I have finally completed a 200 dweller vault in Survival Mode. This experience was an emotional roller coaster going from sheer joy to relaxed confidence to defeated despair.

I wanted to share some tips I learned along the way and hope this thread becomes a place where other brave, determined Survival Mode players can share their stories.

1. Expect deaths.

People in your shelter will die. The moment you lose focus and don't give a crisis your full attention... people will die. The game's UI may even cause some deaths. Dwellers overlapping each other and hiding their HP bars is part of the game. If u can accept the fact that it's ok to make mistakes, you will survive.

2. Deathclaws can be easy

This is the 1st difficult challenge I faced. Their brute force is intimidating and can quickly wipe out a vault. Here's how I handled them:


I watched the path the Deathclaws took to rip through my vault. Once I knew the order of the rooms in which they traveled, I manned each room with 2-3 dwellers. In a panic, I found it difficult to select and and heal any room with more than 3 dwellers. Always having a huge supply of Stimpaks at all times was crucial. Early on, I needed over 40 Stimpaks to survive a single Deathclaw attack with no casualties. This number would slowly decrease as I progressed.

3. By far, fire caused the most deaths.

It's crazy to think that the easiest crisis in normal mode would be my most difficult in Survival. The problem wasn't the fire itself, it was the spreading of fire and spreading into rooms with low level dwellers. Dealing with crisis in 1 room is easier then 5


I finally began to experience less deaths when I did 1 simple thing... leave no room unmanned.


It feels inefficient to man a room like a Storage Room... a room that gives no production or XP... but it feels like Survival mode likes to attack you with crisis where u are weak. If a room is empty, the game will attack it more.


I would man these types of rooms with my lowest level dwellers and if attacked, would Stimpak the dweller until I got a few others to help.

4. Happiness bug?

I stumbled across an easy way to boost a newborn dweller's happiness. With a single Int 10/Luck 10 dweller, I could quickly boost 5 newborn happiness to 100%.


When a dweller is born, their happiness starts at 50%. I quickly put them in a production room and wait for happiness to rise to 75%. Then, in a different medical room with a single Int 10/Luck 10 dweller I rush x 2. As soon as the 2nd Rush is successful, I quickly move the newborn into the rushed room. Their happiness will boost about 18-20 levels. I then move the newborn out and rush the medical room again. I then move the newborn into the successful rush room to get their remaining happiness up to 100%.


This method allows you to boost happiness on a newborn dweller with low stats without its low stats decreasing the chance of a successful rush. While you have a greater chance of an unsuccessful rush at about the 3rd rush, keeping the low dweller out of the room will not bring its happiness down in case of an unsuccessful rush.


This can be done with a single Int 10/Luck 10 dweller and 5 newborns.

Looking forward to hearing from other survivors!

-jonchico

FYI, you can just build your first/top room as 3x Level 3/2/3 rooms instead of a 1x 3/3/3. [Until you have level 50's with good weapons, you may need to do this elsewhere on the top two floors, too.]

This makes Deathclaws laughably easy.*


I get so annoyed at all the "guides" that tell you you need a big 3 room next to your vault door. That's awful advice.

For Deathclaws, I also make sure the 2 people in each room are attired completely differently. Something bright like Vault Armor (bright blue) or a Rad Suit (bright yellow) then something dark for the other one.

By the way, having a 3/2/3 configuration also makes those rooms much easier to handle incidents, because the incidents are MUCH smaller (and you can see their health bars)....also easier to rush for the same reason. This allows you to generate a lot of incidents if you need them for Objectives.


You can do this everywhere for all production rooms, for Survival mode--it will save everybody during Incidents--but:

1) You have to click 3x more

2) Production will fall due to losing economy of scale bonus

3) Rooms will cost more to Upgrade

* Three rooms of 2 versus one room of 6:

1) This makes it very easy to click and heal the only two dwellers in each room.

2) Incidents are smaller for smaller rooms. The deathclaws don't stay long in a room of 2 before going to the next room of 2.

I suppose after the update we can now add to the list putting a Mr Handy on your top floor.

I'm having a hard time following what your saying.


What does level 3/2/3 mean? Do u mean upgrading the rooms to level 3 or having 3/2/3 dwellers assigned to a room?


Also... When u say "top" floor are u referring to the 2nd floor? The top floor has the front door room which only allows you to assign 2 dwellers.


Regardless, I'm happy to see someone else finding success in Survival Mode

Thanks for sharing your story, I really liked your strategies, there are no real sources that I have been able to find online that support later game strategies except for some forums like yours, and I especially liked the happiness bug, will have to try it out

I played till about 100 players in survival, but stopped and switched to normal as I found the survival mode really rewarded only checking in on the game once in a while and playing it for as short a time as possible to raise specials, recall wastelanders and collect gear. Beyond that, it would trigger events so fast that I would deal with one, then shut it off to prevent any more harm, which isn't really all that fun.

Other strategies that I use and recommend:

Empty rooms - I actually build out lower below the main part of my shelter and put all my living spaces, empty hospitals (for the stimpak storage) and empty storage rooms there so there is a wall of dirt separating them from the main working area. If any attacks or fires happen below, I just wait them out (and quickly recall anyone who might be breeding)

First rooms after the door - My strongest dwellers are my explorer class (I rename them all to classify them easily and for fun - IE Explorer Sam) so I put training rooms on the way in to the vault, and ensure there is at minimum two in each room at anytime. When explorers return, I send out one of the two before placing a returned dweller into the room (depending on who I'm levelling). Not ideal since these guys are stuck inside the vault, but they level up so fast that they quickly become the strongest dwellers.

Thanks again for sharing, happy to see others enjoying the game still

Oh, yes, it should go without saying that all your bottom rooms (i.e., storage, science, rad, living quarters) should be staggered. I assume anybody playing Survival knows that, but assumptions can be dangerous.

You can do that on top for production rooms, as well, but it makes it much harder to collect resources and address Incidents, because you can't see all your dwellers. It also means that you can't slide over responders when a room isn't full. Everyone will have to take the elevator to get to an incident.

You can Google Fallout Shelter staggered layout, but here's one:

https://camo.githubusercontent.com/65880de3dfe6ef7ffc0ba054fa9479c5686daf7c/687474703a2f2f692e696d6775722e636f6d2f775354674d63432e6a7067

Very interesting strqtegies to read ! Thank you for the input !!!

The hardest part of survival mode is surviving till you have your first radio station.... I got a survival mode vault to 60 dwellers the multiple disasterous events killed all but the pregnant women. At that point is was futile to continue. Normal mode is to easy... Hard mode is just to stupid to play. That anyone would get to 200 dwellers in survival mode boggles me.