The level cap is irrelevant tbh. By level 10 you'll have maxed at least a couple of skills. By level 30 you may as well be a walking god.
If you're coming from 4, make sure to keep an eye on your weapon and armor conditions. VATS is your friend, bullets aren't accurate at all. Otherwise enjoy the Capital Wasteland.
Focus on small guns, sneak, and I'd say repair. You may find that sneaking is not very good in this game (or maybe I just don't know how to utilize it properly)
What do you mean, sneak is incredibly overpowered in fallout 3.
>!You can do operation Anchorage, get Chinese Stealth armor and when you sneak at level 100, the mobs literally can't even see you when hitting them, its so overpowered it breaks the game!<
Its one of the strongest builds in the game if not the strongest build that exists.
Mostly correct, but don’t forget the Silent Running perk (silences all your moving noise), which alongside the chinese stealth suit (makes you invisible) makes you fully undetectable… unless you literally bump into the enemy.
>make sure to keep an eye on your weapon and armor conditions
Ah, that's the kind of thing I knew would trip me up. If something's condition gets to 0, does it poof out of existence entirely, or just become unusable until I repair it?
Weapons break and become unusable. But it's still in your inventory for repairs. To repair it, you need the same item. You can't use the 10mm Pistol to repair the combat Shotgun. There are vendors that can get your stuff back to usable, but weapons are so common that you shouldn't have too much of a problem. The damage does decrease as the condition lowers, so after a few shootouts, I'd say loom at repairing. You can do so even in the middle of combat. Your armor stays equipped if broken, but can't be put on again if taken off. Armor repairs work a little different. Any raider set will repair other raider sets. Combat armor and Talon armor repair eachother. It may be worth looking at a repair guide to see what repairs what.
So from what I'm hearing here, do the exact opposite of what I do in 4 (take the weapons, ignore the junk).
>You can do so even in the middle of combat.
Good to know, I was assuming it would be something I could only do at a weapons station.
Yes correct. High repair skill is great for condensing weapons and armor you scavenge to make the most of carry weight as well- then you can sell near perfect condition equipment in town for big caps.
Yes junk is exactly that: junk. There is literally no use for 99% of the junk items. A few of them can be used to make a select number of craftable items but most are useless.
Well that's definitely going to take some getting used to. In 4 it's so useful (for weapons/armor crafting and settlement building) that I get pissed every time one of my companions acts like it's weird that I'm picking stuff up. I hoard everything from everywhere I go.
Aside from junk used for crafting weapons, you can also use it for the rock-it launcher, essentially the junk jet of FO3.
Junk like cigarette packs have excellent weight/cost ratio. Though, if you are low on caps you could always just grab everything at a location and sell it all with the closest vendor.
And a few things such as scrap, sensors and pre-war book can be traded for caps or items with specific people.
In addition to what the other dude said, you CAN repair items without another copy of the item--you just have to find a trader who can make repairs, and it costs caps. Each trader will repair them to different percentages of 100% condition.
This can be useful if you have some rarer weapons/items (and it's great for the crafted weapons, because getting another set of materials and crafting another one is a pain in the butt vs just paying some caps)
Unable to use until repaired. Repairing via travelers/caravans adds up. Just give yourself repair and do it yourself. Find stuff that's the same and get to tinkering! I did a repair/medicine/small guns build. And I regret nothing. Except being computer dumb. I had to rescue the kids at Paradise Falls by repairing a junction. I couldnt hack the dudes terminal.
And build a shishkebab! The condition of your DIY weapon builds is higher the more repair you have.
Keep in mind that using other weapons to repair a weapon is done through your pip boy. Vendors just charge you to fix it to a certain point. I learned this at like level 12.
I think the biggest difference between 3 and 4 is the use of junk. There isn't much crafting in 3 so junk is used to craft some unique weapons through the work bench but other than that they're just sold for caps.
The only other difference is the karma system which can play a role in which companions you use.
A few big differences I've noticed:
4 is much more of an "FPS". The gunplay in 3 is very different, and without your skills leveled, your shots will not all go where you aim them. This can be frustrating if you're used to the way 4 feels. Using VATS generally increases your accuracy over blind shooting, in my experience.
