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[Barrage]

This thread is probably the best place to ask a complete scrub question like this:....If i've never played a Fallout, should I start with F3 or New Vegas? What is regarded as the better game?

 

[Lakitu]

This thread is probably the best place to ask a complete scrub question like this:....If i've never played a Fallout, should I start with F3 or New Vegas? What is regarded as the better game?

Personally, Fallout 3. It's a great place to start considering you can get it for very cheap with all the DLC packaged in. Sure, it's not as traditional as Fallout: NV. For one thing, it's set in the East Coast, unlike the others. Fallout: NV improves on the gameplay, it's a lot more challenging IMO and it's story feels far more focused. Saying that, I feel that Fallout 3's exploration is a lot more rewarding.

Also, Capital Wasteland > Mojave Wasteland

You can't go wrong with either one, many will say NV is the ultimate Fallout but personally, I'd say FO3 then get NV. Enjoy some of the best gaming experiences the gen has to offer.

 

[subversus]

I don't know but exploration felt 5x times more rewarding in FNV than in FO3. Also writing is much better.

I'd start with FNV.

 

[Ricker]

This thread is probably the best place to ask a complete scrub question like this:....If i've never played a Fallout, should I start with F3 or New Vegas? What is regarded as the better game?

Yeah go with Fallout 3 GOTY,it comes with all the DLC and if you like that one,then NV is a no brainer as well....you could play some Fallout,if you really explore and do as much as you can,for 3 months hehe...

And since my question got buried,and I really can`t go on I`m asking again,with the spoiler tag this time ;P

I`m completly stomped in Dead Money...as requested,even though I didn`t mention anything that spoilery:

Spoiler

once you are inside the Sierra Madre,all the doors I can access need a key that I don`t have...the quest says to find entrance to the Electrical closet and the marker is completly useless...I disabled the 3 emitters,no more annoying patrols,just the collar stuff...I went and looked everywhere,the door I need to access needs a key...where is it?

 

[Saint10118]

I`m completly stomped in Dead Money...as requested,even though I didn`t mention anything that spoilery

Spoiler

once you are inside the Sierra Madre,all the doors I can access need a key that I don`t have...the quest says to find entrance to the Electrical closet and the marker is completly useless...I disabled the 3 emitters,no more annoying patrols,just the collar stuff...I went and looked everywhere,the door I need to access needs a key...where is it?

Spoiler

Opening the electrical closet doesn't use a physical key. To open the closet one of the computers in the security office (the assistant's I think) has the option to open the closet.

 

[gdt]

Okay beat Dead Money (loved it), but have ONE question.

Spoiler

There were alot of references at the end to a meeting/battle I have with another Courier in the upcoming battle, who were they referring to? I vaguely remember mention of another Courier in the beginning of the game. Did I miss that questline, or will that come up again?

 

[Lakitu]

Okay beat Dead Money (loved it), but have ONE question.

Spoiler

There were alot of references at the end to a meeting/battle I have with another Courier in the upcoming battle, who were they referring to? I vaguely remember mention of another Courier in the beginning of the game. Did I miss that questline, or will that come up again?

Spoiler

It's Ulysses. He will probably be in the ultimate DLC episode. Read all about it here:

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Ulysses

 

[ChoklitReign]

What's the best weapon to use against nightkin? I'm level 7 and the single shotgun doesn't work too well. I'm doing the Come Fly With Me Quest. Maybe I should use stealth.

 

[Blue Ninja]

This thread is probably the best place to ask a complete scrub question like this:....If i've never played a Fallout, should I start with F3 or New Vegas? What is regarded as the better game?

As others have said, the Fallout 3 GOTY. If you enjoy it, there's a lot of play-time in it, and by the time you're done, New Vegas will have probably dropped in price as well, so then you can buy that.

