Fallout 4 (What to do first? )

I just bought fallout 4 for my computer and I'm wondering from those who have played it quite a bit what do you suggest I do first. The wold is massive compared to previous fallout games. Just got my dog and finished my first quest outside the vault where you take out all the raiders with powerarmor and a minigun. Is there other things that you would recommend I do before heading to diamond city?

DprEffect said:

I just bought fallout 4 for my computer and I'm wondering from those who have played it quite a bit what do you suggest I do first. The wold is massive compared to previous fallout games. Just got my dog and finished my first quest outside the vault where you take out all the raiders with powerarmor and a minigun. Is there other things that you would recommend I do before heading to diamond city?

Click to expand...

General exploration at the Northern end of the map is a good idea - it gets nastier, the further South you go. Pick up junk, bring it back to Sanctuary, since you'll need it to make weapon and power amour mods, and to repair your armour. Follow Military Frequency 95 to find the Brotherhood of Steel at Cambridge Police Station, north of the river bend. That opens up a never-ending stream of missions to clear areas of hostiles, or seek technology. That's good for XP, which allows you to get perks. Science, Armour and Gun Nut are the perks you should focus on, allowing you to make advanced weapon and armour mods.

Get the jump pack mod for your armour as soon as you can. It makes things a lot more fun.

So long as you are in armour, there does not appear to be any limit to the height from which you can fall and survive.

Opponents respawn at about 24-hour intervals, and crucially, so does salvage where they are. It's not like Fallout 3, where the ultimate amount of salvage is limited.

Word of advice - any group of Super Mutants will have a suicide attacker with them, who'll charge up to you with a mini-nuke and detonate it at point-blank range. That's barely survivable, even with advanced power armour. If you can headshot him, you can salvage the nuke, but it's generally safer to shoot the arm while he's still some distance away. That'll detonate the mini-nuke, and fratricide his fellow mutants.

I appreciate the help. I've felt very lost compared to previous fallouts. While this game is amazing so far, they have made so many changes that I feel like im learning a completely new game to an extent. This gives me some direction until my guide arrives in the mail.

I would echo the point about general exploration in the northern part of the map. This game has a massive hoarding element which I'm sure you already know. Pick up all the ammo and health items (like stimpacks, radaway, etc) that you can and always be on the lookout for new weapons. If you come across a new weapon or type, try it out. You may like it better than what you have now. I'd also suggest lockpicking and /or hacking perks. These will help you attain more resources like ammo, caps and other things you'll want more of.

When you get to it, don't get too caught up in the settlement building (unless you like it of course). I haven't personally discovered any big reasons to expand settlements apart from having other places to stash your things or a safe place to keep a set of power armor. Those points get diminished further when you factor in fast-travel, as you can just fast-travel back to your main stash spot.

I personally don't use power armor much at all, but it can really be a powerful tool. The game doesn't force you to use it though, so if you like a stealthy playstyle, it's still very viable. It's hard to lose if your enemy never sees you coming.

One last thing, if you find you're using a certain kind of gun (like automatics or rifles) there are perks which greatly increase your damage with these weapon types. If you couple in gun-nut with these increased damage perks, enemies will start going down really quickly. I personally put a lot into Rifleman, as I like snipers, semi-auto rifles and shotguns (yes, they're counted as rifles in this game). With this strategy I have long range covered with snipers, mid-range covered with combat rifles, and close range covered with shotguns. Be aware though that if you mod rifles or shotguns to fire differently than your damage perk (an automatic shotgun when you have rifleman for example), your damage perk won't apply.

But yeah, there are plenty of quests that you can do before going into diamond city. I put at least 40 hours in before I even made an attempt to head over there. I've noticed that you can find random quests just by exploring random places and buildings and by talking to random people.

Most importantly, have fun! Play whatever way you find most comfortable. This game is deep enough that you can make multiple playstyles viable.

There are three things I would highly recommend.

#1 Join the BoS (won't lock you out of other factions.) Earliest of the opposing factions you can meet and you get a nice reward from the quest you end up actually joining. STOP ONCE YOU ARE A MEMBER. You will find a military radio signal while doing #2 which when listened to will start this questline.

#2 Talk with Preston back in Sanctuary. This will introduce you to the only faction that the others will work with. CONTINUE THIS QUESTLINE until you get a quest to retake the castle. Currently bugged where if you try to do this later in the game it will make you an enemy of the BoS. Kind of an issue as this faction is one you can participate in regardless of where you end up siding, even after finishing the main quest. Also most fun "grenade" in the game is available from them for free in good quantities.

#3 Continue quests for the BoS until until you advance to knight for a free set of T-60b power armor (only better set is the X-01 which is not available until like level 35+.) You will not lock yourself out of any factions/quests on your way to this point as long as you complete #2 first.

Also settlement building is VERY lucrative. In my 30 hour first playthrough I amassed a fortune (I would conservatively say 30K caps) from just the purified water from settlements. Also the settlements create areas around them for the most fun grenade thing I mentioned in #2.

