Good tips. <3

not true actually, if you have a 10 in a stat, and collect a bobble head, you get 11 in the special stat, and it is the ONLY possible way to get that 11

Put stuff into perk points, especially try and get scavenger and scrapper ASAP, they helps tons with crafting and ammo shortages.

Also, if you like talking people out of stuff, make sure to get high charisma, at least after the first couple of level ups, having even 5 or 6 charisma is not enough usually i have noticed, not unless you like reload spamming.

related is that fact that to romance companions you need to make a persuasion check

Finally, you can quicksave DURING DIALOGUE. If you are not sure about a choice, quicksave during that choice.

Sorry for the Newb question but at the lowest characters levels (Level 2 just leaving Sanctuary Hills and Red Rocket) would it be better to invest the point from level up to raise your SPECIAL attributes to a respectable level across the board (e.g. 6 or 7), and then start putting points into the Perk skills you're interested in, or start building your character via the perks tree immediately? I apologize for my earlier post above...I wass really trying to ask the question..not make any type of statement as I am lost with this different style of levelling from FO3 and NV.

I would say focus on a particular theme for your character. I chose crafting, so I leveled up the SPECIAL stats I needed and poured Perks into Blacksmithing, Armorer, Gun Nut, etc. I also wanted survivability so I dumped points into Aqua, Rad Resistance, etc. In the first 15 levels, you advance really quickly so it is easy to flesh out that theme. I would suggest taking a look at the Perk chart and deciding if you want melee or ranged, sneaky or "in your face" and go from there. So far, my character has diverged from my initial concept only a little bit and I basically have no regrets about her build.

What I suggest it putting your first points into lockpicking, scrounger, scrapper, science asap. Then putting a point into gun nut and armourer. The first four for building up materials and opening locks and terminals.

This is both true and untrue, and I'm only saying this so new players won't be misguided and think they can put points wherever and still end up with the same experience. The untrue part is the fact that wasted points = wasted levels. So if you used up 5 perk points and end up regretting it later, that means you lost 5 levels, and in the early stage of the game especially at higher difficulties this could mean a tougher time. It won't ruin your character per say, but think of it as wasting 5 years of your life that you'll never get back, you can only grow older to compensate for it. Leveling isn't that hard but just keep this in mind when planning out your builds.

1. Even if you don't like the minute men, it is extremely worth it to stick around them for some time. (Trust me on this)
2. If you need income, it wouldn't hurt to invest into Traders for settlements.
3. Increase faction influences that you are aligned with. There are a lot of warzones in the Common Wealth.
4. When you hit level 15, keep your power armor handy. Death Claws be out on the hunt.
5. Don't worry about how you build trade routes. The game automatically picks the best path for you.
6. You can spot ghouls playing dead with VATS, as well as mines.
7. None humanoid creatures have weakpoints that are not their heads.
8. You can find T-60 armor sooner than you think.
9. It doesn't hurt to invest in both Energy and Ballistic weapons.
10.You can avoid taking damage from radiation storms by waiting, sleeping, or hiding inside of the nuclear protection pods around common wealth.

when hacking look for the word that has the most in common with other words, so you can easily narrow down. i.e. 'core' o in the 2nd place is common with 2 other words, e in the last spot is common with 3 other words, if you chose 'core' and there is no similarity, then that narrows it down immensely. And always choose at least 1-2 words before you start scraping for brackets. or you will lose out on the reset tries option.

Intelligence is still one of the most important skills, even if they did even it out alot more.

This is the best explanation of how to hack terminals I've seen. Thank you.

Great thread! Thanks for all the tips!

Trick that worked in FO3 and NV still works:

When you target a limb in VATS and abort you will be aiming directly at it. So if you're out of AP just target limb, abort, fire to cheat get yourself way out of a sticky situation.

You know if you are locked out it resets in 10 seconds right? It's not permanent like previous games anymore. Might as well go for that fourth guess.

I don't believe this is correct. If you select the word DIRTY and get zero likeness the word you are looking for could still have one of those letters in it, just in a different position.

This is from the "Help" section right in game.....

"The Likeness number tells you how many letters in your attempted password match exactly (both letter and position) to the actual password."

I thought the same as you originally. When I had zero likeness I assumed none of the letters were used. But then i had a hack that the only correct word had to have the same letter but in a different position.

Ah, thanks for telling me. Really though you should be locked out for much longer than that imo.

I wonder who Bethie was aiming this game for? Wow.

Great tips, thanks! These will come in handy when I start playing FO 4 this weekend!

Also, about hacking, I'm not sure if any one here remembers the gamehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastermind_%28board_game%29, but this is essentially what FO hacking boils down to, only that it's a combination of letters and not colors.

I didn't know this till like 2 years ago I saw somone playing Fallout 3 and they were hacking a computer doing this. It threw me for a loop that I had gone so long without knowing it.

There is no such distinction, there are handguns, rifles, non-automatic rifles and heavy guns. That's it.

So ... how is waiting 10 seconds for a lockout to expire any different than oh ... exiting the terminal and hopping back in to reset the tries or ... using the brackets?

Because even with those mechanics, there was a possibility of failing. Now there isn't.

Zero possibility of failing if you leave a terminal before your last try and start over in FO3, FONV, FO4.

Yep sure do remember that

Dont head to salem untill mid twentys or early thirtys your ammo will thank you.

Some great tips in this thread!
Thanks for this!

(also, didn't know about the bracket thing... wow, you really do learn something new every day)

On the X-Box One version:
-> You can store items instead of scrapping them by hitting 'B'.

-> You can turn items around using the RT and LT.

On Presumably All Versions:
-> If you are changing the color of your PipBoy, bring it up first, then go to the main menu to change the colors. You'll see the colors change on the actual PipBoy.