First, sorry about the title. I have a number of questions about the game and I don't want to post several posts or wait or whatever. Here they are; I'd appreciate answers if you know them.

1. Assigning settlers to tasks. Does this improve happiness? And how do you actually do this? Right now, (1) open the settlement build menu, (2) click on the settler and (3) point them to a task. Right? So what happens if the settlement is Sanctuary, the settler is at one end and where you want them working positioned is at the other end. Do I seriously run back and forth? There is really no other way to do this??

2. And you can't give a settler more than one weapon, right? So I gave a settler a really sweet rifle and, like the idiot he is, he opted to use the pipe pistol he had in his inventory ... because, you know, that makes sense. I took the pistol away and that worked ... he used the rifle. But it also looks like I can't give them a melee weapon, either.

3. So you have a SPECIAL trait, say Perception. And you have skills like Rifleman. If I level up perception, does this increase the damage my rifles do? Or do I have to select the perk. (Is it anologous to Skyrim's Archery or One-hand). Right now, the only way I can get my guns to produce more damage is to (1) select a perk and (2) modify the weapon. Is that it? Does leveling simply give you a perk/trait point?

4. Are there any other vaults? No spoilers please!! Just a simple yes or no is fine. I haven't found any yet and I think I'd be disappointed if there were only Vault 111.

5. Are turrets the only thing that counts towards defenses? I've tried walls and guard posts but they did nothing.

6. Does putting a scope on a weapon improve it's accuracy in VATS? I would think so but I'm finding, after scoping a weapon, that I can aim more accurately than VATS.

Thanks for any answers or suggestions!

Perception only affects VATS accuracy, increasing it doesn't empower perks such as rifleman

Yes there are more vaults then 111

Yes

You have to manually assign a settler to use the guard post before it will count to your defense score.

1. Dunno

2. If they follow traditional NPC logic, they will use the weapon that gives them the highest DPS given their skills Perks

3. I am not sure what SPECIAL does all by itself, but for sure it allows you to unlock higher levels of Perks and higher ranks of the Perks you have picked

4. Yes, you will even meet NPCs that talk about them and mark your map

5. Dunno

6. Probably not in VATS, but for sure using the weapon in real time.

As for equipping settlers, if you look at the bottom of the screen when in their inventory... is will have an equip option (think it is Y on xbox)... so select the weapon and gear you want them to use (has to be in THEIR inventory) and hit Y. Done.

Guard posts count toward defense, BUT you must assign a settler to it. Think it's only like 2 or 3 points toward defense.

A scope does not improve VATS accuracy - only perception and perks do.

1- Exactly like you said, yes you run back and forth. It's like walking to a person and tell them: "Hey I got something for you to do, follow me I'll show you". (Would be better to actually say it imho but heh, I guess the voice acting budget was already busted uh uh!) By the way, you don't have to assign to particular plants, you assign to "farming" and they'll distribute semi-correctly. Shops and guard towers need to be assigned individually.

2- NPCs don't equip random items on them anymore. You have to tell him to use it and he will only use this one. Way less confusing than previous games!

3- Leveling gives you a perk/trait points and some stats. HP increase but I'm not sure about base accuracy and other stuff like that.

4- Yes.

5- Turrets and assigned guard posts (each settlers can work 3 guard posts max)

6- 99% certain accuracy affect VATS. At least when I add mods that add accuracy, my vats gives me vastly better % on similar circumstances. Of course manually aiming is always more precise, it's your accuracy, not the accuracy of your character (unless you really svck at aiming but eh!)

Okay! Thanks to all of your for your help. I really do appreciate it.

So basically this confirms what I've been experience when trying to use VATS for sniper work. I can actually hit with a great deal more accuracy without VATS.

So, with respect to leveling: You get experience for doing something ... killing a bloatfly, completing a quest, building a confy shack with part of a tree, a tin can and a washing machine (can you say MacGyver?). This experience levels you up, the speed of which is based upon your Intelligence. If you want to level quickly, then dump points in. If not, then don't.

If I understand it correct, then all experience does is get you to the next level. All leveling does is unlock a perk point, which you can then assign to a SPECIAL or use to unlock a perk. Is that really it? So no matter how many bloatflies I kill, now matter how many Raiders I snipe, no matter how much I use a gun ... my experience really doesn't make me better.

That .... is ... silly.

Okay, sorry. You posted this while I was writing my response.

Do you have any idea what stats are increase when you level?

Leveling also gives you more hitpoints, and I think it increases your carry capacity as well.

Riza... sorry, my stupid quote only works when it wants too.

Essentially, yes.... I am sure there is a formula for how SPECIAL improves your weapons use... but I don't know what it is. Some people call is streamlining... others call it dumbing down, you can make your own opinion.

Each level you gain hit points and many perks are useful, so I don't get what you're saying here. There are perks that allow additional crafting, perks that make life easier, increase your damage resistance, add 20% damage to a weapon type. How can that not be better?

Attributes also make a difference. Strength improves melee damage and carrying capacity. Agility adds action points for VATS and improves sneaking. All of them do something. If you're saying that you wish skills were still there, I agree, but the current system definitely allows for character development, at least in terms of combat.

Only HP increases automatically with each level, from what I have seen in game so far. If you choose to level up a SPECIAL stat instead of picking a perk, then the tied stats will also increase (i.e increasing strength at a level up instead of picking a perk will also increase your melee/unarmed damage, and your carry weight, or increasing agility will increase your action points). However you can only increase each SPECIAL stat to 10 via level up, and there are some pieces of gear that can increase one or more special stat (i have one that gives me +1 strength and +1 agility, so that is another option to consider.

