My character is slowly getting closer to level 4 and have had a hard time thus far. Went to the train station near the scrap yard and found a battlefield. Seems a centaur jumped two raiders there. One of the raiders had a fully repaired Shishkebab! Wonder what happened and who she was. Just glad I didn't have to fight her, boy that would have gone bad. Anyway now it's much easier as I need only whack things one or two times and it's dead. Question: Can raiders really spawn with these nasty weapons on a regular basis or did I just get a lucky spawn?

Yes. And you certainly must silence your steps with appropriate perk, or move slowly even in sneak mode.


Yes, they can

You need to create a merged patch so the formlist that the night vision uses includes all the possible helms from the DLC support patches. If you are using MMM, all DLC, and WMK then you can use Mez's merged patch (from the FWE Nexus page), otherwise you'll need to use FO3Edit to make your own merged patch.



LOL, I've never encountered a raider with a shishkebab Is this something Kai snuck in under my nose? just kidding . . .



Superdupermart really isn't the easiest place to hit first unless you exploit the doors (the raiders won't follow you outside if you run away). For reference, if there are skills you want to raise early, there are a couple of options. For sneak, say you took Agility 7, you'd start with 21 in stealth. You could tag the skill for an immediate +10 (to 31). On your first level up out of the shack/vault, if using the default skill gain, you could probably get 12 points into stealth (for +24 since it's tagged), bringing it up to 55 or so. If you want to stack benefits, taking the thief perks will get you up to about 60 stealth at level 2, which isn't so bad. By level 3 you could get it to 60 + 5 + 24 = 89, so it's almost maxed

People have discussed the various pro's + con's of tagging skills versus taking the 5-rank (with mastery) skill perks. If you really want to min-max your character, it doesn't make sense to tag a skill AND take the related perk, since you won't get as much benefit out of your tagged skill since you'll hit the skill cap so quickly. However, that perspective ignores the fact that, using the thief perk, it's also raising your lockpick skill. Furthermore, in my opinion, the biggest advantage of the tagged skills is that it lets you get a few skills up to higher levels quickly as a chracter defining thing, and gives you a few skills to work with when your broke and only have low quality equipment. If you want a harsher experience, I'd really suggest changing the skill gain per level in the control panel down to the base +5/level or +3/level, that makes the game tough and also drags out the benefit of tagged skills more.

Can the radiation plugin be completely disabled? I used to use http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=776 mod but i cant find anything in the menu about the radiation, only how quickly the radiation increases.
I don't know what features the plugin in FWE does, because it didt say anything about it in the readme (other than you begin to glow!) and i couldt find the mod that fitted the name stated in the readme.

So if its possible can i get a link to the mod added in FWE?

There is a radiation option in FWE from where you can choose low, medium and high radiation levels. Low being the same as vanilla if I remember it right. It's still early.

Yes i know, but what im asking is if there is an option to remove the effects for radiation, because there is a plugin in FWE that changes the EFFECTS of radiation

Yeah, superdupermart seems tough, but where are there easy places to hit early, really? Springvale Elementary is pretty tough, heading up into the Arefu/Bigtown area leads to encounters with a few different packs of raiders...I guess I could head toward Tenpenny, but I'm thinking that most encounters are gonna be tough in the early going with FWE/MMM increased spawns. I like the tagged skills and am thinking on my next play through I'll tag SG/Repair/ and Med or Explosives while taking the 5 ranks of Thief and see how that goes. I have to see what perks I'm giving up to do that. Then once I'm in the level 6-10 range I can try sneaking around a bit more and see how it goes. In the first few levels though, I'm thinking do what it takes to buff DR as high as possible and clean out some zones. Springvale and Superdupermart have some pretty good loot, but I am open to recommendations on where else I should go in the early going.

I still can't for the life of me figure out how to survive the refugee start. Seems impossible to get out of that corner of the map alive. To the W is radiated lake. To the N is a ton of SMs. To the E is metro that leads downtown :shudder: Maybe there's a way to sneak around the SMs at night, but I dunno.

Well, despite saying that superduper mart is hard it's still one of the earlier places I go

Just sticking to exterior areas can be a good strategy as well. Raiders are a bit easier to deal with if you can keep them further away and pick them off with rifles or explosives as they come at you. Heading towards Tenpenny isn't a bad idea either, lot's of wild animals at lower levels (good source of meat too) going in that direction. If you can hack your way to the scrapyard (avoiding super mutants) and get Dogmeat, he's a big help earlier on too . . . although maybe not for a stealthy character.

And yeah, the refugee is really really hard. My successes have typically involved stealing a lot of stuff from rivet city And the raiders in the subway are definetly easier to get past (or kill) than that wretched supermutant camp down the ramp/riverfront from rivet city. That's never easy. Also . . . if you're using the Alt Travel optional plugin, you can always pay the travel caravan at rivet city to take you to megaton (or wherever) although you'll have to steal/sell a bunch of stuff to get enough money first.

