find them, you end up losing the wonder of discovery while exploring the game world. With these games, I'd be inclined to try to play them blind and indeed "role-play" them - act as if you were stuck in the wasteland, rather than try to max your stats/power etc. They are one of the few CRPGs where actually role-playing would not be ludicrous.

As with most RPGs, save often. You can hit a random encounter that can get you killed in one shot; you can get stuck for eternity behind an immovable NPC (one thing FO2 fixed); your computer can crash or hit some weird glitch. Be forgiving - it's worth persevering.

In terms of character creation, it is worth planning your perks like you would your feats in DnD or KOTOR. The really good stuff comes late but often has formiddable prerequisites you have to plan for.

With stats, arguably the two most important are intelligence - as it gives you skill points on each level up - and agility - as it gives you action points in the turn-based combat. Going for 9 or 10 in those stats would not be excessive and indeed may be the norm (for me anyway). The DnD standbys - strength and toughness - are actually lesser stats here, although a strength of 6 would help you carry stuff and maybe necessary for the good armour. Perception helps shooting - a 6 or 8 would be good. It's probably good not to go below 4 in any stat. Taking the gifted trait makes the point-buy system so much more forgiving and is the no brainer choice in character creation.

With skills, small guns is the dominant combat skill so probably should be tagged (the second no brainer). Speech is useful too - there's a lot of talking in Fallout and you will encounter situations where fighting is not really feasible.

You should keep an eye out for recruitable NPCs. Ian (a chap in black leather jacket and blue jeans) and Dogmeat (a mottley grey dog) tend to be the favorites. Don't expect them to live forever, though: like you, they can die with one shot, but unlike you, they are controlled by a rather basic AI.

[hrvojej]

... they are controlled by a rather basic AI.

Which is another thing that you'll likely have to be forgiving about. You cannot directly control your party members, so keep in mind that sometimes, especially in battles, they'll be more trouble than help. If you just accept it as a part of the game, it's fine, but don't expect to have the support of a well synched party of BG kind.

[Bob the Insane]

You should keep an eye out for recruitable NPCs. Ian (a chap in black leather jacket and blue jeans) and Dogmeat (a mottley grey dog) tend to be the favorites. Don't expect them to live forever, though: like you, they can die with one shot, but unlike you, they are controlled by a rather basic AI.

You can give them some instructions (talk to them when they are part of you party) such as weapon prefences, how close to stay to use and agression levels and such...

As I recall if you did a good job of equiping them things where not so bad...

Early battles with bandits can be a nightmare... always remember, running away is an option!!

[Whacker]

My Fallout pack has arrived, and I've installed and tested Fallout 1. It works.

Yay!!!

I have the Virgin White label Fallout collection; it's all on one DVD, and has no hint of whether it's already patched or not. Is there any way I can tell if I need the official patches?

When you fire it up and are at the main menu, check the rightmost bottom. Should faintly say "1.2".

So, anyone got any tips for a frog?

Always keep water handy so that the skin will avoid drying out and dehydration. A good diet of insects should keep it happy, and keep the water fresh.

Character creation, things to do, things not to do, easily missible quests/places/goodies ... anything?

If your game isn't v1.2, I'd get the v1.2 patch first and install:

http://www.teamx.ru/cgi-bin/load.cgi.../fallup12w.rar

Next, get the "unofficial" fan patch that fixes a few more bugs, mainly script/map stuff.

http://www.teamx.ru/cgi-bin/load.cgi...s/fallup13.rar

Install both in that order (if the first one's needed, second one def. will be) and you should be ready to rock.

Here's where this game shines. What do you want to do? Smooth talker? Long range death? Mindless brawler? The game is pretty straightforward on what the attributes do. The only thing in skills that had me confused for awhile was energy weapons vs. big guns, as there are some "big energy weapons", but it turns out these are governed only by the energy weapon skill. As for the two optional traits you can pick to start with, all I can really say is "gifted + skilled" is regarded as extremely cheap, as it makes your character a bit of a god.

Unless you want spoilers, here's some initial recommendations for your first game that I think most of us would agree to.

- Do NOT try your first game with a low INT char. It's hilarious if you eventually do try to do so (Wubba!), but don't try it first game. In fact I would not put any skill under 4 or 5 if you can help it. You sound like the type who knows how d20 RPGs work, SPECIAL really isn't all that much different so you should get the hang.

- Don't try to be a HtH brawler, tag small guns as one of your 3 primary skills. Small guns are the most common until late game, and getting this up there with a good gun like the sniper rifle will help you immensely.

