Fallout 3

[SimonM]

Fallout 3 has a wonderfully involved combat system for firearms, melee weapons, explosives and bare-handed fighting. Furthermore, depending on how one choses to play, you can develop fighting styles that are competitive with any of the above.

Options for high level characters using the SPECIAL / GOATS system and associated perks includes gunslingers, demolitions experts, snipers and sneaky ninjas.

I haven't seen a game this engrossing since the release of GTA4

A must-have.

Oh, and the soundtrack is hillarious.

[Lucas]

i checked out the demo and it looks really cool.

someone told me the same people that made oblivion made that game, and all the reviews ive read on that one are pretty amazing.

my buddy bought fallout3 and he said its pretty fun.

[SimonM]

It's correct and it shows. Game looks like Oblivion with lazer guns.

[Lucas]

i was messing around on my xbox last night and downloaded this new game that came out oct. 28th.

that tomb raider game.

just the playable demo but it was really fun. like exploring ancient ruins and stuff. kinda freaky

[jason.]

fallout 3 is an awesome, awesome game!

[jason.]

now when is street fighter 4 coming out over here?

[SimonM]

Tomb Raider is not on my to-get list.

Right now the to-get list is:

Fallout 3 (I have a rental copy ATM)
Prince of Persia (new game is out in december)
Quantum of Solace
Fable 2

In roughly that order.

[Lucas]

i did get fable 2. thats a pretty fun game. kinda short for me though.

ill have to check out prince of persia, that was one of my favorite back in the day.

i just got my xbox a few months ago and there are a lot of games out there that ive never even heard of.

i need a new tv now though. it seems all these games are designed for a widescreen HDTV. im still using an old tv that i dug out of the closet when i got the game console.

i might actually buy that tomb raider. the scenery and stuff looks so real and cool. plus mind puzzle type games are always kind of fun, all the climbing and jumping and stuff. i always wanted to explore unknown ruins...;)

[Lucas]

im gonna wait for my friend to finish fallout3 then ill make him lend it to me. in exchange for fable 2


oh hey,

i also downloaded the demo of Ninja Gaiden 2.

i had the original on xbox1 years ago and liked it. in this one you can dismember people or cut them in half. blood and body parts get scattered all over the place. super fun

[SimonM]

Fallout 3 is NOT short.

I decided to take a short break from the main plot to close up the side-missions I had already accepted... the process of doing this accidentally opened a second side-mission. And it's now been four days since I took that short break from the main plot...

And I almost always use the quick-travel feature to go between previously explored points...

Also, a tip: When you get around to playing and you hit the necessary level take the here and now perk. It's one of the best ones from a min/max perspective.

And the decapitation and disintegration slow-motion animations in Fallout 3 kick ass.

[Lucas]

whoa, disintigration?

i have to see that.

[SimonM]

It's sweet. You get it when you get a critical sneak-kill in VATS mode with an energy weapon.

So to see it enter sneak mode (by pushing down the left stick), equip the laser pistol (easy to get early in the game), move slowly close enough to the target to have a decent shot at a head-shot on a raider, mole rat, radroach, dog, feral ghoul or ordinary person (all low-hp enemies), enter VATS (right bumper), target the head and set as many shots as possible at the head target. That's the best way to guarantee a disintegration.

[Lucas]

a lot of that went over my head, but at least you have it posted here so when i can get around to playing i can come see what i should do ;)

thanks

[SimonM]

Read the manual once, spend 5 minutes at the controls and you will understand.

[Lucas]

gotcha. im all about the manuals, unless its a VCR. thank god we dont have to use those anymore.

[SimonM]

I still seem nowhere near the end of play. Two new sets of antagonists have just been added in, one by side plots and one by the main plot... also new weapons and armor just became available including power armor (which rocks for damage reduction) and the plasma rifle - an energy weapon that melts many targets into a small puddle of green goo.

Oh... and my character's reputation has grown to the point where antagonist factions have put a bounty out on his head and he's getting ambushed by mercenaries... which is OK because the mercenaries are kinda mokes...

Now the soldiers who I stole the power armor and plasma rifle from... not mokes.

[jason.]

yeah they will put out hits on you.

did people start giving gifts as offerings of thanks?

[SimonM]

Yes, to the point where I have occasionally had encumberance problems when both I and my ally NPC have full inventories and people keep giving me more random gifts.

And I'm using the hyper-intelligent super mutant for my ally.

[jason.]

really? where did you get him?

i had someone from the brotherhood of steel helping me for a bit.

[SimonM]

When you go to get the GECK from the vault full of mutants he will ask you to free him. If you do he'll go get the GECK for you and then will part company with you. Later, when you escape from the Enclave, he will be out front killing Enclave soldiers with a gattling laser and will ask to join you.

[jason.]

thanks man! that is exactly where i am at.

what system are you playing this on?

check out the left 4 dead demo too.

[SimonM]

X360

And left4dead isn't exactly my sort of game but I reccommended it to the guy who sits next to me at work.

[jason.]

nice man.

my gamer tag is :

jasonDLS

add me, we should get a collection of kung fu mag. people's gamer tags.

[SimonM]

LOL! I'll try to remember to do that. ;)

[Lucas]

so i bought a 40" HDTV and Oblivion.

pretty darn sick. Had my buddy bring over fallout and tried it out. SUPER SICK!

im not gonna break up my oblivion. im a one game at a time kinda guy, but fallout and is next on the list for sure.

really dig oblivion, and the new tv helps.

[SoCo KungFu]

I just killed my first Deathclaw. Those things suck....I'd rather run into a room full of super mutants.

Overall its a good game. Though the whole shock factor was probably lost on me. After playing Morrowind and Oblivion, Fallout just doesn't seem as big and empty as I think they were going for. Though its still fun. Don't know if its as cool as Shivering Isles though.