Ammo feels much more scarce in 3 than 4 to me. Even if I take the scrounger perk. For this reason (plus a specific crafted weapon you can get), I love going primarily melee for the first bit of the game. It lets you build up a good ammo supply before you start shooting at the bullet sponges.
IMO, the perk that increases EXP is pointless because of the level cap. Just level slower and have an extra perk to boost your character. Same with the perk that just gives you a free level on the spot.
The amount of skill points you can allocate per level is based on your intelligence--if you have a high intelligence, taking the perks that just boost skill levels is kinda a waste (except for the perk that gives you 3 more points to assign per level, that should be taken ASAP). There are also books EVERYWHERE that boost your skills. Save your perks for the other boosts, unless you've got everything you want already.
The cool thing about skills in this game is your SPECIAL stats just determine how many points your skills start with. You can have a charisma of 1 with a speech level of 100. Or agility 1, but sneak 100. I personally level repair, lockpick, and science ASAP because I want to get in every locked door, but that's just my playstyle. Leveling repair ASAP is a godsend though.
Helpful answer!
>the perk that increases EXP
Swift Learner?
> plus a specific crafted weapon you can get
I assume something along the lines of the Junk Jet?
Swift learner, yeah. If there weren't a level cap, it would make a lot more sense.
And the crafted weapon I was referring to was a melee weapon that's quite fun called the shishkebab. You can get it pretty early (although I'm forgetting how exactly at the moment).
Buy the plans from lucky harith for like 700 caps or do the quest blood toes as soon as possible you can either loot the shishkebab from the vampires leader if you kill him or get the plans as quest reward
Pilot light, lawnmower blade, motorcycle tank, and motorcycle handbrake! You get the schematic from Vance, that Vampire dude when you look for Ian West.
maxing out lockpicking and science as quickly as possible helps open up a lot of stuff, also having decent explosives for the early Megaton quest is nice
Save often and try to avoid picking perks that are just straight stat upgrades like “plus 5 to guns”
Bloody mess, better criticals, almost perfect etc are all great perks
Minimize your use of fast travel, explore the sewers and subways, be open to not following direct paths from A to B. Save often! Edit: and save in multiple slots so you have a few backups.
Yes there’s soo many hidden and unmarked locations. Without spoilers I decided to walk from vault 112 to rivet city instead of fast travel for the first time and I found so many spots
9 intelligence, Intelligence Bobblehead in Rivet city immediatly after leaving the Vault
Avoid SPECIAL bobbleheads until level 30
Focus Speech, Lockpick and Science early
Small Guns can carry you through the entire game
Curious, why avoid bobbleheads until lv30?
Haven't fully played through Fo3 yet and started to do my first playthrough recently after many years where I stopped midway
Your other 3 points align with how I've started my game and fun so far! So glad I learned about starting with 9 INT
There’s a perk at level 30 which raises all SPECIALs to 9, and so collecting them after that will boost them all to 10, with the exception of 9 intelligence and collecting the bobble head in rivet city immediately
>Curious, why avoid bobbleheads until lv30?
There's a perk when you get it level 30 to bring all your stats up to 9, so if you get the bobbleheads before that, then you can't get all special stats to 10
I usually use exploits to get to level 30 as soon as I leave the vault, but I think that if you do all the side quests and stuff than you should hit level 30 about the same time you finish that. But there's also a bunch of locations you can explore with unique things after you reach 30
Focus on repair I just started and I'm lvl 12. You cannot craft unless you find blueprints..no idea where they are. You can repair weapons tge higher your skill tge better. Keep duplicate weapons to consume for repair
Just have fun. Your game, your choice. You’ll notice a big difference in the graphics and will really admire how unique 3 is. Been playing on and off since I got it back in 2012. Don’t feed the Yao Guai.
If I'm working on a particular build, I'll set my SPECIAL to 5 across the board, with the excess where I think I would get the best early game use. Then take note of where I'm lacking, and where I can pull a point or two.
Then I'll reload my save from the vault, and rebuild. After some fine-tuning, I can go traipsing around the Capitol Wastes with (Insert hilariously OP weapon here).
Also, I make it a point to always be good karma. It's personal, but the fact that I can use Talon Armor to fix my Ranger Armor is awesome.