- Skills that I personally do NOT recommend tagging: sneak, first aid, doctor, steal. Skills I wouldn't recommend datting unless they are directly relevant to your combat style: big guns, throwing, melee weapons. Reason is they are all useless/uncommon items, mostly unused in the game, or work decently even at low values. I say Big Guns, but one should always tag at least one type of weapon/combat IMO.

- With a high enough barter (110+), you can technically get stuff for free, in that the same item you are trading for, say a stimpack vs stimpack, your price will always be $100, the other persons can get as low as $50, so you can "clean them out". Some people don't like this, I think it's semi-legit.

- Talk to everyone.

- You WILL sometimes be forced into combat situations, even if you try playing a total pacifist. It's sorta possible to complete the game without killing anyone/anything, but I wouldn't recommend it first go.

- Follow the initial tutorial in the manual. You'll create a disposable char. Use that to get the hang of the interface. Shift runs, I didn't figure that out for about 2 hours.

- Remember, if you are out on the world map and click on your position triangle in the middle of nowhere, you'll come up in some randomly picked map. If you drop stuff here and leave, it will be gone forever.

- There's random stuff on the floors in many maps, and it can be REALLY hard to see some of them. I'll give you one spoiler up front to show you how big of a pain it is. When you finally do get to vault 15, on the 2nd sublevel, absolute bottom-left room, in the bathroom on the floor is a rifle. Good luck finding it.


My personal suggestions (my play style), some may disagree:

- Conserve ammo in the start. It'll become plentiful later on though. It's fun to box with the rats. Don't be shy about using it though, if the situation and the critters warrant.

- Steal everything that's not bolted down. Only reason not to do it is if you want to self-impose some kind of limitations or really "roleplay". Seriously this game should be named "Kleptomania" for me.

- Stash stuff you think you might need later in bookcases or other areas, nobody will take it and it won't disappear. There's a specific area/map in the game that I use as my own personal storage space where I keep literally just about everything.


There's also a few.......... "exploits" that you may end up figuring out. There's only one instance that I purposefully use them in normal gameplay, it's really up to you if you choose to use them or not. /shrug


Enjoy the game above all else. These truly are the best of the best, you'll see why we put them on the pedastels as examples for yourself now.

[Master_Thief]

I got round to playing the FO1 demo last weekend. Overall i'm impressed by how well the graphics have held up over the years, and the atmosphere is spot on despite the lack of music in XP. However, what I was dissappointed with was the size of the area, which was called a city but consisted of two buildings each housing rival gangs that were barely 3 feet away, and the amount of combat. I tried to go about things relatively peacefuly but the result was always lots of guns firing, and me either being wasted straight away or, if I was lucky, hiding in a corner and taking out everyone else. I thought there was supposed to be more to the game than striding around with a chaingun blowing people to pieces. Please tell me thats the case!

[Husar]

As with most RPGs, save often. You can hit a random encounter that can get you killed in one shot; you can get stuck for eternity behind an immovable NPC (one thing FO2 fixed); your computer can crash or hit some weird glitch. Be forgiving - it's worth persevering.

And people say that games have more bugs today.

Nothing against Fallout, just something I was reminded of.

[econ21]

I got round to playing the FO1 demo last weekend. ...I thought there was supposed to be more to the game than striding around with a chaingun blowing people to pieces. Please tell me thats the case!

It's a demo - IIRC you did not see a city. The full game is no Daggerfall or even Morrowind in scale, but it is big enough. FO2 is maybe twice as big. The demo is combat heavy and basically gives you a taste of what FO combat is like. I rather like it, in a Sin City over-the top kind of way. But for CRPGs, the full games are relatively combat light (especially FO1) - even compared to Baldur's Gate, let alone the hack n slash IWD type games. Indeed, I often wanted more combat. You can play for hours just talking to people and doing non-combat quests. But on balance, I think the balance of combat and other stuff is one of the game's main strengths - it really adds to the credibility and immersion of the world.

[Master_Thief]

Phew!!! That's a relief. I'm more thna happy to play a game with that kind of combat. In fact I think its probably the best system for top-down/isometric RPGs. But the level of violence in the demo really was overwhelming at times. Now all I need to do is wait until my exams are over, then crawl out of my vault of Fallout ignorance into an apocolyptic paradise. Thanks for introducing me to these games everyone.

