"I must digest this information."It began with the making of a very thorough Fallout 2 guide, and though I hadn't intended it from the start, I realized towards the end that I would be doing the same thing with Fallout. Although I did finish the latter game first, it was the sequel that captured my heart and prompted all this guide-writing. For this reason my perspective on Fallout in this guide will most often be that the sequel sets the standard and whatever is different in the original is the anomaly. This may be a little odd to veterans who lived a year or so with Fallout before the sequel was released, but that's the way it is for many players today, and in any case the popularity of Fallout 2 today far outstrips that of its predecessor.
--The Master
A green star marks straightforward, reliable information or advice.
A yellow star signals some measure of uncertainty or speculation, but information given can be expected to be correct in broad terms.
A red star is used for highly speculative information as well as massively peripheral or trivial comments.
A blue star is used for general comments appearing in the Area walkthrough section which have a wider application than the specific context where they are brought up, such as character design, combat strategy or general game behaviour.
"It's always patch you up! Fix you up! Asshole!"The first thing you should do is make sure that your asshole... err, I mean your game is patched. If you have the European version this is easy, you'll already have version 1.2. If you live in the US or for some other reason own an old US version, you should download the patch to v1.1 if the game on your cd is v1.0. There shouldn't be a need to patch recent budget releases. What the patch does is fix several potentially game-ruining bugs and remove one of the time limits in the game. In the walkthrough I'll assume your game is patched and refer to pre-patch oddities as some kind of ancient (and slightly dubious) history.
--Doctor Wu
At least my UK version doesn't have any violence restrictions, but all blood and violent animations were removed from the localized German edition. There are at least two unofficial gore patches (some 30 MB or more in size) which add these back in, though. Refer to them for details of content and application.
Locutus adds: "I have a 1.2 US version that was added to a game magazine and does not have the 'Maybe' song in the intro, it just plays the Glow music. Everything else is like in the normal US version."
There are a few known purely textual differences between the US and UK versions, concerning "sensitive" words: "drug" has become "chem", and "addiction" has become "craving". The reason why is anyone's guess, but if you've been wondering where I got this "chem" word from, that's the explanation.Save often! Ideally you should quicksave after every battle and before every conversation. Having to play even a few minutes' worth of shootin' and lootin' all over again because you made the wrong choice in a dialogue can be irksome. (Of course it may also happen that you realize only afterwards that you've done something wrong and wish you had not saved...) I'd also recommend keeping a save game slot for each time you enter a new major location (town etc.). This way if you really screw up somehow and only find out after you save (it can happen), you "only" have to replay that area. These saves can also come in handy later on if you want to see what would have happened if you'd done differently in a particular quest.
A little word of warning about quicksave: as you probably know the quicksave function is "reset" when you use the regular load or save commands. However, it's not reset if you exit the current game and start a new character.
Once you fill up your quota of slots you can use a file manager of your choice to make room for new ones. Just rename a save game folder (those named "Slot01" through "Slot10") you don't need for the moment to something which gives you a hint of what it contains (like "Slot02-shady"), and that slot will be free for use again. Then whenever you want to bring back an archived save, restore that folder's name to a valid one. You can use a similar trick to swap between whole save catalogues by renaming the "Savegame" folder to "SavegameX" or something else. This way you can juggle different games with different characters.
A more "realistic" approach to the game involves using a single save slot and reloading only if you die or screw up entirely by mistake (but not, for instance, if you fail some action or have second thoughts about something). Not recommended at all for beginners. Also better use at least one more slot for backup just in case your save files are corrupted. An even more realistic playing style called "iron man" involves never saving the game at all except between playing sessions; if you die, you're dead and have to start all over again!Once you've started the game I'd change the following default settings: combat speed, which I always turn up to max (check the box as well), target highlight to "on" (helps you see what's happening to critters behind walls), and running to "always". While working on the guide I had difficulty set to normal, but any future games will be played on hard (both game and combat difficulty), which unfortunately doesn't present that much more of a challenge.
If you hold down Shift and press the credits button on the starting screen, you'll get to read a quote file from the developers. Mature stuff!
If you type the word "boom" while the credits are running you'll be treated to an animation of Tim Cain's head blowing up.
You can access some sort of recording mode if you press Ctrl-R on the starting screen. You get to choose an area and run around it (with Max Stone), but you can't talk to people (unless you set off some script) or manipulate objects except for opening doors. This also creates a "selfrun" directory in your game folder where the recording is stored. When you're fed up, press Ctrl-R again to return to the starting menu. If you now wait for a while, one of your recordings will start playing, more or less accurately. You can use this feature to view a few unused (and uninteresting) maps, like the ruined Brotherhood bunker entrance and the Viper camp. See the Area walkthrough section for a way to exploit this in the game.
"Many of yours. Some useful, but too many twists."I'll be going through stats, traits, skills and stuff, making harsh and dictatorlike judgements, and then follow up with a few resulting characters. To start off with, your age doesn't matter; it's not checked in any of the scripts. Gender will have a small but insignificant effect on some dialogues. Male characters can sleep with Sinthia (for a price) and maybe with Keri (for a minor benefit). They may also be taken for Death Hand in the raider camp, which is not necessarily an advantage. If you are female then getting the systolic motivator from Michael will be easier if you have CH>5 but harder if you have CH<5. You may have been meant to be able to pull a surprise attack on Harry with a female character, but all this does is initiate combat. A funny detail is that the Vault 13 security officer is always of the opposite gender to the player character.
--Set
Don't use any of the pre-defined characters, they all have flaws (e.g. Max Stone has Bruiser, Natalia has Night Person and Albert has Skilled as well as Barter). One of the nicest things about most computer RPGs is creating your own character or characters, anyway; even if I wanted a "Max Stone" character, I'd make one instead of taking Max Stone.
Stats can never be effectively raised above 10. Every stat can be raised by 1 permanently during the game (except ST which goes up by 4), so starting with 10 in any stat is a bit of a waste. IN and LK can be raised by 2 permanently instead of 1 by taking advantage of scripting glitches, so if you're not above that you shouldn't begin with more than 8 in those.
EN and AG work in the way that an odd score will not give you any significant advantages compared to the even number below, e.g. AG 6 or 7 both give you 8 Action Points. Keep this in mind, but also keep in mind you can increase these stats by one, which is why you may want to start with, say, AG 9 and not 8 or 10.
The Fallout manual says you get EN/3 extra HP per level; the Fallout 2 manual says you get EN/3+3. They're both wrong: the correct amount is EN/2+2 (rounded down). Interestingly enough this is in the patch notes of both games.
If you set IN lower than 4, your character will (usually) only be able to speak in grunts, unable to carry on any meaningful dialogue. Needless to say this will severely impair your ability to take on and solve quests, but you can use Mentats to help with that. (Note that you can also use Mentats "in reverse" during a normal game - take one or two and wait one hour for your stats to drop below normal - if you want to take advantage of an IN<4 feature. Psycho is even more effective.) For more details, see the Stupid section.
A Strength of 5 is enough to handle all small guns. A ST of 7 is sufficient to wield all big guns and energy weapons, and in fact ST 6 is enough for everything but the Minigun. Once you get the Powered Armor you don't have to worry about this.
If you raise your stats with Bruiser, Small Frame or Gifted, you can redistribute the extra point(s) manually, so think of them as extra generic char points, although technically this is not so (which is reflected in the fact that you can't lower the raised skills below certain values, but that should never be a problem).Potentially useful but not overly worthwhile traits:
Skilled is bugged in the way that you don't get the extra 5 skill points per level you're supposed to get. If you want to simulate this effect you could give yourself 2-3 levels of the Educated perk using a character editor.
Although Bloody Mess does have one beneficial function at the end of the game for good characters, that effect can be achieved by other means.
Your number of available skill points are capped at 99 when you level up. You can have more than 99 points stored (e.g. after getting a skill point perk), but only until you level up next time.
You can turn down the difficulty level to raise your non-combat skills temporarily for a specific action.
Many players actually favour the Sneak skill as in some situations it will let you kill people without anyone noticing, which is useful in assassinations (but this doesn't always work), or sneak up to them before applying HtH pain. Unfortunately many proximity scripts and similar don't bother to check whether you're sneaking or not. It doesn't help when stealing from Killian's tables, for instance.
I'll put a couple of Steal notes here, because they don't seem to fit anywhere else. You gain a bonus (or suffer a smaller penalty) stealing from the back or side of someone, but the Sneak skill does nothing. Item size (which is not the same as weight) is a factor unless you have the Pickpocket perk. Regardless of your skill level you can use Steal to see what humanoid critters are carrying, although you won't see items they're holding or items that they "produce" during the course of a quest.
If you manage to steal and/or plant an item two or more times in succession you gain an increasing amount of xp for each successful attempt: 10, 20, 30 and so on, meaning the total will be 10, 30, 60 and so on. This amount doesn't seem to be capped by your Steal skill level.
In most shops you can't use Steal on the shopkeeper because the wares are kept in an on- or offscreen container when you're not talking to the shopkeeper (Mrs Stapleton is one exception, though she normally keeps her books away). In the case of Beth, Mitch and Jake in the Hub, the stuff will appear on the body of the shopkeeper if you kill them.
You can plant items on people using Steal. You can use this feature to give equipment to your NPCs, to kill people with explosives, and in one quest.As a rule, it's not worth it to raise most skills above 100%. Combat skills can be improved beyond that for an extra edge until you reach the point where you get the maximum 95% chance to hit against all opponents and from any reasonable range (which takes a bit longer if you practice the art of aimed shots or blows). Even if you raise Sneak and Steal to their maximum values you'll still get caught a lot, suggesting your chance of success is capped at 95% before negative modifiers are applied (in fact, testing shows no significant difference between Steal 30% and Steal 200% under pretty normal circumstances). Note however that it doesn't cost more skill points to raise a skill at high skill levels.
If you don't have the stats to meet the requirements of a perk you can in some cases use drugs to raise them temporarily and get the perk (it took me several games to realize this!), but this does not work with perks that have a Luck requirement, for instance. Check out the chems in the Items section for details. This is made easier by the fact that unlike in Fallout 2 you can reap the effects of any number of doses at once. Also remember you must spend each perk before earning a new one.Recommended perks (number of ranks in parentheses):
Michal Burger puts in: "The Bonus Move perk is for an HtH character far superior to Action Boy/Girl, which you suggested, because your enemies tend to slide 2-8 hexes after you hit them so you almost always use up all of your 'move only' Action Points, even if you have two levels of this perk. Another advantage is that you can get Bonus Move at 6th level, compared to 12th for Action Boy. I can never find any good perks at the early levels, so I almost always go for Toughness and Bonus Move. And some extra move AP can be still useful even in ranged combat - for hiding behind obstacles."
The Bonus Move perk is bugged so that if you save and load the game in combat, your extra movement AP will be available for use again, allowing you to move any distance in a single round. On the other side of the coin, if you run out of "normal" AP your turn ends whether or not you have extra movement AP left.Possibly useful but not crucial perks:
You can play a little trick with the Tag! perk. When you use it to tag a skill, it will raise the skill level by the same amount you already raised the skill, including bonuses gained during play, plus 20%. The trick is that before leaving the character screen you can lower the skill to its previous level (but not below 20% plus your base value), and then spend the points elsewhere. Effectively this perk can give you an amount of generic skill points equal to 20 plus the highest amount you've gained in a non-tagged skill, which makes it far superior to every other skill point perk. No big deal, since I don't care much for skill points late in the game anyway.
When you pick a skill point perk (other than Tag!) you can redistribute points only to the extent that you have previously raised that skill by investing skill points, reading books or getting one-shot bonuses.Perks I rather doubt the usefulness of:
The Lifegiver perk gives you 4 extra HP for each new level in addition to the 4 HP you get just for taking the perk (the manual forgets to say this, but it's in the patch notes).
It's possible to score more than one double-damage hit with Silent Death in the first round of combat, assuming you can position yourself behind two or more enemies without leaving Sneak mode (which is difficult if you have to pass directly in front of them).Useless perks which should only be chosen if you have no other options (or really want to):
The effective size of the discount granted by Master Trader varies between shops, roughly in a 15-30% range. This is probably because barter modifiers are applied cumulatively and not sequentially.
If you have only one trait when you get the Mutate! perk, you must exchange that for the new one, i.e. you can't just fill the other slot and keep the old trait.
In v1.0 you could reportedly use Mutate! to change Gifted into something else but still keep the stat points.
The effect of Night Vision varies depending on the lighting conditions and your number of perk levels. Each modifier threshold you cross gives you +15% to hit with a ranged weapon, for a maximum of +30% in complete darkness with three levels of Night Vision. At other times, any specific level might not do anything at all. Frank Shannon notes that Night Vision adds some clarity for people with dark monitors.
