So you have downloaded Fallout: Shelter and wanna know the best way to run the best vault. Or maybe you just keep having radroaches clear out every dweller you have? Maybe a fire? and you feel like throwing your iphone/ipad against the wall? Well calm down, there is a way to succeed in the game and have it continually be fun. Here are a few tips that i've thought of after 3 tries to make a successful vault. (I'm going to assume you already know the basics i.e how to utilize a dwellers SPECIAL, what rooms require what stat, basic game operations, etc.)

• When you begin a vault, GO SLOW. Just put your dwellers where you think they would be best suited or where you need to keep your resource bars in the green...And then wait and manage from there.
  
  


• Make sure to keep your resource bars green! There are negative effects if you don't.
  
  Low power shuts off rooms farthest away from the power stations and brings down dweller happiness
  
  Low food causes dwellers to lose health over time
  
  Low water causes dwellers radiation level to increase over time
  
  


• Radio stations give you new dwellers, but not as often as you think. Mainly build your radio stations if you wanna bring up everyone's happiness in your vault.
  
  


• SEGREGATE YOUR LIVING QUARTERS. or else your going to have a free for all in your vault and have about 6000 babies and your camera zooming in on everyone boning like freaking rabbits. Put all females in some, put all males in some. Then you can have one or multiple "empty" living quarters that is only one quadrant wide to put one male and one female in. Once she's prego, move them back. This is VERY important to rationing resources.
  
  


• Oh if I didn't say it already...SEGREGATE YOUR LIVING QUARTERS!!!!!11111
  
  


• Know that you can "store" people in the cargo rooms if you either don't have a place for them or just want a place to hold them for later. These rooms also increase your holding capacity for clothes/weapons!
  
  


• If you like to rush room's, or have a need to do it regularly, Having a dweller with high LUCK will bring down the percentage of a possible incident. It's not a bad idea to have at least one person in a room you usually rush with high luck. OR have one dweller with high luck you move to different rooms then rush. (Make sure to wait until they are in the room!)
  
  


• When you get two decent sets of armor and two awesome weapons (above 10 damage) assign them as guards in the vault door room. My guards have a Gauss Rifle and an Enhanced Minigun and the raiders never get past that room.
  
  


• One quadrant rooms can hold 2 people
  
  Two quadrant rooms can hold 4 people
  
  Three quadrant rooms can hold 6 people
  
  


• Upgrading resource generating rooms increases output and storage of a particular resource
  
  Upgrading living quarters increases the number of dwellers your vault can hold, NOT the individual rooms holding capacity
  
  Upgrading training rooms decreases time it takes a dwellers SPECIAL stat to be upgraded by 1 point
  
  Upgrading the "Radio Station" decreases time it takes to generate a new dweller
  
  Upgrading the vault door increases the time it takes for raiders to get into your vault
  
  


• The higher versions of the resource generating rooms are cool and all, and supposedly more efficient, but use the caps in a wiser manner on the lower versions and just upgrade them. This also helps with having a place for all the dwellers on "coffee break" (damn freeloaders)
  
  


• MAKE A TON OF STIMPACKS. One or two small radaway generating rooms are good but you don't really need that many of those.
  
  


• Going along with the previous point, the reason you need a crap load of stimpacks is when you send dwellers out into the wasteland. I usually send my lvl 50 out for a little over 24 hours with 25x stimpacks and about 10x radaway. Although the radaway is overkill the stimpacks are not. Also when they have 0 stimpacks recall them to the vault (They will not take damage on the way back). The lesser the level, the more stimpacks to send with them.
  
  


• When sending a dweller out into the wasteland, the longer they are out there and the higher the level...The better the loot and the more caps they bring back.
  
  


• Supposedly each SPECIAL stat helps a dweller in the wasteland. I usually send out dwellers with high Strength, Endurance and Luck. Not too sure what the others do but i've had success with those.
  
  


• If you have SPECIAL training rooms and leave dwellers in there until the stat is 10. Sell all of your clothes. There is really no need. (Save your Rare--blue or Legendary--Gold items though!)
  
  


• If you have a spare $20. Load it up onto Itunes and buy 40 lunchboxes. This is how you will get awesome weapons and dwellers. Plus a crap-ton of caps and resources.
  
  


• And one of the most important thing. BE PATIENT. I usually check my vault of 200 dwellers every 12 hours. Its great entering my vault and just going crazy collecting resources/leveling up my dwellers/leveling up SPECIAL stats. GREEN EVERYWHERE!!!

So there it is. I hope this helps at least one person out there and saves as many apple devices from a swift flight into a wall. Comment if you guys have any further tips! Thanks!

>> When sending a dweller out into the wasteland, the longer they are out there and the higher the level...The better the loot and the more caps they bring back.


Its more just of a factor of how long they are out and what their luck is. Higher levels and SPECIALS just allow them to stay out longer and use stimpacks more efficiently.


>>The higher versions of the resource generating rooms are cool and all, and supposedly more efficient, but use the caps in a wiser manner on the lower versions and just upgrade them.


This only really matters in the beginning of the game when money is sparse, the NukaCola plant makes food and water at the same rate as the garden and water treatment if you want to min max that is 6 people instead of 12.


>>If you have SPECIAL training rooms and leave dwellers in there until the stat is 10. Sell all of your clothes. There is really no need. (Save your Rare--blue or Legendary--Gold items though!)

Pretty sure that clothes can take you over the 10 limit, and there is benefit of doing this.


Also, if you have people on coffee break, make more training rooms, no point in letting people laze about when they could be becoming more efficient.

Here's a helpful hint, don't purchase lunchboxes because this app will crash and burn sooner rather than later...

Dwellers don't level up in vault door room. Make a 3-size production room right next to vault door with top lvl guys equipped hard, and forget about raiders. (I have a nuka-cola room as it needs Endurance=Armor)

Yea, I think it's a simple matter of the more time they spend there, the more items they get, so the more items, the bigger the chance of a rare item.

I still find BB Guns and .32 pistols after 2 days, but I think I also found rare items after only a few hours of exploring. In general I seem to get about 1 rare item per 24 hours with luck stats ranging from 6 to 10.

I can confirm this, at least for production rooms. A special stat higher than 10 lowers the cooldown more than when the stat is at 10.