[TB666]

Started playing FO2 for the first time.
Having huge trouble with money and staying alive.
Any tips for a newbie ??

[Vladimir]

Try to sell some deaders or steal some jink to get a few coppers.

[TB666]

well I haven't found much stuff to be quite frank.
All I have found is a few scorpion tails and a pair of claws, all which is already sold and I spent the money on healing powder.
After that I haven't found anything and nothing is dropping.
And I keep getting killed when I'm in the toxic caves looking for that chick's bf.
The spear isn't the best weapon around lol.

[econ21]

well I haven't found much stuff to be quite frank.
All I have found is a few scorpion tails and a pair of claws, all which is already sold and I spent the money on healing powder.

Weapons are scarce at this very early stage of the game. I would not spend money on healing powder - you know you can use the first aid and doctor skills to heal yourself? And you get XP for doing so. Not much good in combat, it's true but still - most combat areas you can flee from or pace yourself in. Stims, however, are worth hoarding - weigh nothing and very useful in tough fights.

And I keep getting killed when I'm in the toxic caves looking for that chick's bf.

If the problem is the radiation, avoid stepping in the green slime. Make sure you wear those rubber boots. Take Rad-X if you can find it to prevent radiation sickness.

The spear isn't the best weapon around lol.

The spear has a range 2, so it is not that bad early on. If the problem is the critters, be careful you exploit the turnbased system - especially in melee. For example, it's often best to let the critters come to you when they will be out of action points and so you get a few free hits. If you have a few APs left, it can be best to use them to run away, then the critter will follow you and may not have enough APs left to hit you.

You may have gone to the toxic caves too soon. If you do the quest to deal with the rats in the west part of Klamath, you will find a pistol which helps a lot dealing with the golden geckos in the toxic caves. Equally important - it will give you the XP to level up a few times, allowing you to put skill points in your combat skills. There's also a quest in Klamath where you are rewarded with the ability to skin geckos, giving you a little earner.

Having high combat skill helps accuracy a lot - once you get high enough, you can start going for the eyes and that makes things much easier. It's not hard to raise a combat skill or two to 100% early on in the game if you have tagged it and have high INT. Other skills can wait. There are diminishing returns to investing points in a given skill anyway, so often you can get one to 80 or 100 quickly, then pace yourself (you normally don't need more than 120 in anything).

[TB666]

It's the geckos that are the problem.
A single gecko is no problem but it's when they are 2 the real problem begins.
And no I haven't done the rat quest, haven't even seen it.
Only quest that I did in that town was guarding this guy's cattle.
But I will look for the rat quest.

[econ21]

There's a newstand outside the bar (Annie's bar?) that you first arrive at in Klamath. On it, you will find notices about half a dozen different quests. The toxic caves is the hardest. I'm not sure if the rat one is on it, but you can find it by wondering onto the map west of that one and asking around.

You are making me want to fire up that game again.

[discovery1]

There's also a quest in Klamath where you are rewarded with the ability to skin geckos, giving you a little earner.

that's the reward for rescueing the guy trapped in the gecko caves. Oh, and when you are a much higher level you want to go back to that cave.

And in fallout 2 doctor is a MUST. The perks you get from it are just too good to pass up, even for combat.

[Leet Eriksson]

Guys apparently NMA released the tech demo for Fallout 3 Van Buren, don't be too excited though, its a buggy peice of

Though it works kinda, not much in it however :|

Eugh, i forgot the link, here it is:

http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/dlo...le&file_id=892

[frogbeastegg]

Loads of tips!

Thanks, exactly what I wanted.

The game is pre-patched. Which is nice. Possibly this edition has been slightly tweaked for modern computers, explaining why I have music and others here don't.

I must say the interface reeks. Too much clicking, and the result is not always what I wished for. I got killed by a mob in that first town because I looked at a bookcase instead of walking past it.

Unfortunately for me, Fallout is not as playable as it appeared; it's stuffed chock full of graphical glitches. My interface keeps disappearing for one, text is unreadable half the time for another. It's mildly unplayable. Any ideas?

Always keep water handy so that the skin will avoid drying out and dehydration. A good diet of insects should keep it happy, and keep the water fresh.

Lol!


EDIT: 150 days?! I rested to heal after one fight with a scorpion I found in a random encounter, and it took 9 days! There had better not be much to do before that timelimit is removed; I like to take my time in these games.

[Crandaeolon]

Unfortunately for me, Fallout is not as playable as it appeared; it's stuffed chock full of graphical glitches. My interface keeps disappearing for one, text is unreadable half the time for another. It's mildly unplayable. Any ideas?