I kinda like how on Fallout you don't have a bunch of redundant crap to work up like Athletics and Acrobatics. You just put stuff to whatever you want as opposed to jumping around all day. Though the display annoys me. The writing on the pip boy is too small and I hate sitting close to the tv since I play in bed when its late and nothing else to do. And the world well...city...being too small. No reason I should be able to walk across it all in 10 minutes. Even Oblivion had some expanse to it.

Going between Fallout 3 and Dead Space atm. Dead Space is sick...curb stomp from Hell :D How can you not like a game that was banned in 5 countries :p

Don't think I'll be able to beat em though. Gotta live it up while I have time. Once school starts I won't have time with being a full time student, work, flying missions (still in reserves) and training. Oh well....at least I'm still single :D Got 99 problems but a #!$%@ ain't one

[SimonM]

I just killed my first Deathclaw. Those things suck....I'd rather run into a room full of super mutants.


I'm using a plasma rifle and tesla armor - one of the sickest combos of armor and weapon in the game (especially with 100 in energy weapons) and the first Deathclaw I killed went down easy due to sneak attack critical. The second literally almost ripped my head off.



Overall its a good game. Though the whole shock factor was probably lost on me. After playing Morrowind and Oblivion, Fallout just doesn't seem as big and empty as I think they were going for. Though its still fun. Don't know if its as cool as Shivering Isles though.


Oblivion is on my to-get list. I have a picture of it as being like Might and Magic: Elements: Dark Messiah only not sucking.



Though the display annoys me. The writing on the pip boy is too small and I hate sitting close to the tv since I play in bed when its late and nothing else to do. And the world well...city...being too small. No reason I should be able to walk across it all in 10 minutes. Even Oblivion had some expanse to it.


According to the promotional information Fallout 3 is about the same area as Oblivion... Perhaps that's including the interiors of vaults and such. Have you done any optional vault crawls yet?



Going between Fallout 3 and Dead Space atm. Dead Space is sick...curb stomp from Hell :D How can you not like a game that was banned in 5 countries :p


Is it available for XBox?

[SoCo KungFu]

I'm using a plasma rifle and tesla armor - one of the sickest combos of armor and weapon in the game (especially with 100 in energy weapons) and the first Deathclaw I killed went down easy due to sneak attack critical. The second literally almost ripped my head off.

I think I killed it using that special laster rifle you get from Harkness and some Talon Armor. Took about 4 hits I think. I just ran into it at a bad spot in a junkyard and had no room to move; took about 3 or 4 hits myself and had to use 2 stimpacks to survive (I started at full health)


Oblivion is on my to-get list. I have a picture of it as being like Might and Magic: Elements: Dark Messiah only not sucking.

Never played that so don't know. Get the game of the year edition though (I think that's all they sell anymore) so you get Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles. SI is almost another game in itself its so big. The mechanics are about the same as Fallout 3 if you make a melee toon. And some of the skills are the same. But the games play a lot different due to how the progression is set up with skills and such. You don't level up by doing things as there is no XP. You have 10 skills (that you pick like the tag skills in FO3) and as those develop you gain levels and every level you get to add stat points (how much depending on what skills you used, if you melee'd a lot you can add lots of strength as opposed to sneaking and getting agility).


According to the promotional information Fallout 3 is about the same area as Oblivion... Perhaps that's including the interiors of vaults and such. Have you done any optional vault crawls yet?

Not yet. I'm just after talking to the doc in Rivet City about your father in the main plot. Been doing mostly alternate stuff and just looking around. I don't know, it just seems smaller. And I will say at least at this point I think Oblivion has more crawls. My guy has 350 "Places Found." About 20 from SI so that's still about 330. I'd say a 1/3-1/2 of those are caves or dungeons of some sort.


Is it available for XBox?

Yes! I run the 360 myself. We actually get the best version since Xbox has all the downloadable stuff.

[SimonM]

350?!?!????!?

I got a lot more exploring to do... I played through most of the main plot and I've found about 80 locations. ROTFL I love that game.

How did you get the special laser rifle from Harkness? The rivet city optional stuff has irked me because I have had trouble finding the slaver... and my toon has been largely an emancipator / slaver killer (wiped out Paradise Falls recently).

[SoCo KungFu]

350?!?!????!?

I got a lot more exploring to do... I played through most of the main plot and I've found about 80 locations. ROTFL I love that game.

How did you get the special laser rifle from Harkness? The rivet city optional stuff has irked me because I have had trouble finding the slaver... and my toon has been largely an emancipator / slaver killer (wiped out Paradise Falls recently).

Sorry I should say, 350 on Oblivion. On FO3 about 45 atm. I kinda went out of order on some things. I just found GNR Station. But I've got a couple clues ahead of the quest cuz I hit Rivet City first on an alternate quest. Honestly for Harkness I didn't do 9/10 of the quest. I haven't even been to Paradise Falls. Actually I got the quest totally at random in Grayditch when that Watts chick ran me down and interrogated me out of nowhere in the middle of giant ants. And you confront Harkness/Zimmer at Rivet so I finished it up while I was there. You gotta get the clues about Pinkerton and then go find him in the broken off part of the hull. Then go back to Harkness (good karma) or Zimmer (bad karma). You gotta talk to Pinkerton too if you want to get the bonus from the Survival Guide quest there as well.

As for the Slaver IN Rivet. Well I can tell you. I found out on yet another random totally not related thing. Its not really a spoiler for me but dunno bout you as you actually did all the stuff I skipped. He's the disgrunted guy with a totally not guy name :p

[jason.]

anyone know were i sell my bad guy fingers?

[SimonM]

Yeah, I know his name. Just can't FIND him.

And Grayditch has PEOPLE! Gotta head back there. I went through but all i found were ants that set my dog on fire.

I am thinking about making a t-shirt with that as a slogan:

"Giant Ants Set My Dog on Fire!"


anyone know were i sell my bad guy fingers?

Regulator headquarters. North of DC.

[SoCo KungFu]

Yeah, I know his name. Just can't FIND him.

