Hey friends. I don't see many newbie questions in this forum, so please point me elsewhere if this isn't an appropriate place for a few newbie questions. It's my first FALLOUT experience. I am really enjoying it.

I'm only on level 7

Xbox One.

I plan on playing this game fairly thoroughly as I have other Bethesda Titles. I am not rushing to the end.

1. I am not sure what I should be keeping versus what I should be selling.

do all items in junk have no use?

are there particular collectibles such as magazines and toys that are worth hanging on to?

2. I do not have a long range level up plan. I feel like I need to know this early on as I earn/spend perks.

Are two types of weapons enough? Like Melee/Rifle? or should I plan on having 3-4+ weapon/combat styles leveled?

3. No idea how I should be spending my first 20+ perks.

4. No idea where to find Fusion Cores to power my Armor.

5. Having trouble finding enough ammunition/grenades, M. Cocktails etc.

6. What/Where do you store your stuff?

Thanks, lt

Er...

1. Sell what you don't use (aside of most junk which you can throw in your workbench for crafting)
   
   You get the benefit of magazines/bobbleheads whether you keep them or not, but I store them in magazine racks...


2. As there is no level cap, you really don't need a long range plan (unless you want one)


3. See question 2. The 1st 20 perks should simply reflect your preferences.
   
   If you find you are too squishy, address perks there, if you are using particular weapons, put perks there.


4. Explore, you will end up with more than enough (and vendors also sell them)


5. See question 4. There is also an ammo perk if you want to buy less.


6. Junk gets stored in the workshop.
   
   I build a few trunks at my home base settlement for other spares I don't want to sell:
   
   gun trunk, armor trunk, clothing trunk...

Welcome to the forum, you should have a fishy stick... https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/87106516/fishy_stick.jpeg

2. Other than choosing your SPECIAL so that you can get perks that are important to you ASAP I don't find a build necessary

3. I always get Lockpicking and Hacking up to level 3 ASAP, you can manage without them but I'm a bit OCD about looting

1. Junk has a use in FO4. You'll use it to build all sorts of things in settlements. It's also used to mod weapons and armour, including power armour. If you use power armour a lot, you'll also need junk to repair it as it gets damaged.

There is no need to hold on to magazines or bobbleheads, if you don't want to keep them. Once you pick them up, the perks they confer are yours. You can store them or sell them without losing the perk. However, there is a bobblehead stand you can build in settlements, and some magazine racks too. They make nice decorations.

2. If you're not sure what you want to spend your perk points on when you level up, you can just back out of the perk chart and save the point for later. Use it when you have a better idea of what you want. First time I played, I didn't have much of a plan either. I just picked what I thought would be useful. There's no level cap, so don't worry about missing out on any perks.

People have different builds they play and weapons they prefer. Find something you like, and put points into perks that make those weapons more effective. Personally, I prefer the combat shotgun, with pistols and melee weapons as secondaries. With another character I focused on melee, and another mainly used laser rifles.

3. However you like. Since it's your first time, you might want to focus on perks that give you an advantage in battle, such as making your weapons more effective and giving you better defence. Perks that let you mod weapons and armour will be useful too. I recommend the Lockpicking and Hacker perks too.

4. Check any containers you find. You'll be surprised how many you collect over time. The Scrounger perk is useful here. Also, look out for MacCready. As a companion, he will sometimes give you a small amount of ammo when you talk to him, which can include fusion cores. You can buy them too, but you might find them a bit expensive early on. Use some Graqe Mentats to bring the price down, and offset the cost further by selling anything you don't need.

Be sure not to leave Fusion Cores store in your power armour! Settlers may use your PA if a core is present.

5. See above for ammo. As for Molotovs and other grenades, look for Raider hideouts. I pick up a lot of mine from Raiders, or Super Mutants. You can also buy them from vendors.

6. Junk and some Aid items in workshop. Junk gets used for building and crafting. Some Aid items can be used in crafting too, such as making chems, healing items, and food. I build various other containers for storing gear I'm not currently using, and the displays for bobbleheads and magazines.

Be careful storing weapons and ammo. Settlers and companions left in your settlements may take weapons for themselves, if the ammo for it is also present.