 

[astroturfing]

What's the best weapon to use against nightkin? I'm level 7 and the single shotgun doesn't work too well. I'm doing the Come Fly With Me Quest. Maybe I should use stealth.

yeah i'm level 9 and still having trouble with them. last time i played they just slaughtered me and i'm afraid to go back i used up all my AP like twice and couldnt even cripple one leg, ffs.

so any good tips for us two?

 

[eznark]

Come Fly With Me is one of my favorite all time quests. :lol Just finished it. I didn't kill any Nightkin...just sayin'

 

[Ledsen]

This thread is probably the best place to ask a complete scrub question like this:....If i've never played a Fallout, should I start with F3 or New Vegas? What is regarded as the better game?

I'd never recommend anyone to buy FO:NV in the horrible, buggy state it's in. Wait a year and get FO3 GOTY in the meantime.

 

[eznark]

I'd never recommend anyone to buy FO:NV in the horrible, buggy state it's in. Wait a year and get FO3 GOTY in the meantime.

It's not that bad on PC right now.

 

[Lakitu]

Not had any problems either (360) since the patch, other than E-DE hasn't returned. But I lost E-DE way before the patch was released.

 

[subversus]

Come Fly With Me is one of my favorite all time quests. :lol Just finished it. I didn't kill any Nightkin...just sayin'

WHAT?

 

[Wallach]

WHAT?

Nope, you don't have to.

 

[subversus]

What's the best weapon to use against nightkin? I'm level 7 and the single shotgun doesn't work too well. I'm doing the Come Fly With Me Quest. Maybe I should use stealth.

I used Veronica and Laser RCW.

 

[Itchy//Tasty]

Cripple their legs with dynamite. Makes 'em chase you much slower. Also, Magnum worked wonders for me. I just did this bit, and I'm only on level 4!

 

[Jerk]

What's the best weapon to use against nightkin? I'm level 7 and the single shotgun doesn't work too well. I'm doing the Come Fly With Me Quest. Maybe I should use stealth.

As mentioned before, Crippling their legs does wonders.

I personally used the 10MM SMG and Boone+ED-E to make quick work of them. I probably should have used a better gun though.

If you are really having a hard time, I suggest you use a stealth boy and get to their leader.

 

[Stallion Free]

Come Fly With Me is one of my favorite all time quests. :lol Just finished it. I didn't kill any Nightkin...just sayin'

Did you use stealth boys? Because that's how I did it. It wasn't too bad with a couple of those in stock.

 

[eznark]

Did you use stealth boys? Because that's how I did it. It wasn't too bad with a couple of those in stock.

Nope. Walked in, talked to the ghoul, talked to antlers, went on my way.

 

[Hyunkel6]

What is the best place to get lots of explosives (excluding mines). I'm talking grenades, missiles, 40mm grenades, dynamites, etc. Thanks in advance.

 

[Lard]

Yeah go with Fallout 3 GOTY,it comes with all the DLC and if you like that one,then NV is a no brainer as well.

For the love of god, don't get the PS3 GOTY version of Fallout 3. It's irreversibly broken.

And Bethesda are too cheap and crooked to fix it.

 

[eznark]

How do they fix that which is "irreversibly broken"

 

[Lard]

Fine then.

It's absolutely, fundamentally, completely and utterly broken and Bethesda is too cheap and crooked to fix it.

Better, Mr. Persnickety-Pants?

 

[Dr. Kitty Muffins]

Should I still be having trouble taking down multiple deathclaws at level 19?

 

[Jerk]

Should I still be having trouble taking down multiple deathclaws at level 19?

Depends on difficulty and play style.

Generally? Yes.

 

[Dr. Kitty Muffins]

Depends on difficulty and play style.

Generally? Yes.

Regular difficulty and I'm geared towards pistols and energy weapons.

 

[Hyunkel6]

Regular difficulty and I'm geared towards pistols and energy weapons.

Gauss rifle + meltdown perk.

 

[MoxManiac]

Just received this as an xmas present (ps3 version) is it true the DLC is 360 exclusive?

