EDIT: A bit of spoilers here for those that havent done the game yet!

Hi, I just started playing Fallout 3 and I am loving it so far.

I haven't gotten so far in the game yet aka the main quest line. (I think) I really enjoy exploring and scavenging the capital wasteland, so I came across this Garage which led me into the vault 106. I started the "scientific pursuits" quest and jumped into tranquility lane and did the quest where you escape and let Betty rot.

However, now I am standing infront of my dad, and hes blabbing about a water purifier and stuff that makes me think i have missed something lol. I was only at "walking in his footsteps", where I talk to moriarty at Megaton for directions, though i haven't been to galaxy news radio yet.

And now that quest with galaxy news radio has disappeared... So have I missed a lot of the story or what? Suddely i meet dad and he wants me to come with him to Rivet City (i dont even know where that is yet) and save the world lol.

What am I gonna do? I want the whole quest line obviously

I'm pretty sure the only way to get the rest of the story is to go back to a previous save.

You kind of skipped pretty far ahead .

You did the thing where you skip a chunk of the main story. I'm not sure if they let you on purpose or if it was an accident. You have to restart your game, and just not go into vault 112 until it tells you to as part of the main story. Normally you to go GNR, then Rivet city, then I think you go to v112, so you skipped like a quest and a half.

the problem is, i dont have any savegames from before that, the latest savegame is the current situation and then theres the save from when i step out of vault 101 for the first time, which is a VERY VERY VERY long time ago.

Well, unfortunately you either have to continue as you are, skipping that for now, or reload the save from V101.

Okay, if I explain it all out, it'll ruin the fun. Just go back and play it. You missed plenty. GNR and Rivet City contain vital plot points.

best recommendation has to be to start a whole new game for the story, and use your current game for screwing around and trying new things.

you can follow your father to rivet city. it will be tough going as you can't fast travel there. if you make it there, try not to take the next quest from your dad right away. you are in pickle. not sure how things will work out if you leave your dad at rivet city for a long time.

Start saving more often. The game allows you to skip over a major chunk of the main quest, if you discover this particular location. As others have said, either soldier on or reload. Sounds like reloading would be a massive pita for you.

Some thoughts:
There are three karma levels. At minimum, three times playing this game, one per karma level. (I speak from role-play, where I believe it immersion-breaking that my characters would change their morals to pick up bonuses and the like.)
I discovered more strange unmarked locations on my second and third playthroughs.
Subsequent playthroughs will allow you to experience different perks, and different character builds.

Soldier on good sir! Get it on the next time. :spotted owl:

you can ask dad about project purity and what its about then youll know whats going on and theres nothign special about galaxy news radio quest.

Yes there is. Three Dog explains "The Good Fight" and everything going on in the Wastes, and in Rivet City Doctor Li explains a lot about the past, and the origins of Project Purity, and your own birth.

Well, I went to rivet city before gnr. In fact, I didn't go to GNR until after I had completed the main quest, and the main quest expansion. The game still let me play through the quest, and I still could talk with 3 dog and whatnot. It didn't screw anything up, though I could tell that it was part of the storyline that I missed.

I dunno about skipping rivet city, though.

He can still do the GNR ‘quest’ but the rewards change, in fact I like them better, and a few things are different when he reaches GNR. He will probably be able to get the holes filled in by talking to everyone in Rivet city and he will need to leave his dad in Rivet to clear some other issues up that he should have done earlier.

The game isn’t ruined but if you value going through the entire storyline, you might as well re-start.

Just listen to dad's holotapes in jefferson memorial, you will understand most of that "project purity" thing..
You can also talk to Doctor li. And three dog's "good fight" stuff are pretty much crap and isn't really tied to main plot, but you can go to gnr and help him anytime if you want. :foodndrink:

getting the quest from 3 dog will lead to a location that has clues to one of the better weapons of the game.

Basically, what the others said.

As a rule of thumb, I suggest making a new save anytime you are about to enter somewhere (building, new city, etc). Make a manual save *before* entering, that is (don't use quicksave, or autosave, because you're constantly overwriting those). Use quicksave to save your progress *through* a building/tunnel, etc (like if you've been in the building for 10 or 20 minutes, and you want to save before doing something possibly dangerous, just use quicksave for that), whatever, then make another manual save when you exit the building. That way, you can always go back to before doing something like entering that garage. Saves are cheap - this isn't the days of the NES and SNES when you could only have 4 saves on the cartridge (even then, I used to do a rotation - I'd save in the first slot, then later the second slot, then later the third; after saving the fourth slot, the next time I'd save in the first slot again - that way I could always go back up to 3 saves, at least). Most people have hard drives that are *at least* 80GB, and even consoles which don't have a HD usually have room for many thousands of saves. So, whenever you are playing *any* game, it's just smart to frequently make saves - they cost you NOTHING but ten seconds of time, and could save you from problems like this, or other types of problems too (when playing Oblivion, I had a problem once where I had an autosave which saved the instant I entered some bad situation, don't remember the situation now, but basically, I had to go back to a save from about 10 minutes before the auto-save, because the auto-save left me in a situation where I was basically 'stuck' - luckily, I've always made a habit of frequently saving, so it wasn't much of a problem for me.

It's not tied to the plot, but it puts the Wasteland and the things going on there into perspective for those new to the Fallout series. Not a must, but still an important aspect.