Sharpshooter is bugged and doesn't really do what the manual says; it's supposed to raise PE by 2 for sniping purposes, yet often improves your chance to hit less, and never more, than increasing PE by 1. Michal Burger figured out that this is because the perk thinks range modifiers are calculated based on PE when it's in fact PE*2, and so increases your chance to hit only half as much as it should. At least it gives you a bonus even if your PE is at 10 already.
Swift Learner is even worse here than in Fallout 2, since you can't go beyond level 21. It may seem like a good investment when you first look at it, but since the xp requirement for each new level rises linearly, even if you get all three slots of Swift Learner you only ever stay at most one level ahead of someone who doesn't ruin their early game wasting invaluable perks, and for that you'll have to wait until level 17! So, that adds up eventually to a few HP and skill points, for three perks... Do not choose this perk ever, ever, ever, ever!
The "developed" stats given below don't include the extra two stat points you can get by exploiting glitches. If you're going for those you can make the necessary adjustments yourself.Sniper: A clever character that can solve all quests and finish off bad guys easily. Which sort of summarizes what you do in this game.
Although you get the Childkiller reputation after killing one child, you'll need to kill three before the people of the wasteland actually start regarding you as a Childkiller. This doesn't have any overpowering effect, though. In the walkthrough I'll write "Childkiller" when it really should say "having killed three or more children".
If any of your NPCs kills a child you don't get the Childkiller reputation.For most characters the reaction system is entirely forgettable. It is in fact impossible to get a bad reaction even with CH 1 unless you have Childkiller or Berserker, have negative karma, or go out of your way to insult people. The factors involved can be summed up like this:
Rem | Message | HR | CHP | ST | PE | EN | CH | IN | AG |
>0 | "very nauseous" | ||||||||
>150 | "slightly fatigued" | -1 | |||||||
>300 | "vomiting does not stop" | -3 | -1 | -1 | |||||
>450 | "hair is falling out" | -5 | -5 | -2 | -1 | -2 | |||
>600 | "skin is falling off" | -10 | -15 | -4 | -3 | -3 | -3 | -1 | -5 |
>1000 | "intense agony" | -10 | -20 | -6 | -5 | -5 | -5 | -3 | -6 |
In v1.0 your stats didn't reset properly after serious radiation conditions; instead they increased above their original values.
"I know who you are. You are walking death, a plague in human form. Where you step, blood flows like a river."Each area walkthrough follows roughly the same pattern: first a general run-down of important people to talk to and things to do that aren't technically quests, then a numbered list of quests just as they're presented in your Pipboy. This is not strictly a walkthrough in the "do this, then do that" sense, but there's enough information and general advice that you should be able to figure out how to do stuff, and have more fun in the process.
--Lasher
It should be noted that not all dialogue options described in this walkthrough will be available to a character with middling ability or skill scores (typically IN or Speech). In some of these cases you can try chewing Mentats, if you have them. IN 7 is enough for virtually all important dialogue nodes.
A general cheat/bug... pressing 0 (zero) in any conversation will instantly end it. For instance, if someone says they're going to kill you, and you press 0, they may not turn hostile, or if you end up in a dialogue thread which leads only to an undesirable end, you can abort it entirely. Using this "trick" may prompt unexpected dialogue and cause quests to reset or abort - you have been warned.
Sean Meskill discovered a way to rest anywhere: "When you have enough status entries (names of locations) that they start to physically appear in the space where the alarm clock entries appear, then you can do the trick. Go someplace where you cannot rest. Enter the Pipboy. Press status. Press the alarm clock, then after it says you cannot rest here click a status item that physically corresponds to an alarm clock item. It will then switch to the rest menu, with the rest option that is in the same place as whatever status item you pressed being used. Usually you can't rest very long doing this, but you can do it as many times as you want. Very useful." Once the rest options appear, you have to click in between them. You need quest entries for at least three locations to be able to access the "Rest for ten minutes" option.
Here's a cheat from Michal Zalewski: "If you are at the brink of an impossible to win encounter, and have no other options, you can save your game, go to the main screen, hit Ctrl-R and load an arbitrary map, then load your game, walk past the combatants (they will not notice your proximity) and reach safety, save again, hit Ctrl-R and load the last save in the normal mode. Although it is cheating, it is sometimes a better option than replaying several hours of the game. If you feel particularly naughty, you can plant explosives near critters or kill them with Super Stimpaks. This also works if you want to avoid certain scripts. The method won't work if you have already entered combat mode. As a side note, there are some funny consequences to entering the combat mode while in Ctrl-R - most notably, it is possible to get killed, then walk away with negative HP. Quite unfortunately, you will still remain flagged as dead, so if you save the game and then load it in normal mode, the game will immediately end even if your HP is positive. The game may get mangled in Ctrl-R mode on some occasions (it is possible to crash it, or be stuck in endless combat mode), but it seems to be a rare glitch; once you get past Ctrl-R and load the save, there are no side effects as far as I could tell." Some scripts will still be active in Ctrl-R mode, e.g. a guard may prevent you from opening a door even if he won't attack. Experiment at your own risk...
"Don't drink glowing water."The game starts with a cutscene where the Overseer tells you to "be safe" as he's kicking you out of the vault. Right. There's a vault door but you can't get back in right away. Take the Knife and ammo from the corpse, then kill as many rats as you want for practice and leave. You can use the Knife to kill them, but I wouldn't worry about using the gun, if you tagged Small Guns at any rate. You'll find plenty of ammo.
--The Vault Dweller
IN<4: The medic will give you a Stimpak every time you talk to him. Infinite free Stimpaks!On level 3, use Science on the computers in the room to the left for 350 xp from each - but if you fail an IN check you'll simply spend time "surfing the interweb" and gain nothing. Ask the guard at the armoury about locked doors (IN 6 and Speech needed) and tell her you need the stuff and she'll let you in.
You can turn on the people in Vault 13 and still carry on with the rest of the game, even finishing it. However, it's not possible to kill the Overseer by attacking him in the command centre. If you initiate dialogue with the Overseer when he's hostile, he'll fire and inflict 250 HP of damage, but all further attacks will be "normal".
This quest is not crucial to finishing the game, i.e. if you kill the Master and destroy the vats before the time limit runs out, you win the game.
A tip for item hoarders from Sebastian Cassten: "For keeping the Water Chip, simply press the 0 button when the Overseer asks you for it. Afterward you will be at the computer, gain the 7500 xp, lose the time limit, get the new quests from the Overseer and keep the chip." If you have a Bag or Back Pack below the Water Chip in your inventory list this will also keep the chip from disappearing.
There are two ways to "reset" this quest. The easiest is to talk to the Water Merchants (see the Hub). The other requires that you kept the chip: returning to Necropolis and using it on the water computer there will also undo the chip quest, which means you can give the Water Chip to the Overseer again for 7500 more xp. Using the cheat to keep the chip you could travel between the Hub and Vault 13, gaining 8500 xp each round trip and increasing the time limit all the while. Hours and hours of bug exploitation fun.
"How about you and I... well, you know... get together."On your way to Vault 15 you'll come across a conspicuous settlement. Talk to Katrina by the gate for some game basics, and if you go through all the available dialogue options in one go you'll gain 250 xp.
"Listen... uh... but I... uh... I-I like guys, okay? Whew! Uh, excuse me, I got stuff to do."
--The Vault Dweller and Tandi
The first time I played the game my character was a female named Katrina. The first person I talked to in the whole game was Katrina. What are the odds? Her hints for the two local quests have been mixed up, so that if you've got the radscorpion quest you can ask her about Tandi's kidnapping and vice versa.Razlo in the house to the southwest will tell you to stay away from his bookcase o' stuff. Save and try anyway. He and his wife will both give you two warnings before attacking, but with a little luck you can take all the stuff without either noticing. Razlo will heal you for money. You can also choose to barter for healing; if you leave the barter interface without trading for the healing object, he'll try to charge you in cash. Once you get a Scorpion Tail, give it to Razlo and he'll reward you with an Antidote and 250 xp. For each tail you give him he'll turn it into an Antidote, but it'll take some time. Next, use one Antidote on Jarvis in the back for 400 xp.
You can get the medical barter items in your inventory by putting them in a container (see Raiders for a note on this). If you do this, Razlo will think you didn't buy the item and try to charge you in cash as usual. If you return later to buy healing carrying one or more such items, Razlo will consider this payment and then purge all of them from your inventory after you leave the barter interface (but not those inside bags, as usual). Which item he offers depends on how hurt you are when you talk to him, but each is good for a full heal.
After your first conversation with Razlo he will refuse to speak with you if you are a Childkiller or Berserker. However, he'll talk to you if you are currently doing either of the Shady Sands quests, if you carry a Scorpion Tail, or if you approach him after 19.00. I guess his aversion isn't that deeply rooted after all.Talk to Ian in the house to the northeast. Unless you go out of your way to anger him he'll consider joining you for $100, but if you offer him "a piece of the action" (IN 6) and pass a Speech check he'll come along for free. If you get a good reaction (which at this early stage essentially means CH 9 and telling him you're sorry about his injury) he'll readily join you. It doesn't matter much since it will all be your stuff to redistribute anyway, including the $100; the tricky part about paying him is that you won't have any money at all when you first get here, so you'll have to steal or barter the sum from various peasants (and Ian himself). You get 100 xp when Ian joins you, and in any case he can reveal the locations of Junktown and the Hub.
Rock collectors ought to be disappointed with this game. There are 5 Rocks in a bookcase here and 5 more in Junktown... but that's it, except for Rocks carried around by children. Billy in the Hub has 5, and "generic" children - the ones found in both parts of Shady Sands, in Old Town in the Hub, in Adytum, and among the Blades - each amass 8-14 Rocks every time their map loads.Over by the garden there's basically just one thing to do except pick stuff up (and toss caps into the well): talk to Curtis the farmer. You'll get 500 xp if you tell him about crop rotation. If you don't have the Science 40% needed for the speech option, you can get the xp by either entering and leaving the tell-me-about interface or entering and leaving the barter screen, even if you do nothing in either. This is seemingly because doing so triggers the script variable used to check if you told him.
You can get two rescue kits from Razlo by talking to him before and after 19.00.Go to the Raiders. Opening the door to Tandi's cell will alarm the guard in the corridor, so you'll probably have to talk to Garl. There are several ways to effect Tandi's release:
Fighting Garl can be very easy or very hard depending on your stats; with a low Melee Damage you'll often do no damage, even though his armour is actually equivalent to leather and not metal. The best way to defeat him is to cripple one of his limbs or knock him out. If you have lots of AP you can use hit and run tactics: hit him once, then run to the other side of the enclosure. He'll follow you but not have enough AP to attack. Repeat until you get a few lucky criticals, optionally finish him off after he yields.
Sebastian Cassten relates a way to get Tandi's head in your inventory: "You need a Bag or Back Pack for this (if you're lucky you might encounter a Bag near Vault 15, else the closest one is in Junktown). Now when you are at the Raiders camp for freeing Tandi, ask Garl to barter for her release. On the barter screen, buy her head and put it in the bag. When ending the dialogue Garl won't attack and Tandi's barter head will remain. But Tandi isn't free yet. For freeing her you can talk to Garl again and barter, fight or talk her out of her cage. You can also keep on going with the Tandi trick and get more of them. The Tandi head weighs 10 pounds and looks very strange when throwing it on the ground. This also works with the Light, Medium and Heavy Healing you can get from Razlo." Once you've got the head you can talk to Garl with the head in your inventory and say nothing at all; Tandi will be released and you get to keep the head.You get 500 xp for freeing Tandi, minus 50 xp for every raider you killed to free her (including if you killed Garl in single combat). She'll stick with you as an NPC until you deliver her back to Shady Sands (400 xp and $500 from Aradesh), but she's not overly useful. Strangely enough, if she dies on the way back the people in Shady Sands won't have a word to say on the subject. When you return to the raiders next time they'll be hostile no matter how you freed her.
If you take Tandi to the east side of Shady Sands by way of the town map, you won't drop her off right away. If you then attack the peasants she may turn on you, or stand there watching. In either case, you get the 400 xp when you leave to the west side as long as you don't kill her.
IN<4: You can't get Seth to take you back to the caves once you kill all the scorpions, so bring the explosives right away if you want the bonus xp.
You set the timer on the explosives in your inventory and then drop it; time does not pass while you're in the inventory interface, so don't panic. Even with a puny Traps skill you can set the timer to the minimum of 10 seconds and run clear before the bomb goes off, whether you get the "explosive detonates prematurely" message or not. You can open a lot of (wooden) doors and forcefields in the game using explosives, but you shouldn't make a habit out of it.
"Squeak!"Make sure you bring one of the free Ropes from Shady Sands. Go down the manhole. Shoot the rats. Take the stuff from the lockers. Note that there are many items on the ground in this location, starting with 2 Flares near the elevator. Use the Rope on the elevator shaft and climb down.
