I just bought the fallout trilogy pack from amazon and will arrive in a few days. So I was wondering if anyone had any advice they would like to share with me, the do's and don'ts, combat, good skills, bad skills, Special choices, what to watch out for, anything you guys think will be helpful. Thanks in advance!

Yeah I could give you some pointers, I'm not an expert though, so bear with me.

First off, start with Fallout 1. This may be obvious but for some reason I've read posts where people started with the second game. You'll ruin some surprises and mentions if you do this.

Secondly, don't get frustrated because a rat kills you in the begining. It's till you get used to the combat system.

Thirdly, once you get a weapon and armour, do some caravan missions (you'll understand what I mean once you start playing), you'll net some money, experience and items doing so.

Ok,thanks for the tips. Also are there any mods for any of them or even consol commands?

Mods for number two, But for the first one i cant remember.
Still this game is'nt like FO3, You'll be svcked into the world of true RPG style gaming.

There is no console.

Speech is a major skill, tag it at creation, make your INT at 4, minimum, but it starts at 5 as with every other stat at creation. Grab the Gifted trait, and every stat will be 6 by default. I'd recommend keeping STR at 6, dropping Charisma to 2, it's only use is bartering prices and nothing else, but watch out for radiation if you get too much due to stat penalties and dying if they drop to 0.

Luck is great for crits, unless you go the melee route and grab the Slayer perk, which just turns all melee attacks into crits without a luck roll. The other two starting tag skills would be Small Guns and Lockpick. Finesse is a good way to add 10% to your crit rate, but I took Small Frame instead, so my AGI could get to 9 and then upped my perception by one point. Endurance is best left at 4 and then enhanced later in the game via surgery.

Absolute best advice I can give though is to save before talking to anyone, some dialogue options can only occur once and a failed speech role can ruin them from happening. I had my Vault Dweller fail a speech check with a security officer in Vault 13, reloaded, and succeeded, then I got the shot gun, 40 extra shells, the additional pistol and 10mm JHP ammo. After that, I spoke to the Overseer
a few times back to back, just stating I didn't find the object and asked for more things, again saving first. I got even more ammo that way and I've not got over 100 10mm JHP ammo and haven't even left Shady Sands side from the Radscorpion quest.

Oh, a few more things. Be nice to whomever you're talking to, even the big boss near the end; I'm not talking licking his boots, but be diplomatic with him and prove to him why his plan won't work through evidence *hint hint* for an easy solution. Don't have your gun out when talking to people, makes them react poorly. One thing I do is keep a Stimpack in my other active item slot and switch to that whenever I enter a town or a random encounter with non-hostile NPCs, seeing as switching between active slots costs no AP at all.

That's another thing, you want your AGI at 7/8 by default and 8/9 with gifted, the first 7 and 8 being if you take Small Frame for an extra 1 AGI, that way it equals out to 9 before your character is made. I've mentioned AGI already, but it's because it determines your AP, or Action Points. AP are used for anything and everything in combat, so that Max Stone pre-made character svcks as a melee guy due to his lower AGI and rather abysmal INT. INT affects dialogue choices, higher INT = more choices, and INT also allows more skill points per level. Now, Gifted will lower your overall skill points, but the +1 to every stat more than makes up for it.

More good advice is try not to be a melee user your first run through. Some of your NPC allies, notably Ian, can be very deadly with an SMG... but not to the enemy.

Great advice.

Oh and don't bother getting attached to your companions, I hate every companion in Fallout 1.

Except Dogmeat, but he inevitably dies in a certain area for me. Poor mutt gets fried every time.

You can have him locked in rooms to keep him safe, and leave the elevators in combat mode and then close them before your turn ends and he stays there the entire time, safe as can be.

ahhh, thank you so this will definitly save my life multible times.

You can always go to the Fallout Wiki and read the nearly ultimate fallout guide. It's loaded with spoilers, but it also gives advice on perks and skills, definitely read up on those if nothing else as some skills are good when you look at them, but pointless in practice; gambling and outdoorsman are prime examples of pointless skills. Gambling is rarely used, and Outdoorsman the same, but it can also be raised by books.

One more thing, you start off with 150 ingame days to find an item for the mainquest, the intro cinema after making a new character details it. I'll be nice and tell you a minor spoiler now: In a town where you can find Water Merchants, do not tell them where to find Vault 13, as when you find a functioning Water Chip to replace the broken one, the Overseer will inform you that because you lead the water merchants to the Vault, you also allowed Raiders and such to know where it was located, thus giving you 400 ingame days to complete the rest of the game. Not telling the water merchants where Vault 13 is will allow you 500 ingame days to finish the quest after returning a functioning Water Chip. 100 ingame days isn't anything to someone who knows what to do, as the best endings can only be aquired in 88 ingame days, but 100 extra days is more breathing room to someone brand new to the mechanics.

About the last part, if the game is patched, it might be increased to 13 years after returning the water chip, much like in FO 2, you have a 13 year hard limit to finish before things get buggy, but I haven't progressed that far in FO 1 quite yet. Best to be cautious and assume you still have 500 days to work with after returning the water chip.

ahh thank you,I will be sure to look at the wiki.

Anyone mentioned the great benefits of reading the manuals yet?