I think you misunderstand me - or maybe I misunderstand the game. For what I'm getting from this thread:

1. Experience only increases in a general, non-specific way. So using a particular weapon (call it melee/rifle/handgun/automatic ... whatever) only gives you this generalized experience. It does not give me specific experience (call it skill experience or whatever).

2. An increase in experience - from level 3 to, say, level 4 - only increases hit points. That's it. You can take more damage ... as if that were particularly useful in this game.

3. With each level, you get a point to allocate to a SPECIAL attribute or a perk. One or the other. Increasing an attribute will unlock more perks and increase (slightly) whatever that attribute governs (but do we know how much? A lot or a little?). This I think is where my question lies.

4. Selecting a perk will give you a specific increase in "skills" or another, well, perk. Rifleman, for example. Mysterious Stranger.

Now my question was, in this environment, how do your improve your marksman (gun) skills? The answer seems to be with perks only. There is no other real way to do so.

Sorry if that was confusing.

That's pretty much the case, yes.

There is another level-dependent method of improving your combat effectiveness, and that is equipment. As you gain levels and face tougher opponents, you'll find that the quality of the gear they drop likewise improves. By saluaging that gear and customising it towards your character's strengths and play-style, you become a more effective combatant. It's not a direct improvement to your character as such, but since the game has a reasonably rich gear and crafting system, it's an aspect which should not be overlooked when considering character development.

The main difference between the way leveling works in FO4 and before is that you MANUALLY get to decide what aspect of your character you want to augment when you level up. It is not just hit points you gain for leveling, but also the opportunity to increase an aspect of your choosing. If you want specifically to build up marksmanship you need to do a couple of things:

-Level Perception, which opens up Vats and Rifleman-related perks, then take those perks.

-Level Agility, which contains vats regeneration speed (Action Boy/Girl) more weapon- based perks to increase other types of gun skills (if you use anything but sniper rifles, which you probably do- I haven't found a way to avoid it), and take the perks that increase those skills. Putting points into agility also increases overall AP.

-Level Intelligence, not only for the xp gain boost but also for the Gun Nut and Science Perk groups, which open more advanced weapon-modding options so you can make your weapons do what you want. Mods that improve Hip-fire accuracy are for if you're free- aiming (i.e., not using vats but manually targetting) and not using the scope or gun sights. Sighted accuracy increases free-aiming accuracy with scopes/sights. For increasing Vats accuracy see above (develop Perception and Agility and perks in those trees).

- You can also cook foods which increase your max AP, AP regeneration, and recover AP on the go. Mirelurk meat is one I can remember off the top of my head.

-- For your settlements/ assigning workers: Build a bell or bells near your heavy work areas (near your faming, your security checkpoints, etc.). When you ring the bell everyone will converge there (it takes a little while sometimes). This includes any provisioners working trade routes. You should also consider equipping specific outfits or types of clothes for your different types of workers to help keep track of them. I give my farmers hats, my scrappers overalls and my security suits, for example.

Leveling up does not work the way you're used to but it it a very deep and very customizable system. You just have to know what you want to do and stick to a plan. Supposedly there is no level cap but skills unlock at Lv. 50 at the highest so I imagine xp gain drops off after that. So you have limited perk points. Maybe 50 plus the initial batch you get at character creation.

Also, rtfm- read the f***ing manual, as they say, lol! Not trying to insult you, just using the acronym. If you go into the help menu off the pause screen (not the Pip-Boy but the screen where you go to save), there is an option that says "Help." That's the manual and it actually has a ton of very useful information about all of the stuff you're asking. No it does not answer all of your questions- the game and the manual still need a lot of clarification, hopefully forthcoming in future patches- *ahem- Bethesda....!* But it does help a lot.

Someone else in the thread talked about streamlining vs. dumbing down. I don't think either of those things is happening here. Everything you want to do is there, but everything has just been shuffled around under the SPECIAL stats with the new perk system. But it's not in order to simplify things, it's in order to give you more direct control over your build. It's also more complicated and still a bit confusing. Good luck, buddy!

That's how it's always been in Fallout, and most RPGs in general, and something Bethesda decided to keep for the series. You gain general experience from doing things, then on level up you can pick what to improve. Luckilly they decided to keep TES and Fallout separate in this kind of behavior (though I worry about what they'll do for TES6).

Basically, yeah. You select/increase attributes and perks that aid in your marksman abilities, and you'll get better at using marksman weapons. The main difference is that, instead of increasing a skill number from 1 to 100 to improve a specific ability, you rank up your perks and stats to imrpove the abilities they provide.

Okay, maybe that is the way it was done in Fallout 3. I don't seem to remember it that way, but maybe I'm thinking of Skyrim.

Thanks for everything here. It was helpful, even the stuff I cut out.

As for the manual, thanks for telling me where it is. I thought the game came without a manual ... as did the two other people who recently have asked on the forum "where's the manual" and were told "Hey, there isn't one ... it's gone by the wayside ..."

No prob! I found it by accident because when I first clicked on the Help option I was expecting a link to tech support or somthing. They could have solved that by calling it "Manual" instead of "help," lol!

I did misunderstand. Sorry. Looks like Huleed already responded. It didn't even occur to me that you were talking about a Skyrim-like system.

For the settler problem build a town bell (I think it's in Resources>Miscellaneous), if you ring it all the settlers gather around it for a short time. I tend to leave mine in the middle and just drag it about with me, ring it, get on with some other [censored] and once they arrive i disperse jobs.