My question is... How do u explore the wastes?
Do you use the explorer perk, or the fallout wiki... Or by urself.
And be honest now. :nod:

I just roam around most of the time. If I hear of a place on the wiki or on the forums I visit them, but I don't go looking for places to visit.

Like Rockopolis.. Never would've stumbled upon it, because it's unmarked, and pretty obscurely located.

By myself, without the explorer perk, no wiki, and with the 'points of interest' compass markers disabled. Did this from the very start, I still haven't discovered all locations.

Discovered Andale only recently. I must've walked past it a hundred times.

I haven't been to Rockopolis yet, wouldn't know where it is. Don't tell me!

Kudos to you

Most of the time I just roam around looking for new places, but when I hear about a cool place like the Dunwich Building I look it up on the Wiki and try to find it myself.

And kudos to you too.

I try my best never to use a Wikia or anything like that as I believe it completely ruins the experience. Instead, I just roam around randomly and walk towards every map marker I see. Along the way, I've found plenty of neat unmarked locations such as Rockopolis, a ghoul shantytown (now my town) and this little concrete treehouse -- there was a bed, some storage and even a turret... though the Scavenger lay face down in a pool of blood. Really, it wasn't my doing.

Oooh I like the unmarked Ghoul Settlement, I once used the house with two beds for me and Butch as our gang hideout. It was better then the Megaton Shack, it actually had a real kitchen with a table, fridge, oven, shelves, and a counter. I wonder why the ghoul wastelanders are always hostile though?

First, I get Explorer, Then, I go and discover each location. I do this early in the game, to speed up the main quest.

Then, when the time comes to explore, I just click on a random spot, pick a direction and loot anything I find wandering aimlessly.

Because they're ghouls. They automatically think 'oh look, someone walking towards us out here in the [censored] end of nowhere -- he MUST be trying to kill us. Are human wastelanders like this? Nope.

Ghouls are just naturally hostile creatures and, like many animals, don't like it when others step on their territory.

When I first get the game, I really don't explore. I just get on doing the main quest, and then get sidetracked and end up doing side quests, then I end up exploring. Then I get back on track and it kind of repeats. However once I'm done with the main quest then I go around exploring, looking for stuff to do. I would have just went on that way but a buddy of mine left a prima strategy guide at my house.

It ruined me forever lol

I think on my third character I decided to do it very methodically and went after every map marker and explored around each and every one. I was playing on the 360 then so just hunted every one up. I used the wiki to know when I had found all of them (by number of markers found). But that wasn't exploring in every building. That has taken much longer. Nor was that exploring completely in every Metro tunnel, etc.

Also, here on the forum if I hear of an unmarked location or see a screenie of one that I've never been to I'll go look it up on the wiki to find it. Most of the time I've been in the area before and just overlooked it because I'd been in a fight and had moved on before I'd done much exploring or I was just moving through on my way to somewhere else or whatever. But that's what makes the game replayable for me. I don't do everything in an area and then move on.

I have a list of little things I'm still looking for that people have mentioned in the forums that I still haven't found. The one place I know of, that I know where it is on the map, that I've never been to, is Isabella Proud's Camp.

I never took Explorer until I found all of the Map Markers myself (except V87; I never bothered to actually do that one). I've taken it a couple of times, but it clutters up the map. I know where most of the locations are and if I need a reminder where something is on the map I prefer to use the wiki map.

Where is this?

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Wasteland_Gypsy_Village

It's north of Jalbert's Waste Disposal -- the place I found Firelance for the first time.

Never used the explorer perk or wiki to explore...what's the point?

I keep missing this one too. Takoma is so far out of the way with no real reason to go there so I rarely do.



Try using More Map Markers. It's really handy for fast-traveling to a spawn-free safe zone but I have so many map markers on my Pip-Boy that I sometimes have to dig through layers of markers to find the one I want. I'm a svcker for punishment. I can't play without it.

As for exploring, I have wandered on my own, gotten lost, searched for something I'd heard about and failed to find it, stumbled upon things by accident, and used directions from friends and the wiki. It's all good.

I wish our characters could travel there together. It would be so much more fun and I would finally actually go there. :laugh:



Alright. I'll go take a look at that. Thanks.

Most of the places i discover are either quest related or just happened to be on the path i used to get to a quest related place, although if i notice that a certain place has an item of interest like a unquie weapon or bobblehead i'll check my guide to find where it is and then head out to look for it.

Took me a year to get to Takoma... between DC Interiors adding a bunch of locations there and the fun that is Tacoma Industries - I wish I had gone sooner.

(MMM + Increased Spawns + Deadlier Explosive Traps = a very nasty time of it due to all of the cars, especially if the enemy starts tossing grenades. There's just nowhere to run because the main street doesn't have any side areas for a long way. Although getting into Seward Sq was worse because I got greeted by 6-8 super mutants there.)

Mostly, I decide "I'm going to go to location X", then start walking. It might take me a few days to get there... I also try to never take the same route twice.

AH thanks Chriso!

concrete treehouse? i don't remember finding that at anytime. Wait, there aren't trees in the wasteland so now i'm really confused.



For exploring I go from marker to marker generally early - mid game. I don't do quests early on but rather explore, pick up stuff, sell stuff, grab a bunch of bobbleheads, get some nifty small guns.... I use Wiki only when I want to research something I'm confused about.

The treehouse is south of Fairfax ruins.
There is one scavenger there.
Hope i helped

I just walked towards map markers on my compass. As a result, I've seen everywhere markable in the Wasteland. The environment is actually quite varied once you've seen quite a bit of it.

I used the wiki a couple times to find a particularly elusive location.
But otherwise, by myself.
The map that comes with the manual is useless. It's hard to decipher and it's not a direct screenshot from the real in-game map.

Until I'm able to get the Explorer perk (which I'm more willing to do now that I can go up to level 30) I usually explore by wandering in a random direction, usually going toward some landmark or other point of interest - the radio towers are a good example; they also help get you to explore the immediate area around them to find the hidden fallout shelters where the signals are coming from. The most interesting one was the one with the two Chinese spies, the saddest one was the one with the couple with the sick kid. One of these has the Explosives bobblehead, so they are worth looking for.