And Grayditch has PEOPLE! Gotta head back there. I went through but all i found were ants that set my dog on fire.

I am thinking about making a t-shirt with that as a slogan:

"Giant Ants Set My Dog on Fire!"



Regulator headquarters. North of DC.

Whenever I see him its usually in The Muddy Rudder

yeah those ants suck. There's only a couple people in Grayditch. There's a boy in the phone booth pod thingy next to the broken shack. He starts a quest.

[SimonM]

Cool. I'll add that to my to-do list along with vault 106 and finding that hidden copse of green trees.... and that camp of raiders to the north of the ant-agonist's lair.

[SoCo KungFu]

So how do you get into the Brotherhood of Steel citadel? I wanna wear that power armor I been shiestering from their dead bodies when I let em get killed by super mutties

[SimonM]

GET THE HOLOTAGS AND DON'T SELL THEM!!!

Anyway the only way to get in there is to travel there with the right NPC as part of a main plot mission. Play through the main plot and you will get there eventually. More would be massively spoilerish.

[SoCo KungFu]

GET THE HOLOTAGS AND DON'T SELL THEM!!!

Anyway the only way to get in there is to travel there with the right NPC as part of a main plot mission. Play through the main plot and you will get there eventually. More would be massively spoilerish.

Ah cool. Good thing I knew enough to not sell the ones I have

[SimonM]

The three most valuable objects I've found (by weight) in the game to date are
"holotag", "pre-war book" and "baby nuke". You should also not get rid of scrap metal you find because bartering gets you 1 cap per and if you complete a quest in Megaton youc can get 10 caps per from one of the residents.

Both holotags and pre-war books have specific NPCs who offer massive caps for each one delivered.

[SoCo KungFu]

Yeah I found the guy for the scrap and the chick for the books. Though I wish I'd have known earlier cuz I found a bunch of books in earlier stuff that I just passed up. Guess I gotta go crawling through some old places

[SoCo KungFu]

Did you get a theme yet for your place in Megaton?

[SimonM]

Hell yeah. I picked up the scientist theme. Money isn't really an issue any more... and when I do run low on funds I take my pack mule... um... valued ally.... and do a vault run and just fill up our inventories before hauling the booty back to the various venders who are best equipped to buy various junk.

[Lucas]

I finally cured myself of vampirism, that was a beotch. it was cool to be all powerful and smoke in the sun while my health drains, but i got tired of it.

the dark brotherhood is super fun to go do assassinations for though.

[SoCo KungFu]

I finally cured myself of vampirism, that was a beotch. it was cool to be all powerful and smoke in the sun while my health drains, but i got tired of it.

the dark brotherhood is super fun to go do assassinations for though.

hehe yeah...they are the best one to start out doing. That and mages. The stuff you get from the brotherhood helps a lot with thievering and other sorts or sneaky stuff.

Vampirism is nice early on cuz it lets you carry more crap at first. After a while though it does get old. One of the XBox downloads lets you have your own crypt though and an unconscious bloodbank...er...person to constantly feed from though.

[SimonM]

I just shot all the vampires in the head and took their stuff. :p

They had some good stuff - to this day the shishkestab is still the best melee weapon I've found - the supersledge is good and the modeling on the jian is gorgeous but neither are as effective for close-up killage.

And to be fair I blew some of the vampires up with land mines.

[SoCo KungFu]

I just shot all the vampires in the head and took their stuff. :p

They had some good stuff - to this day the shishkestab is still the best melee weapon I've found - the supersledge is good and the modeling on the jian is gorgeous but neither are as effective for close-up killage.

And to be fair I blew some of the vampires up with land mines.

Did you do the quest line first so you could get the Hematophage perk? One of the options still lets you help both sides, get positive karma, get one of the 3 plans for shishkebab and hematophage.

[SoCo KungFu]

Statesman Hotel is one of the most annoying maps ever

[SimonM]

Haven't found that one yet. But vault 106 was a pain in the ass... all the computers required a monstrously high science score.

[SimonM]

Beat the game for it's first time through run. Basically just played until I hit the level cap, took my level 20 perk (which was sickness personified) and played through to the cinematic. Now I'm trying to repeat at a higher difficulty setting and am going for a 100% complete instead of leaving out whole side-missions that I either didn't find (grayditch) or didn't bother with... Also want to find the alien crash site.

Oh... and just found the scematics for the Nuka Grenade (tin can, abraxo cleaner, turpentine, nuka cola quantum)...

A grenade with a 380+ damage rating!

Saved my game and huked it down to the center square of Megaton and killed 3 people with 1 blast. :p

[SoCo KungFu]

Nice, I hear the higher difficulties aren't really more difficult though. Just that it basically gives more life to the enemies. So they can take 10 point blank shotgun blasts instead of 5.

I think I found a crash site. Hard to tell. On one hand it looked like a plane on the other it didn't. And the radiation was through the roof. But then everything has atomic engines so...hard to tell.

On that note. The other day I was in a firefight with some super muties and one had a minigun so I was kinda pinned down. So I shot up a bus behind them and watched it blow the hell outta everything. They did that whole blowing up flying through the air with their arms flailing thing like in the movies. I thought it was cool :cool: Love the mini mushroom coulds haha

[SimonM]

Yeah, that effect is very neat... but it sucks when you are standing next to a truck and some yahoo from Talon company blows up the truck.

About harder difficulty settings: in the early part of the game when armor is weak and ammo and caps are scarce (especially if you dropped caps early to get your own work table so that you can build rail rifles, shiskebabs and nuka grenades) the higher difficulty setting can really make things harder.

The walk to rivet city was harrowing largely because I was down to nothing but crap ammo (.32 caliber) by the time I got there and killing super mutants with a .32 caliber pistol or a hunting rifle is REALLY hard.

I'll say this for sure: if you ARE playing on higher difficulty make sure to pick up the explosives skill and lots of agility because one strategy that works well against the high-health baddies with melee weapons is to run backwards away from them hucking landmines in their path.

