I have spent loads of hours on Fallout 3 and absolutely loved the game. Especially the fantastic backstory, lore and atmosphere. I got the Box set with F1, F2 and FT and tried out F1 a few months ago. I only got as far as visiting some other dead vault to search for something I can't even remember. I never got any further because I couldn't get the elevator to work and wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. The New Vegas-trailer has rekindled my Fallout-interest. Not just in Fallout 3, but in the concept as a whole. And since I have played Fallout 3 to death, I want to give the first game in the series another go.

Do you guys have any tips for someone who has never played F1 before? Should I think like F3 when it comes to skills and stats, or is this different? What should I focus on when I create my character, and level up in the future? I prefer Small Guns over Big Guns, but apart from that I don't know what's really useful for this game compared to F3. Any tips or hints will be greatly appreciated.

Use a rope in the elevatorshaft you mentioned.

And you don't want to think like you do in Fallout 3 regarding skills, as they carry a much bigger role in 1 and 2. For example, smallguns determines your chance to hit the opponent and not the damage you do. The focus of leveling really depends on what type of character you want to play. High speech skill is always useful tools, because you never know who you're going to piss off - and the games do not scale to you so you'll be killed if you harras the wrong types. Explore the possibilities.

and never, ever be a smart***...

Seriously, a bunch of raiders in this game killed my Power-armored guy when I tried to be sarcastic (well, I used a laser pistol with very little skill in that so I missed every shot while they stabbed me with spears )

Heh, thanks. So basically I should go for Small Guns and Speech, and then divide the rest after what kind of character I want?

Well, that if you want to fight em' out... You can be a pacifist if you want. My latest char is a doctor with First aid, Doctor, and Speech so instead of fighting, I try to negotiate and if I can't, well I just run for the hill while my companions do the dirty work but it works though, and even without speech my char can always be a support in my group by patching them up during a heavy firefight...
that's why I love Fallout more than FO 3, lots of roleplaying while in FO 3 you can only roleplay a wrathful god of war <_<

Get Killap's unnoficial patch for FO2 as it fixes a LOT of bugs that were left in, even after interplay's patches... After your first run through consider his restoration patch which unlocks some "almost complete" content left in the code, and recreates some cut places, people and features we learned about later from the devs. Both can be found on No Mutants allowed.

Okay, you're in vault fifteen right there, get a rope from Shady sands Via barter, just try to find one, should cost you around one hundred caps.

Once you're in you'll find another rope in some lockers so you only need to take one. You'll also find a leather jacket and an SMG.

DO NOT USE THE SMG ON BURST MODE IF SOMEONE YOU DO NOT WANT TO SHOOT IS IN FRONT OF YOU.

that having been said, feel free to PM me with any questions regarding the original fallout games.

The great thing about Fallout 1, is that even if you have no combat skills but a high speech skill, you can basically spend the entire game without really getting into any major engagements. Alternatively, so long as you have Katja, Ian and Tycho you really don't need to fight at all, so long as they have a reasonable amount of ammunition.

Fallout 1 and 2 really will give you a lot of information and clear up a lot of stuff you didn't think about at all in Fallout 3. Such as Harold can be found in FO1, 2, and 3.

I feel the most important skills are unarmed (does big damage later in the game with power fist), speech (you can haggle and bring down prices), and lock pick (lots of doors will need to be opened), science (helps you hack computers giving easy XP and info), steal (you can literally steal from anyone without karma consequences), and energy weapons (let's be honest, they do insane damage. Small arms are the most fun though.

Here is a little tip to get your foot in the door. Steal is really important because you can steal and it won't affect your karma, and if you are going to fight that person later and you stole their gun from their inventory... yeah... they won't have that gun anymore. If you want to really role-play, you shouldn't do this, because if you are a good character that everyone loves, you probably wouldn't be stealing from poor people. Also if you steal 1 item you get 10 XP, 2 items without exiting you get 30 XP (so if they have like 3 coins, steal one, then steal one, then steal the last one and exit to get 60 XP), steal 3 you get 60 XP, 4 you get 100 XP, 5 you get 150 XP, 6 you get 210ish XP (it goes down the higher your steal skill is). You can get lots of ammo off of guards and money and stimpacks off of everyone, plus loads of XP. It might take a while, because you get caught and you have to reload your save, so just save before steal. If you get someone who never seems to notice you steal, you can plant stuff on them to get XP (same as stealing, plant 1 you get 10 XP, 2 you get 30 XP, and so on) then you can just steal it again for more XP. Remember to steal from shopkeepers before you sell to them, so that way you can sell them their own wares you don't need to get extra ammo or cash that isn't stealable from their inventory. Also, you should save every round in combat, because you can reload if you miss or if you get crappy damage (pretty much the only way to beat the last boss in FO1 or FO2 if you are under level 20). Also, this is VERY IMPORTANT keep a relatively old save as your first save slot, in case you do something wrong. I accidentally destroyed a whole town, even though I never got the quest and didn't notice till I talked to the person who was supposed to give me the quest; by then I had already saved over any save I had before I destroyed it (this happened yesterday). Gotta start all over!