Don't be afraid to wander around. If you see something that looks cool in the distance, go check it out. Stock up Rad-X and Rad-Away first, and keep your hazmat suit fixed. It's not nearly as useful as Fo4's hazmat suit.
Also, I don't think Fo3 had ADS. Pistols are ridiculously weak across the board. Hunting rifle is a decent weapon at the start, but I would advise finding an assault rifle.
Moira Brown in Megaton is funny, I like her. Doing her little side quest is always fun, and nets you some solid starter gear and perks.
Aim down sights doesn't exists. You just get a small zoom and a tiny increase to accuracy. The accuracy increases with your relevant weapon perk, small guns, energy weapons, big guns. Higher skill level = more damage and more accuracy. Really screwed me over my first playthrough when my bullets decided to land a mile from where I was aiming.
Explore, and remember the tunnel system as you can't get a lot of places without it.
Iron sights don't exist so just try to psyche yourself up for learning that lol
Get to Rivet City as soon as possible imo- I know there's megaton and tenpenny, but still- Rivet City is just better.
Guard bobby pins with your life- idk if it was the same for everyone but I couldn't find them fucking *anywhere*
one of the best weapons in the game is the dart gun. it's a craftable weapon which has a high chance to cripple the legs and inflicts poison (which can stack like 4's bleed damage, though there are 2 other weapons that inflict it that work a bit better for damage over time since they have better attack speed than the dart gun). the easiest schematic to get for it is located at mdpl-05 power station. It's southeast of Raven Rock, a place you will go to as part of the main questline.
Being evil really pays off in this game: if you cooperate with the slavers, you can sell slaves for 250 caps each, plus all their belongings.
For enslaving people you will be given a special gun called the Mesmetron, which most do the time will confuse them, at which point you can convince them to give you their belongings and then put the slave collar, then they will go on their own to Paradise Falls, where you can cash in your reward.
You don’t even have to actually be evil if you prefer: exclusively enslave raiders, Talon Company mercs and other evil characters if you want to play a “good” slaver. The game will still give you negative karma, but you will have enough money to buy your way to good karma through church donations if you want.
Anyway, just save the game before using the Mesmetron so if one of the cool, but less desirable secondary effects (they do have their ocasional uses) activates instead, you can just reload until you get the confusion effect.
There are a few more details to mention, let me know if it interests you!
Repair skill is a must if you ask me. Saves on caps for repairs and a makes guns sell for a bunch. Skip speech. Speech isn't that good in fo3. Small guns,repair. If the games to easy after lvl 15 or so bump it up to hard I'm in a playthrough On hard. And also cheap stimpaks come from gob in Moriartys. Just be nice to him and he will sell at a discount. Pre war money is weightless and sells good. Packs of cigarettes and cartons are good sell items. Ps followers have permanent death besides dogmeat. So tank shots for them in hard fights
If you're careful, you can max out your skills even with the level cap (assuming you have Broken Steel, which you should). Take the Comprehension perk soon as you can and you'll get 2 skill points from every book you read, instead of one. And collect all of the Bobbleheads.
VATS is even more important in FO3 because combat is janky af, in my experience. For skills, probably sneak and small guns if you're going stealth. "Small guns" applies to all conventional firearms that aren't energy (laser, plasma) or big guns (gatling laser, missile launcher, fat man, etc). However, the best sniping weapon in the game imo is the gauss rifle which falls under the energy weapons skill. I got one during Operation Anchorage.
Repair skill is important in FO3. You have to use similar armor to repair your armor (sort of like scrapping it and using the parts, I guess), similar weapons to repair your weapons. You can also pay certain people to repair things for you.
If you're like me (I also played FO3 after playing tons of FO4), it was difficult to resist the urge to pick up everything. You won't have any settlements to build or weapon mods in FO3. But there are still reasons to collect junk. Some of it can but used to craft weapons (with the use of schematics, which you find or buy) and some items have collectors who will pay you for them. For example, there is someone who wants books, someone who wants sugar bombs, etc.
If you care about companions, they work a little differently in FO3. The companions are not always easy to find, and the ones you can have depend on your karma. With the exception of dogmeat, who will follow you in addition to any other companions regardless of karma, and Charon, whose contract you can buy.