[Lucas]

so i borrowed this game from my buddy. super cool.

first thing i did was nuke that megatown LOL.

i got hooked up for it though.

oh, should i invest into the science skill, or will having it low prevent me from progressing?

Im really good with energy weapons though, oh, and the sledgehammer. that rules.

[SimonM]

Science skill is used to hack computers mainly. If it's low you will sometimes have to look for other ways around locked doors and may find it hard to get non-story-quest information in some vault crawls.

If I had to categorize the most important skills I'd say:

REPAIR
Min. 2 different weapon skills to taste (my last one was energy / small guns, this one is working out to be explosives / small guns).
Lock Pick
Stealth
Medicine
Science

In roughly that order.

Seriously about the repair skill... it's SO important. Gear in good working order works so much better than gear that's crumbling. And having high-quality stuff for trade nets a lot more caps.

[Lucas]

my tops are

repair
medicine
lockpick
sneak
energy weapons
melee (ive found this is really handy against the super mutants that do melee, when the VATS AP are gone, i can pull out my hammer and block and swing like a madman, usually works)

last night i found the guy to do facial reconstruction, and my robot i got for nuking that town can give me haircuts, so i can change my total image any time, which is cool.

my science skills are pretty lacking though. i was wondering if i should put points in it or not.

[Lucas]

this game is kind of freaky. almost too realistic.

its what it would really be like almost...

[SimonM]

If you are min/maxing you want to pick high int and agility with strength and perception next.



last night i found the guy to do facial reconstruction, and my robot i got for nuking that town can give me haircuts, so i can change my total image any time, which is cool.


If you save the town you get a robot and a house.

[Lucas]

If you are min/maxing you want to pick high int and agility with strength and perception next.



If you save the town you get a robot and a house.

ya but now i got a suite at the top of tenpenny next door to the old man.


oh and let me tell you, the explosion looked SOO COOL

it looked like video of a nuklear blast

BOOM, muahahahhahahaa

but see now its fun to try and atone for my deed. it made me instantly very evil. lol.

i guess nuking a town does that to you?

[SoCo KungFu]

I'd have to rank them Repair>>>Lockpick>>>Meds>>>Science then whatever weapons you have come to enjoy. With exception to big guns. Because they are by nature powerful anyways and there are 2 perks which can raise that skill by up to 60 points (3 ranks of size matters 15pts EA, "Tag" for 15pts to any skill)

[Lucas]

how high should you get your main skills?

is 100 the top?

[SimonM]

100 is the top. Do NOT use perks or books to boost a skill to a level that would exceed 100 as it is a waste.

I've been considering doing a run on that crazy drunken russian guy with the two girls. His house has like... 20 or so cannisters of jet in it. And lots of booze too.

[Lucas]

my character is a total alcoholic. i dont touch the chems tho. nasty habit that. i could forsee not having a fix around when i need one. so far booze is in abundance.

i made my character female, which is cool cuz i get this black widow perk, 10% added damage to all males (so far every supermutant ive found has been male, at least they look it. buddy told me they were all a-sexual, so i dont know how that factors in.), plus some unique dialog to wh0re out for info. kinda nice.

so far my character is some wasteland madmax style mexican gutter punk with a taste for vodka, whiskey, mohawks, lazer rifles and sledgehammers.

so far my energy weapons are at 80,, but thats my highest skill, with the others of my high ranging in the 60s or 50 or so.

[SimonM]

Jet is your friend.

+20 AP and readily available anywhere you find raiders (nuka cola quantum does the same but it's also an ingredient for nuka grenades and waste-not want-not).
It is also in your interest to buy a lab as soon as you can afford one so that you can de-tox if you are addicted and your stock has run low.

[SoCo KungFu]

how high should you get your main skills?

is 100 the top?

For you I would raise your weapon level a bit higher. Maybe 90 for your main group. Or if you want to save some perk options you can go 100. Reason being you seem by your post to use VATS more often so basically your aim is automated. Where as I mostly run and gun unless I'm point blank (easier to head shot). So I get less from having that little number higher since my aim is basically how well I can line up the crosshair. And while I still have bullets fly stray, just crouching pretty much shores up the aim for anything needed. My small guns is at 75. The only thing I still have issues on at times is the auto. But for precision shots I use the sniper or scoped .44 anyways. And its easy to aim with those provided you're crouching and hidden.

As far as I can tell the only ones you really need to have maxed for total benefit would be repair, med, lock and science. Since those are all number checks. Either you are high enough to pick or hack or you aren't

[Lucas]

ya i do use the vats alot, at least half the time. i use it if its a 80% to headshot or higher.

at this point im often still strapped for ammo, so it conserves a lot for me.

but i find i use my hammer more than my gun, and i just swing like a crazy mo fo till it dies.

i better re-evaluate my situation, as i havnt invested at all in science.


also, how long is the story. my dad just died. is that only the beginning?

[SoCo KungFu]

ya i do use the vats alot, at least half the time. i use it if its a 80% to headshot or higher.

at this point im often still strapped for ammo, so it conserves a lot for me.

but i find i use my hammer more than my gun, and i just swing like a crazy mo fo till it dies.

i better re-evaluate my situation, as i havnt invested at all in science.


also, how long is the story. my dad just died. is that only the beginning?

You're ****her than me on the main plot. I been doing mostly side stuff. One thing if you are melee focused I would think med, science and repair would be probably the most valuable. Science opens up nerd rage and along with med to get cyborg. Add those 2 with toughness and adamant skeleton and you have a melee powerhouse.