Hmm. Works fine for me - did you try Win98 compatibility mode? It sometimes helps with older games.

150 days?! I rested to heal after one fight with a scorpion I found in a random encounter, and it took 9 days! There had better not be much to do before that timelimit is removed; I like to take my time in these games.

Without spoiling much, you can extend the time limit quite easily by 100 days. The time limit can be removed completely as well, but that is near endgame anyways.

Character creation tips:

Gifted is a must-have Trait. Drugs are great in tough spots, so Chem Resistant is another good one to pick - halved effect time is no biggie but avoiding addiction is very useful. Small Frame is so-and-so. Other Traits do generally more harm than good, with maybe the exception of Fast Shot, and whatever you do, don't pick Skilled.

Bonus Rate of Fire @ level 9: 7 Agi, 6 Int, 4 Per. Hitting requirements should be no problem.

Toughness is another good perk. 6 Str, 6 Lck. Harder to hit reqs with traditional agi-int characters, but damage resistance on top of armour is nothing to sneer at.

Going for Sniper is probably not smart in Fallout 1; it's 8 Per, 8 Agi @ level 18. Should be rather easy to attain in Fallout 2 though.

XP and skill-boosting perks are generally rubbish.

Drugs can be used prior to leveling to reach Perk requirements.

[TinCow]

You are making me want to fire up that game again.

Yeah, no kidding. Ever since this thread started I've been resisting the urge to reinstall FO2.

[econ21]

Other Traits do generally more harm than good...

I liked Good natured - you gain a lot of pluses that you will use and whereas most of the minuses will be in combat skills you won't use. Tagging your preferred combat skill(s) makes it very easy to offset the one or two minuses you do care about.

[frogbeastegg]

It grows weirder. If I alt-tab it will bring back my vanished interface, so I've managed to get a bit further. However I think some of the quest resolutions are not saving/registering correctly. For example

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I took down Gizmo. I had the tape recorder in my inventory while I talked him into hiring me to be his new assassin. I then took the evidence to the guard near the gate. He asked me to join the raid on Gizmo. I did, and killed the fat lardy lump with the aid of the guards. I got XP and stuff, and the guard congratulated me on some good work. Next time I talked to him the guard had changed his tune. Now I'm a murderer because I took Gizmo down without evidence and in an illegal way, and had better leave town.

Gah! The quest has now reappeared in my quest log as incomplete.

Other quests are refusing to advance at all. The "take down the Skullz" quest won't budge; I think I've done what I should, and checked a walkthrough in my desperation to get an idea of whether all is working correctly or not. According to the two guides I checked I have done the right things for the quest to advance. I'm not being offered the necessary dialogue options.

I've got a nice level 4 character and I was beginning to enjoy myself.

[TinCow]

Sounds like you've got a very bugged game. Did you install any player-made patches or did you just stick with what was on the install disc? IIRC, FO2 was borderline unplayable until fans fixed a lot of the bugs 'unofficially.'

[frogbeastegg]

The game installs itself as version 1.2. I haven't added anything to it, no player patches and no attempt at installing a seperate official patch.

The absolute worst thing here is that I was beginning to like the game!

(Mind you, I do like being able to alt+tab in and out of it without load times, game glitches, or my PC slowing down a bit because of the game occupying a large memory footprint. Less keen on needing to alt+tab out of it every other minute though.)

[discovery1]

Yeah, Fallout is very buggy. Its worth it though. For the kill Gizmo quest, as far as I know you always take the evidence to the guy who owns the store(Killwater?). He then sends you to the guard.

The break up the skullz is as I recall tricky(they are the gang at the back of the hotel right?). You have to choose the right dialogue paths and even the slighest misstep screws you over. And you probably need the right stats to get them, since as I recall you have to talk your way into their gang.

[Crandaeolon]

Quests, particularly dialog-oriented ones, sometimes require right attributes to complete. Mentats can help with these.

Occasionally the quests are also time-dependant, meaning that you have to wait a specific time (day, night etc.) or simply enough time to pass for something to happen.

I liked Good natured - you gain a lot of pluses that you will use and whereas most of the minuses will be in combat skills you won't use. Tagging your preferred combat skill(s) makes it very easy to offset the one or two minuses you do care about.

Yeah, Good Natured is okay. Still, you'll benefit a lot from high combat skills and yet can get by with around 70% for most other skills.