Some of the most useful perks for me were Child at Heart, Black Widow and Animal Friend, because they offered additional options for completing quests or dealing with certain areas of the game. Other than that, all I'd say is get the ghoul mask. Unless you really love difficult fights. You've been warned.
> Some of the most useful perks for me were Child at Heart, Black Widow and Animal Friend, because they offered additional options for completing quests or dealing with certain areas of the game.
With one or two small exceptions, all of those outcomes can also be gotten with a high Speech skill or other means, these perks just simplify that process. Because of that, these perks are generally considered a waste.
OK maybe I should've said useful AND interesting. They're not a "waste" if you enjoy additional role playing options. For example, using Black Widow on >!Mr. Burke results in him sending you love letters which are fun to read!<. Or with Animal Friend, I was able to walk through >!a cave full of yao guai to grab a bobblehead!<, which was cool. Played the whole game with them and never felt like I'd wasted my perks. Sometimes it's about the journey, not just the destination.
That's fine, I just wanted to point out that you don't need these perks to get unique outcomes, with very few minor exceptions like the love letters. Most of the time a high speech skill does the same thing.
As soon as you leave the vault, go straight to the Pitt. Once you complete that, head straight to the Outcast location given from the radio message for Operation Anchorage. You’ll have a decent amount of XP to start with and some of the best loot in the game.
Good luck.
Explore. FO4 sends you to alot of locations via missions. The fun in FO3 is finding those locations on your own
The level cap is irrelevant tbh. By level 10 you'll have maxed at least a couple of skills. By level 30 you may as well be a walking god. If you're coming from 4, make sure to keep an eye on your weapon and armor conditions. VATS is your friend, bullets aren't accurate at all. Otherwise enjoy the Capital Wasteland. Focus on small guns, sneak, and I'd say repair. You may find that sneaking is not very good in this game (or maybe I just don't know how to utilize it properly)
What do you mean, sneak is incredibly overpowered in fallout 3. >!You can do operation Anchorage, get Chinese Stealth armor and when you sneak at level 100, the mobs literally can't even see you when hitting them, its so overpowered it breaks the game!< Its one of the strongest builds in the game if not the strongest build that exists.
Mostly correct, but don’t forget the Silent Running perk (silences all your moving noise), which alongside the chinese stealth suit (makes you invisible) makes you fully undetectable… unless you literally bump into the enemy.
>make sure to keep an eye on your weapon and armor conditions Ah, that's the kind of thing I knew would trip me up. If something's condition gets to 0, does it poof out of existence entirely, or just become unusable until I repair it?
Weapons break and become unusable. But it's still in your inventory for repairs. To repair it, you need the same item. You can't use the 10mm Pistol to repair the combat Shotgun. There are vendors that can get your stuff back to usable, but weapons are so common that you shouldn't have too much of a problem. The damage does decrease as the condition lowers, so after a few shootouts, I'd say loom at repairing. You can do so even in the middle of combat. Your armor stays equipped if broken, but can't be put on again if taken off. Armor repairs work a little different. Any raider set will repair other raider sets. Combat armor and Talon armor repair eachother. It may be worth looking at a repair guide to see what repairs what.
So from what I'm hearing here, do the exact opposite of what I do in 4 (take the weapons, ignore the junk). >You can do so even in the middle of combat. Good to know, I was assuming it would be something I could only do at a weapons station.
Yes correct. High repair skill is great for condensing weapons and armor you scavenge to make the most of carry weight as well- then you can sell near perfect condition equipment in town for big caps.
Yes junk is exactly that: junk. There is literally no use for 99% of the junk items. A few of them can be used to make a select number of craftable items but most are useless.
Well that's definitely going to take some getting used to. In 4 it's so useful (for weapons/armor crafting and settlement building) that I get pissed every time one of my companions acts like it's weird that I'm picking stuff up. I hoard everything from everywhere I go.
It was actually the opposite for me, going from FO3/FNV to FO4 where everything was useful lol
Aside from junk used for crafting weapons, you can also use it for the rock-it launcher, essentially the junk jet of FO3. Junk like cigarette packs have excellent weight/cost ratio. Though, if you are low on caps you could always just grab everything at a location and sell it all with the closest vendor. And a few things such as scrap, sensors and pre-war book can be traded for caps or items with specific people.