[Lucas]

cool. i think at this point, now that i learned power armor, ill slow down a lot.

i did this one sidequest and got a cybornetic implant that gives me bonus to crit i think it was

[SoCo KungFu]

Wired reflexes? I did that quest but this one is following the good path so I took the beefy plasma rifle

[SoCo KungFu]

Now i have the problem though. When I first got my 360 I set up live but didn't activate it. Then I started playing stuff with a profile, cuz you know how the 360 makes you set up one. Well now I just got my xbox on wireless and activated my live. But now I don't know if I can merge my achievements and saved stuff from my first profile with my live profile (its 2 separate profiles on my 360 because for some reason it wasn't letting me retrieve my gamertag unless I set it up as its own profile). If I would just lose my achievements it sucks but I'd live with it. But since it saves games to the profiles I will have to start over all my games too

[Lucas]

i had that problem too when i got live. i had to start a new profile, something like my tag was already in use or some such, cant remember. i do remember being kinda like, wtf... some games let you transfer the save data, but most dont i think.

[Lucas]

Wired reflexes? I did that quest but this one is following the good path so I took the beefy plasma rifle

i think so, the one where you have to find the android and swim to the bow of the ship.

basically ive done what seems to be most lucritive at the moment. usually prompting bad decisions.

but i hand out purified water like im jesus to every bum i meet. they love me.

[SoCo KungFu]

i had that problem too when i got live. i had to start a new profile, something like my tag was already in use or some such, cant remember. i do remember being kinda like, wtf... some games let you transfer the save data, but most dont i think.

Yep that's exactly what my problem is...who'da thought ninja is such a used tag name?

So now i'm MonkeyKaboom.....don't hax my bases

[Lucas]

i think im gonna get that animal lovers perk. at least rank 1 so i never have to worry about those pesky creatures anymore.

[Lucas]

Yep that's exactly what my problem is...who'da thought ninja is such a used tag name?

So now i'm MonkeyKaboom.....don't hax my bases

lol.

i for some reason made my Xombi666

i get no end of **** talking when i log into a live game. like GTA4. everyone immediately starts talking ****. then i drive by and nade them all and laugh my ass off.

[Lucas]

You're ****her than me on the main plot.

shoot, sorry man. ill refrain from being a spoiler from here on o9ut. wasnt thinking, my bad.

[SoCo KungFu]

i think im gonna get that animal lovers perk. at least rank 1 so i never have to worry about those pesky creatures anymore.

haha, come on, the yoa guai aren't THAT hard haha

man, I don't want to start over now i'm almost to 14

[SoCo KungFu]

shoot, sorry man. ill refrain from being a spoiler from here on o9ut. wasnt thinking, my bad.

eh its cool...kinda expected that much to happen anyways. I mean he did run out into a nuclear wasteland all by himself. And the story is somewhat predictable. At least at this point it is. I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that the whole thing is a big experiment by vault and only US is destroyed (with the blessing of US gov/mil) and the whole annex canada thing is a big scam and such...

[Lucas]

haha, come on, the yoa guai aren't THAT hard haha

man, I don't want to start over now i'm almost to 14

ive only ran into 1 of those so far, they look like a giant fleshy werewolf. considering if i run into a lot of those i may get 2 ranks so they help me fight stuff.


why would u start over tho?

[SoCo KungFu]

ive only ran into 1 of those so far, they look like a giant fleshy werewolf. considering if i run into a lot of those i may get 2 ranks so they help me fight stuff.


why would u start over tho?

If I want to have my achievements logged I gotta use the profile on live. If I use the profile on live I have to start over because my stuff is saved to the one not on live.

[SimonM]

also, how long is the story. my dad just died. is that only the beginning?

That's about half way through the main story.


haha, come on, the yoa guai aren't THAT hard haha

man, I don't want to start over now i'm almost to 14

The yao guai cave is a really fun little dungeon crawl. It's short but it's appended to another, longer, crawl so it's good for filling up the edges with valuable Yao Guai meat... and lots of opportunities to rack up sneak attack critical strikes on Yao Guai with a sniper rifle.

[SoCo KungFu]

So I started over. Figured I may as well do it before I get too far, though level 15 is pretty far I suppose, but story-wise....

Gonna get my small arms up to about 50 then do big/energy from there out I think. Not sure how it will work out. Flamer is fun but it doesn't have the insta kill that bullets have on head shots and the mini takes forever to get into the firing cycle making it unusable at close range.

And this time I new to tag explosives so I can disarm the bomb right away and get some storage space.

I'm just mostly peeved about having to do survival guide all over again. That took forever

[SimonM]

Just finished the second run through the survival guide. The worst mission is still the mirelurks... it's almost impossible to do that run in stealth mode without a stealth boy.

A hint: save all pulse weapons for when doing the roboco factory mission because they 1 shot kill robots. whenever you encounter a kiosk with a robot in it kill all the nearby radroaches and mole rats and then drop a pulse mine in front of the kiosk. When you activate the robots later in the mission the door opens, the robot steps on the mine and the robot dies... along with any other robots that happen to be standing near.

If you have enough pulse grenades and mines, a shishkebab to handle the organic creatures and a stealth boy you can get in and out without taking a single hit.

[SoCo KungFu]

Just finished the second run through the survival guide. The worst mission is still the mirelurks... it's almost impossible to do that run in stealth mode without a stealth boy.

A hint: save all pulse weapons for when doing the roboco factory mission because they 1 shot kill robots. whenever you encounter a kiosk with a robot in it kill all the nearby radroaches and mole rats and then drop a pulse mine in front of the kiosk. When you activate the robots later in the mission the door opens, the robot steps on the mine and the robot dies... along with any other robots that happen to be standing near.

If you have enough pulse grenades and mines, a shishkebab to handle the organic creatures and a stealth boy you can get in and out without taking a single hit.

Cool, do you remember if the science requirement to hack the terminal at the end was 50 or 75?

[SimonM]

IIRC 50. Mine wasn't actually high enough... :s I let science slack in order to buff up my stealth and lockpick skills because I tagged repair and demolitions at the beginning. It worked - being able to sell scrap metal from the start of play and being able to repair armor and weaps I scrounge significantly improved my cash flow - but at the cost of terminal hacks.

That's right - I'm playing a grenade hucking cat-burglar with a heart of gold this time. ;)

First time through basically played a brotherhood of steel wannabe.