[econ21]

According to the two guides I checked I have done the right things for the quest to advance.

Were these the two you checked?

Per Jorner's nearly ultimate guide to Fallout:

http://user.tninet.se/~jyg699a/fallout.html

and Steve's Guide to Fallout:

http://www.the-spoiler.com/RPG/Inter...6/stevefo1.htm

I think they are the best two walkthroughs, IIRC. (I know I advised you not to let yourself get spoiled, but I confess I used walkthroughs a lot - I fear your experience is reminding me why).

[Whacker]

Frogness, you did the right things to advance/complete that question in particular, as the Galvanized Bovine suggested I also think your game is severely bugged. Best thing I can suggest is to uninstall the game, reinstall fresh, then install these two patches:

v1.2 http://www.teamx.ru/cgi-bin/load.cgi.../fallup12w.rar

v1.3 "unofficial" http://www.teamx.ru/cgi-bin/load.cgi...s/fallup13.rar

I know your game says v1.2, but I found that when I installed FO2 from my DVD (I think we have the same thing, white label), it said it was patched but it really wasn't, so I suggest you manually install both of the above no matter what.

As to your graphics issues, that's hit and miss as far as I can tell. I have an AMD/Nvidia 6800/XP Pro SP2 machine and it's always worked fine for me, no matter what. People with ATI cards have reported problems. Give this a read here, might help you out: http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5061

Good luck!

[frogbeastegg]

Gah! Shortly after that last post the game made my money vanish. All of it. With no warning. ~:mecry I had a save game 15 minutes before that (I'm saving in multiple slots obsessively) but now I'm paranoid about it happening again.

I'd done the Gizmo quest in the right order, and had it completed. There didn't seem to be any time or stat requirements, or if there were then my character passed them. For some reason it reactivated with a bad ending when I spoke to the guard again to see if I could get anything about the Skullz gang.

I checked some guides on gamefaqs. There's quite a few fallout guides there.



I'm getting on better with some of the interface (more a case of getting used to the pain than liking it) but buying expensive items is enough to make me want to quit! Surely the developers included an easier way to pay for very expensive stuff?! Clicking on your money, selecting "all" and clicking "done" over and over to add 999 caps to the table is not at all fun.

How do you do these focused shots I keep seeing people talking about? The PDF manual is not easy to find specific subtopics in.

I stopped playing earlier this afternoon with a strong level 4 character in the Hub area. None (I forgot to enter a name; the game didn't prompt for one) has combat armour and a sniper rifle, and skill book pumped small gun and healing skills (hehe, I discovered how easy it is to gain massive piles of money at gambling, though my skill is only 57%). He has a dog and Ian following him. So far he's (I was going to play female; I forgot to make the switch. D'oh!) succeeded in every quest he's tried, having passed through Vault 15, Sandsomething, Junktown and part of the Hub, collecting every quest he can along the way. None is finding life easy, perhaps too easy, and he isn't an uber build character.

Um, I do wonder if I'll go back to it. :hides behind the ramparts of Castle Froggy, pulls up the drawbridge and releases the sharks into the moat: While it became enjoyable between bugs, it isn't anything special. I know it is old and later RPGs took lessons from it, but that doesn't help the fact I've done this kind of thing many times before, and with better interfaces, less bugs, better graphics and atmosphere, and more gameplay possiblities (proper parties!).

Is there something worth slogging on through all the blackscreening and vanishing interfaces, bugs, that interface for? If not I might skip to the second game.

EDIT in light of Whacker's post: Question transformed into, is it worth the hassle of reinstalling the game and fiddling about with windows settings I'd rather leave as they are since I'll inevitably forget I need to put them back. I'd probably do best to start a new character as well, losing an entire day's play

I've got a Nvidia card :cough: BFG geforce 8800GTS 640MB :cough: with an intel Core2Duo E6600 and 2GB DDR2 corsair XMS2 RAM. For a game like Fallout it's so far past overkill that a new term is needed. (EDIT again to remove the embarrassed smiley. Why am I embarrased!? I built it myself and I'm damned proud of the shiny black frog machine of 1337 mad speed )

[Crandaeolon]

I agree that the abundant equipment and resources in Fallout(s) is something of a flaw; the post-apocalyptic survival feeling is quite not there. There aren't many alternatives in the RPG genre however.

Stalker has plentiful equipment too, but at least the weight limit and deteriorating weapons & armour are restrictive enough to force some hard choices. Still, it's more of an FPS game with no real character development.