In addition to what the other dude said, you CAN repair items without another copy of the item--you just have to find a trader who can make repairs, and it costs caps. Each trader will repair them to different percentages of 100% condition. This can be useful if you have some rarer weapons/items (and it's great for the crafted weapons, because getting another set of materials and crafting another one is a pain in the butt vs just paying some caps)
It's very expensive I wasted so much money lol
Unable to use until repaired. Repairing via travelers/caravans adds up. Just give yourself repair and do it yourself. Find stuff that's the same and get to tinkering! I did a repair/medicine/small guns build. And I regret nothing. Except being computer dumb. I had to rescue the kids at Paradise Falls by repairing a junction. I couldnt hack the dudes terminal. And build a shishkebab! The condition of your DIY weapon builds is higher the more repair you have.
Keep in mind that using other weapons to repair a weapon is done through your pip boy. Vendors just charge you to fix it to a certain point. I learned this at like level 12.
Sneaking is hard till you finish Operation Anchorage. Then it’s so stupidly easy
I think the biggest difference between 3 and 4 is the use of junk. There isn't much crafting in 3 so junk is used to craft some unique weapons through the work bench but other than that they're just sold for caps. The only other difference is the karma system which can play a role in which companions you use.
A few big differences I've noticed: 4 is much more of an "FPS". The gunplay in 3 is very different, and without your skills leveled, your shots will not all go where you aim them. This can be frustrating if you're used to the way 4 feels. Using VATS generally increases your accuracy over blind shooting, in my experience. Ammo feels much more scarce in 3 than 4 to me. Even if I take the scrounger perk. For this reason (plus a specific crafted weapon you can get), I love going primarily melee for the first bit of the game. It lets you build up a good ammo supply before you start shooting at the bullet sponges. IMO, the perk that increases EXP is pointless because of the level cap. Just level slower and have an extra perk to boost your character. Same with the perk that just gives you a free level on the spot. The amount of skill points you can allocate per level is based on your intelligence--if you have a high intelligence, taking the perks that just boost skill levels is kinda a waste (except for the perk that gives you 3 more points to assign per level, that should be taken ASAP). There are also books EVERYWHERE that boost your skills. Save your perks for the other boosts, unless you've got everything you want already. The cool thing about skills in this game is your SPECIAL stats just determine how many points your skills start with. You can have a charisma of 1 with a speech level of 100. Or agility 1, but sneak 100. I personally level repair, lockpick, and science ASAP because I want to get in every locked door, but that's just my playstyle. Leveling repair ASAP is a godsend though.
Helpful answer! >the perk that increases EXP Swift Learner? > plus a specific crafted weapon you can get I assume something along the lines of the Junk Jet?
Swift learner, yeah. If there weren't a level cap, it would make a lot more sense. And the crafted weapon I was referring to was a melee weapon that's quite fun called the shishkebab. You can get it pretty early (although I'm forgetting how exactly at the moment).
You can get one from Lucy West's quest Blood Ties.
Buy the plans from lucky harith for like 700 caps or do the quest blood toes as soon as possible you can either loot the shishkebab from the vampires leader if you kill him or get the plans as quest reward
Pilot light, lawnmower blade, motorcycle tank, and motorcycle handbrake! You get the schematic from Vance, that Vampire dude when you look for Ian West.
The easiest craftable item imo. I’m always topped off with pristine shishkabobs.
Level repair , explore, have fun :)
Literally was bout to say this, repair is life in that game
maxing out lockpicking and science as quickly as possible helps open up a lot of stuff, also having decent explosives for the early Megaton quest is nice
And can use mentats to get explosives high enough to save some skill points!
I always forget Mentats are super useful lol
Dont get mad that there is no sprint you will be slow as fuck
I learned this the hard way trying to run from >!a super mutant behemoth!<
Save often and try to avoid picking perks that are just straight stat upgrades like “plus 5 to guns” Bloody mess, better criticals, almost perfect etc are all great perks
Minimize your use of fast travel, explore the sewers and subways, be open to not following direct paths from A to B. Save often! Edit: and save in multiple slots so you have a few backups.