[SoCo KungFu]

when i did it the first time through mine wasn't either. I just left a couple alive and went back after I leveled up and bumped science to the level. Hacked and got the bonus for the quest. Though it basically wasted a level as I had to dump like 17 pts into it

[Lucas]

i ended up getting that perk that gives you more caps in boxes. so when i do find caps in boxes its generally 30-70 that i find, at this point. while doing the decleration of independance quest, i found like 400 caps. so it kinda pays off.

im loving my power hammer thing i got though. smashes stuff. that combined with the enclave power armor, looks really tight.

after fighting a couple of those yao guia things, ill totally get the animal lover perk.

[Lucas]

im just wishing i would have done all the side quests in megaton before nuking that crap hole.

although looking at the blast sight from my tenpenny suite and sniping uglys with mr. tenpenny is pretty nice ;)

[SimonM]

I wonder what will happen if I find the tenpenny hotel without having destroyed Megaton... is it an EVIL megaton that I can annihilate like I did to Paradise falls last game?

[SoCo KungFu]

I wonder what will happen if I find the tenpenny hotel without having destroyed Megaton... is it an EVIL megaton that I can annihilate like I did to Paradise falls last game?

I found it, its on the SW part of the map. They wanted me to pay 100 caps to get in but I didn't so can't tell you more than that

[SoCo KungFu]

any use for all the railroad spikes other than rock-it launcher ammo?

[SimonM]

Railroad Rifle ammo.

If you get the schematics this is one of the more useful built-yourself weapons. Small weapon categorization, rifle class so you get the bonus from commando, sniper, etc., good range (especially in VATS), damage between high-teens and low-twenties depending on repair skill at time of construction, special ability of weapon is that it can throw small enemies and pin them temporarily to nearby walls as it impales them with railroad spikes.

Also... when not in VATS mode it makes a humorous steam whistle sound effect when fired and when in VATS mode a critical strike occasionally awards you with a slow-mo depiction of a rail road spike hurtling through the air and slamming into whatever body part was targeted.

Necessary components: schematics, 1 steam gague assembly, 1 fusion battery, 1 pressure cooker, 1 crutch.

[SoCo KungFu]

do how many schematics you have effect the damage or just the condition?

[SimonM]

The only item I have multiple schematics for was the nuka grenade. With the v.2 schematics the same components as the v.1 schematics allows you to construct 2 grenades (note, one of the two sets of schematics was found in the previously mentioned yao guai cave. The other came off a trade caravan.)

[Lucas]

is that called the rail rifle. i got some schematics for plundering the declaration called rail rifle. wonder if i should save it or not.

in tenpenny tower there is :

A bar, Clothing store, and a house item store. also there is some underground door that i cannot open yet, not sure wehre it leads. plus the residents homes and the top suites. where my sick pad is all decked out in wastlander motif.

there are some gouls that (Roy Reynolds or some such is his name) want in tenpenny. of course i did what the tenpenny residents wanted me to do and wiped out the gouls. 3 of them underground, fought through a bunch of feral gouls to get to em. killed the 3 and stole all their gear. i got bad karma for it. although the residents at tenpenny think im a hero for it.

I assume you could do something to make tenpenny open to the gouls and get good karma.

gotta keep the neighbors happy ;)

[SimonM]

Losing karma made Tenpenny Tower like you...

Sounds like a prospect for killin' and lootin'

And I should make my way down to that mission, upgrade my rail rifle schematics.

[Lucas]

Losing karma made Tenpenny Tower like you...

Sounds like a prospect for killin' and lootin'

Ya the wierd thing is i get bad karma if i steel from tenpenny residents.

i think they are just a bunch of stuck up racist snobs snobs. im interested in what happens if you can get the gouls inside.

if either of you do that let me know what happens.

[SimonM]

Is the tenpenny tower over by the roboco factory? Because there is some sort of tower over that way that I haven't explored yet...

[Lucas]

Is the tenpenny tower over by the roboco factory? Because there is some sort of tower over that way that I haven't explored yet...

thats the one. when i first arrived Roy, the goul who wants in, was talking to them at the intercom. if you see him, he may not talk to you. but if you get the mission to go kill them all, once u get to them you can say to the gouls "I think i can get you inside tenpenny tower"

but of course, i splattered them all over the walls, so im not sure what happens

:D

[SoCo KungFu]

So.....taking on a deathclaw at level 5 is not a good idea

[Lucas]

lol. im not sure what a deathclaw is, but ya, doesnt sound like fun.

kinda like going into a hall to find a super mutant with a rocket launcher.

[SoCo KungFu]

lol. im not sure what a deathclaw is, but ya, doesnt sound like fun.

kinda like going into a hall to find a super mutant with a rocket launcher.

From full health, two hits and dead

[Lucas]

From full health, two hits and dead

ouch dude. thats like what happened to me when i ran into my first yao guia after a fast travel popped me down right next to one that was really ****ed off

[SimonM]

From full health, two hits and dead

Increased agility makes it very difficulty for baddies to kill you with explosives. You can dodge!
Also if you believe there is a bad-guy with a rocket launcher nearby aim for the rocket launcher in VATS. They are HUGE and FRAGILE so they are easy to hit and permanently disable.

Now chain guns on the other hand...

[Lucas]

so i found underworld, and i got this brainwashed gouls contract to be my man servant. which is awesome cuz hes a mean mo fo with the auto shotty, AND i hooked him up with power armor.

i did some kind of evil stuff to get his contract, but now i have a super hardcore 7 ft tall goul body guard. in powerarmor

his names Cheron

[SoCo KungFu]

So dl'd that xbox experience. And made my avatar. Haha. Anyways, still MonkeyKaboom. Guess I'll just go with that now. Though I don't see myself starting over Oblivion anytime soon. The other stuff I guess I can sit through again though. Anyways, if you guys got xbox live look me up and send me a friend or something.

[SimonM]

I'm Shaolin223 on XBox.