About the Fusion Cores: check the basemants of buildings, like factories, hospitals, etc. I did find a fusion core in many buildings just in the basemants where the power generators are.

And remember to remove the part-used fusion core from any suit of power armour that you step out of in a settlement or else settlers can (and will) take it for a joy-ride.

When you come back to use the armour again, pick the core you want to use as by default the full ones are stacked and sorted first. You will end up with a lot of Fusion Core (99 of 100) if you don't check which ones you are in the middle of.

Junk items in previous Fallout games were pretty much things to sell for caps. Here you're going to want to compare the carry weight vs the components they offer and then store it in your workshop. Be on the lookout for 'rare' materials like circuitry, gears, screws, aluminum, copper, and nuclear material. You'll need them for better mods and item builds later on.

Used weapons and armor can also be broken down for components, however I believe that it may be more cost effective to use these things as your 'sell for caps' items rather than junk. Keep in mind that settlers and companions are likely going to need upgrades based on what you can scrounge for them as well.

While you're building yourself up, I like to keep a regular use weapon handy that has a decent amount of ammo and can handle most threats. I'll also keep something around for the minor inconveniences that don't warrant the use of more valuable ammo, I'd recommend a melee weapon or something in .38 for starters. Heavier weapons with rarer ammo I save for more dangerous situations. This will evolve as you play.

Welcome!

To answer your questions without spoiling too much:

1. Pretty much everything you pick up in the game can be used later for crafting other items (once you open up the option...the game itself will prompt you when you get there, so you'll know it). For now, I would suggest storing those items in Vault 111 (you can toss them on the ground just inside the vault or put them in a locker that is near the exit -- don't go too far inside with them, because it'll be a pain to get them out). I suggest putting them here, instead of elsewhere, because items have a tendency to disappear if you put them in containers around the Commonwealth that are not in a secure location. No one goes to Vault 111 but you once you're out, so it's as safe a place as any to stash your hoard of goodies until you're ready to use them. If I'd done this at the beginning, instead of selling the stuff, I'd have been in a better position to craft and building settlements later (especially since goodies respawn after you swipe them from most locations, so you can go back constantly and take them again and again).

2. As a first-time player, you'll probably want to have a jack-of-all-trades kind of character, so you can get the most experience out of the game that you can. I have found that opening the main Stats (Strength, Perception, Charisma, Intelligence, Endurance, Agility, Luck) up first (at least to 5 stars each) helped me immensely to later go in an be able to put my points into perks as I wanted to. I would highly recommend to open these up quickly from the start:

Charisma-Local Leader

Charisma-Black Widow or Lady Killer

Perception-Locksmith

Perception-Sniper or Perception-Rifleman

Strength-Strong Back

Strength-Blacksmith

Endurance-Rad Resistance

Intelligence-Medic

Intelligence-Hacker

Intelligence-Science

Agility-Sneak

Luck-Scrounger

That will give you a wide enough spread of skills to be able to get a good feel for how to survive in the wasteland. Also, collect Bobby Pins and Stimpaks and Rad-Away at first. Don't sell these. Use them until you're high enough skill level and you feel confident enough with your abilities to let some of these go for caps to a local vendor.

Two types of weapon skills is always a good thing to know, especially as you're a first time player. If you were more advanced, I'd say specialize, but until you get a feel for how your delve out damage against different kinds of foes, it's not a bad idea to spread out the knowledge across different weapon types. I found it was easiest (and best for preventing damage to myself) to learn Sniper really well at first (when your Sneak is high, you can do 2-8x more damage with a Sniper...I had one-hit kill shots by level 40 that way). However, I also worked up my Combat Shotgun. By level 50, I went for Plasma Rifle. Along the way, I learned how to accurately throw grenades of all sorts, because they supplement your damage early on when you svck with handguns.