 

[Wallach]

Just received this as an xmas present (ps3 version) is it true the DLC is 360 exclusive?

For now, yeah.

 

[kamspy]

If you're new to the series I'd go straight to New Vegas. FO3 didn't even understand the lore. Not to mention the piss boring story and long term cave roving and DC ruin (fancy textured corridor) running.

Sure Fallout 3 was a good game when I played it, but New Vegas makes it completely obsolete.

 

[gdt]

New to Fallout go FO3 then New Vegas. NV is probably the better game, but F3 is still really, really, really good and it was first.

And NV is buggy as hell right now, while F3 is (more or less) stable and definitely cheap.

 

[gdt]

Spoiler

It's Ulysses. He will probably be in the ultimate DLC episode. Read all about it here:

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Ulysses

Thanks! This sounds pretty damn cool!

 

[legend166]

So I got this in the Steam sale yesterday.

Any tips before I start? I played Fallout 3, but not extensively. One of the problems I had was I didn't really know what to put points into. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

 

[MrBelmontvedere]

I'm stuck on a quest that says

Spoiler

'find entertainers for the tops (1 remaining)'

the 1 remaining is

Spoiler

the cowboy dude by the big billboard. whatever I do I can't get him to trust me.

help?

 

[Wallach]

So I got this in the Steam sale yesterday.

Any tips before I start? I played Fallout 3, but not extensively. One of the problems I had was I didn't really know what to put points into. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Well, I could probably write an entire page of tips in this thread and not really cover everything.

The best advice I can give you is to just follow your intuition as to how you think you'd like to build your character, and if you have any specific questions when it comes to tweaking your character to be good at that, post those. This type of game is actually very good at letting you walk your own path in terms of how you accomplish what you want to do, so it's not a great idea to start on the "other end" of game knowledge so to speak because you'll spend a lot of time second guessing your choices.

So, basically - what kind of character do you want to make?

 

[legend166]

Well, I could probably write an entire page of tips in this thread and not really cover everything.

The best advice I can give you is to just follow your intuition as to how you think you'd like to build your character, and if you have any specific questions when it comes to tweaking your character to be good at that, post those. This type of game is actually very good at letting you walk your own path in terms of how you accomplish what you want to do, so it's not a great idea to start on the "other end" of game knowledge so to speak because you'll spend a lot of time second guessing your choices.

So, basically - what kind of character do you want to make?

A thief with a heart of gold.


Seriously though, I figure it's time I try and play one of these games with a smooth talking, stealthy type character. I tried a little bit of that in Fallout 3, but found that I wasn't able to smooth talk my way out of a mutant rat scratching my face off.

 

[Wallach]

A thief with a heart of gold.


Seriously though, I figure it's time I try and play one of these games with a smooth talking, stealthy type character. I tried a little bit of that in Fallout 3, but found that I wasn't able to smooth talk my way out of a mutant rat scratching my face off.

Okay, that's a start. So right away we can see a few things that could benefit this character:

Speech
Stealth
Lockpicking

Now, what about defending yourself? Do you want to use melee or unarmed and rely on stealth to close distance with enemies? Slap a silencer on your pistol and methodically eliminate everything? What about situations where you won't be able to talk your way out of combat and stealth simply isn't enough - do you want to bring combat capable companions when you need to do some heavy lifting, or do you want to still be able to pick up something with serious firepower and handle it yourself?

 

[legend166]

Okay, that's a start. So right away we can see a few things that could benefit this character:

Speech
Stealth
Lockpicking

Now, what about defending yourself? Do you want to use melee or unarmed and rely on stealth to close distance with enemies? Slap a silencer on your pistol and methodically eliminate everything? What about situations where you won't be able to talk your way out of combat and stealth simply isn't enough - do you want to bring combat capable companions when you need to do some heavy lifting, or do you want to still be able to pick up something with serious firepower and handle it yourself?