--Rat
"We give them the most important thing possible. We give their dreary lives excitement."The raiders won't be aggressive when you first come here unless you flash weapons around. You can talk to the ones in the tents, but it doesn't do much. If you try to loot the containers inside the house you'll be attacked.
"I think I will make their lives boring again."
--Alya and the Vault Dweller
"Have a good day. And I am sorry about the bastards part, OK?"If you come here at night, you get one chance to ask nicely to be let in (IN 5 and a Speech check), or you'll have to wait until morning. If you step inside without permission Kalnor will come running to attack, but if you just run to the northern exit grid he won't be hostile when you return (this will not work if Ian is with you). Once you're inside, you can talk to Lars for some information and a quest. The guard outside the jail will attack if you use Lockpick on the door twice (picking this lock is easier without Lock Picks). Avoid sneaking in the presence of the guards since it will also tick them off if done repeatedly.
"It's going to cause me some severe mental trauma."
--Kalnor and the Vault Dweller
Note that once you've talked to Kalnor during night hours, the outcome determines for the duration of the game whether he considers you to have "night clearance". This can cause problems later if you try to leave by the front gate at night, as told by Michal Burger: "You can enter Junktown at night if you've been there before: just don't choose the first map but any of the other two when the Junktown map pops up. I did this once without realizing that it was night and when I was going to leave, Kalnor acted as if I was outside of town, which means that he told me that I can't enter, and since I was in the town already attacked me a while after we ended our conversation. It doesn't matter how you did get into the town, Kalnor will attack you (after a warning) if you walk close to him during the night and stay in town. You can run past him out - he will warn you but you'll be OK if you leave the town area fast enough." If you do get attacked, you can dash for an exit grid and hope for the best.
If you approach with a weapon ready Kalnor will tell you to put it away and turn hostile if you don't. However, if you tell him you're "not putting down my shooters for nobody" and make a difficult Speech check, he will not initiate combat for any reason after that. You can then steal all his stuff without fear or trespass all you want.Doc Morbid will heal you for money (HP and poison). If you're not hurt he'll charge you $10 and attack if you won't pay. Go down into the basement and talk to the midget. Get him to reveal the nature of Doc Morbid's business. The locker is both locked and trapped and will disintegrate if you open it before disarming the trap (which can be done with a low Traps skill) or if you set off the trap while disarming it. You can confront Doc Morbid with your findings, but nothing much happens. If you killed the midget, the people upstairs will turn hostile (but the police won't care if you kill them).
If you have Katja with you, you can ask her to pick the lock after you examine the locker. She won't disarm the trap, though! You should have about 75% Lockpick to go at it yourself.
If you talk to Morbid while he's in the basement and go along with what he says, he'll cut one of your eyes out. Ouch! Actually, all that happens is that you get a crippled eye, which can be healed using Doctor. If you don't want to lose an eye you'll have to fight him instead.
Beware that the Junktown guards may turn against you if they catch you fighting Doc Morbid's thugs. Once I ran from Doc Morbid's guards and tricked them into shooting Kalnor. Kalnor then fought on my side, but when the thugs were dealt with he told me I wasn't welcome any more, and when I tried to go back inside Junktown the guards were hostile. No fair!After 80 days have passed there'll be a member of the Children of the Cathedral on the first Junktown map offering the same kind of healing for money (HP and poison) as in Necropolis. He'll have displaced some poor guy, but there's nothing you can do about that.
The guardsmen on this map will react if they see you with a weapon. Note that if a guard gets to the point where he tells you to put the weapon away or face the consequences you can no longer stop him from going hostile, although you can head for the nearest exit grid. Also you cannot intimidate them even though they have the same lines of dialogue as Kalnor. If you help take down Kenji they stop caring about this, whether you agree to work for Killian or not.
IN<4: To barter with Killian, use one of the tables and then hit the barter button when faced with your one unproductive dialogue option.
You may want to save before picking any lock if your Lockpick skill is not too high. A critical failure will jam the lock, which then cannot be opened until the next day, i.e. when the clock reaches 0.00 or very shortly thereafter (though you can use lockpick items on a jammed door). Depending on what script is being used you can break your (Electronic) Lock Picks in some locks if you get a critical failure, instead of or in addition to jamming it. This isn't one of them, but keep it in mind. There's only so many Lock Picks in the game...
Unlike in Fallout 2 you can get a lot of stuff for your loot in most shops even with a modest Barter skill, providing that your CH is good. If you brought several Desert Eagles from the raiders you should be able to trade them for ammo, some Stimpaks and a Bag, as well as anything else you might like. By investing in Barter you will even be able to sell items for more than you pay for them, with the result that you can methodically strip shopkeepers of all they have - about 60% should be enough to do this to Killian. No real point to it, though. Another very important thing to note is that shops don't restock anything but money, with a couple of exceptions. Killian is one: he'll randomly restock a few things including .223 FMJ ammo, but this stops once you crack his safe.
You never lose anything by converting unwanted items into cash, so you should take every opportunity to do so. This is because your items always sell for the same value; Barter levels, discounts and so on all affect the prices of the other party's goods. But one of their dollars always trades for a dollar's worth of equipment. Note that since most shopkeepers reset their cash every time you talk to them, a large sum of caps can "disintegrate" if you trade it in for some expensive item. But because of the cash reset feature this isn't such a big deal anyway.If Killian catches you in his room, spots you tampering with the door while he's out in the store, or notices a Steal attempt on the tables, you may have to go to jail. Wait there for a day and they'll let you out again. If you pick the lock and step outside you'll gain 250 xp, but the guards will be hostile. Might as well do this first if you're going to kill Killian anyway (which always earns you 600 xp).
Each time you are sent to jail - even if it's just to keep you out of the way when Killian deals with Gizmo - you are fined $100 and lose 1 karma. If you don't have $100 you lose a total of 3 karma instead.
Pointless exercise: blow up the jail door with Dynamite, then go and get caught opening Killian's door. They'll throw you into jail, but there's no door, so you can just walk out of there without getting any xp or turning Junktown hostile. Return to Killian and he'll act as if nothing strange is happening. Repeat for as many times as you like for infinite bad karma.Marcelles at the Crash House will let you rent a room for $25 a day or $150 for a week. Each time you rest in your room you regain 10-15 HP. You can also pay her $50 for nothing. If you open the fridge more than once without being a paying customer she'll attack.
If you return here later in the game without having recruited Dogmeat, you may find that he starts following you once you enter the map. He'll only follow you around this one map, though, and it is then impossible to get him for an NPC.You can gamble in Gizmo's casino. I wouldn't (it's not as if you're short on resources or anything). If you do, talk to a roulette dealer, weigh down the 1 and 4 keys and wait a few minutes for your cash reserves to increase by tens of thousands of caps. You can do this with a middling Gambling level, say, 50% (Luck is also a small factor). Avoid the slot machines, the bets are lower and the odds worse. Don't flash guns in front of the casino guards or they'll be miffed.
Tom Jansen notes: "In Gizmo's casino, you can find a guy dressed in metal armour in the second room. To get his armour you need an NPC with you. Steal from him and keep doing it until you get caught. Instead of attacking you, he will run away. Don't chase him but end your turn. Your NPC will chase him and kill him for you. Now you can loot his corpse and get that Metal Armor he's wearing. I did this with Ian and Dogmeat as NPCs and Ian went into a craze killing every gambler in the casino. Besides the armour, I ended up with some nice amount of cash as well. The guards and Gizmo don't seem to care one bit." You can actually attack the guy yourself as long as you don't deal the killing blow. There are two male gamblers who will turn hostile as a result of this, but no one else will.If you feel like it, you can talk to Gizmo and get the job to kill Killian. He'll offer $1000, but with IN 6 you can ask for $1500 and always get it. Return after whacking Killian and you get your reward (he'll only ask for the Dog Tags if you haven't done it). If you killed Killian before talking to Gizmo you get the $1000 reward. You must click on Izo to get the money. You can imagine that this turns the guards and citizens of Junktown hostile if not done subtly. If you kill Gizmo on your own you get 600 xp for it and the guards won't turn hostile, but Lars won't talk to you afterwards which could affect quest 3.
If you save and reload in between talking to Gizmo and Izo, you won't get the reward since it's governed by a local variable that doesn't get saved.
Now for a quick lesson in how to kill silently for fun and amusement. Basically there are three ways to do this: 1) Feed your victim a number of Super Stimpaks in quick succession. Each one does 9 damage, so you should have the Awareness perk and divide the HP of your intended victim by that number, rounding up. Wait 10 minutes using the Pipboy, and voilà. 2) Set an explosive for 10-30 seconds and plant it on your victim using Steal, or if you have the right armour (i.e. Powered Armor) you can even keep the explosive in your inventory and stand next to the victim. If any critter is harmed by the blast but doesn't die you'll enter combat mode which is usually bad. However, you can circumvent this effect by leaving the map before the explosive goes off, or at least running pretty far away from anyone who's allied with the victim. A clever variation of this is the concept of "satchel charges", as described by Corpse: "I found a cool way to assassinate people with explosives. If you have a Bag, just place the explosives in it, set the timer (while they are in the Bag), then drop the Bag with the explosives next to your victim and run. Kaboom! You could even do that when they are with a large group of goons and no one will notice. This also works if you place the explosives in any container (a locker or a desk etc.) near your victim." If you're setting more than one bomb at once, make sure there's a wall or something behind the victim so they don't get thrown back by the first blast and avoid the others. 3) Enter Sneak mode and dispatch your victim in normal combat, but you only have one round in which to do it. It doesn't matter if you use a "loud" weapon and most often it doesn't matter if there are people around. (You'll probably have to hit end turn once before being able to end combat.) Note that some scripts have nasty events triggering as a result of a critter's death even if you technically weren't responsible, so a silent kill may not always be possible.Talk to Saul the boxer, ask him why he stays in Junktown, and if you've talked to Trish you can say she's worried about him to gain 250 xp. You can bet on his boxing fights every three days before 14.00, but there's not much point to it (the expected payback, if positive, is extremely small). Although it's funny when he fights the radscorpion.
Don't save and reload in between talking to the raider, since his attitude towards you will reset and you may find you have no option but to fight him.
If you get the 1000 xp and tell Sinthia she should move on with her life, you'll get a "freebie" if you're male or if you make a CH check. Male characters can return and hire her services for $40 each time. Each time you sleep with her you must make an IN check or become "addicted". Ho hum.
If either Lars or Killian is killed in the fight, they still live back on their respective maps (you get a message saying as much when Lars goes down, but not for Killian). There's also a possible bug where Lars is duplicated after the fight and will give you different dialogue on the two maps, which may complicate the Skulz business.
If you were in jail while Gizmo was killed you can't search his corpse.
If you've already accepted the job to kill Killian when you talk to him for the first time, Kenji won't show up. Instead you can ask about Gizmo and say he only tried to hire you; Killian will then offer you the job as usual.
IN<4: Victor will explode if you talk to him. Ha! Ha! Heh heh hee! Ho ho ha!Another way is a little more complicated, but yields more xp. Go to the Skum Pitt after 16.00 and talk to Neal. Shortly after you end conversation one of the Skulz will hit Trish, and Neal kills him. After this has happened you can go to Vinnie and tell him you want to join the Skulz. Get the Urn as described above; you get 400 xp for showing it to Vinnie (but you can't do this if Neal is dead). Next they'll want you to come along and help kill Neal. You get 300 xp when Neal and Trish are dead, as well as the enmity of Junktown even if you didn't do anything yourself.
If you talk to Shark and say you'll join him thrashing the place, he'll draw his gun and attack Trish, leading into a normal battle instead of the scripted sequence. In this case, or if you provoke Shark to attack you, you can't ask Vinnie about joining the Skulz. Also if the Skul who's supposed to hit Trish hasn't appeared on the map when you first talk to Neal, the sequence will never happen.The more decent-like option is to say you need time to prepare and go tell Lars what's up. You can let him and the guards take out the Skulz, in which case you get nothing. Or you can agree to help, which again means a fight at the Skum Pitt. This time you'll have a bunch of Junktown guards to help you out. When the Skulz are killed you get 300 xp for turning against them, and if you talk to Lars you get another 500 xp. You can still choose the evil path after calling for the guards, it just means you have to kill all of them too before you get the xp for killing Neal. If you turn against the Skulz without talking to Lars first you get the same 800 xp, the only difference being there will be no guards at the fight.
The guards will be assigned to be your allies, but you must attack the Skulz yourself before they know who the enemy is. You can actually attack the bar patrons instead and the guards will help you defeat them, but once combat ends they'll be hostile.
If you kill the Skulz and the guards, you get the "turn against Skulz" reward, but you'll still be a fugitive since you attacked the guards.
You have two days to prepare for the fight after you show the Urn to Vinnie. If you wait that long and then enter the casino map Neal will be dead; the game also likes to crash at this point, but if you first enter the map and then rest until he dies it should work. You won't be able to tell Lars about the attack, but you can tell Vinnie you're ready, and the Skulz will then storm the empty bar to no great effect (you can kill them for the 800 xp though).