I love the Fallout franchise! Cant wait to get 4 for Christmas, seems like everyone is enjoying the game

To add to my earlier comments, if exploring the North, stay away from Dunwich Borers and Mahkra fish-packing plant until you've levelled up quite a bit. The former is full of high-level raiders, and the tunnels are packed with feral ghouls, while the latter is swarming with synths.

For later on, level 4 of the Strong Back perk allows you to fast travel when over-encumbered. This allows you to loot absolutely everything that isn't nailed down, and take it for either sale or scrap.

Early on, you can build up a bit of XP just by scrapping things around Sanctuary.

Pay attention to what mods you build. The most advanced and expensive are not always the best. There is little point wasting resources mounting a Long Range Recon Scope on a shotgun, just because you can.

Try "farming" Parsons State Insane Asylum. There's a half-dozen or so mercs with decent weapons and combat armour that respawn regularly.

I see I'm a bit late to the party. As a good tip first game screw sanctuary focus more on red rocket build you a good staging base and get familiar with the crafting before entering settlers into the mix. it's easier to learn and tinker at your own pace not the NPCS pace.

My first game I royalty f-ed it up by getting too many needs too fast I scrapped it and started a second time instead of sanctuary I did red rocket. Turned it into an impenetrable fortress. As a test I spawned 50 Raiders, 12 super mutants and 10 deathclaws, (separate of course was three different tests) and none made it to me, and furthermore I just sat and and watched my TV in red rocket as the security dispatched all threats with out me lifting a finger, including the random brotherhood hit squad on one save tangent. Get familiar with you defenses, and the wiring grids before taking on a daunting task of caring for lots of people.

Akastus said:

For later on, level 4 of the Strong Back perk allows you to fast travel when over-encumbered. This allows you to loot absolutely everything that isn't nailed down, and take it for either sale or scrap.

Click to expand...

Having played for another week, it really has brought it home to me how broken this particular perk is. When it's practical (it was possible, but far too time-consuming in F3 and FNV) to loot absolutely everything - every weapon, every piece or armour, every piece of junk - there are fortunes to be made. Especially, as you level up - loot gets more valuable, and if you invest in charisma, vendors get cheaper. Pretty much every time I visit a vendor, I'm not only cleaning them out of caps, but out of fusion cores, 2mm Electromagnetic ammo and fusion cells. I'm at the point where I've got over 50,000 caps, 100+ power cores and 1000+ 2mm rounds, and I'm playing with power armour and the Gauss Rifle full-time. The only reason I even use other weapons (largely a fully-pimped-out Institute rifle) is because the Gauss is slow-firing and massive overkill for opponents like feral ghouls or basic raiders. God alone knows what all my other ammo is worth. Granted, this is after about 120 hours of solid play, but if I'd realised this earlier, and been more systematic about it, I could have achieved this much earlier.

Akastus said:

Having played for another week, it really has brought it home to me how broken this particular perk is. When it's practical (it was possible, but far too time-consuming in F3 and FNV) to loot absolutely everything - every weapon, every piece or armour, every piece of junk - there are fortunes to be made. Especially, as you level up - loot gets more valuable, and if you invest in charisma, vendors get cheaper. Pretty much every time I visit a vendor, I'm not only cleaning them out of caps, but out of fusion cores, 2mm Electromagnetic ammo and fusion cells. I'm at the point where I've got over 50,000 caps, 100+ power cores and 1000+ 2mm rounds, and I'm playing with power armour and the Gauss Rifle full-time. The only reason I even use other weapons (largely a fully-pimped-out Institute rifle) is because the Gauss is slow-firing and massive overkill for opponents like feral ghouls or basic raiders. God alone knows what all my other ammo is worth. Granted, this is after about 120 hours of solid play, but if I'd realised this earlier, and been more systematic about it, I could have achieved this much earlier.

Click to expand...

Something I personally have noticed with Fallout 4 is it's incredibly easy compared to previous Bethesda games, and many of their previous games where not really all that hard either. Survival difficulty feels like normal to me .. and this is coming from someone who usually never plays on the hardest setting in games. It only gets easier as you gain perks too. The only thing survival really does is make enemies bullet sponges. Sure ... they do a lot more damage ... but they also miss so much that it hardly matters. Limb damage is healed automatically. Health is healed pretty quickly by eating some food. Also, if you play with power armor, it's even easier.

Worst of all .. is the junk. I like that everything is useful ... but damn it means I pick up everything. >.> .. but that also means I have a lot of everything as you mentioned and you just become so OP and rich .. it's crazy lol.

I can't wait for the modding kit to come out so someone can really overhaul the difficulty of this game. A complete overhaul is what it needs. XD

Find a Teddy Bear! They are so snuggly and cute and AMAZING!

If you have the PC version - look up how to increase the size of the teddy bears it is hilarious haha. Build defenses around your towns with massive teddies.

I put in 30 hours and its pretty big. So big I havent played in a few weeks and wont for a year lol. Not got the motivation.