Oh... btw... tried to negotiate a solution for the ghouls and the residents of tenpenny towers but couldn't convince a few of the hard-line humans.

So I let the ghouls in through the back door and they killed everyone.

The swag was worth it though... I'm swimming in ammo now. And I have a mask that tricks feral ghouls into thinking I'm a ghoul.

[Lucas]

I'm Shaolin223 on XBox.

Oh... btw... tried to negotiate a solution for the ghouls and the residents of tenpenny towers but couldn't convince a few of the hard-line humans.

So I let the ghouls in through the back door and they killed everyone.

The swag was worth it though... I'm swimming in ammo now. And I have a mask that tricks feral ghouls into thinking I'm a ghoul.

lol thats awesome.

whats funny is i have a contract to kill mr tenpenny now. since i can walk up to him i might do it. a contract is a contract i suppose. though im suppose to kill these4 for being goul racists, but ive found out they arent all goul racists. so if i do kill em it may be bad karma.

i think i may end up becomming a hitman. so far ive done like 4 or 5 kill contracts. its lucrative though.

[SimonM]

It's so much bad karma it kicked me all the way to neutral.

But it was enough swag to let me deck out my house in megaton while still pocketing enough ammo to last me for the next 3 or 4 missions at least.

[Lucas]

im wondering if i can get more than one npc to follow me. right now Cheron is parked in my crib in his power armor awaiting my return.

im gonna try to get that supermutant u were talking about too, and see if i can get a gang started.

[SimonM]

What's your karma right now? He'll only follow you if it's good.

[Lucas]

What's your karma right now? He'll only follow you if it's good.

oh, ya...aint happenin. for some reason people dont seem willing to forget that i nuked a town...

[SimonM]

You are going to have to do a lot of good deeds to fix that one...

[SimonM]

Get the perk that lets you take fingers (if you can) and then visit Paradise falls and rescue the slaves. Leave no slavers alive.

Alternately donate caps in batches of 100 to a church.

[Lucas]

so i made it to lvl 11. my title is Capitol Crimelord.

Which is about right.

I have the perk shadowy figure or what ever, the guy that pops up in vats and kills stuff for you every now and then.

i got cheron backing me and now i got that kid sticky in my suite with power armor and a minigun if i need back up.

im building a gang!

[SimonM]

i got cheron backing me and now i got that kid sticky in my suite with power armor and a minigun if i need back up.
!

Who????????

[SoCo KungFu]

so i made it to lvl 11. my title is Capitol Crimelord.

Which is about right.

I have the perk shadowy figure or what ever, the guy that pops up in vats and kills stuff for you every now and then.

i got cheron backing me and now i got that kid sticky in my suite with power armor and a minigun if i need back up.

im building a gang!

Nice. I'm slowly making it back to where I was. Its a bit more difficult now without small guns or energy weapons building up. Haven't really found any big stuff yet.

[SimonM]

I almost dipped into evil country after my misadventures in tenpenny tower and my expedition to eliminate the curse of vampirism so I gave a bunch of money to the church of Atom. That fixed that problem.

[SimonM]

I found the talon company HQ recently. So much karma neutral military grade swag to haul out that my ally (star palladin cross) and I are fully loaded with high-quality gear (lots of use of the repair function) and still are leaving a bunch of gear down for a second run.

[Lucas]

so i beat it at lvl 16. lots un finished but lots done too.

i actually ended as the hero of the wastland. redeemed yo.

but sticky. little lamplight, talk your way in with speech when u first get there. this annoying kid sticky asks you to escort him to bigtown. you can just take him home and equip him and leave him to rot till your ready for him if you want. force him to fight.

i did get the big supermutant too. found out you cant have 2 mercs at a time. you can have a merc, and as many escorts as you can find, but only one merc at once.

i went for Cheron cuz hes quieter and not as big. plus i can put him in power armor.

before i went on the last run i did get the T-51b Power armor. 50 defense on the armor and 10 on the helmet. nice stuff.

you need the keys from the shoot em in the head mission from Mr. Crowley in underworld.

[Lucas]

i got it saved at a million spots, so if i want i can just go explore, then finish the story.

i wish you could continue your game after you beat it. but i guess its not a real rpg in that sense. besides some endings....wouldnt make it possible to do that.

i beat it a few different ways to see what they said about me.

[Lucas]

I almost dipped into evil country after my misadventures in tenpenny tower and my expedition to eliminate the curse of vampirism so I gave a bunch of money to the church of Atom. That fixed that problem.

vampirism?

can you contract it?

[SimonM]

You can. I did not.

Just killed the family whole-cloth.

Like I did to the slavers of paradise falls and Talon Company. :D

The regulators love me.

[SoCo KungFu]

So with big guns over 90, the flamer is nuts. It doesn't have the headshot, but it don't matter. Its gotta be the best close range weapon in the game. Especially if 2 or more baddies are dumb enough to stand next to each other. Its very good for the run and gun as opposed to VATS. Easy to aim and seems to negate body armor. Though it burns through ammo...:D

Now though the downside, other than that big guns either go through ammo too fast (flamer and mini) or they just don't have much ammo around (launcher) is that there is nothing for medium range really. Flamer is pretty short. Mini I suppose would do it but its hard to aim and is really a waste in VATS. And if its something that is charging you (Yao Guai or Deathclaws) or you're indoors, it just takes too long to fire. Missiles are good, but they are a bit rare/expensive and its more of a long ranged weapon like the sniper rifle. So I guess I need to figure out how to fill that space. Like what you would use a hunting/assault/laser rifle for.

[Lucas]

i ended up going plasma rifle and ripper/powerhammer.

i liked turning the bad guys into steaming piles of green ooze.

but i would use the heavy weapons as i found them for fun. i would pick em upp and exhauste the ammo then dump it on cheron.

honestly though, Cheron is too good. half the time he starts a fight before i see the guys and when i get my lock on, hes already killed them.