A pistol with a silencer sounds appealing.

 

[Wallach]

A pistol with a silencer sounds appealing.

Alright. So we can get a rough sense of the type of character you want to pursue. Let's look at where SPECIAL comes in:

Strength (4-6) - We shouldn't need a lot of STR to pull off what we're looking to do. Pistols are not generally high STR weapons, though STR up to 6 can come into play with the real hand-cannon variety. Average carry weight, but should be sufficient since hauling around lots of big (and typically loud) weapons and bulk ammunition shouldn't be necessary.

Perception (6-7) - PER is a good stat on the weapon side of things, and some nice combat perks that would suit our style require at least 6 "base" PER (before items/gear/drugs). Plus this determines how close enemies need to be to show up on the compass, which can be important when sneaking around, and will give a boost to our starting Lockpick score.

Endurance (2-4) - Not of great importance if things are going as planned. Between talking your way out of some combat and killing from the shadows in others, this isn't the biggest concern.

Charisma (1-5) - This one isn't as important as it sounds for Speech characters, since on that front it will really only affect our starting Speech level. It does increase the power of companions, so increasing it is not a waste if you are planning on having an entourage with you at all times. Definitely a stat we can draw points out of for other things, though.

Intelligence (4-6) - A good stat since we're going to be wanting to invest in a number of different skills, and potentially a couple perks that will grant bonus skill points to make that easier (which require a minimum of 4 base INT). This controls how many skill points we get per level, but not to the extent it did in Fallout 3, so don't feel compelled to drive this one really high for that alone.

Agility (6-9) - For this build, we can definitely consider a high AGI. Not only will this boost both Guns and Sneak (two skills we know we will want), it grants faster reloading, weapon switching, increases AP pool and AP regeneration. How high you ultimately take this I think should be based on how much you plan to rely on VATS in combat, but 6 is required for some very nice perks you're going to want down the road.

Luck (6-9) - If you have trouble finding a home for any spare SPECIAL points, this is always a decent place to put them. This will increase our crit rate by 1% per point, on top of granting +0.5 to all 13 skills per point. Plus, nobody wants to wind up in New Vegas on a streak of bad luck, right? 6 again is a requirement for at least one very important perk for our purposes - Better Criticals - since any attacks made from sneak are guaranteed critical hits.


Skills to consider for tagging:

Speech
Guns
Lockpick
Sneak
Repair

My suggestion would probably be to take the marked skills, while letting the high AGI boost our Sneak skill and simply continue to boost it as you level. Speech and Lockpick in particular simply require certain skill levels to make use of them, so the earlier we can get our character to those thresholds, the better chance we'll have the necessary skill level to do something right when we stumble across it. Guns is simply a solid choice to keep yourself alive when the other guys are trying to make you dead, and makes it easier to make them dead when they're trying to stay alive. Double bonus! I added Repair to this list because, aside from gear maintenance being easier and being able to solve some situations using your handyman abilities, it is the skill that controls your ability to create custom ammunition for Guns skill weaponry at an ammo press.

Traits are also a new (well, old but new again) concept - you'll be asked if you want to take up to two traits out of a small pool of choices when you make your character. These are more personal preference, and unlike perks always come with a positive and negative effect that you'll have to take into consideration. You can take none of them if you so choose, but can make your game more interesting. As a warning, if you take the Four Eyes trait - which says it grants +1 PER when wearing any type of glasses - it will actually give you -1 PER until you equip a set of glasses, which will give you +2 PER. Therefore if you take a starting PER of 5, then take Four Eyes, your "base" PER is actually 4, which is a factor when considering requirements for some perks. You'll likely want a base PER of 6, as mentioned previously, so keep that in mind.

