Fallout 4 Pro Tips: If Only the Wasteland Was Really This Simple There is no doubt in anyone’s mind traveling the expanse of the Commonwealth wasteland is an arduous task to be sure. Hopefully, I’ll be able to shed some light on a few tips and tricks to make your journey just a bit less dangerous and confusing.
1. SAVE OFTEN! This is a no brainer. The Commonwealth is a very dangerous place, and there are enemies everywhere. By everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE! Unless you have a strong perception score, you are not going to generally see them on your HUD as red blimps until they have already noticed you. Quick saving your game only takes a second or two and is accessible from almost anywhere in the game even during cut scenes.
2. Collect everything. Everything? Yes, everything. Almost every single object in the game can be scrapped into its basic materials for use in building settlement structures, defenses, weapon and armor mods, or anything needed to keep a settlement running in tip-top shape. Some items on the ground in newly acquired settlement areas will scrap automatically when you pick them up, but there are some objects (normally anything that will fit inside a desk or other container) that will go to your inventory. You can see what you have collected by clicking your “JUNK” tab located in your Pip Boy. As you explore the wasteland and collect more and more, it will start to get heavy. Make sure to occasionally head back to your main settlement and store all your junk in any work bench there. You will automatically scrap items containing the materials you need while building objects and don’t need to scrap them individually. If you want a little bonus, create a scavenging station and assign a settler to work it. You can also put points into the Scrapper perk located under the Intelligence line of the perk chart.
3. Use the right weapon (and mods) for the right situation. There is nothing more awkward or dangerous than getting surprised by some Gunners at close range and all you have is a pipe rifle with a sniper scope. Greatly vary your weapon types, mods and calibers. It may weigh a bit more, but your survival is more important than collecting another toaster or adjustable wrench. A good idea is to have some sort of long range rifle with a scope on it for those distance shots, but eventually the enemy is going to figure out where it is coming from and then you are going to have to get up close and dirty. Use a 10mm pistol or shotgun for this, preferably utilizing the VATS system. On the plus side, ammo is lightweight, so you can carry plenty of every ammo type you can find.
4. Settlement Basics. Building a settlement is a labor of love. Because of the clunky system Bethesda created, it isn’t the easiest task to do. I would start with prefab buildings and go from there. This will allow you to at least place some beds down to get your population growing. Send any unused followers to the same settlement for easy access. Many people have “lost” Dogmeat when sending him to Sanctuary, but if you look around behind all the houses he is probably hanging out in a doghouse somewhere. You can enter construction mode and move the doghouse anywhere you like, and he will generally stay in that area while you are gone. Eventually you are going to wind up with multiple settlements across the Commonwealth. Unfortunately, you don’t share stored resources by default. The only way to do this is by putting six points into your Charisma stat and maxing out the Local Leader perk. This will allow you to take an unassigned (not a named one BTW) settler in your main settlement and assign them to a trade route with whatever other settlement you want. You may then share workbench resources between them for building. As of yet, I haven’t been able to confirm you can use them while modding weapons and armor. Building shops (obtainable at Local Leader perk level 2) will bring in a steady, albeit small, stream of caps into your settlement. They can be collected via the workbench. You can also get purified water this way if you have a water purification machine in the settlement.
5. Power Armor. Power armor is definitely your best friend in combat because it is durable and strong. However, the power cores needed to use it are scarce in the early stages of the game. I recommend using a normal type of armor to start. If you get into a situation where you just can’t get by without it, then reload the game (save often, remember?), go back, and grab it before heading into combat. Power cores are used up slowly by actions such as sprinting and using the VATS system. There are several types of power armor to be found, looted or awarded throughout the game each with its own benefits. Learning the Science and Armorer perks will open up more available mods for you when working on your armor including everything from stronger variations to automatic stim injectors and jetpacks.
6. Stats and Perks. You will be able to put some points into stats and perks in the beginning of the game. Fallout 4 deviates from previous titles by reducing the number of available perks but offering new bonuses for investing extra points (obtained when leveling up each level) into specific perks. It also allows you to put points into the base stats which is needed to access perks further down the chart. By putting more points into intelligence at the beginning of the game, you gain a significant bonus to awarded XP thus leveling up faster. A higher charisma will allow you to more often convince NPCs to see things your way and will change vendor prices in your favor. Of course, a higher strength will allow you to carry more junk for scrapping.
7. A Man and His Dog(meat). As with every Fallout title, you will have the option to bring acquired followers along with you. However, unlike previous games, your followers cannot be killed. They can be incapacitated during combat and will require you to stim them to get them up and going again into the battle. If you want, you can finish the battle yourself and wait a few minutes until they get back up on their own. There is also a perk under the charisma line called Lone Wanderer giving you a bonus of 15% less damage and 50lbs extra carry weight per point invested, up to 45% and 150lbs respectively. The catch is you cannot have any companions to gain this perk. Now, the caveat is that Dogmeat does not count, and you can keep him with you while still gaining the bonuses. As you travel around, your followers will either approve or disapprove of your choices. If you get their admiration level high enough, you will get a companion quest rewarding you a very specific bonus while they travel with you.
8. Show off Your Skills. Did you know you could build magazine racks and bobblehead stands to show off what you have collected? You can create them under the furniture tab while using the settlement workbench. Magazines are a one shot use that you can remove from your inventory or sell, so make sure you hang onto them and place them into one of the 2 different style magazine racks you can create. Bobbleheads can be put onto the creatable stand, and you will not lose the bonuses associated with them. They aren’t sellable, so I wouldn’t worry about doing it by accident.
9. Welcome to the MOD Squad. Put points into the Science, Armorer and Gun Nut perks as you go along. This will allow you to craft and install stronger mods as your game progresses. These mods REALLY come into play the most when you combine them with legendary weapons that have stats such as the Irradiated (+50 radiation damage) or Never Ending (unlimited magazine size) making them the weapons you really need later on in the game. Currently, the only known way to get these weapons is to kill legendary creatures on the game’s Survival difficulty.
10. Safe Often (again). I can’t stress this enough! It doesn’t matter if you are in the middle of Boston Commons or delving deep into some long forgotten vault. You can also set up your PIP Boy to autosave every 5 minutes on the next time you open the PIP screen. I would also recommend doing this as you may very well forget to SAVE OFTEN.