**** pre war brain washed super spy.

[SoCo KungFu]

That's what I did the first time before I had to restart. Big Guns are totally different though if you raise proficiency. Things die, very fast.

[SimonM]

For the VATS game the plasma rifle is hands-down the best weapon.

I have a huge stockpile of ammo for all my guns (like... more than 100 sniper rifle rounds, over a thousand 5.56 mm rounds and so many caps I have no need to sell off ammo) but the plasma rifle so often uses only 1-2 shots to kill an enemy that I just have no need to use anything else.

Concentrated fire + sniper is the sickest combination of perks for VATS btw.

[Lucas]

at lvl 16 i have

energy weapons 100

science 100

lockpick 100

then i have some mid stuff like

medical 60

melee 60

and some other stuff.

I got into the habbit of picking up every piece of ammo in the game i found. if i didnt use it, 500 rounds will get you some caps.

did you guys ever find the T-51b Prototype power armor. its like old school Fallout.

i want to get vampirism along with all my genetic modifications, cybornetics and radiated mutation, it would be rad.

[SimonM]

No I did not. Where did you find it?

The best armor I have found is Tesla Armor (total dr of approx 40 between armor and helmet and a +10 to energy weapons)

Currently the biggest problem is finding merchants with money with which to buy all the swag I'm selling. I haven't tapped out the wandering caravans but moira only really can buy enough for me to recoup repair costs and flak and shrapnel are running out of money too.

[Lucas]

you need to get the mission in underworld

underworld is the museum of history in downtown DC.

there is a goul there named Mr. Crowley.


*MINI SPOILER *

He gives you a mission to assassinate 4 (called something like "you gotta shoot em in the head" ) people for being goul haters. you find out he only wants one dead for being a hater, Mr. Tenpenny. The other 3 hold special keys. u can talk them out of these chaps and never have to kill anyone. get the location of Fort Constantine from one of these guys. Its in the northwest sector. Take the keys to the fort, dont go in the fort, but go into the CO HQ. find the stairs down and eventually you will find a door that takes a special key, then another and then the last that opens into a room that is in tact old world technology. you get a fatboy and some mininukes and the armor. There are lots of doors but the one you want that is actually the room with the armor has some dead raider chick lying in the doorway.

[Lucas]

i was using the tesla armor too but right as i found the T-51 i also lvld my energy weapons to 100. armor and helmet give you 60 armor total. so its not a lot better than the tesla, but its unique and looks old school

[Lucas]

oh and that perk shadowy figure or what ever is totally awesome. when it works.

every now and then the guy pops out and kills something you didnt get killed in vats. and he gets his own soundtrack like james bond.

a few times i had used vats on things that were across an expanse or an area i couldnt reach. and he would appear over there and finish em off.

i have a 9 in luck and finess for another 5 luck points worth of crit chance, so i crit alot. but i can only do 3 shots with a plama rifle in vats unless i take a quantum cola.

i made my character really lucky and really smart. i get tons of intellegence things to say in conversations. like im smart or something.

[SimonM]

Buffed agility, intelligence and perception. In addition got in-game bennies that gave me massive strength (8) though it was accidental.

[Lucas]

Buffed agility, intelligence and perception. In addition got in-game bennies that gave me massive strength (8) though it was accidental.

kinda like the rad regen thing i got during that experiment.

if i have advanced rad poisoning, my limbs will regenerate to full health. likewise my body will perform at peak levels till the moment of death from rad poisoning. which is tight. if i get crippled i just find some poo water and save my stem packs.

lol

[SimonM]

Getting close to beating the game again... been trying to take it slow and find more side-quests but I'm running low. I am doing the statesman hotel again now and know of 3 other side-quests I haven't done yet. I will hit lv. 20 WAY before I finish though.

Next time through I think I'll make a ninja.

[Lucas]

ya i still have like the whole top half of the map nearly un explored.

im thinking about playing it again and just not even doing any of the story till i hit 20.

im thinking a super stealthy explosives expert. ill go science right away for those comp skeelz.

i remember reading at tip, that if you pick pocket someone, and put a grenade in their pocket instead of stealing, it arms it and they blow to little bits.

i want to see that one.

[SimonM]

I did that once. It was funny. :D

[Lucas]

I did that once. It was funny. :D

lol i bet. i gotta try that out next time i play.

u know that bomb in megaton, there is a storehouse with 23 of those suckers up by fort constantine.

im wishing i knew if there was a way to nuke the whole of DC !!! :eek::D

[SimonM]

I gotta find this fort constantine place. :D

[Lucas]

I gotta find this fort constantine place. :D

i didnt know you could get a dog!

i was just reading this thing online that between the minefield and the megaton there is a doggy you can get to be your pal and keep with you in the game.

[SimonM]

Yeah, just be careful because he dies easy. I usually just keep him back at my house at megaton unless I'm doing a really easy mission....

and NEVER take him to do the mole rats mission because he kills the mole rats before you can hit them with the stick.

[Lucas]

can i have cheron and the dog or is it like how i can only have either the super mutant or cheron?

[SimonM]

You can have the dog +1 merc.

[Lucas]

maybe ill start a new game...except this time i wont start by nuking megaton. ill start good. then get corrupted later by the harsh survival code of the wasteland.

KILL OR BE KILLED, DEATH TO THE INFIDELS!

[SimonM]

Hit lv. 20. I took the map perk, read over it to see the general direction of points of interest, and then reloaded and took the Reapers Sprint perk.

Definately making a ninja next time... although this guy has 100 to lockpick and sneak as is...

[SimonM]

Found a website that has the locations for ALL the bobbleheads. Each bobblehead provides either +1 to a S.P.E.C.I.A.L or +10 to a skill. So much awesomeness.

A hint: There are bobbleheads in vault 101 and RavenRock. Get 'em before you can't visit again.

Ninja is going well. Still have to pull out the guns on occasion but the melee / stealth concentration works really well in many circumstances. Of course I have to think more rather than just clicking on VATS or running and gunning.