The bar fight can be a buggy thing. It's happened that after I helped the Skulz kill Neal I got another 300 xp every time I entered the casino map, plus the Skulz members would spawn anew. Another time when I talked to Vinnie afterwards he gave me the dialogue where he asks if you're ready for the fight. A bug which seems to happen if you already helped get rid of Gizmo is that the guards won't be on your side and will turn on you if you attack the Skulz.Note that you can't finish the quest simply by killing the gang at the Crash House. Killing any of the Skulz but Sherry won't turn the guards hostile, though.
"Rats? You've got to be kidding me."When you arrive here you'll see lots of people getting ready to leave with caravans. Depending on the time of day there will be one or two named ones: Mat, Luke or John (where's Mark?). Talking to Mat and asking about the carts will put Shady Sands, Junktown, Necropolis, the Brotherhood and (for some reason) the Glow on your world map. There are a few other people on this map who'll give you general information - Deputy Fry, Dan and Gunther.
"No, really. BIG rats!"
--Butch and the Vault Dweller
If you become an outlaw in the Hub, you won't be able to leave combat mode while on a map with living Hub cops on it.
Michal Burger chimes in: "Later, when you talk to Harold about what has happened to him, he mentions some guy that went with him to the Military Base, but was wounded and sent back to the surface. His name was Mark and when you ask what happened to him, Harold replies that he haven't heard about him ever since. So, that might be what has happened to Mark." Only thing is, that was 60 years ago according to the Fallout Bible timeline, but it could perhaps explain why there's no Mark Jr. around. A little bit of trivia...Head downtown. At the Crimson Caravan you can take guard jobs. Caravans leave on the 3rd and 17th to Junktown, Necropolis, the Brotherhood and the Boneyard, and the pay is $600. Talk to Demetre again and tell him the caravans aren't ready yet and he'll give you a Frag Grenade. Keri is the one to talk to when the caravan is ready to leave. Male characters can hit on her: if you are a Berserker, or if you have CH 7 and make a CH check, you'll slip around the corner and she'll give you 1 Psycho, 1 Mentats and 1 Buffout afterwards.
There is a scripting bug that is common to all three caravan houses. Talk to the caravan master on the day a caravan is due to leave and say you want to go; then, when given a choice of destinations, change your mind. You can now go to the entrance of the Hub and collect your salary from a newly spawned caravan leader.The Far Go Traders send out caravans on the 8th, 18th and 28th to Junktown, the Brotherhood and the Boneyard, paying $400 for each. Talk to Rutger to get the job once you've accepted quest 3, and the caravaneer in the same room when it's time to go. Butch will also put these locations on your world map plus Necropolis.
If you give or trade a Bag or Back Pack to Mrs Stapleton, this will stop the engine from purging books from her inventory at the end of conversation, and she'll get five more of each type every time you enter dialogue with her. This could be convenient if you want to trade lots of books at once for some very expensive item or set of items. You could also steal them. If a stack of books ends up beneath the Bag in her inventory - for instance if you moved all of them onto the table and back - it will go back to being treated normally, i.e. that kind of book will not replenish unless she has less than five.Talk to Lorenzo and borrow $200. Then immediately return it, borrow $400 and so on, until you have $1000 from him. Now kill him and his two guards, and you'll be able to take $2034 more from the locker in the back and some other stuff from the shelves. The police don't mind. If you ask Lorenzo about the Children, he'll put the Boneyard on your world map; if you ask him about work he'll tell you about Decker. If you actually plan to pay him back, the interest is 10% a day on the original loan. After 10 days he'll be upset and want his money back; you can then try to fool him by giving him less money than what is owed, or even give him all you have (hint: drop all your money first). Lorenzo won't loan you any more money once you've failed to pay him back in time.
Every time you talk to Lorenzo he will have $1000, $2000 or $3000 in his inventory (depending on how much you carry yourself); you can trade stuff to him if you plan on killing him later. He won't talk to you if you fought Decker's people or if you pissed off Kane.If you talk to Lemmy outside the Maltese Falcon you can buy pointless info for lots of cash: a recommendation to Vance the chem dealer for $1000 (or $800 with good Barter or CH), a completely useless clue on water chips for $500 (or $400), and an equally useless clue on missing caravans for $300 (or $240). With a high ST you can intimidate him into giving you these snippets for free.
The journey to Irwin's farm and back takes about three weeks according to your Pipboy, yet you only lose two days from the time limit to find the water chip. Other timed events, like Lorenzo's deadlines or the Necropolis invasion, follow the calendar. There are other places in the game where you get this sort of discrepancy in conjunction with scripted map transitions, but you don't have to pay much heed to it.You can buy Iguana-on-a-sticks from Bob. If you know what they're actually made of you can try a little blackmail and squeeze him for $50 to $200 every five days. This is worth 500 xp, but you'll have to wait five days before collecting your first payment, which takes some ST or CH as well. You can raise the amount by increments of $25 to $100, but if you go above $250 then you won't be able to talk him into giving you more money if he later decides he doesn't want to pay. Note that if you ever talk Bob into a fight, the Hub guards will attack you and not him.
In v1.0 there was a bug so that you could collect your fee whenever you wanted and not just every five days.Decker resides under the Maltese Falcon (where you can also gamble, same deal as in Junktown). Once you get the quest to kill Hightower (or Jain), you can go to Sheriff Greene and tell him about this. If you did kill the person in question and fail a Speech check, Greene will be suspicious and ask about your involvement, leading to another Speech check ("How dare you accuse me!" is your best reply here). If you fail that one too, Greene won't talk to you any more. If you passed either check, however, the sheriff will ask you to come along and kill Decker (and will in fact do nothing until you agree to do this). This battle is tough, not least because of Kane who has four attacks per round and hits hard. I'd recommend you have at least 50 HP and Combat Armor from Jacob before attempting this, or take 2 Psycho. You can't leave the hideout until Decker and Kane are both dead, but as soon as they are the others will surrender. You get $300 from the sheriff when you agree to go, $1000 and 1400 xp when it's all taken care of. Remember to go and loot Decker's place afterwards, and you can of course kill any remaining scum.
If the sheriff didn't make it Kenny will give you the reward instead. In fact you can kill Greene and Fry in the fight and the police won't know you did it.
Ask Beth about Decker after you kill him and tell her you did it, and she'll give you 6 Stimpaks.
Kill Deputy Kenny and watch the message window.In Old Town, Jacob sells stuff like Combat Armor and Sniper Rifles. He'll have a Super Sledge if you talk to him a second time (it's actually the weapon he's wielding to begin with). If you ask for something with "more punch", he'll put the Brotherhood and the Boneyard on your world map. Vance to the east sells chems (you may want some Rad-X before going to the Glow later, if you don't find it elsewhere), but he doesn't deal with just anyone who comes in the door. You can get a recommendation from Jacob if you ask him about RadAway, or from Lemmy by paying lots of money. With good Speech or CH you don't need one. Other ways to get at Vance's goods is to hit the barter button when he initiates dialogue the first time, or to kill him before he has a chance to do so (his stuff will then be in his corpse).
In a crate to the right of where Jacob is standing you'll find a heap of Junk. This is actually a quest item which is used in two parts of the game, so if you grab this it might save you some running around later.Just south of the exit grid there's a gang of four toughs guarding a prisoner, and they'll attack you on sight (you should be safe out in the street... most of the time). If you find this fight too hard, you could try to enlist the aid of the Hub police by hiding behind them and hoping the thugs will hit them accidentally. The prisoner will put the Brotherhood on your world map if you didn't already have it. You have to talk to him to free him.
Beware a grisly bug that can happen if you already finished the water chip quest. If you ever discussed paying for water caravans you can do so again after delivering the chip to the Overseer, earning the 1000 xp and reactivating the main quest, timer and all (but earning 100 more days on top of what you already had). You can also do this in the rare event that you never talked to the merchant boss before and did not fix the water pump in Necropolis (ask about a water chip and continue from there). For a way to exploit this bug, see the Vault 13 section.
In v1.0 buying water from the Water Merchants shortened the other time limit (the mutant threat) by 90 days if it was currently at 100 days or more, but this isn't a factor any more.
In the room to the south of the Water Merchants office you'll see a round patch on the wall; this is actually a weird door which can be opened and closed. Scary.Thorndyke, the guy who looks like a doctor in the building to the northwest, will heal 15-25 HP for free every 24 hours if you let him, and talk about Unity and war. The guard beside him doesn't have much to say (you can only talk to him once, too). By the door there's a boy trying to give you a Flower. You can keep asking him questions until he walks away. If you try to enter the room with the bookcase, the guard will stop you. You can do it by sneaking. Jain is the robed woman; talking to her does little.
IN<4: If you talk to Jain she'll attack.
If you already killed Jain you get $1000 and 350 xp when you talk to Kane, but you must have finished the Hightower job successfully first.
If you turn down a job from Decker, he'll kick you out and Kane will attack if you try to talk to him three times. In this quest and quest 1, if you forget to pick up your advance you'll still get it when you return after doing the job. Hey, honest crooks!
If you attack either of the Hightowers but leave the map without killing them, the rest of the outfit will disappear and Kane will be pissed. (Luckily they forget to pack the Necklace.) If you do this before getting the quest from Decker, you'll still get the quest but be unable to finish it. If you kill both Hightowers before talking to Kane, you won't get either of Decker's quests.
A slightly insignificant bug: if you antagonize Hightower's team you can pacify them by killing Dogmeat on the Heights map. Running onto the exit grid might be useful to end combat afterwards. The reason for the bug is that killing Dogmeat sets a map variable meant to let Phil know he can move back into his house in Junktown. This does not stop the Hightowers from leaving as described above.
In the unpatched version you reportedly got 800 xp every time you asked Slappy to take you to the cave.
You can get the Necklace during the day if you want by taking advantage of the scripting. Open the door to Mr Hightower's office, then enter combat mode and take just three or four steps forward. As long as you're not standing directly inside the doorway Hightower won't react to your presence, so you can just take the Necklace and optionally talk to him on the way out.
By the way, Loxley and his gang are completely oblivious to Hightower being killed before, during or after your little raid.
If you don't pick up Jasmine's first batch o' stuff before delivering the Necklace you miss out on it.
"I am the bringer of death. Fall to your knees and beg for mercy... Or give me a sandwich, I'm pretty hungry."You start out on a map with a derelict hotel. You can talk to a couple of ghouls, but it leads nowhere. The groaning ones will attack if you go too near; let them, and kill them. Once you're done, go down one of the three manholes.
--The Vault Dweller
Ghouls on all three Necropolis maps will react if you try to loot their containers. This isn't so much of a problem on the first and third map where you basically want to kill everyone anyway, but on the middle one you may want to put off the looting until you've finished your dealings with Set. Most ghouls may radiate you if they hit you, but it's just the odd point.There are four rats below, and a Cattle Prod on one of the corpses to the southeast. Go north to the exit grid. Talk to the ghoul and get quest 2. If you go north and east you find more rats, and a Plasma Pistol on a corpse. Take either of the two ladders up. If you take the northern one you'll find yourself in a passage connecting two trapped hidden doors. If you set off the nearest trap a ghoul guard outside might get hurt, but he won't turn hostile.
You can use Traps or Lockpick repeatedly on either of the secret doors for 50 xp each time.Find Set residing in his Hall of the Dead and talk to him to get quest 1. If you took the Water Chip but didn't repair the pump yet, he'll demand the chip (which will then return to the vault) or else you'll have to fight. Another option in this situation if you're carrying Junk is to offer to repair the pump; you'll then be teleported to the water shed along with Garret who won't like it if you try to leave without fixing the pump.
If you talk to Set after killing the Master, he will be so happy he'll give you 40 Small Energy Cell, 50 Micro Fusion Cell, 1 Buffout, 1 Mentats, 2 Stimpaks, 2 Frag Grenades, 2 Plasma Grenades, 2 Pulse Grenades, 200 5mm JHP and 200 5mm AP (talk to Garret to get the stuff). As if you needed that at this stage of the proceedings, as the ancient saw goes. You can ask him about the vats instead, but he doesn't mark the base on the map and you miss the stuff.Optionally take out the ghoul gangers to the southeast of the church. Go into the sewers again and go north.
Going to the Military Base takes 2 weeks according to the time limit and 4 weeks according to the calendar. If you already destroyed the base Harry will know and not try to take you there. Instead you can ask him what he's going to do about it and let him and his companions walk off the map. This counts as taking them out as far as quest 1 is concerned.
If you take the Junk back to the underground leader, he'll give you 3 Deans Electronics if your Repair is less than 60%.
You can get free healing from the Children by dropping all your money and agreeing to "donate all you can". There's a bug: if you try to haggle and then say you'll accept their price, you will exit dialogue and cannot talk to that person any more (the Junktown healer does not have this bug).