Make sure you go to the No Mutants Allowed forum to get all of your fallout unofficial patches (fix a lot of problems like quests you can't do), mods (loot mod is a good one, you can steal armor off of people even if the game wasn't going to let you originally), and restoration (I can play FO1 and FO2 at 1280x800 resolution. The gaming experience is much better if you use the patches and resolution patches.

Enjoy!

Enjoy FO1 and 2, they aren't for everyone, but they are more fun than FO3 and I am a HUGE FO3 fan. I'm actually in the middle of play FO1, 2, and 3. I can't decide just one of them to play!

my love for fallout 3 drove me to play 1 and 2.
1 was a cakewalk, but 2 is pretty tough if you don't know what you're doing.

it's been awhile, but be nice to everyone. it's not like fallout 3. you can't just act like a bad ass and expect to survive because people will kill you if you look at them wrong, lol. your SPECIAL is actually important in the first two games. i made sure to max out the stat that gives you the most AP (can't remember which one off the top of my head) and i survived both games.

like fallout 3, focus on putting points into small guns at first. energy weapons later. i never used big guns.
science and repair are huge in fallout 1 and 2.

other than that, save often and have fun! if you're anything like me, you'll be hoping future fallout games will be more like fallout 1 and 2 rather than 3, simply because of the desperation and harsh atmosphere. after playing the first two games fallout 3 was just too... happy. lol.

(some of this may be way off, because like i said it's been awhile since i played the first two.)

It's agility

However I don't really like to max something out just for the sake of easier game and not for roleplaying (an acrobatic scientist with guns that can put Neo to shame is not really my taste )

lol yeah i can understand that.
with a wife and 2 kids i don't get to game much anymore though. i would have loved to experience everything in 1 and 2, but i just wanted to say i beat them. i do think i did mostly everything in 1, but nowhere near everything in 2. i missed out on a ton. actually, maxing agility did ruin my chance to recruit skynet. (is that the name?)

i made my way through the base, and skynet told me to get a brain. i found the brain place, and got the cybernetic brain. went back up and talked to skynet, and for some reason all my character would say was "duuurrrrrrr" and skynet freaked out lol. i NEVER had speech restrictions before that, and i had already beaten the game. just trying to do everything, lol.

You kind of have to know what you're going for when you build your character. You CAN beat the games with any build but you have to adjust your playing style considerably in order to do so. That includes (gasp) running away from fights you can't win.

And there WILL be fights you can't win, especially in some areas of the map in FO2.

Unlike FO3 there is a very good reason to run Speech up early on- there are some quests you cannot get without a relatively high Speech because you have to convince the giver you're worth his/her time.

While stealing can be handy in the low levels for a couple of quick level-ups, the XP curve is MUCH steeper and that method quickly becomes very tedious. In addition, each successive item stolen in a given attempt increases the difficulty as does the weight of the item and you cannot steal equipped gear unless you have a mod that lets you. If you are caught, everyone in the vicinity will turn hostile (unlike FO3, where only the intended victim does). Quest-related items are generally not steal-able, however there are a couple of exceptions.

In both games running up melee early is actually a good idea since you start with a melee weapon, and in FO1 you also start with a 10mm pistol. Energy Weapons and Big Guns are viable options, however you cannot really get any early on so you should wait to sink points into those.

Unlike FO3, vendors do not reset their stock every 3 days, instead it's every month. As a result, even though items are far more expensive on the whole you still end up with a ton of cash since after doing a rotation of all the merchants worth bothering with there's nothing left to buy for a while. One side effect of this is that it tends to be wise to carry a wide array of weapons so you can switch if you run out of ammo for a given one, and it can also be a good idea to use looted weapons as you go to save ammo for your main ones.

I really do not recommend this mod, as the game is completely not balanced for it

Thanks, guys. I won't roleplay too much on my first playthrough - I will be more focused on just getting into the game and surviving before I do anything like that. What holds me back from these games, to be honest, is the isometric view. It really makes me feel distant and detached from what's going on. Everything is so small and far away. But hopefully I will get used to it. I want to give Fallout another chance as I've heard it's a very good game, perhaps better than Fallout 3 (although that might be nostalgia talking too, just as in the TES-series where some people worship the ground Morrowind walks on while slaunder everything having to do with Oblivion ). Having that said, I do understand some of the criticism against Oblivion after having played quite a lot of Morrowind. So I figured the same might go for the Fallout-series.