Honestly... the best way to experience such games is to figure things out for yourself.
Everything you need to know before you start is in the manual - all the rest is up to you.
Asking (and accepting) advise about what is the 'correct' (or most profitable or easier etc.) way of doing things is just an excellent way of throwing most of the game's challenge out of the window... (which eventually results in you not enjoying the game and complaining that the old Fallouts svck because they aren't challenging)

There's challenging, and then there's making poor choices because you don't understand the pre-reqs for a decent perk and think a crappy one might be good. I've got the hardened power armor and turbo plasma rifle and am doing a challenge I got from that guide: to try and keep all 4 major NPC allies alive as long as I can, and with Ian having a .223 and Tycho havinbg access to a burstable combat shotgun, poor Dogmeat is in trouble whenever he rushes in.

The only real way to remove any form of challenge is to freaking cheat, and we're just giving him some advice. Some of which can save frustration later on, like the NPC allies can't be pushed out of the way, etc.

The whole point is to deal with the choices you made. A potential bad choice (one that doesn't fit your character) offers challenge as well as satisfaction when you figure it out and make the good one.
That's the kind of challenge a game like that provides and reacts to - it's the good old "choices & consequences" thing... if you get step-to-step guidance to all the 'best' choices then you just miss the game!

FO1&2 were carefully designed to allow a few 'bad' choices or wasted perks without being punishing anyway... they are not that hard, you can comfortably finish them even without getting the Snipper perk or something! + the strength of the game shows when it can adapt even if you fail to make the choices you perceived as 'best' all the time.

The challenge you mention (trying to keep all 4 major NPC allies alive) is a fine example of an 'artificial' challenge that you are forcing upon yourself precisely because you managed to squeeze all the real challenge out of the game.
It's mostly something that people can do if they have already finished the game at least once and the pretty much know what the game is going to throw at them... as I see it, for a first time player that advise is equivalent to 'don't play this game at all'...

My advise stands -
1. don't read any guides the first time. Any information you need to enjoy the game is included in the 'package'.
2. If you can't resist reading guides then forget about it. Play something else, you are just wasting your time with this game, it's not your kind of thing... That's not supposed to be derogatory or anything, there's a huge variety of good games out there, nobody can possibly enjoy all of them, if one of them is not your thing then try something else... and if anyone tells you that if you don't enjoy what FO1 really has to offer you're somehow 'inferior', then he's a stuck up idiot... you can tell them I said so.


Sorry for resurrecting this (not too old) thread but I it seems I wasn't around for a while and I can't resist answering this

:tops:

You know... I have never played a serious character with the Awareness Perk (Years ago I saved, then took it, and played through a few fights, then reloaded ~never to take it again).

*I don't recall taking the Sniper perk either ~ I almost never specialize in Small guns.

would you guys recommend the Plasma Weapon skill?

For Fallout 1? Definitely! For Fallout 2? It's up to you, depends on whether you like the available energy weapons. Personally, I'm more of a small guns and big guns guy, but with some characters I choose to focus on energy weapons, depending on whether or not it fits my character. The problem is that there aren't really that many energy weapons, and the ones that you do have aren't always that great for certain purposes. Finding an energy weapon that does both high damage and has a good range is difficult, especially when you're up against Enclave troops, Deathclaws or poisoning Floaters.

i see. I started off with Fallout 3, and ive always used the hunting rifle in that game. so when i started the first fallout, i've stuck with it, and i gave the plasma minigun a try, when i picked it up from one of the super mutants in that jail they throw you in, but my level for it was really low, something like 35(?) but yeah, i've always thought if it was a good investment.

There are ways to prevent that. Quicksave coupled with a character devoted solely to long range guns and pinpoint accuracy, who is able to blind opponents... see where I'm going with this? Agility,perception and snipers saved my day hundreds of times.

hey guys, in my game, i saved the vaulkt, now im trying to find the cause of super mutants, however, i recently talked to the water caravan lady, and now my pipboy says there are 200 days left for the vault to live. if that expires, will the game glitch and make me lose?
also, how do i read the holodiscs? i cannot figure this part out.

For the first part Idon;t know I never had that happen. Second part I would imagine do a right click and use (the hand) command. Then it woudl be written in your pipboy or something like that. thats the way it worked in FO2 so I would imagine it's the same for FO1 I just can't remember much about my FO1 game right now.

I'm so tempted to buy the pack, even though I have Fallout 2 still. Never tried tactics.

Fallout 1 - don't get attached to your team is great advice.. I wasted so much time in one certain place (I won't spoil it) reloading and trying to stop my sidekicks being killed!
Both Fallout 1 and 2: take your time looking around, lots of little jokes and stuff to see. Some might say 2 had too many in-jokes, but I loved them.

Patch the game.. I never managed to complete Fallout 2 because of a glitch leading to a black screen, which was very far into the game.
Looking on the 'net I only had to go back upstairs and there would have been the final boss! So frustrated! After patching I tried my save but it didn't work, and I never went back to it as I couldn't bear going through it all again right then and there.

im going to follow your patch advice, but when i search for one, i get an entire list of unofficial patches. are they trustable?

Go for the latest official patch, (try the website of No Mutants Allowed, they have all kinds of patches there, including the latest official one) and then try to get Killap's Restoration Project, it adds a lot of new things to Fallout 2. Others I don't really know much about.

thing to rememebr with tactics is it's a tactical squad combat game don't really worry about non-combat skills.