Each time you purchase healing from the Children, it lowers the Vault 13 invasion time limit by one day. Even if you're playing v1.0 this isn't a major problem.You get 500 xp if you unlock the door to the cell with the ghoul in the same building as the mutants. Go down the manhole in the room next door, and down again. You'll have to fight two glowing ghouls. Enter the vault and take the elevator down. On level 2 there's nothing to do except fight some ghouls and take 2 Rad-X from a locker. On level 3 you can take the Water Chip by using the functional computer (if you're having problems, use Science first to get a bonus to your Repair check). You get 2500 xp for this minus 250 xp for each of the six super mutant guards you already killed. If you should have second thoughts, you can reinstall the chip by using it on the computer. Once you have the chip, the ghouls will sound threatening and attack if you didn't already fix the pump.
Note that for each of the three maps the conditions for dehydration and/or invasion are checked only when you enter it, potentially resulting in discontinuities: it's possible to take the chip and have the watershed and hotel maps dry up, then replace the chip and find the church ghouls thriving; or you could enter one map and encounter invaders, then go and kill the Master and return to find the rest of the ghouls alive.
"Wow. I wish I had a hot dog and a really long stick."You'll probably be going here as a result of getting (or anticipating) Brotherhood quest 1. First of all, bring a Rope. Approaching the Glow in a curved path from the northeast is recommended if you're still on a time limit, because then you'll be travelling on plains during most of the journey.
--Katja
If you get a critical failure while picking elevator doors in the Glow, you'll get the message that you broke your lockpicks even if you didn't use any. This can be ignored.On level 2, shoot or smash the inert robots and get the Red Pass Key from a corpse to the northeast, then return to the elevator and go to level 3.
If you turn power off on level 2 or 3, you'll be able to go up using the elevator, but not back down again until you turn power back on.On level 3, shoot the robots, loot stuff and use the Red Pass Key on the other elevator. Proceed to level 4 or 6.
If the power is on and you have turned off the robots, you can use Science repeatedly on any one bot and gain 100 xp for each successful check.
According to the script you should be able to gain 700 xp by playing chess (each game takes two hours) and getting a critical success on an IN check. Since stat checks don't generate criticals this would seem to be broken, even though many claim to have done it (I blame the mushrooms). Playing chess does not make Zax "like you more" or anything like that.
When talking to Zax there's one dialogue option about countering FEV mutation with a counter-virus that you only get with IN 10. It doesn't do anything, but it might be fun to know it's the only line in Fallout with that requirement.
In the room above the mainframe you can find an alien skeleton behind a broken suspension tank, but it has nothing in it. It was meant to be part of a The X Files reference.On level 6, shoot the robots, fix the generator (see quest 2) and loot stuff.
"Do I have to sacrifice a puppie to join?"Arriving here you can talk to Cabbot and get quest 1, which is one way of getting inside. However, with a good Lockpick skill and an Electronic Lock Pick you can open the door and go in, and everyone will treat you like an initiate. You can pick the door without the Electronic Lock Pick, but then the guards will turn hostile.
--The Vault Dweller
IN<4: Talking to Darrel nets you a dose of Rad-X.Inside you can talk to one of the guards by the entrance (and hit on her, though it won't lead anywhere). Go to the gym for some martial arts training, which will begin as soon as you enter the room. If you stay and watch you'll gain +5% Unarmed and +5% Melee Weapons in increments of one during the course of the session, and 500 xp if you got all five. Talk to Talus about equipment and you'll be able to check out Brotherhood Armor and three clips of a non-energy ammo type of your choice (he'll never give you any more ammo after that no matter how long you wait). Rhombus isn't much of a conversationalist and will kick you out of the bunker or attack you if you anger him. He can put the Hub and the Boneyard on your world map. Should you get kicked out, you can pick the door to get back in and no one will seem to remember that you were expelled (including Rhombus).
You gain skill points based on your Intelligence when you first enter the character screen after levelling up. Thus if you don't view your character sheet at all for a few levels (but not more than three, or you'll miss a perk!) before raising your IN, you'll get skill points based retroactively on your new IN.
IN<4: You get the IN operation for $3000 and it only takes one week, but you don't get to choose any of the others (unless your IN went above 3, of course). If you want to keep your game stupid but still get the other stat rises, you'll have to use Mentats (one for each operation).
You can in fact get two IN rises, as long as you get the "smart" one first. Then use Psycho to lower your IN below 4 and talk to Lori to get the "stupid" rise. This would be a form of bug exploitation.
Depending on your current stats the EN and AG rises may do nothing except raise a few skills a little. On the other hand, you won't find many other places in the game where you can spend all the cash you've looted and traded for, and after you deliver the chip time doesn't matter much, either.On level 3 you can talk to Kyle about power armour and agree to get a systolic motivator. You can get one from Michael if you bluff him and don't mention Kyle. Another one is kept in the locker in Rhombus' quarters. To get it, rest until Rhombus goes into the back room, then take one of these approaches:
IN<4: If you're stupid and get caught by Rhombus, you'll enter a loop where Rhombus initiates dialogue and says the same thing over and over. To get out of this, hold down the A key and move away.Also on level 3 you can talk to Sophia for a Brotherhood History disk if you want, and talk to Vree and ask about the mutants for a Vree's Experiment Disk, which could be very useful later on (you can also steal one from her). If you ask her about radiation she'll give you a dose of Rad-X, and if you ask about holodisks and computer skills she'll give you access to a computer which will raise your Science skill by 15%. Better raise it to 91% using books before that, but it matters little really.
Vree won't talk to you if you get a bad reaction. Evil characters may be able to soften her up with Cult of Personality, which is about how useful that perk ever gets. You'd need to have the perk before talking to her for the very first time, though, and it's not available until level 12. Make sure she doesn't get blocked as she goes to the learning terminal, or you won't be able to use it.On level 4 you can talk to Maxson and offer to scout the north for signs of the mutant threat. If you ask for weaponry then Mathia (a person of indeterminate gender) will let you choose between the following:
The dialogue path where you first hesitate to take the scouting mission and then ask for $1000 is bugged, so that first of all you get the money if you fail a Barter check, and secondly you get $500 or $1000 this way depending on whether or not you asked for $1000 before (as long as you asked for $1000 at least once and passed the first Barter check to get to the "Take it or leave it" node, the $1000 flag will be set).
If you've already blown up the base when you get sent to talk to the Elders, you don't get their xp and there'll be another infinite dialogue bug. Enter combat mode to get out of this situation.
A glitch: if you ask for your first ammo and armour requisition after getting this reward but before checking it out from Michael, you'll only get two ammo clips instead of three. This is because the requisition sets the number of items to be checked out to four, instead of increasing it by four.
IN<4: Although Talus will know if you rescued the prisoner, you can't get the reward or the xp unless you get smart.
"What do you want?"When you first come here you'll be accosted by the Adytum guards. If you go down the manhole in the shack by the entrance you'll find Tine the merchant, but he doesn't have anything of notice. Different inventory on the two tables. Talking to Sammael or Lorraine yields some info. Talk to Chuck in his tent and let him give you tarot readings. He'll give you from one to three readings for locations: the Brotherhood (if you have never had anyone mark it on your map), the Military Base (if you have not been there or found its location in the Cathedral vault), and finally the Cathedral (always). Next time after that he'll draw the Fool and your Luck will go up permanently by 1. Don't mock him after a reading or he won't tell your fortune again.
"A donut."
--Avellone and the Vault Dweller
You can take out Tine and grab all his stuff without alerting anyone. His stuff will be slightly cheaper if you use the tables instead of talking to him directly.
There's a way to get 2 points of Luck from Chuck, though it could be considered taking advantage of a glitch. When you first talk to him, choose the last line and get a reading. When getting the rest of the readings, just ask for advice and don't ask him what he does. Once you get your LK rise, you can talk to him again and you'll still have the option to ask what he does and get another reading (and another LK rise).
If you use a Motion Sensor on the Adytum underground map before the great battle, you'll see nine red dots in an unreachable part of the map. These are the Blades which appear during and after the battle.After you deliver the hydroponic parts (quest 2) you can get some upgrades here. Take a Plasma Rifle to Smitty and he'll turn it into a Turbo Plasma Rifle, one of the best weapons in the game. Remember to unload the rifle first and you'll get some free ammo. Talk to Smitty with a suit of Powered Armor and he'll ask for some Chemistry Journals from the Hub. Stapleton will charge $750 for them. Return to Miles and he'll turn your armour into Hardened Power Armor.
There's a dialogue bug here: if you talked to Zimmerman before talking to Razor but did not accept his quest, Razor will accuse you of killing the Gun Runners and you don't get the option to ally yourself with the Blades. This is easily fixed, though: just return to Zimmerman and accept the quest and you'll be able to confront Razor normally.If you take out the Regulators all by yourself and return to Razor you get 500 xp. If you go and play back the Regulator Transmission holodisk to Zimmerman, the Regulator standing next to him will blow him away, triggering a fight between the Regulators and your team. You can then run back to Razor and she'll ask you again to get the Blades some weapons.
The Gun Runners will be hostile if you fought the Blades.
IN<4: You can't get the guard to let you pass, so you'll have to jump the moat (R.I.P. Dogmeat). Because of odd scripting, however, you'll be able to talk to Zack and Gabriel as if you were of normal intelligence.Talk to Gabriel and he'll give you the task of exterminating the deathclaws. Once you have, you get 1000 xp and a reward. If you talked to Razor you can ask for weapons for the Blades, otherwise you can only ask for weapons for yourself, whereupon the guards blocking the lockers will move so you can loot them (booty includes 2 Plasma Rifles). Zack will give you a discount of about 15% when you've agreed to kill the deathclaws, and a discount of about 20% when you're done. If you want to convert items into cash, then Zack's your man since he will have $3000-4000 every time you talk to him. Even with a dismal CH and Barter your stuff should be worth more than his once you get the best discount, so you can basically help yourself to any ammo or weapon of his that you need.
If you asked for weapons for yourself, you can leave the map and return (the wandering guards will stop wandering), then talk to Gabriel again. He'll act as if he never rewarded you for killing the deathclaws, and you get another 1000 xp. You can do this any number of times until you tell him to give weapons to the Blades.
There's a slight glitch with Zack's second discount: if you already got the first one, you'll only get a 10% discount if you trade with him immediately after getting the second one. If you leave conversation and talk to him again you should get the full 20%.Return to Razor after the Blades have their weapons. You can decline to help free Adytum, in which case the Regulators will disappear and you get 2000 xp if you enter the Adytown map. You can offer to help, in which case you're teleported to Adytum and a fight breaks out between the Regulators and everyone else. Note that important people like Miles and Smitty can die in this fight, so do everything else first. Once the battle is over you get 2000 xp. Thirdly you can tell Razor you want to talk to Zimmerman before the attack. If you show him the holodisk he'll be killed as before, the eight armed Blades will appear, and you fight as normal and get the 2000 xp afterwards. Once the Regulators are defeated you can go to MacRae of the Blades and ask for training, but this doesn't seem to do anything. Also talk to Michael in the Blades building and he'll hand you 4 Stimpaks and a random amount of money, $10-100.
You can effectively pause the war by leaving the Adytum map. If you return and are spotted by a Regulator it'll start again, with everyone's allegiance still the same.
The game has been known to crash when the war ends and the Blades are taken off the map. If you want to be safe, save the game in a new slot as that moment draws near.
If you start the war by attacking the mayor or the invading Blades, the Regulators won't attack you until the fight ends, but once it does they'll turn hostile. Likewise, Zimmerman will turn hostile after the fight if you manage to keep him safe from the Regulators, but the townspeople don't care if you kill him.
Don't go to talk to Zimmerman after getting the weapons and talking to Razor if you don't have the holodisk. If you don't have the disk you can't trigger the invasion, and Razor will disappear from the Blades map (leaving a ghostly corpse) after you've reported to her that you got the weapons. This means you can't get the 2000 xp for the invasion or even the 500 xp for taking out the Regulators yourself, although the Adytowners will help with the fight.
Someone suggested you should plant weapons on the Adytowners before the big fight, to make them more efficient fighters. Although this is a little too much work for me, it's a pretty innovative use of Steal (which has little quest use except for planting the Bug on Gizmo). Note that each villager needs the animation frames used for the weapons you give them.
Michael is bugged so you can talk to him over and over again to get the reward.
As far as I can tell from his script MacRae is supposed to give you +1 Melee Damage and +5% Damage Resistance. Don't see any particular reason why it shouldn't work, but it doesn't; presumably the engine just doesn't allow for these stats to be raised this way. Interestingly enough, virtually every other walkthrough states you can get an Unarmed and/or Melee Weapons bonus if your skill level is below 91%. Apparently not one of them bothered to actually check this.On the Followers map there's a house with bounty hunters to the northwest. They'll attack on sight only if you're a Childkiller, or you can provoke them into attacking if you choose the "donut" answer twice. Hey, "Christopher Avellone" sounds eerily familiar.