 

[Count of Monte Sawed-Off]

Traits are also a new (well, old but new again) concept - you'll be asked if you want to take up to two traits out of a small pool of choices when you make your character. These are more personal preference, and unlike perks always come with a positive and negative effect that you'll have to take into consideration. You can take none of them if you so choose, but can make your game more interesting. As a warning, if you take the Four Eyes trait - which says it grants +1 PER when wearing any type of glasses - it will actually give you -1 PER until you equip a set of glasses, which will give you +2 PER. Therefore if you take a starting PER of 5, then take Four Eyes, your "base" PER is actually 4, which is a factor when considering requirements for some perks. You'll likely want a base PER of 6, as mentioned previously, so keep that in mind.

Yeah, this kind of fucked me over on my first run through.

 

[CrunchyFrog]

Weird question, just got this today, started a game, but downloaded the mercenary pack after I'd already started a new file (forgot about it in my over zealous post-christmas rampage). I haven't gone that far, but do I HAVE to start another new file to get the DLC? or is there someone I can just talk to?

 

[GaimeGuy]

I'm curious, does this problem have more to do with Sony's propriety HDD formatting?

I got Vegas for the 360 and am on my second playthrough, I have done almost everything possible before heading to the Fort, including Dead Money. Vegas will start to stutter and loading times begin to increase after around 4 hours playtime. When that happens, I just return to the dashboard, clear the cache, start playing again and everything is back to normal.

I can't say I play the PS3 that often but I've heard the longer it's used the more crapped out the HDD becomes, regardless of game. Can someone elaborate or correct me and is this the main problem rather than those of the fuckwits at Obsidion?

the PS3 hard drives are FAT 32 encoded IIRC (to help prevent piracy because FAT 32 doesn't support files larger than 2 GB).

If your save is larger than 2 GB, it's really split up into separate files under one save package. There's proobably a flaw in the algorithm obsidion uses to read / write to the split up save files. Or maybe the game assumes the save is contiguously allocated, but it isn't, and there's a race condition dependent on the seek time to find the save chunk it needs :lol

I wouldn't be suprised if the issue had to do with fragmentation.

 

[cjtiger300]

Weird question, just got this today, started a game, but downloaded the mercenary pack after I'd already started a new file (forgot about it in my over zealous post-christmas rampage). I haven't gone that far, but do I HAVE to start another new file to get the DLC? or is there someone I can just talk to?

Your good, it will just onto your inventory. I did the same thing at launch, lol!

 

[Massa]

the PS3 hard drives are FAT 32 encoded IIRC (to help prevent piracy because FAT 32 doesn't support files larger than 2 GB).

If your save is larger than 2 GB, it's really split up into separate files under one save package. There's proobably a flaw in the algorithm obsidion uses to read / write to the split up save files. Or maybe the game assumes the save is contiguously allocated, but it isn't, and there's a race condition dependent on the seek time to find the save chunk it needs :lol

I wouldn't be suprised if the issue had to do with fragmentation.

The PS3 uses a proprietary filesystem for its OS. I remember reading suggestions that it's based on JFS but I don't know if that's true.

It supports FAT32 for external devices.

 

[legend166]

Alright. So we can get a rough sense of the type of character you want to pursue. Let's look at where SPECIAL comes in:

Strength (4-6) - We shouldn't need a lot of STR to pull off what we're looking to do. Pistols are not generally high STR weapons, though STR up to 6 can come into play with the real hand-cannon variety. Average carry weight, but should be sufficient since hauling around lots of big (and typically loud) weapons and bulk ammunition shouldn't be necessary.

Perception (6-7) - PER is a good stat on the weapon side of things, and some nice combat perks that would suit our style require at least 6 "base" PER (before items/gear/drugs). Plus this determines how close enemies need to be to show up on the compass, which can be important when sneaking around, and will give a boost to our starting Lockpick score.

Endurance (2-4) - Not of great importance if things are going as planned. Between talking your way out of some combat and killing from the shadows in others, this isn't the biggest concern.

