Well I lost a vault. Thought I might as well explain how and hopefully hear from others that lost theirs. Maybe with some input we can save the next one.

All was going well in Vault 63. 20 dwellers, a couple pregnant and a few kids. Daniel is out on a long journey into the wasteland taking with him the only feasible gun (a rail gun) and the only body armor. All resources are full, happiness at 93%. Life's good. Then the overseer decides that we need more kids (got an activity to make 15 couples dance. Since the reward was a lunchbox and I hadn't had one of those in forever, I decided I needed to go for it). So the overseer sends two couples into the living quarters to ... get to know each other.

Well apparently those four dwellers out of the workforce was enough to cause all the resources to fail. It wasn't long and all resources were in red. After only succeeding to get one couple to dance all four are moved back to the workforce. As soon as that's done the raiders came, all armed with guns. The only three guns left in the vault were pretty pathetic but using them they were able to put the raiders down, though it left most the dwellers injured and all Stimpaks were used to restore them.

Soon after the raiders however sections of the vault started to lose power, starting with the living quarters that made the dance party take a back burner. In a panic the Overseer ordered a rush job in the power plant, knowing there was only a 31% chance that something would go wrong. Something went wrong. A large number of rad roaches attacked and quickly killed all those in the power room and moved onward. Though the dwellers kept trading the few weapons they had they could not turn back the roaches as they moved from room to room. When it was all over there was two children and one pregnant woman left in a very dark vault. The vault funds were only 200 caps due to a power station upgrade, so none of the fallen could be revived.

With nothing left to do the lone advlt dweller began working on the power. The Overseer recalled Daniel though he knew that little could be done at this point. Eventually Daniel returned and a child was born and another grew up, but the three advlts just could not get the vault operational again. Resigned to defeat, and knowing that any raider attack at this point would kill them all, the remaining dwellers left, leaving behind the corpses of those that didn't make it.

What did you learn from this, and what would you have done differently? I really don't like leaving the vault room defenseless...but when you start out with no weapons or armor...what's the point? You can't get those unless you send your best character out to the wastelands....I am vowing never to drop below 1k caps...I have 3800 atm.

well its better to dive on dirt early on than lose 50 or 60 peeps without twitching a eye.

Next vault experiment:

- breed one couple at time

- arm your work force if possible

other than that i see no problems with your vault. Mainly bad luck and rather bold decisions early on.

I was fortunate enough to start out the game with a guy with high strength, then got Jericho in a lunch box and a few good guns. I got my people busy making babies. Sent Jericho out then logged off, logged on every three hours to give birth and then again to assign the new advlts. The less time I took doing this the less chance I had of getting attacked. Only rushed at less than 25% risk. Then the next day brought Jericho back with a huge inventory of armor and weapons. I distributed these and my pregnant women in the kitchen were able to fend off raiders easy, although I usually had specially equipped men with the best guns rush to the vault entrance to stop them there. Got a couple scientists in lucky lunchboxes and boosted my stimpack and radaway production. Maxed out two of each rooms. Now I have five levels down and max resources, about 90% happiness. And a weight room, athletics room, and armory. Every new dweller is assigned one for twelve hours before going into a production room that their training benefits. Now I have two guards with power armor and gatling lasers to shut down raiders. Jericho found a bunch of advanced lab coats, so I have four people with almost maxed intelligence. Life is good!

(EDIT: Maybe pregnant women kicking butt is a bit of an exaggeration but you get my point)

I got very few lunch boxes overall, two I think and none came with any dwellers.

I think that one problem was I expanded too fast? With only 18 dwellers I have a fully upgraded 3 room power plant and once upgraded 3 room water plant. Also an upgraded 3 room living quarters. Though I'm not sure I really needed all that space. I did run low on power and water a few times so I would add a room. Wondering now if it's better to add a room or just upgrade them. I think I'll try to play as minimal as possible next go round and only expand as I really need it. It's those dang activities that get me doing things though.

Yeah that's tough, I kept as few rooms as possible and got as close to overpopulation as I could for a while focusing on food and water. Then when you expand you wont have any trouble running low on people for Intelligence rooms and have a high stimpack and radaway production. Although like I said I got lucky with scientists and lab coats, I haven't fully tested that strat. My own radaway production was forced quickly cause I logged out on accident as a radroach infestation happend. I logged back in to a floor of dead people and everyone else had radiation poisoning. So I had to overdrive my radaway production and barely made it out of that catastrophe. Now I'm at 52 dwellers and invested ten bucks in some lunch boxes now that I'm in no danger of losing it all. It was worth it with the things I got. I got Confessor Cromwell and Amata!

What? You can get Amata? Dang that's cool.

Haha yeah I was so surprised that I screenshotted it and sent it to all my gamer friends. I am assuming all the non-player primary characters are available to find. I just wish they had custom dialogue. Jericho is far to happy a person to be the guy you meet in FO3....