So I guess I should go for Small Guns, Speech, Repair, Science and Lockpick, then. At first. What about Medicine? Is that useful? And how should I distribute the SPECIALs for a first-time build?

Yes, Small Guns and Speech are a good way to go ... as in F3.
Use good tactical placement as well when playing ... as in F3
The Hunting Rifle is a great weapon to have ... as in F3.

APs are so much more important than in F3

The Deathclaw as a companion in F2 I found to be a great asset, but needs to be well directed so as to not to go off half-cocked attacking and getting killed, messing up your calculated attack. (Sometimes it's a better play though, hm)
He carries masses of stuff, cutting down on journeys and is a deadly fighter.


Medicine was never high on my list. The other SPECIALs were leaning towards benefits of movement and Small Guns.

good fo1 character would have small guns for easy start, energy weapons for good late game weapons, and gambling for infinity money.
Well in fallout 1 there is no any must have skills, exept maybe small guns.. Game is rather easy and when you get power armor, then you will be practically invulnerable. Only masters muties can damage you..or flame thrower muties.
Fallout 2 character ALWAYS needs outdoors skill as tagged. Without it, you will get bored when travelled few towns, because there is so much encounters in that game...around 3-4 encounters per mapsquare. Any other skills are optional.

And encounters in fallout 2 are much, much harder than in fallout 1. Fallout 1 you rarely die in encounters(i havent died only but once, when mutie did armor bypassing critical damage by 180).

There are two medicine skills, Doctor and First aid. They're very helpful at keeping you alive (just use the skill on yourself or on another character, maximum 3 successful uses on yourself per day per skill) and Doctor can de-cripple you. Both earn XP for a successful use (25xp for first aid, and 50xp for Doctor) and Doctor generally heals more (about 2/3 of a stimpack) than First aid (I cant recall seeing more than 4HP). Neither can be used in Combat, so just selecting "Rest until Healed" in your pipboy may just be easier (this will not remove cripples though nor earn XP).

Neither skill effects how helpful stimpacks are.

I wouldn't tag either in FO1, however putting a few points in Doctor may be a good idea to remove cripples and gain a bit of extra XP. However, in FO2 its an entirely different board game. A qualified Doctor (90%+ IIRC) can recieve two special perks for
In addition to the above

As a result, I usually either tag doctor at the start, or with a perk. Science also can get you a special bonus in FO2, if you visit the , this usually ends up being my other contender for the Tag Perk.


This is actually a bug in the game. Instead of tagging outdoorsman, you can get mods that will fix this bug and let you set your own encounter rate (both of Killaps' collections include this by default IIRC)

Thanks, I will give it a go. Fallout first, not sure when (or even if) I will get to Fallout 2.

.... and have a good sneak ability.

For Fallout 2 I would recommend http://user.tninet.se/~jyg699a/fallout2.html. It's pretty exhaustive and gives an excellent run down of what's worth bothering with, what's not, and different ways to use abilities for an enjoyable experience.

F2 is not particularly hard (unless you set it to high difficulty). There's equipment and weaponry everywhere if you know where to look. I've ended up with obscene fortunes and stacks of equipment when playing it. Good times.
Oh and I would also recommend you don't become a slaver, it's not worth it in the long run.

Thanks for the advice!

I've run into a problem now. I'm doing the quest where I'm killing of the deathclaws in the warehouse outside Boneyard. I've killed off the deathclaws on the first level without a problem, but the Mother Deathclaw is ripping me to pieces. I am level nine with Power Armor, 100% in Small Guns and a Combat Shotgun. I got Ian with a 14mm Pistol, Tycho with a Shotgun and Dogmeat. I know about targetting deathclaws in the eyes, but the problem is that Mum only targets me and I have to spend all my rounds using stimpaks instead of attacking. It always ends up with me dead because I can't push stimpaks quicker than she attacks me. I even have two SuperStimpaks I used, but she still killed me.

Help?

I haven't played F1 in years but I don't remember having any trouble taking them down. If you have NPCs, perhaps you should try to run away from her and let them do the work?
Alternatively, save during combat, make targeted shots and make sure you get criticals before continuing?
I'm not sure on your NPC options, but you might want to send them into combat ahead of you?

Thanks. Yeah, maybe I can send them further away from me. But I was figuring it might be best if I took the damage since I got a Power Armor? Otherwise I gather all my NPCs will die on me. Besides, if I keep a distance I won't be able to target the eyes properly. The percentage of success drop significantly.