IN<4: Talius will give you 3 Mentats.
"There is a bad place where the bad mutants come from. It is bad. Vault is good. Please, go destroy bad place."There are four mutant guards around outside the base. If you want to lure three of them away, you can use a Radio, which brings up a dialogue. Say you're being attacked or fell down or something, and you get 1500 xp for tricking the mutants. If they ask for your coordinates, reply with "Four miles, south-southwest". You can attack the three as they're walking off after you got the xp, if you want.
--The Overseer
If you convinced the Brotherhood to attack the base, there will be three "crack assault paladins" around. They're pretty useless - with decent weapons and armour you can take out the few guards yourself, and the paladins for some reason won't follow you inside the base. If you leave this map and return, they'll be here.To get in, you can pick the door (easier with an Electronic Lock Pick, but can be done without it), or examine the Tape carried by the door guard which will provide you with an entry code. Another way to get in is to talk to the mutants (put away your weapon) and agree to meet their boss, which will teleport you to the Lieutenant. If they address you but you don't want to go with them you can bluff them, which is easier if you're wearing Robes. Bringing NPCs is just fine, all the way down to level 4.
Katja can pick the door for you after you've tried to open it.
If you load a saved game where you're standing close to a super mutant, they may attack you immediately even if they weren't hostile before. You may be able to avoid this by pressing A as you're loading and running away in combat mode.If any fight outside or inside the base goes on for more than 2 rounds it will trigger the alarm, which you can tell by the flashing red lights. This will change the positions of super mutants on levels 1-3 slightly and make them attack you on sight, and also activate the yellow forcefields. Some replies you can give to mutant guards will instantly put the base on alert as well.
If you've killed the Lieutenant, the technicians will explode as you talk to them! This also happens if you already killed the Master and say you feel good about it. Killing any technician triggers the alarm even if you do it "silently".
Blowing up the computer will halve the time remaining on the invasion time limits for the Hub, Shady Sands and Vault 13. Note that this has no real effect on the game - except if you forgot to apply the patch... Setting the self-destruct sequence, or damaging the computer after triggering the self-destruct, does not have this effect.On the right side of this map you finally meet the Lieutenant. If you move just one hex around the corner, he and VanHagan/VanHaggen will start a conversation. Stand still until they're done and you gain 1000 xp. If you weren't ever "captured" by a mutant, the Lieutenant will attack you on sight. In this case, just waste everyone and everything and take their stuff.
Any NPCs or items left on the entrance map will be lost once the game switches to the "ruins" map.
"What do you want?"There's a lot of people outside the Cathedral but none of them can give you anything but general info. Well, Calder gives you a Flower, and the thug and the zombie offer lots of great conversation options to Berserkers (wear Robes to talk to the thug). Inside in one of the rooms to the left you find Laura. If you talked to Nicole and got the secret codeword you can talk to her about stuff and she'll open the first locked door for you.
"To see a valley filled with my enemies' heads mounted on spears. A silent valley, except for the wind whistling through their ears."
--Thug and the Vault Dweller
If you asked Nicole for help there'll also be four warriors from the Followers milling about. Unlike the Brotherhood paladins at the Military Base these'll follow you everywhere inside the church and vault as well. If you leave the Cathedral area and enter any other map, they'll disappear for good - normally, that is. If you press and hold A while the new map is loading, their disappearance (heralded by a floating message) will most often not have a chance to trigger. By holding A and moving around in combat mode you could theoretically bring this private army to fight for you anywhere (they will, for instance, happily kill Nicole and their fellow Followers), but they'll eventually go away (unless you return to the Cathedral). Two glitches are related to this. Firstly, if their disappearance triggers but they don't have time to actually vanish before you enter combat, they will turn invisible in the first combat round but remain to fight for you in that battle only, occasionally turning briefly visible (enemies will be able to target them). Secondly, even if they all die, their usual float will appear after you end combat and their corpses will vanish.There's a kind of shop on the right. The stuff is slightly cheaper if you click barter instead of going through the dialogue, as if that matters at this point. To get the inventory after killing the storekeep, use Steal on the table. Dr Wu will give you invectives instead of healing. If you talk to Lasher he can give you a red COC Badge if you say you want to see the man in charge and ask for a way to pass the Nightkin, or tell him "Thank you, sir"; if you say you have questions and then that you must see Morpheus, he says he's giving you a badge but you don't get one (bug). Lasher will attack if you're holding a weapon, or if you're a Berserker or Childkiller. Ton and Sister Francis are useless, but you can barter a red COC Badge off them for about $7.
The dog standing behind the cathedral is Interplay veteran Vince DeNardo's dog Sasha doing a cameo. There's no way to get there.On the first floor you'll encounter Dane and a couple of ethereal-looking Nightkin. You can talk to Dane until he calms down and then you'll get some less-than-completely-calm info from him. If any of the Nightkin sees you, they'll attack if you have any company (NPCs or the Followers); if you're alone, you must be wearing Robes or carrying a COC Badge to be safe. Fighting on one floor will not turn people elsewhere in the Cathedral hostile. This also means that if you leave combat by moving to another floor, critters will not necessarily attack when you return.
The Nightkin's "stealth" effect appears to be purely cosmetic. It doesn't affect your chance to hit them or to hit anything behind them, and as pointed out by Locutus, trying to steal from the ones in the tower makes them completely visible.
Dane's ravings are badly scripted, so that each time you talk to him (even when you're asking him questions) you'll only see the last line of what are in actuality several. Hit the review button if you want to see the others. It actually does make more sense that way.On the second floor you find some sentries and stuff. On the third floor there's Morpheus. If you talk to him you can reveal your identity as the Vault Dweller and he'll take you to the Master, which could be useful in a pacifist game. Otherwise, kill him and you'll gain a black COC Badge and 1000 xp as well. Here you'll find the one-of-a-kind Tesla Armor. It could theoretically be used in combat with enemies with energy weapons, but I'd just leave it.
Going with Morpheus triggers a potential bug: if you fight your way out (optionally killing Morpheus before he can disappear), leave to the upper levels of the vault and return, another Morpheus and two more mutants will spawn in the Master's chamber. In fact, you can create infinite Morpheuses (each worth 1000 xp, but he doesn't have anything on him) and mutants by leaving and entering the map repeatedly. This only stops once you take the stairway up to the cathedral. You can then go to the top of the tower and the "real" Morpheus will be there.In the basement there's a secret door to the far right. Using Lockpick or Traps successfully on the bookcase next to it reveals a secret lever; use the bookcase and the door will open. Else you could wait for a while and Jeremiah shows up. If you're alone and wearing Robes he will ignore you (you can chat with him if you like); if you're not, you can either fight him or let him kick you out of the cathedral. If you have NPCs or Follower invaders, you can stand near the secret door and they'll step through it eventually, opening it. Lastly, if all else fails, you can open the secret door with explosives. If you're on the inside you can open it manually like any other door.
The first time you enter the basement between 7.00 and 18.00 there will be three additional monsters in the cavern. If you leave the map without killing them (except to go to the level immediately below) they disappear.Take the elevator to level 2. If you talk to Gideon of the wackos with IN 8 and ask about protection from the Master he'll give you a Psychic Nullifier and you gain 1000 xp. (There is another path through this dialogue for those with modest Intelligence, but it requires you to be a Berserker, and to make and fail Speech checks.) You can also steal it from a wacko of your choice. Use the console to free the prisoners to the south and you get 2000 xp (chuckle). One of them is a boy who won't show up in the European versions; killing him as he goes past does not make you a Childkiller. You can talk to the scientists and guards if you want.
The first time you enter level 3 between 7.00 and 18.00 there will be four extra super mutants on the left, who disappear once you go back up to level 1 or 2. Leaving the map also causes the disappearance of the two super mutants in the room with the techs (the game removes all critters using that prototype).Back to level 3 (and let's not mess with the bomb for now). When you enter the corridor of flesh to the right, you'll need a Psychic Nullifier in your inventory or the Mental Block perk, or you'll suffer up to six mental attacks (you're more vulnerable with a high PE, so Booze will protect too, sort of). The first three only deal damage, more if you have a high PE. The fourth will deal more damage, give you a crippled eye (can be healed as usual) and lower your PE permanently by 1. The fifth will only deal significant damage if you're a Berserker and/or a Childkiller, but will lower your IN permanently by 1. The sixth doesn't deal any damage, but will lower your IN and PE yet again by 1 permanently (which is bad enough). Your NPCs if you have any will also take increasing amounts of damage, always more if you're a Berserker or Childkiller, and what's more they won't be protected by Mental Block, although they'll be completely safe if you have the Psychic Nullifier (which means that they all picked up one too, I suppose). Sweet innocent Dogmeat is unaffected, though. Once you've been through the corridor you won't be hit again if you go back.
It's also possible to threaten the Master with the Brotherhood and he's supposed to let you go, but immediately initiates dialogue again and turns hostile instead.The "diplomatic" solution demands that you carry or have read Vree's autopsy report and that you have IN 7 and good Speech to get all the dialogue options (there's always Mentats). Get the Master to tell you of his plan, say he's got a problem, and then either show him the disk (if you have it), or tell him to ask his female mutants. There are several dialogue paths that lead to combat, so take care. If you succeed, you'll leave dialogue and the 4-minute bomb countdown starts.
There's a glitch here you can take advantage of: if you save and then load the game, any spawned mutants will have disappeared (and still count towards the maximum of twelve). Corpses from killed ones remain.
A quick way to get out once the bomb is armed is to remove your Robes and talk to Jeremiah on level 1, if he's around, and let him kick you out. This only works if you didn't talk to him before, and requires IN 7 and a couple of Speech checks if you accost him in the vault section (the "suspicious character" thread). It takes two minutes to leave the Cathedral this way, though, so watch the timer.Regardless of whether you make it out or not before the countdown expires, you get to see the explosion movie. If you made it out to the world map, you gain 10,000 xp (for solving Vault 13 quest 2), and if you already destroyed the vats, that means you've finished the game.
Any NPCs or items left on the entrance map will be lost once the game switches to the "ruins" map.After being treated to various endings (see the following section), you're teleported to the Vault 13 cavern in front of the vault door. Presently the Overseer shows up and says you have to leave the vault forever. Bastard. If your character is a Berserker or Childkiller, or has the Bloody Mess perk or low karma (-2 or less), you'll automatically draw a gun (in fact a 10mm Pistol is newly created for you) and shoot the Overseer as he's walking away. If you don't, and want to kill him anyway, you can press A for combat mode as soon as dialogue ends, then grab your favourite weapon and let him have it. After that, credits.
Note that you gain 10 karma when leaving the exploding cathedral and 5 karma when leaving the exploding base (having already gained 5 when starting the countdown). Also to slay the Overseer the violence setting must be at normal or maximum blood.
Jos Vos notes: "If you shoot the Overseer at the end and try to walk away in combat mode, the game will take over control but do nothing." This freeze happens if you're still in combat mode at the end of the first round, so make sure to kill the Overseer in one round and hit end combat.
So you thought killing the Overseer was funny? Here's an additional twist: use the moment you have before he appears to turn your character in another direction. When the times comes to shoot, your character will fire the gun in the direction he or she is currently facing, and the Overseer still gets hit! That's gunmanship. It's also possible to use this time to run to the world map (if you manage to click on the exit grid before the game takes control away from you, you'll get away). Now you can continue playing the game as long as you don't return to the Vault 13 cave map. When you come back here, another Overseer will appear next to the first one! You only get to shoot one of them, though. He's worth 250 xp, by the way...If you're thinking of playing the game again (of course you should), here are a few suggestions:
"Excuse me while I gloat..."You always get the first bit about the Master being killed, the vats destroyed and the mutant army driven east. (In fact there are two different endings depending on whether the game thinks you destroyed the Cathedral or the Military Base first. But the two have been mixed up.) After that you get the local endings described below - all of them which are applicable, even if you never went there. Note that there are ways not to get an ending at all for certain locations, for instance if you kill both Killian and Gizmo in Junktown. The invasion endings in Necropolis and Shady Sands take precedence to the others. Damaging the control computer in the Military Base affects the time limits for the Hub and Shady Sands, but does not in itself trigger the related endings.
--The Vault Dweller
Ending 2 checks only whether there is a water source in Necropolis at the end of the game. You can take the chip, wait until the ghouls are dead and visit all the maps, and then put the chip back or repair the pump to avoid the ending. Having killed the Master does not prevent the invasion ending from triggering.
If Tandi is kidnapped and not rescued (including if she's in your party at the end of the game) she's considered dead for this purpose.