EDIT: Regarding the Radiation changes . . . FWE used + tweaked the http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1523mod. That's responsible for the altered effects.

Thanks for the help. That's what I ended up looking into a little while after posting.

So there is no way to disable that feature?

There is no easy ways to make so. And mod, which you mention, will conflict with FWE in more then one way.

If you have some basic familiarity with FO3edit you can look up the actor effect records for the different levels of radiation levels and copy the default effects (from the fallout3.esm) into an override plugin that you load after FWE. That's about it.

I ususaly do all I can in Megaton before trying to tackle the wasteland, lots of easy XP there as Bethesda intended it as the first place you'd go. And for us sneaky types the true reward for Power of the Atom is a silenced pistol! :ninja: If you're patient and observant you can make your way to Minefield without ever alerting a single raider, just be prepared to go a bit "out of your way" to get there. Once there don't just waltz up main street as there are scripted attacks you can't avoid, in fact don't even enter the town. With a good-ish sneak skill you can get very close to Arkansas with out being seen. I can always get within pistol range fairly easily, melee range is a bit more involved as it requires entering the town from his blind side and disarmming quite a few mines in the proccess. Then you have access to plenty of mines and other goods. Then for Springvale School and SuperDuper mart you can lay out small mine fields to hide behind before engaging the raiders.

Hi Mez is there any way to increase the ammo that you can collect from the bodies of killed raiders, SM etc I am thinking of adding savage wasteland to my next play thru and my only bug bear atm is the unlimited ammo SM, Raiders have to kill you with etc yet when you kill them they have only a few ammo

Alright, thats all i needed to know thanks.

You can use the ingame menu to change the amount of ammo you will find, or do you want to change only the amount you find on enemies?

only on enemies

So FWE players, what weapon skill do you usually use? I keep bouncing back between SG and EW. I'm waaaay too indecisive

I"ve come across a strange graphic issue having to do with the .223 pistol.

Top left corner of each picture.

http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb222/Kralore/Fallout32010-04-0623-57-03-89.jpg
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb222/Kralore/Fallout32010-04-0623-56-44-20.jpg
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb222/Kralore/Fallout32010-04-0623-56-39-11.jpg
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb222/Kralore/Fallout32010-04-0623-00-43-56.jpg
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb222/Kralore/Fallout32010-04-0623-00-41-43.jpg
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb222/Kralore/Fallout32010-04-0623-00-36-42.jpg

It only does that when the .223 is out. If i holster it, the graphic glitch goes away. It cycles through a random pattern. It only does it when facing certain directions. The pictures were taken at the large overpass, just north of Springvale School

Thanks Mez, some good advice there. Glad to hear you agree the refugee start is really really hard. I agree that buying your way out of there is the best course of action. I agree that the raiders are easier to kill, but surviving all the way through the metro system to Ferragut West? I'm skeptical on that to say the least, but I'm sure some people can do it. I agree that robbing Rivet City blind is the way to go, but you don't start with bobby pins, so you have to be lucky enough to find some and not break the few that you find. Fun, fun.

I really think that the way I played my last character (automatic small guns) is one of the strongest ways to go. I basically went the buff-and-tank route at lower levels until I had enough $$$ to get RL-3. An excellent early companion because of its unlimited ammo. Then, once I felt I have enough ammo to keep them supplied, I added Malcolm (energy weapons) and Jericho (big guns). After trading in enough tech I got myself some power armor and then headed downtown where I got power armor off dead BoS for Malcolm and Jericho. Once I made it to Underworld, I added Charon (non-automatic small guns), also with some power armor. From there, I never looked back, really. With those four guys covering my back and all of us in power armor, I felt I could handle pretty much anything the game threw at me.

I agree that minefield to get a frag mine supply is the way to go. Without having mines to lay down, a stealth character is really hampered imo. I will keep that in mind my next playthrough. Thanks.

I'm actually finding FWE pretty easy so far because of the VATS accuracy boost and the increased weapons damage. As long as I don't get surrounded I can take out raiders one by one at a safe distance (with a 10mm pistol, no less). Is everyone relying only on bullet time? I'm actually thinking of lowering the VATS base accuracy back to vanilla levels to make things a bit more fair.

Does Fwe add a motion blur when you turn your head? if so is there a way to disable it, very distracting.

I use all modes- VATS, Bullet Time and Real Time. And I use vanilla VATS settings. I agree- FWE default is unfair sometimes.

@Shapeshifter

FWE provide visuals only when you under chem's effect or when you have damaged head.
Chem's visuals can be disabled in FWE config
In your case (blur when you turn your head) probably another mod in work

All I ever use is Bullet Time. VATS got nerfed so hard by FWE that it's pretty useless. Low accuracy, no damage resistance, and your character stands completely still.
Also, with BT you can get a ton of shots off, way more than how many you can shoot in VATS. And BT is also really useful when aiming down the scope too, unlike VATS, which svcks at range.