Your special stats can go beyond 10. there is no reason to start at 9 anymore in a special if you want that special maxed.. because getting the bobblehead will make it 11 (it still adds more bonuses aka carry weight for strength ect)

also dont think that the enemies wont get stronger as you level up..

i cheated just to test it.. cheated to level 300.. started seeing new enemies all over the place.. armored dogs in place of normal ones super mutant warlords and behemoths.. brotherhood using higher level power armor.. and the awareness perk said they were level 300 (so they matched the player level)

Think about it. Sure there are lockouts for too many failed password attempts, but if they NEVER reset, how practical would that be in real life? I think the new rules makes sense but it's only an issue in dangerous situations.

Fantastic thread. Thanks guys!

Not the right conclusion in your example. If you get 2 matches for TASTY and DIRTY it does not mean that ***TY is correct. If the correct phrase would be HARRY for example you still get 2 matches with TASTY and DIRTY.

If you have zero matches it means that none of the letters of the chosen word matches the character and position. So for example if the correct word is LOOT and you choose TOOL you would get 2 matches for the Os. T and L match but are not on the correct position.

Of course the whole hacking thing is just the Mastermind game except you have less information. Unfortunately difficulty can vary depending on selection of the words. I still haven't figured out how to eliminate duds in the PS4 (or PS3 for that matter).

Thanks for the info everyone!!!

One of the most useful things I've learned, while working on my settlement, is that on PC the "E" or USE key also serves as the ENTER key!

At the beginning, I was building stuff and always took my hand off the mouse to hit Enter LOL Then one time I hit E by accident and was pleasantly surprised to find that I don't have to hit enter!!

Also, in order to decorate, you don't have to go into the build mode. You can just hold down the E key on an object and then play around with it, place it on tables etc. (just like the Z key in Skyrim). However, I have found that when placing say a vase for instance on a small table, it always falls through or is stuck half way inside the table, when I leave the settlement and come back. So, the decorating part needs some work or mods or patches LOL

Thank you so much about the weapons mod tip!! I had some in my inventory and thought I could attach it to another weapon, but it didn't work. It didn't dawn on my that it would have to be IN the workbench to work!!!

Stuff I wish I had known right away:

Once you get power armor you can keep wearing your charisma gear while using the PA. You only lose a little protection (if any as I am unsure if your normal armor stacks with the PA) and you keep your charisma buff.

Loot EVERYTHING. I fell into the trap of assuming some stuff was useless. For example I didn't bother with abraxo because it didn't have leather, adhesive, steel or screws etc. which you need early on. When I finally got some better armor all of a sudden I didn't have any fiberglass and I probably passed up hundreds of those stupid boxes while scrounging for loot.

Focus on one weapon type instead of trying to be a jack of all trades. With the new modular system you can still carry weapons of different ammo types just make sure that they all have automatic or semi-auto etc. My first character was a semi-auto rifle specialist and he was far more effective than my second guy who had only one point in each of the different damage types. My third pistol specialist was also more effective than the second guy.

PIck that aquaboy perk. That perk will save you a ton of time traveling on foot as you can take shortcuts and is great for getting out of those "oh [censored]" moment if you are near a body of water. I play on Hard/ Very Hard without vats so I get a good number of those.

Just assume your companion is taking a nap or playing on his phone. They tend to not be around when the fighting starts and when they do finally show up its either just before you are going to die or after you have already killed them all. At least its better than Boone head shotting everything before I even know they were there. He made me feel like a total pansy.

One thing on the hacking: DO NOT USE THE BRACKETS UNTIL YOU ARE LOW ON RETRIES.

As pointed out, the brackets will either remove a dud, OR reset your tries (i.e. if you're down to 1 guess, hitting a lucky bracket option will reset you to 4). It may be tempting to start clearing all the brackets first to get rid of the duds, but you're also going to clear all your resets ... before you actually need them. Doing it this way is gimping yourself. SAVE THE BRACKETS for when you need them.

Click on one of the words, note the number of correct characters in it; if you are lucky, it will be just 1 or even zero. Correct: zero is a good result, because you should be able to them immediately go through the other words and should be able to discount them based on if they have any of the same characters in the word that had "0."

Now start going through the other words that could possibly have none or one (or whatever) of the same amount of characters in it, adjust according to the new correct characters that come up.

When/if you get down to 1 retry, then - and only then - do you start finding the brackets and click on them to remove duds and reset your count.

Also note that sometimes brackets are nested within other brackets:

<*&^%[*&*]$#$#>

There are two possible dud-removals/or resets in that combination there, so don't miss them.

I dont think anyone has mentioned sleeping yet. If you sleep and are "well rested" you get an exp bouns for a short time. Great for doing just before turning in missions. Also it seems if you reach the highest affection level with a companion and sleep with them near you you get an extra bonus- now that is some great knowledge.

Heres a couple more

1. Build lots of water pumps at EVERY possible source.

With out a doubt the fastest way ( with no cheese ) to have an overload on caps is to have sanctuary producing 300 purified waters a day.

2. Give your old legendary guns to your proviserners, you will see them out of your settlements a lot and they will often help you with whatever baddies your fighting.

3.Wood is easy to get in the begging and very scarce as the game goes a long, as of now its my most sought after resource , but steel is more commonly sold by most trade venders.

I don't think that's true. I've always dumped everything into the general workbench but my weapons, armor, cooking and chem crafting stations have never lacked for materials.

When you give a command to a companion to do something they specialize in (say Cait with lockpicking), there's a random chance they'll fail. I took Cait down to Vault 111 to lockpick for that weapon in the case and it took her three tries before she cracked it and I could get it.

So if she (or Nick for hacking) says, "Nope, can't do it" after the first attempt, have them try again and again until it happens.

Do not switch companions while they are wearing Power Armour, they can/will lose it on their way back to your settlement.

I'm probably just a bit slow, but it took me quite a while before I figured out Dogmeat could wear bandanas (and other equipment).

Poor guy was running around naked all this time.

Thanks for some really great tips, this thread is very helpful to new and older players of the FO games.

It turns out you can actually equip your companions by first giving them a clothing and pressing Y/Triangle and they'll put it on. Their old clothing will appear and yes, you can take them and put them in storage.

A handy tool to give Piper and Maccready their hats back in case you took them away by accident.

Dont know if anybody already said that, but you can also make OIL, you need to pick up bones and at Drug Station you make the utility one. It will create product that is stored into your inventory, so better to transfer it into workbench after.

Is that actually a good idea? I thought that if your defence rating wasn't greater than water + food then your likelihood of being invaded went up.

I'm the same with wood though - it's the only material I have tagged for searching at the moment!

Your first tip is most defiantly wrong. All crafting stations in a settlement share the same resource pool. Doesn't matter what station you dump the items into they'll be available in all the others in that settlement. My armor bench is where i dump all my stuff into and had no issues using the other stations.

Three tips you might like:

- A full set of Leather/Metal armor with the "Deep Pockets" upgrade on all pieces raises your carrying cap by 60. That's 10 short of what T-45 power armor does. Sadly when you do climb into your power armor the carry cap only goes up by 10. That leads to the second tip.

- Wearing normal armor doesn't count towards your stats when using power armor. Might as well go commando and save weight during your PA joy-rides.

- Legendary items can be modded and they retain their original bonus that made them legendary in the first place.

Best thred yet! Thanks folks!