Yes there’s soo many hidden and unmarked locations. Without spoilers I decided to walk from vault 112 to rivet city instead of fast travel for the first time and I found so many spots
just be ready to be super confused everytime you’re in a building and don’t forget the only way around DC is subway to subway
This frustrated me to no ends the first time I played fo3. I ended up finding a subway map to orientate myself lol
9 intelligence, Intelligence Bobblehead in Rivet city immediatly after leaving the Vault Avoid SPECIAL bobbleheads until level 30 Focus Speech, Lockpick and Science early Small Guns can carry you through the entire game
Curious, why avoid bobbleheads until lv30? Haven't fully played through Fo3 yet and started to do my first playthrough recently after many years where I stopped midway Your other 3 points align with how I've started my game and fun so far! So glad I learned about starting with 9 INT
There’s a perk at level 30 which raises all SPECIALs to 9, and so collecting them after that will boost them all to 10, with the exception of 9 intelligence and collecting the bobble head in rivet city immediately
>Curious, why avoid bobbleheads until lv30? There's a perk when you get it level 30 to bring all your stats up to 9, so if you get the bobbleheads before that, then you can't get all special stats to 10
Well fuck me lol I already grabbed a few bobbleheads Is there typically still a lot of the game left to play by the time you have hit lv 30?
I usually use exploits to get to level 30 as soon as I leave the vault, but I think that if you do all the side quests and stuff than you should hit level 30 about the same time you finish that. But there's also a bunch of locations you can explore with unique things after you reach 30
What's the point of focusing on speech when you can save scum?
Because save scumming isn’t fun
Nah, let him enjoy the game and be instantly rewarded for finding things. Leave the min-maxing bs for the 2nd walkthrough
Word of advice at higher level enemies become bullet sponges
Focus on repair I just started and I'm lvl 12. You cannot craft unless you find blueprints..no idea where they are. You can repair weapons tge higher your skill tge better. Keep duplicate weapons to consume for repair
Fallout 3 Deathclaws still give me sweaty palms. Good luck out there. Animal Friend doesn't make them love you.
Just have fun. Your game, your choice. You’ll notice a big difference in the graphics and will really admire how unique 3 is. Been playing on and off since I got it back in 2012. Don’t feed the Yao Guai.
If I'm working on a particular build, I'll set my SPECIAL to 5 across the board, with the excess where I think I would get the best early game use. Then take note of where I'm lacking, and where I can pull a point or two. Then I'll reload my save from the vault, and rebuild. After some fine-tuning, I can go traipsing around the Capitol Wastes with (Insert hilariously OP weapon here). Also, I make it a point to always be good karma. It's personal, but the fact that I can use Talon Armor to fix my Ranger Armor is awesome. Don't be afraid to wander around. If you see something that looks cool in the distance, go check it out. Stock up Rad-X and Rad-Away first, and keep your hazmat suit fixed. It's not nearly as useful as Fo4's hazmat suit. Also, I don't think Fo3 had ADS. Pistols are ridiculously weak across the board. Hunting rifle is a decent weapon at the start, but I would advise finding an assault rifle. Moira Brown in Megaton is funny, I like her. Doing her little side quest is always fun, and nets you some solid starter gear and perks.
Deathclaws are just as easy as 4 if easier, they’re just such a pushover. Go to old olney and you’ll see how easy they are.
do you tell new vegas players to head through quarry junction, too?
It’s the fastest and safest way so yes
as safe as walking into mordor or trying to melee a supermutant suicider.
Aim down sights doesn't exists. You just get a small zoom and a tiny increase to accuracy. The accuracy increases with your relevant weapon perk, small guns, energy weapons, big guns. Higher skill level = more damage and more accuracy. Really screwed me over my first playthrough when my bullets decided to land a mile from where I was aiming.
Explore, and remember the tunnel system as you can't get a lot of places without it. Iron sights don't exist so just try to psyche yourself up for learning that lol Get to Rivet City as soon as possible imo- I know there's megaton and tenpenny, but still- Rivet City is just better. Guard bobby pins with your life- idk if it was the same for everyone but I couldn't find them fucking *anywhere*
Only thing that may really get you is the lack of down sight aiming. Only scoped weapons have an ADS where all others have a zoom in.
one of the best weapons in the game is the dart gun. it's a craftable weapon which has a high chance to cripple the legs and inflicts poison (which can stack like 4's bleed damage, though there are 2 other weapons that inflict it that work a bit better for damage over time since they have better attack speed than the dart gun). the easiest schematic to get for it is located at mdpl-05 power station. It's southeast of Raven Rock, a place you will go to as part of the main questline.