"I think it's Skunk, the three-eyed giant catfish, that keeps scaring everything away from my spot."As you move across the barren face of the map you'll sometimes encounter beings and bodies and booty littering the desert. With a high Luck you'll find more encounters like traders and items and fewer horrible attacks. Some of the latter are extremely unlikely (and in fact impossible to get with a LK of 7 or more). With the Ranger perk you'll also get less unpleasant encounters.
--Fisherman
The "Death" encounter area is (as far as I can tell) located slightly to the northwest of the Hub, and apparently represents the deathclaw's hunting grounds. Killing a deathclaw in these encounters doesn't kill the one in the Hub, but killing the one in the Hub will stop the deathclaw encounters from happening.
Unless your karma is -21 or below you can tell Trent to hand over his things, in which case you get 1 Knife, 1 Desert Eagle, 20 .44 magnum FMJ and 20 .44 Magnum JHP. If you use a Water Flask or an Iguana-on-a-stick on him he'll give you some or all of his cash in return, but this can also crash the game, so I wouldn't.
IN<4: The fisherman will give you a Rad-X if your karma is between -30 and 29 inclusive, unless you're a Childkiller or he finds you generally offensive. In v1.2 there is no son.
Killing a child in the fisherman or peasant coast encounters does not affect your Childkiller status. The latter is a potential source of BB's.
If you carry a Water Flask you'll be safe from the mildly delaying and/or damaging effects of dehydration, at the cost of every Water Flask in your inventory disappearing when you get such an encounter. Thus there's no point in carrying more than one Water Flask.
The brahmin stampede is lethal if you're unarmoured and don't move out of the way, but with Powered Armor you can just stand there and absorb the damage.
Use a Beer or a Nuka-Cola on a mantis and it blows up. Use a Booze or a Beer on a brahmin and it falls over.
In the merchant encounters other than at Shady Sands there can be up to four merchants at the same time. There's Lox going to Adytum, Terrance going to Junktown, Julian going to the Hub and Dale going to Necropolis. You can barter with them, and if you kill them you can meet them again and they'll have no memory of their previous life (or death). Only Duc will let you tag along to his destination (Shady Sands).
If you meet Brotherhood paladins you can get them to take you to the Brotherhood (which will be nearby anyway), but only if someone put it on your map previously and your karma is 20 or above. Killing any of them makes the Brotherhood your enemy, but merely angering or fighting them does not.
Patrick the Celt is the lone traveller standing beside a cart and two boxes. If you talk to him about singing and ask if he knows the song "Na Gheala Mbeadh", your CH will go up by 1 permanently! Naming the song requires a Speech check, but you can cycle through his dialogue until you get it. Beware that if you leave dialogue before this, you'll only get to ask him the locations of Shady Sands, the Hub, Necropolis and Junktown in future conversations (you can meet him more than once). Note that if Necropolis is invaded he'll say that all the other places are too, because the script only checks that one variable. A little thing that I picked up on the NMA board: if you meet Patrick during night hours there'll be a Beer bottle on the ground. Use Steal on it and there'll be lots of stuff inside. This is a script bug; the stuff is most likely supposed to go into Patrick's inventory. If you pick up the bottle it's weightless and doesn't stack with other Beers, so you can drop it again and loot it when convenient.If you're a Childkiller you'll probably run into Avellone the bounty hunter on the world map, whereupon he tries to kill you. This can happen everywhere and the chance is 50% each time there is an encounter, less if you have the Ranger perk. He and his crew will have slightly different equipment compared to the Boneyard map; most notably, there is no Rocket Launcher. If you leave the encounter without having killed Avellone you'll encounter him again with an identical posse on the world map or in the Boneyard, no matter if you killed any of the thugs. Players with the European version of the game don't miss much as they get to meet the merry gang in the Boneyard as usual.
"I don't like kids."In Fallout, NPCs pretty much keep their own counsel. You don't know their stats and can't tell them what to do. They can carry stuff and provide extra firepower, which is good. They get in the way a lot and must be shepherded through the last two areas of the game, which is bad.
--Katja
Katja is the one exception to the above; she'll accept grenades if you give them to her even though she cannot use them (none of them can). Note that the 14mm Pistol and .223 Pistol use the SMG animation, so Katja or Tandi can use them but not Tycho.When you want an NPC to switch weapons, tell them to use their best weapon in the next battle. This way they'll de-equip any weapon so you can steal or barter it from them (for instance if you want them to use something else). Their latest equipped weapon may not show up in the barter interface, but should be accessible if you use Steal.
If you have a bunch of items you want to trade back and forth to an NPC frequently, put them in a Bag. Though at the moment I can't think of a good reason for doing this.
NPCs never get radiated or poisoned.
If an NPC dies, and you then save and load the game or leave the map and return, the body will be gone and any carried equipment gone with it (unless they had already dropped it as a result of being fried or blown up). This happens even before you recruit them. Also beware that if an NPC dies and you save the game while still in combat mode, loading that save invariably seems to freeze the game badly at end of turn.
In v1.0 one of the more notorious bugs was the NPC multiplication bug, which would have multiple copies of your NPCs appear as a result of saving the game in combat mode. Although it may seem like a good thing to have a few spares, it was likely to crash the game eventually.The various NPCs are:
To unequip Tandi's current weapon, knock her out and take it from her. If you don't want to give her a chance to equip her Knife you can steal it from her even before she gets kidnapped.Dogmeat: Found on Phil's doorstep in Junktown.
Many have dedicated themselves to keeping Dogmeat alive throughout the entire game, notably using the yellow forcefields to trap him in the Military Base. Joshua Jansen points out that Dogmeat, being a dog, cannot open doors, which can be used as a general method of keeping him safe: "Find yourself a safe point for Dogmeat, in a side room, a corridor with doors, or even inside an elevator, and simply trap him inside by closing the door on him. For the final bunkers at the Military Base and the Cathedral, you have the luxury of having high-tech vault lifts on every level. As soon as he's in, enter combat. Use your Action Points to close the door with him inside, then exit combat, and presto, you have a kennel. Concerning lifts close to red forcefields, it's more a matter of luck as to if Dogmeat will be smart enough to walk into the lift before killing himself with the field."Tycho: Found in Junktown, the Skum Pitt.
Daggar points out: "If you can find it, there is one better weapon for Tycho than the Sniper Rifle: the Red Ryder LE BB Gun. While it is less damaging than the Sniper Rifle, Tycho will fire two shots per round with it, which more than makes up for less damage per shot. He almost never has to reload the weapon, as opposed to reloading it every 5 shots with the Sniper Rifle, and when he does reload it, that goofy 'pour the BBs in' sound effect is sure to demoralize the enemy."Katja: Found in the Followers building in the Boneyard.
"Would someone please remove this mental abomination?"Well, writing a stupid section isn't as exciting as for Fallout 2 since there's not much to write about. The stupid game in Fallout basically means rushing through every area, shooting some people up for no apparent reason and grabbing whatever loot is to be had, but not much else. Stupid dialogues are very brief and they do not in any way connect your character to the world in any meaningful or role-playing-like fashion.
--Brotherhood Elder
"It was terrible. It had these big, pointy teeth."This is not supposed to be a be-all and end-all guide to Fallout tactics, just a collection of hints and comments that fit under a common heading.
--The Vault Dweller
"Oooh, pretty, pretty stuff. Why is the moon?"Locations for common items represent where you're likely to first find them, unless you're using stupid short cut techniques. Non-special random encounters are not considered in this regard, unless the item in question is very rare. If an item appears in more than two or three places in an area I haven't bothered to specify names or locations. Names are given as they appear in the game (e.g. with a missing apostrophe in "Deans Electronics"). These tables are preferably viewed in 800x600 resolution or better.
--Slappy
"(Vault 13)" in the location slot means it's an item which you may start with depending on your tag skills.Armour:
Name | Location | AC | DT | DR | Rad. Resist. |
Robes | Hub (hospital), Boneyard (library) | 5 | 0 | 20 | |
Leather Jacket | Shady Sands (Ian), Vault 15 | 8 | 0 | 20 | |
Leather Armor | Raiders | 15 | 2 | 25 | |
Metal Armor | Raiders (Garl), Junktown (gambler) | 10 | 4 | 30 | |
Combat Armor | Hub (Jacob), Glow | 20 | 5 | 40 | 20 |
Brotherhood Armor | Brotherhood | 20 | 8 | 40 | 20 |
Tesla Armor | Cathedral | 15 | 4 | 20 | 20 |
Powered Armor | Brotherhood | 25 | 12 | 40 | 30 |
Hardened Power Armor | Boneyard (Miles) | 25 | 13 | 50 | 30 |
Damage Threshold/Damage Resistance values are given for normal damage, which is by far the most common damage type for most of the game. Laser damage deviates the most from these values, but isn't used very much. Tesla Armor is special in the way that it offers extra protection against laser and plasma damage... but there's no area where enemies rely exclusively on these damage types, so be prepared to get knocked down with a Crowbar or something.
There are two kinds of damage not shown on the inventory sheet: EMP and electrical. EMP is presumably only used for Pulse Grenades and everyone but robots has a very high resistance level. Electrical damage is used for the Alien Blaster, the Cattle Prod and red forcefields. As a rule of thumb, electrical resistances are the same as plasma.
The two types of power armour raise your ST by 3 to a maximum of 10.Weapons:
Name | Location | Damage | Ammo | Clip | AP | Skill |
Rock | Shady Sands | 1-4 | 4/3 | Thr/Un | ||
Flare | Vault 13 | 1-1 | 1 | Thr | ||
Throwing Knife | (Vault 13), Raiders | 3-6 | 5/4 | Thr/Me W | ||
Spear | Shady Sands (Aradesh), Raiders | 3-10 | 4/6 | Me W/Thr | ||
Brass Knuckles | (Vault 13), Hub (Beth) | 2-5 | 3 | Un | ||
Spiked Knuckles | Hub | 4-10 | 3 | Un | ||
Power Fist | Brotherhood (Mathia), Boneyard | 12-24 | SEC | 25 | 3 | Un |
Knife | Vault 13 | 1-6 | 3 | Me W | ||
Combat Knife | Hub | 3-10 | 3 | Me W | ||
Ripper | Brotherhood, Boneyard | 15-32 | SEC | 30 | 4 | Me W |
Club | Junkt. (boxing guard), Hub (Beth) | 1-6 | 3 | Me W | ||
Crowbar | Vault 13 (thief), Vault 15 | 3-10 | 4 | Me W | ||
Sledgehammer | Shady Sands | 4-9 | 4 | Me W | ||
Super Sledge | Hub (Jacob), Brotherhood | 18-36 | 3 | Me W | ||
Cattle Prod | Necrop. (sewers), Boneyard (Zack) | 12-20 | SEC | 20 | 4 | Me W |
Molotov Cocktail | Raiders | 8-20 | 5 | Thr | ||
Grenade (Frag) | Vault 15, Junktown | 20-35 | 4 | Thr | ||
Grenade (Plasma) | Hub (Lorenzo's), Glow | 40-90 | 4 | Thr | ||
Grenade (Pulse) | Hub (Jacob), Glow | 100-150 | 4 | Thr | ||
Red Ryder BB Gun | Shady Sands (child), Junktown | 1-3 | BB's | 100 | 5 | Sm G |
Red Ryder LE BB Gun | Car mart encounter | 25-25 | BB's | 100 | 4 | Sm G |
10mm Pistol | Vault 13 | 5-12 | 10mm | 12 | 5 | Sm G |
10mm SMG | Vault 15 | 5-12 | 10mm | 30/10 | 5 | Sm G |
Desert Eagle .44 | Raiders | 10-16 | .44 | 8 | 5 | Sm G |
14mm Pistol | Junktown (Neal), Hub | 12-22 | 14mm | 6 | 5 | Sm G |
9mm Mauser | Junktown (Gizmo) | 5-10 | 9mm | 7 | 4 | Sm G |
Hunting Rifle | Shady Sands (Seth), Vault 15 | 8-20 | .223 | 10 | 5 | Sm G |
.223 Pistol | Hub (Irwin) | 20-30 | .223 | 5 | 5 | Sm G |
Sniper Rifle | Hub (Jacob) | 14-34 | .223 | 6 | 6 | Sm G |
Shotgun | Vault 13, Raiders | 12-22 | 12 ga. | 2 | 5 | Sm G |
Combat Shotgun | Hub | 15-25 | 12 ga. | 12/3 | 5 | Sm G |
Assault Rifle | Hub | 8-16 | 5mm | 24/8 | 6 | Sm G |
Flamer | Hub (Jacob) | 45-90 | Fuel | 5 | 6 | Big G |
Minigun | Glow, Brotherhood | 7-11 | 5mm | 120/40 | 6 | Big G |
Rocket Launcher | Hub (Jacob), Glow | 35-100 | Rocket | 1 | 6 | Big G |
Laser Pistol | Glow, Brotherhood | 10-22 | SEC | 12 | 5 | En W |
Plasma Pistol | Necropolis (sewers), Glow | 15-35 | SEC | 16 | 5 | En W |
Alien Blaster | Spacecraft encounter | 30-90 | SEC | 30 | 4 | En W |
Laser Rifle | Necropolis (Harry) | 25-50 | MFC | 12 | 5 | En W |
Gatling Laser | Brotherhood | 20-40 | MFC | 30/10 | 6 | En W |
Plasma Rifle | Glow, Boneyard | 30-65 | MFC | 10 | 5 | En W |
Turbo Plasma Rifle | Boneyard (Smitty) | 35-70 | MFC | 10 | 4 | En W |
Damage for ranged weapons is per successfully delivered bullet. Damage for mêlée weapons is excluding your character's Melee Damage.