3. See #2 above.

4. Fusion Cores are rare at the start of the game. They are generally plugged into running machinery around the Commonwealth (you can hear them running if you listen...then, find them and hit A button when you do, and you'll automatically pull them out of the machine and store them in your inventory). Later, you'll find vendors roaming the wasteland roads or at settlements/Diamond City Market who will sell them to you. Hoard them when you can. The idea is not to rely too heavily on the power armor at first (find a place to store it for a few levels while you run around and learn the damage/fight and armor crafting dynamics of the game better). *JUST REMEMBER to pull out (transfer) the fusion core from a power armor you climb out of to your inventory. If you leave the power core in there, random settlers or companions will come along and steal it. That's annoying as hell. Get into the habit of simply transferring the core to your inventory when you climb out.

5. Luck-Scrounger perk is fabulous for that, and was one of the first I opened up for this reason. You can find more ammo in crates everywhere once you get this up. That extra ammo also comes off of Raiders, Gunner, Super Mutants once you start killing them. Also, you can strip dead settlers and caravan people for whatever they've got on them if you find them dead. Be sure to check every desk, filing cabinet, locker, bureau, and storage container in buildings for random caps lying around. It's time consuming, but sometimes, you can find random stashes inside broken ovens, under beds, or hiding behind those containers.

6. Again, until your first settlement opens up, you'll have to find someplace safe where random Raiders and others can't happen across it and steal it (SPOILER - Preston Garvey is the trigger for the opening of settlements). Vault 111 is perfect for this, as no one ever goes there.

Other ideas you might want to try:

1. Save before you try hacking a computer, so in case you get locked out, you can reload the game and try until you get it right. A little cheat, but it works to keep the frustration levels down for 1st time players.

2. You can get free Purified Waters from Cogsworth (a character who becomes your companion early on in the game when you tap him to talk to him). Use these to sell to vendors because they net you a lot of caps upfront. You can use those caps to then buy fusion cores & other types of ammo you need for your specific guns.

3. Collecting every type of ammo is great because it weighs nothing in your inventory & you can sell the unwanted/excess ammo for a good profit, and use that money to buy supplies you need from vendors (like fusion cores and other types of ammo for the guns you do use).

4. Making chems like Jet, Psycho, Buffout, etc. once the ability to use a Chem Station opens up for you is an easy method for building a mound of caps. They sell well and net you a tidy profit.

5. Don't sell those magazines you collect (Grognak, Massachusetts Surgical, Hot Rodder, etc.). The stat enhancer opens up the second you pick them up (you get the +1 in a stat for them), and you can sell them then, but I found late in the game that settlers at your settlements that you build like to read them & this is an easy method for raising their happiness factor with you (you can build a magazine rack and put these magazines in it, and the settlers supposedly read them). Once you sell these magazines to a vendor, you never see them again. You have to weigh if the caps now is worth the settlement happiness factor later. They weigh nothing, so you can store them in your inventory forever, if you want.

6. Subway tokens and Folders and Napkins serve no use except to net you caps. Sell them.

7. Overdue Books - hold onto these until you find a Book Return machine. There are tons of overdue books all over the place (and they respawn), so you can exchange them at the Book Return machine to get caps or other items (like ammo, and in one case - at the Boston library - you can get a Mass. Surgical magazine). The book return tokens you get don't weigh anything.

8. Occasionally, you'll find these rare robot models just hanging around (they go into the MISC menu, same as quest items). Pick them up and add them to your settlements (once you build them) to make settlers happy. Selling them nets not enough caps, but the happiness factor they wring from settlers is high.

9. Any items you store at a location's workbench are shared among all the other crafting stations in the same area. That includes power armor crafting stations (the yellow cage-like structures you see occasionally).

10. Check your radio once in a while to see if there are any broadcasts you can home in on. Sometimes, these are interesting quests that can net you good XP.

11. Once you start building settlements, come back to these forums and read-up on the advise people here give on building a good, solid settlement. There are tips and tricks I wish I'd known when I'd started building (I'd had to go back and scrap entire settlements and start over because I hadn't made mine well enough to get over a 50-60% happiness factor).

Good luck!!!

Abraxo, Fertilizer, Pencil, Anti Freeze Bottle and creature parts are useful for crafting certain items so be careful scrapping them.

It only takes a few seconds for the terminal to reset after a lockout and let you try again. Doesn't seem worth reloading.

You can also back out when down to your last try, if you're not confident about getting the right password.