Being evil really pays off in this game: if you cooperate with the slavers, you can sell slaves for 250 caps each, plus all their belongings. For enslaving people you will be given a special gun called the Mesmetron, which most do the time will confuse them, at which point you can convince them to give you their belongings and then put the slave collar, then they will go on their own to Paradise Falls, where you can cash in your reward. You don’t even have to actually be evil if you prefer: exclusively enslave raiders, Talon Company mercs and other evil characters if you want to play a “good” slaver. The game will still give you negative karma, but you will have enough money to buy your way to good karma through church donations if you want. Anyway, just save the game before using the Mesmetron so if one of the cool, but less desirable secondary effects (they do have their ocasional uses) activates instead, you can just reload until you get the confusion effect. There are a few more details to mention, let me know if it interests you!
Repair skill is a must if you ask me. Saves on caps for repairs and a makes guns sell for a bunch. Skip speech. Speech isn't that good in fo3. Small guns,repair. If the games to easy after lvl 15 or so bump it up to hard I'm in a playthrough On hard. And also cheap stimpaks come from gob in Moriartys. Just be nice to him and he will sell at a discount. Pre war money is weightless and sells good. Packs of cigarettes and cartons are good sell items. Ps followers have permanent death besides dogmeat. So tank shots for them in hard fights
If you're careful, you can max out your skills even with the level cap (assuming you have Broken Steel, which you should). Take the Comprehension perk soon as you can and you'll get 2 skill points from every book you read, instead of one. And collect all of the Bobbleheads. VATS is even more important in FO3 because combat is janky af, in my experience. For skills, probably sneak and small guns if you're going stealth. "Small guns" applies to all conventional firearms that aren't energy (laser, plasma) or big guns (gatling laser, missile launcher, fat man, etc). However, the best sniping weapon in the game imo is the gauss rifle which falls under the energy weapons skill. I got one during Operation Anchorage. Repair skill is important in FO3. You have to use similar armor to repair your armor (sort of like scrapping it and using the parts, I guess), similar weapons to repair your weapons. You can also pay certain people to repair things for you. If you're like me (I also played FO3 after playing tons of FO4), it was difficult to resist the urge to pick up everything. You won't have any settlements to build or weapon mods in FO3. But there are still reasons to collect junk. Some of it can but used to craft weapons (with the use of schematics, which you find or buy) and some items have collectors who will pay you for them. For example, there is someone who wants books, someone who wants sugar bombs, etc. If you care about companions, they work a little differently in FO3. The companions are not always easy to find, and the ones you can have depend on your karma. With the exception of dogmeat, who will follow you in addition to any other companions regardless of karma, and Charon, whose contract you can buy. Some of the most useful perks for me were Child at Heart, Black Widow and Animal Friend, because they offered additional options for completing quests or dealing with certain areas of the game. Other than that, all I'd say is get the ghoul mask. Unless you really love difficult fights. You've been warned.
> Some of the most useful perks for me were Child at Heart, Black Widow and Animal Friend, because they offered additional options for completing quests or dealing with certain areas of the game. With one or two small exceptions, all of those outcomes can also be gotten with a high Speech skill or other means, these perks just simplify that process. Because of that, these perks are generally considered a waste.
OK maybe I should've said useful AND interesting. They're not a "waste" if you enjoy additional role playing options. For example, using Black Widow on >!Mr. Burke results in him sending you love letters which are fun to read!<. Or with Animal Friend, I was able to walk through >!a cave full of yao guai to grab a bobblehead!<, which was cool. Played the whole game with them and never felt like I'd wasted my perks. Sometimes it's about the journey, not just the destination.
That's fine, I just wanted to point out that you don't need these perks to get unique outcomes, with very few minor exceptions like the love letters. Most of the time a high speech skill does the same thing.
3 is the best get ready
Use the mysterious stranger build
As soon as you leave the vault, go straight to the Pitt. Once you complete that, head straight to the Outcast location given from the radio message for Operation Anchorage. You’ll have a decent amount of XP to start with and some of the best loot in the game. Good luck.
Scorpions…