Charisma (1-5) - This one isn't as important as it sounds for Speech characters, since on that front it will really only affect our starting Speech level. It does increase the power of companions, so increasing it is not a waste if you are planning on having an entourage with you at all times. Definitely a stat we can draw points out of for other things, though.

Intelligence (4-6) - A good stat since we're going to be wanting to invest in a number of different skills, and potentially a couple perks that will grant bonus skill points to make that easier (which require a minimum of 4 base INT). This controls how many skill points we get per level, but not to the extent it did in Fallout 3, so don't feel compelled to drive this one really high for that alone.

Agility (6-9) - For this build, we can definitely consider a high AGI. Not only will this boost both Guns and Sneak (two skills we know we will want), it grants faster reloading, weapon switching, increases AP pool and AP regeneration. How high you ultimately take this I think should be based on how much you plan to rely on VATS in combat, but 6 is required for some very nice perks you're going to want down the road.

Luck (6-9) - If you have trouble finding a home for any spare SPECIAL points, this is always a decent place to put them. This will increase our crit rate by 1% per point, on top of granting +0.5 to all 13 skills per point. Plus, nobody wants to wind up in New Vegas on a streak of bad luck, right? 6 again is a requirement for at least one very important perk for our purposes - Better Criticals - since any attacks made from sneak are guaranteed critical hits.


Skills to consider for tagging:

Speech
Guns
Lockpick
Sneak
Repair

My suggestion would probably be to take the marked skills, while letting the high AGI boost our Sneak skill and simply continue to boost it as you level. Speech and Lockpick in particular simply require certain skill levels to make use of them, so the earlier we can get our character to those thresholds, the better chance we'll have the necessary skill level to do something right when we stumble across it. Guns is simply a solid choice to keep yourself alive when the other guys are trying to make you dead, and makes it easier to make them dead when they're trying to stay alive. Double bonus! I added Repair to this list because, aside from gear maintenance being easier and being able to solve some situations using your handyman abilities, it is the skill that controls your ability to create custom ammunition for Guns skill weaponry at an ammo press.

Traits are also a new (well, old but new again) concept - you'll be asked if you want to take up to two traits out of a small pool of choices when you make your character. These are more personal preference, and unlike perks always come with a positive and negative effect that you'll have to take into consideration. You can take none of them if you so choose, but can make your game more interesting. As a warning, if you take the Four Eyes trait - which says it grants +1 PER when wearing any type of glasses - it will actually give you -1 PER until you equip a set of glasses, which will give you +2 PER. Therefore if you take a starting PER of 5, then take Four Eyes, your "base" PER is actually 4, which is a factor when considering requirements for some perks. You'll likely want a base PER of 6, as mentioned previously, so keep that in mind.

Thanks so much for this, it's really helpful.

Is there a point in the game like the end of the Vault in FO3 where you can redistribute all your skills and stuff? That was good to save at that point and be able to come back and change things if you wanted to go again.

 

[Stoney Mason]

Finished it.

Probably the sloppiest, worst scripted moments, buggiest game, and poorly told story, I've ever played in a "big budget" video game.

 

[jim-jam bongs]

Thanks so much for this, it's really helpful.

Is there a point in the game like the end of the Vault in FO3 where you can redistribute all your skills and stuff? That was good to save at that point and be able to come back and change things if you wanted to go again.

There is, it kicks in about a kilometre from Goodsprings in any direction.

 

[Version 3.0]

It's not that bad on PC right now.

I wouldn't say that. Steam kindly updated the game for me this morning, and now I can't select the left side of the inventory management screen - doing so immediately exits the screen. And the game crashed my PC once on startup (out of 3 starts). And I occasionally get huge black polygonal voids in the geometry or floating in my view, but only indoors. And I happened across a key character hanging from the ceiling because his head was stuck in it, and had to jump up to his feet to talk to him.

Not what I would call "not that bad". Ironically, before today's patch I hadn't had any real troubles.