AP cost is for the weapon's basic attack. Burst attacks cost 1 AP more for weapons with both single shot and burst capacity. Thrust attacks for HtH weapons cost the same as swing attacks for all weapons except for the Sledgehammer and Super Sledge, for which they cost 1 AP more. Aimed attacks cost 1 AP more (and this is cumulative with the Sledgehammer thrust penalty). Swing and thrust attack modes may do different damage or affect armour modifiers, but it doesn't say in the manual or the inventory screen.
The Pulse Grenade, being the only weapon that deals EMP damage, does no damage to most non-robot critters (see Combat for the exceptions), but it can deal a lot of damage to you unless you're wearing any kind of armour. I always suspected the Vault Dweller to be an android. (This is actually because the main character uniquely has the EMP DR as part of the armour item definitions instead of the critter definition.)
Rocks, Throwing Knives and Spears add your Melee Damage to the maximum damage when not thrown, although this is not reflected in the inventory window.
A lit Flare has the exact same damage properties as an unlit Flare.Ammo:
Name | Dmg mod | AC mod | DR mod | Best weapon |
BB's | Red Ryder LE BB Gun | |||
10mm AP | 1/2 | -25 | - | |
10mm JHP | 2/1 | 25 | 10mm SMG | |
.44 magnum FMJ | -20 | Desert Eagle .44 | ||
.44 Magnum JHP | 2/1 | 50 | - | |
12 ga. Shotgun Shells | -10 | Combat Shotgun | ||
14mm AP | 1/2 | -50 | 14mm Pistol | |
.223 FMJ | -20 | -20 | .223 Pistol, Sniper Rifle | |
9mm ball | 9mm Mauser | |||
5mm AP | 1/2 | 35 | - | |
5mm JHP | 2/1 | -35 | Minigun | |
Small Energy Cell | Power Fist, Alien Blaster | |||
Micro Fusion Cell | Turbo Plasma Rifle | |||
Flamethrower Fuel | -20 | 25 | Flamer | |
Rocket AP | -15 | -50 | Rocket Launcher | |
Explosive Rocket | -25 | Rocket Launcher |
A dash means "don't use this (unless you really, really have to)".
With a few exceptions, ammo is found in the same locations where you find the weapons that use them.
Unlike in Fallout 2, the AC modifier is not reflected in the displayed chance to hit, e.g. a Rocket Launcher will show the same number no matter which kind of rocket you load into it. Presumably it's applied somewhere down the line.Items which can be consumed for an effect (may also have quest use):
Name | Location | Duration | Comment |
Psycho | Hub | 4+4 hrs | AG +3, IN -3, DR +50 |
Buffout | (Vault 13), Raiders | 6 hrs | ST +2, AG +2, EN +3 |
Mentats | Vault 13, Raiders | 24 hrs | IN +2, PE +2, CH +1 |
Antidote | Shady Sands (Razlo) | Poison Level -75 | |
RadAway | Hub | Radiation Level -150 | |
Rad-X | Hub | 24+24 hrs | Radiation Resistance +50 |
Fruit | Shady Sands, Raiders | Current HP +(1-4), Radiation Level +2 | |
Stimpak | Vault 13 | Current HP +(10-20) | |
Super Stimpak | Hub | Current HP +75, then -6, then -3 | |
Guns and Bullets | Junktown (Gizmo's) | Raises Small Guns | |
Scout Handbook | Shady Sands | Raises Outdoorsman | |
Big Book of Science | Hub | Raises Science | |
First Aid Book | Shady Sands, Vault 15 | Raises First Aid | |
Deans Electronics | Hub | Raises Repair | |
Beer | Raiders | 1 min | PE -1, slays manti |
Booze | Raiders | 2 mins | PE -1 |
Effects are permanent unless duration is specified. The effect of Psycho and Rad-X wears off by one half at a time. Stats raised by chems will drop below their original values for a period of time after the effect wears off, about as much as the initial bonus. RadAway takes full effect over the course of 4 hours. Antidote takes full effect over the course of 2 minutes.
Books raise a skill by a number depending on your current skill level, ranging from 6-7 at low skill levels (20-30%) to 1-2 (70-90%). You get twice that amount if the skill is tagged. Reading a book takes from 1 to 10 hours depending on your Intelligence (i.e. 11-IN).
A kind of cheat is to alter the difficulty level to get more skill points out of books (except Guns and Bullets). Turning the difficulty from easy to normal lowers all non-combat skills by 20%; changing it from normal to hard lowers them by another 10%. You can then read books to get the skills back to 91%, and finally turn difficulty back to normal.
You can use drugs to lower your stats to get more skill points out of books using the same mechanism. In theory you can raise First Aid and Science to 109%, and Small Guns, Repair and Outdoorsman to 100% using this technique, providing that your PE, EN, IN and AG are at 10 and all the relevant skills are at 91%. To lose AG, use 1 Buffout for each two points you want to lose and rest 6 hours. To lose IN, use Psycho. To lose PE, drink alcohol. To lose EN, use 1 Buffout for each point you want to lose and rest 6 hours. Use all your books from the inventory screen; time won't pass until you close it, so your stats won't return to normal before you're done. If you want to use the difficulty trick above as well, you'll have to do them at the same time for maximum efficiency.
It's said you can use alcoholic drinks on people in case you don't want them to shoot straight once you attack them, or if you want to lower their PE before a Sneak or Steal attempt. I haven't noticed any significant difference when I've tried this, though.Items which have general use (may also have quest use):
Name | Location | Comment |
Bag | Junktown (Killian's, Gizmo's) | Round |
Bag | Cathedral | Rectangular |
Back Pack | Junktown (Killian's) | |
Geiger Counter | Junktown (Killian's) | |
Bottle Caps | Shady Sands | |
Nuka-Cola | Shady Sands, Junktown | Mantis repellent! |
Scorpion Tail | Shady Sands (scorp caves) | Razlo uses |
Dynamite | Vault 15, Raiders | |
Plastic Explosives | Boneyard (Tine, Regulator) | |
First Aid Kit | Vault 13 | First Aid +20% |
Doctor's Bag | Shady Sands | Doctor +20% |
Lock Picks | (Vault 13), Raiders | Lockpick +20% |
Electronic Lock Pick | Hub (Jasmine), MB, Cathedral | Lockpick +20% |
Motion Sensor | Hub (Mitch) | |
Stealth Boy | Glow, Brotherhood | Sneak +20% |
Tool | (Vault 13), Junktown (Doc Morbid) | Repair +20% |
Note that the bonuses gained from Lock Picks, Tools and so on may vary depending on what script is being used. It could be +10%, +25% or even changing a random skill check to a fixed value check. I don't know exactly about the medical items (and in fact I'm not at all sure what the Stealth Boy does), but I'm putting them at +20% as well.
Note on Bags and Back Packs: they're useful for uncluttering your inventory, but remember that the game won't "see" items in there (for instance when you want to present a quest item to someone or reload a gun), with the exception of money. This can be used to your advantage as well. There are rumours that items in bags can disappear, but this has never happened to me in v1.2. In v1.0 there were reportedly several bag bugs, including strange things happening when putting one Bag inside another, and getting extra ammo by unloading guns inside bags.
Both medical supplies items will vanish after a number of uses. Lock Picks and Electronic Lock Picks may break if you get a critical failure.
Geiger Counters, Motion Sensors and Stealth Boys use up "charges" each time you turn them on, but don't seem to care much about how long you leave them on after that (Geiger Counters and Stealth Boys will lose charges if you leave them on and rest for several days). They'll turn off if you move to another map, though (which really only affects Stealth Boy usage).
There's a bartering bug related to Geiger Counters: some of them cannot be bartered away no matter what kind of offer you make although they have a cash value displayed in the bartering interface as usual (kind of like trying to sell armed Dynamite or a lit Flare). It may have to do with the fact that traders will refuse to accept Geiger Counters whose batteries have run out (although this bug affects items with charges as well). The latter is true for Stealth Boys, but not Motion Sensors.
In v1.0 there was a bug with the Stealth Boy, where if you saved the game while using it the Stealth Boy could turn into a Geiger Counter, leaving you in permanent stealth mode. This was fixed simply by getting another Stealth Boy and turning it on and off.Items which you barter for but do not normally have independent existence:
Name | Location | Comment |
Heavy Healing | Shady Sands (Razlo) | |
Light Healing | Shady Sands (Razlo) | |
Medium Healing | Shady Sands (Razlo) | |
Tandi | Raiders (Garl) |
Name | Location | Comment |
Blue Pass Key | Glow | |
Brotherhood Tape | Glow | |
Bug | Junktown (Killian) | |
Chemistry Journals | Hub (Stapleton) | |
COC Badge | Cathedral | Red |
COC Badge | Cathedral (Morpheus, Jeremiah) | Black |
Iguana-on-a-stick | Junktown | |
Iguana-on-a-stick | Junktown | Different picture |
Junk | Hub (Jacob's), Necropolis (sewers) | 2 quests |
Key | Military Base | |
Mutant Transmissions | Hub (cave) | |
Necklace | Hub (Hightower's) | |
Psychic Nullifier | Cathedral (psychics) | |
Radio | Junktown (Lars), Hub (Mitch, cave) | Two uses in MB |
Red Pass Key | Glow | |
Regulator Transmission | Boneyard (Razor) | |
Rope | Shady Sands | Vault 15 (two) and Glow |
Security Card | Military Base (technicians) | |
Small Piece Of Machinery | Brotherhood | A.k.a. systolic motivator |
Tape | Military Base (entrance) | |
Tape Recorder | Junktown (Killian) | |
Urn | Junktown (Neal's) | |
Vree's Experiment Disk | Brotherhood (Vree) | |
Water Chip | Necropolis (vault) | |
Water Flask | Vault 13 | |
Yellow Pass Key | Glow |
Name | Location | Comment |
Alpha Experiment Disk | Glow | Read only |
Box Of Noodles | Junktown (Gizmo's) | |
Brotherhood History | Brotherhood (Sophia) | Read only |
Delta Experiment Disk | Glow | Read only |
Dog Tags | Junktown (Killian) | |
FEV Disk | Glow | Read only |
Flower | Hub (flower child), MB (Flip) | |
Fuzzy Painting | Spacecraft encounter, caravan encounter | |
Key Ring | Junktown (Killian's) | |
Lighter | Junktown (Gizmo's) | |
Maxson's History | Brotherhood (Maxson) | Read only |
Small Dusty Box Of Some Sort | Junktown | |
Tape | Military Base (Lieutenant) | |
Technical Manual | Brotherhood | |
Vault Records | Hub (Stapleton) | Read only |
You Have No Idea | Junktown | A.k.a. Cat's Paw magazine |
You gain 100 xp for reading each holodisk. Whee.
The You Have No Idea item is actually a box of rubber heels of Canadian origin and not a magazine at all; the brand and cover are authentic. Since this isn't exactly obvious it's entirely possible whoever changed it for Fallout 2 wasn't aware of the item's true nature and had just assumed (like most people, I would guess) that it's a magazine instead of a very small box.List of addiction effects:
Item | Risk | Effect | Duration |
Buffout | 25% (21%) | ST -2, EN -2, AG -3 | 7 days |
Mentats | 15% (18%) | IN -3, AG -2 | 7 days |
Nuka-Cola | 10% (9%) | None? | 7 days |
Psycho | 20% (19%) | IN -2 | 7 days |
RadAway | 10% (10%) | Radiation Resistance -20 | 7 days |
The values within parentheses are the ones I arrived at statistically (150 uses) before I knew you can use FIME to find the proper ones. After doing all that work I'm not going to just throw away the results. :P
"Love is what makes the cactus grow! Love is what makes the brahmin moo!"Miscellaneous stuff.
--Dane
By taking advantage of the ability to keep A pressed to prevent critters from acting you can do this even faster, as demonstrated by Devin Herron. Firstly you don't need Robes to leave the Military Base, making that part considerably easier (get them from the Followers instead). Secondly you don't have to worry about mutant patrols on the world map. Thirdly you don't have to visit the tower for the Power Fist, since you don't have to fight the mutants guarding the bomb (this is easier if you pick up the Key in the base right after evading the Lieutenant).