I'm facing enemies way above my level here.

I started a new game. I'm only level 2. I arrived at the Super Duper mart. Upon arrival, I discover a giant radscorpion just chilling in front of the store. I figured "Huh, must be rare or something". After running from the radscorpion and making my way towards the metro station, I encounter an....enclave soldier? WTF? No, something's not right here. Any idea what's going on, and how to fix it? Or is this normal and I'm just having terrible luck?

It's normal-level weirdness I think, nothing to be overly concerned by. There's a couple of Enclave soldiers who appear long before they're supposed to show up (one of them's relatively near Super-Duper Mart iirc), and it's not unheard of to run into a Giant Radscorpion as part of a random encounter I think. Might even luck out and find a friendly one. You can run into a deathclaw that way too, long before you'll want to meet one.

If you've got Broken Steel installed it gets worse, there's at least one Overlord that shows up on the outskirts of DC regardless of the player's level. Not something you want to be running into at level 2.

What you found outside of Super Duper Mart was a random encounter. The enclave soldier is a bug that is associated with Broken Steel. A few of them show up before here and there around the wasteland before they are supposed to in locations where they are supposed to be eventually down the road in the MQ.

The Overlord doesn't always appear and generally when you are at a higher level than 2.

Also, what you need to know is that enemies are not strictly leveled to you. Some of the baddies won't appear until you reach certain levels but some areas have creatures that are way above you in terms of your abilities at Level 2. So, yeah, you need to know that sometimes, the best course of action will be to run away. It doesn't mean you shouldn't explore the map, though. Just be prepared.

Yeah, all random encounters, and all possible at any time. It's all part of the fun.

It's only when you start encountering Reavers at your birthday party should you begin to get worried. :mellow:

lol!

That is not too unusual. I have found a Giant Rad Scorpion at the Super Duper Mart at the same level. Thankfully it only happened with one character, and I had already found a flamethrower. Usually less powerful things spawn there. The Enclave Soldiers are the same. You will find them in specific places throughout the Wasteland as soon as you start. Just east of Dukov's, by a ruined house near the river midway between the Super Duper Mart and Megaton , etc...

Not unusual, as people have said.

Let the scorpion munch on Raiders...

I had Super Mutant Enforcer squad appear outside Dukov's after coming out from the WSG chapter 2 quest. They'd just obliterated an Enclave soldier. I beat them even though I was only about level 7 or 8, and only because I had Demolition Expert pumped up. Their Plasma Grenades almost melted my entire four-girl shoujo squadron! However, about 4 Frag Grenades (pumped up, as I said) finished them while we burned.

... not that I ever want to do that again, mind you... not at that level, anyway...

I usually find an Enclave guy overf by Dukov's Place

Yup, that's where I found this one.

I knew there were random encounters, it's just that I happened to run right into this guy right after running from a giant radscorpion. I figured that because I had encountered 2 higher tier enemies in a row, something was wrong. But now I know it's normal.


Thanks for the replies!

I think I know which Overlord is meant when people say that he's always there, no matter of your own level. A bit south of the Citadel, right? Well, I've often seen him spawn as a Brute and as a Master, not as an Overlord. He would turn into an Overlord after a while though, when I walked past this area again.

But I did run into a very unusual Overlord encounter on my latest playthrough - visiting the Museum of Technology at level 16, I ran into normal Supermutants and into Brutes, which did surprise me a bit - I had expected a mix of Brutes and Masters. However, near the satellite dish, there was the one exception: An Overlord. I found it very weird that the whole setup had looked as it would look like if I had entered the place as a level 2 or 3, with this one extreme exception.


OP: The giant radscorpion infront of the Super Duper Market was a random encounter - be glad that it wasn't the random Deathclaw encounter.

The Enclave soldier near the ruined house with the Chinese Ops Manual on the shelf and the skeleton in the bathing appears quite often for me as well. At one point, he spawned, plus some Talon Company, plus a bunch of abnormally well-armed raiders. I had been level 2 or 3 at that time, and I had a very bad time trying not to get killed.

Stuff like that happens in Fallout 3. Nothing to be worried about, really.

It varies what you meet. There were two Raiders fighting two Ghouls one time I approached the Mart, I ran down and helped the Ghouls and ended up with two Ghoul friends, the gave me a bit of useful information, and hung around.

Or it's the kid from Greyditch wanting help. Or a Raider sniping me. Even a reload,things are not quite the same.